Victorian Musings

Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her—a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily’s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she’s been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she’s a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay’s death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis.

Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel—as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and fri…

I’m very proud to have my article published in Headcanon Magazine; an online magazine.                 My article, A Birthday Between Friends features the lifelong friendship between Charlotte Bronte and Ellen Nussey. It was featured in Headcanon Magazine and can be found under the critical analysis section in the link below. https://headcanonmagazine.wordpress.com/2020/09/24/a-birthday-between-friends-ellen-nussey-and-charlotte-bronte-by-kimberly-eve/

1906: A large manor house, Wake's End, sits on the edge of a bleak Fen, just outside the town of Wakenhyrst. It is the home of Edmund Stearn and his family – a historian, scholar and land-owner, he's an upstanding member of the local community. But all is not well at Wake's End. Edmund dominates his family tyrannically, in particular daughter Maud. When Maud's mother dies in childbirth and she's left alone with her strict, disciplinarian father, Maud's isolation drives her to her father's study, where she happens upon his diary.
During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers its actually a painting, a 'doom', taken from the church. It's horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite his historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows …

Elizabeth Siddal self-portrait 1853-4, oil on canvas, 9 inch diameter Her initials EES 1853-4 written in her own hand. Very hard to see I know.  You can see it above in the self-portrait
At Last By Elizabeth Siddal
O mother, open the window wide
And let the daylight in;
The hills grow darker to my sight
And thoughts begin to swim.

And mother dear, take my young son,
(Since I was born of thee)
And care for all his little ways
And nurse him on thy knee.

And mother, wash my pale pale hands
And then bind up my feet;
My body may no longer rest
Out of its winding sheet.

And mother dear, take a sapling twig
And green grass newly mown,
And lay them on my empty bed

Minotaur Books St. Martin's Publishing Group On Sale: 01/12/2021 ISBN: 9781250202192 480 Pages
Following #1 Sunday Times bestseller The Burning Chambers, New York Times bestseller Kate Mosse returns with The City of Tears, a sweeping historical epic about love in a time of war. Alliances and Romance August 1572: Minou Joubert and her husband Piet travel to Paris to attend a royal wedding which, after a decade of religious wars, is intended to finally bring peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots.  Loyalty and Deception Also in Paris is their oldest enemy, Vidal, in pursuit of an ancient relic that will change the course of history.  Revenge and Persecution Within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the street, and Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds . . .

The City of Tears has left me in tears throughout various chapters covering the family relationship between mother, Minou and daughter, Marta. The mother/daughter relationship covering abandonment, t…

Charlotte Bronte drawing of Anne Bronte Bronte Parsonage Museum
‘I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable, I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect . . . But I wish it would please God to spare me, not only for papa’s and Charlotte’s sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practice - humble and limited indeed - but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God’s will be done.’ - Anne Brontë
Anne Bronte Memorial Stone
On the Death of Anne Brontë BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË There's little joy in life for me,       And little terror in the grave; I 've lived the parting hour to see       Of one I would have died to save.
Calmly to watch the failing breath,       Wishing each sigh might be the last; Longing to see the shade of death       O'er those belovèd features cast.
The cloud, the stillness that must part       The darl…