Hello everyone! First a bit of good news–Countess of Scandal is finally available in ebook. Check it out here!

A couple months ago, my day job was the victim of budget cuts, and since then I’ve been living the life of the Stay At Home Author. How is that, you ask? Well, terribly glam of course. I wear evening gowns all day and lounge around on my Victorian chaise eating raspberry truffles from Belgium while my secretaries jot down my story ideas. Not. (Except the truffle part. Except usually they’re Fun Size Kit Kats). It’s not bad, though. I get to slob around in my pajamas until long after lunch.

So let’s take a look at a typical day in the life of an author! Say, it’s Thursday:

1) Wake up because dogs are yelling to be fed. Was having a lovely dream of walking on a Greek beach with Javier Bardem, but now that’s gone. Stumble around making tea and putting Kibbles in bowls. Eat a yogurt and a Kit Kat while reading email, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon rankings, Go Fug Yourself, and Cake Wrecks, plus doing some Very Important Research at ShirtlessActors.com. (Please note–this is sadly not a real place, as far as I know. But I do often Google “Richard Armitage shirtless” or “James McAvoy shirtless” to see if something new pops up…)

2) An hour is gone??? How did that happen? Must get the day’s page quota done. I’m working on Laurel McKee’s third book Lady of Seduction (June 2011!) and have about 80 pages or so left to go, plus fill-ins and revisions, with only (gulp!) less than a month to do it. Write one page, wonder if I should check my email to see if something Terribly Important has come up in the last 20 minutes. There hasn’t. Back to the book.

3) Lunchtime! A healthy chicken and greens pita–and a Kit Kat. Or two. Email, shower, dogs walked, real clothes put on (or at least yoga pants and a tee shirt). Should I wrote some more–or watch General Hospital?

4) Laundry and research on next book (an Elizabethan theater story with a sexy Renaissance actor/playwright/spy hero. Must Google “Henry Cavill shirtless” for inspiration). Fiddle around with YA idea. Eat a Kit Kat.

5) Now, should I go to yoga class or watch Oprah? Sadly realize if I really want to fit into my RWA conference clothes in July I must go to yoga, even if Nate is doing a kitchen remodel today…

6) My triangle pose is pitifully sloppy. Stop at China King for takeaway dinner on the way home from yoga. Keeping those RWA dresses in mind get steamed shrimp and snow peas instead of lemon chicken and egg roll. Followed by Kit Kats. Can’t understand why dress won’t fasten all the way up the back. Those are “Fun Size” Kit Kats! They’re tiny!

7) Feed dogs their dinner, think about writing more, watch Vampire Diaries instead (I do like “intense, tortured Stefan” a lot!). Call mother back. Make plans with friends for weekend. Read part of a novel. Eat a Kit Kat. Day Over.

See, I told you! Wild glamour all the time. What is your typical day like? What’s your favorite “fun size” candy bar?

And now a very important question for everyone. I desperately need a title for the Elizabethan theater story (it seems Shakespeare in Love is already taken, and the story isn’t about Shakespeare anyway!). Any ideas???

The winner of Amanda’s giveaway is—Kim in Hawaii! Congratulations! Please send us your snail mail address at Riskies AT yahoo.com

I’m so excited this month (June) to see the launch of the last volume of “The Muses of Mayfair” trilogy–To Kiss a Count! It’s been quite a whirlwind trip with the Chase sisters and their gorgeous heroes, and I’m happy to see them all settled with their HEAs–though I’ll also miss them a lot. I had a lot of fun in their Regency world, and maybe one day I’ll be able to re-visit them and see how they’re faring. To celebrate today, I have a prize for one lucky commenter– a signed copy of To Kiss a Count, plus a copy of Maggie Lane’s A City of Palaces: Bath Through the Eyes of Fanny Burney (I found two copies of this on my shelf when I cleaned out my books this winter!).

To Kiss a Count is the story of Thalia Chase, the third of the Muses, and what happens when she’s reunited with the dark, dimpled, charming–and mysterious–Marco, Count di Fabrizzi. Thalia is the most beautiful of the sisters (the heroine on the cover actually looks very much as I pictured her while writing the book! Marco–not so much. My Marco was Rodrigo Santoro!). She’s also the most musical and artistically talented. But being the youngest, her older sisters tended to protect and cossett her, keeping her away from their adventures when all she wanted was to help them and do her part as Chase Muse. Clio finally realized this at the end of To Deceive a Duke and utilized Thalia’s talent as an actress to catch a villain (almost). When Thalia met Marco in that story, she certainly got more adventure than she bargained for! And she also fell in love with him. But they had to part, and she returned to England to try and mend her heart. But fate isn’t done with Thalia and Marco just yet.

Thalia journeys to Bath with her eldest sister Calliope (from To Catch a Rogue). Cal is recovering from the difficult birth of her daughter Psyche and goes to Bath to rest and take the waters. Thalia wants to help her with the baby, as well as find some fun distractions from her memories of the excitement of Sicily. Then Marco appears in the Pump Room–with the villainess Lady Riverton on his arm! (Lady Riverton also appeared in To Deceive a Duke…) Thalia knows things are not what they seem–and she won’t rest until she finds out what’s going on. She and Marco have to unite to save the ancient silver hoard while they try not to fall even more in love. But of course that is impossible!

I loved writing this story, especially since it’s set in the gorgeous city of Bath. By the time of this story, Bath was a bit past its prime, but it seemed like the perfect place for these scholars of antiquities, with its rich Roman and medieval history. (It also has some secret spots in the hills and caves just right for hiding contraband–and having secret trysts!). The museum of antiquities Thalia and Marco visit is my own invention (though the objects they look at are based on some found in the Roman Baths museum), but I used many real sites as well–the Pump Room, the Assembly Rooms, the Theatre Royal, Sydney Gardens, and Mollands pastry shop. One of the most fun research books I came across was Walks Through Bath by Pierce Egan, published in 1819, which gave me some fun tidbits to use in the story. For instance:

“Upon gala-nights (in Sydney Gardens) the music, singing, cascades, transparencies, fire-works, and superb illuminations, render these gardens very similar to Vauxhall. The Orchestra is close to the back of the Tavern, neatly arranged and elevated, with a large open space before it well-gravelled…The walks are all well rolled and gravelled; and seats and places for refreshment are to be met with in various places of the gardens. There are also several swings, adapted for the ladies, and others for gentlemen.”

There are also great descriptions of the Labyrinth (which Thalia and Marco walk through), which “might puzzle any cunning person if left to himself and without a clue, for six hours.”

(At the end of this post I’ll list a few sources I enjoyed for Bath! I’m working on an article about the history of the city, and one about the history of the Italian independence movement which Marco is a part of, for my own website. Thanks to the Deadline From Hell, finally nearing its end, I’m behind on that. But be sure and visit anyway for a chance to win the whole trilogy and a gorgeous Muse pendant from Tartx! Only a few days left on this contest…)

And that concludes my Springtime of Muses! What are some of your favorite Regency settings (Bath, London, country estates, Waterloo)? Have you visited Bath–what’s your favorite site there? And which Muse would you want to be yourself?

Some Bath sources (and one Italian!):

George Holmes, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy
Joyce Reynolds & Terence Volk, The History of Sulis Minerva at Bath
Maggie Lane, A City of Palaces and A Charming Place: Bath in the Life and Novels of Jane Austen
Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath
RS Neale, Bath 1680-1850, A Social History
William Lowndes, The Theatre Royal at Bath
Guidebooks for the Museum of Costume and Assembly Rooms, Number One Royal Crescent, and the Pump Room

Deadline! Deadline! My brain hurts, can’t think. So let’s just look at some pretty dresses. That always makes me feel better. (These are just some random images from my “Fashion” folder. What time periods do you think they are? What are you own favorite historical periods for fashions? If you could have one of these, which would it be?)

And next week I’ll have more to say as I launch the last of my “Muses” trilogy, To Kiss a Count, and give away a copy! And there’s still a few days left to enter my website contest–the trilogy plus a gorgeous Muse pendant from Tartx…

So, I’ve been a bit crazed the last few days with a Looming Deadline (3 weeks away, ack!) plus a weekend full of holidays and parties (Mother’s Day, graduations, etc) and I had no idea what to write about today. So I did a search to find out what sorts of fun things happened on this day in history. I discovered that Italian ballerina Fanny Cerrito was born on this day in 1817 (she was a prima ballerina at La Scala and one of the pioneers of dancing en pointe. She also lived a very long life, until 1909, and was able to see the Ballet Russes perform). I also found a factoid that said the waltz was introduced in England on this day in 1812. I could find no confirmation of this, which seems a bit suspect. How could they know what day that happened?? And it seems like it would have been a bit earlier, though I’m not sure. Still, it’s fun.

I’ve been thinking about dancing a lot lately. I started a new part-time job, teaching a ballet class for 5-year-olds on Saturdays. Right now I’m helping them get ready for their recital in June (it’s an “Alice in Wonderland” theme, and this class is going to play the pack of cards in little white tutus printed with card faces. SO Cute!), but then I’ll teach a smaller class for the summer, for students who are “more serious” and don’t want to lose a couple months of lessons. So far so good. The first day I thought those 5-year-olds were going to kick my butt–I have never seen so much energy in one room before, all bundled up in adorable black leotards, pink slippers, and hairbows. They’re extremely enthusiastic in their plie-ing and jete-ing and can do a mean fifth position. But we’ve come to an understanding now, and I’m having lots of fun with my tiny Pavlovas. We may have to have a Regency “waltzing party”!

And I pulled a few books off the shelf to try and find more about the history of the waltz. (Gerald Jonas, Dancing; Richard Stephenson, The Complete Book of Ballroom Dancing; and Boyd Hilton, A Mad Bad and Dangerous People: England 1783-1846 were very helpful). It seems Montaigne wrote in 1580 of a dance he saw in Augsburg where the dancers held each other so closely their faces touched, and in the same period a man named Kunz Haas wrote “Now they are dancing the godless Weller or Spinner, whatever they call it”–seemingly a vigorous peasant dance.

By the late 17th century, ladies at the royal Court in Vienna were spun around the room to the tune of a 2-beat measure, which grew into the 3/4 time of the so-called Nach Tanz (“after dance”) and moved with a gliding step. Meanwhile the peasants enjoyed dancing something called a Walzer, which came to notice around 1750. Another country dance, the Landler (which can be seen in The Sound of Music!) spread from the countryside of Austria and Bavaria and into the towns and cities. The hopping motion of the Landler developed into a graceful sliding step, with a gliding rotation replacing the stamping rotation of the folk dance. It was said that while the nobility at Court still mostly danced their staid minuets, many of them were sneaking off to dance at their servants’ parties! (18th century Dirty Dancing??)

In the 1770s, a visitor to Vienna named Don Curzio wrote, “The people were dancing mad! The ladies of Vienna are particularly celebrated for their grace and movements of waltzing of which they never tire.” Deeply shocking when first introduced (the couples faced each other! And touched more than just a hand!), the waltz was all the fashion in Vienna by the 1780s and spread across Europe. In England, it was still considered “riotous and indecent” in 1825! (It’s a good thing they never went to a tango party!). Young ladies did not waltz without express permission. The scandalous Caro Lamb was especially fond of having “waltzing parties” in her drawing room, which should tell us something. But the waltz is now the precursor to many of the ballroom dances we know today (like quickstep, foxtrot, etc). Of course, the waltz of the early 19th century looked quite different from what we see on Dancing With the Stars (as you can see from the YouTube video below, which I so much enjoyed watching!)

What are your favorite dances (or dancers)?? Any good dance recital stories? (It seems when I was about 3 and in my very first performance, I brought the ballet to a screeching halt by sitting down onstage in my tutu to examine some confetti. I have no memory of this and deny it). What are you up to this Tuesday?