by Regan Walker
The comments that William Wilberforce and William Pitt made at the reception Joanna’s brother gave for the Prime Minister are accurate. Wilberforce, recording his thoughts of their trip to France, did, indeed, find the young Marie Antoinette charming and the king a bit of an oaf. Louis and Marie Antoinette had come to the throne very young. One might forgive them, save for the result.
Because I know many of you will ask, all the taverns and restaurants referred to by name existed at the time. The Angel Posting House in Surrey, Lidstone’s and the Crown & Anchor on Guernsey and The Devil’s Tavern on the London quay were all real establishments. The Devil’s Tavern did, in fact, have a dubious reputation as a favorite of smugglers and pirates. As I have portrayed it, the tavern had a flagstone floor and the bar was pewter-topped. (The tavern, rebuilt after a later fire, exists today under another name.) And, of course, Twinings Tea Room had opened in 1706 and was in business when Joanna and Cornelia stopped in for tea.
The food, drink and dress of the time are all authentic. Breakfast in France at the time was called “déjeuner”, not “petit-déjeuner”, as we might refer to it today.
The clothing was in transition from the mid-eighteenth century to the Regency era, and Marie Antoinette greatly influenced the fashion of her day. The chemise dress or gown Joanna wore was a style pioneered by the French queen amid much controversy for its rather flimsy appearance. Should you be wondering, Marie Antoinette was a redhead, a strawberry blonde to be precise.
In the late eighteenth century, the men still wore their hair long and queued at their nape, unless shaved for the wearing of a wig. And powdered hair was in vogue.
The ships and the ports of Guernsey, Lorient, La Rochelle and Le Havre are portrayed as accurately as research allows. Guernsey is today part of the Channel Islands, but at the time they were called “the French Isles”. Versailles, of course, had been a lavish place since Louis XIV and the Hall of Mirrors breathtaking.
It is my hope you will feel as if you traveled back in time and experienced late eighteenth century England and France.
One thing not in my story is the French slave trade, which was booming in this period. (The French were the third largest slave traders.) The ports of Lorient and Le Havre were busy with slavers. Le Havre was the major slave-trading port. From there, African captives were delivered to French colonies in the Caribbean. (While William Wilberforce became an Evangelical Christian in the summer of 1784, he did not begin to oppose slavery for several years after my story.) I did not include the slave trade issue because I feared it would swamp the story. Neither Jean nor Joanna would have approved, of course, but to get into that would have added many pages. Who knows? It might pop up in the next book in the trilogy.
I invite you to visit my Pinterest board for Echo in the Wind: There you can view maps and pictures of the ports and significant places, items unique to the era and the characters as I see them. It’s my research in pictures!
I love to hear from readers. Contact me via my website, and I promise to answer. There, you can also sign up for my newsletter. Each quarter, I give away one of my books to a lucky reader who signs up.
If you want to read Claire Donet’s story, it’s in To Tame the Wind. And if you want to read about her eldest son, Jean Donet’s grandson, Jean Nicholas Powell, it’s in Wind Raven.
Coming next in 2017: A Secret Scottish Christmas, book 4 in my Regency series, the Agents of the Crown. This is the story of the Powell twin brothers who vie for the love of Miss Aileen Stephen, sister of William Stephen, the handsome Scottish shipbuilder who is the hero in The Holly & The Thistle.
What was at first to be the Donet Duology is now going to be the Donet Trilogy. In 2018, I’ll be writing Zoé Donet’s story, A Fierce Wind, set in France and England during the time of the French Revolution.
Author’s Bio
Regan Walker is an award-winning, Amazon #1 bestselling author of Regency, Georgian and Medieval romances. A lawyer turned full-time writer, she has six times been featured on USA TODAY’s HEA blog and nominated six times for the prestigious RONE award (her novel, The Red Wolf’s Prize won Best Historical Novel for 2015 in the Medieval category). Her novel The Refuge: An Inspirational Novel of Scotland won the Gold Medal in the Illumination Awards in 2017.
Years of serving clients in private practice and several stints in high levels of government have given Regan a love of international travel and a feel for the demands of the “Crown”. Hence her romance novels often involve a demanding sovereign who taps his subjects for special assignments. Each of her novels features real history and real historical figures. And, of course, adventure and love.
Keep in touch with Regan on Facebook, and join Regan Walker’s Readers.
You can sign up for her newsletter on her website.
Books by Regan Walker
The Agents of the Crown series:
To Tame the Wind (prequel)
Racing with the Wind
Against the Wind
Wind Raven
A Secret Scottish Christmas (coming in 2017)
The Donet Trilogy:
To Tame the Wind
Echo in the Wind
A Fierce Wind (coming in 2018)
Holiday Novellas (related to the Agents of the Crown):
The Shamrock & The Rose
The Twelfth Night Wager
The Holly & The Thistle
The Medieval Warriors series:
The Red Wolf’s Prize
Rogue Knight
Rebel Warrior
King’s Knight
www.ReganWalkerAuthor.com
