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Monthly Archives: June 2009

Guest Interview with Harlequin Historical’s Louise Allen

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Today, welcome back Louise Allen, who has visited the Riskies before with other UK authors. We’re delighted we have her all to ourselves to talk about her latest book, The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst , her latest Harlequin Historical (July, 2009). Louise is giving away one copy of The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst to one lucky commenter. Welcome, Louise!

First of all – thank you for the invitation to Risky Regencies – I’m thrilled to be here!

We’re thrilled to have you. Tell us about your book!
The Disgraceful Mr Ravenhurst (Harlequin July 2009) is set in my favourite region of France – Burgundy. The hero is the black sheep of the Ravenhurst clan, Theophilus, son of a bishop, and in dangerous trouble – as usual. The heroine is Elinor Ravenhurst his bookish spinster cousin touring French cathedrals with her formidable scholarly mother. Theo needs some respectable cover, Elinor needs adventure and between them they end up in the midst of a lethal hunt for a scandalous art treasure, discovering each other and their real feelings in the process.

This is book 4 in your Those Scandalous Ravenhurst series. Tell us about books 1-3
The series features seven cousins in six books. They stand alone, but characters from each occur – and interfere – in the others. The Dangerous Mr Ryder has the mysterious Lord Sebastian Ravenhurst sent to rescue Grand Duchess Eva during Napoleon’s return to France in 1815. The second, The Outrageous Lady Felsham, stars Sebastian’s sister Bel in her search for an exciting lover and includes a polar bear called Horace and a bathing machine at Margate. The third, The Shocking Lord Standon, has a most respectable hero forced by circumstances and the women in his life (including a naked governess in distress, Bel, Eva and Lady Maude, the heroine of the fifth book) to become positively improper. A linked e-book, Disrobed & Dishonored in the Historical Undone series has a number of the Ravenhursts assisting their friend Sarah when she becomes entangled with a very obliging highwayman.

The scheduling of the release of these books was very interesting: July, August and September of 2008, and now July, August and Sept of 2009. Tell us something about the planning for this six book series?
When I was planning I began with Sebastian who had walked, unannounced, into No Place For a Lady in his persona of Jack Ryder, private investigator. I had been expecting an elderly Bow Street Runner, so Jack was a shock and I knew he needed his own book. Looking at the series as a whole I wanted to experiment with different scenarios – a Gothic dungeon, a London drawing room, a pirate ship, a London theatre, the English seaside – and as soon as I began thinking about those settings, Sebastian’s cousins appeared to inhabit their own stories. Before I knew where I was there were six books and a complex family tree.
My editor had originally asked me to think about a brothers and sisters trilogy, so she was startled to be confronted with seven cousins, but she gave me a lot of encouragement and suggested the Undone e-book as well. This was the first series I have written so I didn’t know what to expect with scheduling, but I like the split – it has kept the Ravenhursts in my life for much longer.

What is risky about The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst?
Theo himself thrives on risk and has done since he was expelled from school for gambling. As a bishop’s son he should be in England doing something respectable, not making a very good living on the continent as an antiquities dealer – often on the shady side of the law. Now he has got himself into deep – almost lethal – trouble. It was fun pairing him with a heroine who had never done a risky thing in her life before and watching Elinor rise to the occasion. And Theo is a redhead – I have always been told that readers don’t like redheaded heroes, so that was a risk, but he refused to change colour. Luckily, UK readers who have already met him tell me he’s just fine as he is.

What has been risky about the whole series?
I had never tried a series before, so starting with a six-part one was probably a risk to begin with. Then I wanted to experiment with different types of Regency stories within the series. I thought that might be difficult, but I found it kept the series fresh for me and readers have responded well to that so far.
Juggling the characters, managing their continuing stories and deciding who to bring back, or to introduce, in other books was perhaps the riskiest part of the series as a whole. The Ravenhurst babies were all behaving well and arriving on time – until my editor asked me to review the timescale of The Notorious Mr Hurst. Two weeks, several very overdue babies and much calculation later I managed to sort out the problem!

And tell us about Books 5 and 6: The Notorious Mr. Hurst and The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst.
The Notorious Mr Hurst (Harlequin August 2009) is set in one of London’s smaller theatres. Lady Maude Templeton saw theatre owner Eden Hurst in The Shocking Lord Standon and fell in love at first sight. He has secrets and strong reasons of his own for avoiding an entanglement with a well-bred, wealthy young lady and he doesn’t believe in love – of any kind. But Maude is determined to prove to him that he needs love, and he needs her.
The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst (Harlequin September 2009) is the youngest of the cousins. A Jamaican heiress, Clemence runs from her avaricious guardian uncle straight into the clutches of one of the Caribbean’s nastiest pirates, Red Mathew McTiernan. Her only hope is the ship’s navigator, a renegade naval officer, Nathan Stanier. But just as cabin boy Clem is not what he seems, neither is Mr Stanier. It is a long way home to England, the Ravenhurst clan and true love for Clemence.

Thank you so much for hanging out with the Riskies, Louise. Remember, Louise is giving away a copy to one commenter, chosen at random, so now is your time to ask about her exciting series….or anything else. (Louise is in the UK and may not answer questions while she is sleeping)

Don’t forget to visit Louise’s website! www.louiseallenregency.co.uk And her blog, Historical Romance UK! http://www.historicalromanceuk.blogspot.com/

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Solemn Friday

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What a weird week. Globally, of course, the world is reeling from the unexpected death of pop icon Michael Jackson. I remember having a discussion with someone about who was the most well-known person around the world, and we settled on MJ. How bizarre that someone with that much notoriety, that much at his disposal, seemed to have had such an unhappy life, and definitely had an abrupt ending.

One of my first records ever was the Jackson 5‘s Greatest Hits. I was so young I scrawled my name–only my first name, mind you, since I couldn’t yet spell “McLaughlin”–across the front cover. I listened to that record a whole lot, and bought Jackson 5 45s later on with my allowance.

I remember when Elvis Presley died; I was about to be 13, and I just didn’t get the whole deal, why people were so upset and all (I grew up in a musical household, but we were more likely to be listening to Arthur Crudup, from whom Elvis lifted a lot of his songs).

I get it now, though.

The death of an icon makes us reflect, perhaps selfishly, on our own mortality. Which of my childhood touchstones will be next?

And next month is my son’s tenth birthday, although we are having his birthday party this Saturday (pray for me . . . ). That reminds me just how much has happened, and how he’s not my little boy anymore. Thankfully, he still likes getting hugs from his mom. But who knows when that will change? And who will his childhood touchstones be?

Maybe, to bring it back around to the books we love to read, that is why we love to read romance: It depicts a crystallized moment in time where the main characters are young, interesting and, we presume, destined to have a long, happy life together.

What are you thinking about today?

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You’ll ruin your eyes!

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There’s a lot of discussion around the web on the issue of e-publishing and its role in the romance industry. I feel a little overwhelmed by it all, and if you have not become overwhelmed yet and are interested in future trends of the publishing business and literacy, start here.

So I thought I’d talk about the issue of living in an age of rapidly-changing technology with mind-boggling choices of receiving and disseminating information and finding entertainment. I’m talking, of course, about the Regency.

Georgian England was known for its high literacy level. There was an audience for reading and paper prices dropped at the end of the eighteenth century; at a guess, it’s because the amount of cotton manufacturing rose, and in an era where everything had its price, there were more rags around to convert into paper. By 1800, every town had its own printing press and there were 250 periodicals in print. Periodicals and newspapers were handed on to other readers an average of seven times per copy.

The first circulating library opened in Bath in 1725; this specifically English phenomenon for the well-heeled, with membership costing about 1 gn., had expanded by 1800 to 122 circulating libraries in London, and 268 in the provinces.Libraries accounted for 400 copies of a book’s average print run of 1,000.

To give an idea of the print life of a best seller of the Georgian era, this book (probably not in the genteel circulating libraries) was first published as a pamphlet between 1710 and 1716, and was in its fourth edition by 1718. Between 1718 and 1788, it had gone through eighteen editions, with the eighth and ninth printings selling more than 12,000 copies in a few months. Each edition grew, with additional salacious material: testimonials, requests for advice, and the author’s response to print rivals and attacks. The fourth edition contained 88 pages; the 15th edition (1730) had quadrupled in size.

This evolving conversation in print clearly struck a chord with the eighteenth-century reading public, an audience that both delighted in the moral instruction and refinement available in The Tatler and The Spectator and made sexy or scandalous fiction like Delarivier Manley’s The New Atalantis (1709) and Love in Excess by Eliza Haywood (1719) early best-sellers–and that continued to read Onania long after popular tastes in fiction changed to favor more refined novels like Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740-1) and Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751). The early eighteenth-century reading audience was one that seemed eager to both read and write back to the literary marketplace, to both absorb and influence the products that marketplace had to offer them. Read more here.


Of course, fiction was suspect from the beginning. It encouraged its audience, predominantly female, to lounge around and daydream, beguiled by narrative seduction. If you weren’t careful, your womenfolk’s experiences might end up as anonymous contributors to the next edition of the bestseller of the 1700s; in 1792, Bon Ton Magazine warned that readers of novels really couldn’t distinguish between reality and fantasy: women of little experience are apt to mistake the urgency of bodily wants with the violence of a delicate passion.

Oliver Goldsmith commented in similar vein: How delusive, how destructive, are those pictures of consummate bliss. They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness which never existed, that despise that little good which fortune has mixed up in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave.

In 1773, The Lady’s Magazine agonized, There is scarce a young lady in the kingdom who has not read with avidity a great number of romances and novels, which tend to vitiate the taste.

A fictional mother in The Lady’s Monthly Museum complained that her daughter reads nothing in the world but novels—nothing but novels, Madam, from morning to night… The maid is generally dispatched to the library two or three times in the day, to change books. One week she will read in the following order: Excessive Sensibility, Refined Delicacy, Disinterested Love, Sentimental Beauty, etc.

It’s particularly appropriate that we discuss the issues of mass literacy and mass market fiction today, because it’s the birthday of George Orwell, one of my literary heroes, a passionate, clear-sighted defender of clarity and good language use. So I’m ending this long and rambling post with Orwell’s six rules for good writing from his essay Politics and the English Language:

  1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
  3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
  4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
  5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
  6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Many questions possible here–do you think, as I do, that we’re a reading audience, to borrow from my quote above, that is eager to both read and write back to the literary marketplace, to both absorb and influence the products that marketplace had to offer them?

If you’re a writer, what do you think of Orwell’s rules?

Do you own an e-reader? How do you feel about it? Do you prefer it to tree products? What do you think of print vs. digital?

Obligatory SSP: Contest on my site. Enter now!

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Everybody Loves to Dance

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I’ve been watching Ovation TV this past week, shows about the Phantom of the Opera (the play not Gerard Butler, alas!), West Side Story, Annie, and A Chorus Line. So I’ve been steeped in music, song and dance.

I’d love to write a Regency Historical about a dancer. The theater performances during the Regency had “ballet dancers” performing and I’d love to make one my heroine. Mostly Regency ballet dancers are mentioned as easy company for gentlemen, but I wonder if any of them had the love of movement and music that I associate with dancers today.

Consider this clip from West Side Story (my favorite sequence). Don’t you think the dancers loved performing this?

Love of dance transcends even ego. Watch mega star Mikail Barishnikov dance the finale of A Chorus Line.

Certainly Regency characters loved dancing and singing as part of their entertainment. This little clip recreates what I imagine might have been the after dinner entertainment at a country house party.

A part of me always wants to break out in a song or dance the way they do in the movies. Unfortunately, I don’t have the talent to pull it off, except in my imagination, but this clip shows it can be done! And romantically, too.

My very favorite is the Liverpool Train Station video. It always makes me smile.

On July 15, after the Literacy Signing, at the Marriot Wardman Park in Washington DC the Beau Monde will be hosting its annual Soiree. We’ll have a chance to dance the Regency dances there! And at the Harlequin party on July 17, I’ll get a chance to dance like they did in Liverpool.

What’s your favorite dance performance, movies or theater? If it is on YouTube, share the url!

P.S. This has nothing to do with dance or song or music, but it is Regency and it made me laugh. I couldn’t resist.

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Hooray For Libraries!

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This week, my local library system announced that the city’s budget will allow for libraries to remain open six days a week. Whew!

One indicator of the current economy has been the massive upswing in library use; people who’ve been laid off are heading to the library for internet and computer access, people aren’t buying books as much, kids need a place to go if their parents’ jobs have changed or their caregiver has had to go to work again.

And, of course, library budgets have been threatened because of the economy.

So when the Brooklyn Public Library asked for donations to help keep the library’s doors opened, I ponied up what I could and crossed my fingers. Where else can I get a steady stream of new books, DVDs and books for my son? Judging by the amount of traffic I see going into my local branch, and by how many people wanted The Reader ahead of me (hurry up, all 327 of you!), I would say the library’s usage is thriving. So I was hoping the membership would also hear the call. And the city’s mayor, not a stupid guy, made sure the library was taken care of in the budget. Again, whew.

The library is a great leveller; people of all ethnicities, age and gender congregate there. And while you might think the one thing they have in common is literacy, that is not always the case; my son and I spent many hours there before he could read.

I know from our books that the library in Regency times offered some of the same services, subscribing to the papers so people didn’t have to pay for an individual subscription, getting the latest ‘horrid novel’ so a young lady needn’t spend her pin money on it.

How about you? How has the economy affected your town or city’s cultural spots? Do you visit the library as often as I seem to? What is your secret library tip (mine is to get cookbooks out of the library first to test-drive the recipes; that way, if you like the book, you can buy, but cookbooks can be super-pricy, and you’re not sure you’ll like until you try)?

Thanks,

Megan

PS: The top pic is the main branch of my library, which is just gorgeous.

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