Historical research behind the stealthy fashion of my lady spies What would you do if you were a woman in 1811 and needed to carry a weapon, but had no pockets and couldn’t very well strap a dagger to your thigh? That was the challenge I faced while writing my Christian Regency Romantic Suspense series, Lady Wynwood’s Spies , where my heroines don’t just attend balls and sip tea—they also sneak around carriages, spy on dangerous men, and fight off attackers when necessary. In Volume 7: Spinster and Volume 8: Traitor , two of my heroines—Lena and Phoebe—retrieve hidden knives from secret slits in their gowns. The sheaths are sewn directly onto their corsets. Naturally, you won’t find that kind of accessory in the pages of Ackermann’s Repository of Arts or La Belle Assemblée , the fashion magazines of the day. But I wanted my heroines to be both era-accurate and armed. So I dug into fashion history to find a creative (and plausible) solution. The Idea Behind the Hidden Knife Shea...

You can now buy Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster on Amazon or read with Kindle Unlimited subscription! Paperback copies are still available on my website . If you use the coupon code website10 , you can get 10% off all the eBooks and paperback books in my shop! Get 10% off

Here’s a couple Easter Eggs for you in the Lady Wynwood’s Spies series: There are two trainers in the Ramparts who are mentioned in the books, Mr. Alex Armstrong and Mr. Levi Ackerman. From Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 4: Betrayer : Mr. Drydale had been taking Miss Sauber and Miss Gardinier to the Ramparts in the mornings to be privately trained by Mr. Alex Armstrong, who trained agents for both the Alien Office and the Foreign Office. A giant of a man, with muscles the size of headstones and a very impressive blond mustache, he often flashed his gleaming white teeth in a ready smile, which was nearly as blinding as the light reflecting from his balding pate. He was cheerfully relentless in training the two women in the many methods by which they could incapacitate an opponent using only their fists or weapons of opportunity. From Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster : So Lena told stories about her training under the swordmaster at the Ramparts, Mr. Levi Ackerman, but...

Earlier I had posted that you can now buy Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster  on my website. But I forgot to mention that for a limited time, if you buy the eBook  or the paperback , you’ll also get the annotated edition eBook with Easter Eggs, behind-the-scenes tidbits, research notes, and random author commentary FREE. Once the book goes into Kindle Unlimited, I can no longer offer the annotated version on my website, so be sure to get it now before the book goes up on Amazon. 10% off coupon code for ALL BOOKS I finally got all the Lady Wynwood’s Spies regular paperbacks in my store, and if you use the coupon code website10 , you can get 10% off all the eBooks and paperback books in my shop! NOTE: If you’re waiting for the Special Edition paperbacks, those will be available in my Kickstarter  later this month. Get 10% off https://camilleelliot.com/shop/

You can now buy Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster on my website! I think I managed to get the books set up correctly on my website (I’m not very good with my website software, unfortunately). You can buy the eBook , or if you buy the paperback , you get the eBook FREE! This offer only lasts until the book goes into Kindle Unlimited in February. 10% off coupon code for ALL BOOKS I finally got all the Lady Wynwood’s Spies regular paperbacks in my store, and if you use the coupon code website10 , you can get 10% off all the eBooks and paperback books in my shop!  NOTE: If you’re waiting for the Special Edition paperbacks, those will be available in my Kickstarter in January.

Thank you to everyone who subscribed to my Patreon! At the moment, I’m posting chapters of Lady Wynwood's Spies, volume 7: Spinster . Contemporary novels: Since I got my rights back from Zondervan (Yay!) I now have 3 contemporary romances and 2 romantic suspenses to re-release. I also still have 2 other romantic suspenses that originally appeared in anthologies, but I haven’t yet released independently. I’m considering offering these contemporary books to my Patreon. If you enjoy my contemporary books too, then please consider subscribing and voting in my poll on whether I should post my contemporary novels on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113403983/ Additional Tier 2 Benefits: Since I postponed my Kickstarter , I won’t be able to start work on my human-narrated audiobook until next year (since the Kickstarter was going to help fund it). However, one of the benefits in Tier 2 in my Patreon was the human-narrated audiobook. Also, I’ve had my virtual assistant w...

My family was a bit stressed while I was visiting my parents (I promise, it wasn’t me!) and so I decided to postpone my Kickstarter. It has changed my book release schedule, and so I’ll be releasing Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster hopefully next month? It has also allowed me to figure out when book 8 will be released. Check out my (rather lengthy) explanation on my Patreon . (You’ll need to set up a free Patreon account if you don't have one.) Read when my books are coming out: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113452442/

I finished the rough draft of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster! Next up is editing and formatting. I also posted a bit about what’s next. You can read about it here . Thank you SO much for praying for my health! I know it’s only because of your prayers that I was able to finish the book without my IBS flaring up! If you haven’t read it yet, the first 2 chapters (Prologue and Chapter 1) are available free for all Followers on my Patreon. I also added annotated versions with Easter Eggs, background research, and comments .

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This Kickstarter is going to be awesome! I’ve been planning rewards that’ll knock your socks off! Don’t know what Kickstarter is? Check out this blog post about my Kickstarter. I posted a description of the rewards (and pictures) on Patreon. Click here to check out the Kickstarter rewards! You can Follow my Kickstarter to be notified when it’s launched, and I’ll also announce in my newsletter when it’s live. Follow Camy’s Kickstarter here

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I’m hoping to do a Kickstarter in late July or early August, and I thought I’d post this to answer a few questions you might have about it. What’s a Kickstarter and why’s Camy doing one? My Kickstarter is a crowdfunding campaign to fund the production of a Special Edition hardcover with dust jacket of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 1: Archer. Depending on how this Kickstarter goes, eventually I would like to do Special Edition hardcovers of the other books in the series. For all you avid fans of the series, this Kickstarter will also offer an early release of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster. However, the main focus of this campaign is the Special Edition hardcover of book 1. Kickstarter isn’t a shopping website, but I admit I kind of feel like I’m shopping when I back a campaign for books or items that look fantastic! Why Kickstarter: Kickstarter enables me to produce the kinds of gorgeous special editions that I love and offer them to you, my readers, so you can...

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My Patreon is now live! Thank you so much to those of you who have followed and subscribed to my Patreon! I hope you're enjoying Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster so far. For those who missed the announcement, I now have a subscription on Patreon where you can read chapters of my next book ahead of the ebook publication. You can subscribe to the tiers and receive more benefits in each higher tier. I put together a very PINK comparison chart so you can see the benefits available. Patreon is also a bit like a Facebook group in that you can comment on my chapters and my posts. Feel free to post reactions or ask questions, although I reserve the right to decline to answer if it would be a spoiler. :) To celebrate the launch, I’m offering something special. All patrons will receive “Bidding on Treason,” an exclusive, limited-availability short story starring Lena, whom you met in The Gentleman Thief , and who appears in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster . However, ...

My Patreon is now live and you can subscribe to my tiers! Each tier gives you benefits every month, such as: Early access to the rough draft chapters of my next book so you can read ahead of the ebook publication Early access to the rough draft chapters of my next book so you can read ahead of the ebook publication A complimentary .epub copy of the ebook when it's completed and before it's published on Amazon Early access to bonus extras about my books and cover reveals Your name in the acknowledgments section of my books Audiobooks (for now, AI-narrated but with human narration coming soon, and early subscribers will help choose the voice actor) Curated Book Boxes with Special Editions of my paperbacks Zoom calls The chance to choose the name and description of a character in a short story Here’s a look at the benefits in the different tiers: Patreon is also a bit like a Facebook group in that you can comment on my chapters and my posts. Feel free to post reacti...

I worked on my first Kickstarter and it got approved! It’s for the Special Edition Hardcover of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 1: Archer and the release of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster. I contacted my graphic designer about the Special Edition Hardcover of vol. 1: Archer—it’s going to be SO beautiful! The Kickstarter focuses on the Special Edition Hardcover, but it’ll also include vol. 7: Spinster so that it’ll sort of be like a launch day for vol. 7, too. A third special thing that’ll be in the Kickstarter is Special Edition Paperbacks of all the books in the series. They won’t be available in stores, just in the Kickstarter (and later, from my website, and also in my Patreon book box tiers if I decide to do them). The Kickstarter is not live yet, but you can follow it to be alerted when it has launched. (You may need to create a free Kickstarter account.) Follow Camy’s Kickstarter

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I’ve actually had a pretty terrible week in terms of my health. I don’t know what I ate, but my IBS has been horrible. However, I’m thankful that I wasn’t in pain all day and that it was only short bouts throughout the day. Every so often I’d have some bout of pain and nausea that lasted about 30 minutes. But it was very hard to concentrate. All too often I’d be in the middle of writing when the pain hit, which derailed me entirely. Since I couldn’t get much writing done, I did a lot of marketing work, which requires less concentration. I can also stop and start my marketing work without problems, whereas it’s hard for me to jump in and out of writing prose. As you can see, I haven’t made much progress on Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster , and you might notice my Outlining progress has actually gone backwards. That’s because I discovered a plot problem and I’ve had to go back to my outline to try to fix it. Please pray my IBS gets better so I can get more writing done!