They sit politely in a sentence, doing their work, filling up the room.

And then there are words that arrive with a candle in one hand and a key in the other.

Let me share some of my new favorites from Regency England with you before they even appear in my books…

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A reader recently bought my twelve-book bundle and then asked for a return within hours.

Because she realized the characters were Jewish.

And she told me she was not interested in Jews.

There are many possible answers to a sentence like that.

The polite one.

The furious one.

The customer-service one.

The one where you pretend it didn’t hurt because authors are supposed to be grateful for attention and gracious about rejection and somehow serene when someone looks at the people you have written with your whole chest and says, not them.

But here is the truest answer I have:

My books are not “about Jews” in the small way that sentence imagines.

They are about people standing outside a locked drawing room while the people inside praise civilization.

They are about a society that loved elegance, pedigree, good manners, polished silver, royal favor, and the performance of virtue — while quietly deciding who was allowed to belong.

They are about families who had to calculate every word.

Every accent.

Every name.

Every holiday.

Every marriage.

Every business risk.

Every kiss.

They are about what it costs to be tolerated but not embraced.

Useful but not equal.

Admired but not safe.

Near power but never fully protected by it.

And yes, in my books, those people are Jewish.

Not accidentally.

Not as decoration.

Not because I needed a “fresh twist” on Regency romance.

Because history did not begin with the Holocaust.

Because antisemitism did not begin in Germany.

Because Jewish fear did not begin with yellow stars, camps, or trains.

Because long before the catastrophes everyone agrees to mourn, there were quieter humiliations. Closed doors. Whispered warnings. Broken engagements. Business threats. Social ruin. Conversion pressure. Blackmail. “Good families” who would smile over tea and destroy you by supper.

That is the world my characters inhabit.

A world where love is never just love.

A proposal can be a rescue.

A secret can be a death sentence.

A ballroom can be more dangerous than a battlefield.

And a woman choosing the man she loves can become an act of rebellion.

So no, these books are not only for Jewish readers.

They are for anyone who has ever wondered why the rules were written before they arrived.

Anyone who has ever been told they were “welcome” as long as they became smaller.

Anyone who has ever learned to laugh at the right jokes, dress the right way, use the right words, hide the wrong parts, and pray no one notices the place where their real self is showing.

They are for the girl who was too foreign.

The boy whose name sounded wrong.

The family who was invited in but never trusted.

The woman who knew she was brilliant but was told to be grateful.

The person who has stood in a beautiful room and realized beauty does not mean mercy.

That is universal.

But it is universal because it is specific.

I will not make my characters less Jewish so they can be more “relatable.”

That is not how the human heart works.

We do not recognize ourselves in stories because the characters have been sanded down into blandness.

We recognize ourselves because someone, somewhere, dared to tell the truth deeply enough.

My books were written with Herzblut.

Blood of the heart.

Tears and sweat and years of research and the ache of knowing how many Jewish stories were erased, mocked, flattened, or turned into footnotes.

I wrote these books because I wanted Jewish characters who were not only victims.

Not only warnings.

Not only ghosts walking toward tragedy.

I wanted them clever.

Desired.

Stubborn.

Flawed.

Elegant.

Funny.

Sensual.

Terrified.

Brave.

I wanted them in silk.

In danger.

In love.

At the center of the story.

And perhaps that is the part that still unsettles some people.

Not that the characters are Jewish.

But that they refuse to stand politely at the edge of the page.

They take up space.

They want.

They scheme.

They inherit.

They kiss.

They win.

They survive beautifully.

And that, I think, is the real provocation.

Because when someone says, “I’m not interested in Jews,” what they may mean is: I am not used to seeing them as the beating heart of the story.

But they are the beating heart of mine.

And I will not apologize for that.

Because behind every one of my fictional families is a question I cannot stop asking:

What happens to love when society lets you live, but not fully belong?

And what happens when the people expected to disappear decide, instead, to become unforgettable?

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The doors have been opened before.

The chandeliers have already glittered.

The card tables have seen fortunes lost, hearts exposed, reputations threatened, and Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon — the Black Widow of Whitehall — doing exactly what she does best: knowing more than anyone wishes she did.

So the question becomes: how do you enter a house like that without rearranging what readers love?

You do not knock down the walls.

You find the hidden passage.

That, for me, was the real beginning of The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation.

Let me tell you more…

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I could have given Rosine a dance card and a pretty dress but I didn’t this time.

But when I sat down with The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation, the more obvious version of the story did not interest me as much as the stranger one.

The one behind the curtain peeking at the rich gamblers from a distance.

The one in the kitchen with flour-dusted hands.

The one at the chessboard with a trap in his mind more than in his life.

A gentleman at a gaming table may lose a fortune. Sander may lose the fragile life he has built piece by piece.

A kiss in a garden is romantic. So is a woman wanting her own bakery sign before she gives anyone her future. So is a man learning that protection becomes love only when it leaves room for choice.

The most interesting Regency stories often begin where the polite version of history stops looking.

That is why I chose a baker. Let me tell you more…

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A carriage at the door.

A lady descending a grand staircase.

A gentleman returning from war.

A widow stepping back into society.

A mysterious stranger taking a seat at the gaming table.

But in The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation, the two arrivals that mattered most to me were quieter.

Rosine Cassis comes to the Lyon’s Den (a famous gambling den in Dragonblade’s well-known series, i.e., a casino for the elite with a matchmaker patroness called Mrs. Dove-Lyon) from Strasbourg, with Alsace in her accent and survival in her hands.

Sander comes from much farther east, from the Pale of Settlement, carrying a chessboard, grief, discipline, and the habit of watching a room before trusting it.

Both of them are immigrants in London.

That is rare in Regency romance, and it immediately changed the emotional center of the book.

Let me tell you more about this…

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Regency romance has taught us to recognize a heroine by her entrance.

She appears at a ball. She descends a staircase. Her gown is noticed. Her gloves matter and her fan tells a story. Her dance card is as important as her pedigree. Somewhere nearby, a mother, aunt, companion, or lady’s maid is quietly weighing her prospects against the evening’s eligible gentlemen.

Someone whispers about her dowry, her family, her reputation, or the terrible danger of being seen with the wrong man beside a potted palm.

I love those heroines.

I have written them. I will write them again. There is a particular pleasure in placing a woman inside all those glittering constraints and watching her outwit them.

But Rosine Cassis (the heroine in my new book) arrived in my imagination through a different door.

She came through the kitchen.

Alsace still on her tongue because she’s an immigrant in London. Heat gathering at her back. Flour clinging to her sleeves. Her hands knowing yeast, raisins, cardamom, lemon, sugar, and the kind of survival that must be practiced daily until it begins to look like skill.

That was the first thing I knew about her.

She was working.

And work changes the shape of a love story.

Let me tell you how…

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There is something delicious about a Regency hero who knows how to wait.

I don’t mean idleness. I mean the controlled patience of a chess player.

The kind that watches the room’s goings on with focus.

The kind that understands when to advance, when to hold, when to sacrifice, and when the quietest move is the one that changes everything.

That is Sander.

In my new book, The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation, Sander is one of Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s wolves (guards have these names only) at the Lyon’s Den. He guards the house, watches the doors, reads the guests, and understands that a gambling hell is driven by far more than cards or dice. Appetite moves through those rooms. So does desperation, vanity, secrets, and power.

And sometimes, chess.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon calls chess “wit against wit,” which is exactly why it belongs in the Lyon’s Den. A chessboard may look more respectable than a gaming table, but respectability has always been one of London’s prettiest disguises.

A card table can ruin a man loudly.

A chessboard can expose him quietly.

That is why I loved making Sander a chess master. He does not storm through every room with a sword drawn. He has no need for that. His strength is restraint. His gift is attention. His danger is precision.

Then he meets Rosine Cassis.

Rosine is a Jewish baker from Alsace whose hands know sugar, yeast, cardamom, lemon, and survival. She works in the kitchens below the Lyon’s Den, creating the sweets that tempt patrons who may never bother to ask who made them.

Sander sees her.

He sees the woman behind the trays. The ambition beneath the flour. The future she is determined to build with her own hands.

That is where the romance deepens for me.

A chess player can make a wonderful protector.

But love asks for more than protection.

Love asks him to learn partnership.

The most romantic move is sometimes knowing when to stand beside someone instead of in front of her.

Sander wants to keep Rosine safe. Rosine wants to build something that belongs to her: her own bakery, her own sign, her own name on the door.

Those desires do not begin as enemies.

But they do collide.

Safety can become too small if it is built like a cage. Love can lose its beauty if it asks a woman to trade away her independence. And in this story, the board is larger than either Sander or Rosine first understands.

The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation is now available for preorder. If you love clever heroes, ambitious heroines, Jewish Regency romance, and the dangerous world of Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s gambling hell, I hope you’ll step into the Den with me.

Here’s a deeper look behind the scenes and my work:

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Silk gowns. Candlelight. Carriages in the mist. Drawing rooms full of sharp words and sharper glances. Gaming tables where fortunes change hands. Ballrooms where one dance can alter the course of a life.

I love all of that.

Truly, I do.

There is a reason I keep returning to this era. It is beautiful on the surface and fascinating underneath it. The rules were elaborate. The manners were polished. The scandals were delicious. And every room had a door someone was not supposed to open.

But the Regency was never only ballrooms.

It was also kitchens.

Staff passages.

Back staircases.

Shopfronts with names painted carefully on glass.

And places like the Lyon’s Den, where the glittering world above stairs depends entirely on the people working, watching, cooking, guarding, listening, calculating, and surviving below it.

That is the world I wanted to step into with The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation.

If you know my Lyon’s Den books, you already know Mrs. Bessie Dove-Lyon, the Black Widow of Whitehall. She runs a Regency-era gambling hell with more power, secrets, and nerve than most men in London would know what to do with.

At the Lyon’s Den, wagers are made. Reputations tremble. Lovers find themselves cornered by fate. And Mrs. Dove-Lyon always knows far more than anyone realizes.

But in this book, I wanted to ask a different question.

What happens when the danger does not merely come to the gaming tables?

What happens when it walks straight into the house?

The Lyon’s Sweet Temptation is about Rosine Cassis, a Jewish baker from Alsace, and Sander, a Jewish chess master and one of the Den’s protectors. They are not dukes and debutantes. They are not moving through London from one assembly room to the next, wondering who will ask for the next dance.

They are working.

They are watching.

They are hiding parts of themselves because the world has taught them that visibility can be dangerous.

And still, they want what anyone would want.

A home.

A future.

A place to belong.

A life where love does not require disappearance.

The most interesting stories often begin where the ballroom ends.

Rosine’s world is heat, yeast, cardamom, sugar, lemon peel, and careful hands. Her pastries tempt the same patrons who may never bother to ask who made them. But her baking is not merely pretty. It is not decorative. It is her skill, her livelihood, her pride, and her plan for independence.

She dreams of her own bakery.

Her own sign.

Her own name on the door.

And for a woman like Rosine, that is not a small dream.

It is everything.

Sander’s world is different, but just as dangerous. He understands rooms the way a chess player understands a board. He notices exits, threats, patterns, traps, and the small moves other people overlook. He does not protect loudly. He protects by seeing what others miss.

And because this is the Lyon’s Den, chess belongs beautifully in the middle of the story.

A chess match looks civilized. Quiet, even. Two people sit across a board and move carved pieces while everyone pretends it is only a game.

But every move is a threat.

Every sacrifice has a cost.

Every advantage has to be earned.

That is the Regency I love writing most: the one where wit matters, where appearances deceive, where a quiet person may be the most dangerous one in the room.

Of course, there is still romance. Let me tell you about that…

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I am much more comfortable talking about characters, history, research, book releases, plots, villains, impossible love stories, and the occasional Regency scandal.

But today I want to say something plainly.

It has been a rough season (year!) for authors.

Sales are down for many of us. Ads are more expensive. Vi…

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Not always accurate.

But honest.

A cover will look you straight in the eye and say, Here is the sort of trouble you are about to enjoy.

This is why blood dripping from a gun does not usually say Regency romance.

It says murder.

Possibly revenge.

Possibly a man named something very futuristic who has unfinished business in an alley.

But a Regency romance? We need different signals.

A cravat doing its best.
A waistcoat under emotional strain.
A garden arch.
A ballroom.
A man staring as though love has inconvenienced him terribly.

The cover is the first promise.

Sweet romance whispers. Steamy romance leans closer. Victorian covers often feel a little heavier, darker, more velvet and consequence. Regency has light, polish, gloves, scandal, and the delicious sense that someone’s reputation may be ruined before supper.

And then there is the Lyon’s Den (published by Dragonblade).

The Lyon’s Den is its own little best and I’m fortunate enough to have contributed a few books to this amazing series.

It is not merely “a handsome man in historical clothing.”

It is a wager.

A bargain.

A locked room where everyone is pretending to be civilized.

So my Lyon’s Den covers need to say: yes, he is handsome, but please do not mistake that for harmless.

Because my heroes do have things in common.

Good looks, obviously. We are not here to be noble.

But also integrity.

Intelligence.

A private code.

A dangerous ability to think quickly.

And, hidden under the tailoring and tension, a soft heart for exactly one woman.

Do the men on the covers look exactly like the men in my head?

Absolutely not.

The heroes in my head are impossible. They move differently. They speak differently. They have one very specific expression when the heroine sees through them, and no cover model has yet volunteered to be emotionally destroyed in precisely the correct way.

But that is the fun of it.

The cover gives us the doorway.

The book gives us the room.

The hero?

The hero becomes yours.

Maybe you keep the cover version. Maybe you change his eyes. Maybe you make him more dangerous, more tender, more tired, more amused. Maybe you ignore the cover completely and build him from one line of dialogue.

I love that.

And because these Lyon’s Den covers are such a delicious little gallery of masculine problems, I thought we should peek at them properly.

PAID SUBSCRIBERS — let’s look at these men one by one.

Who looks dangerous? Who looks sweet? Who looks like he would absolutely ruin your life but only after asking whether you had eaten? And which cover hero is secretly holding the softest heart?

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I am behind.

Not because I disappeared.

Not because I ran out of ideas.

Not because the stories went quiet.

Actually, it’s the opposite.

I am behind because the stories are loud.

There is always another character tapping on the glass. Another family secret. Another historical rabbit hole. Another scene that begins as “just a small moment” and then decides, ve…

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Mine has his daughter.

If you read A Taste of Gold, you’ve already met the kind of man Theresa comes from—the kind who wears refinement like a mask and treats damage as a right. In A Name for Love, I wanted to do something that makes a story feel dangerous from the inside out: I wanted the heroine to be born in the house that did the harm.

Because that’s where the real question lives. Not “can she be loved?” but “can she be believed?” Can she step into a new life without being reduced to the worst thing her family ever did? Can she survive a world that loves bloodlines, surnames, and the comforting lie that goodness is inherited?

Theresa’s childhood is Vienna: polished halls, marble steps, the appearance of safety. It’s also the private education of a girl who learns early that grandeur doesn’t mean gentleness. She grows up watching her father and brother move through society with the sort of protection money and station buy—what she calls, with bitter precision, “the crimes they got away with due to their stations.” And she understands something most people never have to learn: a family name can be a doorway, or it can be a cage. Sometimes it’s both at once.

So when she reaches England, she does the bravest thing she knows how to do.

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Theresa isn’t the sort of Regency heroine who tumbles into trouble by accident. She walks into it with her eyes open—quietly, deliberately—because she’s learned that survival isn’t a matter of luck. It’s a skill. It’s a discipline. It’s knowing exactly which parts of yourself must be hidden in order to keep the rest alive.

Once, she walked polished halls in Vienna. Now she scrubs floors in Oxford, slipping through the Bodleian (I shared more about this famous library earlier this month!) like a shadow with purpose. By day, she is useful and forgettable: the kind of girl men glance past because their eyes are trained to ignore anyone without a title. By night, she becomes something else entirely. She studies. She reads. She keeps Ovid close not out of sentiment, but out of hunger—because knowledge is one of the few things no one can confiscate unless they’re willing to lay hands on your mind.

Most nights she sleeps tucked into a forgotten corner above the library, beneath the eaves, in a narrow nest that smells of vellum and old ink. It isn’t grand, and it certainly isn’t safe, but it’s hers. And for a girl who grew up in a house where power was performance and cruelty was currency, having any scrap of “hers” feels like a miracle she doesn’t quite trust.

If you’ve read A Taste of Gold, you already know why Theresa had to run. You know what kind of man her father is: the kind who can ruin lives and still stand in the light as if he’s done nothing at all. Theresa is his daughter, which means she learned early what it costs to share a roof with a villain. You don’t just endure that kind of household—you learn to disappear while smiling, to become fluent in silence, to understand that a family name can be both shield and weapon.

So she changes her name the moment she reaches England.
And this is what it becomes…

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I go back to the one that taught the world how to ache.

Romeo and Juliet.

Not because I want the tragedy.

Because I want the mechanism.

The way a single word can turn love into danger.

A surname.

A house.

A name that doesn’t just identify you—

It sentences the characters to doom.

Juliet’s famous question isn’t really romantic.

It’s legal and political.

It’s an argument with a world that treats family identity like a chain.

I felt that chain in my hands while writing A Name for Love. (This is my short story coming out in the anthology Dukes in Spring.)

I tried, at first, to write a spring Regency story that was… manageable.

Sweet.

Civilized.

Two families who could be introduced without anyone flinching.

But it kept flattening

Because the truth of Regency love stories (the ones that last) is that the danger is rarely “Will he propose?”

The danger is:

Will the world let you keep what you love once it has a name?

That’s when Juliet walked back into the room.

Not the balcony—(fun fact: the word “balcony” never appears; she’s simply “above,” at a window).

Not the poison.

Not the tomb.

Just the core of it:

Two young people reaching for each other across a divide their elders insist is permanent.

A divide so old it’s become a reflex.

And suddenly I could see exactly where my story’s “orchard” was.

Not moonlight and a garden.

But Duke Humfrey’s Library.

A cathedral of oak and stained glass.

A hush thick enough to hide in.

John Spencer—Marquess of Stonefield—sitting at a long table with a parcel tied in string, trying to read about estate taxes while staring at an empty space like it’s a wound.

Because there are things a title can’t buy.

Not really.

And then Theresa—who cleans the library, who studies like she’s starving, who lives in the forgotten tower above the stacks—moves through the room like a secret that learned how to breathe.

Their version of “above” isn’t a balcony.

It’s a tower room with lavender sachets and a cracked mirror and bedding scavenged from castoffs.

A nest built out of whatever the world didn’t want.

A place where love can exist because no one is looking.

And then the “name” problem arrives—right on time.

Because Theresa has already done the thing Juliet begs for.

She’s refused her father.

She’s refused her family name.

She has cut herself loose from the identity that would destroy her.

She is not the person she was born as anymore.

John… can’t do that.

He’s a marquess.

His name is an inheritance.

A public object.

A weapon other people can pick up and swing.

So when I found myself writing the moment where Theresa overhears the family conversation—German drifting up through an open window—

I realized I wasn’t borrowing Romeo and Juliet as a backdrop.

I was borrowing it as a heartbeat.

Because in Shakespeare, the lovers don’t fall apart because they don’t love each other enough.

They fall apart because their houses get a vote.

And in my story, the house votes too.

Just with different rules.

Different prejudices.

Different consequences.

Felix says, lightly, as if it’s obvious—

“What did you expect—a Jewish girl?”

And Theresa hears the word Jewish like a bell struck too hard.

And then, right there on the page, she thinks it herself:

Romeo and Juliet. Families who should never meet. Names that spelled ruin if bound together.

Here’s what I love about the classics:

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I’m a lawyer. A former law professor. An author.

So yes—
I love words and books and…

oh libraries!

Not only the pretty, postcard sort.

The kind that decide who belongs.

The kind that keep their treasures on leashes.

The kind that can make a person feel holy—
or exiled—
in the same breath.

That’s why John Spencer breaks my heart in this story.

Because John is a marquess.

And John is also something the ton does not know what to do with.

He was orphaned.

He was—essentially—adopted.

Raised by Jews.

Doctors, no less.

So when he grows into the title the world insists is his…

he is still carrying the imprint of the household that saved him.

Love.

Learning.

Hands that heal.

A family whose welcome in drawing rooms is always conditional.

And then Oxford.

In the Regency, Oxford wasn’t just a place you went to become educated.

It was a place you went to be certified.

As respectable.

As noble.

As the right kind of Englishman.

For generations, Oxford required students—at matriculation—to swear oaths tied to the monarch and the Church, rules strict enough to keep the university “exclusive” by design.

And it wasn’t vague.

In a parliamentary debate about reforming Oxford in 1854, it was stated outright that Oxford students were expected at matriculation to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles and take the oath of supremacy—an entrance ritual that made “Oxford” a religious gate as much as an academic one.

So imagine what it means for John to be “sent up” to Oxford.

A marquess stepping into a world where belonging is not only about blood—

but about declarations.

About what you will swear.

About who you must pretend you have always been.

And imagine what it means that the people who raised him—his real family in every way that matters—could not have walked that same path as admitted students in his era.

Now let me take you where I took him.

Duke Humfrey’s Library.

The oldest heart-room of the Bodleian.

Historically, the books there were chained to the shelves.

There’s even a special reading booth built for King Charles I—because this is the kind of place that remembers power…and still has rules for it.

The Bodleian has always loved rules.

So much so that readers still make a declaration that includes a promise not to bring in or kindle any fire or flame.

And the old stories get colder when you learn this:

For a long stretch of its history, the library had no heating until 1845, no artificial lighting until 1929, and in winter, it only opened 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Even King Charles I was refused permission to borrow a book in 1645.

Not even a king could carry its knowledge out the door.

Fun facts that I usually only share with paid subscribers are, for example, include:

Oxford readers still “swear” not to bring fire into the Bodleian.
The reader declaration includes a promise “not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame” (and not to smoke), and it remains part of admissions—so modern scholars are still bound by a very 17th-century fear.

That declaration exists in a lot of languages.
Bodleian staff have translated the reader declaration into more than 100 languages, so the same oath can be read in a reader’s mother tongue.

The Bodleian was basically an icebox for centuries.
It had no heating until 1845 and no artificial lighting until 1929; in 1831 it averaged only 3–4 readers a day, and winter opening hours were just 10am–3pm.

It became Britain’s earliest “legal deposit” library because of a 1610 deal with London printers.
In 1610, the Bodleian secured an agreement with the Stationers’ Company to claim copies of everything printed under royal licence—making it, in effect, the first legal-deposit library in the British Isles.

Oxford colleges also chained books—and one surviving chain is still attached.
University College’s Library Benefactors’ Book (1674) still has the chain that once kept it in place, and Univ didn’t finally do away with chained library books until the 1740s.

So when John arrives…

this is what waits for him:

a place built to protect what matters.

A place that can feel like sanctuary.

A place that can feel like a sentence.

A place that will never once ask what it cost him to get there.

But I’m asking…

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I have a short story in the anthology Dukes in Spring coming out April 26th. This story is connected to my Miracles on Harley Street series, and I can’t wait to share more with you.

Here we go!

New month, new book.

A marquess did not wait in lines.

Yet he waited.

Before dawn on Holywell Street, for pastries that would be gone by breakfast.

Because there are things a title can’t buy.

Not really.

Inside Duke Humfrey’s Library, the Bodleian feels less like a room and more like a vow.

Oak rising in tiers.

Stained glass spilling jeweled light.

Iron chains tethering rare manuscripts as if truth itself might bolt for the door.

That’s where my spring story begins.

And today, I’m finally revealing its name.

A Name for Love.

Not because it’s pretty.

Because in the Regency, a name is never just a name.

It’s permission.

It’s inheritance.

It’s what you’re allowed to be called in public—

and what you’re only whispered as in private.

It’s also what love risks taking from you.

In the first pages, John Spencer—Marquess of Stonefield—sits at a long table with a parcel tied in string.

Warm cream.

Cinnamon apple.

Vanilla.

He brought it like an offering, almost foolish in its hope.

He sets the pastries down in front of an empty place.

Because the person he wants to share them with always arrives quietly—

like she’s trying not to be seen.

Only—

Theresa is nowhere to be seen.

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Now in April, I’m appearing in an anthology.

Both projects involve multiple authors contributing to one book, which might make them sound similar at first glance. But the way they’re written — and the experience of creating them — couldn’t be more different.

So if you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between these two types of projects, here’s a behind-the-scenes look from someone who’s been lucky enough to do both in back-to-back months.

Writing One Story Together

The March release was a collaborative novella built through serial fiction.

Instead of each writer contributing separate stories, we all worked on one continuous narrative. One author wrote a section, then the next picked up the thread and carried the story forward.

It’s a little like a relay race.

You inherit the characters, the tension, and whatever surprises the previous writer left behind — then you add your own twist before handing the story to the next author.

It’s exciting, unpredictable, and sometimes a little chaotic in the best way.

Writing Many Stories Apart

Anthologies work very differently.

Instead of building one story together, each author writes their own complete short story. Those stories are then collected into one book around a shared theme.

So every writer controls their own characters, plot, and ending.

Think of it like a festival lineup.

Each author brings their own voice and story to the stage, and readers get a variety of styles and storytelling in one place.

Why I Love Both

What I enjoyed most about doing these two projects back-to-back is seeing how many different ways writers can create something together.

One format asks you to build a story with other authors.

The other asks you to bring your own story into a larger collection.

Both remind me that storytelling doesn’t always have to be solitary.

Sometimes it’s a collaboration.

And sometimes it’s simply a group of writers sharing a stage.

If you're curious about the projects themselves, you can learn more about both the collaborative novella and the anthology on my website — along with the other books I've written.

Visit my website here: www.SaraAdrien.com

It’s about flowers.

What would be in bloom?
What wouldn’t be?
What could a character plausibly see, smell, brush past on a walk without the story quietly breaking its own spell?

Some authors go very far down this road. They check weather records. They look up whether a particular year was colder or wetter than usual, and how that might have delayed blooming. They cross-reference diaries and garden journals. They want to know whether the lilacs were early that year, whether the roses would have dared to show themselves yet.

I admire that level of devotion.

I’m not always quite that exacting—but I do pay attention.

Because spring in a story isn’t just a mood. It’s a set of conditions.

In the Regency era, flowers didn’t bloom on cue for dramatic effect. They arrived when they arrived, and people noticed. Early spring meant snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils—small, resilient things that appeared before the world was ready to feel warm again. Later blooms carried different associations, different expectations.

And sometimes, those details matter more than you’d expect.

I have a story where the entire meet-cute depends on it. Let me tell you a bit more:

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There were no seasonal overhauls, no dramatic transformations. Instead, spring was acknowledged through small domestic shifts—subtle changes that signaled the world was turning again.

Households adjusted.

And that restraint is what gave Regency interiors their quiet elegance.

This is one of the simplest Regency habits we can still borrow.

Tea tables were kept deliberately simple in early spring. Biscuits, seed cake, preserved fruit—nothing that demanded attention. The table was meant to support conversation, not dominate it.

And conversation, in Regency households, was the true point of the ritual.

Tea was one of the few moments in the day when women exercised unquestioned authority over space and pacing. Choosing the cups, pouring the tea, deciding who sat where—these were small acts, but they shaped rooms and relationships alike.

Elegance, in the Regency sense, was never about luxury alone.

It was about intentional calm.

About knowing when to lighten rather than add.
When to open rather than replace.
When to let a season arrive gradually instead of insisting it perform.

If you’re looking for a way to welcome spring that feels grounded rather than busy, the Regency offers a quiet answer:

Change the light.
Add one flower.
Set the table with care.

And allow the season to enter without being rushed.

That, too, is a kind of elegance—and one that never goes out of style.

Revising them, however, can be pure comedy.

I spend a great deal of time trying to get the details right: the history, the emotion, the setting, the social rules, the flowers, the horses, the tea.

Especially the tea.

And yet, every so often, a sentence slips past me wearing the wrong hat and pretending to belong there.

That is how, in one draft, I wrote:
“She will be climbing dresses before you come home, I think.”

One of my beta readers replied:
“Let me see . . . climbing in dresses, climbing dressers, climbing trees . . . Am I close? LOL!!!”

Reader, she (the toddler in the book) was meant to be climbing dressers.

Not dresses.

Though I admit the image is unforgettable.

Then there were the white flowers in the fading light. I meant for them to be glowing. Luminous. Romantic. Softly radiant.

Instead, I wrote “going luminous.”

Which is close enough to make the mistake harder to catch, and odd enough to make me laugh once I saw it. The flowers were not simply shining.

Next: They were apparently leaving.

Another heroine had her luggage stolen. Her book was in the luggage. A few pages later, she calmly read the very same book.

A remarkable feat.

Less remarkable, perhaps, if she’d had a Kindle that synced to her mobile.

But as this was the Regency era, I’m afraid she did not have the option of syncing it to her phone.

Then Florence, who was meant to grip the reins, somehow ended up with a word that suggested something rather different. Impressive, perhaps, on top of a mountain. But not, strictly speaking, the scene I had intended.

And finally, one of my heroines performed a transformation I almost envy: she had a cup of tea after picking up a wine glass. I understand the instinct. I, too, can imagine a world in which tea improves nearly any situation. But even I must admit this was not character development. It was my mistake.

This is the part of writing that readers do not always see.

Not the finished page. Not the polished book. Not the carefully researched world.

They do not see the sentence that almost worked.
The typo that became accidental absurdity.
The continuity error that sauntered in as if no one would notice.
The moment your brain reads what you meant instead of what you actually wrote.

And this is exactly why beta readers are such a gift.

They save children from climbing dresses.
They stop flowers from wandering off.
They return stolen books to the limits of history.
They rescue mountain scenes from unintended meanings.
And they keep tea from materializing out of wine glasses.

Books are not made by perfection. They are made by revision, humility, and sharp-eyed readers who catch what the writer can no longer see.

That is one of the most human parts of the process, I think.

We write.
We miss things.
We fix them.
We laugh.
And the book gets better.

So to my beta readers: thank you for your sharp eyes, your honesty, and your sense of humor. You make these stories stronger. You also make the journey far more delightful.

And truly, that feels right to me.

Because making mistakes is natural.

Catching them is grace.

And laughing at them on the way to a better book may be one of the best parts of all.

Books are built from imagination, revision, and the occasional sentence that accidentally sends a child climbing dresses.

If you’ve ever caught a glorious typo or continuity slip, in a book or in life, I’d love to hear it.