R...is for ready or not here's my first research book!

Research is always important, whether you write historical romance or not. The wrong description of a city or road name can pull you out of a story just as quickly as writing a 1st century Roman cavalryman used stirrups. So, you need to be accurate, but shouldn’t obsess over things so much that it overshadows the story you are trying to tell. One valuable piece of information I learnt is that you should never, ever information dump. It kills tension and pace. What you see in your finished draft should just be the tip of the iceberg, enough to give your readers a flavour of the period.

*Allison rubs her hands together* sooooo, research books. One of the first research books for the Roman period I brought was Roman clothing and fashion by A.T Croome.

It’s very easy to read and the illustrations give you a great sense of how the clothes worked and what they did. It also covers the issue of colours used for dying and clothes worn at weddings and funerals. It’s published by http://www.tempus-publishing.com/
The books on the site are expensive but a great investment, I think.

Still no news on the agent or publisher front. I’m gearing up to send out a few more agent queries in January. As I might have said before, on the agent side, I’m not stressing too much. A full manuscript can take ages to be read by those busy agents and I don’t need an agent to submit to Harlequin, indeed I’d already had the full manuscript of A Barbarian’s Kiss requested by HMB before I embarked on the agent hunt. But contracts and clauses send my head into a flat spin and long term, I know I’ll need one.
I want one that’s with me for the long haul, not one book.