This week, I locked myself in my ivory tower and...

That's a joke. I don't have an ivory tower, I have children. However, I did lock myself out of my email and Facebook etc etc etc until I finished my manuscript. The exciting news.... IT'S DONE!!! Yay!!! I prioritized family and my son's graduation this spring, so I really had to stay up late and write until my fingers burned in order to meet my writing deadlines.

Many of you came to me through the promise of Magical Libraries or my readers-choice-favorite creepy-cozy novelette, The Horned Women, or even my fairy tale romance, The Boat on the Lake of Regret.

My new series coming out is Regency romance, and I thought I would introduce "The Bonnet Brigade" in the context of the fairy tales that so many of you already know and love.

Both series give you a similar emotional reading experience

These are the main things that so bring readers to my books:

• Character driven (but with enough plot to keep things moving!)
• Unique, immersive setting (I'm taking you to some new places with this series!)
• Lovable characters. Always.

It's very important to know how much tea you're going to encounter in a book, isn't it? The answer: a lot. (My latest book has the most tea of all because it's set in Istanbul. Did you know the Turkish drink the most tea per capita in the world, approximately twice as much as #2 — who are the Irish?)

We also have Found Family high for both — my books are always about people coming together.

Friendship & Community — each book has a central friendship or family-love relationship that grounds and drives the story. If you want to know a secret 🤫... my secondary characters always get away from me and become more intense and three-dimensional than I planned. It's a good problem to have!

But there are some differences:

Cozy vs Grimdark

I deliberately wrote my Castle in Kilkenny: Fairy Tales as high-stakes cozy fantasy. So there's plenty of plot, but I was careful not to use curse words, describe battles, or show blood on the page. Sometimes it's important to pick up a book and know that there aren't going to be any startling images.

I would say that The Bonnet Brigade is one click over from that. It's still a happy, relaxing genre, but they're also rooted in history. These books do show glimpses of the gritty side of life.... because the point is to show how humans make it through, connect, and become better and stronger together.

However, I still promise that I'm not getting gory — and the dogs and the children are ALWAYS OKAY!!

Time Period

My Castle in Kilkenny books are set in the present day and Heroic Ireland. Some include a time slip, and one slips to 1531.

My Bonnet Brigade books are set starting in 1820. (Special interest obsession incoming...)

I find the extended Regency the most fascinating period (ever), on the cusp of a truly modern world. It was the beginning of industrialization, the beginning of empire-building, a monumental change in the role of the aristocracy and the middle class. There were waves of migration — from farms to cities, into America and Australia, and cultural mixing all around the globe as ships traveled farther and more efficiently. Advances in education, medicine, and the role of women changed the entire way society operated. I also find it fascinating how Regency society was more open-minded, creative, and flexible than the Victorians who came a few decades later.

I could go on and on. I have been studying 19th-century Europe since high school, spent most of my college years immersed in it, and kept studying through my adulthood.... liberally aided by well-researched novels, which are my absolute favorite type of education. (I had been reading Regency for decades before I found out that many people choose it for the clothes and the witty banter. Huh.)

Real World Vs Escapist World

The Castle in Kilkenny is definitely MORE escapist, because there are Fae — although it's still set in the real world.

But as a reader, I feel like historical fiction is also an escapist world, especially when it's nice and far back, but not so far that I've got to struggle to imagine how things would look. (See previous paragraph re: my life-long obsession with 19th century fiction.)

So I put those on two different places in the mid-range of that slider.

No Magic vs Complex Magic System

The Bonnet Brigade is not magical at all. Castle in Kilkenny has a light magic system, like magical realism.

Plot forward & high tropes vs Literary form & language

By pretty much all standards, I fall right in the middle. It's classic up-market fiction.

Sad tears & Nightmare vs Happily Ever After

My dear friends, I ALWAYS want to make you think, feel, and happy at the end of my books!