Must Love Breeches (47 page)

Wondering why I have my history all wrong in the Epilogue? Yep, I know cell phones weren't around in 1973--I was alive then ;) I felt like she had to have some kind of impact on the timeline, and so I created an alternate timeline where technological advances were accelerated faster than ours. By going back, she'd created the alternate universe she was born into. Trippy, right? For more information about different ways time travel can affect the timeline, see my post on the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Blog: “
Did You Mess Up the Timeline? Incorporating Theories of Time Travel in Fiction
”

The original germ for this story was wondering who would be cool to meet if I went back in time. I’d originally conceived to go back to Jane Austen’s era, but that idea has been well-trodden. When I came across Ada Lovelace, I had my answer. Born Augusta Ada Byron, she is the only legitimate daughter of the famous poet and bad boy Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke. What a tumultuous and intriguing marriage that was! I had a hard time reining in Lady Byron in this story, as my interpretation of her personality is not favorable, and she was just oh-so annoying to me. I had many more scenes with her, as she lent herself easily to being an antagonist, but this story isn’t supposed to be a rant about her and they were cut and her role minimized. Ada had such a sad childhood, and while her adulthood contained many amazing accomplishments, she died unpardonably young at thirty-six from uterine cancer. I think a lot of her troubles stemmed from the tyranny of her mother, and in this novel, I took the liberty of giving her an alternate life through meeting Isabelle where she didn’t die of cancer and had a happier life. In the end, this is a work of fiction, a product of my imagination, and I wanted to give this alternate life to her.

I picked 1834 because it was the first year that Ada Byron was ‘out’ (having her Season in public). It was after her second Season that she married her husband William King, becoming Baroness King. In 1838, her husband became the Earl of Lovelace, and so that’s why she’s commonly called Ada Lovelace.

I also wanted to give Ada a childhood friend in Montagu, since she really had none. Whenever her mother found anyone getting too close to her, playmate or nurse, they were excised from Ada’s life. Ada and Charles Babbage had an interesting and unique working relationship, and if you want to learn more about her, and their work together, please see the Further Reading list. I will note that Ada actually did try to build a flying steam-powered horse!

Mary Somerville is also pulled from history; she was one of Ada’s tutors and at the time of this novel, had become a good friend and mentor. Ada often visited the Somerville home in Chelsea and attended Babbage’s soirees with the Somerville family.

I tried to capture what one of Babbage’s soirees might have been like from the few extant first-hand accounts. Wouldn’t it have been amazing to attend one of his parties? And the idea of what the world would have been like if he’d actually completed either the Difference Engine or the Analytical Engine has inspired many an alternate history story, including many in the steampunk genre. I pretend here that he did, because a) it’s cool to think about, and b) I felt like Isabelle would have affected the timeline by remaining. Babbage actually didn’t get enough money from private donors, and so her contribution tipped the scale. The changes she made in the past affected the timeline she was later born into, so she never knew that her decision to stay
had
changed the world from what we all know today by ushering in the Computer Age one hundred years early.

The inspiration for the production of
King Lear
that Isabelle and Phineas attended was pulled directly from pp. 305-306 of the reminiscences of the actor mentioned in the novel, William Charles Macready. In
Macready’s Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters
, available on
Google Books
, he talks about his nervousness during the opening and the audiences’ reaction toward the end. I’ve only moved the date of the performance from May 23rd to May 19th to fit the needs of the plot. He indeed was responsible for steering the British public away from Tate’s happy-ending version.

I also tried to follow as closely as documents allowed to the layout of the old British Museum, including the construction of the present building, at the time of the novel. The room really was labeled “Artificial Curiosities from Less Civilized Parts,” and the objects she sees are pulled directly from the inventory of that room, including the Magna Carta!

The people the apothecary mentions when Isabelle asks about antiseptics were actual historical figures, as were their remedies.

I tried as far as was practical to be historically accurate, but I'm sure I fell short of the mark. Any inaccuracies are wholly my fault.

Ada, Countess of Lovelace: Byron’s Legitimate Daughter
, Doris Langley Moore, Harper & Row, Publishers

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age
, Betty Alexandra Toole, Ed.D., Strawberry Press

The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter
, Benjamin Woolley, McGraw-Hill

Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines: Selected Writings by Charles Babbage and Others
, Philip Morrison and Emily Morrison

Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher
, Charles Babbage, Martin Cambell-Kelly, ed., Rutgers University Press

Irascible Genius: The Life of Charles Babbage
, Maboth Moseley, Henry Regnery company

The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World
, Laura J. Snyder, Broadway Books
— about Charles Babbage, John Herschel, William Whewell, and Richard Jones

Angela is a geek girl romance writer. What makes her romances geeky? Whether it’s fan girling over Ada Lovelace by having her as a secondary character in
Must Love Breeches
, or outright geek references with geek types in her romantic comedy with paranormal elements,
Beer and Groping in Las Vegas
, or going all Southern steampunk in
Steam Me Up, Rawley
, she likes to have fun with her romances and hopes her readers do too.

Angela works at an independent bookstore and lives in an historic house in the beautiful and quirky town of Mobile, AL. When she’s not writing, she enjoys the usual stuff like gardening, reading, hanging out, eating, drinking, chasing squirrels out of the walls and creating the occasional knitted scarf. She’s had a varied career, including website programming and directing a small local history museum, and has discovered that writing allows her to explore all her interests.

She’s an admitted geek and is proud to be among the few but mighty Browncoats who watched
Firefly
the first night it aired. She was introduced to the wonderful world of science fiction by her father, by way of watching reruns of the original
Star Trek
in her tweens and later giving her a copy of Walter M. Miller Jr’s
A Canticle for Leibowitz
as a teenager. She hasn’t looked back since.

She has a B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies with a minor in German from Emory University, and a Masters in Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University. She was an exchange student to Finland in high school and studied abroad in Vienna one summer in college.

Find Angela Quarles Online:

www.angelaquarles.com

@angelaquarles

Facebook.com/authorangelaquarles

Mailing list:
www.angelaquarles.com/join-my-mailing-list

I have so many people to thank it’s not even a little funny. This is my second full-length novel (the first is currently partying with the dust bunnies under my bed), and so I spread my arms and net wide for help.

One of the earliest sources of advice, inspiration, and encouragement was CritiqueCircle.com which I haunted like a beast in 2011, posting early chapters and getting feedback, posting revisions, and making writer friends. I’d like to thank the following critters who critiqued in whole or in part, including: Rachelle Ayala, Cate Beauman, Bibliophyl, Susan Elsworth, Rich Knight, Terry Long, Christina McKnight, Chantel Rhondeau, Susan A. Royal, Sharba, Shelb, Kathryn Sparrow, and Lucie Ulrich.

I also had help from other writers and readers who read various versions and convinced me I wasn’t nuts in trying my hand at writing fiction. These include Celia Breslin, Beth Dunn, Merry Farmer, Tess Gingrich, Meggan Haller, Elizabeth Church Karp, Karen Kirby, Ursula LeCoeur, Alex McLeod, Kate Meader, Linda Morris, Holly Parker Murphy, Sarah Benz Phillips, J.M. Rogers, E.W. Trigg, Julie Trigg, Kate Warren, and Cheryn Yaeger. Every one of you gave me invaluable feedback that made this book better than it would have been on its own. I’d also like to thank Alex for helping me with the over-arching timey-wimey stuff across the series. Special thanks goes to my bbb (best Beta buddy) Jami Gold, as she’s read different versions more times than I can count (poor thing!), was always there for me to chat with online or over the phone about different aspects of this book, believed in me and my writing, and cheered me on all the way. And to my fellow FF&P members who critiqued chapters in The Mud Puddle. And to Tessa Dare for her support and encouragement, and Margie Lawson for teaching me how to write stronger prose!

Also when I first moved to Mobile and started writing fiction, I was lucky to be part of a wonderful group of friends who encouraged me in my writing—we met once a month and wrote flash fiction, and then moved on to critiquing chapters. Thank you Eleanor, Meggan, Laura, John, Elena, and Pier!

I’d also like to thank the family, friends, and strangers who backed my Kickstarter project to fund the editing costs, including: J.R., NRA, Buffy Armstrong, Renee D Field, Founder of StoryFinds.com, Paula Gaber, Christine Gasser, Page Gleason, Jami Gold, Melanie Goux, Elizabeth & Aaron Karp, Susan Kille, Rob Kuhlman, Melissa (Mel) Lafferty, Ursula LeCoeur, Alex McLeod, Kate Meader, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, Janet Nodar, Catherine A. Smith, Shaun Tossell, April & John Trigg, E.W. Trigg, Julie Trigg, and H.G. Welch. Thank you so much! Your belief in me was humbling indeed, and your names represent such a diverse cross section of my life.