Congratulations to Elizabeth Kerri Mahon! You've won the autographed copy of A SINFUL ALLIANCE by Amanda McCabe.
Last week I mentioned that I was going to Hillwood House, the home of the late Marjorie Merriweather Post. Post designed the house to be a living museum and it is beautiful. She was a collector of decorative arts, especially from 18th century France and pre-Communist Russia, like the Fabergé egg shown here (not from her collection).
First is my trip to the accountant for the taxes. I used to do our taxes myself, but as they got more complex, I'd have an anxiety attack every time. It is so much better to hand them to the accountant. She likes reading Romance, so I always bring her a book.
‘The poor girls & their teeth!’ a Visit to the Dentist by Joanna Penglase
(I am watching Sense and Sensibility at this moment....Edward Ferrars......((((THUD))))
Amanda (standing in as RR): Why, hello, Amanda! Such a surprise to see you here, at your own computer and all. Tell us about A Sinful Alliance! How does this fit into the "Renaissance Trilogy"?
Trouble was, she once tried to kill him. Bit of a rocky start there. They meet up a few months after this little incident at the court of Henry VIII at Greenwich, still on opposite sides of ever-shifting political alliances. This event was a real historical happening, a meeting in early 1527 between King Henry and a French delegation seeking a marriage between young Princess Mary and King Francois's younger son. This weeks-long meeting was filled with lavish banquets, balls, jousts, and masques, with specially built theaters and banquet halls. England's old alliance with Spain is faltering, thanks to Henry's new infatuation with Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon's loss of influence, so it made the perfect setting for an illicit, dangerous affair. And also some really great clothes! (Stay tuned next week for more research info on this stuff)
A as A: Tons! Besides the actual events of this English/French meeting (the Spanish were there, too--never count out the Spanish!), I researched Tudor clothes, tennis, jousts, hunting, Greenwich Palace (plus Fontainebleau Palace, for one scene), sword fighting, theater, fashion. It was way too much fun!
A as A: When I was a kid, I loved watching old movies with my grandmother. One afternoon we watched a Tudor marathon--Anne of the Thousand Days and A Man For All Seasons. I loved them, and immediately started reading all I could about the Tudors! Anne Boleyn particularly intrigued me. The juxtaposition of such splendor and luxury with such terrible danger and intrigue really interests me, and hopefully I brought all that into A Sinful Alliance.
(And hopefully, judging from the popularity of The Other Boleyn Girl and Showtime's weird The Tudors, other people are intrigued, too!)
A as A: The challenge was also the part I enjoyed the most--the history! There was so much going on in this short space of time, and I didn't want to let it overwhelm the characters and their romance. Luckily for me, Nicolai and Marguerite were strong characters, and they basically ran with their own story. I had a clear picture of them in my head (they looked a lot like Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, though not so modern as in this pic, of course!), and they had such complex pasts and personalities that made them perfect for each other. I just created the historical backdrop, and let them go! :)
I've decided to go to London this spring for a few days. The major purpose of my trip is to visit the Old Man my Father (who is not a tree) but for the first time in my life I'm going to stay for a few days in London and play tourist. And it seems weird, but I feel I don't know the city at all, despite having lived there for a few years (a long time ago); the last time I was there was ten years ago.
Burlington Arcade. Super posh, the world's first indoor shopping mall and almost 200 years old, and still with a policy of keeping out the riff raff (it was built by Lord Cavendish who lived next door and was tired of people throwing oyster shells into his garden). Not that I'm going to buy anything there; but looking is free.
The Sir John Soane's Museum, which I've heard is amazing and full of Regency goodness.
And from there, a quick jump over the river to The Globe. Will I get to a performance? Maybe. The friend I intend to meet up with in London is a real theater fan.
And further east, but on that side of the river, Greenwich--old pubs, the National Maritime Museum (full of Nelson goodness as I remember), the Cutty Sark, and the view over the river to Hampstead on a clear day; and also whatever spiffy new developments are on the other side of the Thames now. If I can, I intend to get there by river, going past St. Pauls and the Tower and all that good stuff.
I'm continuing to immerse myself in research for my hero's military background. I didn't want to break from it even during my Easter travel, so I brought along THE SPANISH BRIDE by Georgette Heyer. It's the fictionalized account of Brigade Major Harry Smith and his bride, Juana, whom he married after the siege of Badajoz, and their succeeding adventures from the Peninsular War through Waterloo.
Welcome to the Risky Regencies JANE AUSTEN MOVIE CLUB!
Kate Beckinsale -- Emma Woodhouse
Writing Life: This has been a good month for Riskies, writing-wise. I'm very happy to announce that Harlequin/Mills & Boon have given me another book contract, 4 books and 1 novella (the one with Amanda and Deb Marlowe). (Yippee!) I'm leaving the world of people that began with The Mysterious Miss M and writing what I call my Three Soldiers Trilogy, still in the Regency. Three soldiers experience the same traumatic event in Spain that affects the rest of their lives.
Health and Beauty: I am still trying to lose the weight I've put on since 2003 (I won't say how much but I don't weigh as much as that scale shows!) My latest attempt is with the South Beach Diet. I'm not following the meal plans, because I am so-not-a-cook, but I am following the food guidelines. Basically South Beach means giving up bread, pasta, potatoes and candy (Sniff!) but it has been surpisingly easy---for the first week. As Keira knows, I also go to Curves. My goal is to go at least three times a week. Burning question--Can I lose the weight by the RWA Conference this summer?
Entertainment: Amanda's convinced me I should see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Not hard to do, because I recently saw Enchanted and have become an Amy Adams fan. I LOVED Enchanted! How nice to see a happy movie for a change. Enchanted, by the way, is on sale at Target this week at $14.99! (I have also watched the Kate Beckinsale Emma on Masterpiece and can't wait for Cara to discuss it!)
Welcome to the Riskies, Delle!
Aphrodite's Brew is what I call my piece of fluff, although it really isn't all that fluffy. I meant for it to be a Regency Romp, emphasis on the Romp. Comedy bordering on slapstick. Not a book to be taken seriously, just one to be fun. But by the second draft, my characters started to take on more angst, more depth, and the book had a different tone and blend than I had originally planned.
Word has it a love potion has fallen into the hands of the match-making mamas. The gay blades are all doomed. Val--Lord Vailmont, a man of science and reason who scoffs at magic, witchcraft and the like, vows to prove to his superstitious friends they are being duped. A wager ensues, and the embittered widower who has vowed never to marry again sets out to hunt down the perpetrator of the hoax. The clues lead his straight to Sylvia, and one look in her silver-green eyes sets his soul spinning as if he has just encountered a witch.
What do you love/hate about the Regency?
I think I would advise authors to know their market, yes, but more than that, to really analyze their own goals for writing. Find out what it is you REALLY want from your writing career. Would you write anything your editor or agent told you to write (assuming you got such a directive) even if it happened to be a subject you hate? What would you do, how far would you go to get published? Or are you like the fellow who used to sit on the other side of my cubicle wall, and refuse to change a single word of your story, even knowing you would pass up publication for your decision? Do you fall in between? Find out by ruthlessly examining yourself where you fit. It's perfectly possible you will be one of those perfect fits in the genre of romance, writing story after story you love, and selling it to editors and readers who love it too. But if not, try to understand where you fit, and if your story doesn't fit THEIR story, how much are your willing to bend? Or conversely, how can you find the stories that are perhaps different enough to blaze a new trail through the forest of fiction?
Another risky book. Sins of the Heart, which won the Royal Ascot and several other contests (but was written after I decided I didn't need any more Golden Hearts) is an adventure Regency romance. Its setting is risky-- a small town in Cornwall, not the ballrooms of London. It's as much about spies and smugglers as it is about deceit and betrayal. And maybe it's not as risky as the one that will follow it because I'm straying into the dangerous territory of religion. One of the strongest characters in Sins is a charismatic Cornishman who, like most commoners of Cornwall, is a fervent Methodist who sees no contradiction at all with his frequent dabbling in the Free Trade. I haven't started this book yet, except in my head, and maybe, if I write it, I'll keep it to myself. I'm enamored with the conflict between Davy's rigidly moral, sometimes authoritarian conscience and the Frenchwoman spy he was forced to rescue off the very beaches of France. She is everything he doesn't believe is right, but he can't stop thinking about her.
After that, more risky stuff. Currently I have a series planned around the Laughing God in Aphrodite's Brew. The next is Gilding Lilly, a Cinderella-Ugly Duckling sort of story in which beauty doesn't win out, after all. There are also two minor characters in the first book who you probably wouldn't think worthy of their own romance, and they aren't-- yet. They're beautiful faces on shallow people. In Lilly, they begin to let slip things that show they aren't so shallow, but are caught in a trap the don't understand and can't escape. It will take another book before they grow enough to be the hero and heroine we want to root for, and finally when they have at last struggled and grown so much, they will need their own story.
Here is what made me think about it--movies. Two of them. I was watching the DVD of The Holiday. Amanda and Iris (aka Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet) switch houses for Christmas, to get away from disastrous relationships, etc. Kate goes to Cameron's fab mansion in L.A., Cameron to Kate's ramshackle (but probably vastly expensive) cottage in Surrey.
Contrast this with a gem I saw in the theater last weekend, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The roles, every one of them, were perfectly cast. From the leads (Amy Adams and Frances McDormand), to the so-called villain (the wonderful Shirley Henderson), to the men (2 Jane Austen film vets, Ciaran Hinds and Mark Strong, and the Pie Maker, er, Lee Pace. I knew from Pushing Daisies he was cute--now I see he's sexy, too!). Every scene is vital to moving the story forward. Not a line of dialogue is wasted. The world of late '30s London is beautifully built through sets and costumes. The actors can just be let loose into the story, and it all falls into sparkly (and ultimately very emotionally moving) place.
How much of all this do I put in? When? What's really important, and what's just my half-hour set-up? I struggle a bit with this these days. But I do get a great deal of inspiration from looking at images like this one of Orlando!
And now for the big news--I have a three-book contract with Little Black Dress (UK) for more Regency chicklit, who are also publishing their edition of The Rules this September. I'm their first historical writer. I don't know when the first of the three books will be out but the heroine (a very naughty girl) is Caroline, who makes a brief appearance in The Rules, trying to get into Inigo's (tight) trousers.
I'm in good company at LBD, with talented writers like Julie Cohen (who by an odd coincidence is one of my CP's best friends and lives in my home town of Reading). Her latest LBD book One Night Stand is set in Reading, the town where Oscar Wilde went to goal and Jane Austen to school (or, as I like to say, possibly the other way round).
Right now, I'm taking a break between drafts of my mess-in-progress to fill some research craters in my story. I know that the most organized writers say one should do research beforehand. I actually do that, but then my characters go places and do things I hadn't envisioned at the start. Which means another round of research, going back through books I've already read to find things I didn't realize I should have taken notes on.
It makes me wonder which really comes first for me: the setting or the story.
I know these reinventions don't work for some but they do for me. I think it's because the characters and the stories are timeless. And yet there's more to these adaptations than just translating clothing and cultural references. The setting isn't just a backdrop, any more than Jane Austen's "3 or 4 families in a country village". It's all in how the universal story finds expression in a new setting.
I like words.
Growing up, I always loved St. Patrick's Day with its celebration of all things Irish. To me, the Irish people were plucky, brave and proud--survivors of terrible adversity. I lapped up tales of the potato famines, of how the Irish emigrated to America, and of how they battled discrimination when they landed. I cheered the triumph of Irish Americans in our society. Countrywide celebration of St. Patrick's Day is evidence of a hard battle won.
I was, therefore, very proud of my Irish heritage. Whenever I heard my mother's maiden name spoken, I could envision the rich, green countryside of our ancestral home.
Their response:
Nonetheless, what I love about the Irish and Ireland I still love about them, even if the connection is only in my heart. I like to hint at the attitude about the Irish during the Regency. There was a lot simmering under the surface.
It will be exciting to read Amanda's Grand Central books set in the time of the Irish rebellion, even if we do have to wait until 2010. In the meantime, we can get our fill of Irish Medievals from Michelle Willingham.
Book One, called Countess of Scandal (but which will probably be something different later) comes out sometime in 2010. It features the first of the three Blacknall sisters, Elizabeth (Eliza). She is a young, rich widowed countess, the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Irish family. But she has a secret--she writes seditious pamphlets for the United Irishmen, and hides fugitives in the cellars of her vast Dublin townhouse. She's devoted to Irish freedom, but a serious problem pops up in the person of her childhood sweetheart, Will Denton, the son of her family's equally wealthy neighbors. He left her when she was young to join the Army and go off to the West Indies, breaking her heart. Now he's back--and he's Major William Denton, sent to Ireland to quell the growing unrest. He knows Eliza is up to something dangerous, and is just as determined to stop her as she is to fulfill her mission. If they can keep from falling hopelessly in love all over again.
And, in the spirit of All Things Irish, here are a few facts I found about Guinness (to go with your corned beef and cabbage):
I found out just today, that (1) it was a Thursday and therefore my day to post and (2) on March 13, 1781, William Herschel discovered Uranus. This is very fortuitous, because the Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath is one of my very favorite places--I blogged about it long ago on September 8, 2005, when we were all brand spanking new here; and Elena blogged about Herschel's sister Charlotte a couple of years ago. Search the blog for Herschel and you'll find all sorts of references--his name just keeps coming up.
So who was Herschel and why was he so important? In the words of Patrick Moore, patron of the Herschel Museum, William Herschel was the first man to give a reasonably correct picture of the shape of our star-system or galaxy; he was the best telescope-maker of his time, and possibly the greatest observer who ever lived.
And his achievements were all the more impressive because Herschel, a refugee from Hanover (Germany) was self-taught and became an astronomer more or less by accident. He was a musician by training, who received a telescope in lieu of payment, looked the instrument over and decided he could create a better one.
The Museum, at 19 New King Street in Bath, is a modest building in the sort of street where artisans lived. It's beautifully and faithfully restored to the period, and filled with Herschel's telescopes and books. Sadly, the Octagon Chapel nearby, one of Bath's most fashionable churches in the eighteenth century, where Herschel held the position of organist, was closed and badly in need of restoration. (Or at least it was when I last visited two years ago. The organ itself, pictured here, no longer exists. And people in the museum were hopping mad that the city was pouring money into the new Thermae Bath Spa.) Does anyone know what the latest on the Octagon Chapel is? Jane Austen--you may have heard of her--was one of the many visitors to Bath who attended services there.
But back to Herschel. The small house on New King Street was flooded with visitors including the King, after whom Herschel named the new planet, Georgium Sidus, but the name never caught on. He was awarded the Copley medal and elected a member of the Royal Society, and then appointed Astronomer Royal in 1782, which necessitated a move to Slough, near Windsor. His descendants, some of whom were also astronomers, lived in the same house until the mid-twentieth century. Guess what happened to the house...
About a week ago I finished the 3rd draft of my mess-in-progress. Maybe it's my imagination, but do I hear a collective groan? Or is it just that I sometimes feel as if five years from now I'll be announcing the completion of the 327th draft or thereabouts. Because sometimes--and particularly with this story--I wonder if I'm just repainting the Golden Gate Bridge one more time.
A happier metaphor for my writing process involves skiing. When I've been to ski resorts with friends, most of them like to try as many different slopes as possible. Once they've gotten down a slope in one piece they feel they've "conquered" it. Me, I like to keep at it until I get it "right". The first few times I'm just trying to figure out the fall line, where the ice patches and moguls are, etc... Once I've done that, I can approach it with confidence and something I hope approaches grace.
"My dear Captain Kirk," said Cyrano Jones to him during his first day on Deep Space Station K7, "have you heard that I possess a miraculous cure for high blood pressure?"
"Why, my dear captain, you must know, I have in my possession a rare and invaluable creature, the like of which none but the wise ancients of Organia have ever before possessed."
Are you influenced by Book Trailers?
What about banner ads? I don't do many of those but I wonder if they are good advertising.
And last of all---Bookmarks!!
Lots of questions here, Riskies.....Tell me what you think!
1) Our own Risky Diane got a great review in the Chicago Tribune this week, for The Vanishing Viscountess! It says the story is "expertly spiced with adventure and passion." But then, we here already knew that!!!
5) Shakespeare. For some reason he's all over the place in my life lately! From Netflix I got 2 of the BBC's Shakespeare Retold movies (Midsummer Night's Dream and a great Taming of the Shrew with Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell, both movies were excellent!), and I've been reading The Lodger Shakespeare by Charles Nicholl, which takes Shakespeare's brief appearance in an early 17th century lawsuit involving his ex-landlords and makes a whole (and fascinating) book out of it. Plus I have a new book bought with the last of my birthday Barnes and Noble gift cards called Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Most Outrageous Sexual Puns. This one is so hilarious it deserves its own post, so stay tuned.
What is it about titles that sets us all a-flutter? What is it with all those dukes and earls and pedigreed persons and why have they become such a staple of historical romance?
I think it's quite a reality check for Americans to realize how indifferent the English are about their great families, including the Windsors, unless they provide an excuse for a party or a really good national cry. All that anachronistic pomp and circumstance; all that inbred dullness. Yet the aristocracy still have that promise, even if it's not fulfilled, of glamor and beauty and being bigger than life; and two hundred years ago they did have more interesting lives and more opportunities than the riff-raff. The rich and beautiful cavorting around Carlton House makes for better escapist reading than, say, trying to find firewood and cooking up the cabbage in the last smear of bacon fat.
And look at the stuff they were good at! Sports, like fencing, all dash and expertise.
Getting drunk, a favorite pastime of just about everyone in England, then and now, which I suppose takes a dash and expertise all of its own.
Hunting small furry things which apparently also enjoy the sport.
So what do you think?
Greer Garson: Elizabeth Bennet
Ann Rutherford: Lydia Bennet
Melville Cooper: Mr. Collins
Marion Cotillard (I was on the fence about this one for a while, but decided I do like it! It's grown on me. Maybe I expected too much from her in the beginning, since she's French...)
Some of my Dislikes:
Jennifer Hudson (I've seen pics of her at other events where she looks great, yet she can't seem to dress for the Oscars! It's better than last year's, I guess)
Now let's talk about Tilda Swinton (because you knew I would!)
I like it. Now let's be clear--I do not like the dress. It's undeniable that it resembles nothing so much as a big Hefty bag, and I've never been fond of the one-big-sleeve thing. But I love Tilda Swinton. She is gorgeous, she's a great actress (I can't think of anyone else who could have pulled off Orlando!), and she's just the essence of Eccentric British Aristocrat for the 21st century. She just lives on a different planet than the rest of us, The Planet of Extreme Coolness, and I would have been disappointed if she showed up styled to the gills by Rachel Zoe.
Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady by Diane Gaston
The Winter Queen by Amanda McCabe
A Most Lamentable Comedy by Janet Mullany
Scandal by Carolyn Jewel
The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor by Diane Gaston, Amanda McCabe and Deb Marlowe
The Unlacing of Miss Leigh by Diane Gaston
High Seas Stowaway by Amanda McCabe
Scandalizing the Ton by Diane Gaston 
The Vanishing Viscountess by Diane Gaston
A Sinful Alliance by Amanda McCabe
Forbidden Shores by Jane Lockwood
A Notorious Woman by Amanda McCabe
The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany
Innocence and Impropriety by Diane Gaston
A Singular Lady by Megan Frampton
Lady Dearing's Masquerade by Elena Greene
