Research Challenges & A New Release | Guest Post by Erica Vetsch

ByJulie Klassen
19 Comments

Thank you to Julie Klassen for kindly inviting me to share about my newest release here and a little of the research that went into it.

A Thieving at Carlton House is the first book in the Of Cloaks & Daggers series. Here’s a bit about the book:

The Home Office has asked Sir Bertrand Thorndike to head an investigation into stolen royal jewels. It’s the perfect chance for Bertie to step out of his brother’s long shadow. His superior, The Duke of Haverly, has a plan that makes him balk: in order to sell his cover, Bertie must play the part of a man looking for love, ready to reform his rakish ways. The duke is willing to let Bertie name his own investigative team, but his recommendation that the team include Philippa Cashel has Bertie on his guard. Does the duke-known for his behind-the-scenes machinations-have an ulterior motive?

Philippa Cashel escaped her life as one of society’s best-known courtesans, devoting her life to helping other women in dire straits. So when Sir Bertrand Thorndike approaches her about joining his team as an agent of the Crown, she is skeptical. She’s focused on getting her school for underprivileged women up and running, not in cloak-and-dagger skullduggery. Her hope is that if she labors hard enough at her charity work, she might begin to feel worthy of God’s forgiveness. When one of Philippa’s rescued girls is arrested for stealing the royal jewels and another is murdered, Philippa will risk partnering with Bertie to find the loot and stop the killer. Two brilliant minds-with two wary hearts-and one cunning deceiver are on a collision course in Regency England.

One of the things I found most challenging about writing this book, is that I set the crimes in a real historical place…that no longer exists.

Carlton House was best known as the London residence of the Prince Regent, and was lavish in every extreme. The Prince Regent was granted the house (and a renovation budget of over 60K pounds – nearly 5.2 million pounds today) in 1783 and lived there until his ascension to the throne in 1820.

He considered Carlton House unacceptable as a royal residence for a king and moved to Buckingham palace. Carlton House was demolished in 1826.

I relied heavily on the book Carlton House: The Past Glories of George IV’s Palace published by The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace in 1991. This book is full of colored drawings of the most opulent rooms of Carlton House and some of the artifacts that still remain today. I used the floor plans from the book to map out my bad guy’s paths and escapes.

I stuck to the information I could find, but if I couldn’t find it, I tried to rely upon what I could find from houses that were contemporary to Carlton House during the Regency, and if that didn’t work, I used literary license and made something up! 🙂 Such is the life of a writer.

Do you enjoy learning while you read? Do you ever investigate further something you’ve learned about reading fiction?

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JULIE KLASSEN loves all things Jane—Jane Eyre and Jane Austen. She worked in publishing for sixteen years and now writes full time. Three of her novels have won the Christy Award for Historical Romance. Julie and her husband have two sons and live in St. Paul, Minnesota.

19 Comments

  1. Hey Erica! Welcome to our community and thanks for sharing about your new book with us. The plot sounds intriguing! I love writing about real places, too, so, of course, research is a favorite pastime. Continued blessings in your writing, friend.

  2. I love learning while I read! And when something really intrigues me, I head to Google for even just a little bit of additional information. Author notes are great for enticing me to do a little more digging as well. Looking forward to reading this new series of yours!

    1. Hi, Joy. I love author notes too. There’s so much to learn, and I want to know it all!

  3. This new release sounds wonderful. I love reading about real places like this. It’s interesting to learn about things, places, or events from history that I might not otherwise be exposed to… I am heading to Amazon to look for your book now 😉

  5. , I loved reading about your research. Yes, I fallen down many rabbit holes as a result of my reading over the past 60 years. I spent my career as an academic research librarian and I was forever going off on some tangent. I am now my church’s librarian and I still love to go digging up new stuff.

    1. I worked in the library at college. One of my favorite jobs ever!

      To be a research librarian…goals!

  7. I love learning new things when I read! Especially things about the past. I was already excited to read this book–now I’m even more so.

  9. I love your books & enjoyed learning more of your research for this novel. After reading a novel, especially with true or historical tidbits, I find myself researching on the internet to find out more information. It may be more about the author or a specific location, but it makes the story more “real” in my imagination.

    Recently, with the rise in popularity of “That Printer of Udell’s” by Harold Bell Wright, due to the Reagan movie, I researched more about the author and his story. (As I own an antique copy of the book, found in my grandmother’s attic after she went home to glory.) It was interesting to learn that this book wasn’t even his most popular book written & that one of his other novels helped to put Branson, MO on the map for a tourist destination! So neat!

  10. Just finished reading this delightful book. I was excited to discover that it continued the characters that I had previously enjoyed from you former series. I love the depth of history and the window that you open into the regency era. So of course my question is what is your planned schedule for the release of the sequel?

  11. This will not help you with this book, but maybe in the future…. One of my go to places is Archive.org. Currently the site is having some issues which appears to be related to downed servers after the hurricanes. But generally the site is working well. Sign up is free, anything in copyright has to be “borrowed” anything out of copyright or assigned to public domain is freely downloadable and searchable. The site is endeavoring to get libraries digitized — books, magazines, audio recordings, letters, anything and everything. One downside the ebook generator stinks and creates a ebook full of errors, so get the pdf not the ebook for downloading.
    Here are a few books that reference Carlton House:
    The History of the Royal Residences of Windsor Castle, St. Jamesʼs Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham House, and Frogmore. By W. H. Pyne. Illustrated by One Hundred Highly Finished and Coloured Engravings, Facsimiles of Original Drawings by the Most Eminent Artists. In Three Volumes. Vol. 1.3
    https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_AiE8Gl9iRBgC
    The history of the royal residences of Windsor Castle, St. James’s Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham House, and Frogmore
    https://archive.org/details/gri_33125012272320
    Beaux of the Regency
    https://archive.org/details/beauxregency02benjgoog/page/n110/mode/2up
    A Lady of the Regency
    https://archive.org/details/aladyregency00rawsgoog
    Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight, Lady Companion to the Princess Charlotte of Wales
    https://archive.org/details/autobiographymi01kniggoog
    Authentic and Impartial Memoirs of Her Late Majesty, Charlotte: Queen of Great Britain
    https://archive.org/details/authenticandimp00oultgoog

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