When I started reading The Trouble with Seduction, Victoria Hanlen's recently released fun historical romance, I was honestly surprised to find our widowed heroine Sarah, Lady Strathford...er, enjoying herself with a collection of what I could only term as Victorian-era sex toys. It was surprising but refreshing nonetheless. "Buzzy Bee"?? No wonder I got curious! ;) So I had to know, and here is the result of that inquiry. Ms. Hanlen has (thankfully!) agreed to quench my curiosity with this following guest post, hope you enjoy it.
My ARC review of The Trouble with Seduction can be found HERE.
Author Victoria Hanlen Discusses Saucy Victorian Toys in The Trouble with Seduction
WHAT INFLUENCED ME TO WRITE ABOUT SAUCY VICTORIAN TOYS?
When writing my first book, The Trouble With Misbehaving, I visited various locations from Goldsboro to Wilmington, North Carolina for research. Several plantations and mansions had small museums filled of unusual curiosities. In them were tools and inventions made during the seventeen to early nineteen hundreds. Their devices did many of the same tasks more modern machines do today (Although usually with a little more effort and need for attention).
What impressed me most about their contraptions was their ingenuity. None of them were powered by electricity, batteries or gas. Some used weights and counterweights. Some were cranked. Others were wound up like clocks. We saw an interesting washing machine that worked by the force of opposing springs. Other devices used pulleys to allow easier lifting or to manage heavy loads.
I was reminded that humans are smart and have been inventing things to make life better since we started banging two rocks together.
When we toured Pompeii, Italy, the guide showed us lead water pipes found under volcano ash. The volcano buried Pompeii in AD 79!
Many important concepts go into making metal pipes and sending water through them. Granted, lead has health risks (they obviously didn’t know about them back then), but to have a water system so long ago was amazing.
Then I saw the movie Hysteria. Besides being very funny, it told the story of Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville’s invention of the electromechanical vibrator patented around 1880. He made it to prevent doctors’ hands from becoming sore in the treatment of hysteria, a vague malady that plagued many women. Similar contraptions had existed in other forms for much longer. The French had le tremoussoir (1734), a wind-up device.
After seeing so much evidence of people’s creativity, it seemed possible and reasonable other clever inventors might have made handy little gizmos even before 1734.
Somehow, evidence of all this ingenuity worked its way into my story when I began writing The Trouble With Seduction. I asked myself, what special problems would bright, creative people have that would be interesting and out of the ordinary. And then it came to me—Set in 1855, Sarah, Lady Strathford, widow of a famous inventor, would inherit the benefits and complications borne from her deceased husband’s inventions.
Forced into two marriages with men over twice her age, she was finally coming out of mourning for her second husband. Ready to move on, she wanted to enjoy a little independence. But her brother and society pressured her to remarry. This time she wanted to experience a bit of life, escape her very limited, closed-in sphere and make her own choices.
Fortunately, her second husband had been a caring, talented inventor. When he became deeply engrossed in his experiments, his young wife often found ways to interrupt. Hence, he handled it logically and expeditiously as would any creative man of science. He designed bespoke, sturdy devices, built for flawless performance to keep her occupied and happy when he was too exhausted or busy to be present.
Unfortunately, danger sometimes accompanies scientific experiments and her husband was killed. But was it an accident or murder?
Enter the handsome and mysterious Mr. Cornelius Ravenhill with a proposition.
... to find out what happened, grab The Trouble with Seduction today!!
The Trouble with Seduction
Victoria Hanlen
Published: April 25, 2016 by Carina UK
Sarah, Lady Strathford, is ready for a little harmless frivolity with a man of her own age and her own appetites…surely that’s not too much to ask! After the death of her beloved husband years before, Sarah is ready for an adventure… Enter the dashing, roguish – and baffling – Mr Cornelius Ravenhill.
Ravenhill, however, is not the gentleman he seems, and soon Sarah finds herself battling against the corrupt and harsh world around her as it threatens to destroy all she holds dear. The question is, will her seduction at the hands of Mr Ravenhill prove to be her saviour or her downfall?
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About the Author:
Award winning, historical romance author, VICTORIA HANLEN, has worked at a wide range of jobs, from fashion, to corporate business, to treading the boards of stage and professional opera.A lifelong writer, she once put her skills to use in PR and advertising. But her favorite form of writing is happily-ever-afters spiced with a dash of wit and a page-turning mystery. Victoria and her husband live in rural New England surrounded by a host of wildlife.
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