Leila’s Shadows

Picture this: A young American falls in love with a lord. They get engaged within three days. His parents are horrified, but once they realize the financial implications of the match, they relent. The couple is Jennie Jerome and Randolph Churchill, and their son will become one of the most famous men in the world.  The era of American Dollar Princesses has begun. *** It’s the late nineteenth century, and the British nobility is down on its luck. With the Industrial Revolution drawing people into the cities and the boom in American agriculture, the landed gentry is almost out of money to keep up their expensive estates and aristocratic lifestyles. Meanwhile, in America, business is booming. It’s the Gilded Age, featuring fabulously wealthy new money whose riches are established, but whose social position is not. They could afford all the trappings of members of high society, but they would never be accepted among them. Both parties see an opportunity in each other. Titles for riches...

 Dear Reader, Knowledge is supposed to be light. Happy. An age of darkness happens when knowledge is stagnant. Well, screw that. Personally, I find knowledge to be much more like the comforting night: sweet, soothing, and ever-constant. Too much light gets you burned, but you can never have too much darkness. Well, unless it’s a black hole. But one could argue that the knowledge is a black hole, a speck of infinite gravity.  I digress, however. I don’t need to bore you before we’ve even been properly introduced. My name is Leila.   Ever since I was a child, the shadows of what I know have haunted me. It’s a comforting darkness, like turning out the lights before I go to sleep. I get to rest in the knowledge that E= MC 2  and the Boston Tea Party was on December 16, 1773. Not the most interesting information I know, but reassuring nonetheless.   But I have much more interesting shadows. For example, did you know that people in Europe used to eat ground-up mu...