The women who call themselves the Bluestocking Belles are at it again, Sam — invading another set of lives and writing a series of tell-all stories. And people call the Tattler a scandal rag!
This one will be out next year, but I should be able to scrape a few details from the Belles and their friends before then. This year, Meara Platt, Ella Quinn, Mary Lancaster, and Alina K. Field have joined the Belles for the collection.
So far, what I’ve discovered is that all the stories are about one family and their connections.
You may remember the jokes and gossip a few years back when the Earl of Seahaven took his fifth bride, and her young enough to be his granddaughter? And a baker’s daughter, at that. Then he died before the first year was out. All jokes about stamina and demanding young brides aside, it was a terrible thing for the girl, especially when the child she was carrying at the time was not the Earl’s longed-for son, but a ninth daughter.
The new earl, a distant cousin, decided that he had no responsibility for the upkeep of ten females. The dowager countess was left to her own devices, with her own baby girl and eight step-daughters.
That was three years ago, more or less. The latest news will be in the Bluestocking Belles’ new collection of stories. Apparently, the ladies have managed to somehow afford a York Season! There’ll be more than the races to amuse the Polite World this year. It’ll be intriguing to see how many suitors are willing to take on a bride with a very small dowry and a whole platoon of sisters.
I’ll be digging around some more, Sam, and I’ll certainly let you know what I find out.
Oh! And the collection is called Desperate Daughters. Catchy title, that, and it says it all, really. This should be a lot of fun!
The most unusual and upsetting of occurrences
has happened, and I wish now more than ever that Randall would leave this
forsaken place and move back to civilization. I imagine the snow is beautiful
banking along the Thames, and how I long for an outing to Mrs. Starling’s millinery
shop. I am in dire need of a new hat and there is not a one milliner worthy of
such a task here in Clun. I suppose I shall just catch cold rather than wear
such an atrocity upon my head!
But back to the urgent matter at hand, the
Constable here has up and died by his own witlessness. The man had some sort of
infirmity and ended up dying in the woods. They found him frozen through, but
thank goodness no animals had yet discovered him. Otherwise, I might have
fainted straight away.
And, the worst of it, the absolute most
obscene part of it, is that a woman, an odd although in other respects pretty
and intelligent creature, has decided to become Clun’s new layer-out of the
dead. She even enlisted her poor younger sister to aid her in such an endeavor.
I do have some semblance of sympathy for
them as they did lose their parents not long ago in another entirely different grizzly
affair, which I relayed to you last month. But to resort to such unseemly means
to provide for themselves is more than I can fathom. I have insisted that Randall
speak with her and forbid it, but he tells me there is no law against women
making foolish decisions. I told him there should be. The girls are throwing
away any chance of a future by making such a choice.
I am spent in writing this to you and find
I must now retire for a spell to regain my spirits. All this ghastly business
has worn me through.
Send my love to your sweet daughters and
please do invite me to come visit for I must escape this place. . .and soon, my
dear.
With an
urgency to be elsewhere,
Catherine
About the Book: Lovely Digits
When
two murders strike the sleepy Victorian town of Clun, England, an unlikely
partnership forms. But can the killer be found before there is a third?
Lovely Digits is the town
oddity…
But
quirky spinster Lucy Wycliffe prefers to ignore gossip and embrace her position
as the town’s layer out of the dead, despite how her parents’ deaths thrust her
into such unlikely work. Lovely Digits, as she’s known to the local
townspeople, no longer dreams of marriage, but takes pride in providing dignity
to the dead. Desperate to hold on to her family’s cottage and support her
widowed sister and young niece, an unexpected offer of employment as assistant
to the constable arrives at the perfect time.
Former sailor John Brodie is
the mysterious new constable…
But John Brodie is far from a stranger to Clun
or the events of its past. Accepting the position as constable in the small
town is a double edged sword meant to heal his past and redeem his future, but
falling for the beautiful and intelligent Lucy Wycliffe was never part of his
plan. As the killer closes in, will John reveal his secret and risk losing
everything to save Lucy’s life?
Want to
read more? Here is my Amazon Buy Link:
Excerpt from the Book:
Clun,
England
February,
1839
Old
Man Codger’s frozen toe rolled across the floor toward the door.
“Lord
above. Mind the corner, sister,” Lucy muttered. She blew an errant curl from
her cheek as they swung the man’s stiff body onto the scarred wooden table in
front of the hearth. The body landed with a thud.
Blast. Lucy scanned the floor. Nothing. Where had it gone? She lifted her
skirts.
“There
you are,” she grumbled. The rogue digit rested between the scuffed heels of her
old brown boots. Using the edge of one of the sleeves of her faded blue blouse,
she leaned down and clutched the rather putrid, large hairy toe and placed it
on the man’s chest. Now she’d have to sew on a toe, too. A frozen toe.
Perfect.
Priscilla
covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yielded a dry retch. Plugging
her nose, she rolled her eyes. “There has
to be another way.”
Lucy
eyed her pert younger sister and sighed. At thirteen, Cil was on the cusp of
womanhood. There were so many things she would miss from their parents not
being there to guide her. The guilt over the death of Mother and Father a month
past stung like a barb under Lucy’s skin. If only she’d arrived home at the
cottage sooner instead of lingering about the forest to find her pet starling.
She banished the thought away.
After
tying back her hair, Lucy pushed up her sleeves to the elbow. “If there had
been any other option, we’d have done it. It’s either prep him for burial or
starve. It’s just us now, Cil.”
The
old man’s time in the woods had not been kind to him, but at least the extreme
cold had kept the insects at bay. A white milky maggot dropped from his nose to
the table. Lucy shuddered. Most of them.
She loathed insects, especially worms. Things that could move without legs
weren’t natural.
“Hand
me the needle and thread.” Lucy rested her hands on her hips. “I need to get
this toe sewn back on when he thaws. I’ll not be docked pay for him missing
parts.”
About the Author
Jeanine
Englert is a Golden Heart ® Finalist and Daphne du Maurier Award winner in historical romantic suspense.
After years of writing in secret, she joined Romance Writers of America and
Georgia Romance Writers in 2013 and has been an active member ever since. She
writes Scottish Highland historicals and historical romantic suspense novels.
When she isn’t wrangling with her characters on
the page, she can be found trying to convince her husband to watch her latest
Masterpiece or BBC show obsession. She loves to talk about books, writing, her
beloved pups, and of course mysteries with other readers on Twitter
@JeanineWrites, Facebook, or at her website www.jeaninewrites.com.
Her debut novel, Lovely Digits, released in June of 2019 by Soul Mate Publishing, is a Victorian romantic suspense that won the 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award and was named a 2018 Golden Heart ® Finalist for best unpublished romantic suspense.
