Time frame of next historical romance is 1920...lots going on that year!

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In with the new...

Cloche hats were all the rage in 1920.

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Out with the old!

Romantic, but cumbersome Victorian styles became the fashion of the past.

The fourth book in my Unconventional Series, JOY'S RETURN, begins in 1920. Joy is the daughter of Jake and Jennie Ryder from book three, RYDER'S SALVATION...and yes, I purposely named my heroine Joy Ryder. It's catchy, but also fits well with the story, as reader's will discover.

So...what's so special about the year 1920? For history buffs, it was the year of the ratification of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. It was also a time when prohibition, governed by the Volstead Act, came into being. AND, just to spice up the already turbulent times, a loosening of social mores extinguished life as it had been known in the Victorian age. The new breed of women were called flappers and they discarded what they considered to be outdated social customs. Their clothing revealed ankles, legs, and knees! They even wore trousers! They listened to Jazz music and danced outrageously. They drank, smoked, and voted. They painted their faces with makeup. They were ready to take on the male-dominated society.

Although the heroine in my story is not a flapper in the fullest sense of the word, she is on a journey that twenty years earlier would have been impossible for an unchaperoned lady. I consider Joy to be a "transition woman"--not turning her back on all past customs, and not fully embracing the "new woman." She is finding that happy medium within herself.

I was so intrigued by this era, that I started a pinterest board dedicated to JOY'S RETURN. To see the board, all you have to do is click on the icon at the top of any page on my website. Also, an excerpt from the book can be read on the "home page" or the "excerpts page."

As for the hero in this romance, he is a widower. After meeting Joy, he begins to wonder if perhaps he unknowingly stifled the dreams of his dear departed wife. Just as the women in this era were in transition, so were the men. The feminine gender they had known in the past no longer existed and they had to come to grips with the equality women demanded!

I expect the story will be published in September, 2014.