Words in Progress: London Lairs

For this week’s writing blog, I’m remaining in London but fast-forwarding to the Regency era for my upcoming release, An Unlikely Alliance. This Regency MMM story will be published concurrently on May 4^th with The Hunting Box by Alexandra Caluen and As Many Stars by K.L. Noone.

These three stories will also be published in one volume of Trio stories, Regency Lovers. Both separately and together, they are in the 45% off ebook Spring Sale at JMS Books ending today.

In my Regency romances, I prefer not to stick to the ton for my cast of characters and I like to include men from different walks of life to illustrate the diversity of Regency London. That choice is reflected in the locations of my stories. I do mention the West End, and the exclusive environs of Mayfair, St. James’ and Piccadilly, but my characters tend to haunt the main roads eastwards and flock to Covent Garden, the party area of the city where rich and poor mingled freely. As Covent Garden featured heavily in my Town Bronze series, I wanted to choose somewhere new for An Unlikely Alliance.

As An Unlikely Alliance is an MMM romance, I wanted my three MCs to represent a cross-section of London society. So there’s Humphrey, an unassuming gentleman, Clem, an orphan, scholar and a professional private secretary, and Abe, of unknown pedigree and with links to London’s criminal underworld.

I wanted to place these characters somewhere specific in the streets of Regency London and mulled over my trusty online copy of the 1806 Mogg Map without much success. Then one day, I was scanning through a social media site and came across a blog by Lizanne Lloyd on The Old Red Lion Tavern that spanned the Fleet Ditch just off Holborn Hill.

This ancient tavern was a thieves’ den, notorious by the 18^th century. I was rapt by the hair-raising exploits that Lizanne Lloyd describes. It makes for fascinating reading!

In terms of my story, stumbling across this article was pivotal. The Old Red Lion seemed the ideal base for Abe and his dubious past and I couldn’t help but imagine him in terms of a throwback, in appearance, an 18^th-century highwayman, complete with a dashing red velvet frock coat and long, lustrous hair.

Having decided on Abe’s headquarters, the other characters’ haunts fell into place, a bit further eastward than usual in my stories. Rather than a scion of Piccadilly or Mayfair, Humphrey lives in the rather more old-fashioned district of Bloomsbury, off the main thoroughfare of Holborn, and Clem’s employer is near Leicester Square, no longer in vogue by this time.

Because these men inhabit the regions of Holborn, the Strand and Fleet Street, I couldn’t resist choosing a specific and still-existing tavern for their habitual drinking haunt. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub near Fleet Street, originating in the 16^th century, has a history to rival the long-demolished Old Red Lion, but far more wholesome, thankfully!