I was lucky to enjoy much success over the years as a biographer & so surprised by joy when these #Regency historical romances sprang from my brain My late-flowering - Jan '23, The Marriage Season, to my latest, The Reluctant Debutante, Jun '25. I've had a ball thanks to you all #books #regency

Love this! And the feisty Fairfaxes are so close to ✨1000✨ reviews now which is just incredible! 😭 Huge thanks to everyone who has bought, reviewed and made my writing year - Josephine’s story is out Feb’ 26 and might just be my fave… 🥰 ⚔️

#OTD 30th Aug 1797 Mary Shelley was born, daughter of radical philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft & William Godwin, lover then wife of radical poet Percy Bysshe Shelley & blessed with her own genius as creator of a new literary genre & author of Frankenstein (illus. Angela Barrett) #romantics #book

Witches, war, & espionage collide in 1940s Cambridge. "Her Darkest Hour is a beautifully written historical fantasy that brings a unique twist to the WWII era." 5-Stars mybook.to/HerDarkestHour #historicalfantasy #WW2 #readingcommunity #witches

As the blessed rain begins to fall, grab yourself an uplifting read about a scarred hero of the Napoleonic wars, a wild-swimming country spinster & a foundling who finds her family. Costs less than a coffee & is better for the heart. My late summer bunch from the garden - dahlias + roses #Regency

I LOVE portraits & auctions & found this vibrant young man by G. de Sanctis (1858-1924) whose bread & butter was painting aloof Belle Époque women. This portrait is different, bursting with vitality & love, surely a special friend? Signed "a-mon-ami-Padova" Reader, I bought him!

I love this rose so much I'm a bore & want to share it with everyone. La Rose du Petit Prince is French (2009) & flowers continuously (photo this am) Very big but the gorgeous huge lilac blooms make up for that. Not as much scent as I like but is disease-resistant & magnificent #gardens #roses

Regency fun and games - and such pretty covers too!

I can't resist messing about in the garden & sticking flowers in a vase then plonking my books, or books I'm reading, in the picture. Here my 2nd, Unsuitable Heiress, whose characters Corinna, Alick, Ferdy & Lord Purfoy return in my 5th, The Accidental Debutante #Regency @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

400 reviews/ratings 2 mths after publication! Thank you to my wonderful readers who joined me on a Great Romantic Escape from the world's reality - & cared enough to review it. It makes such a difference.Thank you all #readers #bloggers #reviewers #bookcommunity @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

I love my jackdaws. They nest in our chimneys & rear their young on our lawn, now just a mossy, bald patch! I put out water for them but when they bathed in it I gave them an old baking tin as a pool. They splash about. I'm not a good enough photographer to capture them but Birdfun on YouTube is

If you like your heroes strong and silent, letting actions speak louder than words then Raven Purfoy is your man! If we're lucky, the author might smile on us and show us his face from a drawing she commissioned 🤞

In my latest The Accidental Debutante we're off to the circus! My heroine, lost as a child in Bath, is found by the circus & trained as a trick rider. She runs away to find her family & finds much more - friendship, love, adventure, danger - the joy in living. #Regency #books #readers

So proud of my brilliant daughter @lilydunn.bsky.social and have already pre-ordered!

Just finished The Invention of Charlotte Brontë @grahamwatson.bsky.social what a tour de force! Such scholarship & beautifully written too, rich with feeling & insight with the momentum of a thriller. 2 literary giants, C Brontë & Mrs Gaskell, utterly unalike yet forever united - & seen anew

Sundays when you're an old rescue whippet - well every day really! Just an old sofa for your use alone, with a nice bank of comfy cushions and a faux fur blanket. Mmmm... wake me up for supper #sunday #RescueDogs #whippet

My #Regency flowering - thanks to brilliant @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social 6 yrs old today. They publish my books with such éclat I've had a ridiculous amount of fun! The latest is The Accidental Debutante (Jun) I'm filled with huge gratitude to them, & all #readers #reviewers #bloggers #retweeters🙏

My wonderful daughter @lilydunn.bsky.social on a proof drop with publisher @manchesterup.bsky.social for her next book 'Into Being: The Radical Craft of Memoir & its Power to Transform' (pub Oct) She teaches memoir & her own memoir 'The Sins of my Father' was a Guardian Book of the Year #book

I'm in the drought-stricken SE and thought my garden had had its last hurrah - but no! I picked these this morning. Some roses are still going strong, lovely salvias of course, dahlias, astilbe & Russian sage - and ever-pretty-in-lime, alchemilla mollis. #gardening #Roses

No 2 in Audio Regency Romance Charts. Hurrah! I hope it's not too childish but I so love being the Resistance to the Bridgerton tsunami & with my 4 last novels in the top 40, thanks to you wonderful listeners. Thanks too - Richard Attlee superb narrator & @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

Secrets of the Rose by @nicolacornick.bsky.social is such a wonderful book, beautifully written with a true sense of history, drama & deep emotion, set in atmospheric Bamburgh on the Northumberland coast, I thought I'd give it a floral tribute with what remains in my drought-stricken garden

To get no 1 in the Regency charts in the US is quite some achievement. So well deserved Michelle @michkenneybooks.bsky.social #Regency #Romance #bookcommunity #readers

How I love a story of sisters & @michkenneybooks.bsky.social has conjured up four sparky modern-minded Fairfax girls. The dialogue's quick-fire, plot complex & satisfying, the men heroic & rich. Good-hearted & good fun. Well done! A great escape on a hot day, with a cuppa in the shade. #Regency

The precious little Bestseller flag's still flying. My new book (pub 14th June) is only holding on thanks to all you wonderful #readers #reviewers #bloggers #retweeters likers and supporters in this terrific #book community. Thank you all🙏 & super-publisher @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

Climbing rose Ophelia decided it was too hot to climb & long branches flopped down from the shed wall, the flowers & buds in varying degrees of maturity & colour. I cut them at 9 last night & photographed them despite the low light as they looked lovely #gardening #Roses #heatwaveuk

Some authors don't care to listen to audio versions of their books. I absolutely LOVE mine. Richard Attlee (legendary soap hero Kenton Archer) does a terrific job with my latest, "The Accidental Debutante", adding a whole new layer of meaning & pleasure @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social #Regency #book

My windblown roses in evening light. We are so short of rain in the SE of England and today a brisk warm wind heralds the next heatwave. However, the scent is lovely. #gardening #rose

11 days' old, & this unexpected pleasure - Bestseller in Historical Regency Fiction! - So grateful to all the wonderful readers, bloggers, reviewers, supporters & retweeters. It's lonely work but lovely when something connects 💕 #writerscommunity #books #BloggingCommunity #readerscommunity

My new #Regency just pub @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social . Eliza Gray is lost aged 7 on the streets of Bath to be saved by the circus & trained as a trick rider. At 18 she runs away to find her family & discovers more than she bargained for, but achieves all her heart could ever desire #romance #books

Happy Publication Day, Emma Orchard for your wonderful book, To Catch a Lord. Fast-paced adventure & a delightfully layered love story with helpings of scandal, wickedness & danger on the side. I raise my curly brimmed hat to you! @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social #Regency #Romance #Books

So grateful, Carla, for your time and thoughtfulness and the lovely review! I'm delighted you've read and enjoyed other books in this series. Love that you love the horses too. Thank you so much! @carlalovestoread.bsky.social @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social #regency

Thank you so much Carla @carlalovestoread.bsky.social for this lovely review. I'm so glad you enjoyed the horses - the Ferraris of the Regency! Writers are hugely grateful for bloggers who give so much time and thought to their books Thank you! @rararesources.bsky.social @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

Just read this truly sparkling novel, 'To Catch a Lord'. Wonderfully layered love story with helpings of scandal, wickedness & danger on the side. Pub June 21 & full of terrific characters, romance & authentic language. Congratulations Emma! boldwoodbooks.bsky.social @dianabeaumont.bsky.social

The legendary Boldwood Biscuits have arrived,this means it's Publication day for 'The Accidental Debutante'. Fellow @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social authors have persuaded me to scoff them rather than be a Miss Havisham with my cobwebby mementoes. They're delicious too! Thank you Enchanting Bakes #books

#OTD 13 June 1893 was born innovative writer & scholar, Dorothy Sayers, creator of the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. She made real her fantasy of the heroic Englishman, nobly born, very rich, very clever, very droll, a war hero & the perfect lover. She also translated Dante's Inferno #book #sayers

All my writing life I spent 3-4 yrs researching then writing each biography. In my late-flowering into #Regency delights I can hardly believe I've published 5 novels since Jan'23 (half a million words!) My latest 'The Accidental Debutante' (Jun 14) 💖 @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social #Romance

Saying it with roses! My new cover with flowers from my garden, 'The Accidental Debutante' (Jun 14) is about all kinds of love; love of family, of friends, love at first sight, passionate love, conjugal love, love of home & land, love of horses, of literature & of life @boldwoodbooks.bsky.social

Photographed in warm evening light yesterday (no filters) this extravagance of colour, scent & bees is my view from my desk. Delighted to find a clump of short green-white foxgloves have appeared out of the blue, perfect height with roses - main one, Duchess of Cornwall #garden

In my new #Regency (Jun 14) will Eliza Gray, orphan runaway from the circus, accept the hand of the cool English aristocrat, whose curricle runs her over, or the American heir to a New World fortune, who uses her as a jockey in the greatest horse race? Thrills, spills & rivalry. #romance #newbook

Thank you so much @lewislibrary4052.bsky.social for this wonderful review. I’m particularly thrilled you have read and enjoyed my other books too. I do appreciate your posting this so I could see it. Thank you 🙏🏻🥰

In my new #Regency The Accidental Debutante (Jun 14) my hero & heroine share a secret understanding over a shared love of Lord #Byron's swaggering epic,'The Corsair'. Heroine Eliza Gray thinks in spirit Lord Purfoy is the Corsair & Lord P is happy with the flattering allusion #Romance

Letters are the social glue of the #Regency carrying every message from simple appointments to soaring paeans of love. In my new novel, The Accidental Debutante (pub 14 June) my heroine discovers lost family & new love through unexpected letters more precious than gold #romance #books

I'm just so surprised & ridiculously pleased that Amazon Audio Regency Charts in UK show my A Lady's Fortune & A Scandalous Match continuing to resist the Bridgerton tsunami & my 1st, The Marriage Season, at no 2 in "Most Wished For"! Wonderful narrators create new works of art. Thank You All 🙏

#OTH 30 May 1820 Anna Sewell was born. Her only book 'Black Beauty' was published in 1877, just 5 months before she died. Written for adults, she hoped it would improve the welfare of animals, particularly of the gentle horse, too often subject to cruelty & neglect. #books #horse #animal

In my new #Regency 'The Accidental Debutante' (14 June) a young orphan runs away from the circus which picked her off the streets of Bath when she was a child. With only her skill as a trick rider, her unusual beauty & courage to commend her, she finds family & love, in every guise #romance #book

The humble sisyrinchium, grows anywhere (probably not a favourite of the Chelsea Flower Show) Here with a rude red oriental poppy brought by the birds, allium, self-seeded foxgloves & geranium. Roses & clematis on the wall. Photographed just now before the rain. The joy of the random #gardening

The sun beginning to shine on my ancient brick and flint wall wreathed with early roses, still mostly buds, with a blackbird behind me practising its liquid song. Summer is a-coming in. #gardening #summer

In my next #Regency novel, The Reluctant Debutante (published Jun 14) my heroine, Eliza, has the distinctive beauty of differently coloured eyes. Heterochromia iridum is due to a benign genetic variation which leads Eliza Gray to her lost family & to love #newbook #Historical #Romance

#OTD 20 May 1904 Wonderful Margery Allingham was born. She wrote "the thriller proper is a work of art as delicate and precise as a sonnet" & John Le Carré sent a telegram to a journalist "Allingham marvellous but greatly REPEAT GREATLY underplays herself. She is a great writer" #books #crime

Just been out deadheading & noticed the lovely late slanting sun on these pale blue irises. 2 yrs ago we took up random squares of paving stones & planted our overflow of bearded iris corms & they've expanded! Here they look joyful & luminous in the soft evening light #gardening