In loco parentis: A comparison of 19th century and 20th century coeducation
Introduction: I confess, that like many historical fiction writers, I often choose my characters and plots as a way to explore certain subjects. For instance, my primary goal in starting to write my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series was to further explore and tell stories about the women I had studied for my history doctorate. Consequently, during the past ten years I have researched jobs women held in a variety of occupations including domestic service, spiritualism, public school teaching, the printing industry, and department stores. However, while doing the research about public school teaching for Bloody Lessons, the third book in my mystery series, I discovered that the University of California had opened up its door to women in 1870, and I decided that at some point I would like to see what life was like for women attending a coeducational Read more…
Scholarly Pursuits Now Available for Pre-order
“Something is rotten in the state of Berkeley” –1881 Blue and Gold Yearbook, University of California: Berkeley In Scholarly Pursuits, the sixth full-length novel in the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Locke explores life on the University of California: Berkeley campus in 1881, where Laura and her friends face the remarkably modern problems of fraternity hazings, fraught romantic relationships, and fractious faculty politics. While Annie and Nate Dawson and friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse await a blessed event, Laura Dawson finds herself investigating why a young Berkeley student dropped out of school in the fall of 1880. No one, including her friend Seth Timmons, thinks this is a good idea, since she is juggling a full course load with a part-time job, but she can’t let the question of what happened to her friend go Read more…
New Historical Mystery Anthology
For over eight years I have been an active member of the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, a group that now has over 52 members and over 280 books in our catalog. One of the popular sub-genres that a number of us write is historical mysteries and five of us decided to put together an anthology of shorter works as a way of introducing our different historical mystery series. This collaborative project was great fun, with everyone helping in choosing the content, coming up with the title, creating the cover, editing, formatting the interior, proofing the text, and writing the product description. And unlike the old joke that getting writers to cooperate is like herding cats, this was a very smooth and organized operation. I am proud to announce that here is the result, a 495 page books filled with 3 Read more…
Dandy Delivers: A new novella
Dandy, the Boston Terrier in my Victorian San Francisco Mysteries series, modeled on the Bostons in my own life, has always been one of my favorite characters. He was the first to get his own short story, Dandy Detects, and he always makes sure to show up in my longer books, if only for a cameo appearance. For some time, however, he has wanted to have another starring role, and I found that before I could get serious about writing the next novel in the series (title Scholarly Pursuits, estimated publication date some time this fall), I had to write this story, which became Dandy Delivers. As with Kathleen Catches a Killer (my most recent story in this series), this started out to be a short story and turned into a short novella, which means that I will price it at Read more…
Valentine’s Day Promotion
Bloody Lessons Is free: Since Bloody Lessons, the third book in my Victorian San Francisco series, features Valentine’s day (as Uneasy Spirits is set during Halloween, Deadly Proof during a July 4th celebration, and Pilfered Promises during the Thanksgiving to Christmas holidays) I have decided to offer it free, as a perfect Valentine for you to give to yourself or someone you love. It is Free on US Kindle, International Kindle, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and GooglePlay until 2/15, and if you get the Kindle ebook version, the audiobook edition is discounted to $7.49. Plus, don’t forget there is also a lovely paperback edition for those of you who still enjoy print. In addition, for those of you who missed the blog post I did on Victorian Valentine celebrations and the writing of Bloody Lessons, check out this blog post I Read more…
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