If I told RR every project I have in the works, it would take a triple-length post, I think! I have a confession to make–my name is Amanda, and I am a researchaholic. I’m addicted to libraries, to the papery smell, the quiet, the cool air, everything. Give me a desk tucked behind some stacks and a pile of history books, and you won’t see me for weeks. It was a favorite method of my parents when I was a kid. I’m also very easily distracted by stray factoids I come across in researching, so lack of ideas is never my problem. The problem is stopping with the research and starting on, you know, writing a book.
So, I’ll just let you know about my Top Two (okay, Top Three) projects of the moment, ones that are actually sitting on various editors’ desks and not just a gleam in my eye and a bunch of research titles on my Barnes and Noble receipts.
1) Historical fiction number one, working title Tincture of Secrets. This one is set in Florence and Venice in the 1470s. Our heroine, Isabella, wants to be an artist. And, lucky for her, her cousin happens to be Botticelli’s favorite model–but she also happens to get Isabella mixed up with the Medici, right at the height of the bloody Pazzi Conspiracy. Art, murder, revenge, gondolas–what else does a story need???
2) Historical fiction number two, working title Fortune’s Fools (thanks, Cara!). No gondolas here–it’s set in Elizabethan England, early 1580s. Penelope was a Maid of Honor to the Queen, until her naughtiness got her exiled to rebellious Lancashire. There she meets a young Shakespeare, a Catholic conspiracy, a new love–and gets set on a path to the Tower.
3) And, since this is Risky REGENCIES, a Regency historical called The Alabaster Goddess, Book One of the Muses of Mayfair. An aristocratic thief, archaelogical high jinks, a mysterious artifact (the titular goddess), and a hero and heroine on a collision course with fate–and each other. No gondolas here, either, but then you never know what might happen in Book Two… 🙂
And that’s what Amanda is doing on her summer vacation!
Delicious on all counts! It’s nice to see some writing going on about another period in time!
Now don’t tarry too long behind that stack of research!
Amanda, I am impressed with your versatility. Much as I love the Regency, I’d love to see more historical romances in different settings. I worry that readers get tired of being offered English Regency and Scottish medieval and little else.
Ooh, I want to read them all, Amanda!!!
Cara
Gosh, Amanda! I’m in awe that you can write knowledgeably about so many time periods! All that researching pays off! I’m also envious that you have an abundance of ideas. I have to wring ideas out like the last drop of blood.
I’m glad to hear that at least someone besides myself and my agent is interested in various time periods! 🙂 I love the Regency so much, but I found out that a steady diet of it leaves me a bit burned out, which I never want to happen. Plus some stories just “belong” to other periods and different kinds of characters. I’ve been reading so much non-fiction history and historical fiction lately, so my “idea notebook” is bound to grow!