Sincere thanks to everyone who has voted for The Second Duchess on Goodread’s “Historical Fiction 2011” Listopia list—“Books we are excited about coming out in 2011.” Are you excited about Duchess? Yay! Please add your vote.

Delicious things I have cooked/baked this week: well, it’s not really cooking, but I made the best carrot and broccoli slaw. Healthy and easy. One bag of shredded carrots and one bag of broccoli slaw—take a handful of each and throw in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, add a pinch of salt, and toss. (You could shred the carrots and broccoli stalks yourself, of course, but think how much more trouble that would be!)

On the unhealthy but yummy side, doughnut muffins. Mmmm! All the pleasure of a glazed cake doughnut but baked into a muffin rather than fried. Start here for the recipe. I used all butter instead of butter and oil, and cut way back on the nutmeg—the merest soupçon of nutmeg is fine with me. And I glazed them with Alton Brown’s doughnut glaze instead of rolling them in butter and cinnamon sugar. Incredibly good.

Meanwhile, the medical community is still trying to figure out why my wrist is hurting so much. This week, had a new series of x-rays. Should have results next week.

Have been reading Mary Anna Evans’ Strangers (an advance copy of which I won on the DorothyL mailing list) and Deanna Raybourn’s luscious Dark Road to Darjeeling. I have a lovely new-bought extra copy of Dark Road to Darjeeling and signed bookmarks on the way from Deanna, and I will be giving it all away next week. Watch this space!

Cooler weather seems to be tiptoeing into north Texas, thank goodness. This morning it brought some rain with it, and we’re grateful for every drop.

And such pleasures! A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward traces the flowering history of the natural world, from the everyday to the mystical, as expressed in literature, myth and folklore. Quotations from poems, myths, novels, and plays from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century are used illustrate the literary history of eighty garden plants. Ward also incorporates each plant’s mythological and religious contexts, symbolism in the arts, and traditional medicinal uses, and unusual uses of flowers as food.

Gardeners, history-lovers, literature-lovers, will all open this beautiful book with delight.

A Contemplation upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature by Bobby J. Ward is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-a-Million, Timber Press, and of course your favorite independent bookstore.

As you can see, we have a few (!) other plants as well. Sometimes I think it’s a tossup between the number of plants we have outdoors and the number of plants we have indoors!

My central character Rinette Leslie would have known roses somewhat similar to these—”Damascus and “Provence” roses—in the royal gardens at Edinburgh Castle and Holyroodhouse. In her unique (meaning that I’m mostly just making it up) system of floromancy, roses are classifed by scent and number of petals rather than by color as they are in the later Victorian “language of flowers.”

As I worked with the picture, I thought, “Isn’t that just what I feel like? I’m the ageratum, partly fresh and richly colored, partly frazzled-y and gone to seed. But you know, the butterflies don’t care. They still flutter and light, like the strands of my new story, intrigue and death and passion, hovering just beyond my reach and then suddenly landing and connecting themselves to me.”

I suppose I’ve been particularly open to flowers-as-symbols lately, with my research into floromancy for The Silver Casket. Who would have thought I’d find it in my own back yard?