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This is the second of Frances Evesham’s Thatcham Hall Mysteries, 19th Century historical mystery romances set in Victorian England. It continues the story begun in An Independent Woman, in which Philomena, a woman from a lower class escaped London dressed as a boy, meets, falls in love with and later marries Hugh, Lord Thatcham. In this second novel, Olivia Martin, a thoroughly headstrong but impoverished young woman, is looking forward with dread to life as a governess and music teacher to support herself. While out for a walk, she is rescued from a cow, which she thinks is a bull, by Nelson Roberts, an up-and-coming lawyer from London. Together they discovered the body of a local farmhand. Roberts has been retained by Lord Thatcham to investigate attacks on his livestock and thefts of personal items from Thatcham Hall, a country house in Victorian England . The lawyer has been embittered by his role as an officer in the war in Afghanistan and has been jilted by his fiancée, so he approaches this task in a dark state of mind. Now he has the now added responsibility of discovering the truth of what happened to the farm hand. As in the first book, there is more or less instant attraction between the two protagonists, although they are reluctant to acknowledge it, except to themselves. Olivia, upon being brought home by Roberts, hies herself off to Thatcham Hall for a previously arranged and convenient visit, hoping to see him again. There she is to spend time with the aforementioned Philomena and Hugh, as well as Miss Selena Dainty, Lord Thatcham’s only sister. She is a beauty with blond ringlets and blue eyes of whom Olivia cannot help but be jealous, especially of Selena’s prospects for the future. Mr. Roberts begins his investigation, but circumstances keep throwing Olivia into his path, and eventually they combine forces to solve the various mysterious threads of the story. Various well-drawn and interesting characters begin to accumulate on the list of suspects: old witchy old woman, who knows and uses herbs as drugs, and her semi-wild grandson living in a hovel in the woods near Thatcham Hall; the baker’s daughter, who is pregnant and claims to have been seduced by a servant at Thatcham Hall; Major Lovell, an army officer with whom Roberts is well acquainted and to whom Miss Dainty is attracted. The reader quickly senses his evil nature. I can’t say more without giving away important details. Roberts and Olivia alternate between confrontation and attraction for most of the book. Some of this seems a bit contrived, as is their sudden attraction, and I found this the most tedious aspect of the book. However, Olivia’s independence and spunkiness was refreshing against the backdrop of societal propriety. The author has done a wonderful job in her descriptions of the customs, mores and dress of the times; I was fully drawn into the world of Thatcham Hall. She has also done a good job of creating and tying together her main plot and subplots, leaving good surprises both along the way and at the end. This book was overall a good read, and I can recommend it to lovers of this genre. About the author: In addition to historical mystery romances, Frances Evesham has written books on speech and language, and parenting and communication, which she can practice with her growing collection of grandsons. She’s been a speech therapist, a professional communication expert as well as road sweeper. She has also worked in the criminal courts. Now, she walks in the country and breathes sea air in Somerset. For fun, she collects Victorian ancestors and historical trivia, likes to smell the roses, lavender and rosemary, and cooks with a glass of wine in one hand and a bunch of chilies in the other. Danger at Thatcham Hall is available at Amazon, Amazon UK, and on Kindle: 0 0

This is a short story I posted last year. It happened during the summer, so it fits with my Summers in Plymouth Series. If you haven’t read it, I hope you enjoy it! It was time I learned to sail. At least that was what I’d been told by my father. He’d purchased an old wooden Turnabout, which lay with its bottom up on the lawn by the barn, mainmast, boom and sail stowed away. This doughty, barely ten foot sailing dinghy was what the kids at the yacht club liked to race on Saturdays. I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into sailing at all, let alone race, and those kids were a whole different group from the ones I hung around with at the pool every summer. Racing to me met hitting the water with a flat, belly-smacking dive, and powering myself to the other end, then making a turn and powering back. That required practice, and my summer days were already pretty full. “You’ll enjoy it,” Dad insisted and promptly enrolled me in the land classes to prepare for sailing. In the meantime, he handed me sandpaper and told me to take all the paint off the turnabout. It was hard work, and I managed to remove a lot of skin and a fingernail along with the paint. It didn’t help to hear “Sand with the grain, sand with the grain” every time Dad checked on me. By the time I’d finished to Dad’s satisfaction, a whole weekend had been consumed. Later that week, he caulked the boat, and the next evening we repainted it together, red again. I really wanted blue. At supper the following Saturday evening, Dad said, “Your classes begin Monday at nine. Mom will drop you off at the yacht club and pick you up at noon.” “But Dad, do I have to? You know we have a big meet next Saturday. I need to be working on my intervals.” “Nonsense. It won’t matter if you miss morning practice. It’s not the Olympics. There’s still the afternoon and you’re the fastest kid in your age group already.” As Mom ladled chop suey into my bowl, her latest attempt at creating international cuisine, she remarked, “Your Dad and I really enjoyed the Coast Guard course we took last year, and we thought since we live on the water, you should be more familiar with boats.“ My brother Jay stuck his tongue out, then made a face as he tried the chop suey. Yeah right, I thought. It’s just because Dad and the Commodore have become big buddies and Mom helps run the Yacht Club dinners. I’m going to look like a jerk, as usual. “How long is the course?” I asked. “Three mornings.” “But Mom….” “Then you go out in the boat for a one-on-one class, and if you get the hang of it, you’ll be sailing by Friday. Won’t that be wonderful!” my Dad exclaimed. The next morning, I trudged up the gravel drive to the two story, weather-worn yacht club, pushed myself through the front door, and found a group of kids hanging around at one end of the dining room, where a chalk board had been set up. Hey, they’re all younger than me. Isn’t this just peachy? I sat as far away from the group as I could and still hear what was going on. The instructor showed up and moved to the chalk board. I noticed that he was one of the tall, good-looking young men I’d seen hanging around during the yacht club dinners, chatting, drinking Coke and lazily watching girls. He was bronzed by the sun from sailing and had windblown, wavy hair. I cringed. Just what I need. A Greek God to teach me sailing. In the last year, I’d shot up three inches and was gawky and clumsy. It didn’t help that at twelve, I was now taller than all the boys at my school and was called Miss Encyclopedia because I got good grades. I need to be swimming, I fumed. In the swimming pool, I’m someone. My teammates like me. There are even some younger kids who look up to me. Why am I here? The Greek God, whose name was Kevin, assembled the children around him. “Hey you, aren’t you in this class?” he asked me. “Yeah, I guess so.” “Well, you need to come closer and join the group. You need to be able see the board and take notes. I’ll be giving you a test at the end of the course and you have to pass it if you want to sail out of this club.” Oh joy, so nice to be singled out. I reluctantly moved to a chair at the end of the third row. A kid who looked like a kindergartener smirked at me as I sat down, picking the notebook and pencil up from the chair. During the next several hours, with breaks in between, Kevin covered a variety of topics. He started by teaching us to read a depth chart of the harbor. I was interested to see where the channels ran, how deep they were, and the shallow areas that were revealed as mud flaps (my brother’s interpretation of mud flats) at low tide. Then we progressed to the various parts of a sail boat, and Kevin showed us the different kinds of sailboats we would likely see in Plymouth harbor and explained their differences: a sloop, a ketch and a yawl, which looked a lot like a ketch (I could not for the life of me figure out the difference.) I found myself thinking, Darn, this stuff is interesting. And Kevin is sooo good-looking. I was itching to ask about the sails when Kevin said, “Okay, I think we will end for today. “Don’t forget to bring your notebook tomorrow. I’m going to teach you about sails.” I raced out the front door to the waiting station wagon. “How was your class?”

Thought you might enjoy this infographic on men vs women writers, while I’m living it up in Maine!  Please note this graphic was kindly provided by:https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check 0 0

This is a partial re-posting of a memoir piece I posted last year, perfect for Summers in Plymouth. When I was growing up, my year was always dominated by summer adventures. In late August, my mother’s sister and her husband and two boys would come for a visit. These visits were always awaited with great anticipation, since their oldest boy, Peter, was six months younger than I, while the youngest, Paul, was six months younger than my brother Jay. I could never figure out how Mom and her sister had managed this arrangement. We had built-in playmates for a week or two: Paul and Jay roomed together in my bedroom, while Peter and I were housed in the old servant’s quarters on our old house’s third floor, in a bedroom with twin beds under the eaves. After the first couple of days of the cousin invasion, the bloom was off the rose. Peter and I or Paul and Jay were either getting into trouble or fighting. Which raises the subject of punishment. Spoiling the child was never an issue for my parents. Mom had a Master’s degree in verbal tongue-lashing, while Dad was in charge of physical discipline. I had a “smart mouth” according to Mom, and trouble found Jay several times daily. Thus the switch, a thin green stick cut from a forsythia bush in the back yard, was frequently applied to our posteriors by Dad, with varying degrees of force and frequency, depending on the infraction. “Wait ’til your father gets home,” was an ominous sign of things to come. Pain never seemed to be an issue for Jay, who was hyperactive and barely responded to anything that hurt. The only time Mom wielded a whacking instrument to my brother was when in complete frustration she broke a yardstick on Jay’s backside. Part of the frustration was that Jay smiled all the way through its application. I, on the other hand, dreaded the switch, and only managed to avoid encountering it once over the years, when I hid under a bed. Our uncle was of like mind with our father, only he applied a belt to our cousins. The belt was an old black leather strap that hung in the kitchen closet in their home, but it traveled with them to Plymouth each summer. Each pair of cousins swore that what they experienced was worse, usually at the conclusion of a lengthy recounting of recent times the belt and switch had been used, the infractions that had called for their use, and the virtues of each form of punishment. All this ended during one of the cousin invasions when, exasperated to the limit by our behavior, our respective fathers gave us a choice: switch or belt. While Paul and Jay were on the receiving end of the belt and switch respectively, Peter and I sat down on the kitchen floor and recommenced our discussion of the merits of each of these instruments of torture. “Well?” my Dad asked, when our turn came. “I think I’ll take the switch,” I remember answering rather reluctantly. “I’m okay with the belt,” said Peter. Later that evening, with our backsides smarting from the latest insult, we collectively decided not to discuss our different forms of punishment again, just in case discussing them somehow elicited their use. As a parent, I never used a switch. When my children were little, they infrequently got one swat on their diapered rears for effect, but we mainly used time outs. Peter and I had another adventure I clearly remember – we took my turnabout, the Yama (it means ‘hurry’ in Bahamian) out to sail around Plymouth Harbor. We had a picnic with us and I figured we could land near the bird sanctuary at the end of the long spit of land that protects Plymouth harbor, anchor the boat and eat on the sandy beach. The birds had other plans. We were still about a quarter of a mile away when I noticed a gathering of gulls above us. As we drew nearer, they started to dive bomb us, at first just missing and then landing on Peter’s head and pecking him. I came about in a hurry and prayed the wind wouldn’t die down before we got far enough from the shore. Needless to say we ate on the Yama. I do remember when we got home, we had sunburns on half of our faces, depending on which side of the sail we’d sat on! 0 0

But just for two weeks! I am off to Plymouth and Maine, and promise to return with lots of photos and adventures to relate. Check my Facebook page for updates! PS I have a couple of posts that will show up while I’m gone… 0 0

To all my blogging friends from England, Ireland and other ports of call gathering in London this weekend: Have a wonderful time at the Blogger’s Bash! 0 0

For me, part of summer times in Plymouth was always spent learning about and being a Pilgrim. This is taken from a post I wrote in 2014 about Thanksgiving in Plymouth, but fits nicely into my current series. Don’t forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them! Dressed as a Pilgrim girl, I walked in the Pilgrim Progress. These are held on the first four Fridays in August, and local citizens dress as Pilgrims re-creating their procession to church. The number of persons, and their sexes and ages have been matched to the small group of Pilgrims who survived the first winter in the New World. We marched up Leyden Street, to the clicks of tourists’ cameras.   This picture is really old and the resolution is not good but that’s me in the pigtails and the too long dress, walking up Leyden Street. The following is a bit better and newer. Leyden Street was originally called First Street, and the Pilgrims began laying out the street before Christmas in 1620, while they were still living on the Mayflower. Leyden Street is believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited street in the original thirteen British colonies, and it extends from the shore of the harbor to the base of Burial Hill at the top of the street. Leyden Street in the 1800s Rogers, C. H. – Photographer Burial Hill is where the original fort was built. Town Brook, still bubbling along, is adjacent to the street and provided drinking water for the colonists. Leyden Street has been recreated at Plimoth Plantation. My parents enrolled me before I even hit my teens in classes taught at the Harlow House or the Old Fort House on Sandwich Street, about a half mile from the center of Plymouth. Sandwich Street is the old “heiway” connecting Plymouth with another early settlement, Sandwich, on the Cape. The house is a story and a half dwelling, clad in weathered shingles, with a gambrel roof and a large central chimney. Built in 1677, it is one of the few remaining 17th century buildings in Plymouth. It was built by William Harlow, a cooper, farmer and town official who also served as sergeant of the local militia; he was typical of the responsible, sober and hardworking men who carried on the pilgrim tradition in the second generation of the Plymouth Colony. Harlow was born in England about 1624 and first mentioned in Plymouth town records as a voter in 1646. Widowed twice and married three times, Harlow was the father of fourteen children, and it is generally considered that his house projects the Pilgrim home and way of life. Harlow or Old Fort House Harlow built the house with materials salvaged from the then-derelict fort on Burial Hill and is notable for its hand hewn beams. The interior has been restored and furnished appropriately for the time, and sitting inside with a fire in the fireplace, smelling the aroma of the house’s age, and thinking of the generations who lived there was a special experience. At the Harlow House, I learned how to wash, card and spin wool on the spinning wheel; skein, dye, and weave the wool on a loom, make bayberry candles and soap; cook over the fireplace fire (baked beans, fish cakes, chicken, corn bread.) To young girl, it was occasionally tiresome, but looking back, it was a very special experience. Of course, all of this was designed to create a group of teenagers ready to work as tour guides at various sites in the town. Which brings me to Plimoth Plantation, and recreation of the small farming and maritime community built by the Pilgrims along the shore of Plymouth Harbor as it existed in 1627, seven years after the arrival of Mayflower and just before the colonists began to disperse beyond the walled town and into other parts of what would become southeastern Massachusetts. Plimoth Plantation, another word for colony, was built on land about a quarter mile from my house, land that was very similar to that on which Leyden Street, the fort and Burial Hill were originally located. A reproduction of the Fort house was built at the top of Leyden Street When I was selected to be among the first tour guides there, it was a short ride in my Model A phaeton (my first car) to the parking lot. The first group of potential tour guides took a year-long course on all things Pilgrim before we were let loose on the public. We wore clothes that were designed for us, keeping as close as possible to the original dress. NO BUCKLES on the hats or shoes! The only thing changed was the fabric. The Pilgrims were wool at first, until linen could be woven, and so the powers that be took pity on us and we didn’t have to wear wool in the summer! I am starting the research for a historical novel about Mary Allerton Cushman, who sailed on the Mayflower at age 4 and who was the longest surviving Mayflower passenger, dying at the very old age (for that time) of 88. I’ll have more on this after my trip to Plymouth next month!   0 0

When I was growing up, my father would once or twice a month make what we called Saturday family announcements, such as “Today we’re going to clear land.” These pronouncements were made with a veiled threat of “or else” and all the imperiousness of his New England stock. If it weren’t for the fact that “the land” was about four acres, we kids might have laughed ourselves silly. There were five terraces leading up to our house, wild and full of brambles and wild blackberries. The lowest terrace, where our house had once been, based on the foundation walls we found there, was next to the main road, and it and the next one up had ancient apple trees that bore fruit sporadically. However, you put your pants and legs at risk if you wanted to eat one. The third terrace up was half-full of orange daylilies, which bloomed spectacularly in the summer and spread a little each year. The next terrace up contained even thicker bushes, and the terrace after, just before you got to the lawn, was where Dad had established a beachhead for brush burning. My father was determined to clear those terraces, and the fact that we couldn’t do this enormous job in one or two weekends a year meant that the brush never was truly removed; it just grew back to be cleared again. Nevertheless, Dad was undaunted, and we suffered on together in true pioneer form. We usually cleared the land in late spring/early summer or early fall, when it was warm and humid and the poison ivy was in full bloom. Dad would get a burning permit from the town and start bushwhacking early Saturday morning with his machete. Mom, my brother Jay, and I would find gloves and haul brush to the towering inferno below our lawn. In the early days, Dad wasn’t too good at recognizing poison ivy, and if we were really sweaty, he and I would come down with a good dose of it. Burning poison ivy also proved to be dangerous, since a good dose of the smoke would also cause insufferable itching. For some genetic reason, Jay and Mom were impervious to poison ivy, so I was also insufferably envious. Despite her lack of sensitivity to that evil weed, Mom found a great way to get out of the bush burning: she would haul brush for about 30 minutes and then retreat to the house, where she told us she had work to do. Dad believed her, and Jay and I would have been only too happy to join her. After each of these attempts to clear the land and despite the precautions taken – long sleeved shirts and long pants which became soaked with sweat – I never failed to be scratching away at my rash and wearing pink calamine lotion to social functions for the next week or so.   0 0

I met Anthony Vicino though his blog, One Lazy Robot. He writes perceptive and funny and helpful posts about the art of writing and also reviews of current movies and books in the sci-fi genre, most of them hysterical. I look forward to his posts and am frequently surprised by them. He also writes sci fi books and I love this genre, especially when it offers great concepts and a little humor, along with serious pathos. This is Anthony’s novella, Parallel. It begins with two wonderful characters, the super intelligent Hari and Gerald, long-time friends who accidently tear a hole in time and place. Then he takes the reader to the world of the Lenoreans. Here aliens have advanced millennia beyond humans in technology and mental ability, but suffer the same problems of limited resources – in this case, an energy source that is needed to save their world. When Hari and Gerald’s rift appears, Ryol is sent to investigate it on behalf of the Alliance to which her planet belongs. Ryol’s meeting with Hari and Gerald is comedic and wonderful. Unfortunately, she is followed to Earth by the insect- and war-like Gaesians, who want the energy source for themselves. The Gaesians plan to use it as leverage in their struggle with the Lenoreans, who want to evict them from the Alliance because of their belicosity. Their presence promises the destruction of Earth, and Ryol has to decide which word she will save – her own or ours. I raced through this novella and was wanting more when it came to the end: more about Keepers and Healers and First Engineers, the alien society, their technology and their world alliance. A novella doesn’t give the author much time to develop his or her characters, but Mr. Vicino did a cracking job. He gave me a tantalizing taste of a future world, and I hope Parallel leads to a full length novel. About the author: According to his biography on Amazon, Anthony writes Science Fiction and Fantasy in Oakland, CA where it never rains unless he has to ride his bike someplace. When he isn’t sitting in front of a computer screen contemplating the thousand different ways his character can escape the asylum with nothing but a fork, a shoelace, some chutzpah, and a lot of snark, he is no doubt out climbing a rock in the Sierra Mountains. If not there, you may find him in the ocean, pretending to surf. You can find Parallel at Anthony’s blog is: http://onelazyrobotblog.com 0 0

My mother, in addition to being just plain smart about lots of things, including how to handle Dad’s whims, was also very handy. She had painted all the rooms in the house, replaced panes of glass, and could do a rewiring job if necessary. She could hook rugs and was also a darned good cook. One thing she had never mastered was sewing. Memmere (her mother) was a whiz with the needle and  made her grandchildren’s clothes for years, but this was something Mom usually avoided. One summer, she decided to make me a bathing suit. I think she figured a bathing suit was an easy place to start sewing. It was a cotton knit affair, which she made because I’d grown up and out rather quickly in the past year, and my old suits had become dangerously revealing. What Mom forgot, and what I knew, is that with the development of breasts, I’d become hideously self-conscious. One of the things I could do well was swim fast. Technique was definitely not my forte, but I was taller and stronger than my teammates on the Eel River Beach Club team and could power my way to the end of the pool faster than anyone in my age group. At one particular swim meet with another club, I lined up at the deep end of the pool for the start of a freestyle race, proudly sporting the newly constructed two piece bathing suit. Many of the kids at the pool wore two piece suits at that time, even for meets, but what I realized, as I stepped to the line, was the suit had not been tested for its swim-worthiness, let alone its ability to stay in place during a racing dive. At the sound of the gun, I hit the water in a flat, extended position (in those days you did not do an extended mermaid kick underwater) and began to swim mightily, only to discover that I had nothing around my chest – but something was indeed wrapped around my waist. I continued to swim for a few strokes, then stopped in the middle of the course and pulled my top up, while all the spectators looked on. Instant, grinding mortification. I never wore that bathing suit again. As I grew older and swam seriously, the beauty of a one piece suit became clear, and to this day I’m a firm believer in the value of having your suit in one piece. Another morsel of memory: some Olympic training coaches visited our team once and talked to me and another teammate – a tiny pixie with blonde hair for whom the water just seemed to part – about whether we’d be interested in a serious training camp. I can’t remember what happened after that; they may have talked to our parents, who nixed the idea. But it’s nice to think about, all these decades later.   0 0