First of all–Winners!  Always a great way to start a Tuesday.

The winner of Helen Dickson’s The Housemaid’s Scandalous Secret is–RegencyGirl01!  Please send us your contact info at Riskies AT yahoo.com

And the winner of my ARC of Two Sinful Secrets is…Diane D–Florida!  Look in your email box for more info.

Thanks to everyone for visiting and reading!

This weekend, I went to a Civil War battle reenactment in Kansas.  I LOVE geeky things like that, especially when it’s a beautiful sunny day and lots of great people to talk to.  (I sat next to a kid who was about 10 or 11–he was wearing a full Confederate uniform, despite the mid-80s temps, and knew everything about the battle, so he was able to tell me all the strategic moves, the retreats and surges, all sorts of things).  There was also great shopping.

One of the things I bought was a little book called The Dancer’s Casket: Or the Ballroom Instructor: A New and Splendid Work on Dancing, Etiquette, Deportment, and the Toilet, originally published in 1858.  Besides detailing dance steps, it gives excellent advice like this (after telling us that with certain lively dances, like a quadrille, it’s best to dance with friends):

“…frequently…a gentleman must dance vis-a-vis to a lady with whom he is not at all acquainted, he must not expect the lady to treat him as a friend, with pleasant smiles or even with looks directed towards him; for the etiquette of society is somewhat too scrupulous to admit of this familiarity.  This prevailing etiquette is in direct opposition to the spirit of the dance, which is that of sociality and interchange of kind feelings.  Many persons, however, exhibit extreme lack of taste and ill manners in treating even friends with averted looks, assuming pompous airs and indifferent expression…”

I do hope that this blog gives a feeling of sociality and interchange of kind feelings!!! 

In the meantime, I am finishing writing one book and starting another, and making some progress on wedding plans, as well as practicing my quadrille.  What are you doing this week???