Winner of a signed copy of Christine Trent’s A Royal Likeness is
……………………………………dlynnpen!
……………………………………dlynnpen!
Dlynnpen, email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your mailing address.
We’ll send it on to Christine.
The Riskies
Dlynnpen, email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your mailing address.
My friend Michelle Butler of the Healthy Writer Blog talks of setting goals for the new year rather than resolutions. Setting goals seems…well…healthier and more achievable than resolutions. I’m afraid most resolutions go the way Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw of Number One London treat them (those veritable slackers!). Resolutions can be broken but, no matter what, we can always strive for a goal.
So here are my goals for 2011
1. Read more.
I was truly in awe of the number of books my fellow Riskies read. I’ll probably never even approach their totals, but my goal is to read more than last year.
2. Write more.
My writing slowed down last year and I want to pick up the pace. My goal is to write at least two books in 2011, preferably 2 1/2.
3. Exercise more.
I’ve slacked off my attendance at Curves and my goal is to attend at least three days a week again.
4. Eat more….fruits and vegetables, that is.
It seems like every Halloween my good eating habits go begging (hee hee) and I dive back into candy again. From there it is just a slippery slope. My goal is to get my eating back to what is healthier for me.
Those are modest, doable goals, aren’t they? These are matters that are under my control, unlike the goal of eliminating poverty or creating peace in our world. I wish I had control over that, but I don’t.
How about you? What are your goals for 2011?
Check out my website for a new contest which should appear today and other news.
Welcome back my friend Christine Trent with her second release, A ROYAL LIKENESS, the sequel to her terrific historical debut, THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER.
“Trent allows readers into a crafts-women’s life to see women at work in a man’s world triumphing to find love and fame, meanwhile interjecting actual personages and historical facts into the story. It’s a great way to learn history.”–RT Book Reviews
“The detail in this story is so mesmerizing both with the wax figures and the battles. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a thrill-seeking adventure with a damsel in distress sort of feel. I can’t wait to see what Christine has in store for us next!”–All Things Historical
Christine will give away a signed copy of A ROYAL LIKENESS to one lucky commenter chosen at random.
Welcome back to Risky Regencies, Christine. Tell us about A ROYAL LIKENESS.
I’m very excited about this sequel to THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER. In the first novel, we leave off with Marguerite Ashby as the heir apparent to the famous Laurent Fashion Dolls business. But when Marguerite’s husband is killed during a riot, the young widow travels to Edinburgh and becomes apprentice to her old friend, Marie Tussaud, who has established a wax exhibition. When Prime Minister William Pitt commissions a 
wax figure of Admiral Nelson, Marguerite becomes immersed in a dangerous adventure – and earns the admiration of two very different men. And as Britain battles to overthrow Napoleon, Marguerite will find her loyalties under fire from all sides.
How easy (or difficult) was it to fit Marguerite’s story to the real historical events?
What made this novel pure joy to write was the way historical events fit so seamlessly into my story. Madame Tussaud started her travels in England in 1802, just three years before Napoleon’s humiliating defeat at Trafalgar, so it was easy to trace Marguerite’s adventures from Tussaud’s arrival on English shores, to Trafalgar, to the continuing intrigues with and against the French and Spanish governments.
What is risky about this book?
I took a risk in A ROYAL LIKENESS by incorporating a great naval battle, Trafalgar, in a way that, I believe, is appealing for the female romantic historical fiction reader. So, of course, although there are cannons exploding, crude surgery being performed, and the stench and filth that accompany every battle, the heroine manages to find romance in the middle of it all!
Did you come across any interesting research while writing this book?
Did I ever! I could have written volumes on the history of waxworking: how wax figures were already being made in ancient times, the success women enjoyed in this field, and how a waxworks exhibition was much like yesterday’s People© magazine. That research led into many other sorts of “sideshow attractions” of the time, such as geggy performances and Phantasmagorias, none of which I knew about before, but which all of you can read about in A ROYAL LIKENESS.
What is next for you?
My next book, tentatively titled THE PRINCE’S PAVILION, about a cloth merchant named Annabelle Stirling, should be released in early 2012. Thanks to her patron and great architect, John Nash, Belle Stirling is a rising star in the homes of London’s fashionable elite. Even the prince regent wants her elegant, high quality fabrics used in the decoration of his new palace, Brighton Pavilion. But when those closest to her conspire against Parliament, she risks losing her reputation, her business. . .and even her life.
I hope readers will be as fascinated as I was by details of early 19th century cloth manufacture, the Luddite riots, and other conspiracies of Regency England.
My fourth novel will be encompass another unusual profession, this time a dark and mysterious one set in Victorian England. And that’s all the detail I’m giving for now!
That’s enough to intrigue me!
Ask Christine anything about A ROYAL LIKENESS. Do you like lots of historical fact in your fiction? Let Christine know. Comment for a chance to win a copy of A ROYAL LIKENESS.
I hope you all enjoyed your New Year’s, whether you got out or like me, did the cocoon thing. My family and I always celebrate by cooking together and trying new recipes. Last night it was shrimp and pancetta over pasta for dinner, with mint chocolate mousse for dessert. Yum!
I feel very grateful for the changes that came in 2010. My husband continues to recover from his stroke and I have found more time to take care of myself. This summer, I started swimming again. I also started going to Buddhist meditation classes. I am not a good meditator—some days my mind is still like that proverbial barrel of monkeys on crack!—but just trying seems to be helpful. My family seem determined not to let me miss any classes… maybe they’re trying to tell me something. 🙂
I am most grateful that I’ve been able to get back to writing this fall. I even finished something! I’ll tell more if it goes somewhere, but even if it doesn’t, it was a blast and helped me feel like a writer again.
So I have no formal resolutions for 2011 other than to continue to take care of everyone (including myself) and to keep writing!
How was your New Year’s celebration? Is there anything about 2010 you are particularly grateful for? Something to look forward to in 2011?
Wishing you all the best in 2011,
Elena