Dear Readers,
I’ve received notes from several readers, asking how The Seven Curses of London series got started. As with so many other ideas, it happened while I was researching something else. 🙂 I was looking into details about the East End in London during Victorian times and came across a reference to a book by James Greenwood called THE SEVEN CURSES OF LONDON, which was published in 1869.
The title alone is enough to take a historical writer down a rabbit hole. LOL. I thought it quite intriguing. Greenwood identifies seven of the worst problems he feels London faced at that time. The insights he shares are fascinating, along with the descriptive language he used. I couldn’t resist incorporating some of the author’s own wording and so have shared those at the beginning of each chapter in the full-length books included this series. Greenwood’s book is broken into chapters, each based on one of the curses, where he shares his own opinion, statistics, and first-hand accounts of the topics:
- Neglected Children.
- Professional Thieves.
- Professional Beggars.
- Fallen Women.
- The Curse of Drunkenness.
- Betting Gamblers.
- Waste of Charity.
While I knew I wanted to use this series to highlight some of the challenges Victorians faced, I wanted to keep the focus on the romance of the characters. It has been a challenge to integrate each of these ‘curses’ into the stories. I have several novellas in the series as well. These touch on the curses but due to the shortened length, the details of the problem are only lightly touched on.
Who can resist a book that starts with the following information (Chapter 1, Neglected Children)
“It is a startling fact that, in England and Wales alone, at the present time, the number of children under the age of sixteen, dependent more or less on the parochial authorities for maintenance, amounts to three hundred and fifty thousand.
It is scarcely less startling to learn that annually more than a hundred thousand criminals emerge at the doors of the various prisons, that, for short time or long time, have been their homes, and with no more substantial advice than “to take care that they don’t make their appearance there again,” are turned adrift once more to face the world, unkind as when they last stole from it.”
I have found it incredibly interesting (and somewhat disheartening) to realize that many of the problems noted by Greenwood sound far too familiar as they continue to be a problem today.
The books included in my series are:
TRUSTING THE WOLFE, A Kindle Worlds novella
LOVING THE HAWKE, Book 1
CHARMING THE SCHOLAR, Book 2
RESCUING THE EARL, Book 3
DANCING UNDER THE MISTLETOE, a Christmas novella, Book 4
TEMPTING THE SCOUNDREL, a novella, Book 5
(ROMANCING THE ROGUE, a Regency prequel)
FALLING FOR THE VISCOUNT, Book 6
DARING THE DUKE, Book 7 ~ releasing June 12, 2018
Additional details on these stories can be found on my website (https://lanawilliams.net/). Each book is a stand alone, but the series might prove more enjoyable if read in order.
I have at least two more books in this series to write, which will cover curses six and seven. I can’t wait to write them!
Happy Reading!
Lana
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