Author’s Notes

Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me and the M.U.S.E.s. I hope you enjoyed your visit to my imaginary psychic Regency and will want to return to us often.

Even though many of my characters possess psychic abilities, their gifts don’t always help them solve the mysteries of the heart. The Madness of Lord Westfall is about forgiveness and receiving second chances we don’t deserve. Honora and Pierce both needed to forgive their families for the wrongs done them. And they needed to forgive themselves for the roads they wish they hadn’t taken. But since, in the end, their paths intersected, I don’t think they’d change a thing.

As always, I try to make the history in my books as accurate as possible. I’m sad to report that my description of Bedlam was probably not horrific enough. It was not unusual for people to pay admission to make sport of the unfortunates housed there. The water chair used by Pierce’s doctor was considered a real treatment for madness at that time and was thought to be an improvement over the head-first dunking tank that preceded it. At least the number of drownings went down. And there is a report of a woman, like poor Mrs. Mounsey, who was judged to be mad and was committed to hospital simply because she refused to allow her husband in her bed. In her case, the water chair put her in a more biddable frame of mind, and she was released to her spouse’s dubious care.

About Lord Albemarle’s homosexuality…a number of well-known Regency personages were probably gay, but since the act itself was considered criminal, there was no coming-out. Lord Byron, for one, reportedly had male lovers. The laws against “buggery” were considered “The Blackmailer’s Charter” because gay men were willing to pay an extortioner’s price rather than be exposed. And no wonder. In 1806, more men were hanged for sodomy than for murder. The last two men to be hanged in Britain for “unnatural acts” were executed in 1835, but the law punishing homosexuality by death was on the books until the 1860’s.

What a terrible time to be different. Or a woman. Makes me thankful for now.

I love to hear from readers! For more about me and my books, please visit www.miamarlowe.com. And let me extend a special invitation for you to join my newsletter. That way, you’ll be notified when the next M.U.S.E. book comes out!

Happy Reading,

Mia