…rereleases at last on 9th April but you can preorder a copy right now. Look at this gorgeous cover!
Cover art by Bailey McGinn
Here’s the blurb:
Everyone thinks Helen Grey is mad but, despite ten years imprisoned in a crumbling Yorkshire asylum, she’s managed to cling to sanity. When a new doctor arrives, she sees an opportunity. William Carter may seem like an honorable man but she’s sure he’ll prove easy to seduce…and trick into helping her escape.
Will would never bed a patient, no matter how tempting she might be. But once he realises Helen’s been imprisoned for no good reason, he’s determined to save her. They need to work together but freeing her won’t be easy, not when her mysterious benefactor is determined to keep her locked up and hidden from society forever.
When Helen is entangled in her own trap and begins to fall for Will too, she must fight not only for her liberty but for her right to love.
If you’re here because you’ve noticed that the ebook and paperback versions of my Harcastle series have disappeared from Amazon, don’t worry. And don’t purchase an exorbitantly expensive paperback from eBay, either.
The rights to the series recently reverted to me and both will be rereleased early next year with beautiful new Bailey Designs Books covers. Bailey also designed the gorgeous cover for my third book “The Worst Woman in London,” so I’m excited!
James Standish knows how to play society’s game. He’ll follow the rules, marry a virginal debutante, and inherit a massive fortune. At least, that’s the plan until he meets Francesca Thorne. She’s not the sort of woman a respectable gentleman like James could ever marry—not least because, strictly speaking, she’s married already.
Francesca is determined to flout convention and divorce her philandering husband. When James sweet talks his way into her life tasked with convincing her to abandon her dream of freedom, she’s unprepared for the passion that flares between them.
Torn apart by conflicting desires, James and Francesca must choose whether to keep chasing the lives they’ve always wanted or take a chance on a new and forbidden love.
Just a quick heads up: Entangled are having a massive sale. Almost all their historical romances, including my two books The Madness of Miss Grey and The Ruin of Evangeline Jones, are on sale for 99c each. Snap them up while the price is low!
Regency romance readers will be familiar with ratafia as a drink at balls and parties, a fortified wine made from bitter almonds. Ratafia cakes are like little macaroons or amaretto cookies, and you can whip them up and have them in the oven in under five minutes.
Since bitter almonds contain cyanide and are now banned, I used Pen Vogler’s adapted recipe; almond extract may not be authentic, but at least it’s legal. You can buy Vogler’s book here. Martha Lloyd’s actual Georgian recipe includes “a little orange flower water,” so you could add that too if you want the recipe to be even more authentic.
Method:
225 g ground almonds
225 g confectioner’s sugar
3 egg whites
2-3 drops almond extract
Preheat the oven to 160C.
In a large bowl, sift the sugar into the ground almonds. I didn’t have icing sugar, so I used caster, which probably changed the texture of the finished cookies. Mix well.
Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Much easier with a modern electric whisk. Beat in the extract. Fold the resulting mixture into the almonds and sugar until you have a smooth (or, if you’re using caster, relatively smooth) paste.
The mix makes between 25 and 30 cookies, so line one or two (depending on the size of your trays) baking sheets with grease-proof paper. Each cookie needs a heaped teaspoon of mix. Press each one into cookie shape, then bake for 15 minutes until golden brown. Since I had to use two baking sheets, the cookies on the lower shelf needed longer.
Allow to cool completely before eating.
Verdict:
Me: I made some biscuits and I want you to try them.
15 yr old: Okay… Wait, are these victorian?
Me: Georgian, actually.
15 yr old: Oh, no.
Despite this inauspicious beginning, this was by far the least controversial recipe I’ve tried. Everybody loved these. They were gorgeous. Particularly awesome with a nice cup of tea but, for the love of god, don’t make the tea in a microwave. My little British heart can’t take it.
Julia Bennet 