What do angels and geese have in common? Today I’m at Romancing the Past, blogging about why the answer is September 29, also known as Michaelmas, one of the British quarter days.

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And a reminder that there’s still time to enter to win a $20 gift card or a copy of my upcoming release, A Tryst With Trouble, at Nite Lite Book Reviews. To enter the contest via Rafflecopter, click here to jump to the Nite Lite site. The deadline for entry is A Tryst With Trouble‘s release date, September 23.

Today I’m at Romancing the Past, blogging about why 19th century portraits often depict young boys in dresses, and how you can tell the boys from the girls.

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What was a tufthunter, and whose tuft was he hunting? I’m at Romancing the Past today, discussing the social pecking order at Oxford University during the regency.

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Today, just in time for St. Agnes’s Eve, I’m at Romancing the Past, discussing St. Agnes: how she became the patron saint of virgins, and the rituals an unmarried girl can follow on the eve of St. Agnes’s Day if she hopes to see a vision of her future husband.

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How did Edinburgh medical man Dr. Robert Knox find his way into a jeering nineteenth-century jump rope rhyme, and why did Dr. Hunter have a young woman in his wicker basket?

With Halloween fast approaching, I’m at Romancing the Past today, discussing the ghastly business of body snatching. Click here to jump to the post.

What did the Earl of Winchilsea say that made the Duke of Wellington challenge him to a duel? I’m at Romancing the Past today, blogging about nasty political disputes of the eighteenth century. Stop by to read about Winchilsea and Wellington, plus why American president Andrew Jackson was the Chuck Norris of his day.

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I’m at the Romancing the Past site today, blogging about famous portrait-sitters. Click here to read what was expected of a good portrait artist, including the highly unusual request Oliver Cromwell made of painter Peter Lely.

I’m at Romancing the Past for my July visit, this time blogging about Sarah, Lady Archer, and why she was a favorite target of late Georgian caricaturists like Gillray and Rowlandson. Was it her politics, her gambling, her looks?

Or was it that nobody puts Lady Archer in a corner?

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Today I’m at Romancing the Past, blogging about nicknames of the regency.  Stop by to learn how Thomas Raikes came to be called Apollo, and why Balloon Foley probably hated his nickname.

 

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I’m blogging today at Romancing the Past about an issue dear to the regency politician-hero of Ruined by Rumor, my Monday release: capital punishment. In Great Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, more than 200 different crimes were punishable by death, and many of them were non-violent, even trivial offenses.

And here’s a fun fact: did you know that 177 years after Britain last burned a man at the stake for heresy, it was still burning women? Click here to learn why.