Michelle Styles: The Joy of Historical Outliers

Outliers, people out of the ordinary who sometimes do extraordinary things interest me. I particularly like discovering people who do not fit various historical narratives and writing about them. This has been one of the major themes through out my published writing career.  I love the detective nature of it as these are people who exist in the historical records but who are often overlooked because historians view the world through specific lenses (EH Carr was the man who developed the notion that all history is subjective and to understand what was truly going on you must first understand the lenses you are viewing it through. The time line objective view of history is a 19th century Leopold von Ranke idea.  Carr was a Marxist by the way).

The Lady Soldier which I co-wrote with Kate Allan (the agent Kate Nash) was the story of a woman who becomes a successful soldier during the Peninsula Campaign. Kate developed the hero and I was responsible for the heroine. A publisher, John Hale promised to look at it but he didn’t hold out much hope as he wasn’t sure such women existed. Cue a research note at the end of the manuscript detailing real life women soldiers who were being overlooked and my author note habit was born.

I absolutely loved writing His Unsuitable Viscountess as  it allowed me to research women business-owners in the Regency (my editor expressed doubts). I loved discovering the two highest paid bankers in the 1820s were women – Sarah Childs of Childs of Bank (aka Lady Jersey of Almack’s fame  -did the Lady Patronesses actually need Brumnell's input or was it a useful fig leaf?) and Harriot Coutts of Coutts bank ( where the Royal Family still banks). All in all there were 20 women who held licenses to print money in the Regency times. I discovered other businesswomen as well. Of those who married, most had sons and passed the business on to them. Over time, the narrative gets altered and the women are subtly erased until people believe such women never truly existed.

 When I first wrote Taming His Viking Woman, the evidence was circumstantial that such women warriors existed. I was pretty sure they must have. Then they did DNA testing and discovered that women warriors did exist in the Viking age and were not a product of some writer's fantasy.

At the moment, there is a strand of argument in historical romance circles that People of Colour shouldn’t be there in starring roles as it is unrealistic. That no POC was a member of the First Estate, if you will and they all led miserable, horrible lives. What utter balderdash and nonsense. 

There are a few outliers, probably more than the ones I mention), many who have been rendered invisible because their lives don’t fit the historical narrative or lenses of the writer. Simply because people believe the received and skewed historical narrative doesn't make them right.

 Off the top of my head to combat nay-sayer  – John Perkins (the first black British Naval Officer) is from the Georgian period. He won the most prizes of any naval officer in the Georgian period except for Nelson.  He was mostly based in the Caribbean and was particularly effective against he Americans. His Naval Chronicle obituary states ‘ he annoyed the enemy more than any other officer, by his repeated feats of gallantry and the immense number of prizes he won.’ The records of what happened to his substantial estate are lost and he never married. When I last looked Naval officers were members of the First Estate. 2. Nathaniel Wells, the High Sherriff in Wales in 1818 and friend to the Prince of Wales . His first wife was the daughter of the chaplain to George II. His second wife was related to William Wilberforce's wife.  The son of a slave, he inherited his money from his father and was extremely wealthy through sugar plantations.  3. Cesar Picton, a man who rose from being a slave to a wealthy coal merchant in Kingston upon Thames. His estate when he died included 2 acres of lands, ships, shops and a wharf. 4. Equiano aka Gustav Vassa who made his first fortune in shipping and his second from being a best selling author. He marries a white woman and leaves his surviving daughter a sizable fortune.

Protrait of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas from Wikipedia

 There were over 10,000 people of colour living in Britain in the 18^th century and not all in abject poverty. It is just that few people are actually interested in researching them as they don't fit the narrative and so they get overlooked.  Or their race and colour is referred to obliquely and people forget or prefer to gloss over. Let me put it this way -- Wellington probably never raised an officer from the ranks as Bernard Cornwell would have it but the Prince Regent did regularly dine with the son of a slave -- Nathaniel Wells. 

I could go on about France which is possibly somewhat more interesting for the historical romance novelist. Alexandre Dumas’s father Thomas-AlexandreDumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a high ranking general in Napoleon’s army. Thomas-Alexandre was the son of a Marquis and his mother an African slave.  And his entire life is fascinating. There was a habit of French planters, particularly men like the Marquis  to send their natural sons (if you will) to be educated in France as they were immediately freed once on French soil (until Napoleon brought back slavery).  People of Colour were very involved in the arts. Gericault the artist had a favourite Haitian model who was very wealthy in his own right. And of course, you have the whole Haitian and Santa Domingo history. 

However these few examples should be enough to prove that there were wealthy people of colour, people who fit the definition of First Estate during this period. It is simply that htey have been overlooked for years because we view history through certain lenses.

Gercault's Raft of the Medusa with his favourite
model, waving at the top, from Wikipedia

This is not to say that these people did not suffer huge racism, particularly from arrogant imbeciles.  It is merely to illustrate that some people of colour were in the First Estate in Georgian and Regency times and they deserve to have their stories used as inspiration, rather than derided as some politically correct  fantasy.

And I have promise myself not to ask why there are so few Jewish set Regencies and Victorians when you have the Rothchilds, Sebag-Montefiores and other prominent families making such positive contributions to British society.

Personally I love researching historical outliers and hope more people will actually try to write stories based on these people or at least stop deriding things as fantasy when they are historical fact.

In other news:

I sold my 28^th novel to Harlequin Historical, A DEAL WITH HER REBEL VIKING. It will be published n December.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances in a wide range of time periods for Harlequin Historical. Her most recent was Sent as the Viking’s Bride. You can learn more about  Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk

Michelle Styles: Rediscovering People and voices Airbrushed from History

It is very easy to look at history through monochrome lenses but that would be a mistake. The trouble for a historical novelist is how to portray the world as it might have been, not as how generations of Hollywood movie makers have portrayed. For example, London in the 19^th century because of its worldwide empire had an ethnically diverse population. In fact British ports have always teemed with travelers, seamen and the like from  around the world but many of them have not made a lasting impression on the historical record.

For the avoidance of doubt, the written historical record has generally been written and published by men. As such they tend to concentrate on the subjects which interest them and sometimes for self-serving reasons discount or ignore the contributions made by women and ethnic minorities.

For example, take the pinnacle of Regency society – Almacks. It was controlled by the Lady Patronesses. When I last checked, there were no definitive biographies of any of them, despite their huge contributions to the Regency period. Lady Jersey ran Child’s Bank and was one of the highest paid bankers in her day. She literally had a license to print money. She also had the access to the financial information of those who wished to attend. The other Lady Patronesses were similarly well-connected in other areas such as foreign diplomatic circles. Does that sound like  fluffy-headed women who needed to rely on Beau Brummell, a man more famous for being famous than anything, for advice on if someone was suitable or not as his biographer (a well-known chancer himself) claimed? Yet the legend persists and the Lady Patronesses’ lives remain largely  unexplored.

Going further back to the time period I am currently writing in.  nearly all of the primary source documents were written by monks. They tend to have a certain misogynistic bias. But sometimes, you can find out wonderful things about people who have been airbrushed from history. 

On Friday, I happened across a blog which gave details about a Viking raid on Morocco and how the Vikings returned with a large quantity of slaves who were known as the Black men. Even more intriguing the blog highlighted the discovery of 3 Sub-Sahara African women’s graves in England (East Anglia) dating from the late Saxon period. There was no information about their status, but I feel that given that they were properly buried and not just thrown into some pit, they were more than likely high status. What they were doing there, I have no idea and someone needs to write their story (or stories!)  but they were airbrushed from history. Most  historians of the period do not mention the first grave which was discovered in the late 1980’s. The other two graves were discovered in 2013.  

What it means is that the Viking period, indeed the entire Medieval period, is open to multi-cultural storylines as there is hard physical proof that  people from varied ethnic backgrounds live in Britain and it is not some politically-correct fantasy to have them appearing in historical romance novels. I find that tremendously exciting. It is also a challenge for a historical romance writer to  somehow convey the different sort of cultures and peoples who were actually there without puling people out of the story. It is the little facts that are true but seem to be opposite of what standard history teaches that can cause the most difficulty for readers.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance for Harlequin Historical in a wide range of times periods from Roman to Victorian but has lately been writing Viking. Her latest The Warrior’s Viking Bride was published in March 2018 featuring a woman Viking warrior (a creature thought to be a fantasy until archaeologists bothered to do DNA testing of bones)  and she is doing the revisions (due on Wednesday) for the next Viking. You can learn more about Michelle and her books at www.michellestyles.co.uk .

Dealing With A Real Life Issue In A Fictional World

Have you ever come up with an idea, moved forward with it—then have it morph into something completely different? I mean, so different, it doesn't even look like what you started with.

Yeah? Me, too. Welcome to my crazy world of writing.

I'm what's known as a pantser: an idea will pop into my head, I'll mull it over a bit, then start writing and see what happens. Do I have a general idea of what's going to happen? Sometimes, in the vaguest sense around. But I don't "plot", not in the way people think of "plotting". It doesn't work for me.

Usually the story will unfold in my mind as I write, taking on a life of its own. And yes, it's usually guided by the characters. Future scenes become a little clearer as the story progresses and I'll make a note or two as I go along. Sometimes there's a scene or two I want to have happen, or some important tidbit I need to include in the story, and I'll note that before I get to it.

It's my process, and it works well for me. I may not have a concrete road plan, but I always have a general idea of where the story is going.

Well, maybe not always.

That's kind of what happened with FACE OFF, The Baltimore Banners #10, which released May 9.

I knew who the main characters were and I knew what the story was about. I knew where I wanted the story to go—in that vague sense I always have when I start a story.

And then my characters revolted. I mean, big time revolted. Yes, it was still going to be a friends-to-lovers story, a tale of best friends discovering that there was so much more to their relationship.

Only it didn't turn out to be quite that simple.

About a quarter of the way in, my female lead character veered off in a direction I never saw coming. A direction I tried to fight because I wasn't sure how to handle it.

And I sure as hell had no idea how it would be taken.

Turns out, she was suffering from severe depression. MDD—Major Depressive Disorder—to be exact. It's estimated that 6.9% of the US population and 350 million people worldwide suffer from some form of depression.

I admit, it gave me pause. For more than solid week, I fought the direction she was leading me in. I didn’t want to deal with it, to the point of deleting and rewriting, fighting, and even thinking of scrapping the whole thing and starting over.

Then I had to ask myself: why? Why was I so set against following my characters' lead, when I never had that problem before?

It wasn't just the fear of readers' reactions. No, I think this one was a little closer to home.

I've had three episodes of what might be called severe depression: once, after being involved in a particularly bad accident; post-partum depression after my second child was born; and again, six or seven years ago. I was fortunate all three times because I had friends and family—a supportive husband—who noticed it, who stood by me. More importantly, they made sure I didn't fall deeper into that black hole of despair and helped me climb out of it.

So yeah. Maybe this one was a little too close to home. Once I realized that, I knew I had a choice to make: scrap the project completely, or let myself fall back into that hole—this time from the perspective of my heroine.

And I admit, it was a hard decision to make. I was afraid to revisit that, even though I think what my female lead was going through was much worse than what I experienced. It took quite a bit of mentally arguing with myself to sit back down and let my characters tell their story, but I did.

And I was scared to death at the end. Scared how readers would react. Scared that I didn't do the problem justice. Just…scared, period. Hitting submit on Face Off was probably one of the hardest things I had to do.

And hell, I'm still scared. So far, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. I've received many emails and messages thanking me for writing the story, all of them emotional, all of them striking an emotional chord deep inside me. One in particular makes me cry happy and sad tears just thinking about it.

And yet, the fear is still there. Maybe it's not really the fear of reactions, but more the fear of people dismissing the very real pain and trauma of depression and how it effects everyone, not just the person fighting it.

Things have changed in the last ten, twenty, thirty years. How we view depression, how we treat it, even our understanding of it. But there's still a stigma attached to it. There are still those who dismiss it as a weakness and who belittle those suffering from it.

Maybe that's what the real fear is.

And maybe, instead of being afraid, I should be angry. Angry at those who refuse to acknowledge its existence. Angry at those who continue to belittle it and dismiss it as a weakness.

Depression isn't a weakness. And it takes more courage, more fight and grit, to deal with it, to get a handle on it, to claw your way out of that dark pit of despair.

For those who are fighting the battle, stay strong. And know that you're not alone—we're here for you. I'm here for you.

And I understand.

***************

Face Off, The Baltimore Banners Book 10, released on May 9. You can pick up a copy at your favorite vendor by clicking here.

Lisa B. Kamps is the author of the best-selling series The Baltimore Banners, featuring "hard-hitting, heart-melting hockey players" [USA Today], on and off the ice. Her Firehouse Fourteen series features hot and heroic firefighters who put more than their lives on the line. She's introduced a whole new team of hot hockey players who play hard and love even harder in her newest hockey series, The York Bombers.

To learn more about Lisa and her titles, please visit her webpage.

#Suffragette -- a must see film for women

Sometimes films are not easy entertainment but powerful statements about humanity. Suffragette, the recent release about the struggle for British women’s equal rights is such a film. It is the first major film to examine the issue and long overdue. Until now, the stereotypical image of a suffragette is Mrs Banks parading up and down the hall, singing and then requiring Mary Poppins to rescue her and her children.  It is a film every woman (or man for that matter) should see, preferably with their daughter or their mother. Women account for 50% of the human race give or take and it is easy to forget how hard one sex had to fight for basic human rights. And the fight (which isn't fully over) took place less than a hundred years ago.

The film went on general release in the UK on the 12th. It is going on limited release in the US on the 27th of October. It is worth tracking down to see it.

The subject is not an easy one. The struggle for equality was not peaceful in the UK. But there again, the stakes were high. Women were the property of men. They did not have the right to vote, to look after their own money or indeed have any say about their children. Such things were considered beyond their capacity.  The film makes this abundantly clear. They were also not taken seriously until they started to misbehave.

The film follows Maud, a worker ( Carey Mulligan) in a laundry who has few prospects. She was born out of wedlock, and the laundry has been her home. She is married with a son but it is clear that she still is being abused by the manager. At the start of the film, she is not interested in politics but by the end, she is committed to the cause of improving women’s status in society. There were parts of the film which made me cry and parts that had me literally sick to my stomach. There were a number of times I wanted to punch various men in their smug over-bearing faces.

One of the most poignant parts of the film was at the end when the list of countries and the year when women gain suffrage happened. In 2015 Saudi Arabia promised, only promised mind you, to give some women the right to vote.  And because of this film, one can easily imagine the difficulties that those women suffer.

The film highlighted the big injustices as well as the petty ones. For example, a well to do suffragette asks her husband who is an M.P. to post bail for the five other women who were arrested with her. She in part feels responsible for the predicament Maud is in because she was the one who encouraged her to take part and to give her testimony to parliament. He refuses. She says in a low tone but it is my money and he still refuses, saying she shamed him. The larger injustices such as a man being able to put children for adoption without consulting his wife is also highlighted.  Giving women equal rights to their children in the UK only happened in the 1920s. So the struggle was not just about voting, but also about how women were treated in society. There is no love interest. Maud’s husband who seems decent enough at the beginning has no epiphany. But that is fine, the film is powerful and shows Maud’s growth. Helena Bonham-Carter is excellent as the woman who married a pharmacist so that she could use her intelligence.  And Meryl Streep has a brief cameo as Emmeline Pankhurst. (Something which is not brought out in the film is that Mrs Pankhurst had she not died, would have stood for election as a Tory, not a Labour candidate. Labour came late to the woman’s movement as they were formed to serve the working class man.)

After the film finished and the credits started to roll, my fellow movie-goers and I sat, no one moving and then someone started to clap. The applause echoed through the cinema and then people started to move. My daughter and I had a lively discussion about women and their rights after the film. I suspect that once the film is out on dvd, many high school history teachers will acquire it to show their students.  But it is important to support this film so that more films are made about the same subject.

The struggle for equality does continue today and it is easy to forget the price many women paid so that women living in Britain can enjoy certain freedoms, freedoms we often take for granted.  Women have obtained/regained many rights but they were hard won. One of the things I know from my own research is how women lost some of those rights and had their freedoms curtailed.  We have to be vigilant. And some of that can start by seeing this film.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance in a wide range of time periods. Her most recent book was Summer of the Viking published in June 2015. You learn more about Michelle and her books on her website – www.michellestyles.co.uk

A PEACH OF A PAIR--A Fabulous Recipe and a Fun Giveaway!

Hello, lovelies! Thanks for stopping in! I’m  SO excited my new book A Peach of a Pair is out, and I'm celebrating this juicy story of sisterhood and betrayal with a fun giveaway and my coveted recipe for peach champagne punch that has people drinking straight from the dispenser at my book launch parties!

A Peach of a Pair is set in 1953. Nettie Gilbert has cherished her time studying to be a music teacher at Columbia College in South Carolina, but as graduation approaches, she can’t wait to return to her family—and her childhood sweetheart, Brooks—in Alabama. Problem is, just days before her senior recital, she gets a letter from her mama telling her that Brooks has to get married . . . to her own sister.

Devastated, Nettie drops out of school and takes a job as live-in help for two old-maid sisters, Emily and Lurleen Eldridge. Emily is fiercely protective of the ailing Lurleen, but their sisterhood has weathered many storms. And as Nettie learns more about their lives on a trip to see a faith healer halfway across the country, she’ll discover that love and forgiveness will one day lead her home.

The Huffington Post says, “A Peach of a Pair is an end of the summer hit… This is the kind of book that makes you want to lock the door, turn off the phone and read every page straight through to the end.” 

I hope you enjoy my recipe and that you’ll check out A Peach of a Pair wherever books are sold, but before you do, COMMENT BELOW to enter my giveaway for a $25 gift card to your choice of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Indiebound because can a girl REALLY have too many books?
 

Coveted Peach Champagne Punch

1 30+ oz. bottle of Peach nectar/juice
6 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup of peach schnapps
1/4 cup of grenadine syrup
1 32 oz. bottle of carbonated water
3 (750 milliliter) bottles of champagne

Chill all ingredients. Combine everything in a punch bowl or dispenser. If you use a punch bowl you can freeze a fresh fruit ring of fresh peaches and strawberries.

COPING VICTORIOUSLY!

Okay, so I’m 57 with writing deadlines, aging parents, and a first grandchild on the way. Most days I feel like I’m barely coping. But as I sat down a few days ago to mull over what I had to say today, the words COPING VICTORIOUSLY popped into my head.

Why? Because I think too often, women "just" cope. We learn to get by on less for ourselves to give more to others, which isn't a bad thing. I think it's how we're built. But it made me ask myself, how do I cope victoriously? 

Romance. I write it. I read it, and on most days, ESPECIALLY lately, romance is what gets me through the day. As a bonus, since sitting is the new smoking, reading romance is the ONLY thing that gets me on the treadmill almost every day. With my Kindle fired up and walking through a love story, I trick my brain into going the extra mile. Literally.

So spill! What’s your secret to coping victoriously? If romance is your thing too, check out my new Tule title, Caught Up in You, available on Kindle. Whatever you do, live well and be good to yourself.

CAUGHT UP IN YOU

After attending her baby sister’s destination wedding, Shelby Worthington decides she’s ready to do some husband hunting of her own. The only problem? She’s still insanely attracted to Declan Enright, her high school and college crush. He’s now a wildly successful painter who’s temporarily back in Magnolia Bay, but Declan should be Shelby’s last choice for possible husband material. He didn’t earn the reputation of runaway groom for nothing… 

Declan has worked hard to make his mark on the New York art scene and has succeeded at everything he’s ever done…except love. But Declan has come back to the Bay to change that and care for his dying father, even if he’s still never forgiven Declan for leaving the family business. Shelby is determined to steer clear, but while her lips keep saying no, her heart is pounding out yes each time she and Declan are together. While she can’t deny her attraction, Shelby’s convinced that Declan’s track record means he will break her heart. Or has Declan changed for good, and made love worth the risk?