Amanda’s Lady Midnight gets a glowing review at All About Romance. And, speaking of which, how many people buy books based on reviews?Word-of-mouth? Word-of-blog? The covers (Please don’t say the covers.)?
Amanda’s Lady Midnight gets a glowing review at All About Romance. And, speaking of which, how many people buy books based on reviews?Word-of-mouth? Word-of-blog? The covers (Please don’t say the covers.)?
Hi! I’m just back from Maine (authors of risky Regencies need relaxing vacations). So what do I think is a risky Regency? To me, it’s a story that has some element that may seriously upset some readers.
Before I started writing Regencies myself, I didn’t realize that there were some readers with rigid expectations of the genre. I’d read books ranging from Georgette Heyer (and endless imitations) to unusual stories like Karen Harbaugh’s VAMPIRE VISCOUNT, Gail Eastwood’s THE CAPTAIN’S DILEMMA (hero is a French POW), Mary Jo Putney’s THE RAKE AND THE REFORMER (an alcoholic hero, a non-virgin heroine) and didn’t see a problem with any of this glorious variety.
When my own books started coming out, I was startled by some of the comments on Amazon, both rants and raves. I never intended to upset anyone, but a couple of things did set some readers off:
1) Sex. One reader even insisted that “Regency women didn’t do that”. Um, have sex with their husbands? Where did the Victorians come from, then? But I understood her point: she just didn’t want to know about it.
2) Heroines who are desperately seeking something, even if they don’t know what it is, and make mistakes or misbehave in pursuit of that something.
My next book, LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, has both those risky elements and more. Ah well… I’m braced for mixed responses. At least I don’t think I will bore anyone!
BTW I can’t wait to read Cara’s book; Atalanta sounds like my kind of heroine. If heroes can be rakish and tortured, why can’t the heroines cause some trouble, too?
So — what are some of your favorite Regencies? I’m not asking for a definitive list, just list any that occur to you. Are they particularly risky ones, or classic Regencies, or does it vary?
I love many many Regencies, but included on my favorites list would be:
— “Sweet and Twenty” by Joan Smith. I suppose it’s risky in a way, in that there’s a lot of politics involved, and perhaps less romance than in a “classic” Regency. But for an older Regency, I wouldn’t exactly call it unusual (except that I like it so much!)
— “Poetic Justice” by Alicia Rasley. Again, this isn’t a book with just a romance plot — there are a lot of other things going on. But again, I’m not sure it screams “different!” (And if it did, wouldn’t that be odd? My other books would be so annoyed when they were trying to sleep.)
— “An Ideal Bride” by Nonnie St. George. Stylistically this is somewhat risky, I think — it’s delightfully weird in some ways, almost farcical at times, and occasionally just a tiny bit surreal. I think she made a big splash with this book partly because it was a bit unusual — but it’s so very funny (and sexy too) that that alone could have made the book so popular!
Well, there are three from me. How about you?
Cara
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Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Signet Regency, 11/05
Risk-taking . . . and a few mistakes
Hi, it’s Megan Frampton, another dangerous risk-taker here. I have many, many theories about what makes a traditional Regency different from a Regency-set historical (not all of which I’ll share, thank your lucky stars), and when I wrote A Singular Lady (which comes out October 4, mark it on your calendars), I thought I was writing a Regency-set historical. I have since figured out I did not, not least of which is because Signet bought my book to publish it as a trad.
What makes my Regency different from the pelisse-and-Almack’s crowd? Well, first of all, my heroine is out to marry for money. Her father’s reputation means she is not allowed into Almack’s, she is not classically beautiful, and she swears on occasion. My hero wears scuffed boots, worn clothes, and hates the social scene. Plus they have sex before they’re married, and she doesn’t yelp about how much it hurts the first time.
Oh, and I screwed up my hero’s title, big-time, which means I’ll be getting plenty of finger-wagging mail from folks who know a lot more about titles than I do. But I hope people enjoy the story, because it’s fiction, after all.
I’m looking forward to meeting my fellow risky Authors, and whomever stumbles across our blog. Enjoy, post, share, discuss!
Megan
Hi, I’m Janet Mullany and my book Dedication comes out next month. What makes my book a risky Regency? It’s actually like a blueprint for what not to have in a romance:
1. Older, almost celibate hero.
2. Older and not at all celibate heroine.
3. Character who is a writer.
4. Character who is an artist.
5. The higher in rank my characters are, the worse they behave.
6. Unless they’re French.
7. And for a regency, sex.
Frankly I’m just confused by what makes a traditional regency. I always thought it meant a short book with no sex and Mr. and Ms. Middle America wearing their regency costumes on the cover, smiling idiotically. Lots of regency slang, descriptions of clothes, aristos being polite in drawing rooms, and the only balls mentioned were the ones that include dancing.
But let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
I’m gonna see if I can upload my cover art now.