Lily Milner

Nightshade Nightmares

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Deadly Nightshade, also known as Atropa Belladonna, is a poisonous plant native to Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. It has been used as a poison throughout history due to its ability to cause hallucinations and death.

In ancient Rome, deadly nightshade was used as a poison by assassins and was believed to be the poison used to kill the Roman Emperor Augustus. The plant was also used by witches in the Middle Ages to create potions and ointments that were believed to have magical properties.

In more recent history, deadly nightshade has been used as a poison in a number of high-profile cases. In the 19th century, it was used by English wife and mother Madeleine Smith to poison her lover, and in the 20th century, it was used by cult leader Charles Manson to poison a judge.

Despite its toxic properties, deadly nightshade has also been used for medicinal purposes. The plant contains atropine, which can be used as a muscle relaxant and to treat conditions such as asthma and glaucoma. However, it must be used with caution due to its potential to cause hallucinations and death in high doses.

It is important to note that deadly nightshade is a highly poisonous plant and should not be ingested or handled without proper training and protective measures. If ingested, it can cause symptoms such as dilated pupils, hallucinations, confusion, difficulty speaking and swallowing, and even coma and death.

Imagination

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Why write

Imagination – it’s something that pulls at the mind and won’t let go. Just on the edge of thought there is another place – deep woods, misty moors, castles of granite and oak – why? What do you want of me? Why plague me with insistence when you are so ephemeral and at the same time unrelenting.

Fairy Magic

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Fairy Magic

When I Believed in Fairies

Are there fairies at the bottom of the garden? Many people think so. As a child in England I definitely believed I saw them on at least two occasions. This idea was probably encouraged by my grandmother who fed my imagination with stories of the Fae. Once I woke to see tiny things flying through the air in a shaft of sunlight. When I asked Grandmama what they were she said ‘fairies’. Sad to say, now I believe they were only dust motes.

My Gothic novel, The Runaways: A Haunting Regency Romance, was inspired by the probability of the Fae in 19th century Britain, and the idea of changelings, where fairies swap a fairy child for a human. This belief was once very strong and usually resulted in the changeling child being badly treated. Poor kid. He or she probably had some sort of physical or mental impairment and was punished for it.

Fairy realms have a very autocratic structure apparently. As in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are Kings, Queens and various underlings, and their society is structured not unlike that in the time of Regency England, my favourite fantasy.

I rather like the idea of writing a story about just such a child who is heir to a great estate, but treated as a leper. This child, however, uses his/her fairy knowledge to overcome obstacles in the path to power, and develops strength and morality in the process. That one’s on the backburner.Meanwhilemy current hero in the soon to be published Alias Lord John is a changeling of a very different kind. He changes places with a lord, and finds himself the supposed owner of a large estate, a wife, a mistress and an attractive accomplice who says she is a distant cousin.

I used Chillingham Castle in Northumberland as a model for Kinborough in The Runaways. It was fun looking at the rather disturbing attractions on offer: theLady in White in the Inner Pantry, the Ghost Chamber, where there is this sense of something unseen­– a chill, dark, creeping sensation. There are also  voices in the chapel, and shades and shadows in the courtyard. A real treat, if you like that sort of thing.

Books From Books

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Books Are Made From Books

I recently came across an interesting quote – Books are made from books – by the writer Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men ,The Road, Child Of God and others).

Never a truer word, I thought.

My first Regency Romance is a good example. The story was ‘suggested’ by one of my favourite books, Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Rhys’s novel was in turn ‘suggested’ byCharlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It’s the storyofRochester’s mad wife lockedup in the attic.

My novel, Marrying The Reluctant Lord, follows the story of a young woman who goes to London from the West Indies in search of a husband. Her plantation-owner father has died, leaving her the heiress to a great fortune, but only if she marries an English lord.

But the lord who is tricked into proposing to her is reluctant to marry for money alone. He’s penniless, but the idea of becoming a ‘petticoat pensioner’ does not appeal to him. So the story of Juliet and her memories of her turbulent and often violent life in the West Indies is interwoven with the developing romance between the two main characters.

Marrying The Reluctant Lord is currently on sale for US 0.99c or available in Kindle Unlimited.

My latest novel, Alias Lord John, has echoes of Daphne du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, another book that I really admire. Du Maurier’s hero is nothing like mine, he’s practically suicidal and considering how he might end it all when he meets his double, a French count, who wants nothing more than to escape from his family andpressing commitments. So the exchange of identities is made.

The Scapegoat is a heavy story with the main character making mistakes that inevitably lead to disaster. My storyis lighter, as my hero manages his new identityby neatly side-stepping deeper involvement with the family, except for the lord’s half-sister, to whom he becomes increasingly attracted. But wait! He’s supposed to be her brother, so where will it all end?Alias Lord John is currently available in Kindle Unlimited.