Leland Sisters Series

A Note from Marissa:

Bewitching Season was enormous fun to write–I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

One of the best parts of writing it was incorporating historical people, circumstances, and events into a fantasy novel.  Persy and Pen and their friends and family are, of course, fiction.  But Princess Victoria, Queen Adelaide, Princess Sophia, the Duchess of Kent, and Sir John Conroy really existed, and I have done my best to draw their characters based on the historical record left in diaries, letters, and other account of the day.

Even more amazingly, the tense situation between Princess Victoria and Sir John was real as well.  Sir John really did do his best to try to insinuate himself into the Princess’ life, first by scheming with her mother (the Duchess of Kent) to force the Princess to request a regency so that he could be the power behind the Duchess as Regent.  Later, when this seemed unlikely to succeed, he tried to induce Victoria to promise to take him as her Private Secretary, even attempting to physically force her to sign a promise when she was gravely ill.

Juicy stuff, huh?  So it was only a brief detour from reality to ask, “What if Sir John had tried to use magic to get his way?”

A Note from Marissa:

Like Bewitching Season, Betraying Season is based on a nugget of historical fact: that until she married and had children, Queen Victoria’s heir was actually her uncle, once the Duke of Cumberland and then the King of Hanover in Germany (as a female, Victoria was not able to inherit the Hanoverian crown which her male forbears had held).

Cumberland had rather a fearsome reputation: it was rumored that he’d murdered his own valet, among other unsavory (and probably untrue) rumors. As he was an arch-conservative and among the more intelligent and politically involved of George III’s sons. it could be that these rumors were put about by the Whigs to discredit him. Whether or not they did, the rumors flourished…and when the young, unmarried Victoria became queen, new rumors surfaced that her uncle was not content with the Hanoverian crown and wanted the British one as well. Many were convinced that he was plotting to assassinate the new young queen, and it wasn’t until she was safely married and had borne a few children that the rumors finally died away.

So of course I had to use such a juicy story as the basis for one of mine. Tying it in with Ireland made it even more fun to write…and, I hope, to read!

A Note from Marissa:

Writing this book was like eating a huge box of candy, at least to this history geek. The second decade of the 19^th century was an amazing time in London, in particular 1814-1815 which saw the two defeats of Napoleon (and the accompanying celebrations.) These were the golden years for that London social institution, Almack’s, where a group of aristocratic ladies decreed who was “in” and who wasn’t, including the fascinating Lady Jersey (I dream of writing a book about her and the Patronesses of Almack’s some day!) Most of the places mentioned in this book were real, including Rotten Row and Carleton House, London home of the Prince Regent. The party at Carleton House where Sophie and Peregrine quarreled was based on an actual one, as were smaller details like Sophie’s clothes and social customs like riding at 5 pm in Hyde Park and wearing black gloves when in mourning. To prevent confusion, I have changed or blurred a few details as a compromise between historical correctness and ease of understanding for today’s readers.

Brussels really was the party capital of Europe in spring 1815 as I have depicted it. English aristocrats swarmed over the Channel after Napoleon’s first defeat in 1814, having been deprived of European travel (and shopping!) for so many years. Between them and the masses of officers sent over to engage in re-defeating Napoleon (which they eventually did, at the Battle of Waterloo in June), life in Brussels was a constant succession of balls, concerts, dinners, picnics, breakfasts, routs, and card parties. Even on the eve of the first engagements of the Battle of Waterloo Brussels partied, and many British officers fought and died still in their evening clothes. If you’re interested in learning more about this time and place, I highly recommend Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army (her account of the Battle was studied at Sandhurst, Britain’s West Point) and Nick Foulkes’s non-fictional but delightfully engaging Dancing into Battle: A Social History of the Battle of Waterloo.

Sophie’s illness was polio. A small part of her is based on a lady I knew and loved as a child who’d had the same affliction as Sophie…but who was not, as far as I know, a witch. She wore special shoes that helped her walk more normally…as did, by the way, Prince Talleyrand, foreign minister to both Napoleon and Louis XVIII, who was born with a clubfoot. It didn’t keep him from being one of the shakers and movers of the era, but not all people with disabilities were so lucky. Outward disabilities like Sophie’s were often assumed to be symptoms of inner defects, either mental or spiritual, or divine punishment for somehow being “bad”. As much as I love history, there are parts of it I am glad no longer hold true.

A Note from Marissa:

So many people have written to me over the years asking when Charles would get his own story that I knew I had to write him one some day…and I’m delighted to finally offer it. I hope all those readers will find it worth the wait, and enjoy Charles’s progress from the “Chucklehead” of Bewitching Season to hero of his own tale.

A note about the cover (isn’t it perfect?): When my wonderful and multi-talented designer Lisa Amowitz (who is also a YA author in addition to being an artist/designer) and I were looking for images to use, we just couldn’t find an image of the right clothes for Charles to wear…until I stumbled upon an Etsy shop that features cravats for all occasions.  So, many thanks to Christina at www.elegantascot.com for letting us use one of her images to depict Charles’s sartorial splendor!