MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome Rachel Brimble to Muse Monday on Discover... Her triology sounds fascinating.
The idea for my latest
trilogy, The Ladies of Carson Street was inspired by my reading The
Five by Hallie Rubenhold and watching and loving the TV series, Harlots.
Once I had finished
reading and watching, I was enveloped in the need to write about the world of
vice and prostitution but with some sort of happy ending for the protagonists.
This, of course, presented a problem because there are not many (if any) stories
of life ending well for these women. But then I convinced myself that as I am
writing fiction, I can make it possible!
I am known for setting my historicals in Bath
and this trilogy would be no different.
The first book, A Widow’s Vow, introduces
the main character, Louisa, but also the two other women who will go on to have
their own, centre-stage, moments. Between them, Louisa, Nancy and Octavia are a
force of nature, their loyalty and determination unwavering.
This series is about 19th century
women and how so many of them fell unwittingly into the world of vice for
reasons out of their control. It was this aspect of tumbling towards rock
bottom with nothing to cling onto that made the message (or even lesson) of The
Five so utterly impossible to ignore. Prostitution is rarely, if ever, a
choice and many Victorian prostitutes came from wildly different backgrounds
with wildly different stories.
I wanted this to be the case with Louisa, Nancy
and Octavia, too – all three have completely different reasons why they came to
be living and working in Bath’s backstreet taverns, clubs and houses.
So, what about their happy endings?
Well, they come for each of them in different
ways – yes, they meet the men who will change them forever, but it is Louisa,
Nancy and Octavia who do the work, fight for independence and life on their own
terms. Writing about female empowerment is one of my favourite things to do and
I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with throwing a hefty dose of love
and romance into the mix!
All three books in the trilogy, A Widow’s
Vow, Trouble For The Leading Lady and A Very Modern Marriage,
can be downloaded as a complete set on Amazon, but here is the blurb and buy
link for book 1…
Happy Reading!
Rachel
From grieving widow...
1851. After her merchant
husband saved her from a life of prostitution, Louisa Hill was briefly happy as
a housewife in Bristol. But then a constable arrives at her door. Her husband
has been found hanged in a Bath hotel room, a note and a key to a property in Bath
the only things she has left of him. And now the debt collectors will come
calling.
To a new life as a madam.
Forced to leave everything she knows behind, Louisa finds more painful
betrayals waiting for her in the house in Bath. Left with no means of income,
Louisa knows she has nothing to turn to but her old way of life. But this time,
she'll do it on her own terms – by turning her home into a brothel for upper
class gentleman. And she's determined to spare the girls she saves from the
street the horrors she endured in the past.
Enlisting the help of Jacob Jackson, a quiet but feared boxer, to watch
over the house, Louisa is about to embark on a life she never envisaged. Can
she find the courage to forge this new path?
A Widow's Vow is the first in a gripping and gritty new Victorian saga series from Rachel Brimble. You won't be able to put it down.
BUY: https://geni.us/sHuF
Excerpt
Louisa marched ahead of Nancy,
pulling a brass front door key from her purse. Purposefully, she drew forth her
anger at Anthony’s lies, betrayal and cowardice. Lord knew, she would have to
take strength from somewhere if she was ever to believe such a property was now
hers to do with as she would. Lifting her chin, she shrouded herself in an
invisible layer of protection against whatever further hurts were to come in
her uncertain future.
The house was beautiful. Built
in a butter-coloured stone, its sash windows were flanked with velvet drapery,
the front door painted a dark grass-green, complete with brass knocker and a
stone ornament decorating its step. The longer Louisa stared, the more strongly
inevitability enveloped her. She had survived this long and she would continue
to survive, come what may.
After all, she and Nancy had the
most pleasing of houses as their foundation.
She softly smiled as a whisper
of positivity, of belonging… maybe even destiny, seeped deep into her heart.
Could it be she was meant to be here? That Anthony had known this house would
one day be hers. Maybe her conceptions of his subterfuge were actually
initiated in wonderful surprise rather than treachery.
She slid the key into the lock,
her heart beating hard. She and Nancy stepped into a large hallway, painted in
the softest hue of lemon and white, the floorboards a beautiful dark wood.
As Nancy closed the door,
Louisa’s momentary notion that the house might have been meant for her wavered.
There was something distinctly female about it whereas she had been expecting
the décor to be entirely male. A bad feeling whispered through her even as she
admired the colours, the spray of flowers in a porcelain vase, the framed
embroidery on the walls and the floral, ruffle-edged umbrella in a stone stand.
A door farther along the hallway
clicked open and a high-pitched gasp reverberated around the space. ‘Who the
devil are you and what are you doing in my house?’
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.
To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway
every month!), click here: https://bit.ly/3zyH7dt
Website: https://bit.ly/3wH7HQs
Twitter: https://bit.ly/3AQvK0A
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3i49GZ3
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Thank you so much for having me here today! I am looking forward to chatting with your visitors :)
ReplyDeleteIt's pleasure, Rachel. Looks like everyone read and ran today.
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