A Regency Romance Writer Goes to Texas

Regina Scott here. Many of you know me from my dozen or so Regency romances over the years. But that’s not the only period of history that fascinates me. I love a story about knights in shining armor, pioneers heading west on the Oregon Trail, and cowboys riding across the plains. That’s why I was thrilled to be asked to write the third book in the Lone Star Cowboy League: The Founding Years series, A Rancher of Convenience, out this week.

So, how did a Regency author fit in Texas? The Texas Hill Country in 1895 is a far cry from the English drawing rooms of the early nineteenth century. For one thing, there are no butlers, maids, or other servants hanging about ready to dress and clean and cook for my hero and heroine, just a couple of cowboys tending the herd. But that just means Hank and Nancy have to be more resilient. If they want something done, they have to find a way to do it themselves. And those cowboys were so sweet to Nancy when she lost her first husband.

And the language! It was a lot of fun to use a more common dialogue than the elegant sentences my Regency lords and ladies are used to uttering. But that doesn’t mean those cowboys and the ladies they love aren’t witty. Take this exchange between Hank and Nancy.

“For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” he murmured, releasing her.

She’d said those vows twice now, but never had she felt them more surely. “That’s right. I mean to honor those commitments.”

His smile inched into view. “Even the obey part?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

Then there’s the food. Those ladies in Little Horn sure know how to cook! In fact, Renee Ryan (Stand-In Rancher Daddy), Louise M. Gouge (A Family for the Rancher), and I had a grand time coming up with recipes for our heroines to cook. Here’s one of my husband's favorites:

You can find eight more recipes, along with extended excerpts from our books, in the Lone Star Cowboy League: The Founding Years Sampler, free on Amazon. 

Because even a Regency author can get carried away in Texas.

How about you? Do you have a favorite time period or setting?

Baking in the Wee Hours of the Morning

Regina Scott here. Christmas and New Years are behind us, but I’m still eating the last of the cookies and candy my family made over the season. How about you?

I enjoy cooking for family and friends, even though I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a genius in the kitchen. Maddie O’Rourke, the heroine of my January release, Instant Frontier Family, can bake rings around me. But she has to get up ridiculously early to do so.

You see, Maddie owns the best bakery in pioneer Seattle. Burly loggers and miners have been known to stampede into her shop demanding the fresh bread, cookies, and rolls she makes each day. I think they all have a crush on her.

But Maddie’s made of tougher stuff. Pioneer baking involved long hours in a hot kitchen carrying heavy loads. Here’s the schedule I worked out for her. It starts at 5:00pm the night before, after she’s finished selling for the day:

• 5pm—Feed the barm (the yeast starter on which her bakery depends) with flour and water leftover from boiling potatoes; sift enough flour for the next day into the mixing trough. Cover the trough to keep the cat out!
• 5:30—Go upstairs and make dinner for the family. Clean up and spend a little time with the family before going to bed.
• 7pm—Go to bed.
• 11:15pm—Get out of bed; get dressed, and stumble downstairs. Melt butter with molasses.
• 11:30pm—Mix the flour in the trough with the butter/molasses mixture and the barm. Have it done by midnight so it can rise.
• Midnight—Lay the fire in the oven; go back upstairs for a nap.
• 3:00am—Get up, go downstairs, knead down and smooth out the dough.
• 3:30am—Divide the dough into loaves of exactly 8 pounds each; cover with cloth.
• While the dough is rising for 2 hours, make cookie dough of various sorts
• 5:30am—When the oven bricks are hot all the way through, rake out the coals and sweep out the ashes. Roll out some of the bread dough to make cinnamon rolls. Then put the loaves and rolls into the oven using the peel, a paddle with a long handle.
• 6:00am—Bake and don’t fuel the fire. Close the door and shut off the flue with the damper.
• 6:30am—Brush the tops of the loaves with egg for a crisper crust at the half-way point. Make icing for the rolls.
• 7:00am—While the bread cools, bake the cookies. Ice the rolls.
• 8:00am—Sell it all to customers and start all over again for the afternoon rush.

Phew! Is it any wonder Maddie pays for a woman to come from New York help in the bakery, escorting Maddie’s little brother and sister to come live with her in the process? Yet the person who arrives with them isn’t someone with experience baking. He isn’t even a woman . . .

Regina Scott has twice melted a spatula into what she was cooking. The author of more than 30 historical romances, she’s currently working on a series set in Seattle’s early years:  Frontier Bachelors, bold, rugged, and bound to be grooms. Sign up here for a free e-mail alert with exclusive bonus material when her next book comes out, or visit her online at her website or Facebook.

Oh, for a Farm in the Wilderness

Regina Scott here, celebrating the release of the second book in my Frontier Bachelors series, Would-Be Wilderness Wife.  As I was writing it, the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers kept coming to mind.  I love how the quiet Milly finds her voice and her determination in helping Adam Pontipee and his brothers learn a thing or two about women.

When I was researching the story, I went looking for some place to use as a model.  There are plenty of books, from history tales for children to reminiscences of the pioneers themselves, that speak of the trials and tribulations of living in the wilderness.  But I’m a hands-on kind of gal.  I need to touch, taste, smell, and hear beside just seeing.

That’s why I was thrilled to tour Pioneer Farm Museum outside Eatonville, Washington.  Pioneer Farm is one of those wonderful museums geared toward children, so everything is very hands on.  I gleefully followed our tour guides around from the general store to the school house to the three cabins, barn, and blacksmith’s shop, peppering them with questions and poking my nose into everything.  Without such a treasure, I might not have learned the following:

A lady in a full-belled hoop skirt would never be able to climb the ladder to the loft for bed.

Everything you need to live has to fit in a one-room house smaller than my bedroom.  Easily. 

And it does.

Oil lamps aren't really bright enough to read by, but they do warm up a curling iron nicely.

It takes a lot of time and work to grate enough cinnamon for one pie.

 Pioneer Farm Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing living history, environmental, and cultural education through hands-on activities.  If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend a visit. 

I know some of you have been to great museums in your area.  Any recommendations to share?

~

Regina Scott loves history, whether learning about it or writing about it. The author of more than two dozen historical Christian romances, she’s currently working on a series set in Seattle’s early years:  Frontier Bachelors, bold, rugged, and bound to be grooms. Sign up here for a free e-mail alert with exclusive bonus material when her next book comes out, or visit her online at her website or Facebook.

The Launch of The Bride Ship

Regina Scott here.  I know I can’t be the only one who shares a fascination with sailing ships.  The massive hull slicing through a stormy sea, the billowing canvas snapping above my head, and creak of the timbers and the calls of the crew--they all combine to set my heart racing.  I've been blessed to tour a number of fine historic vessels, such as the U.S.S. Constitution, America’s tall ship; the Coast Guard’s Eagle, and a replica of the Bounty.  I've taken a short jaunt aboard the Hawaiian Chieftain, a contemporary version of sailing ship.  And last year I had the honor of spending the day sailing with our state’s tall ship, the Lady Washington, as she came up the Columbia River.  That trip was on my bucket list.

Here’s another thing I can cross off my list of things I long to do in this lifetime:  write a story about the voyage of the U.S.S. Continental, the steamship that carried nearly 60 women from the East Coast of America around the continent to civilize frontier Washington Territory.  I fell in love with the story as a girl when I watched the popularized adaptation, Here Come the Brides, on television.  When I learned there really had been a bride ship bearing ladies to Seattle, I knew it was a story I had to tell.

So, after more than 25 historical romances set in the Regency period, I embark on a new venture.  The Bride Ship is my November release from Love Inspired Historical.  It tells the story of widow Allegra Banks Howard, former Boston belle, who joins the expedition to make a new life for herself and her little girl, Gillian.  But she reckons without the interference of the powerful Howard family, who sends an unlikely hero to bring her home.

Clay Howard can’t understand what was his brother's widow, his first love, is doing on a ship full of prospective brides headed out West. When he’d agreed to bring her home, he didn't anticipate Allegra being so strong-willed, or that he'd wind up traveling with her just to keep her from leaving without him! 

Allegra Banks Howard isn't going to let Clay interfere with her plans for a new life with her daughter on the frontier. True, Allegra needs his wilderness savvy, but if Clay thinks he can rekindle what they once shared, he had better think again. Because risking her heart for a second chance at being his bride isn't something she'll undertake lightly…. 

Frontier Bachelors: Bold, rugged—and bound to be grooms

So what do you think?  Do you share my fascination with sailing ships and the romance of the frontier?