Meet My Fellow Wild Rose Press Author and Guest Robert Herold, and Read About His Horror Thriller MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU

MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU is Book Two of the Eidola Project series, and I've become an ardent fan after reading THE EIDOLA PROJECT and MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU. Meet Bob, read about MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU, and the creepy short story "Ghost Doll" -- and no, it's not about the infamous Robert the Doll in Key West, Florida.

Check out the Special Free Offer of "Ghost Doll"!

An early adventure of the award-winning Eidola Project series, “Ghost Doll,” is available for free until August 24 on BookFunnel (a safe and free way for readers to receive promo books and stories). 

Click here for the offer.

Now here's Bob!

I am honored to be featured by the talented writer Diana Rubino. I love her books! Here’s a bit about me and my writing:

Seattleite Robert Herold is the author of the award-winning Eidola Project novels, which follows a team of 19th-century ghost hunters who become ensnared in deadly supernatural investigations, and The Seattle Coven Tales, a series of novellas centered around Friday the 13^th. 

Find out more on his website, click here.

Synopsis of MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU:

Danger comes from all quarters when the Eidola Project investigates a series of murders in a Black community--rumored to be caused by a werewolf. Not only do they face threats from the supernatural, the KKK objects to the team's activities, and the group is falling apart. Can they overcome their human frailties to defeat the evil that surrounds them? *****The entire Eidola Project Series won 1st Place in the 2022 Paranormal Romance Guild's Reviewer's Choice Awards. Moonlight Becomes You is also a winner of two 1st place wins from the Southeastern Writers Association, including Best Novel! 

Excerpt:

Doc Curtis fought for every reserve of strength and managed to quicken his pace. He could hear them shouting behind him and dared not look back, fearing it might slow him just that much more.

At last, he made it through the field and emerged onto a rough access road running between the cultivated land on one side and the woods on the other. He dashed across the dirt road and through the weeds and scrub bordering its opposite side. The trees stood twenty yards ahead. He would make it, find a thick trunk to hide behind, and fire a warning shot. If he could drive them off, it would be best. If not, he would do what needed to be done. Life had reduced itself to its most fundamental terms: kill or be killed.

Just five yards from the trees, a gigantic black beast bounded from the woods and landed before him. The doctor skittered to a stop, and his feet went out from beneath him. The creature stepped closer, looming. Its eyes glowed red, and the skin around its muzzle drew back, revealing a mouthful of sharp canine teeth.

The Klan had come at him in two directions, the doctor realized.

He raised his pistol and fired into the snarling face above him.

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How Did This Novel Come About? A Peek Behind the Scenes

I have always had a fondness for werewolves. As a boy, I wanted nothing more than to grow up to be one! When I was 8—12 years old, when it snowed, I’d walk out onto neighbors’ lawns and then make paw prints with my fingers as far as I could stretch. I’d retrace my paw and boot prints and then fetch neighborhood kids and point out that someone had turned into a werewolf on this front lawn. Few bought into this shaggy dog (werewolf) story. ☹!

I was a junior high/middle school history teacher for 36 years and so in this novel, I’ve combined my love of history with my love of werewolves. Many of the historical incidents and locations in the book are real. In fact, I sought the input of several professors for accuracy in details about train travel and the mental hospital used in this book. Also, William James (brother of the author Henry James), who leads the Eidola Project, is a historical figure and father of psychology in America. He was also a real ghost hunter. It’s my hope that the weaving-in of historical details contributes to the verisimilitude of the supernatural. 

My latest work is set in the modern day, The Seattle Coven Tales, a series of novellas set in 2015. They are part of a collection of stories written by 13 authors that come out on Friday the Thirteenth. My newest story, The Devil’s Dregs, is available for preorder on  Amazon.

Connect with Bob:

Feel free to contact me with any questions and (if interested) to sign up for my monthly newsletter, The Haunted House of Herold. email@robertheroldauthor.com

 

Who Killed President Kennedy? I No Longer Believe a Theory...But My Novel is Still in Print!

November 22, 1963, a day that changed America forever. Who killed President Kennedy?

 I've been a HUGE Kennedy assassination buff since that very day. Everyone who was alive on November 22, 1963 knew exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. I was in my first grade classroom. The teacher got a call on the classroom phone and told us ‘the president was shot.’ A collective gasp went around the room. I was 6 years old and in first grade. It was ten years before I saw the footage of Ruby shooting Oswald, on an anniversary documentary.

But it was my grandmother who got me interested in the biggest mystery since 'who killed the princes in the Tower?' (I'm a Ricardian; that's for another post).  She got me embroiled right along with her.

She listened to all the radio talk shows (those who lived in the New York area might remember Long John Nebel, on AM radio (FM was really 'out there' at that time).

She recorded all the radio talk shows. She bought whatever books came out over the years, along with the Warren Commission Report, which I couldn't lift at the time, it was so heavy. But my interest never waned in the 51 years that followed.

     In 2000, I began the third book of my New York Saga, set in 1963. The heroine is Vikki McGlory Ward, daughter of Billy McGlory, hero of the second book, BOOTLEG BROADWAY, set during Prohibition. This was my opportunity to write a novel showcasing all my current theories, and continue the saga. It took a minimum of research, since I remember all the 60's brands, (Bosco, Yum Berry, Mr. Bubble...), the fashions, the songs, and I even included a scene set on that unforgettable night when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964.

I NO LONGER BELIEVE THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Oliver Stone's 'back and to the left' theory is classic Hollywood but didn't convince me of another assassin on the grassy knoll. 

For 50 years I believed the Mafia were intent on taking him out, and set LHO (Lee Harvey Oswald) up. As he said 'I'm just a patsy' I always believed that, I didn't even believe he was on the 6th floor of the Book Depository Building at that time. BUT...on the 50th anniversary I watched a few new shows, and now do firmly believe LHO acted alone.

For one thing, regarding my mob theory: I now know the mob doesn't do hits, especially high profile ones, in public, and they wouldn't have trusted that cheap old rifle LHO used. I read all the mob books where they brag about taking JFK out -- 'set up a nut to take the blame', etc... and I fell for it hook line & sinker.

Mainly cause I knew the mob had it in for the Kennedys, especially Bobby. Too bad the father never sat his sons down & said 'don't mess with these guys!'

But now I do believe LHO acted alone; his motive, twisted as it was, was to be a hero in Cuba & get into their good graces. He thought Fidel Castro would welcome him with open arms. 

Also, If he was set up and a patsy, why did he kill Officer Tippit on the street? That was completely unnecessary. He was just a cold blooded killer.

I don't believe the 2nd (or 3rd) assassin theory either. No ballistics to show anything except from LHO's rifle.

I have a theory I NEVER heard anyone mention--what if there WERE two assassins (LHO and another on the knoll or in the the Dal Tex Bldg or the sewer) and neither knew the other existed? They just both decided to take JFK out that day & time. But obviously one of them missed. :)

About THE END OF CAMELOT 

    

The third in the New York Saga, The End of Camelot centers on Billy McGlory’s daughter Vikki, whose husband is murdered trying to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Vikki uses her detective skills to trace the conspiracy, from New York to New Orleans to Dallas, and at the same time, tricks her husband’s murderer into a confession. A romance with her bodyguard makes her life complete.

November 22, 1963: The assassination of a president devastates America. But a phone call brings even more tragic news to Vikki Ward—her TV reporter husband was found dead in his Dallas hotel room that morning.

Finding his notes, Vikki realizes her husband was embroiled in the plot to kill JFK—but his mission was to prevent it. When the Dallas police rule his death accidental, Vikki vows to find out who was behind the murders of JFK and her husband. With the help of her father and godfather, she sets out to uncover the truth.

Aldobrandi Po , the bodyguard hired to protect Vikki, falls in love with her almost as soon as he sets eyes on her. But he's engaged to be married, and she’s still mourning her husband. Can they ever hope to find happiness in the wake of all this tragedy?

Purchase THE END OF CAMELOT on Amazon

 

Excerpt:

It was New Year’s Eve, they were alone, and he was harmless. So far. So she took the necessary two paces over to him and placed the honey ball between his custom-made choppers.

He closed his eyes, and she watched him savoring the sweetness. She didn’t dare say another word as she ran her index finger over a glob of cream on the cannoli plate, raised it to her lips and licked. “Mmmm,” she voiced, wishing she hadn’t.

Their eyes met and locked. Faster than lightning, they came together like magnets. Their lips met, sweet and sticky and hot. She didn’t want him to stop, but her inner voice screamed how wrong it was—It’s forbidden!—echoing the nuns in Saint Gustina’s. She shooed it away like an annoying fly. Leave me alone, I’m not a kid anymore. Her arms circled his neck, and his hands slid down to the curve of her back. Dare she move in closer, pelvis to pelvis, an unthinkable act three seconds ago? Her body was betraying her, betraying Jack, taking on a will of its own as she crushed herself to him. The kiss intensified. She tasted cannoli, and her fogged mind told her he’d been sampling them all day. She breathed in his cologne, so foreign it repelled her, so new it aroused her even further. Her tiara slipped off her head. She caught it just as he pulled away.

He held her at arm’s length as in a tango. “Oh, cara mia,” he growled—and if he said another word in Italian, she knew she’d explode. A passion long dormant stirred inside her.

My favorite passage from the book:

Billy came down the stairs for a nightcap and glanced into the living room. He noticed the glow in the fireplace, Vikki’s eyeglasses and the anisette bottle on the table. The couch faced the other way, but nobody was sitting on it. “Where’d they go?” Then he realized they hadn’t gone anywhere—and they were on the couch, but not sitting. Before he got out of their way, he placed a long-playing record on the phonograph. Jackie Gleason’s “For Lovers Only.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet My Fellow Wild Rose Press Author Jill Piscitello and Read About Her Beach Mystery, Released Today

I read the review of A SOUR NOTE, (a Music Box Mystery) Jill's newest title, in the Hippo, a New Hampshire newspaper. I didn't yet know her, and was pleasantly surprised to see that she's another author at my publisher The Wild Rose Press. I contacted her, and she is my guest today, release day!

About Jill

Jill is a teacher, author, and an avid fan of multiple literary genres. Although she divides her reading hours among several books at a time, a lighthearted story offering an escape from the real world can always be found on her nightstand. 

A native of New England, Jill lives with her family and three well-loved cats. When not planning lessons or reading and writing, she can be found spending time with her family, trying out new restaurants, traveling, and going on light hikes.

Q&A With Jill

When you get an idea for a book, what comes first usually? Dialogue, the characters, a specific scene? Or do you plot it out before you write?

The overall theme for a book usually presents itself first, and characters soon follow. For the first few chapters, I just write. But at some point, I crave more organization and draft an outline. 

So, what do you have planned next?  Or is that a secret? 

I’m currently writing the second book in the Music Box Mystery series.

Any advice for new writers?

My advice to new writers is to do something, anything, toward your writing goals at least five days per week. This might entail writing 200 words or 2,000 words. But even a quick skim of your outline, or twenty minutes of research, or fifteen minutes reviewing a writing resource is something.

Do you have another occupation, other than writer? If so, what is it and how do you like it? 

I am also a teacher and love my day job.

What do you love that most people don't like and wouldn't understand why you do? 

I enjoy washing and folding laundry set to the tune of a Hallmark movie or HGTV. Why I find this chore relaxing is anyone’s guess.

What do you dislike that most people wouldn't understand?

I despise having my fingernails or toenails filed. No manicures or pedicures for me!

What's the main thing that you could get rid of that would give you more writing time?

The internet is a huge, but necessary, distraction. It’s so easy to get lost in a black hole of research on a particular time period or other topic related to your book that writing doesn’t happen.

What's your favorite book of all time and why? What's your favorite childhood book? 

As an adult, I have so many favorite books from a variety of genres. Choosing only one is impossible. But Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren was 110% my favorite book as a child. I couldn’t get enough of her hilarious antics. Pippi’s unpredictability and all-consuming joy for adventure was the antithesis to my rule following nature.

What is your favorite quote? 

I have a long list of favorite quotes and share one every Monday on social media. “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try” by Dolly Parton is at the top of my list. This quote is relevant to anyone trying something new. 

Connect With Jill

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About A SOUR NOTE

When murder provides a welcome distraction…

On the heels of a public, broken engagement, Maeve Cleary returns to her

childhood home in Hampton Beach, NH. When a dead body turns up behind her

mother’s music school, three old friends land on the suspect list. Licking her

wounds soon takes a back seat to outrunning the paparazzi who spin into a frenzy,

casting her in a cloud of suspicion. Maeve juggles her high school sweetheart, a

cousin with a touch of clairvoyance, a no-nonsense detective, and an apologetic,

two-timing ex-fiancé. Will the negative publicity impact business at the Music Box—

the very place she’d hoped to make a fresh start?

 

Excerpt

With his mouth set in a grim line, he waited.

If anyone else had enough nerve to presume she owed them an explanation, she would respond with a solid mind your own business. Instead, the seventeen-year-old still inside her refused to tell him to get lost. “He was hiding money in his office.” This was one of those times when learning how to wait a few beats before blurting out inflammatory information would come in handy. Each second of passing silence decreased her ability to breathe in the confined space. She turned the ignition and switched on the air conditioner.

“How do you know?” His volume just above a whisper, each dragged-out word hung in the air.

“I found it.”

“When were you in his office?” He swiped at a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face, then positioned a vent toward him.

“Last night.” When would she learn to bite her tongue? Finn’s switch from rapid-fire scolding to slow, deliberate questioning left her unable to swallow over the sandpaper lump in her throat.

“Where was Vic?”

She stared at the back of the building, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “He’d left for the night.” If she averted her gaze, she could pretend his eyeballs weren’t bugging out of his head, and his jaw didn’t need a crane to haul it off his chest.

“You were at the town hall after hours? Did anyone see you?”

“A custodian opened his door for me.” She snuck a glance. Sure enough, features contorted in shock and horror replaced his boy-next-door good looks.

Purchase A SOUR NOTE 

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Meet Laura Freeman and Read About Her Medical Crime Thriller RAINING TEARS

Laura is a fellow Wild Rose Press author. I enjoy hosting all authors, so if you'd like to be my guest, please contact me!

About Laura

Laura was a reporter for sixteen years for local newspapers and the Gannett media company in Northeast Ohio. She won the Press Club of Cleveland’s Ohio Excellence in Journalism award twice and the Ohio Newspaper Association award several times. Her historical romance novels include “Impending Love and War,” “Impending Love and Death,” Impending Love and Lies,” Impending Love and Capture,” “Impending Love and Madness,” “Impending Love and Promise,” holiday novella “Tackling Molasses Crinkles,” and crime mystery “Raining Tears.” She is working on a romance mystery “Tangling a Web of Deceit.”

About RAINING TEARS

I wrote RAINING TEARS after attending a Citizen’s Police Academy where we learned different aspects of police work from officers in several local communities. My brother was also a police officer and detective who served as my technical advisor. Although my historical romance novels have two points of view, the hero and heroine, this was the first time I had four points of view, including the villain. Claire was fun to write because she didn’t have to be likeable and could do and say outrageous things. I wanted to allow the reader to understand her reasons and excuses for what she did. I also worked at the local hospital as a secretary and computer operator and drew from those experiences.

During a rainstorm, Claire Batton robs elderly Edith Merryweather at the bus stop for pain medicine and money. She encounters Jack Lawson in a dark alley returning from the drug store. After a rain-filled gutter falls and hits the gun from her hand, Jack picks it up as the police arrive. Claire falls to the ground and begs for her life to make herself look like the victim. When Jack turns around with the gun in his hand and a shot is fired, police officer Beth Moreno shoots him dead.

After giving a false driver’s license belonging to co-worker Abby Keller to the police, Claire sneaks away to the hospital where she is a nurse working third shift.

Detective Sydney Harrison responds to the call about the shooting. She interviews the other officers and suspects the mystery woman in the alley isn’t Abby Keller. Sydney realizes Jack Lawson was a victim after checking the drug store and calling on his wife, Vivien Lawson.

Sydney interviews Abby Keller at the hospital who had her purse stolen from her locker and was missing a bottle of pain pills. Claire hides her injury while she watches them talk. Sydney wants to know if anyone came in with an arm injury, unknowingly tipping Claire off.

The police chief has a press conference about the shooting. When Vivien learns her husband was shot by the police, she’s angry and threatens to go to a lawyer and sue the city. She wants justice.

To cover the injury to her arm the night of the shooting, Claire stages a fall at a convenience store before going to the ER at a neighboring hospital for x-rays.

Vivien stirs up the public against Beth who is dealing with her own demons. Claire worries Beth will recognize her when she comes to the hospital. She attempts to harm Beth but escapes until a final confrontation.

Excerpt

Claire was wasting time robbing a stranger. She needed to get out of the alley now. She waved the gun sideways to send the man on his way. “Forget it.”

He held out his wallet, waiting for her to claim it. A loud crack made her look above at the overhang of the building. The rusty gutter, filled with rainwater, broke away from its neighboring section and crashed onto Claire’s outstretched arm and hand holding the gun.

The weight of the water inside the aluminum frame was like a brick being slammed down on her forearm. She screamed and dropped the gun. A spasm shook her arm, and a sharp stabbing pain shot through the muscles up into her shoulder and down to her fingertips.

The gun lay on the wet pavement between them. The man gazed into her eyes for the briefest moment before he leapt. Claire dove onto her knees to reach her revolver, but the man snatched it in his left hand and stood over her. He pointed the barrel down at her head as she knelt on the wet pavement. 

“I think I’ll keep my money.” He still had his wallet in his right hand and gripped the gun awkwardly in his left. 

She looked up at him towering over her and debated whether to challenge his possession of her weapon. “Do you even know how to use that?”

Purchase RAINING TEARS on Amazon or your favorite book vendor.

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My Fascination With Lincoln Leads to My Novel A NECESSARY END

 

Hello, readers. One hundred fifty-eight years ago today, President Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theater, in the back of the head by a deranged coward, John Wilkes Booth. I’ve been a Lincoln buff since childhood, and in 2006, I decided to combine my love of Lincoln and the paranormal. I began researching A NECESSARY END, my paranormal twist on Booth's insane plot to assassinate President Lincoln. It contains no fictional characters.  

Abraham Lincoln has fascinated me since I was eight years old. I don’t know what got me started, but it might’ve been a book which I still have titled The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1, written in 1895. When I was in 3^rd grade, in the mid-60s (which shows how long I’ve been a Lincoln nut), my teacher asked us to bring a book to school from home, for a show & tell. My mother suggested I bring this Lincoln book, which even in 1966 was in bad shape—yellowed, stiffened strips of Scotch tape barely held the covers to the spine. With the wisdom of an 8-year-old that sadly, all of us outgrow, I demurred, saying, “This old book? She’ll think we’re poor!” My mother corrected me: “No, she’ll think we’re rich. Books like this are rare.” Then she proceeded to tape it up some more. Those 47-year-old Scotch tape fragments adhere to the book’s spine and pages to this day. My teacher, Miss Cohen, was duly impressed. I treasure that book to this day, and it’s one of many on my “Lincoln shelf” which holds books about our murdered president, his wife Mary, his assassin John Wilkes Booth and his family, the “Mad Booths of Maryland” and the conspirators who faced the gallows or years of hard labor because Booth, their charismatic leader, sucked these poor impressionable souls into his insane plot. 

After writing 8 historicals set in England and New York City, I wanted to indulge my passion for Lincoln-lore. I began researching in depth about Lincoln’s life, his presidency, his role in the Civil War, and Booth’s plans to first kidnap him, and then to assassinate him. 

This is a short list of the many books I read for research: 

The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Jim Bishop. (I read this in one sitting—I am not exaggerating. I could NOT put it down)

 The Unlocked Book by Asia Booth Clarke. Asia is John Wilkes Booth’s sister. She and her husband were arrested after the assassination. 

The Mad Booths of Maryland by Stanley Kimmel. A fascinating insight into what made the Booth family tick—John Wilkes’s parents, Junius and Mary Ann, had ten children, and Junius had another wife and child in England, where they originally came from. 

A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Louis Weichmann. Louis lived in Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, where Booth and the other conspirators met to hatch their heinous plot. Louis was not charged as a conspirator, but Mrs. Surratt and the 3 other conspirators were. They were all hanged in July 1865. 

A NECESSARY END combines two genres I’m passionate about—history and paranormal. I joined The Surratt Society, based in Maryland, and attended their conferences and tours. Through the Surratt Society I met several Lincoln/Booth/Civil War experts. One lady I’ll never forget meeting is Marjorie “Peg” Page, who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth’s great granddaughter. My trips to Lincoln's home and tomb in Springfield, Illinois, Gettysburg, Ford’s Theater, and the house he died in, Petersen House, brought me close to Mr. Lincoln’s spirit. My travels also acquainted me with Booth’s brother Edwin, the most famous actor of his time, and his unconventional family.  A recording of Edwin’s voice reciting Shakespeare on one of Edison’s wax cylinders still exists at  http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/browse?browseId=248018

Tragically, we’ll never hear Abraham Lincoln’s voice. But his spirit lives on. In my book, which is fiction--but we all know that novels are fictionalized truths--I gave Booth what was coming to him. He got his justice in real life, but in A NECESSARY END, he also got the paranormal twist he deserves. 

And I enjoyed sticking it to him! 

I paralleled the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar in this story because in the play, Caesar was known as a tyrant to the Senators, who feared losing their power, as Booth feared losing the Confederacy. Booth always considered Lincoln the tyrant, hence his proclamation ‘sic simper tyrannis’ (be it ever to tyrants) when he jumped to the stage after shooting Lincoln. 

Caesar’s Senators, Brutus and Cassius among them, conspired to stab Caesar to death on an appointed day. Booth recruited a group of like-minded disciples to aid him in his insane plot, at first to kidnap Lincoln, then to kill him. 

By day, Booth was a Confederate spy and courier, taking dangerous missions so that his beloved South could fight the North in the war that tore the nation in two. But in this story, an even darker secret plagues him–he believes he’s the reincarnation of Brutus, the man who slew the tyrant Caesar, and Booth’s destiny in this life is to murder the tyrant who’s ravaged the South—Abraham Lincoln. In obeying the spirit of Brutus, Booth devises a plot to assassinate the tyrant. 

I wrote it as a paranormal instead of a straight historical novel because spirituality was extremely popular in 1865 and all throughout Victorian times. Mary Lincoln was a staunch spiritualist. So stricken with grief after the deaths of her boys Willie and Eddie, she hired mediums such as Nettie Maynard to visit the White House and hold séances in attempts to contact her boys from beyond the grave. 

The extent of séances, table-tapping, Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and otherworldly activities in this era fit perfectly with the story I wanted to tell. We could never enter Booth’s head, but his insane behavior begs the question: was he truly haunted by a spirit who drove him to his heinous act that changed history forever?

Or was he simply insane? 

Excerpt: 

“And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus!" Booth declared to the proud reflections in his three facing mirrors.

          The center mirror clouded over. Puzzled, he leaned into it to peer closer. His  reflection faded as if the mirror were clear glass, and another human form took shape, becoming sharper as the mist faded. He was astonished to be looking into the face of a man whose eyes bored into his, pinning him with an unnerving stare. Booth took a step back, glancing to the left, then to the right, but his own reflections were moving right along with him. He focused once more on the stranger in the center, the Roman nose giving the weathered features distinction. He’d seen this face before, but where?

          The head nodded and the hint of a pleased smile curled the thin lips. Without so much as a word, the figure faded into the mirror’s eternal depths, and Booth was once again looking at his own astonished face.

          “Damn you! Who are you?” He pounded the mirror and it wavered, his image jerking back and forth with the moving glass.

          Exasperated, he turned away.

          “I’ll find out who you are if I die doing it.” He twirled around to face the mirror, seeing only his three perplexed reflections.

Visit my Website

Purchase A NECESSARY END

 

 

 

 

Meet Rachel Brimble and Read About Her Newest Victorian Romance, VICTORIA AND VIOLET (The Royal Maids Book One)

Rachel is a fellow Wild Rose Press author, and she hosted me on her blog the other day. I'm reciprocating, as I enjoy hosting authors of any genre. Meet Rachel, her heroine Violet Parker, her hero James Greene, and the overwhelming odds they overcame to fall in love!

About Rachel

Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet was released 17^th October 2022.

Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Historical Novel Society and has thousands of social media followers all over the world. 

About Victoria & Violet

It should be a dream come true to serve the Queen of England…

When Violet Parker is told she will be Queen Victoria’s personal housemaid, she

cannot believe her good fortune. She finally has the chance to escape her

overbearing mother, a servant to the Duchess of Kent.

Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her

mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.

Then she meets James Greene, assistant to the queen's chief political adviser,

 Lord Melbourne. From entirely different backgrounds and social class, Violet and

James should have neither need nor desire to speak to one another, yet through

their service, their paths cross and their lives merge--as do their feelings. Only

Victoria's court is not always the place for romance, but rather secrets, scandals,

and conspiracies...

Five Reasons You Should Read Victoria & Violet 

Victoria & Violet is my 28^th novel and the first book I have written that includes real people and real events – to do this was a long-held ambition of mine that has finally come to fruition, and I loved writing every word. Now I pray readers will take it into their hearts just as deeply as I have…

Reasons to read:

1)      If you are a fan of British period dramas, then this is the book for you! I am period drama obsessed, and they inevitably influence my writing. As you follow Victoria, Violet and hero James on their journey and burgeoning relationships, you will find yourself embroiled in ample story threads that lead to satisfying doses drama, intrigue & romance!

2)      If you love British royal history (especially Queen Victoria, of course!) – I have included many real events that occurred in the early reign of Queen Victoria and take you right into her heart and mind as they are unfolding. The book is told from her housemaid’s point of view, so I hope it feels like a new and unique incite into events that you have heard about, but maybe did not know too much.

3)      Violet Parker – Violet is without doubt one of my favorite heroines ever. When the book opens, she is in an unbearable situation under the control of her mother and Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent. However, despite her nervousness and fear, the reader quickly gets a sense of Violet’s steeliness, too. Writing her character growth was a joy and I came to admire her so very much.

4)      The settings – another reason I loved writing this book was the chance to re-create Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in 1839. I have been lucky enough to visit both of these royal palaces over the last few years, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what might or might not have changed over the last 180 years or so. My imagination went into overdrive, and it was wonderful…

5)      James Greene – if I’m honest James was a little bit of an enigma to me when I was writing the first draft of this book. He was there, I could see him, hear his voice and see certain cheeky mannerisms, but I couldn’t quite get into his heart. That all changed when I took him back to his family home in Oxfordshire. When he is at Cassington Park, James cannot hide his vulnerabilities and flaws – that was when I fell in love with him and I hope readers do, too…

Purchase Victoria & Violet

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Abraham Lincoln's Birthday and my Civil War Romance A NECESSARY END

  

Hello, readers. I'd like to honor President Lincoln's birthday with a blog post about 

A NECESSARY END, my paranormal twist on Booth's insane plot to assassinate President Lincoln.  I’ve been a Lincoln buff since childhood, and decided to combine my love of Lincoln and the paranormal. 

Abraham Lincoln has fascinated me since I was eight years old. I don’t know what got me started, but it might’ve been a book which I still have titled The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1, written in 1895. When I was in 3^rd grade, in the mid-60s (which shows how long I’ve been a Lincoln nut), my teacher asked us to bring a book to school from home, for a show & tell. My mother suggested I bring this Lincoln book, which even in 1966 was in bad shape—yellowed, stiffened strips of Scotch tape barely held the covers to the spine. With the wisdom of an 8-year-old that sadly, all of us outgrow, I demurred, saying, “This old book? She’ll think we’re poor!” My mother corrected me: “No, she’ll think we’re rich. Books like this are rare.” Then she proceeded to tape it up some more. Those 47-year-old Scotch tape fragments adhere to the book’s spine and pages to this day. My teacher, Miss Cohen, was duly impressed. I treasure that book to this day, and it’s one of many on my “Lincoln shelf” which holds books about our murdered president, his wife Mary, his assassin John Wilkes Booth and his family, the “Mad Booths of Maryland” and the conspirators who faced the gallows or years of hard labor because Booth, their charismatic leader, sucked these poor impressionable souls into his insane plot. 

After writing 8 historicals set in England and New York City, I wanted to indulge my passion for Lincoln-lore. I began researching in depth about Lincoln’s life, his presidency, his role in the Civil War, and Booth’s plans to first kidnap him, and then to assassinate him. 

This is a short list of the many books I read for research: 

The Day Lincoln Was Shot by Jim Bishop. (I read this in one sitting—I am not exaggerating. I could NOT put it down)

 The Unlocked Book by Asia Booth Clarke. Asia is John Wilkes Booth’s sister. She and her husband were arrested after the assassination. 

The Mad Booths of Maryland by Stanley Kimmel. A fascinating insight into what made the Booth family tick—John Wilkes’s parents, Junius and Mary Ann, had ten children, and Junius had another wife and child in England, where they originally came from. 

A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Louis Weichmann. Louis lived in Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, where Booth and the other conspirators met to hatch their heinous plot. Louis was not charged as a conspirator, but Mrs. Surratt and the 3 other conspirators were. They were all hanged in July 1865. 

A NECESSARY END combines two genres I’m passionate about—history and paranormal. I joined The Surratt Society, based in Maryland, and attended their conferences and tours. Through the Surratt Society I met several Lincoln/Booth/Civil War experts. One lady I’ll never forget meeting is Marjorie “Peg” Page, who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth’s great granddaughter. My trips to Lincoln's home and tomb in Springfield, Illinois, Gettysburg, Ford’s Theater, and the house he died in, Petersen House, brought me close to Mr. Lincoln’s spirit. My travels also acquainted me with Booth’s brother Edwin, the most famous actor of his time, and his unconventional family.  A recording of Edwin’s voice reciting Shakespeare on one of Edison’s wax cylinders still exists at  http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/browse?browseId=248018

Tragically, we’ll never hear Abraham Lincoln’s voice. But his spirit lives on. In my book, which is fiction--but we all know that novels are fictionalized truths--I gave Booth what was coming to him. He got his justice in real life, but in A NECESSARY END, he also got the paranormal twist he deserves. 

And I enjoyed sticking it to him! 

I paralleled the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar in this story because in the play, Caesar was known as a tyrant to the Senators, who feared losing their power, as Booth feared losing the Confederacy. Booth always considered Lincoln the tyrant, hence his proclamation ‘sic simper tyrannis’ (be it ever to tyrants) when he jumped to the stage after shooting Lincoln. 

Caesar’s Senators, Brutus and Cassius among them, conspired to stab Caesar to death on an appointed day. Booth recruited a group of like-minded disciples to aid him in his insane plot, at first to kidnap Lincoln, then to kill him. 

By day, Booth was a Confederate spy and courier, taking dangerous missions so that his beloved South could fight the North in the war that tore the nation in two. But in this story, an even darker secret plagues him–he believes he’s the reincarnation of Brutus, the man who slew the tyrant Caesar, and Booth’s destiny in this life is to murder the tyrant who’s ravaged the South—Abraham Lincoln. In obeying the spirit of Brutus, Booth devises a plot to assassinate the tyrant. 

I wrote it as a paranormal instead of a straight historical novel because spirituality was extremely popular in 1865 and all throughout Victorian times. Mary Lincoln was a staunch spiritualist. So stricken with grief after the deaths of her boys Willie and Eddie, she hired mediums such as Nettie Maynard to visit the White House and hold séances in attempts to contact her boys from beyond the grave. 

The extent of séances, table-tapping, Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and otherworldly activities in this era fit perfectly with the story I wanted to tell. We could never enter Booth’s head, but his insane behavior begs the question: was he truly haunted by a spirit who drove him to his heinous act that changed history forever?

Or was he simply insane? 

Excerpt: 

“And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus!" Booth declared to the proud reflections in his three facing mirrors.

          The center mirror clouded over. Puzzled, he leaned into it to peer closer. His  reflection faded as if the mirror were clear glass, and another human form took shape, becoming sharper as the mist faded. He was astonished to be looking into the face of a man whose eyes bored into his, pinning him with an unnerving stare. Booth took a step back, glancing to the left, then to the right, but his own reflections were moving right along with him. He focused once more on the stranger in the center, the Roman nose giving the weathered features distinction. He’d seen this face before, but where?

          The head nodded and the hint of a pleased smile curled the thin lips. Without so much as a word, the figure faded into the mirror’s eternal depths, and Booth was once again looking at his own astonished face.

          “Damn you! Who are you?” He pounded the mirror and it wavered, his image jerking back and forth with the moving glass.

          Exasperated, he turned away.

          “I’ll find out who you are if I die doing it.” He twirled around to face the mirror, seeing only his three perplexed reflections.

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