If you enjoy clean historical suspense with slow-burn romance and a touch of danger, you’ll love my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series! It’s a multi-volume Christian Regency serial following a group of unlikely aristocrats battling a dangerous conspiracy in 1811 London. Today, I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite covers in the series— Volume 3: Aggressor. Who is that handsome gentleman? The model on the cover represents Mr. Michael Coulton-Jones, one of my main characters. This clever spy with a tortured past finally gets the cover spotlight in this volume, which is one of my favorite covers because the model is so handsome. 😄 I absolutely love this cover model! His name is Anatolii and here’s the original stock photo . It was really tough to try to decide which photo to use for the cover! It was a tossup between him and the main heroine, Miss Phoebe Sauber, for the cover for book 1, but I eventually went with Phoebe. Then in book 2, he was kind of...

  I blogged before about how my character Sol from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 1: Archer loves Lady Wynwood’s cook’s seed cakes, and how I decided to try some seed cake recipes using a cook book published in 1800. The first seed cake recipe I tried, Pound Seed Cake , turned out really well, but after tasting them, my husband requested lemon poppy seed flavor. Making the seed cakes with sourdough discard turned out exactly the same as when I made a sourdough levain, so I thought that making these tea cakes would be a GREAT way to use up sourdough discard, since I always keep a jar for my discard in the fridge. The lemon poppy seed version turned out fantastic! I admit that the first time I made them, I accidentally forgot to check them at 25 minutes, so I took them out at 30 minutes and they were a little brown. But they still tasted wonderful and were great with tea. The sour tang of the discard paired perfectly with the lemon zest. I made them again and took them out at 25...

Have you ever wondered what Regency-era cake might have tasted like at an elegant tea or a covert spy meeting? In my historical novels, I often mention traditional treats enjoyed by my characters—and sometimes, the temptation to try them in real life is just too strong to resist. Today, I’m diving into an antique recipe for seed cake, a favorite of one of my Regency characters, and adapting it for modern kitchens—including a sourdough version for those with sensitive stomachs or IBS like mine. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, curious about baking from vintage cookbooks, or simply love a moist, buttery slice of something delicious, you’ll enjoy this behind-the-scenes peek into both my baking experiments and my books. Let’s bring a little bit of the past to your plate. 🍰 When I wrote in Sourdough Treacle Buns in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 2: Berserker , I felt a hankering to eat them and ended up figuring out a recipe using sourdough. After my success with the treacle...

The following scene is a little weird. It takes place around the beginning of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor , but it has a few minor spoilers for the book, so you’ve been warned if you haven’t read it yet. But the scene was not written to be included in Agressor . It was actually written as the first scene in a side novel of the Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, The Spinster Spy . I think I mentioned before that I’ve already plotted out the entire Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, and it will be 10 volumes plus the 2 prequels ( The Spinster’s Christmas and The Gentleman Thief ), and there will also be a side novel, The Spinster Spy . The Spinster Spy will be kind of like the side series that are published alongside Japanese light novel series, like the Sword Oratoria side series of the Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? series, and the Sword Art Online Progressive side series of the Sword Art Online series. The side series take place on the same timeline as t...

In chapter 9 in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor , the team has to infiltrate a gambling hell. When writing the scene, I referred to an antique book published in 1803, Hoyle’s Games, Improved . It was originally published earlier, but this is the version that would have been around at the time of my book, and which the gamblers would have referred to. If you want to check out what the card and dice games were like, you can read a scan of the book on Google Books (this is where I got my copy). I admit I’m a bit of a nerd about these things, but I enjoyed looking through this book!

When Mr. Michael Coulton-Jones came back in the picture in volume 3, I could write more romantic scenes between him and Phoebe. :) I had a good time doing that. This isn’t very conventional, but the song I usually play when I’m writing romantic scenes between Phoebe and Michael is “On Your Mark” by Sawano Hiroyuki from Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn soundtrack . I’m not sure why, but the very first time I heard this song, I was completely swept away by the emotions of the piece. It’s absolutely beautiful and I completely fell in love with it. Curious how it all begins? Click below to read the beginning of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer for free and step into a world of Regency intrigue, danger, and slow-burn romance. 👉 Read the excerpt now Reference Footer This post relates to Camille Elliot’s Lady Wynwood’s Spies , a Christian Regency romantic suspense series set in 1811 London and featuring intrigue, espionage, botanical alchemy, slow-burn romance, and themes of fa...

The latest volume in my Christian Regency epic serial novel is released! Here’s the back cover description of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor : Part three in a Christian Regency Romantic Adventure epic serial novel with a supernatural twist Lady Wynwood’s Spies volume 3 One man faces death With the help of his team, Mr. Michael Coulson-Jones has overcome the deadly Root elixir that turned him into a monster. But now that they know more about the deadly potion, he is faced with an inevitable truth—unless he agrees to the risk of taking more, he will eventually die. One man faces theft In the meantime, a beautiful, infamous French spy and her group of thugs have landed on English soil, intent on stealing the mysterious plant that Apothecary Jack uses to control his underworld empire. They play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with Michael’s team amidst the rookeries of London. One man faces rage Then one of the team is afflicted by a savage, insane rage after expo...

The ebook version isn’t live yet, but the paperback version of my latest book, Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor , is now live on Amazon! Here’s the back cover description: Part three in a Christian Regency Romantic Adventure epic serial novel with a supernatural twist Lady Wynwood’s Spies volume 3 One man faces death With the help of his team, Mr. Michael Coulson-Jones has overcome the deadly Root elixir that turned him into a monster. But now that they know more about the deadly potion, he is faced with an inevitable truth—unless he agrees to the risk of taking more, he will eventually die. One man faces theft In the meantime, a beautiful, infamous French spy and her group of thugs have landed on English soil, intent on stealing the mysterious plant that Apothecary Jack uses to control his underworld empire. They play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with Michael’s team amidst the rookeries of London. One man faces rage Then one of the team is afflicted by a s...

If you read my Christian Regency Romantic Suspense novel, Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 2: Berserker , you will have noticed that Miss Tolberton brings humble treacle buns to eat with tea at the church. Not only that, but the treacle bun appears in a surprising way in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor . I got the idea for treacle buns from looking through old cookbooks from the 1800s. Commercial dry yeast cakes for making breads were not available until 1825, which is 15 years after the date of my book, so most breads during the Regency period were made with sourdough starters. “Black treacle” is the same thing as molasses, and was mentioned in cookbooks published during the Regency period, but in those books, I couldn’t find a recipe for treacle bread or treacle buns or brown bread. This seemed a bit strange to me since brown bread (made with whole wheat and black treacle) has been around since before the Regency period, but I am guessing that it was such a common food, m...