Ally Hudson's Blog

Well hello!

I thought today we could take a look at a moment you remember from Courting Scandal. This time let’s see it from Augie’s perspective.

It was nearly seven. We were almost certain to be late given the slush accumulating on the road. It was entirely Michael’s fault. While I had dressed with more care than I usually—ever—showed, I had done so efficiently. His Johnson-swollen eye might have been a slight distraction, but that was hardly an excuse to be late to dinner.

Finally, the carriage shuddered to a halt, and the driver signaled our arrival. Michael stepped out and immediately stopped in front of the steps. I was left trapped, half out of the carriage. He stared at the door as though it might bite him. I suppose, though the door would not, the occupants might. His fears were a little founded.

“Are you going in the front or the back?” I asked.

“I suppose I should knock. Did we determine a distress signal?”

Oh no, I did not agree to act as rescuer. I hadn’t set eyes on Anna in years. I wouldn’t be distracted by Michael’s new sister-in-law’s delusions.

“We did not, and I won’t be rescuing you. I will be wooing Anna with my handsome countenance and vast wealth. You’re not to interrupt. You might distract her with your wealth and countenance.”

That was the thick of it. I was finally in a position to woo Anna. To be the man that she deserved. My hard-earned confidence wasn’t so impressive that I was willing to risk Michael impressing her in my stead.

“That seems unlikely, but I wish you the best of luck. Two quick rings of the bell followed by two slow then?”

“I’ll leave you to rot.” Probably.

“Good luck with your wooing. Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.” His invitation was entirely dependent on whether he interrupted my efforts tonight.

Down the alleyway, I found the servants’ entrance. Faced with my own door, I was now every bit as useless as Michael. Eventually, I gathered enough courage to knock. The door burst open, and I was wrapped in Mrs. Hudson’s arms before words could escape me.

“Oh, I’m so glad you came! You’ve grown too!” As quickly as she had yanked me into her arms, she pushed me back by my shoulders just as fast. “And look at you, so handsome!”

I was still trying to extricate myself from the inspection when I heard a delicate giggle behind her.

There she was. Anna stood leaning a shoulder confidently against the opposite door, her other hand lazily resting on her hip. The air abandoned my lungs for places unknown.

Even in a dowdy maid’s uniform she was the picture of loveliness. She had forgone the cap, and her hair was escaping its pins in loose curls. They were kissed by the firelight the way the sunset kissed the clouds. A bright red flash in the sky. It had darkened slightly, reminding me more of the last glimpse before twilight than the first brushes of sunset that it resembled in our youth. Still, every bit as stunning as the first time.

Are you getting excited??

I can’t wait for you to meet them!

<3 Ally

Hey there!

We’re a month away from the release of The Baker and the Bookmaker. Can you believe it??

I’m so excited to give you the first sneak peek!

Here’s a snippet from the first chapter:

“Now, Augie, you’re to stay in the big house today, remember? You’ll mind Mrs. Hudson?” Papa asked as though he hadn’t reminded me three times last night.

I nodded solemnly in response. Everything I did was solemn that week. My nose was reddened, cracking, and sore from the handkerchief. Food held little appeal, and my stomach ached with a horrible combination of hunger and unbearable sorrow. Mama was gone.

A few days ago, Papa set me down between my sobs and explained the plan. While he worked, I would stay in the kitchens of the big house where the cook, Mrs. Hudson, could mind me along with her own daughter, also four years old.

He clasped my hand in his hot, rough one, so different from the delicate warmth of Mama’s, and guided me down the familiar path toward the big house. As stable master for the Grayson family, Papa had been given the little cottage close to the horses. I was familiar with the outside of the big house. The inside was a mystery soon to be solved. We passed by the lake and the big oak tree, but instead of taking the usual turn into town, we rounded the back of the house.

Papa knocked brusquely on the solid door. It opened to reveal a stout, ruddy-cheeked woman with red hair and a bright smile. She ushered us in through the scullery to the main kitchens.

To her.

Her back was to me, that little girl with the sunset hair. She stood on a heavy wooden chair struggling to reach the worktop, even with the chair’s assistance. A dusting of flour fell over her and the surrounding area like snow.

Elbow-deep in some kind of dough, she slipped as she tried to push the rolling pin before steadying herself.

I didn’t know it right then, but in that kitchen, covered in flour with her fingers in dough, was her favorite place in the world.

Stick around for a few more clips in the coming weeks! I’m so excited for you to get to know Augie and Anna!

I didn’t even pretend I was going to bake this week, so you can’t be disappointed.

This month has been going well…

This is just a quick update on writing life since I’m out of town. I’m at a bachelorette party, this means I am almost officially the last single person in my college friend group. That’s fine, I have no need for real life romance, I have book boyfriends. And if I can’t find one to meet my needs, I can write my own .

I am ALL over the place this month. I didn’t finish drafting book 6 when I was supposed to. That was due to a horrific combination of writer’s block and family health issues.

I am in the final stretch on the first draft of book 6. In fact, I may be finished by the time this drops. But, I’m not loving it at the moment. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to get it to the point that I want. But right now, it’s just not there. There are some changes I know I need to make now, I know what they are, I know how to make them, and I think those will improve things dramatically. I also know some of the places where changes need to be made, but not exactly what those changes are. And maybe, once I make those changes, it will be enough.

Or, maybe it won’t. I’m a little worried my scope is too big and I’m going to have to cut quite a bit of it down. That would have implications for book 5 as well, because I intended to tie up the last strings of book 5 in this book. We’ll see what happens. With the exception of those strings, this is the least interconnected of the books I have left to write for this series. So perhaps, this one just never sees the light of day. Or, perhaps it ends up as a bizarre, full length, bonkers, freebie on here.

The best case scenario is that it becomes like book 3. I’ll be honest, I was not the hugest fan of book 3 when I finished writing it. After the edits and rewrites, it’s probably my favorite. And I’m not even entirely finished with edits yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

As for everything else. I’m supposed to be doing my first round of edits on book 4 right now… that’s not really happening. I have, however, received the first round of edits on book 3 back and made most of the suggested changes. It went back to the editor last Monday. I also have The Baker and the Bookmaker going to the proofreader on the same day.

I got the proof copy of the paperback for The Baker and the Bookmaker today. It’s lovely of course. My reaction wasn’t quite as dramatic as with Courting Scandal but it is still amazing to hold it in your hand.

Look at that sunset, sigh.
In personal news… By the time this comes out, I will be 35. I am in such a different place than I was at 30. The world is in a different place. I’m a published author and business owner. I have a new day job. But, I can no longer pretend I’m in my 20’s, LOL.

Anyway, fingers crossed that Book 6 sees the light of day. I doubt next week will have baked goods either, I’m going to need a month to introvert after a bachelorette.

<3 Ally!

Guess what?

If you guessed that I didn’t bake anything for this week… you would be correct. That’s alright, I have Anna to talk about.

So, I consider pretty carefully before I make a choice on which point of view I use for a scene. Sometimes I end up rewriting part or the entirety of a scene in the opposite point of view. There was one scene I added late in Courting Scandal that I desperately wanted from Tom’s point of view. Obviously, it would have been a weird, off-putting choice, but I 100% wrote it from his point of view first. I still have that and it may make an appearance in his book, or it may never see the light of day.

When I started writing this book, I didn’t intend to write the entire novella from Augie’s perspective. Buuuutttttt, I do love an obsessed, besotted hero’s perspective. And so every time I sat down to write a scene it became a case of, just one more from Augie.

And that’s how the entire book ended up in Augie’s perspective. He’s a sweet, precious, snarky golden retriever who just wants to bask in Anna’s glow.

Let’s talk about Anna’s glow. In Courting Scandal, Anna was very much a side character. Her primary function was to fulfill maid duties and to be the object of Augie’s poetic ramblings. I wish I had more time to delve into her in that book, but there’s only so many characters you can explore in one book.

But now, you get to know her better! Unlike Juliet, Anna is quite self-assured and had one of the more functional childhoods for my characters. She discovered her passion early and is fortunate enough to be surrounded by those who support her. But she’s also a pragmatist, and until it becomes clear that it may actually happen, she prefers to keep her dreams realistic.

She’s also surrounded herself with two mischievous boys, and has to serve as the only voice of reason on occasion. Her mother gives her a great amount of freedom and responsibility, but she takes those quite seriously and manages them very maturely.

Anna is also very genuinely nice. I’ve started experimenting with less overtly kind characters in the novels I’m currently drafting and editing, but my first few deal primarily with genuinely nice people.

Augie loves her sweetness, talent, sense of humor, practicality, and beauty. Augie may jump in with both feet, but Anna is the kind of person who tests the water before diving in.

If, once you’ve read The Baker and the Bookmaker, you find yourself wishing for a few scenes from Anna’s perspective, you can check out the bonus scenes, here.

I hope you adore Anna as much as Augie does!

Next week may be an off week, I have a bachelorette trip! We’ll see on Sunday!

<3 Ally!

Did I bake Anna’s next recipe? Nope, sorry!

Let’s talk Augie instead!

So, I owe a lot to Augie. A lot, a lot. Before Augie showed up snarking at Michael, this was a completely different story. But Augie showed up on page, intended to be a throw-away side character with a name I would probably change, and he was just… a little shit. At every available opportunity, he was giving Michael the dressing down he needed. Between him, and Celine, they demanded that I set aside the original plot and switch to a historical romance instead. Then they demanded their own books.

I intended The Baker and the Bookmaker to be a a 5k-ish word freebie for signing up for my newsletter. It ballooned into a 35k word novella in just 12 days. To date, this is still the fastest book I’ve written by far. It changed a great deal in editing, for the better I believe, but the first draft, the bones, took just 12 days. Because Augie loves Anna and he absolutely will not shut up about it.

In general, I prefer a slower burn. In some ways, this book is a slow burn, it’s the slowest of slow burns, it’s a 2 decade slow burn. But it’s also instalove. Augie meets Anna and he knows.

In the end, this isn’t just a book about love, it’s also about friendship. In Courting Scandal, Augie and Michael’s friendship can feel kind of one sided, but I wanted to explore why Augie feels such loyalty to Michael in this book too. If we want our characters to be real people, they need to have relationships outside of their love interest sometimes. Augie and Michael are the brothers they never had. Yes, Michael has brothers, but his relationship with Hugh is strained and his relationship with Tom is paternal. With Augie, they can simply shit talk each other.

Fun fact, I’m an only child. As such, I am endlessly fascinated by sibling dynamics as it’s a relationship I will never fully understand or experience myself. I hope that I’ve done them justice.

It is, of course, about romantic love as well. It’s about childish first love, angsty teen love, and mature adult love. Sometimes those experiences are with different people, in Augie’s case, they were all with Anna.

Now, the choice to write the entire book from Augie’s perspective… To be honest, it wasn’t the original intention, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop. I love reading a besotted man’s point of view and Augie is the dictionary definition of the heart eyes emoji.

So, yes. I hope you’ll love getting to know Augie better, exploring the foundations of his and Michael’s friendships, and fall in love with Anna right with him. I mean seriously, look at this besotted man!

I’ll be back next week! Maybe with a baked good, maybe with something else!

<3 Ally

Hi there!

So, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve had some family health issues. I’ve had to set aside writing and I completely used up all my pre-created blog posts (yes, I write these in advance).

Unfortunately, the best time that I have to do my baking with Anna posts is the weekend. And I’ve been in Michigan with my mom after another hospital stay and then in Florida with my aunt for a surgery the last couple of weeks and I haven’t had a chance to test my next recipe. So instead, you’re getting an update.

I’ve set aside writing for a few weeks as well, which is unfortunate. I’m also experiencing a little writer’s block. As a pantser, I don’t usually know exactly where a book is going before I start, but usually, by this point, I have a pretty good idea. I’m at least 3/4 of the way into this book and I know what needs to happen, but I have no idea how to get there. I know that I need to just hop back in now that I’m home and it will come to me, but I haven’t been able to do it.

Fortunately, this book isn’t due to be released until October of 2024, so I can take my time with it without that impacting you, dear reader.

While I haven’t been drafting, I have been editing. Book 2 has been returned from editor 2 and will go to my proofreader later this month. Book 3 is also with my editor.

The other bit of excitement is that I’ve sent out a request for ARC readers for book 2. If you’re interested, you can apply here. You’re in for tooth rotting fluff if you decide to pick it up. Originally, I intended for book 2 to be a free offer for readers of my newsletter. Then it ballooned into a full-length novella spanning 20 years, so now it is going to get the full treatment including a paperback.

There’s nothing quite like holding a copy of the book you wrote in your hands. It’s magical.

So yes, I hope you can forgive me for another week without my baking failures. I’m not a good traveler and I’m quite introverted so it takes me a few days to recover from visits and plane trips.

I’m off to stare at a blank page again and hopefully write something.

Wish me luck!

Well hello there!

Today I wanted to give you, my dear readers, an exclusive SNEAK PEEK of The Baker and the Bookmaker cover!

Are you ready to meet Augie and Anna?

I just love them so much and I know you guys are going to as well!

Check out the blurb:

The moment Augustus “Augie” Ainsley met Anna Hudson at four years old, he was lost to her sunset curls and flour-dusted nose. But why would Anna want a future footman when she could have the son of a viscount?

To win her affections, Augie needs to make her bakery dream a reality, but that will take a fortune he doesn’t possess. When life takes a turn, Augie follows his friend to the city, and the glittering distractions of London cause him to lose sight of what is most important. Then fate brings him crashing back into Anna’s life, and he’s devastated to learn that his ambitions may have cost him the woman he loves.

Anna is unwilling to abandon her life of contentment for an inconstant suitor. Desperate to convince her that he is the man she needs, Augie resolves to prove she can depend on him. He must find a way to balance his unending work with his undying love or risk losing Anna forever.

The Baker and the Bookmaker is a heartwarming coming-of-age novella by Ally Hudson. If you enjoy Regency romances about friends who become lovers, you will relish this tender and charming story of friendship, first love, and raspberry tarts.

I just love these two so much! And I know you are going to as well!

If you’re interested in receiving a FREE eBook copy in exchange for an honest review of the book, you can sign up to join my ARC team here. Copies will be sent out in mid-August and the book releases October 3! If you’d rather, you can pre-order your copy on Amazon now!

I’m so excited for you guys to read this book! We’ll be back to baking with Anna next week!

<3 Ally!

Hello Sunshine!

This week on Baking with Anna, we’re making Augie’s favorite: raspberry tarts.

Stay tuned for the cover reveal!!

Settle in, turn on the new season of the Witcher with me. And break out your apron.

Today’s recipe comes from here. It is based on an 1831 recipe from Canada. It seems likely that a similar recipe would have been floating around England earlier but this was one of the recipes I found that seemed most likely to be available when Anna was baking. At its core, it’s a pretty standard pastry crust recipe.

A note about my baking skills. I am pretty good at cupcakes, and most cookies (last week not withstanding). I also make excellent pies, as long as I can go to the store and buy refrigerated pie crusts and unroll. This was my second attempt at pastry, the first being croissants at the beginning of the pandemic that were a mess. And I’ve honestly never bothered to attempt a pie crust unless shopping and carrying counts.

This recipe was pretty basic ingredient wise.

1 1/2 C flour-this ended up being 236g for me

3/4 of the weight of the flour in unsalted butter (I used salted because I thought I had unsalted and I didn’t want to leave the house)- this ended up being 177g. This gets divided in two which is 88.5g.

1 egg white

water as needed-I used 2 1/2 tsp

First step involved mixing 1/2 (88.5g) of the butter into the flour. I used fingers because I’ve always had the best luck mixing butter into flour that way.

Next, add the egg white and enough water to bring the dough together. It was quite crumbly when it was just the flour and butter so I ended up needing 2 1/2 tsp of water but your milage may vary.

Set that aside and roll the remaining butter out into a thin rectangle. Refrigerate between layers of plastic wrap for 20 minutes. All was well. I’ve got this! I sit on a throne of lies!

While the butter refrigerates, roll the dough on a floured surface into a rectangle.

Sit down and watch part of the episode of The Witcher-realize you have no recollection of what happened last season but refuse to rewatch.

Then take the, now cold, butter out of the fridge and wrap the butter in the dough in thirds. This process is called lamination and I made a huge mess of it when I made croissants a few years ago. But I’ve got this, remember? I’ve got this.

Roll it out into a rectangle taking care to not let the butter escape from the dough. And this, this is where everything always goes horribly wrong! I am incapable of keeping the butter in the dough. And when the butter breaks through, then it will ooze out of the dough on baking.

Fold it in thirds again and roll out again. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

See the corner where the butter has escaped. And how the dough looks marbled-that’s butter peeking through. It’s evidence of a mess to come.

Take it out of the fridge, fold it in thirds again, and roll it into a rectangle again. Repeat and put back in the fridge for another 30 minutes. Then pull it out, fold in thirds, roll it out and repeat.

Roll it out one final time. Then you can fill your pan. I have mini tart pans from Country Kitchen.

Then it’s time to make the filling. I was feeling lazy so I bought raspberry filling from Country Kitchen. So I broke a sweat cutting the tip off the bag and squeezing the filling into the pan. If you want to make your own, the instructions are on the recipe. It doesn’t seem too difficult.

Make a lattice crust with the leftover crust

Bake at 400F for 20-30 minutes (mine took 25). Pray the butter stays in the crust in spite of all your efforts to the contrary. But plan ahead and bake on a cookie sheet for when the inevitable oozing happens.

Feed the fluffy editor when she starts banging on the food bowl.

Pull out of the oven and let cool.

The ooze is less than I was expecting but there’s definitely still butter there.

They look pretty similar to the picture in the recipe. So we’re slightly better than last week.

Now for the taste test….

They taste… hot. I burned my tongue, the roof of my mouth, and the back of my throat because I am impatient. Once I recovered, I tasted it and… it’s pretty good. Certainly not worth the effort, but more than edible. I think the premade filling is sweeter than it would usually be which compensated for the relatively plain crust. I’d say they’re a 4/5.

Like last week, I won’t bother again. But I understand why Augie would love Anna for these, because obviously she makes them much better than I did!

If you have any tips for keeping the butter in the crust, let me know down in the comments. I’ve struggled with that during both of my attempts at pastry!

I’ll see you next week for an exclusive SNEAK PEEK of the cover!!!

<3 Ally

Well hello there!

As you may have heard, my second book is called The Baker and the Bookmaker and follows Augie, Michael’s friend and second in command, and Anna, their childhood friend and legendary baker.

Cover reveal coming next month, but you can get a look at it early if you pre-order on Amazon.

In researching this book, I learned a lot about baking in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. And researching included finding recipes.

And those recipes made me hungry. So I decided to test a few of them out and report back to you lovely folks.

Today’s recipe is Shrewsbury Cakes. There are several versions out there, I used the one found here because it seemed the most likely to be period accurate. And like the sweet summer child I was two hours ago, I decided to try to mix it by hand. Because Anna wouldn’t have a mixer and if Anna can do it, I can do it—right? (wrong).

As you can see, with 11 cups of flour… that’s way too many cookies. I’m single and have replaced exercise and healthy eating with writing, I don’t need to be making any cookies, let alone 11 cups of flour worth of cookies. Also, I hate rolling out cookies with a fiery passion-there was no universe in which I was rolling out 11 cups worth of cookies. So, per the suggestion in the recipe, I cut it in thirds.

That got me some pretty awkward measurements but here we go:

3 2/3 c Flour

1 c 2 1/3 Tbs Sugar

Heaping 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Heaping 1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Rosewater (recipe spells it as one word, bottle spells it as 2. I will use rose water from here on out)

1 c 2 1/3 Tbs Melted Butter

But Ally, you say, that is not exactly 1/3 of every ingredient. Quite right dear reader. I am of the philosophy that there is no such thing as too much cinnamon and if I wanted to increase the cinnamon, I had to increase the nutmeg to keep the ratio balanced. And I bought an entire thing of rose water for this recipe, I wasn’t about to use 1/3 of 1/2 of a teaspoon of it. (I believe you can make it yourself but &^%$ beetles have been feasting on my roses and I have no interest in dealing with that nonsense).

My philosophy on the concept of too much cinnamon.

This also gives me the opportunity to plug one of my absolute favorite local stores, Country Kitchen Sweet Art in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They do ship but I don’t know their international policies. They’re also responsible for the adorable cooke cutters you’ll see shortly.

The instructions in the recipe state to preheat to 325F. Then mix the dry ingredients. All was going well.

Then I was to add the egg and rose water. Again, this went without a hitch. Then I added the melted butter and, if you looked at the recipe the way that I did, you saw the very obvious problem before we even reached this step. Still, I remained hopeful. This recipe has been around for 200 years at least, surely they know better than I do.

Spoiler dear reader, they did not.

I stirred in the butter, and I stirred, and I stirred. Now, I don’t have much to write home about in the way of upper body strength, but it was clear my arm was going to give out long before this became any sort of dough, rather than a pile of slightly damp crumbs.

So I decided to add half an egg. Which helped a little. And then I added the other half of the egg, which didn’t help much at all. And then I melted the rest of the half-used stick of butter in my fridge (approximately 1 2/3 Tbs) and added that. Then I got out my hand mixer because my stand mixer weighs more than a small elephant and I’m lazy.

That was when the dough finally reached a consistency I thought I could at least mash together and then roll out.

Per the instructions, I rolled the dough onto a lightly floured surface (after smooshing it into a ball, that’s not in the instructions but not surprising with that amount of flour).

Pre-rolling

Then I got to use the adorable cooke cutters that I got from Country Kitchen

As you can see, the dough was still a little crumbly. I was worried it wouldn’t make it through the baking process but I was determined to proceed.

I baked them for 20-21ish minutes. My oven beeped at me while I finished unloading the dishwasher so who knows how long that was. As you can see, they didn’t brown much but, after taste testing, I can confirm they’re done.

They don’t look as airy as the ones in the picture and they’re a bit darker in color, presumably because of the additional spices, egg, and butter.

After all that, they taste… fine. They’re decent. I will finish them. I will probably not make them again unless someone in my life is curious.

What I would do differently next time: start with a mixer, probably the stand mixer but at least the hand mixer. I’m curious if that would increase the fluffiness. However, the instructions don’t say to cream the butter and sugar together which would usually result in a lighter cookie so I’m not entirely sure where my issue is at. I may consult my foodie friend and see if she has suggestions. I’ll report back if I learn more.

Overall impression: 3/5. It’s a cookie. I won’t turn my nose up at a cookie, but not worth the effort. I have other spice cookie recipes I prefer, though the rose water does add a little depth of flavor which was a nice change.

Additional note: I brought one to my not-a-niece and she threw it in the trash without comment after a bite. This is the kind of honesty I’m looking for in my life. So, I’m going to say 0/5 from the first grader.

If you know where I went wrong, let me know down in the comments.

See you next week for another one of Anna’s recipes! <3 Ally

Hey there!

I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for helping to make Courting Scandal a success.

The response has been better than I could ever have hoped for and I’m so, so grateful to everyone who took the time to read and review. And to every person who picked up a copy!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

<3 Ally!