Author Notes: Rogue & Vagabond

First thing: sometimes you just have to get a scream of outrage into the world. This book is my scream (if not screech). Please check the content warnings, particularly if you are sick of our current Epstein Files reality. A book with the Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (aka Victorian-era exploitation of young girls by powerful men) as its background may not be the escapist read you are looking for. That said: it’s out for release on 21 August, but as sometimes happens when I give myself plenty of lead-time, the ebook is ready to go, and blog readers can purchase it indie-direct right now. Otherwise, it might be popping up for pre-order at your usual retailer by now, or look for it on or after the 21st. As usual, it will be available in Kobo Plus and several other subscription services, and on Hoopla/request via your library. I also made some fake vintage postcards1 to give away at my little local writers fest at the end of August: if you’d like one, email me your postal address, international a-ok (I’m not being creepy, I will purge it afterwards!). This is a while-stocks-last, first-come-first-served gift that I’ll mail out in the first week of September, assuming leftovers post-fest. You can use it as a bookmark, and it’s printed on recycled paper for eco-cred 🙂 Now, to Rogue & Vagabond. The title comes from Rictor Norton’s fantastic historical gay archive, specifically from this primary source. If there’s a better 1) way to be remembered 2) pub name 3) description of my central pair, Gabe & Tor, I don’t know what it could be. If my other historical fantasy romance set in a popular garden of the Victorian era was ‘Leo’s Got Ghosts’, this one’s ‘Gabe Got Ghosted’ aka Tor left him on Read. Other words that weren’t around in their modern iteration in 1886 that would have been very useful: stroppy and bolshie (also deadline and burnt-out). That’s Gabe, London journalist, still thinking about a one-night stand he had eight months ago. He’s probably my most Australian-esque character so far2, so expect copious swearing. The Victorian-era garden in question, at Lamport Hall, gained fame for – as in, tourists would come to see, in droves – the gigantic rockery created over five decades by Sir Charles Isham, the tenth baronet. And also for what he decided to populate it with: Garden gnomes. More accurately, little decorative figurines from Bavaria, representing guardian spirits of the mines, which he repurposed into his rockery (Wikipedia will tell you he collected them from the 1840s, but that’s just when he inherited the baronetcy and started building the rockery, the gnomes came later, according to other sources). Supposedly, his gnomes, or the use of decorative indoor ceramic figures outdoors, are the first documented garden gnomes in England, the spiritual forefathers of tacky modern garden decoration everywhere. We see where that ended up: I live within cooee3 of the eldritch horror that is Gnomesville4. I write fantasy, this is an historical fantasy, you can guess where the focus on the gnomes is going. Should be fun and fluffy, right? Except I decided to set the bloody thing just after WT Stead’s crusade, which adds a darker undertone, not least because the very same amendment to the Act that raised the age of consent for girls introduced the Labouchère Amendment, outlawing consensual sex between men in a much more enforceable way than previously (as Gabe5 points out, it wasn’t legal before Section 11, it was just harder to prosecute). So my leads are dealing with a few things, to say the least. Hey, I could have set it in 1888… By the way, you can do an online tour of Lamport Hall here, and, of course, if you’re in the UK, make sure to take a visit sometime, it’s a hidden gem an’ all. 1. Accurate to the early 1900s when they assumed their modern-ish form; 1880s postcards were just plain poorly-designed (the entire back was reserved for the address, your message had to be squeezed around the front image, what the hell!) ↩︎ 2. Not literally “strewth, stone the flamin’ crows, we’re not here to fuck spiders” Australian (I’m saving him for the _next_ historical…), more, Gabe and I might very well share some transported ancestors ↩︎ 3. cooee = earshot/shouting distance, especially in the bush ↩︎ 4. I’m allowed to make fun, because I’M LOCAL: it’s actually a very nice community tradition ↩︎ 5. Hat tip to Rictor Norton again, and other commentaries, pointing out that the common framing of “Section 11 made gay sex made illegal” is too simplistic ↩︎ ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Like Loading... ### _Related_

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