THE
ROYAL NANNY
by
Karen Harper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
historical fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
In
1897, a young cockney nursemaid takes her first train ride, leaving
London for the lush and sprawling Sandringham Estate, private home to
Britain’s royal family. Hired by the Duke and Duchess of York to
help rear their royal children, Charlotte Bill is about to become
privy to all the secrets families hide, and caught between the
upstairs and downstairs worlds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
Of course I’d been out on the
for-hire steam launch on the Thames my father captained, but in the
railway carriage, I felt I was flying. It was noisy too, here in
third class with the huge engine just ahead, huffing and blowing
smoky steam which dashed past the windows. . Where I sat was quite
plain with the leather seats a bit worn and cracked, but I felt I was
in a magic cart to the moon anyway. My father had said the tracks
would be well-kept since this was the route the royals themselves
used to get to their Norfolk estate where I was headed. But when
he’d put me on the train, he’d been disappointed that none of the
royal carriages were on this run.
As I was sent for to become undernurse
to the royals at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate, it was the
first time I’d been in a railway carriage and the first time so far
from home. I was going one-hundred-and-twenty miles from London, and
didn’t have to pay for the passage ticket either! Maybe that would
be one of the grand things being in service to the royals, because
Mama said they were all rich, rich, rich. Honestly, I didn’t care
a whit about that, just that I could better my station and send some
money home in these tough times, but how I missed my former and now
grown toddlekins from Dr. Lockwood’s family in London. They didn’t
need a nurse anymore, all grown up to only need their new stepmother.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY
bestselling author Karen Harper is a former university (Ohio State)
and high school English teacher. Published since 1982, she writes
contemporary suspense and historical novels about real British women.
Two of her recent Tudor era books were bestsellers in the UK and
Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she likes nothing more than to research
her novels on site in the British Isles. Harper won the Mary Higgins
Clark Award for DARK ANGEL, and her novel SHATTERED SECRETS was
judged one of the Best Books of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. The author
and her husband divide their time between Ohio and Florida. For more
information please visit: www.karenharperauthor.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A randomly drawn commenter will receive
a digital copy of the book.
1 comment:
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