The fashionista winner of To Catch a Rogue is: Jane Austen! Please send us your snail mail address at riskies@yahoo.com…
The fashionista winner of To Catch a Rogue is: Jane Austen! Please send us your snail mail address at riskies@yahoo.com…
I’m so excited this week to show off the cover for my November Harlequin release, The Winter Queen! It features the new (subtle) branding of Harlequin Historicals, and I love the beautiful colors, the Christmas-y look, and the way it suits the story inside the cover so well. It takes place at the Court of Elizabeth I at Christmastime 1564, the winter that was cold the Thames froze through and there was a frost fair to distract everyone from the bitter cold. There’s nothing more glamorous–or dangerous–than a Renaissance Christmas! (My website has also been updated to include an excerpt and some historical research tidbits, as well as Elizabethan holiday recipes–if you decide to try them, let me know how that turns out. I’m not brave enough…)
I also have two releases in September! The first is actually a re-release, a “two books in one volume” of 2 of my old Regency titles from Signet. Spirited Brides is the perfect book for Halloween (hey, with Christmas and Halloween we have lots of holidays covered!). One Touch of Magic and A Loving Spirit are Regency romances with a touch of ghostly paranormal–I’ll be talking more about this next week, though I’ve heard it’s been glimpsed on bookstore shelves already. It’s also on Amazon.
And the third book in my “Muses of Mayfair” trilogy is out in the UK! To Kiss a Count is Thalia Chase’s story, and is set in Bath. These books will be out in the US in 2010 in April, May, and June, but if you can’t wait they can be ordered from Amazon UK or from the Mills & Boon website! In other news, the opposite is happening with my “Renaissance Trilogy” (A Notorious Woman, A Sinful Alliance, High Seas Stowaway), which has already been out in the US. In 2010 (February, April, and June) they will be out in the UK via Mills & Boons’ “Super Historical” line, which means there will be lots of extra content, historical notes, and, as a bonus, the “Undone” short story Shipwrecked and Seduced! I am sooooo excited to see these books out again!
And, on a totally (somewhat) unrelated note, I read an article last week about the niche-ification of TV. (Sorry no link–I can’t actually recall where I read it! But the concept has stuck with me). What the author meant by this was that no longer is there really one Must See show or moment that absolutely everyone watches and talks about. (Like “Who Shot JR?” or Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital, or the finale of MASH). With the advent of cable and DVDs, there is something out there for everyone, and audiences for certain shows become much more specific. My own favorite shows, Mad Men, True Blood, and Gossip Girl, could be examples of this. They’re all highly buzzed-about, yet in the cases of MM and GG their actual ratings are far out of proportion to the talk. (The Season 3 premier of MM had about 2.8 million viewers; twice as many watched a re-run of How I Met Your Mother). It’s true these are not shows for everyone; they are very character-driven, and Mad Men expecially has very complex, slowly developing plots and themes. They require a certain dedication. But they inspire immense passion in the people who love them, far more than a bigger ratings hit like CSI seems to.
Anyway, the point of this is, I started wondering if this could also be said of books. Romance novels boast so many sub-genres now, far more than when I started reading them (not that I was aware of sub-genre at all back then–to me a romance was a romance, not necessarily a traditional Regency or Regency historical, contemporary comedy or romantic suspense). There are funny books; dark books; many, many kinds of paranormals (vamps, demons, dragons, urban fantasy, etc); “chick lit” in the big city, and cozy stories in small towns where people knit. Books for every reader, which is absolutely wonderful. But does it mean there are no Must Read books, no one big show everyone should know about?
What do you think? And what’s your “niche”?
Last month at RWA in Washington DC, the Riskies went to the Sirius studios to record a roundtable discussion of the blog and our books! It was tons of fun, and now you can listen in on Sirius 117 or XM 163.
Wednesday, August 26 at 9pmE/6pmW
Friday, August 28 at 8 amE/5amW
Saturday, August 29 at 7 pmE/4 pmW
One of the period books in my possession is the one noted below. I found it in an antique store that had quite a nice collection of old books. Really, really old books. True antiquarian books. If I’d had $3,000 I could have bought a breathtaking book of Dutch maps from circa 1650. Some of the maps folded out to a very large size and I suspect the book was worth far more than $3,000 since all the pages were intact. But it might as well have been a million bucks.
For $1,500 I could have bought a handmade, hand printed, hand illustrated Italian prayer book, bound in velvet, from 1400 or so. It was lovely and obviously once the private possession of a literate and wealthy Italian.
My book below was among these treasures and was completely affordable, too. For some reason.
The New
Family Receipt Book
containing eight hundred
Truly Valuable Receipts
to various Branches of
Domestic Economy
selected from
the works of British and Foreign writers of unquestionable experience and authority.
and from
the attested communications of scientific friends.
The title page also contains a poem:
“What lookest thou?
Good Lessons For Thee, and Thy Wife?
Then keep them in memory fast,
to help as a comfort to life”Tusser
Mine is a new edition, corrected. Printed in London, 1815.
I try not to handle it too much, thought at times it’s irresistible.
Apparently, lawyerese has been around for a long time. There’s a chapter titled HEALTH which comes with this warning:
[The following Chapter will be found to contain some receipts which perhaps may appear to infringe on the medical profession. It should however be understood, that only such popular articles are here introduced, as may, in ordinary cases, afford help or mitigation, until medical aid can be obtained; and also in such cases as require instantaneous assistance.]
The very first receipt in this section is:
540. Avoid, as much as possible, living near Church Yards.
The putrid emanations arising from church yards, are very dangerous ; and parish churches, in which many corpses are interred, become impregnated with an air so corrupted, especially in spring, when the ground begins to grow warm, that it is prudent to avoid this evil as much as possible, as it may be, and, in some cases, has been, one of the chief sources of putrid fevers which are so prevalent at that season.
I particularly like this quote because of the putrid emanations, the impregnation and the warning to avoid evil. Why, you can practically hear the subtext rising from its moldy grave. Do I need to say the word?
I do?
OK!
Zombies
The whole warning about fevers is a big old (dead) red herring, though, actually, it does sound like good advice. But trust me, if you’re hanging out by the parish church yard in spring, fevers are the least of your problems.
Right about now, you’re probably saying to yourself, Carolyn has gone a bit far afield with this post. Under normal circumstances you’d be correct. But I’m just working up to my challenge.
You’ll notice how I included the entire title of the book. Plus the poem.
dun dun duuunnnnn
If you were living in 1815 and you decided to write a book full of warnings about supernatural creatures without resorting to subterfuge and indirection, what would the full title be?
Here’s my rough effort:
The New Family Survival Book
containing One Thousand and One
Truly Valuable Receipts
for various Branches of Supernatural, Paranormal and Other
Minions of Evil
selected from
the works of British and Foreign writers of unquestionable experience and authority.
and from
the attested communications of scientific friends.
As a bonus, I’m throwing in a poem.
Don’t lookest there!
Good Lessons For Thee, Thy Wife
and thy immortal soul.
(if you didn’t accidentally sell it to a demon1)
Keep these in memory fast,
to help as a comfort to life
With garlic, holy water and
some nice sharp stakes.
Jewel
1. See Receipt No. 897.
So, what’s your title? Or your poem. Either would be pretty awesome. If I’m allowed, I’ll think of a prize. Maybe a Risky Regency Minion of Evil badge or something.
God, I hope I’m not in trouble for this. I think this may be worse than blood fuckers.
I am the absolute worst at memes which strike me as
So, at the same time I think wow, that would be fun to list [Insert Meme here] I also think all six of my friends will HATE me for dumping this time suck on them. So I end up never doing them because of the requirement of forcing innocents to participate and also never having the required number of vict… er…. friends.
But I got to thinking that lists are kind of fun. So, herewith, my highly personalized list of Historical Novels I Liked A Lot. You’ll probably notice that some of my choices were not historical when they were written. It’s my list so I can do that. Also, because it’s my list, I get to include books that maybe aren’t considered literature.
I know there’s more, but that’s my beginning list.
And since I said you can play too, what are yours? Do your own blog post or opine in the comments or both.