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Adventures in AI

December 28, 2025 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as AI, Alina K. Field, historical romance, Marketing, Regency romance, writing

Happy holidays, and Happy New Year! I’m back for another Quarter Days post.

A Controversial Subject

First things first: I know that the use of AI is a controversial topic among authors and other creators. I’m not one of the folks who use it to plot, write, edit, or create book covers or audiobooks.

For one thing, the slick, smarmy AI generated prose from scammers that arrives in my inbox is a deterrent–easily identified as machine-made. Here’s one message from November 17th regarding my recent release, Her Impeccable Scoundrel:

As we enter the most uplifting time of the year, I hope this season brings you joy, renewed inspiration, and continued success as you craft elegant, emotionally rich historical romances that captivate devoted readers. After reviewing Her Impeccable Scoundrel, [emphasis mine] I was struck by its refined tension, nuanced character development, and the deeply human struggle between duty, trust, and long-buried emotion. Blythe’s fight to reclaim her reputation and protect her inheritance combined with Graeme’s complex return, carrying both guilt and longing creates an irresistible Regency narrative filled with redemption, vulnerability, and slow-burning romance. It is exactly the kind of elegant, emotionally resonant story our seasonal campaign aims to highlight.

(Note that there is a seasonal campaign coming up, for which payment by author will likely be required.)

Release day for Her Impeccable Scoundrel was November 18th. Hmm, how did the AI bot read it before sending this message?

No doubt you authors reading here have received messages like this from book clubs, famous authors, marketers and unsolicited reviewers. If you haven’t heard of this new scam, Writer Beware has several posts on the topic.

Imagining a Story Character

I have found AI marginally useful in creating character images for marketing memes. The image above is a depiction of the middle-aged hero in my most recent release, Lady Loughton’s Last Wager, a novella in the Merry Belles Bluestocking Belles with Friends Collection.

I also tried my hand at AI adjustments for headshots.

Here I am, riding with the highwayman to promote the Love’s Perilous Road collection at a Facebook party. (Ridiculous, right?)

A Real Time Suck

It’s easy enough to spend hours trying to translate the image in my head to the screen. One AI site creates one-size-fits all images of men. Every guy has a cleft chin, square jaw, and hot burning gaze. Ask for a lady in a Regency gown and you’ll get either Georgian hoop skirts or Victorian ones.

I suppose things will get better as AI ~~steals from~~, ~~copies~~, learns from humans. Or maybe when this human learns more about manipulating AI programs the result will be better images.

This Quarter’s New Releases

It’s been a busy few months with new releases, two fun projects with the Bluestocking Belles, plus a full length novel in the Wicked Widows League multi-author series.

Love’s Perilous Road, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends

Release Day, October 31, 2025

Travel, houseparties, smugglers, spies, a ghost–and a mysterious highwayman. Who is the infamous Captain Moonlight? And how many lives will he change–for good or for ill?

It’s the autumn of 1817 and Sir Peter Somerville and his lady are hosting a house party at their estate near Brighton, while a pesky highwayman plagues the surrounding byways.

Includes my novella, Sir Westcott Steals a Heart.

Purchase link: https://books2read.com/u/mqx0W6

Her Impeccable Scoundrel

Release Day, November 18, 2025

A widowed countess emerges from her year of mourning battling the dark legacy of her husband and dreading the arrival of the straitlaced scoundrel whose interference years earlier led to her unhappy marriage, a young man who was once her friend: her late husband’s heir.

Called back to England to take up his late cousin’s title, diplomat Graeme Blatchfield is eager to see his cousin’s widow and learn for himself whether the rumors about the woman he once held a childish infatuation for are true. Forced by matters of the estate to spend time together, he soon discovers the vulnerable and lonely woman underneath the society mask. Can he get her to forgive him—and more?

Buy Link: https://books2read.com/HerImpeccableScoundrel

Merry Belles, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends

Release Day December 20, 2025

Just in time for the holidays, seven charming stories of romance from award-winning and best-selling authors:

A murder brings a lady and her lost love together, just close enough to heal old wounds.
A young lady must foil a friend’s betrayal to have her Yuletide wish for love come true.
A widowed lord’s new housekeeper tames his rowdy boys and pierces his lonely heart.
A lady determined to find her wayward young son finds herself stranded with the persistent earl trying to woo her out of widowhood.
Will restoring a family manor together help two people acknowledge a secret attraction and claim a future together?
A soldier’s wife is determined to find her missing husband, even if she must walk the length and breadth of England with her children in a wheelbarrow.
Home from the wars, a soldier is shocked to learn that his fiancée plans to wed someone else. Can he reach her in time to prevent the nuptials?

Includes my novella, Lady Loughton’s Last Wager

Buy link: https://books2read.com/u/mvRGPj

What’s the secret to training your AI? Tell me in the comments.

Hope your holidays are going well! Wishing you many blessings for the New Year, and I’ll see you at my next Quarter Day post.

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Love’s Perilous Road: A Review

November 15, 2025 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Book Reviews tagged as A review, Alina K. Field, anthology, Bluestocking Belles, new release, Regency romance

Love’s Perilous Road

A Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends

Ebook ISBN 978-1-965509-03-6
Print ISBN 978-1-965509-04-3
ASIN B0DZPKDMXV

Publisher: Bluestocking Belles

October 31, 2025

Regency Romance

I’ve been a fan of the Bluestocking Belles’ anthologies for years, probably since Alina K. Field first joined them. I’ve been a fan of Alina K. Field since she first published Rosalyn’s Ring and it won the 2014 Book Buyer’s Best contest. (It absolutely lived up to its reputation.)

So I was pleased to read and review Love’s Perilous Road, a collection of ten Regency Romances all centered around the mysterious highwayman, Captain Moonlight. All the characters have an encounter with the man, and there are brief journal entries from The Casebook of the Principal Office Robert Pierce who is planning Captain Moonlight’s capture—even if he leaves his ill-gotten gains in the chicken coops of young widows with children to feed.

As with all Bluestocking Belles Collections that I have read, all the stories are well written and very entertaining, which is not always the case with anthologies. I appreciate the care the authors take with their stories, adding in the clues to Captain Moonlight’s true identity.

Having said that, I still had my favorites: Charred Hope by Caroline Warfield in which an honorable man returns a miniature and finds a future. Sir Westcott Steals a Heart by Alina K. Field: Sybil Dunsford disguised herself as a boy to protect her brothers but, of course, Sir Westcott Twisden follows her, and hijinks ensue and they get locked in barn overnight. A Duke in Peril by Meara Platt: Lady Florence Swann rescues a wounded soldier from the side of the road near her home. But he’s more than just a soldier.

I’m looking forward to the Bluestocking Belles next collection.

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More Books by Alina K. Field

CHRISTMAS KISSES

STORM & SHELTER

FATED HEARTS: A Love After All Retelling of the Scottish Play

MISTLETOE & MAYHEM: A REGENCY HOLIDAY ROMANCE ANTHOLOGY

THE COUNTERFEIT LADY

A LEAP INTO LOVE

WINTER WISHES: A REGENCY HOLIDAY ROMANCE ANTHOLOGY

HAUNTING MISS FENWICK

MARRYING MR. GIBSON

ROSALYN’S RING

LILIANA’S LETTER

THE MARQUESS AND THE MIDWIFE

ADVENGING THE EARL’S LADY

THE GHOST OF DEPFORD HALL

ROMANCING THE PAGES

THE VISCOUNT’S SEDUCTION

MERRY BELLES: A Bluestocking Collection with Friends

LOVE’S PERILOUS ROAD

THE ROGUE’S LAST SCANDAL

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Stand and Deliver!

September 28, 2025 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as Alina K. Field, Bluestocking Belles, historical romance, new release, Regency romance, Romance Collections

I’m back with another Quarter Days post!

Smugglers, Ghosts, and Highwaymen

The Bluestocking Belles and Friends have put together a collection of interrelated stories set near Brighton, England in 1817, and what fun we had researching and developing these tales. From the Devil’s Dyke to Brighton, love and adventure are in the air.

When Principal Officer Robert Pierce, of the Bow Street Magistrate Court sets out on the Brighton road he encounters more than the notorious thief he’s hunting:

From the casebook of Robert Pierce

It seems that I am off to the seaside. Larcenous Lucy, as some of the wits here at
the Office have taken to calling her, is working the London to Brighton road.
I’ve been told to look into a highwayman problem while I am there. There’s
someone plaguing both the main highway and some of the lesser roads. The local
dignitaries have posted a reward, so that would be a nice bonus.
My colleagues have also been joking that smugglers and ghosts abound in the
region, and that I might collect some of those while I am there. I told them, I
shall leave the smugglers to the excise officers and ghosts to the duly authorized
ministers of the church.

Love’s Perilous Road, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends

Travel, houseparties, smugglers, spies, a ghost–and a mysterious highwayman. Who is the infamous Captain Moonlight? And how many lives will he change–for good or for ill?

It’s the autumn of 1817 and Sir Peter Somerville and his lady are hosting a house party at their estate near Brighton, while a pesky highwayman plagues the surrounding byways.

Love’s Perilous Road features stories by Jude Knight, Sherry Ewing, Carolyn Warfield, Cerise Deland, Rue Allyn, Elizabeth Ellen Carter, Alina K. Field, and friends of the Bluestocking Belles Mary Lancaster, Meara Platt, and Barbara Monajem.

My contribution to the collection is Sir Westcott Steals a Heart

Sir Westcott Twisden didn’t know he wanted to marry until the tallest lady he’d ever met crossed his path. Unfortunately, the lady in question shrugs off his overtures. Curious when a local smuggler shows up to visit her, Wes follows her into trouble.

Sybil Dunsford will do almost anything to protect her brothers and their home, even disguise herself as one of her brothers to fend off demands from the local smuggling boss who holds her mortgage. But when her night of shifting contraband goes awry, and Sir Westcott appears to rescue her, they’re locked in together. Will romance follow?

Release Day is October 31, 2025

Pre-order your copy here: https://books2read.com/u/mqx0W6

Happy Reading! I’ll be back on December 28th with another Quarter Days post!

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How is your Yuletide shaping up?

This autumn I managed two extraordinary (for me) writing accomplishments:

1. Some butt-in-the-chair speedy writing for a last-minute holiday collection of stories put together during a time when I was attending two different week-long writing events, and

2. Writing short (8000 words). Which of course, helped me meet the deadline. Ideas for developing secondary characters came to me later. When the rights revert to me in a few months, I just might work in some changes.

Christmastide Kisses

My story, Twelfth Night Treasure is set among some longer novellas. The tales in this collection put together by four of us Bluestocking Belles plus author friends Ruth A. Casie and Aileen Fish will help brighten your holidays:

A beleaguered uncle whose wards have run off every governess–what he needs is a wife, if only he can persuade the latest applicant
A country solicitor who becomes an earl and then finds a secret that changes everything
A very proper clergyman who battles very improper urges when he and a lady with a murky past find themselves snowbound
A viscount whose search to unearth generations-old family secrets kindles the fire of love for his lovely search partner
A former army captain who wonders if the best friend of his ex-fiancee is the woman he should have married
A vicar with a misspent youth and the duke’s daughter who brings out the best in him

Six gentlemen and the ladies with whom they discover the power of a Christmastide Kiss.

A Villainous Vicar Reforms

The hero of my story is a clergyman who happened to be something of a villain in the my 2022 Christmas story, Flowers for His Lady. He had a whole year to reform since he almost ruined his sister’s chance at happiness last year. I’ve done my best to redeem him. If you read the story, let me know if you think I succeeded!

Happy Rest of the Holidays!

Besides taking time for holiday reading, be sure to grab a kiss under the mistletoe if you can!

I’ll be back in March for another Quarter Days Post.

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9 Authors, 9 Interconnected Stories

September 28, 2023 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field, Writing tagged as Alina K. Field, Bluestocking Belles, Quarter Days, Regency romance, Romance Collections

Under the Harvest Moon

We’re less than two weeks away from the release of the latest Bluestocking Belles collection of historical romances, Under the Harvest Moon.

All new original stories by authors Caroline Warfield, Jude Knight, Sherry Ewing, Cerise DeLand, Elizabeth Ellen Carter, Collette Cameron, Mary Lancaster, Rue Allyn, and me are set at harvest time in 1815, in the small fictional town of Reabridge in Cheshire, England.

Here’s the blurb:

As the village of Reabridge in Cheshire prepares for the first Harvest Festival following Waterloo, families are overjoyed to welcome back their loved ones from the war.

But excitement quickly turns to mystery when mere weeks before the festival, an orphaned child turns up in the town—a toddler born near Toulouse to an English mother who left clues that tie her to Reabridge.

With two prominent families feuding for generations and the central event of the Harvest Moon festival looming, tensions rise, and secrets begin to surface.

Nine award winning and bestselling authors have combined their talents to create this engaging and enchanting collection of interrelated tales. Under the Harvest Moon promises an unforgettable read for fans of Regency romance.

A Team Effort in Planning

The members of the Bluestocking Belles plus participating author friends Collette Cameron and Mary Lancaster are spread out all over the globe. Thank heavens for the wonders of social media, messaging, Google Drive, and Zoom that make communication and collaboration rapid and easy. Or at least easier!

The hardest aspect of organizing was finding a good time for a Zoom meeting that would accommodate Elizabeth in Australia, Jude in New Zealand, Mary in Scotland, Rue in Nicaragua, and the rest of us scattered over U.S. Eastern, Central, and Pacific time.

But we did it, and just about a year ago, after much preliminary research and chatting, we finalized our story world and deadlines as a group and then each presented ideas for the individual characters and stories. Later, we shared in beta-reading drafts and final copy before submission to Jude Knight (who is also an editor) for the final editing.

When a character wandered into another author’s story, the creating authors chatted separately. So, for example, my heroine, Fleur, encountered the heroine of Rue’s story, Charite, and offered a description through Fleur’s point of view that had to be adjusted after Rue’s critique and input. Caro’s doctor hero appears briefly in my story, in one scene with my hero, and later in a scene at the home where my heroine resides where he’s come to deliver a baby.

There’s more, yet each story is a standalone romance delivered in each author’s unique voice. You can preorder your copy for only 99 cents and have it pop onto your eReader on release day, October 10th.

The special pricing will be good through October 17th. Plus, if you haven’t read last year’s Bluestocking Belles collection, Desperate Daughters, you can pick up a copy of that for only 99 cents through October 4th!

And Here Are the Stories: Under the Harvest Moon

Moonlight Wishes and Midnight Kisses by Collette Cameron
A scarred veteran with no future, Courtland Marlow-Westbrook wants to be left alone. Scottish heiress Avery Levingtone never stopped loving him and is determined to win his love again. Will these former sweethearts find happiness together, or will the wounds of the past keep them apart?

The Morning Light by Caroline Warfield

Adam Wagner is meant to save lives, not take them. He is haunted by Waterloo. The horror of it keeps him from those he loves. Meg Barlow doesn’t understand how Adam could turn his back on her so thoroughly, but she isn’t about to let him get away with it.

A Harvest Blessing by Rue Allen
All the battles are over, or are they? When Captain Thom Owen is forced into a false engagement, he must escort his pseudo-fiancée home to meet his father. Can an English vicar’s son and a French Comte’s daughter find love despite their differences?

Coming Home by Mary Lancaster

Old memories, new love
Home from Waterloo, Captain David Buckley contemplates settling down near his hometown of Reabridge—only it is full of painful memories. The mysterious Lady Lorna falls literally into his arms, and he begin to understand the true meaning of love and home.

Under the Champagne Moon by Alina K Field

Fleur Hardouin’s heart longs for Captain Gareth Ardleigh, but she needs an advantageous marriage.
Gareth has promised to find Fleur—on behalf of another man.
Now he must choose between honoring a promise and trying to win the hand of the woman he loves.

A Quiet Heart by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

Widowed at Waterloo, where she also nursed the wounded, Veronica Petersham promised a dying man to bring his effects to a family in Reabridge. She falls ill just short of her goal, in the milking shed of kind and stoic Martin Bromelton.
Perhaps there is hope for the future after all and the opportunity to find love once more.

A Love Beyond Time by Sherry Ewing
Eight years ago, Hannah Pownall had her heart broken by a young lord.
Captain Brandon Worthington returns to the town of Reabridge to recover from the war and finds the girl he once loved still unwed. Can love at first sight be reborn after heartbreak, proving a second chance is all you need?

The Widow’s Harvest Hope by Cerise DeLand

The new Earl Barlow returns home from Waterloo, intending to live by his own rules. The woman he loved and lost years ago visits for the Harvest festival—and he plans to offer Vicky Wright what they both want. Can a lady who has lived by the rules throw them all away to seize her last chance for happiness?

Love In Its Season by Jude Knight

The Battle of Waterloo lost Jack Wrath the use of one arm and ended his career in the cavalry. He has no place to go and nothing to offer. Gwen Hughes has a business to run and no time for romance. Under the harvest moon, two people who believe romance has passed them by finally reach their season for love.