Why This is the Best Time for a Ghost Story

Marley appears to Scrooge, original illustration from A Christmas Carol.

The winter solstice, falling on December 22nd this year, is making itself known. For centuries the belief has been that on the shortest day of the year, the veil between the living and the departed is most easily lifted. 

That is why the ghosts appear to Ebeneezer Scrooge just before Christmas. Charles Dickens' writing of A Christmas Carol followed a long tradition of ghosts showing themselves at this time of year. I write about Dickens' motivation in writing the novella here.

The tradition has continued right up to modern times. In the 1963 song "The Right Time of the Year," Andy Williams sings:

There'll be parties for hosting/ Marshmallows for toasting/And caroling out in the snow/There'll be scary ghost stories/And tales of the glories/Of Christmases long, long ago.

When did this begin, the custom of scary tales told just around the time when families traditionally gather to open gifts, admire the Christmas tree, and dive into a big dinner?

It is the solstice rather than the celebration of the birth of Jesus that seems to have launched it. The days were at their shortest, food supplies could be running low--and spring seemed a long way away. Gathering to frighten one another with stories of the supernatural was a way to ward off more prosaic fears. (Not that different than people going to the cinema to watch a horror film today.)

However, there was nothing Andy Williams-ish about the earliest known Christmas ghost stories. They were gruesome medieval stories. Within some stiff competition, the Icelandic tales were particularly terrifying.

In The Saga of the People of Floi, dated to the 11th century, a group gathers for feasting on Christmas Day, finally falling asleep, exhausted. That night, a knock is heard on the door. One of the revelers rouses himself to answer it, steps outside and disappears. One by one, some half a dozen men are picked off, for it turns out that specters wait outside to drive them insane and to their deaths.

"Once Christmas is over, the dead return in force: not only are the rowdy Jostein’s crew brought back as Revenants, but so are a number of dead locals," writes Jon Kaneko-James in the article Ghosts of Christmas Past: Christmas Ghost Stories, Scandinavian Revenants, and the Medieval Dead in England. "Finally Thorgils, captain of the crew who slept early, takes all of the dead and burns them in a pyre, ensuring that none of the Revenants, one of whom was his wife, would rise to trouble the living again." 

More Icelandic stories unfurl horrors told around the fire in late December, such as certain parts of the sprawling 11th century Eyrbyggja Saga, in which a strange moon foretells the dead seeking to join the living for Christmas--and it's very difficult to get them to leave. The Thorgunna section revolves around a wealthy woman dying and giving specific requests about what should be done with her bedsheets. These requests are not honored. (Are you surprised?)

This story is absurdly chilling! According to Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind:

Now the same night the corpse-bearers came home after Thorgunna had been buried in Skalaholt, as men sat by the meal-fires of Frodriver, all who were in the house saw how a half-moon was shining on the paneling of the house wall--and it went backwards and widdershins round the house, and it did not vanish away while folk sat by the fires. So Thorodd asked Thorir Woodenleg what that might bode. Thorir said it was "the moon of the weird," and "the death of men will follow thereafter."

Note: The excellent podcast Saga Thing tackles Eyrbyggja Saga with insight and humor.

Things go bump in the night in the Thorgunna section of the Icelandic saga

Today Iceland has the tradition of the lovable Yule Lads who show up on December 12th, leaving gifts in the shoes that children left on windowsills.

But the Yule Lads have gone through an astonishing transformation. In What's On, Ragnar Tomas writes:

 "The first mention of the Icelandic Yule Lads is the 17th-century Poem of Grýla, which asserts that they are the sons of Grýla – a flesh-eating hag who cooks children in a cauldron – and Leppalúði, a lazy troglodyte. Needless to say, such people should not reproduce. Ailurophiles ('cat-lovers') might think better of them knowing that they kept a cat. But not so fast. Theirs was not some amiable Maine Coon, who lazed around their apartment and snuggled up to house callers. No, their cat was the 'Christmas Cat,' who prowled the snowy countryside and devoured children who had not been given new clothes to wear before Christmas (admittedly, an oddly specific culinary preference)."

Medieval England offers up its goodly portion of Yuletime chills too. One example: A tailor named Snawball who encounters the spirit of a dead man in the form of a crow wreathed in fire.

One of my favorites is from the Tudor period, taking place on the Orkneys. A woman named Katharine Fordyce dies in childbirth but appears in a dream to tell a woman who was her neighbor that she must name her next daughter after Katharine. As long as that girl lives in the home, the family will be safe.

When the girl grows up and marries, preparing to leave home, Katharine Fordyce has her vengeance. On the wedding night a "fearful storm" arrives that "the like had no' been minded in the time o' anybody alive," according to Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning the Orkney & Shetland Islands

The sheep belonging to the bride's father were swept off the land and into the sea.

Some folk did say that old men with long white beards were seen stretching their pale hands out of the surf and taking hold of the creatures.

More and more such stories found themselves into print. In Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Mamillius says, "A sad tale's best for winter. I have one. Of sprites and goblins." It hardly needs to be pointed out that the Bard loved a ghost!

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Still, it's the Victorian age, with its whiff of the occult, when telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve or another night close to Christmas firmly established itself. Groups gathered, usually around the fireplace, to share tales of ghouls and specters, trying to outdo one another.

Of course no discussion of ghost stories is complete without M. R. James, who lived from 1862 to 1936. A medieval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge, he published collections of ghost stories that have exerted enormous influence. As The New Yorker wrote in a story on James, "At Eton and at Cambridge, he liked telling his scary stories to boys and undergraduates around the fire in a dimly lit room, and presenting a new story to friends at Christmas."

It's hard to choose among H. R. James' gems, but the one that seems to linger with me the longest is "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad." A professor finds a whistle in a ruin bearing two Latin inscriptions. One he can translate; the other he can't. Not knowing it's a warning, he blows the whistle...

"Whistle and I'll Come to You"

From 1971 to 1978, the BBC ran A Ghost Story for Christmas, adapting for television five stories from M. R. James, among other works. They were "The Stalls of Barchester," "A Warning to the Curious," "Lost Hearts," "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas," and "The Ash Tree."

Americans are no slouches in the telling of ghost stories, nor in connecting them to the tradition of Christmas time. Henry James begins his 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw like this:

The tale had held us, round the fireplace, sufficiently breathless, however except the obvious remark that it changed into gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an antique residence, a weird tale need to basically be, I remember no commentary uttered until someone to mention that it become the satisfactory case he had met wherein the sort of visitation had fallen on an infant.

The other American ghost story closest to my heart is Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Oh what happens to the nervous, withdrawn Eleanor when she accepts an invitation to look for ghosts at a house in which no one could bear living. 

The novel begins:

Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.   

Ghost stories are very subjective--of course--and forgive me if I've left out anyone's favorites!

I paid tribute to the wonderful tradition of the ghost story in my novella, The Ghost of Madison Avenue. The veil between living and dead is drawn aside in the weeks leading up to Christmas in my story, taking place in New York in 1912 and revolving around the private library of J. P. Morgan. 

Click here to learn more about my book and read the reviews.

Finally, here's a photo I took of the book "out in the wild." I think this has a certain "Haunting of Hill House" vibe, don't you?

Nancy Bilyeau is a magazine editor and novelist. She published a trilogy set in the 16th century--The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry--with Simon & Schuster. Her standalone novel The Blue is an art espionage story set in the rivalrous porcelain factories of 18th century Europe. In December 2019 she published The Ghost of Madison Avenue, a mystery set in the private library of J.P. Morgan.

Now in Paperback: 'The Ghost of Madison Avenue'

I'm pleased that the paperback of The Ghost of Madison Avenue is up for sale on Amazon. This is a Christmas story, and I'd love to see the paperback make it to some Christmas trees. :)

To order the paperback, click here. The ebook (priced at $2.99) is here.

In the four days that it's been on sale, the novella has done better than I expected! It garnered this endorsement review from Mariah Fredericks, author of a fantastic mystery series set during the same period as Ghost. The author of Death of a New American wrote: "The Gilded Age splendors of the Morgan Library come to life in this wonderful, warm-hearted tale of Christmases past, present, and future. Bilyeau weaves a wealth of gorgeous period detail into her ghost story of old New York, delivering genuine chills, family drama, and poignant romance with equal skill. A gorgeous holiday treat!"


Customer reviews have been positive and sales are brisk. I'm sharing a screenshot of Amazon's list of Best Sellers the category of New Historical Mysteries. It's Number 16 :)

I hope you will get a chance to read my book. I'm very proud of The Ghost of Madison Avenue. And it's the perfect way to get ready for Dreamland, coming in January :)

I Wrote a Christmas Ghost Story

By Nancy Bilyeau

I'm excited to share the news with you that I've written a novella titled The Ghost of Madison Avenue. It's set in Old New York, 1912, a mystery story intertwined with a love story.

Much of the novella takes place at J. P. Morgan's Library, at Madison and 36th Street, today one of my favorite haunts (so to speak!) in New York City. In 1912, it was not a museum--it was where financier Morgan spent much of his time, as did his brilliant head librarian, Belle da Costa Greene. I was definitely inspired to write this novella (at 108 pages, it's not a full length novel) by my longtime love of the Morgan.

Another motivation was to give my readers a book in time for Christmas. Last year I published The Blue in early December. My next full-length book, Dreamland, will be published by Endeavour Quill on January 16, 2020.

The Ghost of Madison Avenue is coming out in ebook and in paperback now, meaning it's a perfect holiday gift! Order HERE.

But one of my other chief motivations was to tell the story of an Irish American family. My main character, Helen O'Neill, is a young widow with certain gifts that she herself doesn't understand. I've dedicated this novella to my mother, maiden name Mary Elizabeth O'Neill. The Irish experience in New York City is a rich, textured, dramatic one. It was wonderful to write about it!

The library in J.P. Morgan's private domain, now the Morgan Library & Museum, open to the public. Courtesy of the Morgan Media Department.

The book's description:

A Christmas Novella in Old New York

In this compelling and poignant story, Nancy Bilyeau takes readers to New York City’s Morgan Library in December 1912, when two very different people haunted by lost love come together in an unexpected way.

Helen O’Neill, part of a tight-knit Irish-American family in the Bronx, is only too happy to report to work at the spectacular private library built on Madison Avenue by millionaire financier J. P. Morgan. The head librarian, the brilliant and beautiful Belle da Costa Greene, had hired Helen away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art after she witnessed Helen’s unusual talent with handling artifacts.

Helen soon discovers the Morgan Library is a place like no other, with its secret staircases, magical manuscripts, and mysterious murals. But that’s nothing compared to a person Helen alone sees: a young woman standing on Madison Avenue, looking as if she were keeping watch. In learning the woman’s true link to the Morgan, Helen must face the pain of her own past. She finds herself with a second chance at happiness that could only happen on Christmas Eve—if she has the courage.

Here are two amazing historic photos, courtesy of the Morgan:

The North Room of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library, after 1923, occupied by Belle da Costa Greene and other librarians. . Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Tebbs & Knell.

The family home of J. P. Morgan at the corner of Madison Avenue and 36th Street. The museum can be seen halfway down the block. The house was later demolished, and the present museum can be found there. Credit: Morgan Media Dept.

The Ghost of Madison Avenue is available in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Australia, and other markets. 

"The Gilded Age splendors of the Morgan Library come to life in this wonderful, warm-hearted tale of Christmases past, present, and future. Bilyeau weaves a wealth of gorgeous period detail into her ghost story of old New York, delivering genuine chills, family drama, and poignant romance with equal skill. A gorgeous holiday treat!"
—Mariah Fredericks, author of Death of a New American

'The Blue' Is the Kindle Daily Deal Today

Amazon selected my historical thriller THE BLUE to be the Kindle Daily Deal for subscribers to its newsletter for Saturday, November 23rd. For today only in the United States, the ebook costs $1.49--for everyone!

Set in the 18th century, my novel tells the story of a young Huguenot woman, a painter, who agrees to become a spy at a porcelain factory to discover the formula for the most beautiful color in the world--but she soon finds herself in danger.

To order the ebook of THE BLUE, click here.

If you'd like to order the original paperback or audio book, that's great too! And remember, you can order THE BLUE as a holiday gift for a friend or relative :)

Sharing some of the endorsements that the novel received:

‘Nancy Bilyeau's passion for history infuses her books’ – Alison Weir

'Fascinating' -- Ian Rankin

'Definitely a winner!' -- Kate Quinn

'Bilyeau is an impressive talent who brings to life a heart-stopping story of adventure, art and espionage during the Seven Years War.' - Stephanie Dray

'...transports the reader into the heart of the 18th century porcelain trade—where the price of beauty was death.’ -- E.M. Powell

If you don't live in the U.S., my book is still available at a low price in the UK, Canada, and Australia in ebook, paperback, and audio.

Tudor to Georgian: When a Novelist Jumps Centuries

By Nancy Bilyeau

Sometimes an idea for a new novel is part of a carefully worked out strategic plan, and sometimes it pops into your brain seemingly out of nowhere. In the case of my historical novel The Blue, it was the latter.

While touring Hillwood Estate in Washington D.C. with my sister in 2013 and gazing at the spectacular 18th century porcelain collection, I heard the guide say, "Porcelain was very competitive in Europe--during this time it was like the Space Race." I was excited at the thought of writing a spy thriller set among the porcelain workshops of the 18th century.

Before I knew it, I was creating characters. This meant making some big changes in my writing. My novels The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry take place in Tudor England. For my new book, I plunged forward into the era of Rococo art and Enlightenment thought, of war and revolution. This was the Georgian period.

When it came to my protagonists, I exchanged a Catholic novice for a Huguenot artist. And since I like to weave "real" people from history into my plots, I read up on the monarchs, artists, and scientists of the 18th century. The similarities and the contrasts were highly interesting. Allow me to share a few.

Henry VIII to Louis XV

King Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings of England--or any European country for that matter. He was of course married six times and the monarch who broke ties with the Pope, which led to the English Reformation. In his time, Henry was also known for being extremely handsome--over six feet tall, with red hair and glowing skin--and accomplished, but the latter part of his reign was marked with tyranny and sudden, fatal reversals of favor. No one was safe, not his wives nor his ministers.

Since the main character of my trilogy is Joanna Stafford, a Dominican novice fighting for her way of life, Henry VIII is an ongoing source of fear and frustration. But Joanna is from an aristocratic family related to the royals, so at times she is pulled into the court, particularly in the third book, The Tapestry. Her talent with tapestries wins the admiration of her cousin the King, ironically. My research confirmed that Henry Tudor was a dedicated, if not obsessed collector of Renaissance tapestries. He spent the equivalent of a warship on one series of tapestries in the early 1540s.

Louis XV, "The Beloved"

In most people's minds, Louis XV is overshadowed by his predecessor, his great-grandfather Louis XIV, and his successor, his grandson, Louis XVI. Yet during his long reign, he was often regarded as the most powerful man in the Western world. Few celebrate that reign today, though. His inability to curtail spending or to deal with famine and poverty set France on the road to revolution. He led his nation into expensive wars. His most famous words are "Après moi, le déluge."

While his character was reserved and melancholy, Louis, like Henry VIII, was outstandingly handsome, and many of the women in his court were eager to be his mistress. He is famous for his taste and is not given enough credit for his role in supporting architecture, art, and music.  In the 1750s, the time of my novel The Blue, France was considered superior to England in art, fashion, science--and, most significantly, porcelain. Louis was obsessed with France being the creator of the most beautiful porcelain in the world.

If some people think Henry Tudor is over-represented in books and films and television (he's been played by everyone from Richard Burton to Damian Lewis), Louis XV shows up almost nowhere. He's perhaps most familiar to audiences as played by Rip Torn in the 2006 Marie Antoinette movie starring Kirsten Dunst.

My main character, Genevieve, is a Huguenot, part of a French Protestant community that the Catholic kings hated and successfully drove out. Her family took refuge in England--the word "refugee" was coined to describe the French Protestants flooding London. Genevieve despises Louis XV and fears him, knowing that if England were to be invaded by France, as threatened to happen in 1758, it would not be good for her.

Anne Boleyn to Madame de Pompadour

All of the wives except Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr appear in my trilogy. Fifth wife Catherine Howard has the largest role in my novels, but in my opinion there's no question but that Wife Number Two, Anne Boleyn, was the most significant to English history. My personal sympathies may rest with the wife she dislodged, Catherine of Aragon, but Anne was the love of Henry VIII's life and a woman of remarkable intelligence, style, and taste.

Louis XV was the opposite of Henry VIII when it came to women. He married once but had many, many mistresses. His court was dumbfounded when he slept with four sisters in the same family, one after another over a period of years. But then came Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, known to history as Madame de Pompadour. She was the love of Louis XV's life. For almost twenty years, she was his cherished companion, even after the sexual part of their relationship faded. 

I like to think that Anne Boleyn and Madame de Pompadour would have been fast best friends. They were both sexy and smart, leaders in art and style, Anne being musical and Pompadour being a talented actress who loved performing in small productions put on for Louis. But neither woman was popular beyond a small circle of loyalists. This contributed to Anne Boleyn's downfall; as for Pompadour, being surrounded by people who hated her eventually wore her down. She died of illness at age 45.

In films and TV, Anne Boleyn has been played by a staggeringly long list of talented actresses: Merle Oberon, Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold, and Natalie Dormer, among many others. But what about Madame de Pompadour? Like Louis XV, she's been seen onscreen comparatively rarely.

Hans Holbein to William Hogarth

Art plays a crucial part in my fiction. In the Joanna Stafford trilogy, the tapestries the sisters weave are important to plot and character. The Blue revolves around the creation of porcelain--and the longing of my main character, Genevieve, to become a real artist. I am fascinated by the lives of artists of the past, and I placed both Hans Holbein and William Hogarth in my books.

Hans Holbein

Holbein, court artist to Henry VIII, was the ultimate survivor. A German, he came to England under the sponsorship of Thomas More. When that man was beheaded, he switched over to Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. Holbein was sent to paint Anne of Cleves when a widowed Henry VIII was looking for a new wife. He decided to marry her based on the portrait--and was furious and upset when he met the "real" woman, saying, "I like her not!"

It's in the lives of the artists that the difference between the 16th and the 18th centuries is most pronounced. Holbein must have been nervous of Henry VIII, along with everyone else, and certainly painted him with flattery.

But that was hardly the career course pursued by William Hogarth.

William Hogarth

Coming for a lower-middle-class family, Hogarth, a painter and printmaker, used his talents to make blistering comments on English society, even those at the top.  Many of his works are satirical caricatures, showcasing the greed and heartlessness of the ruling class. Some of his work attacked politicians for their corruption and the aristocracy for making loveless marriages purely for money.

After Hogarth's death, the actor David Garrick composed this for his tombstone:

Farewell great Painter of Mankind
Who reach'd the noblest point of Art
Whose pictur'd Morals charm the Mind
And through the Eye correct the Heart. 

If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay,
If Nature touch thee, drop a Tear:
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here.

In The Blue, Genevieve's admiration for Hogarth--and her determination to use her talent to show society with all honesty--is what sets the entire plot in motion.:)

I could go on, but you get the picture. (So to speak.) Whether it's the 16th or the 18th centuries, these are fascinating people. I loved researching them and working them into my fiction.

Reviews for THE BLUE:

Ian Rankin: "Fascinating."
Kate Quinn: "Definitely a winner."
NB magazine: "Fast-paced and highly engaging historical thriller"
E.M. Powell: "Transports the reader into the heart of the 18th century porcelain trade—where the price of beauty was death."

Follow Nancy on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for her author newsletter to read nonfiction posts about history and get the news first on novel giveaways and chapter extras.

Andrew Planche: A Huguenot Porcelain Visionary

In all the fiction I've written so far, the main character is a product of my imagination, as are many of the secondary characters. But I also weave into my stories real people from history. Some are quite famous, such as Henry VIII and Catherine Howard in my Tudor trilogy, and Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour in The Blue. But some "real" people who populate my books, while far from well known to the general public, are important to me and to my story.

Such is certainly the case with Andrew Planche, a character in The Blue.

  

When I was first sketching out my ideas for this historical thriller, I knew I wanted to write an espionage story set in the porcelain world of the 18th century, but I hadn't developed the main character beyond  "female spy." I had a true "A ha!" moment when, in my research, I discovered that Huguenot artists played a pivotal role in the early days of many English porcelain factories. I had long been wanting to write about the French Huguenots. I myself am descended from a Huguenot settler who came to New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1661.

But before I go any further on the Huguenots, it's important to explain the state of porcelain-making in England in the 1700s. For centuries, porcelain was the provenance of China, with hard-paste porcelain produced there beginning in the 13th century. When Western markets opened up, it was exported to those who could pay. In Europe, porcelain found an eager market, with the royal families of several Western European countries spending a fortune on their collections.  King Philip of Spain, who tried, and failed, to invade England, was a porcelain enthusiast; King Louis XIV of France a porcelain fanatic.

Not surprisingly, in Europe there were many efforts to create porcelain without needing to import it at such tremendous cost, but no one could figure out the correct formula for turning clay into fragile objects of ravishing, sparkling beauty. Then came two breakthroughs--one of them thanks to a mission of espionage in China--and by the early 18th century the competition was on. 

Porcelain workshops sprang up in Germany, France, and England to try to snatch up this luxury market. One museum curator described it to me as "the space race of its time." Ironically, these same three countries became embroiled in the Seven Years War in the mid-18th century, known as the French and Indian War in America. They were vying for dominance in many spheres. One was colonial exploitation, yes. Another was manufacturing the most beautiful porcelain.

As for the Huguenots, they were French Protestants who, faced with hostility from the Catholic powers-that-be in France, immigrated in waves.  They formed a sizable community in England--in fact, the word refugee was coined to describe these Protestants seeking refuge in another country. Many Huguenots  were highly skilled artisans such as silk weavers, potters, and silversmiths, and it is now acknowledged that France erred in driving out these valuable citizens. The destruction of this burgeoning middle class played a part in the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Andrew Planche is in many ways a classic Huguenot of his time. However, there are gaps and contradictions in his story. 

He was born in either 1727 or 1728 to Paul Planche, a French refugee, and his wife, Marie Ann Fournier, and baptized in Soho. Some accounts say that his father was a coffee merchant whose name was actually Blanchet, others that the father was a ceramicist trained at Meissen, one of the leading porcelain workshops in Europe, who taught Andrew what he knew. It seems that either the father died while Andrew was a teenager or he remarried and Andrew and his brothers had to "shift for themselves."

By the 1750s, Andrew Planche seems to have found a home in Derby, one source said "in reduced circumstances." According to various documents and papers, he was there in 1756 at the formation of Derby Porcelain Works. William Duesbury, who had London experience in "enameling," and a banker named John Heath set up this business. Planche is thought by some to have been the creative force. 

One book published in 1878 described the situation:

"There has always been a tradition that the first maker of China [porcelain] in Derby was a Frenchman, who lived in a small house in Lodge Lane, who modelled and made small articles in China, principally animals--birds, cats, dogs, lambs, etc., which he fired in a pipe-maker's oven in the neighborhood belonging to a man named Woodward....He was evidently a very clever man and ... had the secret to making China body, Duesbury the energy and other requirements and Heath the money to start out and carry out the famous Derby China Works."

"Chinaman and Boy," attributed to Andrew Planche

Above is a photograph of one of the very few porcelain objects attributed to Andrew Planche. As you can see, it is far from a simple cat or dog but a sophisticated figure of an Asian man, swirling in motion. The art and fashion of the Far East fascinated the aristocrats and wealthy merchants of England  during this time.

Despite its promising launch as a business, Andrew Planche extricated himself from Derby Porcelain Works just as it was gaining its first acclaim. I could never find an explanation as to why.

Catherine Beth, Lippert, the author of Eighteenth Century English Porcelain in the Collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, said Planche's work displayed "a vitality and crispness of modeling that the later pieces lack." After Planche's exit, Lippert wrote that Derby's style of the porcelain was strongly influenced by Sevres, the French manufactory sponsored by Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV.

By the 1760s Andrew had changed his name and was actively pursuing a career as an actor. He toured the north of England and by 1768 worked as a prompter at the Old Orchard Street Theatre in Bath where he supposedly "stayed for thirty-one years." Andrew Planche died in January 1805.

As for Derby Porcelain Works, it did not suffer long from Planche's departure. By 1770, Duesbury, described by all as an astute and assertive businessman, acquired some of his competition in the respected Chelsea China Works and the Bow moulds, and brought a number of their craftsmen from London to Derby. He opened a large London showroom in 1773.

A figure created in Derby after Planche's departure

According to the website for the factory, "A Royal Warrant from King George III, dated 28th March 1775, appointing William Duesbury and John Heath 'Derby China Manufacturers to His Majesty', and in recognition the factory adopted a new mark with a crown surmounting the script Duesbury ‘D’ used earlier."


Royal Crown Derby "is one of the few original fine bone china manufacturers that still remains in Britain today, 100 percent producing in Britain," states its website. "Ours is a history with an illustrious heritage in British society."

Royal Crown Derby porcelain made in 1770s, showing influence of Sevres.
From the Victoria and Albert Museum Collection.

Royal Crown Derby today

To circle back to The Blue, I was so intrigued by the mysteries of Andrew Planche, described by one 19th century writer dismissively as "an apocryphal French refugee," that I decided to make him the cousin of my main character, a Huguenot artist who I named Genvieve Planche. In the novel Andrew plays a small but pivotal role, yet he's as much of a fundamental mystery to Genevieve as he is to history. :)

DREAMLAND Is Ready for Pre-Order

My fifth novel of suspense, set in Coney Island of 1911, can be ordered today!

The publication date is January 16, 2020, but you can order the book now. Pre-order numbers are very important to publishers and bookstores in gauging the appeal of a novel :)

I'm honored to receive these advance reviews from bestselling authors:


'I could practically taste the salt-water taffy and smell the ocean air as I read Bilyeau’s latest, set in 1911 Coney Island. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Dreamland is a rollicking ride.' - Fiona Davis, bestselling author of The Chelsea Girls


'Dreamland is a vibrant maze of desires, scandal, and mystery that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. A marvelous book!' - Ellen Marie Wiseman, bestselling author of What she Left Behind and The Life She was Given

'Bilyeau’s thrilling novel plunges deep into Dreamland’s maze of pleasure and menace' - Marlowe Benn, bestselling author of Relative Fortunes

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I also just received a trade review for Dreamland, appearing in Publishers Weekly. It's my very first starred review:

Peggy Batternberg, the 20-year-old narrator of this outstanding thriller set in 1911 from Bilyeau (The Blue), chafes against the societal restrictions on women of her class, who are expected to have no ambition but to marry well. She has managed to carve out some distance from her elitist family by working in a Manhattan bookshop, until her younger sister, Lydia, begs her to spend the summer with the entire clan at the Oriental Hotel, a once-grand oceanfront resort on Coney Island, to please Lydia’s wealthy fiancé. Peggy resists, until she learns that Lydia’s marriage would save the Batternberg family from financial ruin. Peggy goes along, only to find herself in pursuit of a serial killer and in love with the police department’s prime suspect. Bilyeau populates her story with achingly believable, realistically flawed characters. Peggy is naive and far from perfect, but her heart is in the right place, and one can’t help feeling for her predicament. This fascinating portrait of the end of the Gilded Age deserves a wide audience.

Dreamland is available for pre-order as an ebook or paperback with Amazon, and as a paperback with Barnes & Noble and IndieBound. Prices are nice and low :)

Click here for U.S. purchases:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound

For links in UK, Canada and Australia, go here.