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The third in Lillian Marek's Victorian Adventures series,   A Scandalous Adventure , is finally out! Check out an excerpt from the book! *** Lady Susannah burst into their hotel sitting room and marched furiously about, her hoops swinging wildly about her, endangering the ornaments cluttering the numerous small tables. It was most unladylike behavior. She did not care. She did not feel ladylike at the moment. Far from it. “Of all the improper, infuriating, arrogant, high-handed, overweening, pompous, insolent…” She pressed her lips tightly together. “Have you run out of adjectives, dear?” asked Lady Augusta as she untied her bonnet and set it aside. “That was exciting, was it not? Positively exhilarating. But now, if you will excuse me, I believe I will take a short nap. Enjoyable though that little interlude was, I am not accustomed to so much excitement.” She smiled cheerfully at the girls and walked to her bedroom. “Oh dear,” said Olivia. “Did we hurry back too quickly? ...

Launch Day is weird. Okay, the book is out there. There’s nothing more I can do about it, but I feel as if there’s something I ought to be doing. Is there some protocol for nervous authors? I don’t want to find myself checking the rankings on Amazon every ten minutes or so in hopes that somebody has actually bought the book. Yes, I know, this is silly, but it’s hard to resist. I certainly don’t want to Google the book’s title to see if there are any reviews. That’s really not a good idea. If there’s a new review, it might not be a good one. Then I would be depressed, and that’s even worse than being nervous. I don’t want to stare out the window all day, feeling as if there ought to be something happening out there. I know what I’ll see. Nothing. Nada. So I could do what I usually do when I’m a nervous wreck: I will cook. Preferably something wildly elaborate that I have never made before and will take me HOURS. I have a recipe for a pâté that has seventeen different ingredients, inclu...

Some years ago, I came across a treasure trove—four Baedeker guides from 1887. Maybe that isn’t everyone’s idea of a treasure, but it certainly is mine. I don’t think it was those guidebooks that gave me the idea to have my Victorian characters go off traveling for their adventures, but they did remind me that guidebooks are a wonderful source for research. You can find out how people got from place to place, where they might stay, what they would see. Guide books also tell you something about the people who were traveling too. People have always moved around the globe, but generally for a reason. Wealthy gentlemen in the 17th and 18th centuries might go on the Grand Tour to round out their education, and starting in the 18th century people like Lizzie Bennett and the Gardiners might go touring—with a guidebook to tell them which houses were worth looking at. As an aside, I’ve always thought it must be rather fun to be a nobleman who could go up to a house belon...