I’m delighted to welcome Rachel today
The idea for my latest Victorian trilogy, The Ladies of Carson Street was inspired by a combination of the TV show Harlots and the brilliant book, The Five – the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold.
From that information you could be forgiven for assuming this trilogy is dark, possibly violent, and occasionally shocking. I promise there is nothing so dark or violent in the book that you will be shocked – although you might be surprised that the series is actually historical romance. Yes, it’s possible the series is slightly darker in places than other books in the genre, but I must hasten to tell you that The Ladies of Carson Street also sparkles with romance, humour and, best of all, the delight and satisfaction of discovering true, unconditional friendship.
The trilogy opens with A Widow’s Vow which introduces the stars of the entire series. Brothel owner, Louisa Hill, her best friend Nancy Bloom, boxer Jacob Jackson and finally prostitute, Octavia Marshall. These are four of the most complex characters I have ever created and, after writing twenty five books and countless characters, that is saying quite a lot! Louisa, Nancy, Jacob and Octavia are very special for me purely for their tenacity, kindness and hope in a city steeped in vice, hardship and poverty.
Set in the Victorian city of Bath, this unlikely band of friends fight injustice, unlawful arrest, physical assaults and each other! Yet, through their stories, each discovers parts of themselves they never knew existed and trust that they need more than each other to survive. They come to trust and believe in a better future, in other people and – in time – begin to believe in love and the happy ever after they deserve.
Book 2, Trouble For The Leading Lady and book 3, A Very Modern Marriage are also both available now and all three books can be download as a set on Amazon.
If you enjoy period dramas such as Bridgerton and Harlots, why not give The Ladies of Carson Street a try? I’d love to answer your questions if you are not yet convinced the series is for you!
A Widow’s Vow
1851. After her merchant husband saved her from a life of prostitution, Louisa Hill was briefly happy as a housewife in Bristol. But then a constable arrives at her door. Her husband has been found hanged in a Bath hotel room, a note and a key to a property in Bath the only things she has left of him. And now the debt collectors will come calling.
To a new life as a madam.
Forced to leave everything she knows behind, Louisa finds more painful betrayals waiting for her in the house in Bath. Left with no means of income, Louisa knows she has nothing to turn to but her old way of life. But this time, she’ll do it on her own terms – by turning her home into a brothel for upper class gentleman. And she’s determined to spare the girls she saves from the street the horrors she endured in the past.
Enlisting the help of Jacob Jackson, a quiet but feared boxer, to watch over the house, Louisa is about to embark on a life she never envisaged. Can she find the courage to forge this new path?
A Widow’s Vow is the first in a gripping and gritty new Victorian saga series from Rachel Brimble. You won’t be able to put it down.
Trouble For The Leading Lady
Bath, 1852.
As a girl, Nancy Bloom would go to Bath’s Theatre Royal, sit on the hard wooden benches and stare in awe at the actresses playing men as much as the women dressed in finery. She longed to be a part of it all and when a man promised her parents he could find a role for Nancy in the theatre, they believed him.
His lie and betrayal led to her ruin.
Francis Carlyle is a theatre manager, an ambitious man always looking for the next big thing to take the country by storm. A self-made man, Francis has finally shed the skin of his painful past and is now rich, successful and in need of a new female star. Never in a million years did he think he’d find her standing on a table in one of Bath’s bawdiest pubs.
Nancy vowed never to trust a man again. Francis will do anything to make her his star. As they engage in a battle of wits and wills, can either survive with their hearts intact?
The second in Rachel Brimble’s thrilling new Victorian saga series, Trouble for the Leading Lady will whisk you away to the riotous, thriving underbelly of Victorian Bath.
A Very Modern Marriage
He needs a wife…
Manchester industrialist William Rose was a poor lad from the slums who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but in order to achieve his greatest ambitions he must become the epitome of Victorian respectability: a family man.
She has a plan…
But the only woman who’s caught his eye is sophisticated beauty Octavia Marshall, one of the notorious ladies of Carson Street. Though she was once born to great wealth and privilege, she’s hardly respectable, but she’s determined to invest her hard-earned fortune in Mr Rose’s mills and forge a new life as an entirely proper businesswoman.
They strike a deal that promises them both what they desire the most, but William’s a fool if he thinks Octavia will be a conventional married woman, and she’s very much mistaken if she thinks the lives they once led won’t follow them wherever they go.
In the third instalment of Rachel Brimble’s exciting Victorian saga series, The Ladies of Carson Street will open the doors on a thoroughly modern marriage – and William is about to get a lot more than he bargained for…
BUY SERIES: https://geni.us/J4o7AUq
betweenthelinesbookblog.com 
Thanks so much for having me here today! I am looking forward to chatting with your visitors 🙂
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My pleasure, Rachel
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I had not heard of this trilogy before, it sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
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Oh, I’m so glad, Wendy! Hope you give the books a try 🙂
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