18th Century Harp, a demonstration

If you’re like me, the very thought of a harp creates a magical wistfulness inside. When I was twelve years old, I heard about an opportunity to take harp lessons, and something came alive inside me. Instantly, more than anything, I wanted–no, had–to learn to play. It’s been an ongoing love affair ever since. Playing the harp takes years to master, and a great deal of time must be devoted to technique, not just learning…

Special Announcement: A New Release–WEDDING WAGERS, a new Timeless Regency Collection

Announcing a new Timeless Regency Collection: Wedding Wagers Three wagers.  Three couples. Three chances at Love. Let the bets begin. From the publisher of the USA TODAY bestselling & #1 Amazon bestselling Timeless Romance Anthology series in Regency Romance, comes WEDDING WAGERS, featuring bestselling authors Donna Hatch, Heather B. Moore, and Michele Paige Holmes. Available beginning today, August 20, 2018. Order here for instant delivery or copy and paste this link into your browser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D7JSNHL…

Heroes and Time Travelers

Nestled deep in the heart of a large city park at the edge of Sacramento, visitors and school children can find a time machine. This time machine only stops in one time and place: Rhoads School, the 1890’s. Rhoads is a one-room schoolhouse where a pleasant but firm schoolmarm welcomes children and teaches values such as honesty and manners along with reading, writing, and arithmetic. This one-room school is not a re-creation; it is a…

Historical Fiction – My Favorite Escape

Historical Fiction – My Favorite Escape In a recent survey, 80% of avid readers listed historical novels as one of their top three favorite types of books to read. I wasn’t really surprised, since historical fiction, especially historical romance fiction, is my favorite genre. But it got me thinking; why the broad appeal? First, historical novels provide a fantastic escape. When life gets stressful, the first thing I like to do is pick up a…

The Secret Language of Regency Fashion

When perusing old records including fashion drawings, it is easy to become confused by all the different terms used in a historical context. One such example are the words, morning, afternoon and evening, which didn’t mean what they do today. From what I have been able to determine, morning was the time of day before dinner. Therefore, Morning Dress is what one wore during the day until dinner—not just in the hours before noon. A…

Robots in the Regency

Technology from the 18th and 19th century often seems downright steampunk, when one considers the amazing advances mechanical geniuses made in mechanisms such as clocks, music boxes, and automatons, which were quite literally, robots, or androids. No, they didn’t go about shouting “Danger, Will Robinson” or make friends with humans or even take over the world (or ship), but they did move in complex ways. In the case of this charming automaton, they could also…

Regency London Living, the boot scraper

Georgian, Regency, and Victorian England conjure images of  unparalleled sumptuous by-gone eras. Through such romantic lens, it is easy to forget the every day, un-elegance of living in the horse and carriage days, when cleanliness was not so easy to maintain as it is in modern Western living. Before automobiles, asphalt, and street sweepers, trodding the streets and roadways got one dirty—especially one’s shoes. To protect a home from the mud and other undesirable matter…

Happy Halloween and All Hallow’s Eve Giveaway!

*****CONTEST CLOSED***** Congratulations to Irene and Shirley who are the winners of ALL HALLOW’S EVE!!! I hope you enjoy this exciting collection of romantic spooky stories! Thank you to all who entered! To celebrate Halloween, I am giving away a copy of ALL HALLOWS’ EVE, an exciting addition to the popular Timeless Romance Anthology series. ALL HALLOWS’ EVE is not to be missed! It has romance, thrills, and chills. Need I say more? To enter…

English Drawing Room

by Donna Hatch Few rooms are as quintessentially English as the Drawing Room. The very word Drawing Room inspires a host of images, doesn’t it? “Drawing room” is a shortened version of the term “Withdrawing room” for that time after dinner when ladies withdrew to allow the gentlemen to discuss manly pursuits not considered proper in mixed company such as politics, sports, news, etc. By the Regency Era, the term had shortened to simply “drawing…

Jane Austen Centre, Bath

When I visited the Jane Austen Centre at 40 Gay Street in Bath, I was unprepared for the “wow factor” I experienced. I entered their permanent exhibit in this Georgian home with high hopes of geeking out about one of my real-life heroines, a woman who defied the odds and met success as an author in an era when women were viewed as little more than baby machines or governesses, and when nice girls didn’t…