Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

As a historical romance writer, I’m familiar with the argument that Victorians invented the modern Christmas. While that might be a bit of an overstatement, it’s true enough to say that many of the holiday traditions we observe today were introduced by the Victorians. The Christmas tree—a tradition imported by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German-born consort during the 1840s—is probably the best-known example. Christmas cards are another. First designed in 1843, they became increasingly popular as the century progressed, especially after the halfpenny postage rate was introduced.   In 1880, 11.5 million Christmas cards were produced. The Victorian Age also produced its share of memorable Christmas stories, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) chief among them. And a wealth of actual Christmas carols, many of which are still sung today. Although I’ve been known to grouse about the onslaught of Christmas songs broadcast over speakers rig...

We hope you have a happy holiday with your friends and family, and we'd like to share some of our favorite Christmas memories and traditions. Shana Galen (The Viscount of Vice) My favorite tradition is reading Christmas stories with my daughter. Some of our favorites are 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Bear Stays Up, and Room for a Little One. There's nothing that says Christmas to me more than snuggling with my little one, reading and talking. Hope your Christmas is warm and cozy too! Mia Marlowe (A Rake by Any Other Nam e) I'd like to second Shana's tradition. My girls and I have always enjoyed read-aloud time and Christmas books have been some of our favorites. We laughed together through Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. We wept over Van Dyke's The Other Wise Man. When you share a book with a child, you share a whole world. What's more powerful than that? May you...

Mother's Day is tomorrow and flowers are a popular gift. So this seems like the appropriate time to talk about the traditional language of roses...and catfish! Did you know that since Victorian times, the different color of roses had different meanings? For Mother's Day, at least in the South, it is traditional to a wear red rose corsage on Mother's Day to signify a living mother, and white roses to honor a mother who is no longer alive. My mother passed three years ago in February and there are several lovely white buds on my rose bush out in the yard this year. I think they will be full blown by tomorrow. When she passed my sister went through the ancient suitcase that held all her pictures and divided them up three ways. One for each of Mama's three kids...bless her heart, that couldn't have been an easy task. I know because I haven't touched that white plastic box she brought over here until today. I went looking for a good picture of Mama ...