Music plays a large role in my time-travel and regency romance novels. While I do take a lot of creative license in the world I have created for my A Magical Bookshop Novel series ::cough time-travel cough:: I do like to do my research and make sure my historical settings are as authentic as they could be. For my third book, Beth Through Time, which is releasing in August, I delved back into researching what songs they might have sung. After all, once one had finished their embroidery projects, there wasn't much else to do in the evenings besides attend balls, parties, and musicales.
It is at a musicale that my heroine sings to make the man she has fallen for jealous. If you like Regency era fantasy with switched identities and a hint of Robin Hood, you can find out in august whether my heroine's plan worked. To make sure I was using period appropriate songs, I scoured the British Melodist from 1822, which is available on google books. Since the publishing date was only a couple of years after the setting of my novel I could be fairly certain the songs would have been around and popular enough for my heroine to sing them.
My heroine sings the song William and Susan. I've added the first verse below.
When forc'd to quit his native land,
Young William Bade farewell,
As Susan fondly wrung his hand,
Her tears in torrents fell;
And soft she sigh'd, her anxious heart.
With many a fear beset,
Oh! Would we were not now to part,
Or that we ne'er had met.
Another character in the same chapter sings the song Meet me by moonlight by Joseph Augustine Wade, as well as notes from Robin Adair. You can find more modern renditions of Meet me by moonlight on youtube, which I highly recommend checking out. I like playing the period appropriate songs to put me in the right headspace for writing.
Rose Through Time, William Through Time, and Beth Through Time, the first three semi-standalone novels in my series are available at most book retailers. I also recommend signing up for my newsletter to keep uptodate on everything that is coming, including a soon to be released audiobook of my first book and chapter outtakes that haven't been published anywhere else. Did you know that Rose Through Time was originally supposed to be spicier? After discussing it with my editor, we decided to cut out some of the final parts of the novel, but I have kept the original!
Want to delve into this regency romance series with a time travel twist? Follow the links below to your favorite book retailer and pick up a copy of Rose, William, or Beth.