Author: Bluestocking Belles Page 1 of 39

Music is Magic

On October 23, 2026

(Image was AI generated by Canva’s Magic Media app)

“Well?” said Lady Bright. “What did you find out?”

Her apprentice curtsied. “It was as we have heard, madam.”

Lady Bright raised her eyebrows, and Amberlina flushed and blinked. She began again, first straightening her back, folding her arms in front of her at her waist, and taking a deep breath.
“My lady,” she began. “On your instructions, I attended a gathering at which Mr. and Mrs. Ddraennan had been engaged to play. Their performance was magical, and I mean that in every sense. I could see the mage power cascading off their voices and off the sound of Mr. Ddraennan’s lap harp.”

“And is it true?” asked Lady Bright. “Are they a mage pair?”

“It is true, madam,” Amberlina replied. “They can charm the birds from the air, I swear it. Their music is the stuff of the old legends.”

“They were using it to enchant, then,” Lady Bright said.

It was a statement and not a question, but Amberlina answered anyway. “The music was a form of enchantment, my lady. It caught us up in its spell, and we could do nothing but listen. But they did not use it—well, at least last night when I watched, they did not use it to take any kind of improper action. It was merely, if you will, enchantment for entertainment.”

“Enchantment for entertainment.” Lady Bright was far too polite to snort, but Amberlina fancied that was the intent of her expression. “We have it on good authority that Mr. Draennan, at least, was a member of the Welsh resistance group, the Red Dragon. And his wife has sympathies.”

“Is his wife not a cousin of the dragon lord, my lady?”
“Yes, which is precisely why we cannot be confident in his belief that they can be trusted.”

“You think they will use their music to bring about revolution or French invasion or Welsh freedom?” asked Amberlina.

“I think we cannot be certain that they will not,” Lady Bright said. “However, I agree that the evidence so far appears to support the dragon lord.”

Lady Bright’s apprentices talked among themselves, and Amberlina knew she was only the latest to have been sent out to find out what the two bards were doing as they roamed through England in their caravan. All of the others had had the same experience as Amberlina: a pleasant afternoon or evening, listening to bards who could cause a song to come alive in every one of a listener’s senses, while not in any way being influenced to think one thing or another, to support one cause or another.

Lady Bright took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “They seem to be innocent, Amberlina. That is what you’re thinking, is it not?”

“Yes, my lady.” There was no point in saying otherwise. Lady Bright would know if she lied or even gently shaded the truth.

“You may be right.”

The senior mage’s words were a surprise. Once she decided to investigate something, she seldom let it go until she was proven right.

Lady Bright showed her perspicacity when she chuckled. “You are thinking that I never give up until I’m shown to be right. However, in this instance, Amberlina, I have suspected all along that the Ddraennans are exactly what they claim: a mage pair dedicated to their music. Certainly, nobody I have sent has sensed anything else. We shall continue to keep an eye on them, but I do not believe that they will be a problem. With Napoleon on the rampage through Europe and building an invasion army to threaten England, we have many more urgent matters to consider. I shall not forget Mr. and Mrs. Ddraennan, but unless something happens to change my mind, I shall not spend further time on them.”

In a Regency world where magical gifts mean power and status, they struggle to find a place…

Persephone Thornton is in her cousin’s house to spy on him, for he is England’s dragon lord and her father died while on a mission for Wales. Sephie does not expect to actually like her Cousin Jasper and his wife Delia. Nor does she expect her Welsh contact, one of Jasper’s gardeners, to give her the secret to using her mage gift without it twisting into something undesirable.

Taliesin Ddraennen was raised by the Welsh resistance, and has been spying for them since he was sixteen. He has never before been partnered with a lady from the English aristocracy. Seeing past her thorny nature, Taz quickly comes to admire her resilience and intelligence.

When a spell to eavesdrop on the dragon lord’s meetings is discovered and blamed on Sephie, he refuses to leave her behind. Their escape leads them into England’s ancient forests and the arms of the fae, where they discover the true nature of their mage gifts, which have always twisted to give flawed results.

On their return to the outside world, their newfound connection will be immediately put to the test, when Taz is asked to choose between Sephie and Welsh freedom.

With war all around them and peace seemingly impossible, they must find the path that allows them to choose one another.

No Such Thing As Ghosts

By Bluestocking Belles

On October 3, 2026

In Jude Knight, Teatime Tattler

Sam threw the manuscript on the desk. “What is this nonsense?” he demanded.

The journalist – a weedy little man with haunted eyes, an early bald spot, and the meagre beginnings of a moustache – jumped in fright. “Sir,” he protested, “I have it on the best of authority. The Bluestocking Belles themselves have vouched for these stories. Suitable for Halloween, they said.”

Picking up the manuscript again, apparently just so that he could throw it down with even more force, Sam thundered, “Rubbish!” Then, more reasonably, he pointed out, “I ask you, Fanshawe, is this the medieval era, and I have apparently just dreamt that I own a newspaper in the nineteenth century? This is an enlightened age, and we rational creatures no longer believe in… Let me see.”

He picked up the manuscript once again, this time to scan it, making a comment on each of the stories. “A ghost that only one person can see, and no one can hear. And that, furthermore, might not be a ghost at all. Does that sound likely?” He snorted. “And what about this one? A lady who sees ghosts meets a duke? One can only guess how ridiculous such a gentleman might find her. Oh, and look here, two ghosts assist in their romance. Ridiculous.”

Sam was just getting started. “And then there’s the lady who takes a message to a marquess. Reasonable, you might think. But a message from his dead father? I daresay any reasonable peer would show her direct to the door. And this one. A hunter is seeking his kidnapped son and stumbled across a lady on a similar mission. But not just a lady, mark you. A fairy. An actual bone fide fairy! Will our readers believe that? Or will they think we have taken leave of our senses?”

“But sir,” protested the journalist. “The ladies say…”

“The ladies, bless them, have their fingerprints all over these stories,” Sam declared. “I am very fond of them all, mark you. But fairies, ghosts, and look here – this one has a wish granting mouse! Have you ever heard of such a thing. Here’s another. More ghosts, and this time the poor ghost is trying to stop a determined lady from changing things. I could have told him that one should not stand in the way of a determined lady.” He chuckled.

“In the next one are two friendly ghosts, a wounded man, and yet another lady. Oh yes, and a dastardly plot. Well, that’s something I suppose. And last, but not least, we have a pressed-ganged man dreaming of his wife, while she dreams of him. Well, she would, I imagine. Poor thing. I wonder if he finds his way home to her?”

Greatly daring, the journalist said, “You would need to read the book to find out, sir.”

Sam glared at him from over his spectacles and harrumphed. “Very well, then. I’ll print it. Perhaps I won’t be laughed out of London.”

Sam has briefly described the stories in Moonlight Madness, the Bluestocking Belles’ 2026 collection. My contribution to the collection is Moonlight Becomes You, in which a lady sees, but cannot hear a ghost who attempts to warn her about a man who will die if she doesn’t find him soon.

Moonlight Becomes You

By Jude Knight

Hester Williamson doesn’t want to be at this house party. She barely knows anybody, and now, she is seeing things. A man. The ghost of a man, for he appears in rooms without the bother of opening doors, she can see furniture and walls through him, and no one else can see him.

Barnabus Radcliffe seems to be a ghost, though he doesn’t remember dying. Still, why else would he be inaudible, unable to grasp or lift objects, and invisible to everyone except Miss Williamson. And why does he is he certain he is alive somewhere, and that time is running out?

Meet Barney

Barney Radcliffe has a full and interesting life, with money to spare and useful work helping his father with the responsibilities that will one day be his.
And then everything changes. All of a sudden, he is at a house party, and he seemed to be a ghost.

Meet Hester Williamson

Bluestocking Hester does not much enjoy house parties. They are full of suitors who like her money but not much else about her. But when she retreats to the library, she meets a man who seems to admire her appearance as well as her practical good sense. Unfortunately, he seems to be a ghost.

An excerpt from Moonlight Becomes You

The ghost was upset about something. He followed them all back to the house, his misty shape almost disappearing in the sunlight, and came right into Hester’s bedchamber when she went upstairs to remove her coat, bonnet, and gloves.

Here, out of the direct sunlight, he was a little more solid, and she could tell he was attempting an acted charade for her to guess. Two fingers—thin columns of mist. Two syllables. Or two words, perhaps.

He held up one finger—the first syllable. He shook his head and both hands.

“No?” she tried.

That wasn’t it. “Not?”

He nodded approvingly, and held up a second finger.

He lay down on his back, his feet together, his whole body straight, his hands together on his chest in prayer position. The dark patches that marked his eyes disappeared. Had he shut his eyes?

She could think of one word that might fit. “Dead?”

He bounced to his feet, nodding.

“Not dead? Are you saying you are not dead, Mr. Ransome?”

More nodding.

“But you are a ghost. I can see that with my own eyes.”

Mr. Ransome shook his head, and then went into a whole acted routine. She guessed the first bit. He mimed riding a horse, and then threw himself to the ground.

“You were thrown from your horse.”

He nodded and then bent over and hobbled along, miming a walking stick clearly enough that she immediately guessed, “You broke your leg.”

That was wrong, she discovered, but it took a while to get to “old woman.” Indeed, Roxanne came and knocked on her door to fetch her for the painting session she was meant to be attending in the ladies’ parlor before she fully understood what he was trying to tell her.

“Begin without me, Roxanne,” she said. “I need to finish something.”

It was another half hour before she finally guessed the whole.

A Dark and Stormy Night

By Bluestocking Belles

On September 26, 2026

In Teatime Tattler

London, 1841

Late one night, a day or so before the Eve of All Hallows, Lady Dorothy Scholfield crept into the nursery of her London townhouse. Moonlight poured down from the north window on an odd shaped object. Coverlets, she suspected had been hung over chairs to create a shelter of some sort. Soft whispers came from the tent, and the faint glow from inside gave it an eerie light. She prayed it wasn’t a candle. She crept closer on silent feet until she hovered over it. “Moonlight Madness” she wailed softly in a spooky voice eliciting shrieks from under the coverlets exactly as she intended.

A head bobbed up on the other side of the tent. Thomas, at ten her oldest grandson, glared at her. “Gran! You scared us.”

“What are you doing up?”

“Esther was frightened by the wind,” the boy explained. “We decided to keep her company. We’re being quiet so we don’t wake the babies.”

And the nursemaids, Dora thought. They slept at the far end of the nursery floor near the infants.

“They are telling scary stories,” a soft voice complained from inside the tent. Esther, Thomas’s sister was only five. Dora suspected the girl was enjoying hereself–mostly.

Dora walked around the tent. “Mind the lantern, Finn,” she said as she scooted in and the children repositioned themselves. She pulled Esther into her lap.

“So what are these stories?” the grandmother asked.

Harry, Finn, and Eddie rattled off descriptions of some predictably gory stories. “Your ghost stories are better, Gran,” Thomas said.

Probably because they are real, she thought.

She told them about the time her friend Heather Radcliffe saw a ghost begging for help, how she searched until she found a man who was badly injured but not truly a ghost. His spirit had wandered until he found help.

“That is dumb,” Eddie said. “Everyone knows ghosts are dead people. They prey on the living.” Finn giggled at that.

“They aren’t always,” Thomas said. “What about the ghost who sent messages to his son to keep him from making mistakes.”

“UGH,” Harry said. “That one always sounds like a love story.”

So much for romance, Dora thought. The Marchioness of Tyneham would be amused to have her hair-raising tale dismissed so lightly. Of course, the woman claimed she could actually SEE ghosts.

Esther, who had been cuddling up with her head on Dora’s shoulder, sat up. “Tell us about the night you met GrandDa,” she begged. Harry rolled his eyes, but the others agreed.

“The storm was fierce that night,” Dora began. She described the lightning, the eerie trees, the dark house, the slamming shutters. Over the years the ghostly elements–missing food broken windows, strange footsteps and other unexplained happenings took center stage in her story. She left out some of the more prosaic elements. The ghosts in this version always disappeared with the coming of sunshine and the arrival of the children’s great-uncle Ben.

“And then GrandDa asked you to marry him because you were so brave,” Esther said.

“Something like that,” Dora said.

Eddie heaved a deep sigh. “I wish we could tell stories every night until All Hallows Eve.”

“I wish to go to bed,” Esther retorted.

Just like that the lantern went out.

Thank you, Harry, Dora thought, fingering the little stone mouse in her pocket. “Best get to bed the lot of you. There are two more nights to tell stories,” she said.

About the Book: Moonlight Madness

When the year grows colder and the veil between worlds grows thin—or so they say—comes the time for stories to make you shiver. The Bluestocking Belles bring ghosts, and ghoulies, and spirits of all kinds, each leading to love, the greatest madness of all.

Jude Knight – Moonlight Becomes You in which a lady sees, but cannot hear a ghost who attempts to warn her about a man who will die if she doesn’t find him soon.

Alina K. Field – The Duke, the Diamond, and the Ghastly Ghoul in which a house party at a haunted abbey brings together a duke, a ghost-hunting lady, and two ghosts determined to right old wrongs.

Aileen Fish – Mad about the Marquess in which a lady known to communing with the dead is forced to bring unwanted messages to the marquess next door from his dead father.

Rue Allyn – True Love’s Kiss in which a hunter seeking his kidnapped son in the forest stumbles upon a fairy with a similar mission. Together they may succeed if they stop squabbling.

Caroline Warfield – Not Again, Harry in which a lady takes shelter in a creepy old house only to find haunting, prowlers, strange artifacts, and a man from her past. A wish-granting mouse complicates it all

Sherry Ewing – Finding My Way To You in which a ghost meets a determined lady who leaps at a chance to change his past in spite of his efforts to convince her to leave the past where it belongs.

Barbara Monajem – The Haunted Hoyden in which two friendly ghosts help a lady to rescue a handsome, wounded man—who proves to be just what she needs to escape a dastardly plot.

Elizabeth Donne – Always With You in which a man pressed-ganged into service in the Royal Navy promises his wife he will come back to her. Whether it’s in this life or the next remains to be seen.

This collection will go live October 15, 2026. Preorder now! https://books2read.com/u/4Dwnjr

Fairy Nonsense in the Village at the End of the World

By Bluestocking Belles

On August 9, 2026

In Jude Knight, Teatime Tattler

To the Editor of the Teatime Tattler

Dear Sir

Your paper has recently given coverage to a ridiculous story that is pretends to be a local legend, but that is, in truth, a blatant stunt by an ambitious innkeeper that hopes to make money from tourists seeking true love.

I speak, of course, of the village of F on S, a remote and tumbledown fishing village on the Sussex coast, from which rumors have been spreading about a fairy well, and the “true love blessing” to be gained by drinking its waters.

Having spent several weeks in said village, I can assure your readers that the water does no such thing. I will acknowledge that the villagers are welcoming, the cottages are charming, and the air is salubrious. But fairies? Magic water? I, myself, took the opportunity to drink the water with several quite delightful ladies who had come to see the rumored well for themselves, and here I am, still quite unattached and fancy free.

As to whether I kissed said ladies or not, a gentleman does not speak of such things.

I was also present when a certain distant relative of a well-known duke and a not particularly distinguished but pleasant lady themselves sampled the water on the insistence of said innkeeper. Mr. T. M. and Miss A. W. were already betrothed without the intervention of any magic, though the innkeeper has taken all the credit to himself.

It cannot be argued that the couple are not in love. They are—most unfashionably so. Did the water have anything to do with it? I think not.

Your readers may indeed choose to visit Fenwick, and will no doubt enjoy the experience. Go for the holiday. Go for the sea air. Go for the pleasure of listening to the innkeeper’s tales. But do not fool yourself that the secret of true love lies in the water.

With most sincere best wishes from one who signs himself,

A friend to the truth.

Set in Stone

By Jude Knight

Arianna Westbrook has been dragged to Fenwick by her mother, who is anxious to test the truth of the Fenwick legend. She is triumphant when an eligible bachelor makes an offer for Arianna’s hand. Not so Arianna. She recognizes Edwin Mills as the worst kind of fortune hunter.

Thomas Medlock has a treasure to salvage from a ship that was sunk in April’s terrible storm. He and his partners have borrowed from their client to buy a diving bell, but success will see them free, clear, and with a reputation second to none. He doesn’t have time to rescue damsels in distress.

Except that Arianna is his every dream come true. Besides, with her mother against her, she needs someone who is on her side, with no expectations and no questions asked.

Meet Thom

My hero is one third partner in a marine salvage company, in Fenwick to retrieve a treasure that was aboard one of the ships that sunk in a storm off the Fenwick coast. On a day too windy for diving, he meets a young woman in the village’s Norman church, and discovers a treasure for a lifetime.

Meet Arianna

Arianna is a wealthy heiress who doesn’t want her mother to encourage any more fortune tellers. But how is Arianna to meet a decent and worthy man when her mother has such poor taste in suitors and her own motivations? Yet only one man makes her heart sing. Only one man looks at her, and sees past her wealth.

Diving in 1815

I had great fun finding out about diving bells and their history, and the diving suits that would have been in use in 1815. Here are a couple of excerpts based on that information.

***

Excerpt 1 from Set in Stone

The wreck had broken apart in the storm that had blown it onto the rocks. Thom had interviewed the captain and some of the other survivors, and knew that. His initial survey had confirmed that further storms had scattered debris quite some distance across the reef and the seabed.

Thom had drawn a grid based on that initial survey, with numbered sections for the divers to search. The divers would start with those most likely to contain the detritus of the captain’s cabin, and work out from there.

The first pair descended in their leather suits and copper helmets. The suits fastened tightly at the elbows and knees, leaving the hands and feet bare, and each helmet had a row of windows at eye level, so the wearer could see. A pair of long leather tubes connected to each helmet, one to deliver fresh air and one to allow stale air to escape. A pair of sailors from the crew took first turn on the pumps that sent air down the fresh air tube.

Air was pumped in close to the divers’ mouths, which not only allowed them to breathe underwater, but also helped to send the stale air up the second tube attached to the helmet, and kept the seams of the suits from leaking too rapidly so the divers could stay down for their full half hour. Or longer, but Jim’s rules for the divers erred on the side of safety.

The second pair of divers, the rest of the crew, and the three partners had little to do until the half hour passed. The first pair came up, the second went down, and another two sailors took over the task of pumping. Thom assisted the divers to remove their helmets, and they settled in the chairs ready for them, where pen and paper waited for them to record what they had seen.

Hanging over their shoulders while they worked would achieve nothing. Thom waited as patiently as he could for the next change over, so he could collect up the notes and examine them.

Excerpt 2 from Set in Stone

They had found the captain’s cabin—or, at least, part of it.

“We shall stop for our break,” Thom proclaimed. “And then, when the divers are rested, we’ll lower the diving bell.”

Two of the divers would seat themselves on ledges inside the huge wood and metal device, which would then be carefully lowered to the sea bottom. The divers wouldn’t need their helmets, and they wouldn’t have their view obscured by moving water. The bell would remain largely full of air, and the divers would be able to search, even digging over the section of sea bottom under the bell to check that nothing was hidden.

It would be the same rules as before, adapted for the change from suits to the bell. Two pairs of divers, changing places each time the bell was moved to a fresh piece of sea bottom, and two sailors on the pump that kept the air in the bell from becoming stale.

If their luck held, they might finish their task today.

Message From Afar

By Bluestocking Belles

On June 27, 2026

In Teatime Tattler

The Teatime Tattler has it on good authority (Lady Z, currently temporary resident of Rome and long time subscriber of this publication) that odd goings on are occurring. She writes,:

“Odd behavior is as one might expect in this papist kingdom, and one fears that our young men abroad are not always as they should be. One need only look at that Byron fellow. He fled England in scandal and brought his outrageous behavior with him.”

While visiting the offices of one Arthur Wentworth, a “middling sort who is nevertheless the closest thing we have to British officialdom in this city,” she encountered a suspicious character. She might have ignored the man, poorly dressed and shabby as he was, except Lady Z was quite certain she had met him before. In London. Could he be a gentleman underneath all that? Is it a disguise? This thought was further confirmed by his speech, which “insofar as one could hear through the door,” was that of a gentleman.

What man, known to the government agent and familiar from the drawing rooms of London, could be dragging about Rome looking like an out of work laborer. Why would he not make his presence known to the wider English community?

Intrigued, Lady Z has made it her business to keep track of him for us. She last saw him entering a Papist convent of all places with a plain sort of English woman. Shocking!

About the Book, Tattered Honor

He languishes in Rome, his honor in tatters. Will love and promises help him piece it together again?

Jamie can’t let Nora know the secrets he has hidden from everyone, even his closest friends. Nora can’t trust any man who drinks. She had enough of that in her marriage. Either one, however, will dare anything for her niece, the little imp that keeps them together, even enter a sham marriage to protect her.

Formerly entitled Dangerous Secrets. The first editon was an award winning best seller. The new edition is fully edited and enlarged with new material.

Pre-Order Now https://www.amazon.com/Tattered-Honor-Heart-Book-Four-ebook/dp/B0H4HLPQDN

About the Author

Caroline Warfield – Authorr

Award winning author, Caroline Warfield, grew up in a peripatetic army family, and the need to travel never left her. After a varied career (largely around libraries and technology) she retired to the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania to be closer to family and to write. She remains a traveler and adventurer, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens (but not the act of gardening).

Caroline calls her books family-centered romance, and this one is no exception. Family makes her characters what they are, for better or worse. She takes them as they are, scarred and wounded, and sets them on their path to their own happily ever after, because love is worth the risk.

Soli Deo Gloria

Find Caroline on the Web:

Website http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

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