This is about as real as it gets, folks: me sitting in my closet, in tears. .
This hasn’t been an easy time for any of us; we’re in uncharted territory. By many measures, my life isn’t terribly different; I have one child left in the nest, and she’s great at keeping up on her homework. .
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She has her one study area, and a laptop that she doesn’t need to share with siblings. It would be so much harder if all four kids were still at home and in school. .
My husband works from home now, many hours in a home office with the door closed for virtual meetings. .
And yet. It has been hard, for many reasons. I don’t see my neighbors. I don’t see my fellow worshipers at church. I can’t go to my temple. I can’t go hang out at a library to write with friends. .
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Yes, I’m an introvert, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need connection or social interaction. I do. Very much. Being cut off from all but basically two people takes a strange toll no matter how much you love those people. .
This is also springtime, which in my part of the world means lots of rain and snow storms, often several a day, and THAT means migraine triggers. Stress is already a trigger. In short, this has been a physically excruciating week on top of everything else. .
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And then tonight, I checked my email quickly before bed and found a new one from the contact form on my website. Those are rarely anything interesting, and they’re usually someone asking me for something. .
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This one was different. It was from a woman I’ve never met, who lives in a different time zone. She’d read The Girl in Gray and wanted to reach out.
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She thanked me for writing about Finland during World War II, as she, too, has some of the same heritage, and it’s hard to find any fiction about it. .
It was a small gesture in the scheme of things, but this is what it did to me: I collapsed in tears on the floor of my closet.
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Thank you, Karen! I needed to hear from you more than I could have known. .
#readersofig #girlingray #lyonwrites #worldwarii #wwiifiction #historicalfiction #authorsofig #bookish #bookworm #womensfiction #wfwa #militaryfiction #winterwar #finland #finlandhistory #helsinki #finlandlove #stayhome
The Foundling Hospital
The other significant location from my story in A Note of Change, “A Rose by Any Other Name.” .
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By the 1700s, London was crowded and filthy. Poverty was rampant, and children were getting abandoned in large numbers, sometimes as orphans, other times because the parents couldn’t care for the child, and sometimes, in the case of out-of-wedlock births, because the mother needed to salvage her and her family’s reputation or be ruined. “Foundling” usually means an abandoned child, but Thomas Coram’s hospital generally didn’t have babies dropped off like that. The story explains how, due to limited space, children were accepted with a lottery system. .
Though the place was called a hospital, it was more of an orphanage, housing and educating children as well as caring for their medical needs, including giving them immunizations.
The foundlings were physically cared for, but it was a cold and harsh environment. .
Pics in order:
—The Foundling Museum today. The original buildings are no longer standing. —Statue of the founder, Thomas Coram, who spent many years securing funding and a charter from the king to create the hospital. —Display of some of the tokens left behind to help identify children if a late by returned to claim them. To protect the mother’s and child’s privacy, foundlings were given new names, so tokens were one of the few ways to identify them. —3 pictures of individual tokens, showing how they were all unique, often made of a variety of materials. —Part is a boy’s uniform, with vest and cap that are similar to what a soldier would wear—the likely future of foundling boys.
—Painting of foundling girls in their uniforms, much like what a female domestic servant wore—the likely future of the foundling girls.
—Plate & silverware used at meals.
—One of the tables during mealtimes, which were required to be utterly silent.
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#foundlingmuseum #foundlinghospital #london_city_photo #londonhistory #victorianlondon #victorianliterature #victorianera #neoclassical #regency #timelessromance #cleanromance #lyonwrites
Where does my story in A Note of Change take place? A Rose by Any Other Name has two main locations. Oliver Withey, the hero, lives in this townhouse.
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It’s where Charles Dickens lived when he first became successful and famous thanks to The Pickwick Papers. Fifty years later, I put Oliver’s family here! The story gives a nod to Dickens, opening with a dinner party for a celebrated new novelist, Charlie Dawson, a play on Charles Dickens.
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Pics: -Front door. (LOVE that color!)
-Entrance. The dining room door is to the left, servants are downstairs, the drawing room and other family rooms are upstairs.
-The dining room.
-The kitchen downstairs, where Oliver would come down to see Rose.
-The street how it looks today.
-View looking down from the street to the servants’ entrance.
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Coming soon: pictures from the Foundling Hospital!
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#historylovers #historicalfiction #historicalplace #charlesdickens #timelessromanceanthology #historicalromance #victorianhouse #victorianliterature #cleanromance #lyonwrites #londonhistory #dickens
Honored to have the amazing Emily Bleeker say such kind words about The Girl in Gray! Full quote below:
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“I love a story that warms my heart and lights up my mind and Lyon’s The Girl In Gray hit both requirements right on the head. Bringing life to a nearly forgotten corner of WWII history, this novel is both a romance and a suspenseful war story about the Winter War between Soviet Russia and Finland. I connected immediately with Sini Toivola, a woman plagued by unrequited love for a man who doesn’t seem to notice her. She soon runs from heartache, right into the front lines and onto the battlefield. But what once seemed black and white, turns gray when she discovers a lost Russian spy that doesn’t seem to be the kind of enemy she’d expected to find. Her heart, courage and willingness to examine the “grays” of this world and war in general, gave her character and this story the depth it deserved and left me hungrily turning pages till the end.”
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#historicalfiction #wwiifiction #wwiihistory #finnishhistory #womensfiction #wfwa #winterwar #talvisota #suomifinland #authorsofig #readersofinsta #recommendedreading #lyonwrites #girlingray @emilybleekerauthor
