Category: Diane Gaston

Regency Reunions at Christmas

Updated on December 6, 2023 by Diane Gaston

That’s the title of the Christmas anthology with my novella, The Major’s Christmas Return, still on sale so hurry and order your copy now!

The Major’s Christmas Return tells of the reunion of Nash and Caroline who, because of an illness, are unwittingly trapped in their friends’ country house with only a few young servants, orphans who’d never experienced a proper Christmas. As Nash and Caroline contrive to give the orphan servants the Christmas they deserve, they discover the love and passion they’d lost years before — when Nash left Caroline at the altar.

Through Nash and Caroline I was able to show several Christmas traditions that would have been followed in the Regency. Here they are!

House decoration

No Christmas trees during the Regency, but evergreens were gathered and the house was decorated with them.

Yule log.

A yule log was a large log brought in on Christmas eve and kept burning in the fireplace during the Christmas season. Before it was lit everyone made wishes for the new year.

Christmas Candle

A large candle was also lit on Christmas eve. If it went out before Christmas day, it was very bad luck.

Plum Pudding

On Stir-up Sunday, at the beginning of Advent, the pudding was mixed and steamed and hung up to age for Christmas dinner.

Wassailing

Wassailing usually meant a group of people going from house to house singing Christmas carols and being rewarded with wassail, a spiced ale or cider. Nash and Caroline devise their own version in the house.

Mince pies

The traditional Christmas dinner dessert

Mistletoe

No Regency Christmas novella would be complete without the mistletoe or kissing bough. That’s how Nash and Caroline rediscover their love for each other!

Here’s wishing all of you a very happy holiday. What holiday traditions are your favorites?

Posted in Diane Gaston, Regency, Risky Book Talk, Risky Regencies | Tagged Regency Christmas, Regency Reunions at Christmas | 2 Replies

To Autumn by John Keats – again

Updated on October 9, 2023 by Diane Gaston

The leaves are just starting to turn here in Virginia and soon we’ll see their beautiful reds, yellows, and oranges. Last week still felt like summer, but now the days are cool and brisk. It’s finally feeling like autumn.

Here, again, is my Regency homage to autumn, because the season and the poem are so beautiful.

On 19 September 1819, John Keats took an evening walk along the River Itchen near Winchester and was inspired to write one of the most perfect poems in the English language:

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

The poem was included in volume of Keats’ works printed in 1820 to better reviews than his earlier works. A year later, Keats died.

Posted in Diane Gaston, Places | Tagged autumn, John Keats | 1 Reply

New Risky Release! The Lady Behind the Masquerade

Updated on July 2, 2023 by Diane Gaston

I am thrilled to announce that I have a new release coming this month! The Lady Behind the Masquerade will be released in paperback and ebook on July 25.

Here’s the backcover blurb:

The ton’s newest member
Is not all she seems…

Diplomat Marcus Wolfdon can’t forget the alluring woman he met in Paris, the passionate night they shared or that she stole his money and disappeared! A year later, Wolf meets Juliana again in Brighton, seemingly a member of the ton. She begs him to keep their former liaison secret, and the emotion in her eyes compels him to agree. Desire still flares between them, but first Wolf must uncover the lady behind the masquerade.

From Harlequin Historical: Your romantic escape to the past.

The Lady Behind the Masquerade is Book 2 in A Family of Scandals series. Marcus Wolfdon, “Wolf” to his friends and family, is the younger brother of Eliza, now the Marquess of Hale, and heir to their father’s baronetcy. Rather than deal with his parents’ drama, Wolf has dedicated himself to a diplomatic career, lately in Paris, where he has his unforgettable encounter with Juliana. His father’s near-fatal illness brings him back to England where he must face his family obligations–and Juliana, who now is not an alluring French woman, but a lovely lady, cousin to Wolf’s friend’s mother. Never sure precisely what Juliana’s truth is, he cannot resist both loving her and protecting her but never trusting her.

Be on the lookout for the reviews and read and excerpt.

And you can preorder now!

Posted in book announcement, Diane Gaston, Risky Book Talk, Risky Regencies | Tagged Diane Gaston, new release | Leave a reply

April Again!

Updated on April 3, 2023 by Diane Gaston

This was first posted on April 1, 2013, but it is just as relevant today even though it is April 3.

What is the origin of April Fools Day?

No one knows for sure, but it is speculated that it came about when the French calendar was reformed in the sixteenth century, moving the start of the year from March to January 1. (I blogged about calendar changes just this past January)

Some people who clung to the old calendar and continued to celebrate the New Year from March 25 to April 1, had tricks played on them. The pranksters would stick paper fish on their backs. Thus they were called Poisson d’Avril, ‘April Fish,’ the name the French call April Fools even today.

April fools jokes have continued through the years. Near “ou r” time period a clever one was pulled off.

In 1860 a postcard was sent to several people admitting two to the Tower of London to view the annual ceremony of washing the White Lions on April 1. The invitees were instructed that they would be admitted only at the White Gate.

On April 1, several cabs were driving around Tower Hill looking for the White Gate—which, of course, didn’t exist.

April Fool!!

What was the best April Fools joke you played on someone or one someone played on you?

Posted in Diane Gaston, History, Regency | 1 Reply

When The New Year Was New

Updated on February 22, 2023 by Diane Gaston

Did you know that January 1 wasn’t always January 1? The grandparents and parents of our Regency heroes and heroines would have known a year when January 1 followed March 24. What’s more, that year they would lose a whole eleven days that September.

Until 1752 Britain and the British Empire, including the American colonies, still followed the Julian Calendar, established in the time of Julius Caesar, which made the year 365 days long and used leap years, but the calendar had an error that made the Spring equinox drift from its date of March 21. Two hundred years earlier, though, astronomers convinced Pope Gregory to change to a calendar based on the solar calendar that kept the equinox on March 21, important, because that was how they calculated when Easter would be.

Most of the Catholic countries adopted this Gregorian calendar in the 1500s, but Britain refused to switch to that “papist” system. You can imagine how confusing using two different calendars could be to travelers and traders.

And how disruptive changing the calendar would be to birthdays, festival days, paydays, dated contracts–any number of things.

In 1752 in Britain, March 25 became January 1, the start of a new year. But more adjustment was necessary to bring things in line with the Gregorian calendar, so Wednesday September 2, 1752, was followed by Thursday September 14, 1752, “losing” eleven days.

In 1752 William Willett of Endon bet that he could dance non-stop for twelve days. He started dancing on September 2, danced all night and stopped the next day–Sept 14. Twelve days! He won the bet.

The Whigs, who were more progressive and were convinced by the science of why the change was needed, supported the change. The conservative Tories were opposed and protested under the slogan, “Give Us Our Eleven Days.”

In 1755 Hogarth released a satirical print called An Election Entertainment depicting a tavern scene with some bawdy Whigs celebrating while Tories outside protested, “Give us our eleven days.” Apparently, though, citizens did not really riot in the streets believing they’d lost eleven days, as many believe. Hogarth’s print is thought to have contributed to this idea.

If you’d like to learn more about the differences in the Gregorian and Julian calendars, here’s the Wikipedia link.