Reading and writing historical fiction is the closest we can ever come to traveling in time. From my earliest days as a reader I loved stories set in “the olden days”—I loved Little Women and Black Beauty, Gone with the Wind and Forever Amber and the Angélique books, ancient Frank Yerby and Thomas B. Costain novels lurking in dusty library bookshelves like pirate treasure, my beloved Crawford of Lymond novels by the peerless Dorothy Dunnett. To this day I gobble up historical fiction with relish. Right now I am reading the mother of all historical novels (no pun intended), Eve by Elissa Elliott. It’s a beautiful and somewhat controversial book and a fascinating piece of time travel.

My life as a writer is a time traveler’s life. When I slip inside my characters and look out through their eyes, I’m away—in a Ferrarese castello, in a garden by the sea in sixteenth-century Scotland. I return almost reluctantly to the twenty-first century. I say “almost” because, for all the delights of the sixteenth century there are still modern necessities like clean hot running water, gleaming conveniences, air conditioning, and—of course—Ghirardelli chocolate.

Beagle ears and chocolate!

I have to give the Broadcasting Legend™ credit. He’s the one who, when asked to “pick up a box of brownie mix,” selected the industrial-size triple-chocolate Ghirardelli bake-for-the-whole-town carton pictured. (It actually contains six normal-sized brownie mixes.)

I hasten to assure everyone that no beagle was actually given anything chocolate to eat in the course of this picture-taking session. A few perfectly healthy Innova kibbles sufficed to get their attention. And the outtakes are hilarious. I do have to share one:

While I was taking pictures of Cressie, poor Boo was on the sidelines, begging his little heart out. Awwwww! (He got some kibbles too.)

Save the Words

So many to choose from! It’s rather like opening a huge assortment of luscious Godiva chocolates.