The Partridge Christmas Collection

 

Today my guest is friend and fellow author Patricia Kiyono. Patricia and I have belonged to the same writing group for a long time, and she writes wonderful sweet historical stories. Please join me in welcoming Patricia, as she tells us about this collection of Christmas tales.

 The Partridge Christmas Collection is a box set including five titles inspired by the holiday carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as well as a sixth story that includes characters from the first book. This series began when my then-publisher (Astraea Press) put out a call for holiday regency romance novellas. The planned multi-author series was to be called “The Twelve Dukes of Christmas” and the two things each story needed to include were a duke and a scene taking place at a ball hosted by Lord and Lady Kringle on Christmas Eve, 1812. 

 

I had never written a regency romance, but I love a good challenge and decided to try. Thanks to several writer friends, I managed to meet the deadline with The Partridge and the Peartree, the story of how Phillip Partridge, Duke of Bartlett, met and fell in love with Lady Amelia Peartree.

 

A few years later, I got the rights back for the story and submitted it to Eskape Press. In addition to giving the book a new cover, I had the opportunity to correct a few historical errors pointed out to me by readers. And in answer to those who asked “What happened to the Duke and Duchess of Bartlett?” I wrote a sequel called Love’s Refrain. And then, knowing that eventually the duchess would have to take a break from teaching the children at the chapel school, I paired Robert Townley, the duke’s valet, with Jeanne Brown, the duchess’ maid for the story I called Two Tutor Doves.

 

In my mind, a series should have at least three books. So, the following Christmas I decided that the verse about the three French hens would become Three French Inns, and would take place in the French countryside. Fortunately, I’d laid the groundwork for that in Two Tutor Doves because Jeanne had a French mother who’d been disowned by her upper-class family. She also had a brother who’d fought in France with the British army. I decided that the brother, Peter Brown, would return to France to look into the fortune they’d inherited from that grandfather. In the process, he’s reunited with Caroline Duvall, a young French nurse he’d met during the Napoleonic wars.

 

The fourth verse was fun to work with. I decided that four calling birds would become Four Calling Bards, in which Amanda Collins, a vicar’s daughter, suddenly finds herself with four suitors, all of whom write to her in hopes of gaining her favor. The hero in this story is Andrew Sommers, one of the children from Two Tutor Doves, who has become a footman in the village of Whitecastle.

 

To finish the series, I took a character who appeared briefly in Four Calling Bards. Five Gold Rings is the story of Amanda’s aunt, Grace Collins Montgomery. When Grace, a social reformer, decides to join the fight against the railroad coming through her home city of Cambridge, she’s up against Arthur Gregory, the railroad station’s architect. 

 

The six stories in this collection take us from 1812 through 1840. A lot of advancements in science, medicine, and social issues took place during this time, and are reflected through the stories. I’m hoping readers enjoy them!

 

 

Bio: Patricia lives in West Michigan, USA, not far from her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Current interests, aside from writing, include sewing, crocheting, scrapbooking, and making music. A love of travel and an interest in faraway people inspires her to create stories about different cultures.

 

 

The Patridge Christmas Collection is available only at Amazon.

Patricia Kiyono can be found on her website and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Bookbub, and Amazon.