If you find yourself in an alternate-reality America where wizards are in charge, women are pressing for typic rights and social mores never made it out of the 1910s ... what do you wear?
Whatever's the opposite of a fashion plate is what I am, so this is not the very first question I asked when I started dreaming up the Clandestine Magic series. But I did eventually ponder clothing, and my (brief!) descriptions are meant to conjure up an Edwardian feel.
In my head, I was thinking of the costumes of the 1985 Anne of Green Gables miniseries: long skirts and dresses, high-necked blouses, perhaps a bit of puffed sleeve. And for men, starched shirts with ties tucked under buttoned vests. (Mmm ... buttons.) Photography of suffragettes in the 1910s influenced me, too. And I am an absolute sucker for long, billowing coats, so I made them de rigueur for the wizards, who need pockets for the leaves that fuel their spells.
But I like to leave things to your imagination, so I didn't get too specific. Reader Marie Laure completely validated my (possibly lazy) instinct by seriously pondering what 2020s clothing would look like if things got seriously off-track a hundred years earlier. After all, "women have been wearing corsets and long skirts for centuries, and it looked vastly different according to the time periods."
"It might be more like Christian Dior in the 50’s and the New Look: constrained, long, but maybe a bit modern, though? Or entirely different," Marie Laure wrote me. "A real challenge for a curious costumer, I thought."
I love that.
What sort of styles would you imagine?
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A few more cool & bookish things
For lovers of dark political fantasy with romance, a heads up: The fourth book in Kristina Gruell's In Blood and Fire series is just out. This is what book one, From the Ashes, is about:
If Princess Lenathaina cannot stave off civil war, then a mad goddess will surely take the throne.
The King of Lithonia is dying. When he is gone, Lithonia will be ruled by either a cruel sadist or a six-year-old boy. Princess Lenathaina Morthan is third in line... and she has no intention of letting her country burn. She will do whatever she must to protect her people, even if that means leaving the country she loves.
When the mad goddess of Hathor sets her gaze upon Lithonia's throne, the king decides to use Princess Lenathaina as a bargaining chip with his closest allies in Caeldenon. Now stranded in a foreign country, away from her center of political power, Lenathaina must use every tool at her command to scrape together allies and save her country from a fate worse than death. But will her would-be husband be one of those allies… or just another enemy?
Looking for more fantasy romance books to gobble up? Find a bunch free in Kindle Unlimited here, from a human changeling caught up in a deadly fae competition to a psychic having trouble staying out of a guy's life because the things that are going to happen to him keep flashing before her eyes.
In the mood for some free-for-everyone fantasy romance reads? Find a collection of those books here, from a witch who needs true love to break a curse to a thief strong-armed into a dance that's more than he bargained for.
You made it to the end! You're awesome. (Of course.) And oh hey, here are my latest books.
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