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Monthly Archives: November 2011

This week, the ebook edition of The Incorrigible Lady Catherine, the first of my “Three Disgraces” series, went live.

Catherine is the most flawed heroine I’ve written so far and she’s drawn a lot of mixed reactions. In any case, readers have loved the hero, Philip. He’s been described as the perfect Beta hero. The way I see it, he’s a strong man to deal with a mess like Catherine.

This is a story about healing and since I often seek healing in nature, I decided to set it in one of the most beautiful places I visited in the UK: the English Lake District, near Ullswater, where Wordsworth was inspired to write his famous poem about the daffodils. My husband and I paddled around it in a canoe, enjoying the play of light and shadow cast by scudding clouds over the hillsides, until rain forced us back to shore.

We also hiked to see Aira Force, a waterfall that the characters visit in the story and that is featured on the new cover.

Below is a picture of Castlerigg Stone Circle. Since I have this fascination with “old rocks”, I invented a similar fictional stone circle and set it on Philip’s lands.

I’ve set other stories in Kent and Sussex (where I lived during my assignment). I’ve also used the Cotswolds and Cornwall. I have a story in the idea file that would feature the North York Moors.

What are some of your favorite places, in the UK or elsewhere? Where would you like to see more stories set?

I’ll be giving away 5 Kindle copies of The Incorrigible Lady Catherine to commenters chosen at random. If you win, you can also nominate a friend to receive a free copy. Void where prohibited. You must be over 18. No purchase necessary. Post your comment by midnight EST on December 2. I will post an announcement on Saturday, December 3, so please check back to see if you have won.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene


A recently-widowed woman, who was in love with her much older husband, meets her husband’s relative, a notorious rake who is currently embroiled in a paternity lawsuit and is basically co-habitating with his married mistress.

The hero and heroine–the widow and the rake–don’t kiss until the book is way more than three-quarters done, don’t have sex until the last fragment of the book, and he receives a certain type of attention from his mistress more than halfway through the book.

Sounds risky, right? Like a self-published book that was self-pubbed because the author couldn’t find a home for it in traditional publishing?

It does sound like it–but it’s Judith Ivory’s Black Silk, published by Berkley in 1991, and republished in 2002.

I read Black Silk way back when I first returned to romance, and I know I liked it at the time, but I’m not sure I appreciated it as fully as I should have. I never, ever re-read, so this was a big deal for me to pick up again–but I knew I was in the mood for something perilously close to literary fiction, but with a happy ending, and I knew Ivory, especially her early books, would suit. Plus it had been so long my memory was hazy with what exactly had happened during the course of the book. I just knew I liked it.

At the end, when Graham finds Submit (yes–that’s the heroine’s name) and bares his soul, the language is practically elegaic:

“I love soft saddles and mean horses and bright, booming fireworks that end in a rain of sparkling ash. I would love to roll around on the floor with all of these, touching them with the most sensitive parts of my body. But the truth is, none of them are really as good for fucking as the woman I love. And you’re it.”

Later on, she’s trying to pull away from him–after that declaration, even!–and he says,

“Submit, listen to me. There are probably good reasons why we shouldn’t be together. But the overriding fact is I love you, and you love me–you need me. I can keep your life form becoming hopelessly earthbound. And I need you, as sure as leaps in the air need gravity.”

Whoa. Who could resist that? I couldn’t–and luckily for our Happy Ending, neither can Submit. Black Silk is a rarity, a risk-taking book that succeeds in what it attempts, a literary fiction book masquerading as a romance, a delicious tour de force from an immensely-talented hand.

Besides our books, what books have taken risks that you’ve loved?

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Here are my guidelines for a successful Thanksgiving gathering:

  • Eat too much
  • Don’t eat too much
  • Try a bit of everything
  • Ignore the nephew who eats with his mouth open
  • When you go around the table sharing what you’re thankful for, don’t say “Prozac”
  • Tolerate Uncle Ted’s stories about body parts you’d rather not hear about
  • Smile nicely at the rabid vegan niece who wants to educate everyone about the realities of turkey farming
  • If asked when you’ll write a real book, respond “When will you?”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and for those who don’t celebrate the day, remember the weekend is almost upon us.

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This is Thanksgiving week and a time to be thinking of all the things for which we are grateful. I’ve had many blessings in my life. Family and friends are chief among them. I thought it would be fun to look at some “Regency” things that make me grateful.

Thank you for…..

1. Jane Austen.
Without Jane and her wonderful books would this time period be thought of as a setting for romantic historical fiction?
2. Georgette Heyer.
Heyer made the time period come alive. For Jane, the Regency (or late Georgian era, to be specific) was contemporary and it would not have occurred to her to make it part of the appeal of her books. Heyer, writing later, embraced the era and made it come alive with great wit and cleverness.
3. The Drama.
The few short years of the Regency were filled with drama, the fodder of a novelist. With a mad king, a frivolous Prince Regent, social unrest, a war with Napoleon, and even dramatic weather (the year without a summer in 1816; the last Frost Fair in 1814), few eras could compete.

4. The People.
Think of all the larger than life figures who inhabited the Regency: The Duke of Wellington, still revered as a national hero (and by me… and Kristine Hughes). The Prince Regent, almost the polar opposite of Wellington. Lord Sidmouth, the force behind the repression of social protest, Lord Castlereagh, Foreign Secretary who, at the Congress of Vienna, brought peace and order to Europe and who tragically killed himself. Literary people, like Austen, naughty Byron, Shelley, Keats, Sir Walter Scott. Personalities like Harriette Wilson and Beau Brummell. The list goes on.

5. The Beauty.
Beautiful fashions for women, starting in the late Georgian era, stopping short of the excesses of the Victorian era. Beautiful settings – Country houses, Mayfair, the Pavilion in Brighton. Romantic modes of transportation – elegant carriages pulled by matched sets of horses, racy phaetons and gigs, riding horses, ships.
I’ll stop here, although, if I took a little more time, I could probably think of more. I am very thankful that I can “live” in the Regency every day in my writing. I’m thankful that my success has afforded me the ability to keep on writing Regency romance. I’m grateful for those wonderful, loyal readers who still love books set in the Regency. You’ll see more books from me!
Here’s something for which YOU can be grateful! The Harlequin Historical Authors are again hosting a Holiday Contest. In the spirit of an Advent Calendar, there will be daily prizes and a grand prize of a Kindle Fire! More on that next week….
In the meantime, what about the Regency are you most grateful for?
And Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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I ran across The Fossil Hunter by Shelley Emling at the Museum of the Earth. I couldn’t resist a book that brought together two unlikely loves of mine—dinosaurs and the Regency.

As children, my brother and I decided we were going to be a brother-and-sister paleontologist team. We read voraciously. We loved going to natural history museums, browsing the gift shops for dinosaur models and making a whole paper mache world for them to inhabit. Even though I eventually moved on to other interests, I haven’t quite lost that fascination with dinosaurs. I’ve seen all the Jurassic Park movies. Although the sequels were nowhere near as good as the first, the kid in me still enjoyed the dinosaurs.

I always thought it was cool that a brother and sister, Mary and Joseph Anning, were the first to discover a fossil ichthyosaur, in 1811. But not until I read this book did I realize that Mary Anning went on to make many other important discoveries, including the first plesiosaurs, prehistoric fish and the first pterodactyl found outside of Germany. The image below, Duria Antiquior, is a watercolor by Mary’s friend, the geologist Henry De La Beche, depicting the creatures she discovered.

Mary was born into a poor, Dissenting family. Despite the dangers (she was almost killed in a landslide that killed her dog Tray) she sought shells and fossils in the Blue Lias cliffs near Lyme Regis, selling her finds to help support her family. But she clearly brought a passion to her business. She had a keen, inquisitive mind and read as widely as she could. She was skilled at reconstructing her fossils and making accurate sketches of them. She worked with some of the most influential geologists of the time, sometimes guiding them on fossil hunting tours and selling them specimens. Nevertheless, she was not always given credit for her contributions.

Her friend Anna Maria Pinney wrote:

“Men of learning have sucked her brains, and made a great deal by publishing works, of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none of the advantages. She says she stands still and the world flows by her in a stream, that she likes observing it and discovering the different characters which compose it. But in discovering these characters, she takes most violent likes and dislikes. Associating and being courted by those above her, she frankly owns that the society of her own rank has become distasteful to her, but yet she is very kind and good to all her own relations, and what money she gets by collecting fossils, gives to them or to anyone else that wants it.”

Her finds, as well as other new discoveries of land dinosaurs around the same time, led to much controversy. Many geologists of the time were men of the cloth and deeply religious. Although some were moving away from a literal interpretation of the Bible and saw Genesis as an allegory for events that in reality took longer to unfold, they still strove to reconcile science with their faith.

Many sought geological clues to support a worldwide flood. At that time, the concept of extinction was controversial, for Noah was supposed to have saved all the animals. Some wondered if the dinosaurs perished in the flood. Others speculated that dinosaurs might still exist in remote, unexplored parts of the world. Another problem was how man could have coexisted with such creatures. If not, why would God create a world that for a long time was dominated by fearsome reptiles?

However, even when the goal was to reconcile science with the Bible, new discoveries were made. These sparked new ideas and helped to lay the groundwork for Darwin to develop his theory of evolution. And Mary Anning contributed greatly to this process.

She struggled financially for much of her life and became ill in 1846. Some of her geologist friends created a fund to help her, but sadly she succumbed to breast cancer the next year, at the age of 47. There is an exhibit on Mary Anning at the Philpot Museum in Lyme Regis and discoveries are still being made on the beaches of Lyme Regis, part of a 95-mile stretch of shoreline called the Jurassic Coast.

I recommend this book. Mary’s life makes for interesting reading and there are so many interesting insights into the history of scientific thought, the role of women, along with glimpses of what life was like in Lyme Regis during the Regency and after. It makes me want to go hunt some fossils myself.

Anyone else into paleontology? Did you know about Mary Anning? Did you know she inspired writer Terry Sullivan to compose the following tongue-twister?

She sells seashells on the seashore
The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure
So if she sells seashells on the seashore
Then I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

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