Happy Book Anniversary to me!

In October 2017 my 2nd Maddie Hatter Adventure, Gilded Gauge - based in part on Calgary Steampunks & especially Calgary parasol duelists although it was set in Gilded Age New York City - was launched at Owls Nest Books in Britannia Plaza SW, Calgary AB. 

 

Under the first title & cover from Tyche Books (seen below), Gilded Gauge hit the Calgary Herald Bestseller list (twice), was nominated for the Prix Aurora for Canadian SFF, and won Alberta Book of the Year from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. 

 

I've had 4 further books published since then in 2 series (1 further Maddie Hatter book to date, Timely Taffeta, & 3 FALLS Mystery novels in my award-winning women's wilderness suspense series from Dundurn Press, under the pen name J.E. Barnard) 

 

Now Gilded Gauge is back on the shelves with a cool new cover & also available in #KindleUnlimited for the first time. 

 

Want to know more? Check it out at Amazon or Owls Nest Books

On Facebook 

On Twitter (warning: not a dedicated books account. Lots of science, politics, fashion history)

 

For all the lowdown on the worldwide sport of Parasol Dueling, see Madame Saffron Hemlock's Parasol Duelling League for Steampunk Ladies

 

Foiling the kidnapping of an industrial heiress lands Maddie an undercover bodyguard job in Gilded Age NYC. 

As rival powers scheme to steal the family’s fabulous gauge, a man from Maddie’s murky past arrives as a feted guest. 

Is he an ally, an enemy, or the mastermind behind the whole dastardly plot?

 

“Spirited heroines, secret identities, engaging orphans, dueling parasols & gadgets galore!”

 

Amazon Kindle Unlimited

 

#intrigue #spies #fashions #airships #Russia #royalty #devices #fashion #VictorianMystery #parasols #HouseOfWorth #TiffanyGlass #adventure #intrigue #spies #disguise #kidnapping #AliceInWonderland #GildedAge #NYC #NeroWolfe  #EnolaHolmes #LadySherlock #CanadianAuthor #bookstagram #WomenAuthors #crimefiction #mysteryfiction #romp #gadgets #Bridgerton #Kindle #KindleUnlimited #DundurnPress #OwlsNestBooks

It's finally HERE!!! Re-Release of the Maddie Hatter Adventures!

As of Sunday May 23, 2021 you can pre-order

 AND

 In ebook (paperback coming soon)

 Deadly Diamond: Book 1 in the Maddie Hatter Adventures 

 Gilded Gauge: Book 2 in the Maddie Hatter Adventures

 

DEADLY DIAMOND:
It’s 1899 and Miss Maddie Hatter, renegade daughter of a powerful Steamlord, is scraping a precarious living as a fashion reporter when the story of a lifetime falls into her lace-gloved hands. Baron Bodmin, an adventurer with more failed quests than fan mail, has vanished on the trail of a legendary diamond mask. Then the baron’s mistress flees too, with a handbag full of stolen jewelry and Maddie’s most secret papers. To retrieve them she must catch the first airship out of Egypt, risking recognition at every stage of her continent-hopping quest for the baron’s story and the sheer satisfaction of exposing that conniving con-woman!

 “A jewel of a story filled with delightful surprises”

“Like a delightfully vintage game of Clue… Our Heroine is smart, stylish, and determined.

“Filled with intriguing gadgets, fantastical aircraft, exotic locations, interesting characters and even parasol dueling!”

 

GILDED GAUGE:

A mysterious message from a midnight duelist sends fashion reporter Maddie Hatter to New York's finest parasol dueling academy, where she foils a daring daylight kidnapping & ends up undercover in a Gilded Age mansion. Soon she’s up to her lace gloves in social teas, industrial intrigues, and irrepressible street urchins, while Tweetle-D tackles a clockwork foe with jewel-green eyes. When they come face to beard with a powerful figure from Maddie’s own past, everything she struggled to earn is in jeopardy.

“Spirited heroines, secret identities, engaging orphans, dueling parasols and gadgets galore!”

“another well-crafted, fast-paced mystery laden with intrigue; a romp through steampunk New York”

“this world of steam-driven machinery, inventions, airships, clockwork-type animated birds seems as real as our own”

 

Find us on Facebook at The Maddie Hatter Adventures 

Tweet me @JayneBarnard1 

Join us on Instagram @je_barnard  

Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

It's almost here! 

The new cover for The Maddie Hatter Adventures: Deadly Diamond

No more cute cartoons. 

Maddie's getting a makeover more appropriate to 

her age and career aspirations. 

Watch this space for your sneak peek!

 

Or Follow On Facebook  & Instagram for  instant notification

Maddie Cake, Maddie Cake....

This fabulous cake from Cake Me Away Designs of Calgary
collected a 2nd place in the 2018 Calgary Stampede .

It stands approximately 24" high and rests on a base 16x16"
 
Utterly incredible detailing right down to textures on the 'fabric'.

 Corset closeup

 Fabric detail over hips

Ribbon side bustle

Closeup of hat decorations

 Closeup of bird and glove detail.

 Bird's wing detail

Wonderful work by Kelli Elkadri of Calgary, who is at the start of what is sure to be a tremendously successful home-based business making cakes and cupcakes for birthday parties, weddings, engagements, graduations, and pretty much any other occasion for which cake seems like a good idea. 

Feast your eyes on the photo album on her Facebook page and dare to dream BIG for your next cake!

Homage to Peacocks

In MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA,

we'll once again meet that dashing adventuress from DEADLY DIAMOND. You know, the one who absconded from Egypt with a fortune in diamond and lapis lazuli jewels?

That's right: Lady Sarah Peacock - or whatever her real name is!

Well, Peacock by name (if the marriage was legal) and peacock by nature. Sarah may be using another name in Venice but she's keeping her signature style with a fabulous peacock blue beaded walking dress and what might be Europe's largest collection of peacock feathers on a single hat. 

Lady Sarah's inimitable style was fully in fashion in the real world as well as in Maddie's world.  

"The peacock feather, previously thought to be a symbol of bad luck, became an icon of the Aesthetic style. Its use as a motif confirmed Aestheticism's reputation for decadence."
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/style-guide-aestheticism/


I'll leave you to discover exactly where in the book that beaded suit and fabulous hat appear.

For now, enjoy this photographic tour of peacock imagery from fin-de-siecle Europe and America. Check out links where they appear, to take you to more information on the origins of the pieces and the photos.

The earliest of our collection shows that peacocks were already popular well before Maddie and Sarah began their lives, let alone their adventures.


Gemstone Brooch by Gustave Baugrand, 1865

 

A peacock feather brooch set with sapphires, diamonds and emeralds. French, circa 1883. By Boucheron. Believed to have been made for the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia.

Then there's this golden belt buckle by Eugène Grasset, a pioneer of Parisian Art Nouveau. Not traditional peacock colours but fabulous all the same. 

Enameled gold accented with carnelian cabochon. ca. 1900

The turn of the century is  where peacocks really hit their stride in jewelry.
 

Peacock Maiden Ring
Gold, with a central opal and emerald/diamond feathers.

By an unknown French artisan c.1900

The maiden and peacock....

Phillippe Wolfers was a Belgian working in the French Art Nouveau style. This pendant brooch of gold, tourmalines, diamonds and enamel was made around 1900-1902.

See more exquisite Wolfers pieces here

Lovely by Lalique: 

Right: Gold and Enamel “Two Peacocks” Pendant, circa 1897-1898

Below: Art Nouveau 'Peacock' Brooch/ Pendant: gold, enamel

I'm thinking of a new signature piece for Lady Sarah Peacock on her next reappearance in the Maddie Hatter adventures. 

As you'll find out, she's already re-purposed the Egyptian Collar necklace she acquired from Baron Bodmin in MADDIE HATTER AND THE DEADLY DIAMOND. 

So why not give her some fabulous Art Nouveau jewels that help to distance her from the scandalous Egyptian episode?

Last on our list of jewels is the Peacock Egg from Faberge (even Lady Sarah surely can't aspire to a Russian Imperial Egg....?).

This one was made by Dorofeiev under the supervision of the Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé in 1908, for Nicholas II of Russia, who presented the egg to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.

And now to interiors:

In America

JOHN LA FARGE
American, 1835-1910
Peacock Window, 1892-1908

"At the time when America was emerging as a force in the international art world, La Farge stood out as a versatile artist and designer working in a variety of media. 

The Peacock Window, which simulates the vibrant coloration of a magnificent, exotic bird, represents La Farge's final effort in fused, or cloisonné, glass. 

Begun in 1892 as one of a pair of windows for the Washington, D.C., home of John Hay, the piece was not presented to the client, apparently because of difficulties encountered in the successive firings required to fuse layers of glass. 

Instead La Farge provided Hay with a window of the same design made of more conventional leaded opalescent glass (now at Museum Stuck-Villa in Munich). Several years later the artist returned to his original concept to produce this window."
http://www.worcesterart.org/collection/American/1909.11.html


In France:

 The amazing peacock room designed by Art Nouveau genius Alphonse Mucha for the Boutique Fouquet in 1900.

In Germany:

The Moorish Kiosk was purchased complete from the Prussian exhibit at Paris's Universal Exhibition of 1867. It was eventually installed in the grounds of pretty little Linderhof Palace in Bavaria.

  Inside the Moorish Kiosk you'll find the Peacock Throne, a fantasy divan made of red silk and flanked by three painted peacocks with 1,400 gems in their plumage. "Mad King Ludwig" really loved his bling!

 I visited Linderhof on a school tour many years ago, and have dreamed many wonderful stories set in those delicate, beautiful halls and kiosks. Shall I write one for you some day? Perhaps I already have, without realizing from whence inspiration sprang.

 Here we'll leave the architecture and return to Maddie's world of fashion.  Marvel at the peacock-inspired GOWNS!

The Queen Kapiolani Peacock gown (below).

This one is a reproduction from the Ali'i Gown Reproduction project. Queen Kapiolani of Hawaii wore the original to the Golden Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria in 1887.

Note the rows of peacock-eye feathers around the train? That's what inspired the beadwork on the hem of Lady Sarah's Venetian walking dress. How I wish such fabulous gowns were practical for modern working women!

This gown is a Worth original, made for Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston. She first wore it in 1903, at the celebration in India for the coronation of King Edward VII.

"The gown was assembled from panels of chiffon that had been embroidered and embellished by Delhi and Agra craftsmen using the zardozi (gold wire weaving) method. It was then shipped to Paris, where the House of Worth styled the dress with a long train edged with white chiffon roses. The worked panels were overlapping peacock feathers that had a blue/green beetle wing at the center. Over time, the metal thread in the dress has tarnished but the beetle wings have not lost their luster."


But imagine how glorious its glitter on that first momentous appearance!

At the latter end of the peacock obsession was this magnificent silk, silk satin and lace peacock gown, made by Maison Weeks, Paris, circa 1910.

You would not want to trail this one through the mud and dust of Venice's campi and calli (squares and streets) which is why Lady Sarah wore her beaded peacock walking dress - a style that doesn't usually have a train but swings along just clear of the ground (or, more scandalously, as high as the ankles) - in TIMELY TAFFETA.

And what IS that daring young woman up to in Venice anyway? Is she using Maddie's real name again? Will her antics come to Father's ears? Will her extravagant bills be blamed on Maddie a second time?

Find out more in MADDIE HATTER AND THE TIMELY TAFFETA, newly out from Tyche Books and available at fine bookstores or online in all the usual formats.


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