What Surprised Me: Scotland is a Different Country

By Blythe Gifford

Even those of us who study history regularly have our blind spots. Scotland was one of mine. Until I started researching for HIS BORDER BRIDE, I thought that Scotland was the Highlands and then the Lowlands, where people were pretty much like the English except sort of not. I knew something about the Borders, that no-man's buffer between England and Scotland, because it was the home of my hero from IN The MASTER'S BED, so I thought in choosing that setting, I wouldn't have much new to learn...

Surprise! Scotland really IS a different country. And for a lifelong Anglophile, it was a huge switch of worldview.

I didn't know what I didn't know until I got into the story and had to learn the "back story," if you will, of a whole country. And much of what I had to learn was what I had to UN-learn. In my time and place, whiskey, tartan, and clans did not exist.

However during this period, and for several hundred years to follow, Scotland was more closely allied with France than with England. Even such important Scots as the first Earl of Douglas were fostered in France and fought on the French side at Poitiers, where they and their French allies were soundly defeated. (I ended up using this fact as a plot point.) The Franco-Scots "auld alliance" made a difference in the Scottish court, culture, law, and politics and these differences ultimately influenced my story.

So my prejudiced views of Scotland were upended and I learned a lot. (But not enough that I wasn't surprised all over again when I started to research the setting of my next book. But that's a story for another day.)

What Surprised Me: Don't Know Much About History

By Delia DeLeest

I've always been a history buff. When I was little, my favorite TV show was "Little House on the Prairie." My favorite book was about four kids who were required to clean an old vacant house as community service and ended up researching the house's history in an attempt to save it from the wrecking ball. I wanted a time machine so I could go back to ancient Egypt.

It's always amazed me that there are so many people out there who just flat out aren't interested in history and therefore, know nothing about it. I didn't realize that historical ignorance was as bad as it was until a reader once questioned my character's use of a telephone in my 1920s era upcoming book, NOT LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. Telephones were old hat by that time, yet this person had no idea.

My love for history turned into a love for historical romances. Though those early novels weren't always totally historically accurate, it was through them that I gleaned nuggets of information about the Civil War, the Norman invasion of Saxony, and--thanks to the wonderful, dearly departed Kathleen Woodiwiss--sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Those books were simply starting off points, from there, I dug into actual history books and rounded out all those wonderful history bites the romance books provided.

But even when I didn't dig deeper into a subject, my mind is still teeming with wonderful little bits of historic trivia provided by all those books I've devoured over the years. What a wonderful community service we historical romance writers are providing to the public when a reader cracks open a book and not only gets a wonderful story, but can take something else away that can give them an appreciation for past people and places. I get the warm fuzzies just thinking about it.

I feel bad for people who don't know who fought in the French and Indian war, how a wagon train made its way to California, or how bootleggers smuggled illegal hooch in from Canada. Too often it's felt that history is in the past and since there's nothing we can do about it, so why bother learning? Of course George Santayana said it best with, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But I couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride when my sixteen-year-old daughter stated the other day, "You know, if people would just learn from history, there'd be a whole lot fewer problems, wouldn't there?"

Yep, there's hope for the future.

What Surprised Me: My Heroine

By Jennifer Linforth

I am not autistic.

I met a critique partner of mine, an expert in the field of Aspergers, because I was blogging on anthropomorphizing--something commonly seen in autism and something I did as a kid. I am not autistic, yet I have an autistic heroine. What surprised me was how I came to write her.

This is where writing what we know turns into adding what others know and realizing our limits. I never sought to have an autistic heroine in my novel, until a reader asked me why she seemed autistic. Was I?

No, I'm not. I simply write what I know, and this heroine's thought process is similar to mine. I was taken aback. My delightfully quirky heroine was viewed as autistic? That was not what I intended! What now! I write historical fiction. This can't happen! I can't have autism in the 19th century, why that's--madness!

Sadly in that era...it was.

But that woman's comment made me wonder; perhaps I needed to see my characters through the opinions of others more often. We writers get locked in our stubborn little heads a lot and often don't come out. I am sure many writers have characters they refuse to budge on. I showed the draft of my heroine to others and they all said the same thing. I knew very little of the world of autism, in a particular Aspergers, but I started reading about it and until I met my critique partner I still was not convinced about his heroine....

Once I let go of my vision for her and embraced the vision of others--the story flourished.

If writers are going to tackle a project they must do so knowing the potential is there that we may be wrong. Our plots may be great, but we might be writing with the wrong characters. Once I listened to what I was being told and began the very scary process of research and networking in order to polish this heroine. (After all, like I said, I am not autistic. How do I approach someone and ask to interview them on very intimate details of their lives from daily living right down to love?)

I was delighted with how well she fit into the 19th century while still being compatible with 21st century readers. I was shocked during the research at how many people secretly supported books with heroes or heroines with challenges. They embrace the idea of reading a book with real characters with identifiable problems and hurtles. Many keep silent, because autism is a part of their lives and often something discussed only behind closed doors.

Sadly, that is madness.

I've learned that autism seeps into everyone's lives whether we realize it or not. In my line of work outside of writing I have yet to see a group of children that does not have one autistic child in their ranks. I am indebted to the people and experts I have reached out to who have educated me. My debut novel, MADRIGAL, was a whole other story--it involved years of research into expanding classic literature. I knew those characters inside and out. That success made me think I always would know my characters. What surprised me, is how important it is to remain open minded and accept the guidance of other writers, even strangers, when crafting our characters. More so, how important it is to sometimes say: I was wrong!

What Surprised Me: Unreliable Sources

By Zoe Archer

One of the reasons I love writing unusual historical romance is the opportunity to do research. Most sane people don't relish the prospect of lurking through university libraries, searching for the perfect primary source--but I never said I was sane, just a writer. So it's not uncommon for me to pick a subject matter or location that I'm not familiar with, knowing that I'll have to do my research prowling.

When I started outlining WARRIOR, right away I understood that I'd have to hie myself off to the library stacks and start reading up on the history and culture of Mongolia. I found a goodly amount of secondary sources, and even some first-hand travelers' accounts of contemporary Mongolia, but I wasn't just writing about Mongolia, I was writing about Mongolia in 1874. The country was a vastly different place over a hundred and twenty five years ago.

One day, in my hunt, I thought I struck research gold. It was a reprint of Mongolia, the Tangut Country, by Colonel Nikolai Przewalski (also spelled Przhevalsky). I danced the little researcher's dance of joy. Przewalkski's book was originally published in 1875--only a year later than the year in which WARRIOR was set. I wasn't too concerned about that year's difference. After all, the Mongol way of life did not and does not change very rapidly. I thought I was all set, with the mother of all primary sources.

You're probably wondering, who the heck was Przewalski? The bare bones of his life are this: he was born in 1839, a Russian nobleman of Polish descent. He gained fame as a geographer and explorer of Central and East Asia, and contributed greatly to Europe's understanding of those regions. He was also the first known European to see and describe the only existing species of wild horse. Today the species is known as the Przewalski Horse. Typhus cut his life, and explorations, short in 1888.

Imagine my glee to come across an edition of this esteemed traveler's book. Here was the writings of the premier European explorer of the exact region I was writing about, and his observations doubtless dated from the exact time period, too. Since I strive to be as accurate as I can (within reason), I settled in with my notebook and pen, ready to take copious notes.

At first, that's exactly what I did. I wrote down everything Przewalski said about the capital city, Urga (now known as Ulan Bator), including the geographical layout of the city, noting where the Russians and Chinese had established permanent buildings in a city comprised almost entirely of tents. I noted his remarks about the custom of sharing tobacco, and how Mongols treated their animals. It was all so rich! So perfect for my needs!

But then, my pen slowed. Reading further, I began to be disturbed by what I thought had been an unbiased account of one European man's journey through Mongolia. Przewalski asserted that Mongols were...physically dirty. That they were shiftless liars. That the women of Mongolia were, to put it kindly, unchaste.

Nothing, and I mean nothing of what I had read about Mongols and Mongolia confirmed this. Much of what Przewalski wrote seemed downright untrue, if not slanderous. It smacked of Eurocentrism and an Imperialist mentality.

I was surprised. Shocked, even. Here was a man who was so important to Western understanding of Central Asia that a very rare species of wild horse found only in the area was named for him. Yet he was writing things that, if they weren't outright lies, were certainly not unbiased and impartial.

This called into question everything that he had written. I felt that, in good conscience, I couldn't trust or rely upon a word in Przewalski's book. How could I, when his untruths and distortions littered the text?

With a heavy heart, I returned the book to the library, and started over with my research. It had been a difficult lesson, but an important one. No source is entirely reliable, especially now, when the internet makes it so easy to fabricate something we assume is "truth." From that point on, I made sure to double and triple check my sources, even books, those bulwarks of reliability.

Now, you'll have to excuse me. I hear the siren song of the library stacks calling my name. And I'll heed that song, but as a wiser and more cautious researcher.

What Surprised Me: Plotting, Pantsing and Puzzling

By Anna C. Bowling

When I first started creating my own stories, I didn't know any techniques. Then as I started to learn more about writing, I learned about plotting. A character's journey is from wanting something to either getting it or knowing they will never get it. How do they get there? Lots of options. There's the snowflake plot, the W plot, Goal, Motivation and Conflict. Rising action. Falling action. Plateaus. Arcs. Augh! Getting characters from point A to point Z, precisely pinpointing exactly where points B, C, and D through Y are along the way can be too confusing for many a new writer, and anyway, don't real writers run on pure creativity?

At one point I thought so, and it sure seems to work for authors like Jo Beverly. Her Flying into the Mist talk originally given at an RWA conference in 1999 has helped many pansting writers accept that, for them, writing isn't something that can be captured in index cards or character charts. So I tried flying through the mist, hither and yon as the day took me, only to find that for me, flying through the mist more often turned into a belly flop on the rocks. I needed more order than that.

So if plotting wasn't working and pantsing wasn't working, what was there left? Hopeless, utterly hopeless. I threw my (metaphorical) hands in the air and decided that all I could do was all I could do and if I was going to tell my stories, it would have to be my way. I knew where my story started and I knew where it had to end, so what if I tried working both ends toward the middle? What if I worked on what I knew and prodded, poked and even bribed those headstrong characters until they coughed up the information I needed to see where things were headed? What did I have to lose?

Sure enough, things came. A little bit here, a little bit there. Things didn't come in order, but who cared? I wrote things as they came, labeled each new section and figured I'd put them together later. I didn't know this was a technique of its own, or that it had a name, but when I read Emily Bryan's "Only One Right Way to Write a Novel" blog post, "puzzling" did seem to fit the bill. Puzzling with a bit of layering, to be more specific. Different bits from different methods fit together, often over a few different passes through the manuscript.

I never thought that I'd wind up with notebooks full of color coded sticky notes, numbered scenes and a rainbow of highlighted passages, song lists, images and the like, but so far, so good. All of that gives me the picture I'm working toward as I fit the puzzle together. Your mileage may vary. The way that works is the way that works for you.

What Surprised Me: Ancient & Medieval Prostitution

By Lisa Yarde

Prostitution has existed for so long that it's often call the world's oldest profession. The sale of sexual services is considered taboo in most societies, but this view was not always held in the past.

One of the projects that I'm currently working on is The Rule of Love, about the origins of the Kama Sutra. How's that for an unusual historical? In fifth century India, my protagonist learns lessons of sensuality, life, and love at an exclusive brothel run by his aunt. The Kama Sutra is more than a manual of sexual positions. It teaches proper behavior, and instructs the reader on how attain fulfillment of every goal in life, including sexual ones. A large portion of the text discusses the role of prostitutes in society.

Illustration from Kama Sutra
Centuries of Muslim leadership and the puritanical British Raj have influenced the modern India republic's conservative views of sensuality, but the country's past is very different. I was genuinely surprised by the unabashed view of prostitution the Kama Sutra takes. The sixth part of the Kama Sutra is devoted to their proper conduct; a how-to guide on the ways by which they could attract and keep lovers. The author considered prostitution a natural part of civilized society, which prevented marital affairs, with prostitutes providing their services for the general good.

At the time of the Kama Sutra, prostitutes at every level played an important role in society, as its artisans and used their wealth to fund social and religious projects. The text notes, "Having temples and reservoirs built, setting up altars on raised platforms to Agni, the fire good, giving Brahmans herds of cows and covered vessels, arranging...offerings to the gods, bearing the expenses involved in the money they earn, this is the concern of high-ranking courtesans who reap large profits."

The early Catholic Church struggled with the role of prostitutes. In the fourth century, St. Augustine, one of its most important figures, stated "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust." He took the view that would influence society up through the Middle Ages, that prostitution was a necessary evil. Having had a mistress for most of his youth, St. Augustine understood the power of lust.

Eight centuries later, his thoughts on prostitutes would influence the opinions of St. Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas argued for the toleration of prostitutes in society, as in the state should allow fornication and prostitution for the sake of the common good. "Prostitution is like a sewer in a palace. Take away the sewer and you will fill the palace with pollution."

St. Thomas Aquinas
When I have written in medieval settings, the constant influence of the Church in my characters' lives placed constraints on their actions. It was strange to find that in an age typified by priests preaching sexual abstinence, even in marriage, St. Thomas Aquinas took a practical approach to prostitution: it was "...filthy and against the law of God," but that a prostitute should always be fairly paid for her services. "It is lawful for her to keep it and also to give it to charity even though it is acquired by an unlawful action...." But he also stipulated that prostitutes were bound to pay their tithes to the Church, "...only after the individuals in question have done penance."

Brothels soon flourished in every major city. In Paris, le roi des ribauds (the king of the ribalds) regulated the services of the city's prostitutes. Queen Joanna of Avignon established a town brothel rather than allow wholesale prostitution to go unregulated. In twelfth century London, King Henry II brought the "stews" or public baths used for meeting prostitutes, under government regulation. The London streets where prostitutes could be found were known by names like, "Lovelane, Cokkeslane, Gropec*nt Lane, and Codpiece Alley." Later, the Bishop of Winchester owned most of the brothels that developed along Southwark, leading to "Winchester geese" as a common reference for the prostitutes there.

What Surprised Me: The World of My Fantasies

By Jeannie Lin

While researching some of the locations in my stories, I followed a Google link for Yumen Guan (Jade Gate fortress). All of the sudden I found myself looking down upon the hollowed shell of a desert fortress.

A shiver ran down my spine. This was it. The picture of a place that was over thousand years old--what remained of the desert outpost at the edge of an ancient empire.


And I was looking at it.

I can't describe the feeling inside of me at that moment. I know it's not the same as being able to go to China, ride along the Silk Road, and touch the walls myself. But I was sitting at my desk and looking at a picture of something that existed way across the world. I felt connected.

We've all heard that the Great Wall of China is the only man made object visible from space with the naked eye. You've probably also heard that it's not true. But the adage is suddenly an appropriate one with satellite photos giving us views of places we may never be able to visit.

I've only been to China once and, since it was my first time, I took the standard tour--Beijing, Shanghai. The tourist stuff. I rode the bus to one node of the Great Wall. They took us to the pearl farm, the Forbidden City, the silk factory. I didn't realize that five years later I'd start writing books set in Changan (modern day Xi'an) and the Silk Road. I should have been going to those places instead of the modern cities and shopping centers the tour bus took us to!

So how do I write all those vivid descriptions of ancient buildings and grasslands and deserts? I could lie and say I have a stunning imagination, but really I cheat. I look at them. If you're researching an unusual setting or would just like to play armchair world traveler for a couple of hours or so, you might enjoy taking a look as well. There are sites that list locations all over the world for Google maps sightseers: http://www.satellite-sightseer.com/

Here are a couple of my favorite ways to location scout:

Google Earth
Google Earth enthusiasts have located various places and "bookmarked" them, so to speak. You can view them either online through the plug-in or you can download the Google Earth application and then open these .kml files. You can also search directly from Google Earth and mark two destination points. How else would I know how long it might take to travel from Yibin city to Chengdu? :)



360 cities
Great way to get a panoramic view of buildings and other landmarks. I'm surprised by the number of locations people have photographed and contributed.

Click to see 360 panoramic view

At one point, I thought it would be too difficult to research specific places. I was planning to set my stories in a fantasy world based on China, but when I saw how beautiful the actual locations were, I knew I had to set the stories in Tang Dynasty China. Why make up a world, when the actual one is so fascinating!

I'm very, very grateful that people all over the world love taking pictures and that they're so avid about posting and sharing them where everyone can see. And I'm glad to by writing historical romances in the Internet age. Perhaps this "connectedness" will make unusual settings all the more in demand.

What Surprised Me: Bathrooms, Gambling & Weddings

By Jacquie Rogers

We in the modern West have many notions, often promulgated by novels, movies, and television, that simply aren't accurate. Some of these surprised me when I first found out the facts, some of them didn't.See which ones surprise you.

Bathrooms

When those of us in North America think of the history of bathrooms, we generally hearken back to the days of outhouses (or privies) and Thomas Crapper. But no.

Year: 3000 BC
Place: Mohenjo-Daro, in modern-day Pakistan, where nearly every single dwelling had a bathroom complete with a (sorta) flushable toilet.

Year: 206 BC to 24 AD
Place: Shangqiu County, province of Henan, China, where the Xinhua news agency quote archaeologists as saying: "This top-grade stool is the earliest of its kind ever discovered in the world, meaning that the Chinese used the world's earliest water closet which is quite like what we are using today."

Of course, the Romans had an efficient plumbing system with community baths and toilets. But somehow the Western Europeans forgot all that, and when the migration to the Americas began, it was still forgotten.

Gambling

From Gambling Origins: "Implements associated with the practice of gambling have been found in ancient China sites dating back to about 2300 BC. A pair of ivory dice made sometime before 1500 BC. have been found in Egypt. In fact, writings mentioning gambling have been discovered on a tablet in one of the pyramids at Giza. Inhabitants of ancient India, Greece and Rome also practiced some form of gambling."

Okay, so we all knew gambling is nothing new, and in fact gambling paraphernalia (bone dice and sticks) have been found on six continents dating 10,000 years old and older. But our modern-day notion is that gambling has always been considered a vice. Not so, not even in the USA.

From the California Research Bureau: "The Virginia Company of London, the financier of Jamestown in Virginia, was permitted by the Crown to hold lotteries to raise money for the company's colonial venture. The lotteries were relatively sophisticated and included instant winners. Eventually, the crown banned the lotteries because of complaints that they were robbing England of money."

And: "All 13 original colonies established lotteries, usually more than one, to raise revenue. Playing the lottery became a civic responsibility. Proceeds helped establish some of the nation's earliest and most prestigious universities--Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, and William and Mary. Lottery funds were also used to build churches and libraries. Ben Franklin, John Hancock, and George Washington were all prominent sponsors of specific lotteries for public works projects."

Then of course the Western Expansion is rife with gamblers. What surprised me was the stakes. We see B-Westerns where a gambler throws out a dollar or two to ante. But the truth is, most games were high stakes and many farms, ranches, herds, mines, and churches where lost in bets. Yes, churches. There are two instances where preachers' wives used their churches as wagers and lost.

Everyone gambled in the West. And if you think about it, that's only logical because the people who packed up their wagons and came west had gambled their entire futures on one venture. Most of those who migrated were middle-class people looking for a pot of gold, whether that gold came in the form of cattle, crops, or precious metals. So in the early days of the expansion, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wouldn't be willing to make a wager, whether it was how many times the hound would bay in an hour, or who had the best hand of cards, or over a rip-roarin' game of bucking the tiger (faro).

Marriage

We have a tendency to think of English traditions when we think of marriage.

Quite a few couples in the Old West weren't married in the strictest sense of the word--no marriage license, no church wedding, no Justice of the Peace presiding over a ceremony. Nada. Why? Because those services weren't available, but men and women just naturally pair up, and sometimes the family was already started, so necessity ruled. If possible, neighbors gathered and they'd throw a party. The senior man of the community might declare the couple husband and wife, but that wasn't particularly required--mostly, couples announced that they were married and that was that. If a circuit preacher came to the area, they might get officially married then, but they could have been living together as husband and wife for years and have several children before that happened.

Also, the American West had a variety of customs. Many immigrants came from Scottish stock who had themselves emigrated to Carolina and then on to Kentucky and Tennessee, bringing their traditions with them. According to MedievalScotland.org: "...a Scottish woman did not normally change her surname when she married." So way before it became popular in the 1970s, western women often kept their birth surnames or used it as their middle name.

As I research more, I'm sure I'll find more surprises, and isn't that the fun of it all? I can hardly wait!

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What Surprised Me: High Society Campaigners

By Michelle Styles

When doing research for upcoming books, I happened to read a biography of Gertrude Bell. The biography managed to turn several preconceived notions on their heads.

First up was the notion that factory owners were actively opposed to the trade union movement. Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, Gertrude's grandfather, was pretty close to the 19th century equivalent of Bill Gates. Her father likewise was transportation royalty. They made their money by making everything steel from needles to train tracks. At a time when aluminium was more expensive than gold, the Bells set up the first aluminium processing plant in Great Britain.

However, they believed they were dependent on their work force, rather than the land to achieve their wealth. And therefore they were active in the early trade union movement because workers were important. Sir Hugh was also very annoyed that his father did not consult him before accepting the baronetcy. Sir Hugh felt that people should be judge by the things they accomplish rather than by which clubs they belonged to, or how much land they owned. And all this was unusual but I could accept it.

Rather it was Sir Hugh's wife Florence and Gertrude who shocked me to the core. Dame Florence Bell was a novelist, a playwright and a social campaigner in her right. It is thanks to her tireless work interviewing the wives of the foundry workers that a great deal was learnt about the social conditions of the poor and attitudes towards the working class began to change. In fact her work on the social conditions of Middlesborough was ground breaking in its time. She was also a strenuous supporter of education for the masses and providing places where people could relax.

Her step-daughter, Gertrude was the first woman to receive a first in Modern History from Oxford, a renown mountaineer, an acknowledged expert on Byzantine churches and one of main architects along with TE Lawrence of modern Iraq. In fact, she foresaw the whole Palestinian/Israeli problem long before anyone else and voiced her concerns during the conferences on the Treaty of Versailles.

Modern women, except they were both anti-suffragette.

Not just against the Suffragettes who advocated direct action, but anti-votes for women. Florence was so much so that no one could talk to her about it. My jaw dropped. I had always considered that educated women would be in favour of basic human rights such as the right to vote...

There were several reasons the Bells gave. First, there was the question of married women's property and the feeling that this should be properly addressed before any universal voting was allowed. Second, Florence Bell felt that working class women had too many other problems to be able to spend the necessary time to make an informed decision. There was also this whole debate: if people who did not pay taxes voted, wouldn't the system become much more skewed towards those people, and mightn't it lead to far higher taxes?

Third, given all the other social problems, wasn't it more important to concentrate on getting better wages and living conditions rather than expending energy on getting the vote, something that fairly meaningless for the vast majority? Gertrude felt that until women decided to have more than the domestic sphere as their domain that they didn't need the vote and would be inclined to vote like their husbands and why should men be getting two votes.

Florence, who wrote various articles on how to bring up children, did not even believe that women as a general rule should have access to higher education. Women should be great conversationalists rather than possess fearsome intellects. Given her step-daughter's thirst for knowledge, she bent her rule and allowed her to go eventually go to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. But she insisted that Gertrude be domesticated so Gertrude learnt to run a house and had a Season. The result was that Gertrude was able to operate within the early 20th century English establishment, which allowed her to achieve far more than if she had been an out-and-out radical.

Thankfully Gertrude did later feel that women's suffrage was important. But the knowledge that women who were educated, intellectuals, and social campaigners but who did not support women's right to vote totally floored me. I could understand stuffy old men, but women who were on the cutting edge, blazing a trail? The question is of course on whether one could actually use this or whether one files it under the intriguing...

What Surprised Me: Picacho Peak

By Lorelie Brown

Mention the US Civil War and I pretty much think of the Eastern Seaboard. South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi. You know, the South, with all the images that invokes.

So imagine my surprise on moving to Arizona and discovering I'm living in the vicinity of the westernmost Civil War battle, fought in the sand and cacti and rocks. Huh.

Now where the westernmost battle was kinda depends on your definition of "battle."

But lemme back up really quick. Arizona didn't exactly exist before the Civil War broke out. The land it now encompasses was actually part of the Territory of New Mexico. But as military officers were called back to the various folds and had to decide where their loyalties laid, someone got the bright idea to carve out part of New Mexico and call it the Arizona Territory--and claim it for the Confederacy.

They really wanted Southern California, to give the Confederacy access to the Pacific Ocean, but that never really happened. Instead California troops fought for the Union, including driving the Johnny Rebs back pretty handily into the desert. (Johnny Rebs don't belong in the desert. Didn't anyone tell them that?)

Control of the stagecoach routes fed into this back-and-forth. Each side wanted 'em, naturally, because who wouldn't want the established, easy-to-navigate routes? So here we come back to our original topic--the farthest west battle.

There was an engagement at Stanwix Station, near Yuma, but calling it a battle is a little bit of a stretch. Confederate troops were burning hay meant for California cavalry horses and they got busted. Whoops. There was a small shoot out, but the only casualty was one Union soldier who healed up just fine apparently. But Stanwix Station is still up for consideration because bullets passed back and forth.

But then we come to Picacho Peak Pass, which is kind of the leader for the title of "westernmost Civil War battle." On April 15, 1862, Lieutenant James Barrett lead approximately a dozen men, looking for the Confederates reported to be lurking nearby, though they weren't supposed to actually engage. Well, they found them. From what I can tell, they kind of stumbled onto three of the Confederates and promptly captured them. But they sort of missed the seven other men, who opened fire. And Barrett kept his men pursuing the Johnny Rebs even into a thicket. Perhaps not his best decision, and it has the unfortunate distinction of being his last. He died in the hour and a half long battle, along with two Union privates.

Every year, Civil War re-enactors show up at Picacho Peak Pass and play out the skirmish. But over the years, the event has grown and more than the needed two-dozen men show up. They've had to expand into New Mexico battles to fill their time. But I hear it's a grand old time. The Picacho Peak State Park was slated to be shut down to help Arizona make up their huge budget shortfalls, but it's been saved by an arrangement with local governments to take over the costs. So I do believe I might have to check it out next year.

What Surprised Me: Mourning in Austria

By Carrie Lofty

One of the standard conventions of historical romances revolves around a widow in mourning who falls in love with a new man, often the hero. Their potential for a happy ending is postponed by strictures against a hasty remarriage. This postponement can lead to delightfully naughty scenarios such as clandestine meetings, premarital sexual encounters, and even secret marriages.

I was confronted with just such a predicament when writing SONG OF SEDUCTION, released today from Carina Press. Mathilda Heidel, my widowed heroine, falls in love with Arie de Voss, the renowned composer and pianist she's idolized for years. When presented with the opportunity to study music with her idol, Mathilda jumps at the chance. Their relationship soon escalates to one of mutual longing.

But then what?

Because SONG OF SEDUCTION is set in 1804 Austria, I needed to find out what mourning restrictions would've been placed on a young widow in Mathilda's position. A week? A month? A year? What was the expected mourning period, and what restrictions to her daily life would she have experienced?

Research led me to understand that Salzburg's highly Catholic society determined most customs. Unlike in England where, come Victorian times, mourning periods were codified almost to the point of being writ in law books, Salzburg's customs were not to strict or uniform. The local priests set the standard for his flock, and any more complex rulings--generally to do with the nobility--were left to the bishop.

Here's an exchange between Mathilda and her best friend, Ingrid, as they discussion possibilities for her future:

"Until you are remarried," Ingrid said firmly, "you do not need to leave."

Mathilda glanced down at the mourning gown that enshrouded her body. The glaring contrast of pale trim against black bombazine shouted without words: my husband died unjustly. She shrank from the attention fostered by those garish adornments, the curious looks and pity intent on stealing her peace.

"Do not tease, Ingrid. You know I cannot remarry, most likely not for months."

"But you've helped us beyond measure. I can at least find you a dance partner."

"No dancing either," Mathilda said.

"Still? Father Holtz is being unreasonable. A year of mourning is all he requires of the war widows, and even those restrictions are ignored if they have enough money."

Her fingers wrapped in black kid leather, Mathilda toyed with her pendant. She recognized the anxious habit and tucked the protective amber amulet into her bodice. "He's only ensuring that I respect Jürgen's memory."

"You do already," Ingrid said.

Notice the part about the pale trim on her mourning gown? This isn't a nod to the English custom of half-mourning, where widows were permitted to mix white, gray and even lavender with their black garb. No, Austrian widows whose husband had been murdered wore white lace trim on their cuffs and bodices. This may have been a hold-over from the medieval "white mourning," which was worn when enduring the deepest form of grief.

This symbol of the injustice Mathilda's late husband suffered came in very handy. The scandal of her birth means she shrinks from public notice, and those glaring white cuffs--thank you, history!--became yet another symbol of why she was different. The last thing she wants it to stand out, which is why she hides her miraculous talent for playing the violin.

If only a stubborn, ambitious musician would come into her life, intent on showing her how wonderful it can be to indulge in one's true passions...

What Surprised Me: People Don't Read Historicals?

By Isabel Roman

What surprises me? The fact that there are so many people who don't know about the historicals we write!

Let's face it, there are a lot of people who like romances but wouldn't pick up an historical if it was the only romance left on the shelf. Why is that? Do they think the story isn't something they'd be interested in? Do they think the hero isn't realistic? The heroine is a bumbling airhead? Do they not like history?

Looking at this blog now, I wish I'd had the time to do a survey, but alas, that didn't happen. So on the one hand we have readers who will read only contemporaries. On the other we have the historical-only readers. Ignoring the Venn Diagram of those of us who'll read just about anything, there are a great many people who know nothing about history.

I'm not talking America fought in a Civil War sometime during the 1800s. I'm talking, "Of course I know who Napoleon is--I saw Bill And Ted!" This quote is from an actual conversation I had a couple days ago. This was during my explanation about an idea I had set during the Regency Era/Napoleonic Wars--the blank look prompted me to explain Napoleonic wars = Napoleon Bonaparte and whatnot. That's when I got the indignant reply.

Forget going into the more Unusual Historicals we excel at here--Ancient Egypt? Victorian Russia? The Roaring 20s? English Civil War? China during the Tang Dynasty? And all the other places we writers love. One thing at a time.

So is that it? The fact that people aren't interested in history? They don't want to read historical romances because they're afraid it's one giant history lesson? What's the difference between that and thinking all contemporary romances are one giant political essay?

This is only a guess and I'd love to hear what others think. If you read historicals, do you stay close to what you know? Or are you up for anything so long as the subject interests you? With luck, a couple contemporary readers will let us know why they don't read historcials too.

What Surprised Me: Witchcraft and Royalty

By Margaret Mallory

Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks
And smooth my way upon their headless necks...

Speech of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester
From Shakespeare's HENRY VI (Part 2, Act 1, Scene 2)

When I was doing my research for KNIGHT OF PASSION, the third book in my "All the King's Men" medieval series, I came across Eleanor Cobham, a woman who married into the royal family and was accused of using witchcraft. It was so easy to falsely accuse a woman of witchcraft that I assumed this was a trumped up charge.

What surprised me is that Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, probably did it.

Eleanor was an ambitious woman--and not very nice.

The daughter of a mere knight, she became Gloucester's mistress while she was a lady-in-waiting to Gloucester's wife. There had been rumblings from the start of Gloucester's marriage that his wife still had a husband on the Continent. Since she was a great heiress, the rumors were ignored. When Gloucester, who was Henry V's youngest brother, wanted to get rid of his wife, however, the church conveniently invalidated his marriage.

Royal marriages were about power, inheritances, and alliances. It was no surprise, then, when Henry V made it clear he was not inclined to give his brother permission to make Eleanor his duchess. But when Henry V died unexpectedly, Gloucester married his mistress before Henry's body was brought home for burial.

Gloucester's nephew, a nine-month-old babe, became Henry VI. Some years later, after Gloucester's last remaining brother died, Gloucester became the young king's heir.

Eleanor could almost feel the crown on her head--and decided she better act before the now-teenage king took a wife and begat a new heir. It all came out when one of her co-conspirators turned informant. The allegation was that Eleanor was part of a witches' cabal, that included a woman known as The Witch of Eye, and at least three men of the church, including her confessor. This cabal allegedly employed sorcery in an attempt to predict the death of the king and to cut short his life.

While you may not believe their sorcery could harm the king, they did. Hence, their activity amounted to both heresy and treason.

Eleanor admitted to witchcraft, but she claimed she was only using it to try to get pregnant. She wisely denied the allegations of treason and was allowed, in effect, to plead guilty to a lesser offence. For her penance, she was made to walk London barefoot with a candle. Afterward, she was imprisoned for life on the Isle of Man--with servants, of course.

Eleanor's co-conspirators did not fare so well. Because this was The Witch of Eye's second offense, she was burned as a relapsed heretic. One of the churchman, a well-known Oxford scholar, was hung, drawn & quartered; another died in the Tower.

Gloucester laid low throughout the whole nasty business and let Eleanor face her accusers alone. (I like to think he made the plea for the servants.) Being royalty, he was conveniently "unmarried" a second time on the basis that Eleanor must have used sorcery on him from the beginning.

I had great fun with Eleanor Cobham and the Duke of Gloucester, who both appear as secondary characters in my new book, KNIGHT OF PASSION. I'd love to hear your comments or answer questions.

* Historical photos courtesy of Wikipedia