{Giveaway!} Guest Post by author Debra Brown, A Passion for the Victorian period

Please join me in welcoming to our blog today...author, Debra Brown.  

Greetings! I have enjoyed a life of reading and various kinds of creative pursuits. Although I read many Nancy Drew books as a child and especially enjoyed Charles Dickens in my school years, I didn’t really have much time for reading in my earlier adult life. Therefore, I did not find my niche, or at least realize
it, until the last decade. I now realize that the things I remember from Nancy Drew revolve around old Victorian houses! Period. And that is the sort of thing that stands out to me in anything I’ve read in the past. For the last decade and a half I had a jewelry business that was doing well, but the creative part of it was the first few years. After that, I was filling orders for repeats of the same items. It was not creative and not fulfilling. It was boring. I began to put on movies, and before long I began to order only period movies. I had fallen in love with the genre decades ago, but only realized it more recently. As the economy began to take down my jewelry business and I began to run out of new period movies to watch, I decided to, just for fun, write my own Victorian story. I had no intention of publishing it at the time. I obtained books from the library and began researching the period and enjoying pictures of the British landscape. It was then as if the book mushroomed into being in my mind. I could not get it down on paper as fast as it grew, and it was nearly impossible to sleep at night for needing to write! I fell in love with writing, and it is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. I hope others can enjoy my work as much as I do.

My book, The Companion of Lady Holmeshire, will be published this spring. Please watch for it! My book site and a Reader’s Game are at http://t.co/MmYrIEh. I will give away a download copy of the book here, via the Historical Fiction Connection. I thank Michelle for the privilege of posting here. And now for the story!


A foundling infant, early in Queen Victoria's reign, grown to become the lovely servant girl, Miss Emma Carrington, has been chosen by the Countess of Holmeshire as her companion to keep her from the lonely hours of widowhood. Emma returns from London, where she had been receiving training in the arts of refinement, to the country castle home of the Lady in Northumbria. There she receives a warm welcome from her former workmates downstairs. The Countess intends to introduce this former servant girl into aristocratic society, alongside herself, despite much anxiety over it on the part of the former housemaid. Soon the Lady’s son, the 7th Earl of Holmeshire, who is engaged to an aristocratic London lady, returns from his travels to the Continent. How does he take to the presence of this former servant girl at tea? A day in the village below reveals some hint of danger to Emma; what is the source of that threat? Follow the enjoyable (nonerotic) romantic developments and enjoy life with both the aristocrats and the servants. Join them as they travel into London for The Season, and learn how Emma is received, or not, in snobbish upper class society. See some of the harsh realities of life while visiting a poor area in Victorian London. Attend a ball along with the young Queen Victoria. Follow the backstory into the Regency era. Last, but not least, quite some intriguing mystery has been woven through the book: an expensive bracelet has been stolen, and the identities and behaviors of several people are puzzling. See what you can deduce before reading the last two chapters! Please leave your guesses on my Reader's Game page. And then watch for the great surprise ending!

If you would like to win this download copy of Debra's book, please comment below with your email address and tell us what is your favorite aspect of the Victorian period in history.


--Get an extra entry for each tweet, facebook that you link this post to!
--And get an Extra 3 entries for posting on your blog with the graphic above, linking to this post.
--Be sure to leave those links in the comments.  You may put everything in ONE comment.
--Since this is a download copy, the giveaway is open worldwide and will end on Tues, 5/31 at 11:59 pm CT

Thanks for stopping by and for entering! And thanks again to Debra for being our guest today!