Saturday Sites: Regency Research

As any blogger knows, posting every day keeps your readers returning to keep up to date.  Blogger's wonderful little statistics charts and graphs serve as a very visible reminder of the visits you're gaining or losing, and the compulsion overtakes one to keep that trend always moving upward.

Unfortunately, to blog every day one have something to write about.  Many bloggers have specific subjects for specific days, such as Monday Mysteries or the Sizzling Kiss.  The only one I have found so far that I've embraced is Flash Fiction Friday which I picked up from my friend, Laura Besley's blog.  (Look for a guest post from her on September 4th).

Saturdays are particularly tricky for me (as I'm sure they are for bloggers and readers alike), but I've finally hit upon a solution:  Saturday Sites.  In this column, I hope to share with you the sites and blogs I have discovered this week, hopefully all with a common thread.  First up:

 Regency Research


English Historical Fiction Authors 

This very useful open Facebook group encourages participation, which the members do with gusto.  Conversations abound, as does the information shared.

Many scholars of the genre participate, so this group proves an excellent resource for  authors focused on any British era.  I have had my questions immediately answers, solutions to my quandaries solved, and friendly advice given.  This group is a treasure trove for historical writers.

They also share information about general writing, sales, dealing with difficulties, etc., and provided excellent support to one another.  The strength and camaraderie of this group recently put a pirating website out of business.
This blog goes hand-in-hand with the Facebook group of the same name.  Here, forty-seven different authors share their extensive knowledge of the subject.  I find something new to learn here every day.

Things That Catch My Eye

David William Wilkin owns this blog which focuses on the Regency era.  He is currently compiling (and sharing) an extensive historical timeline of the early 1800s with a plethora of interesting facts with which writers can enrich their own works in progress.

A prolific writer, Mr. Wilkin has published Regency novels, two which tie into the works of Jane Austen, including Colonel Fitzwilliam's Correspondence, a continuation of Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Austen and Ghosts, which plays off the current trend of horror stories for Austenophiles.

Mr. Wilkins features prominently in Regency Assembly Press, a small publishing house that specializes in romance and military novels of the Regency era.  Their website contains a cornucopia of well-researched facts and minutia invaluable to the serious writer of that period's historical fiction.

Regency Reflections

Eleven different writers and editors pen this blog, with a total of fourteen books to their credit.  Their tag line: the blog for inspirational Regency fiction, meaning, they write clean romances, as opposed to the highly sensual to erotic Regency which seems to have taken over the market.

This particular post, "Whatever Happened to Traditional Regency" first brought me to this blog, and I find it fits hands in glove with my own post about the consequences of 21st actions in 19th century society.  I look forward to reading their books.  I have high hopes they will be better then the Regency romance I have read thus far.  

M. M. Bennetts

Finally, I give you author site and blog of journalist, author and historian M. M. Bennetts, author of May 1812, a book about the assassination of Prime Minister Perceval and the ongoing war with Napoleon, and Of Honest Fame, a companion book of skullduggery and intrigue. 

I bought both these books and itch to read them.  Unfortunately, book review requests, manuscripts and query submissions take precedence over my own personal pleasure, so I have no idea when I will get to snuggle up and enjoy.

Like Mr. Wilkin and some of the writers at Regency Reflections, Mr. Bennetts contributes to the English Historical Fiction Authors blog and is an active member of the Facebook group.  He penned an extensive Regency lexicon which can be found on the Regency Assembly Press site

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