Hidden Treasures by Kathleen Buckley 💕 Fun Facts, Book Tour and $25 Gift Card Giveaway 💕 (Sweet Historical Romance)

This blog post contains affiliate links. Click Here for details.

Drawn into Rosabel's problems, with his inn under surveillance by criminals, Allan has only a handful of unlikely allies...

Allan Everard, an earl's illegitimate son, is dismissed from his employment at his father’s death but inherits a former coaching inn. Needing to make a new life in London, he begins by leasing the inn to a charity.

Unexpectedly orphaned, Rosabel Stanbury and her younger sister are made wards of a distant, unknown cousin. Fearing his secretive ways and his intentions for them, Rosabel and Oriana flee to London where they are taken in by a women’s charity.

Drawn into Rosabel's problems, with his inn under surveillance by criminals, Allan has only a handful of unlikely allies, including an elderly general, a burglar, and an old lady who knows criminal slang. A traditional romance.

I’m a bit compulsive about getting facts and details right in my novels, and I learn something new with each one. Hidden Treasures deals with several legal issues as well as romance.

Did you know that 18th century, England did not have a police force?

This may lead you to wonder how crimes were solved. The answer is that they often weren’t unless the criminal was caught in the act and you—the householder or shop keeper—could restrain the crook and drag him before a magistrate/justice of the peace. They had broad powers, though not necessarily any legal training. They did have a handbook on procedures, like how a search warrant should be worded.

So what then? The prosecutor would charge him or her?

Again, no. There was no prosecuting attorney. You, the victim, brought the charge before a magistrate, who would determine the punishment for petty crimes and moral offenses. It might be a fine, the pillory, whipping, or imprisonment. If the crime was serious, like murder or a felony, the suspect would be referred for trial. In places, it might mean a wait of months in jail or prison.

But what about your defense attorney?

There were no defense attorneys. If you came to trial for a serious crime you might be able to hire a barrister to represent you, but attorneys were a rarity in criminal trials until late in the 18th century.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is not mentioned in English law until 1802.

Doesn’t this seem like an inefficient, unfair judicial system?

Well, yes.

On the other hand, there were several mitigating factors.

Magistrates sometimes preferred to resolve disputes between the parties.

Some magistrates could be bribed.

The juries in criminal trials could reduce the charge, for instance by valuing the goods stolen at less than the amount which would make their theft a capital crime.

Sometimes juries simply refused to find a defendant guilty even when guilt was obvious. They might take into account mitigating factors. New laws punishable by execution had increased by 450% between 1688 and 1800. Apparently even the juries found some of them unnecessarily harsh.

By the way, in the period Hidden Treasures is set (1740), brothel-keeping was not illegal. It was banned in 1751.

Despite his active night, Higgs came in with hot water as Allan opened his eyes.

“Eight o’ the clock and a fine summer’s day,” his rascal announced, “if you happen to like the country, which I do. I’d move back to the fields and hedgerows of my youth if it wasn’t so pestilent hard to make a living there. If you’re meaning to stay more than another day, I’ll see about having your shirts and neckcloths washed,” he added inconsequentially.

“I need to speak to one of the Stanburys’ neighbors. With luck, we’ll leave tomorrow. How will you occupy yourself today?”

“I’ll have a quiet talk with Phelps. He spent yesterday listening to the folk around here. Grooms and stable-hands mostly, but a few others as well. I’ll write down what he learned. Don’t forget to lock what you don’t want to lose in your portmanteau. Countryside’s not as wicked as town, but there’s ding-boys everywhere.”

“Says the Ding-boy General.”

Kathleen Buckley writes traditional historical romance (i.e. no explicit sex). There are fewer ballrooms and aristocratic courting rituals in her books and more problems than does-he-love-me/does-he-not. Sometimes there’s humor. Kathleen wanted to write from the time she learned to read and pursued this passion through a Master’s Degree in English, followed by the kind of jobs one might expect: light bookkeeping, security officer, paralegal. She did sell two stories to the late Robert Bloch, author of Psycho. And no, he wasn’t late at the time.

After moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she wrote her first historical romance, striving for Georgette Heyer’s style, followed by nine more.

In Kathleen’s gentle romances, the characters tend to slide into love rather than fall in lust. Their stories are often set against the background of family relationships, crime, and legal issues, probably because of her work in a law firm.

When she’s not writing or reading, she enjoys cooking dishes from eighteenth century cookbooks. Those dishes and more appear in her stories. Udder and root vegetables, anyone?

Kathleen Buckley’s current work in progress is her first historical mystery, tentatively titled A Murder of Convenience.