Background Notes

The Breeding Season, from A Mother's Way Romance Anthology

I had lots of fun researching the makeup and beauty techniques that Evelina uses in "The Breeding Season".  It turns out that women in 1750 were just as eager to use miracle face creams, hair dyes, and figure-enhancers as we are today -- and they had magazines to tell them how!  I tried to work as many 18th century beauty techniques into the book as I could, but am disappointed I didn't have room for the falsies, or a way to work in the hair dyes that, because of their silver content, eventually made the skin over a woman's entire body turn blue.

Some of my other research was on the breeding of horses.  There were amusing parallels between the behavior of mares in heat and the behavior of human women (mares have their own way of "winking"), as well as some funny bits about how sloping a mare's shoulders should be, and how clearly her ribs or spine should be visible, if she is ripe for breeding.

 
Primping in preparation for my prom, age 17.
My boyfriend left the tickets in his locker, though, so we
ended up going to see "A Room with a View" instead.

Dad, with my horse Dandelion, and her foal.