Your Latest London Dispatch for January 2024
Winter has finally come to London.
All through the Christmas season, The Gentleman and I fretted about the fact that it was 7 degrees C warmer than the average, the fruit trees were beginning to bloom, and generally it felt more like early spring rather than the end of December. However, now the cold snap has hit us, the heavy wool coats and scarves have come out of their wardrobe, porridge is on the menu for breakfast every morning, and we are bundled up against the chill.
0 degrees C should sound like nothing to someone who has lived in Iowa through ice storms and -12 degrees F (-11 degrees C) wind chills, not to mention various NYC blizzards including 2010 (when I had to sleep in a TV news station while covering it) and 2016 (when I did not). All I can say is that 0 degrees hits different in the UK. I’ve been told that it has to do with the dampness in the air, and I believe it because there is something about the way the chill seeps into your bones here that sends me scurrying for cover indoors.
And so, it should not be a surprise that I am writing this, wrapped up in a dressing gown that The Gentleman has kindly never pointed out makes me look like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man as I huddle under the duvet in bed. Bed is never my normal writing spot—I have a beautiful, wide acacia wood desk that looks out of our front bow window in our study—but during the month of January it will do nicely.
For the new year, I’m tweaking the London Dispatch slightly, so if you’re a regular reader of this newsletter you might notice that there is more content packed in this month. I’m still playing around with what exactly will go into the monthly London Dispatch and what I will hold for other articles, so please bear with me as we play and learn and grow together!
If you are reading this in your inbox, this email may become cut off because, quite frankly, I can tend towards verbose sometimes. To make sure you don’t get interrupted midway through, you can click through to read it on your browser or in the Substack app.
Book News
New year, new updates!
There is a log going on on the publishing front here at Julia Kelly Enterprises,1 so I have quite a few updates to tell you about.
Evelyne Redfern returns!
I am very happy to say that my amateur sleuth Evelyne Redfern will be coming back to bookstores in a brand-new historical mystery this autumn! Book two in the Evelyne Redfern series will be called Betrayal at Blackthorn Park, and to say I am excited for this series to continue would be a massive understatement!
And yes, for those readers who have been asking, David Poole will be returning for more adventures with Evelyne as she finds her feet as a newly trained field agent.
You can find out more about the book, which comes out October 1, 2024, and preorder it by clicking the button below:
A Traitor in Whitehall is coming to paperback!
Speaking of Evelyne Redfern, the first book in the series called A Traitor in Whitehall now has a US paperback release date! The first book in the Evelyne Redfern series will hit shelves in paperback on September 10, 2024. It’s up for preorder now, so be sure to grab your copy!
The Lost English Girl is now available in paperback too!
Turning to my historical novels, I wanted to remind everyone that The Lost English Girl is now available in paperback in US bookstores, as well as retailers like Target, Walmart, and BJ’s. I wrote about what a personal book this was for me to write and how very proud I am of it last week, and I really believe that it is the perfect book to keep you company on long winter nights.
You can order your copy of The Lost English Girl by clicking below:
Substack Roundup
Since I’ve been playing around on Substack (the publication platform I use to send out this newsletter), I thought I would share some favorite new discoveries on this platform that you can peruse in your free time.
A Sourdough Story has become a staple in my household over the past few weeks. Chapin writes beautifully about food and family and life, and her recipes are fantastic. (Some are paywalled, apologies.) So far this year we have baked a Spiced Apple Breakfast Cake, sourdough discard flatbreads, and The Perfect Sourdough Whole Grain Loaf with our sourdough (fondly nicknamed the Son of Bread Astair as it came from my Dad’s sourdough starter, Bread Astair).
Slouching Towards Bethnal Green is a delight, and not just because it has perhaps the best name on Substack. Try the article, “Wait, when did everyone else get so good at interiors?”
Fellow historical novelist Brooke Lea Foster’s Dear Fiction is always engaging, and her community of readers in the comments are thoughtful and it’s fun to dip in and read what everyone is saying.
No One Asked, But. is thoughtful about personal style and clothes (a favorite subject of mine), in particular I recommend her article “Kicking Off a No Buy January,” which is something I’m sort of half-consciously doing right now (half-conscious because I’ve been so busy I haven’t actually had time to think about shopping to begin with.
The Wardrobe Edit by Anna Newton got me to start tracking my wardrobe in an app called Whering. I get a little hit of joy every morning when I put together my outfit, and I really like being able to see what I actually wear and have in my closet. (I’m trying to be more conscious about what I buy, knit, etc. in 2024.) She recently did a roundup of her own stats called “A Deep Dive Into My 2023 Wardrobe Statistics” and it’s fascinating to read about someone who has a very different wardrobe than me!
I would be remiss if I didn’t put in a shameless plug for my own side project Substack called A Writer’s Knitting Basket where I have been noodling away about one of my favorite hobbies. You can check out what I am currently working on and what I plan to make in 2024 in the article “What I want to make in 2024.”
The History Quill Returns!
I am very happy to say that, starting this month, the podcast I co-host called The History Quill will be returning to your podcast feeds! Theodore Brun and I have been hard at work recording episodes with some of your favorite historical novelists all about their approach to writing historical fiction. While this podcast is focused on writer’s first, it’s a fantastic way for readers to get a behind-the-scenes look at what authors think about when it comes to their work.
You can catch up with season one on Apple Podcasts and Spotify now, and be sure to subscribe so that you get season 2 as soon as it releases.
Event Update
Sometimes, despite my best intentions, I get my wires crossed and I got them crossed in a BIG way the other day when promoting my upcoming spoiler-filled live-streamed discussion of The Lost English Girl on YouTube! The event will be on Wednesday, February 7th at 2 p.m. ET on YouTube—not the 9th as I previously wrote. (Whoops!)2
Don’t forget to RSVP to the event by clicking the button below and hitting the “Notify Me” button to make sure you get reminders about when it starts!
Not a real name.
Thank you to The Gentleman for pointing out this discrepancy, and I will endeavor to actually check my calendar properly in the future so you don’t have to act as a sub-editor!
I have Almost every book in Print 📚 Each not your book's are extremely delicious☕ gorgeous covers. roh ro The Light Over London is not in my collection. Not sure how this happened😥.
Going to look this up now💗. CONGRATULATIONS on the 5th Anniversary🎉 📚
Wow is wherering going to be the clueless closet app we have all been waiting for?