Hello and welcome to my blog!
Why have I chosen to start this blog? Because I’d like you to join me on a visit to Kensington, London, during the Victorian era. This is where the sleuth of my new cozy mystery series, eighteen-year-old Lucy Turner, lives with her widowed mother Herbertina (“Hebe”) Compton Turner.
As the story starts, Lucy is in love with a newly-minted barrister named William Schwenk Gilbert. He’s tall, blond, handsome, and unfortunately thinks of her only as the young girl who lives down the street from his parents’ house.
If his name sounds familiar to you, you’re right – he is William S. Gilbert, who will later achieve fame as half of Gilbert and Sullivan, creators of such enduring works as The Mikado, Patience, and the Pirates of Penzance. But as my tales begin, that fame and fortune is all in the future.
It has been said that the past is a foreign country, and I believe that is so. Even though we all share the same human needs, desires, traits and foibles as our ancestors, it’s also true that their daily lives were different from ours in interesting, puzzling, and sometimes quaint ways.
So come along with me and we’ll explore the 19th Century – or at least the part of it that took place during the reign of Queen Victoria. Here are some of the topics I expect to cover:
At table – recipes and dietary practices
At home – family and daily life
Notes from abroad – travelers and foreigners
Arts and crafts – the Aesthetic Movement, the Impressionists, and Art Nouveau
Medicine – doctors and midwives
Love and marriage
Religion and spirituality
Feminism and the role of women
Gilbert and Sullivan
My characters
Mystery writing
Mourning
Theater and entertainment
Then and now – our perceptions of the Victorians
Crime, poverty, reform and charity
Technology and science
Movies/films set in the Victorian era
Novels and books that are set in the Victorian era
I am planning to update the blog twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So glad you’ve stopped by! I hope you’ll visit again.
