I'm an Australian author of contemporary and historical romances, plus history non-fiction.
My books range from sexy to erotic, late 1700s to the mid 1800s, and with a dash of Australia thrown into the mix. My heroes and heroines challenge tradition and my stories often expose the seamier levels of life.
I now live in a sunny part of Australia after spending many years in developing countries in the South Pacific. My greatest loves are traveling, anywhere and everywhere, meeting crazy characters, and visiting the Australian outback.
I hope my books bring history alive and you have fun adventuring with my roguish heroes and feisty heroines.
1812 White Court Dress, French. Very small bodice, short sleeves, long burgundy velvet train, tiara, long white gloves and a fan. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien.
Definition Court Dress: Usually, the difference between a court dress and a ball dress was in the quality of fabrics used, how elaborate the design, and the number and quality of the accessories. Plus, in England in the early 1800s court dresses were required by Queen Charlotte to have hoops and in France and other European countries court dresses a long train, usually expensively decorated. During the Regency Era, white cotton dresses were considered suitable for many evening events, but definitely not for an evening event in a palace.
1812 Man’s Overcoat With Layered and Rounded Capes, French. Black breeches tied at the knees, white stockings, blue waistcoat, black shoes and carrying a bicorn, or two-cornered black hat. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, Costume Parisien.
In the early 1800s, men no longer wore complicated styles and extravagant fabrics. Men’s fashion simplified and became more conservative. A well cut tailcoat, vest, pantaloons and an immaculate cravat of beautiful white linen in the style of George Bryan, or Beau, Brummell. Clothes were a status symbol and indicated a man’s social position. These clothing items were the sort worn by Jane Austen’s male family and friends.
From the finish of the 18th century until 1820, men’s fashions in European and European-influenced countries moved away from the formal wear of brocades, lace, wigs and powder to more informal and relaxed styles. Focus was on undress rather than formal dress. Typical menswear in the early 1800s included a tailcoat, a vest or waistcoat, either breeches, pants, or the newer trousers, stockings, shoes or boots, all worn with an overcoat and hat. This basic ensemble was accessorized with some form of neckcloth or cravat, gloves, walking stick, cane or riding crop, handkerchief, fobs, watch and perhaps a quizzing glass or eye glass.
Skirted coats were replaced with short-fronted, or cutaway, tailcoats worn over fitted waistcoats and plain, white linen shirts. Knee breeches were gradually replaced by tight-fitting pantaloons and later trousers, decorative shoes with buckles were replaced with a variety of boot styles, and fussy and ruffled neckwear gave way to intricately tied, white linen neck cloths. A Regency Era, or early 1800s, gentleman was outfitted in more practical fabrics, such as wool, cotton and buckskin rather than the fussy brocades and silks of the late 1700s.
Regency Gentleman’s Sporting Life in the times of Jane Austen. By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books Races, bowls, sailing, fox hunting… all the sports enjoyed by people in Regency Era. From: 1826 The English Spy by Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD150)
1826 Doncaster Race Course for the Great St. Leger Race. Regency Sporting Life. via 1826 The English Spy By English Cartoonist, Robert Cruikshank.1826 Bowling Alley at Worcester, England. Regency Sporting Life. via 1826 The English Spy By English Cartoonist, Robert Cruikshank.1826 View of Berkeley Hunt Kennel, England. Regency Sporting Life. via 1826 The English Spy By English Cartoonist, Robert Cruikshank.1826 Casualties Of The Hunt.A Regency Gentleman’s Sporting Life. Regency Sporting Life. via 1826 The English Spy By English Cartoonist, Robert Cruikshank.1826 Race characters at the turf, Regency Sporting Life. via 1826 The English Spy By English Cartoonist, Robert Cruikshank.1826 Regency Gentleman's Sporting Life By Robert Cruikshank. #Cartoon #RegencyEra #GoogleBooks https://books2read.com/suziloveYGD Share on XRL_2_D2D_RetailerBuyLink_RL_2
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1811 White Dress, French. Dress with scalloped hem, pink Redingote, green paisley shawl and white hat. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien.
Definition Redingote Or Pelisse Or Walking Dress Or Coat: Long fitted outdoor coat worn over other garments for warmth. Often left open at the front to show off the dress underneath. French word developed from English words, riding coat. Jane Austen and her contemporaries wore long coats like these to keep warm when out and about, visiting, shopping etc. The thin muslin dresses worn in the early 1800s were little protection against European winters.
The Majestic Silent Theatre in Pomona, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia was far from silent when movie goers were treated to two short movies, One Week and Haunted House, by the hilarious Buster Keaton who was famous for doing all his own stunts. The Theatre was originally built as a social hall with attached shops in 1921 and is the oldest authentic silent movie theatre in the world and the longest continuously operating movie theatre in Australia.
The hall was designed to serve several functions: to show silent movies, for vaudeville productions, and to act as a social centre for the town. Over time it served as a venue for dances, balls, concerts, and wedding functions, roller skating, boxing, and church services. Constructed of unseasoned milled hardwood, the hall was about 12 metres wide by 18 metres long, with seating for 198 people and included a sprung dance floor of ¾ inch crow’s ash timber and was raised on stumps to avoid flooding. On the left hand side was the Majestic Café, which also served as general store and the right hand side’s shop accommodated at various times a dentist, radio shop, and a mechanic. https://www.themajestictheatre.com.au
The theatre’s busiest period was during World War II, when a Tank Attack (anti-tank gun) Regiment was stationed near Pomona. The troops had priority for seats and local civilians were irate when they could not get in. Often people would watch from outside, standing in the middle of the road, which was the State’s main north to south highway. The theatre remained popular after the war, and throughout the 1940s to the 1960s films were shown on Wednesday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon, with a cartoon and two movies for four shillings and sixpence.
The electrical 1937 Compton organ is the only one in a Queensland theatre and comes from the Regal Cinema in South Shields, Chester England. The pipe chamber contains 1930s electrical organ switches from the Theatre Royal in Halifax. Three ranks of Christie pipes in the chamber were originally from a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand, and were owned by a church in Sydney before they were acquired by West in 1985. Other ranks of pipes have been obtained, with the hope of eventually having 12 ranks. West did not just collect pipe organ parts – the timber organ grill that separates the organ room from the auditorium is made of Oregon pine, and comes from the Roxy Theatre in Parramatta. It took six and a half years to restore the organ and was launched on 6th July 2019. Stage drapes, furnishings and equipment were salvaged from the Regent, Wintergarden, Her Majesty’s theatres in Brisbane, and the Wintergarden in Ipswich.
Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and director best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname “The Great Stone Face”.Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton’s “extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929” when he “worked without interruption” as having made him “the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies”. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that “More than Chaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. A vaudeville child star, Keaton grew up to be a tinkerer, an athlete, a visual mathematician; his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and a spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur.” In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.
‘One Week’ is the story of a newly-wed couple given a kit house as a wedding present and Buster Keaton and his long-suffering wife try to erect the house by following numbers on the boxes, except that a rejected suitor tries to foil their attempts. ‘Haunted House’ has Keaton as a bank teller whose manager and his gang are trying to pull off a bank heist and hide in an old house that has been booby-trapped to make it appear haunted. Both these short and silent features have the audience laughing uproariously. The movies may be silent but the audience isn’t.
1800-1820 ca. Woman’s Gloves, Spanish. Repeating pattern of concentric ovals across fingers shows their high quality and workmanship. Scalloped, pierced, pinked edges of cuff have geometric elements with floral garlands. Scene of gentleman presenting a gift to a young seated woman. European etiquette allowed a woman to receive gloves as a gift from men other than her husband so gloves were carefully chosen for their novelty. Spain produced high quality printed leather gloves using intaglio process. via Cooper Hewitt, New York City, USA. collection.cooperhewitt.org
Now surviving in museum collections throughout Europe and North America, this style of glove must have been a brief, but very popular fad of the last years of the 18th century. As gloves were one of the few gifts a man could give to a single woman he was not engaged to marry, new designs and colours were eagerly sought after to provide variety in this staple form of present.
Printed kidskin gloves of this type were fashionable from the last decade of the 18th century until the 1820s. They were suitable for wearing with the long sleeved day dresses which women adopted in the last decade of the century. Long gloves continued to be required for court dress which retained its short sleeves. By this date many European countries were manufacturing gloves, both in leather and in woven or knitted textiles made of silk, cotton, linen or wool. Printed kidskin was used for gloves and for the backing for fans. English fan makers were printing on leather before 1720. The intaglio method of printing used a copper plate. The design was engraved with a buril or dry point into the plate, then the plate was immersed in ink and the leather placed on it in a screw press. Several different pairs of gloves could be printed at a time and if the pattern wore off with use, they could be reprinted.
1811 White Dress, French. Worn under a white spotted tunic with yellow over dress with long sleeves. White gloves, shoes and hat with plume, or feathers, or aigrette. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien. Even though this is a French fashion plate, Jane Austen and her contemporaries would have worn long coats like these to keep warm when out and about, visiting, shopping etc. The thin muslin dresses worn in the early 1800s were little protection against European winters so warmth and color was added by tunics and coats in a huge variety of styles.
Definition Aigret, aigrette, egret: Plume of feathers or jeweled ornament in shape of feathers worn on head or hats. During the early 19th century., or Jane Austen’s lifetime, the favorite feathers were osprey and heron.
1770-1790 ca. Stays, or Corset, English. Pink silk damask, lined with linen, reinforced with whalebone, fingers spread over hips. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook15
1770-1790 ca. Front View. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 ca. Side View. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 ca. Back View. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 ca. Open View. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 ca. Side and Back Views. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 ca. Collage View. Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
collections.vam.ac.uk.1770-1790 Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. #Georgian #Corset #BritishHistory1770-1790 Pink Silk Damask Stays, Or Corset, English. #Georgian #Corset #BritishHistory https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook15 Share on XHN_15_D2D_Corsets 1700-1790
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1811 White Dress, French. Worn under a white spotted tunic with yellow over skirt. White gloves, shoes and hat with drooping white feathers. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien.
Although this is a French fashion plate, Jane Austen and her contemporaries wore a variety of tunics, spencers, and long coats to keep warm when out and about, visiting, shopping etc. Their thin muslin dresses weren’t any protection against harsh European winters or wet English weather.
1826 Sights Jane Austen Saw Around Regency England. 1826 From Regency Life Around England. The sights that Jane Austen and her friends and family would have seen around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Royal Wells At Cheltenham, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Arrival of the London Mail in Bristol. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Procession from Gloucester to Berkeley. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
The Promenade At Cowes, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 The Post Office, Bristol. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Point Street, Portsmouth, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Gate House, Highgate, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Oakland cottages were a well-known place to stay at Cheltenham Spa, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
1826 Entrance to Berkeley Castle, England. Regency life around England. via 1826 The English Spy By Robert Cruikshank via Google Books (PD-150)
