Bwaaaa-ha-haaa!

It's Halloween!!! My number-one favorite holiday. I spend weeks planning decorations and costumes, even for my dogs (my Pug is going to be a cowgirl this year, my Poodle a ballerina. The cats will have nothing to do with clothes). I've really loved the posts here at RR the last few days--paranormal Regencies, old Gothics, body-snatching. It's been wonderfully Halloween-ish. But I wondered--what is left to blog about? Something that is both spooky and Regency.

Then someone sent me a terrific article titled "Esotericism and Western Music" by Gary Lachman. It combines so many of my favorite things--classical music (my "day job" is being an announcer at a classical music radio station), weird paranormal doings, and the Romantic period.

The article starts off with a description of Mozart attending a masquerade ball in Vienna in 1786. He dressed as a Hindu philosopher, in a turban and flowing robes, and handed out pamphlets with various puzzles and strange sayings, said to be "Fragments of the Writings of Zoroaster." In Vienna that year, Freemasonry and groups like the Order of the Illuminati were all the trend.

Mozart became a Mason in 1784, and many of the motifs of Masonry started appearing in his work, especially "The Magic Flute" (1791). I love this opera, with all its weird themes of Darkness and Light, its hidden elements of Masonry and "Egyptian" culture and mysteries. The Illuminati was then a forbidden group, and Mozart had to conceal all this within a fluffy fairy-tale. Of course, all the wanna-be alchemists, Rosicrucians, astrologers, and esotericists could see right through it. :)

The Romantics who followed Mozart were also big on the connection between music and magic. Beethoven had a deep interest in "oriental mysteries" and "Indian literature." Magical and esoteric ideas were spreading across Europe, culminating in the witchcraft of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" and the mythical operas of Wagner.

So, whether it be the Queen of the Night's aria or "Monster Mash," I hope you'll put on some scary music tonight, and have a great, Risky Halloween.

Regencies and the Paranormal

Sometime in the 90s I discovered THE VAMPIRE VISCOUNT, by Karen Harbaugh. It was the first Regency I'd ever read with true paranormal elements, and at first I was afraid it was going to be gimmicky. But the good writing, the very real, memorable characters won me over. Perhaps it should've been no surprise that a smooth, elegant vampire--dressed to the nines, appearing only at night--fit in quite well with Regency society. And the story was so refreshingly different.

For the time, it must've been a risky thing to do a vampire Regency. As it turns out, I heard later from an editor at Zebra that they'd gotten complaints from book club members when they did a vampire Regency anthology. But THE VAMPIRE VISCOUNT ended up with a number of impressive credits, including America Online's Romance Reader's Board, Best Regency, 1995.

When I picked up THE PERFECT BRIDE, by Eileen Putnam, I didn't even realize there was anything paranormal about it. The title I thought rather bland, and the cover didn't have much hint of paranormal elements, except for the rather odd expression in the heroine's eyes. Maybe it was an attempt to hint at the delightful and witty ghosts that helped the romance along, though neither hero nor heroine were every really aware of them.

Anyone else have some favorite paranormal Regencies to share?

Elena
LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE, an RT Top Pick
www.elenagreene.com

Mischief-Making And Risk-Taking

It's Mischief Night, and it got me to thinking about making mischief and taking risks. In my personal life, I am the dullest person imaginable: never caused my parents any stress (at least, I don't think so--they were usually causing me stress), never pulled an all-nighter, never had a wild period. And no, the purple hair does not count as a wild period.

Which, I guess, is why I write fiction. In fiction, I get to create all kinds of mischief, from heroines disguising their true motives to heroes going determinedly after what they want, to villains not playing fair. After all, how much fun would it be to read about characters who do exactly what they're supposed to? Not much fun at all. Boring, in fact.

So I like my characters, whether I'm writing or reading them, to be a little bit wild. Mischievous. Risky. If I could be a character from Regency fiction, I'd probably pick Jessica Trent from Lord Of Scoundrels. Actually, I'd probably be happy being any one of Loretta Chase's heroines: tough, no-nonsense women who are uncharacteristically flummoxed by the hero. Yum.

Who would you like to make mischief as?

GRAVE MATTERS

An add from The Wooler's British Gazette in 1822 (partial text)*:

"Many hundred dead bodies will be dragged from their wooden coffins this winter, for the anatomical lectures (which have just commenced)...the only safe coffin is Bridgman's Patent Wrought-iron one... Those undertakers who have IRON COFFINS must divide the profits of the funeral with EDWARD LILLIE BRIDGMAN."*

It seemed that the bodies of executed prisoners was in short supply, forcing surgeons and students to seek bodies by other means. This meant that if one were interred in an ordinary wooden coffin, there was a good chance that the churchyard would not be one's final resting place.

Physicians were willing to pay a good price for dead bodies, and hence the growth of the business of the "Resurrection Men." A body snatcher could deal his way to a higher price by threatening to sell his bodies elsewhere. On occasion, a particularly interesting specimen could bring a pretty penny...in 1783 a young Irish Giant named Charles Byrne, in the process of dying and having heard that his body was desired by a Scots surgeon named John Hunter, took every precaution to insure the safety of his body after death--but Hunter at last parted with the outrageous bribe of L500 to obtain Byrne's body. If you would like an even more ghoulish note, so frightened was Hunter that his prize would be stolen from him in turn that he immediately boiled the flesh from Byrne's body in the dead of night and preserved the skeleton.**

Obviously, moonlight was not the friend of the body snatcher. Complete darkness was needed to carry out the work. Additionally, it became necessary to have a scout at the gravesite, at the end of services, to spot any traps...then once it was dark, the robbers quickly dug down to the head-end of the coffin, broke through and pulled the body out head-first, disturbing the site as little as possible. One disposed of the grave-clothes also, as the punishment for being caught with a corpse wearing grave clothes was much greater than being caught with a naked body.***

But graveyards were not the only source of bodies, particularly as the demand grew and graveyards became more guarded. Bodies were obtained by subterfuge from workhouses and such places...and eventually, even by murder.

A murderous pair named John Bishop and James May worked London's East End in 1831 until a suspicious surgeon called the police. They were tried and convicted, and their own executed bodies were delivered for dissection. **** Unfortunately for them, or perhaps because of them, the Anatomy Act passed short months later, doing away with the practice of giving the bodies of the executed to the executioner for disposal. Eventually, the practice of donating bodies for medical practice and research lost its negative connotation, and the "Resurrectionists" went out of business.

So there's a spooky bit of history for the season...Happy Halloween!

Laurie

*Low, Donald A., The Regency Underworld (Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1999) p. 77
**Ibid p. 80
***Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 254
****Hughes, Kristine. Everyday LifeVictoriancy and vicCincinnatiand (Cincinnatti: Writer's Digest Books, 1998) p. 65

Are They . . . Or Aren't They?

This year, my son is going out trick or treating for Halloween dressed as the Grim Reaper. Apropos of nothing, but it does demonstrate the allure the Dark Side* has, even for six year-old boys (maybe especially for six year-old boys).

Villains. In some romances, villains are two-dimensional characters set on one thing (Revenge/Rape/Disgrace/Financial Gain/Name Your Poison). They are obvious in their intentions to everyone but the oblivious hero and/or heroine, and they are what makes some well-written love stories go down the tubes for me.

And you would think writing about evil would be so easy! And fun, too! After all, Milton spends oodles of time writing about Satan, and Satan comes off as much sexier and fun than the other guy. Satan talks about his choice of Hell as a residence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, that serve in heav'n

For me, the best villains are those characters whom you can't tell are villainous from their first appearance on the page. What are their motivations? How will they attempt to achieve them? And then, when the book is over and all is revealed, you can reflect on how the villain fooled everyone, including the reader. Shakespeare says it better than I do:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Villains who end up being heroes or vice versa appear in Edith Layton's False Angel and The Duke's Wager, Mary Jo Putney's The Diabolical Baron, Falling For Chloe by Diane Farr, Lady Sophia's Lover by Lisa Kleypas, Bliss by Judy Cuevas . . . the list goes on and on (for more villains, check out All About Romance's Special Titles Listing on Villains, which gives details about who becomes a hero/heroine in subsequent books).


I think that uncertainty is why we are fascinated by Harry Potter's Professor Snape (the six year-old and I are reading Prisoner of Azkaban now), as well as Gollum from LOTR. My own private obsession, HBO's Deadwood, features a masterful villain in the character of Al Swearingen--he's murdered, stolen, and lied, not to mention swearing all the time, and yet there are times when you root for him.


Villainy can be scandalously sexy.

Which is why, this Halloween, you'll be seeing many more devils**, witches, vampires, and werewolves than Good Samaritans, pilgrims progressing, Mother Theresa, and Gandhi.

Thanks for coming over to the Dark Side with me for a moment,

Megan

*Cara, I promise I had nothing to do with my son wanting to dress in a long, black robe.
**After six years of being a witch, my son made me switch to dressing as a lady-devil. I bought my red sequin horns, tail and pitchfork yesterday.

eeek...things that go bump in the night

regency style and just in time for Hallowe'en...the gothic novel, a very popular genre that began in 1764 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto by Hugh Walpole, and ended in 1820 with Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin.

The influence of the gothic novel is still with us today; its elements creep into films and novels, and the contemporary "gothic romance" is enjoying a comeback. So what is it about gothics people liked (then and now), other than a good scare and the idea of the TSTL heroine creeping around dark passages and wearing only her nightie?

They feature exotic, often Italian settings, sinister castles and abbeys--something very popular in the regency era , when landowners commissioned picturesque ruins and follies to grace their landscape. As well as the good scare, they have a strong moral twist of justice done and wrongs avenged, with one or two people, usually the hero/heroine or a narrator (like Robert Walton, the narrator of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), who lives to tell the tale, and with whom we can identify. In some cases, as in Wuthering Heights, the matter-of-fact tone of the narrator (Mr. Lockwood) serves to strengthen the supernatural elements; if a twit like Mr. Lockwood can hear the ghostly Cathy at the window, then it must be true. The monsters, real or imagined, are instruments of justice or revenge, like Frankenstein's monster, or Conan Doyle's hound in Hound of the Baskervilles, written in 1902 but drawing strongly on the gothic tradition.

I have a soft spot for gothics since the hero of my book Dedication, Adam Ashworth, publishes gothic novels under the name of Mrs. Ravenwood, and I had a lot of fun creating purple passages to head each chapter. I based most of them on the work of the gothic novelist I know best, Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. She published bestsellers beginning with The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), skewered by Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. The scene where Catherine explores an ancient chest and finds a laundry list is pure gothic pastiche. And remember the horrid veil?

Ah yes, the horrid veil.

If you've read Udolpho (it's still in print) you'll certainly remember the scene where the heroine discovers the veil and draws it aside (she's creeping around a secret passage at the time, having been kidnapped to a mysterious castle) and swoons in horror at what she sees. It's a tremendously effective scene. Every time she remembers it, which is fairly often, there's a frisson of terror. And so on through the book. You're still wondering. The references to the horrid veil become less frequent toward the end and you begin to wonder if Mrs. R has forgotten about it. Oh, surely not. Because if you were a character in a gothic who was denied such knowledge you know you'd go mad, or go into a nunnery, or have to pretend to be a ghost or some such. Then, when you've almost given up hope, Mrs. R. delivers, sort of. Busy tidying up the odds and ends of the novel, she reveals, in one throwaway sentence, that what the heroine saw behind the veil was the wax effigy of a worm-ridden corpse. Huh? I believe there's a reason for the wax effigy being there--possibly a warning for visitors to keep out of the secret passage--you couldn't expect the owner of a castle in a gothic to do anything sensible like post a "Keep Out" or "Servants Only" sign.

OK, enough from me. What do you like about gothic elements? Have you used them in your books? What gothic-influenced novels do you like? Could you write one with a straight face?

Janet

Masquerading

I'm staying up a bit late tonight, working on an appropriately raggedy and colorful Pippi Longstocking dress. Fortunately, this is one of the easier Halloween costumes I've made for my children (my sewing skills are very modest). I've made costumes including Dorothy and Princess Ozma of Oz, Madeline and the planet Saturn. We had a great time with that last, painting the rings together and then sprinkling on copious quantities of glitter. There's no such thing as too much glitter!

The Georgians loved to dress up, too. Popular guises included Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, historical figures and people from foreign lands: Spaniards, Turks and the like. Here's a scene from a masquerade in 1809 at the Pantheon Theatre.

At its height in the eighteenth century, the popularity of the masquerade had begun to wane by the Regency; still, many authors have used masquerades in their stories. I've had two: the first in "The Wedding Wager", a novella in HIS BLUSHING BRIDE, in which Lady Dearing of LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE first appeared. It seemed fitting to start her story with a kiss at a masquerade, too.

The concept of masquerade is so seductive. Donning a costume, one could pretend all sorts of things. During the Georgian period, anyone with the price of admission could attend a public masquerade, so members of differing classes could and did mingle there. Duchesses could be shepherdesses, and vice versa. People often made a real attempt to disguise their identity, altering their voices, etc... So a practical person could be playful, a shy one outgoing, etc... But it begs the question as to which aspect is one's true nature: the everyday persona or that which is revealed through the masquerade?

Another seductive aspect is the idea that for a night, one can be a different person, and then return to reality without consequences. Kind of like the fantasy of a perfect one night stand. But there are always consequences...

And of course, opportunities for seduction abound at a masquerade. Always fun in a romance!

Though I think most, maybe all, romances contain an element of masquerade. Usually one or both main characters has something to hide; peeling back the layers is often what keeps one turning the pages.

A couple of my favorite romances with masquerade elements:
-Georgette Heyer's MASQUERADERS, of course (which has a masquerade within a masquerade)
-Mary Jo Putney's DANCING ON THE WIND

I'm missing scads here, but rely on the rest of you to remind me. I'm afraid the strain of creating a Pippi wig out of a skein of orange yarn must have fried a few brain cells!

Elena :)
LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE
www.elenagreene.com

Questions from Bertram St James

Good day! Bertram St James, at your service. As I might have mentioned before, I'm not from your time. Not by quite a bit, actually. 1812 was my year...that is, until a few days ago. (And a fine year it was, too. Excellent vintage. Turned out the best-dressed men ever seen, if I do say so myself. And I do.)



This is a drawing of me. You see how forward-thinking my fashion sense is. Always ahead of my time.

Until now. Now I fear I'm behind the times. I have just a few friendly questions, as I get my bearing in the year 2005:

1. Why do men wear so few garments? And why are they so large and shapeless? Have the Puritans taken control of government again?

2. If the Puritans are in power, why do the women wear so little? Can it be that I find myself in a land populated entirely by Puritan men, and courtesans? Or are all the women freethinkers instead?

3. How can breakfasts be so affordable, and yet duels so few? I have long thought that only the exorbitant cost of buying breakfast for oneself, one's seconds, one's opponent's seconds, the doctor, and one's heartily apologetic opponent, kept the number of duels so low. And yet this morning I discovered a public house called "Denny's" with prices so low I feared for my life every time I inadvertantly stared aghast at yet another man wearing a badly mended tent.

4. What in heaven's name is wrong with the tea in this century????

As ever, your faithful servant,
Bertram St James, Exquisite

Humor, anyone?

As you may have guessed from reading some of my previous posts, most of my favorite romances are of the dark, angsty variety. I'm a sucker for drama and deep emotion! But I also sometimes have things going on in my life where a bit more--lightness is called for. A good laugh. This past week has been a long one, and it definitely called for a little reading-on-the-light-side. So, I combed once again through my keeper shelves in search of favorite humorous reads.

Now, by "humourous" I don't mean not-as-well-written, because, IMO, it's a lot harder to write "funny" than it is to write "angsty" (as one of my old drama profs always said "Dying is easy; comedy is hard.") Humor is also extremely subjective. What is drop-dead hilarious to one person leaves another one just annoyed. I grew up in a family where Monty Python was considered the peak of humor--it's not funny unless it has a silly song somewhere in it. And this is still the kind of humor I still prefer, witty, odd, a bit on the goofball side--like when the Pythons dress up like British housewives and talk in falsetto. This can be hard to capture in a novel, just as (again IMO) slapstick is well nigh impossible. But funny conversation, ridiculous situations, mistaken identities--all these can be terrific.

These are a few favorite funnies I found on that keeper shelf. A couple interesting things--I don't keep nearly as many light books as dark ones, and there were far more trads than historicals. But these are all titles I loved.

1) MY LADY'S SECRET by Cindy Holbrook (she had several funny books, as I recall, but for some reason this is the only one on my shelf. I probably loaned the rest to my deadbeat cousin and never got them back)
2) THE PIRATE NEXT DOOR by Jennifer Ashley (who knew pirates--aside from Johnny Depp--could be so much fun?)
3) MISTLETOE MAHEM by Kate Huntington (I adore funny Christmas Regencies, and this one is a gem. Sophisticated, clotheshorse heroine who doesn't much like rugrats falls for a man who is guardian to a slew of them. Holiday hijinks ensue.)
4) Several by the queen of Regency comedy, Barbara Metzger, including MINOR INDISCRETIONS, SAVED BY SCANDAL, and SNOWDROPS AND SCANDALBROTH
5) WHAT CHLOE WANTS by Emma Jensen (bounciest heroine EVER, but it's cute)
6) MUTINY AT ALMACK'S by Judith Lansdowne
7) THE IDEAL BRIDE by Nonnie St. George
8) MISTRESS by Amanda Quick (plus a few others--this was just the one that stuck in my mind)

Now, I'm curious--what makes you laugh? What makes you groan in abject annoyance? And what are some favorite funny reads (so I can go look for them)? (And this is my newest cover, transformed into Hello Kitty in Luv by the wonders of photoshop. Hopefully good for a laugh)

Trafalgar Again

Don't miss this! It's a link to the National Geographic feature story on Nelson and Trafalgar. It has photos, including one of his life mask taken several years before he died.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature3/index.html

Laurie

As the World Turns

Speaking of Trafalgar, I can't believe it has been 200 years. I haven't really been thinking of the Regency as being so long ago--no idea why. But time does slip away. I've noticed more and more that events I lived through are being seen as old history by my younger friends. I am old enough to critique costumes and attitudes of the sixties if anyone wants to reenact the time. I even have a clue about the 5o's, although from a very short perspective. ;)

I still have this thing about artificially faded jeans. They bug me. Worn jeans should be truly worn. I had pairs that were worn tissue thin in the knees, and when they ripped, I patched them. And wear patterns were very distinctive. Wear occurred in the knees primarily, to a lesser extent in the derriere. Men wore the imprint of their wallets in their rear pockets. Pronounced wear did not occur on the thighs and some other odd areas where mechanically faded and worn jeans make them (keeping in mind that I grew up in northern New York, not ranching country). And...worn jeans did not take on that brownish tinge unless the owner didn't wash them regularly! Whenever I see worn jeans in stores with that "tea stained" look, I automatically think they look as though the owner wasn't clean.

You tie-dyed your own T-shirts. You wore the same pair of Hurache sandals until they were falling apart. The Peace Symbol meant something. No one was trying to be a fashion statement unless you were square, and then you dressed like Jackie Kennedy or Twiggy (women!) or if you were male, your hair was very short and you wore glasses with the black plastic rims.

The idea that rock groups would age was funny. Remember that bar scene in Star Wars with the gray-haired rock band? That was hilarious when the movie was new.

I don't know why I am saying all this--I'm just trying, I think, to show how we look through a distorted lens when we look back. We can't truly know how people of a time looked or acted or felt or spoke. We can only do as much research as we can and be careful of our sources, especially if the source is another historian's work or a movie of the time. Diaries, on the other hand, are more helpful...and not enough people write on paper these days! I worry that all the electronic evidence will be lost, and generations from now people will be struggling to understand what this time was all about.

Comments?

And by the way, back to the subject of Trafalgar, I thought I'd provide this link to Nelson's Navy--Life in the 18th Century Royal Navy. Great Britain's Channel 4 has some great history pages.
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/nelson.html

Be sure to check out the Georgian Underworld too, by the way...
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/G/georgian_underworld/index.html

Laurie

Dishy Non Sequitur

It's Sunday, I've only had one cup of coffee, I'm sitting here in my jack-o-lantern jammies while my son eats cocoa pebbles. . . In other words, uninspired. So I thought I'd post one of my favorite things: Chris Cornell. He was the lead singer of Soundgarden, one of those '90s grunge bands, had his own record, and is now the singer for Audioslave, which is the band Rage Against The Machine with a new singer (him). Way more than you wanted to know, but my gosh--look at that chest! And he usually performs shirtless! Do you blame him?

I'm feeling more inspired now.

Megan

Bertram St James, At Your Service

Good day! Or should I say, good century? I seem to have lost mine. Went to bed in the year 1812, and woke up here. Must say, I don't care for what the gentlemen are wearing nowadays. Why are they all so ashamed of their legs? Must be a prudish century.

I do like this computer thing, though. Amazing. Is it powered by animal magnetism? Whatever makes it work, I love it. I now have an e-male account (I am male, so this makes sense--though I'm not sure what the "e" stands for. Earl? I'm not, but it doesn't seem to care. Perhaps it means Exquisitely Dressed--which I am. As always.)

And I think "Risky Regencies" sounds like my sort of gentleman's club. Greetings, all!

Bertram St James, Exquisite...at your service

Chat with RR regular Megan Frampton on Friday

...Yes, I'll be chatting tomorrow beginning at noontime, EST, at the Signet/NAL Authors Forum. If you get a chance, come by and ask a question--maybe something like 'why do you like wearing black so much?,' 'what's the difference between a yam and a sweet potato?' and 'who was the last king of Albania?'

Or who is your hero Edwin named after? Is your villain modeled after anyone you actually know?!?

I have the answer to these questions, and more!

If you are unable to make the live chat, you can still stop by the message board and review the questions and answers. I'll check back into the message board after the chat is over in case there are any straggling questions. Or if you want, you can post a question here in the comments.

(Virtually) See you soon!

Megan

A major omission on things Trafalgar

Or, why miss an opportunity to post a picture of the man who could climb my rigging anytime even though I can't spell his name--the lovely and talented Ioan Gruffudd as Hornblower.
Janet

200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar!

The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on 21st October, 2005. Here are some sites for your edification:

www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/battle-of-trafalgar.html has a lot of great information on Nelson's Navy as well as the battle itself.

www.nmm.ac.uk/ Site of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

And this site, http://www.trafalgar200.com/ has details of official celebrations and nifty Nelson souvenirs you can buy. I believe the official events included a re-enactment earlier this year in which the opposing sides were "red" and "blue" so as not to hurt the delicate sensibilities of the French. (Mes amis, you lost. Get over it.)

It's possibly this event that inspired the following (sent to me from my brother in England) on why it's a good thing the Battle of Trafalgar wasn't fought in the 21st century...

Nelson: "Order the signal, Hardy."

Hardy: "Aye, aye sir."

Nelson: "Hold on, that's not what I dictated to Flags. What's the meaning of this?"

Hardy: "Sorry sir?"

Nelson (reading aloud): "'England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion or disability.' What gobbledygook is this?"

Hardy: "Admiralty policy, I'm afraid, sir. We're an equal opportunities employer now. We had the devil's own job getting 'England' past the censors, lest it be considered racist."

Nelson: "Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco."

Hardy: "Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments."

Nelson: "In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the main brace to steel the men before battle."

Hardy: "The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. Its part of the Government's policy on binge drinking."

Nelson: "Good heavens, Hardy. I suppose we'd better get on with it ..........full speed ahead."

Hardy: "I think you'll find that there's a 4 knot speed limit in this stretch of water."

Nelson: "Damn it man! We are on the eve of the greatest sea battle in history. We must advance with all dispatch. Report from the crow's nest please."

Hardy: "That won't be possible, sir."

Nelson: "What?"

Hardy: "Health and Safety have closed the crow's nest, sir. No harness. And they said that rope ladders don't meet regulations. They won't let anyone up there until a proper scaffolding can be erected."

Nelson: "Then get me the ship's carpenter without delay, Hardy."

Hardy: "He's busy knocking up a wheelchair access to the fo'c'sle Admiral."

Nelson: "Wheelchair access? I've never heard anything so absurd."

Hardy: "Health and safety again, sir. We have to provide a barrier-free environment for the differently abled."

Nelson: "Differently abled? I've only one arm and one eye and I refuse even to hear mention of the word. I didn't rise to the rank of admiral by playing the disability card."

Hardy: "Actually, sir, you did. The Royal Navy is under represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency."

Nelson: "Whatever next? Give me full sail. The salt spray beckons."

Hardy: "A couple of problems there too, sir. Health and safety won't let the crew up the rigging without hard hats. And they don't want anyone breathing in too much salt - haven't you seen the adverts?"

Nelson: "I've never heard such infamy. Break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy."

Hardy: "The men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone, Admiral."

Nelson: "What? This is mutiny!"

Hardy: "It's not that, sir. It's just that they're afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone. There's a couple of legal-aid lawyers on board, watching everyone like hawks."

Nelson: "Then how are we to sink the Frenchies and the Spanish?"

Hardy: "Actually, sir, we're not."

Nelson: "We're not?"

Hardy: "No, sir. The French and the Spanish are our European partners now. According to the Common Fisheries Policy, we shouldn't even be in this stretch of water. We could get hit with a claim for compensation."

Nelson: "But you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil."

Hardy: "I wouldn't let the ship's diversity co-ordinator hear you saying that sir. You'll be up on disciplinary report."

Nelson: "You must consider every man an enemy, who speaks ill of your King."

Hardy: "Not any more, sir. We must be inclusive in this multicultural age. Now put on your Kevlar vest; it's the rules. It could save your life"

Nelson: "Don't tell me - health and safety. Whatever happened to rum, sodomy and the lash?"

Hardy: "As I explained, sir, rum is off the menu! And there's a ban on corporal punishment."

Nelson: "What about sodomy?"

Hardy: "I believe that is now legal, sir."

Nelson: "In that case ...kiss me, Hardy."

Equal Opportunity Torture

Amanda’s Monday post on heroes got me thinking about the appeal of the tortured hero. A dark hero can be a bit scary, and it’s been proven that fear triggers a lot of the same responses as sexual arousal. Edgy can be sexy. But how edgy is too edgy? Sometimes tortured hero stories are said to tap into the unhealthy hope some women have that they can change their abusive husbands. But I think that’s when the fantasy is taken too far.

A good tortured hero wants to be well, and gradually he allows the heroine to get close enough to help him. I think this is the real reason readers love tortured heroes. It’s exciting to identify with the heroines whose love has such power.

But what I really wanted to blog about today is tortured heroines.

Here are a few of my favorites, in no particular order.

Margot from PETALS IN THE STORM, by Mary Jo Putney. Gang-raped by a group of men who just killed her father—how much more tortured can you get? Of course, the hero, Rafe, is tortured too (Mary Jo Putney never lets any of her characters off lightly!) but in the end it’s his love that heals Margot.

Frances from ILLUSION, by Jean Ross Ewing (now writing as Julia Ross). While in India, her father is killed and she is taken captive and trained to serve as a concubine. She is drawn into intrigue with spy hero Nigel (also quite tortured), and has to rediscover her identity and her place in England again.

Melanthe from FOR MY LADY’S HEART, by Laura Kinsale. She cloaks herself in evil, as a way of protecting herself and those she cares for. The beauty of this story is how Ruck (one of Amanda’s favorite heroes, I noticed) loves her even before he learns the truth about her.

Stories like these help us imagine ourselves being loved and healed as these heroines are loved and healed.

I know they worked for other readers as well, since all these books have gotten some great reviews, along with 4-5 star customer reviews in places like Amazon.com. However, some readers hated these books and complained they were not as good as others (the more hero-centered ones) by the same authors. Some explicitly said things like the heroines should get over themselves. One even wondered why Margot was hesitant about sex with Rafe.

I can only guess at the reasons. Maybe these readers don’t have the life experiences to relate to a tortured heroine. (But there's nothing that awful in my past, either.) Or maybe the notion of needing healing is frightening?

Any other favorite heroines, tortured or otherwise?

Elena
LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE -- an RT Top Pick
www.elenagreene.com

Which sequel would you write?

If someone told you you had to write a sequel to an Austen or Bronte novel, telling the story of one of the minor characters and his or her romance......who would you choose?



Would you write about Mary Bennet, who tried her best to be scholarly and good, but could never win the approval of her father, the love of her mother, or the interest of her sisters?





Would you write about Kitty Bennet, who had the misfortune to always be overshadowed by a younger sister? Once Lydia runs off, how does Kitty change?

Or how about Colonel Fitzwilliam? Or kill off Mr Collins, and give Charlotte a real romance!




Would anyone here like to reform Elizabeth Elliott, and give her a proper romance? I suspect that she'd be a lost less fun to reform than someone who was witty and wicked. :-)


Would you write about Margaret Dashwood, who may have seen and thought more than Austen gave her credit for? When she grows up, does she make the utterly splendid marriage that neither of her sisters managed?




Or how about Tom Bertram? Joan Aiken already wrote a book in which the reformed Tom Bertram had a romance with Fanny's little sister...but perhaps someone totally new would fit the bill.



And what about those devilishly attractive Crawfords? They're intelligent, and surely they can be reformed too!

Could Isabella Thorpe be reformed? I do think she's great fun.



And then of course there are all the Bronte characters....and so many more, from different novels.

So which would you write, if you had to write one?

Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER -- Signet Regency, coming November 1!

Heroes we love (or don't)

Almost every Wednesday evening, I get together with a group of friends for a LOST watch party. And yes, it's mostly an excuse to drink wine and ogle the actors when they're all sweaty in the jungle, but after the Chardonnay there are sometimes attempts at deciphering character development/overlapping themes/whatever. One of my friends suggested that which guy on LOST a woman likes can tell a lot about her. (I happen to like Sawyer--not sure I want to know what that says about me!!!)

Anyway, that, along with Cara's post on Austen movie heroes, got me thinking about heroes in romance novels. They are, of course, one of the most important components of any story. As an author, you want your readers to fall in love with the heroes you write about; as a reader, you want to do the falling in love. But every woman who reads a romance (just as every woman who watches LOST!) is different. I happen to like a "dark" hero, though I have found there is often a fine line between "dark" and "whiny". Dark--yummy. Whiny--not so good.

Someone asked me once how I keep from falling in love with the heroes I write. I have to say, 1) they're not real, duh. They live in my head. And I know that. Most of the time. And 2) I don't really write my "fantasy perfect man", though they usually do have aspects that I admire in real life (intelligence, humor, ripped abs, whatever). I write the hero that is perfect for that particular heroine. I want to believe, once I finish writing a manuscript or reading a book by a favorite author, that these two people were made for each other and will be able to weather life's storms together forever.

So, I took a look at my keeper shelf and came up with this list of some favorite romance heroes (mostly Regency-set, but I let a couple others sneak in):

1) Lord Dain from Loretta Chase's LORD OF SCOUNDRELS
2) Lord Rival from Diane Farr's FORTUNE HUNTER
3) Lord Lucien from Gaelen Foley's LORD OF FIRE
4) Sir James Stoker from Judith Ivory's SLEEPING BEAUTY
5) Ruck from Laura Kinsale's FOR MY LADY'S HEART (probably the #1 romance hero I wanted to come to life!)
6) Lord Michael Kenyon from Mary Jo Putney's SHATTERED RAINBOWS
7) Captain William Chartwell from Mary Blayney's THE CAPTAIN'S MERMAID
8) Alverstoke from Heyer's FREDERICA
9) Edgar Downes from Mary Balogh's A CHRISTMAS BRIDE
10) And one of my newest favorites, Adam Ashworth from Janet's DEDICATION

So, now it's your turn! Who are some favorite heroes, and why? What aspects of a hero's character do you like to see in novels (besides great hair and a cute behind!)? And who is your favorite on LOST? :)

(BTW, the pic was a gift from a Photoshop-gifted friend who helps me indulge my Orlando Bloom obsession once in a while. Do you think I make a good Lizzie????)

Interview with Megan Frampton, Author of A SINGULAR LADY!

A bit about Megan:

Megan Frampton's love affair with books began when her gormless parents (not an ounce of gorm between them. And let's not even mention feck) moved her to a remote town in New Hampshire where there was only one television station.

And then the TV broke.

She devoured every book of fiction in her well-read parents' library, finding special joy in Barbara Cartland, Georgette Heyer, C.S. Lewis, Anya Seton and the fairy tales collected and translated by Andrew Lang.

Megan majored in English literature at Barnard College, and worked in the music industry for 15 years. Megan married one of her former interns and lives in Brooklyn, NY, with him and her son. Now that she stays at home, Megan has returned to reading – and writing – the fiction that was her first love.

Learn more at http://www.meganframpton.com/, or read her Authors' Journals at All About Romance here.


Praise for A SINGULAR LADY!

“This book will touch readers who enjoy a sentimental love story with a nice touch of sensuality. The powerful, sexy hero knows exactly what he wants, and the spunky heroine is proud of being quite the bluestocking. This book is topped off with a dry wit that consistently finds its target.” -- Romantic Times Bookclub
4 Stars

The Interview

Q. How did you think of writing this particular book? Did it start with a character, a setting, or some other element?

Like everything I write, it started out with a character--Titania, my heroine. Instead of wanting to marry for love, like most heroines, what would it be like, I wondered, if she had to marry for money? And what if the guy she falls in love with has absolutely no money . . . or so she thinks.

Q. How long did it take? Was this an easy or difficult book to write?

It took three years, although the last year was probably the most productive. By then I had learned a lot about writing, and was able to implement my new-found knowledge in my head-hopping, unbelievable manuscript. It was the first book I ever wrote, so I'm not sure if it was easier or harder to do than any others.

Q. Tell me more about your characters. What or who inspired them?

Um, me. Only my heroine is younger, prettier, smarter, and more self-assured. My hero was sort of supposed to be an anti-hero--he's not a dandy, he's just as happy reading as dancing, and he's very to the point. Of course, he does look like Hugh Jackman (in my mind), but with even broader shoulders. So I guess that is kind of heroic.

Q. Did you run across anything new and unusual while researching this book?

I found that your entrance fee to the London Menagerie would be waived if you brought a dead chicken or something else for the carnivorous animals to eat. I cut that part, though.

Q. What do you think is the greatest creative risk you've taken in this book? How do you feel about it?

I think the greatest creative risk I took was tweaking the cliches behind Regency historicals: my heroine is sharp-tongued, insecure, realistic in her views of marriage, she's got a broken nose and is terrible on a horse. My hero wears old clothes, has a temper, and thinks about pregnancy when fooling around with the heroine. Neither of them would have been given admittance to Almack's, so I gave them an alternative place to be on their Wednesday nights, and I twisted another few things around that I hope are unexpected and funny.

Q. Is there anything you wanted to include in the book that you (or your CPs or editor) felt was too controversial and left out?

When my editor bought the book, she bought it as a traditional Regency, which meant I had to cut 20,000 words. Unfortunately, as a traditional Regency, that meant I had to cut a lot of the sex scenes. She and I were both bummed about that, but it wasn't necessarily controversial, just limited by space constraints. I think it's still racier than average, although nothing close to Janet's.

Q. What inspired your heroine's column?

I've found I love the interstitial writing--chapter headings, fragments of letters, random poetry, etc.--and in my writing have found it really augments the story itself. My dad is a journalist, so of course had quibbles with my heroine's columns, but he provided the details behind her visits to the newspaper offices. In a way, I guess, those columns are my homage to my dad, who wrote columns for the Boston Globe for a long time.

Q. How do you pronounce your name?

Okay, I have to confess--I added that question. See, my parents named me back when the name "Megan" was unusual. It's pronounced with a long e, like "Meeee-gan," although most people who spell their name that way use a short e. The parents were thinking about naming me Regan, but my dad's favorite play is "King Lear," and she's one of the bad daughters. Thank goodness they completely avoided Goneril. So they flipped the first letter around to match my maiden name--McLaughlin--but kept the long e pronunciation. Way more than you wanted to know, but it's been a personal bugbear my whole life. I'm getting over it now, can't you tell?!?

Q. What are you working on now?