The Importance of Being Transported
I first fell in love with historical romance through movies: Anne of Green Gables with Megan Follows, Jane Eyre with Zelah Clarke, and the 1980 Pride and Prejudice. There was something addictive about being transported to a different time and place and experiencing stories of strong women making their own way in an often unforgiving world.
Part of the fascination was the costumes, manners, and language, which were so much more elegant than that of my own time. But the other part was the strong relation I felt to these women, despite the disparity in our times. Their flaws and struggles and losses and victories transcend time and place, and I came to care as deeply about them as I could if they were my friends or sisters.
Reading these stories deepened my connection, not only with the characters, but with the authors. They were chroniclers of the human experience as it was—or as they believed it should have been. The stories they made were bits of their hopes and dreams, and that is what made them so alive.
That is why, when I decided to write Regency romance, I chose to emulate the writing style of that era. I want my readers to connect deeply with my characters and their stories, and I believe that is most likely to be achieved when the time and place which I am describing is as authentic as possible.
I hope that you will feel transported into a tangible time and place—a place that inspires and empowers you, and that makes you fall in love with historical romance all over again—as you discover the world of the Branwell Chronicles.
What Reviewers Are Saying
“Judith Hale Everett is an author with a clear mastery of the Regency Romance genre. An original, eloquently entertaining, and deftly crafted novel, “Two in the Bush” is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to any Historical Romance Fiction collection.” —Midwest Book Review
“This author has a lot of potential to provide another strong, well researched voice in the traditional Regency vein. “Two in the Bush” is a series of follies and foibles, fun, and some very witty dialogue. It is incredibly well researched, a very immersive Regency experience.” —Anne Glover, Regency Reader (Regrom.com)
“The adventure begins, really, from the first page, and the story is told very much in the style of the classic Regency writers. *But* – this one is a cut above; and I have great hopes for this author, who already has the second installment of this series in the ready.” —Amazon reader
“Judith Hale Everett weds exceptional research, charming dialogue, and engaging characterization within a captivating setting which won me from the first sentence. “Two in the Bush” is a fabulous frolic through Regency-era England unrivaled by any other author I’ve read (save perhaps Heyer herself).” —Amazon reader
“Judith Hale Everett has become a favorite author of mine with her first book! It is a story told in the most intriguing prose. I found it a delightful education in the English language as well as an exceptional story.” —Goodreads reader
More About Me
I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. I started small, with a journal, where I stayed firmly rooted in this world, which evidently had plenty of drama to report. In high school, I won a writing contest, which surprised me, and which made me realize that maybe I had a talent at this. So I majored in English in college, and drudged through all that required reading, the olde Englisch and so-called modern classics, until I could choose my upper-level classes in Mark Twain, the evolution of the English language, and adolescent literature.
And then I got married, and decided I wanted to be a mother. Any mom out there knows how hard it is to do anything but be a mom when you’re a mom. While my creativity was poured into sewing cute clothes and costumes and figuring out how to cook healthy meals that actually taste good and learning how to cut hair, the advent of email gave me the perfect outlet for my neglected writing. All hail, the family update! It saved me from certain doom.
Fast-forward fifteen years to when my fourth child was in first grade and I woke up in the middle of the night with a great book idea. What?! I hadn’t thought about writing, like creatively, forever. But there it was. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So for the next ten years I wrote and re-wrote, went to writing conferences and read writing books, put the book draft away while I wrote short stories over and over, then took the book draft out again and tweaked and revised. It was a process—a way longer and more involved process than I had ever anticipated—but eventually, my vocabulary returned, my ideas began flowing, and my style emerged. And before I knew it, I had written not one full novel, but two, in different genres, and there were stacks of ideas beyond those.
So now I’m a writer of traditional Regency romance. And I’m a mom, and a wife, and a human being trying to be a force for good in this world. And I think I can make a difference by how I write, what I write, and who I write to. Because if I’ve learned one thing in all these years I was side-tracked from my first career goal, it’s that our skills and talents aren’t for us at all, but for the benefit of everyone else around us.