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Monthly Archives: September 2012

All about the Baltimore Book Festival

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Baltimore is a strange, quirky sort of city. It’s the birthplace of Betsy Bonaparte who married Napoleon’s brother Jerome. Napoleon was not amused. Poor Betsy never got a crack at being a European bigwig though her extremely French ooh la la fashion sense appalled the fashionable set of Washington. I blogged about it here.

Baltimore brought us the Star Spangled Banner (which I blogged about very recently), Edgar Allen Poe, John Waters, the endearment hon (pronounced in the very odd regional accent), The Wire, and many other strange and wonderful things. And every year it brings the Baltimore Book Festival and I’ll be talking and reading there tomorrow on the Maryland Romance Writers’ Stage. It’s a huge three-day event which takes place in the Mount Vernon district. Lots and lots of books, beer, writers, kids’ activities, readings, food, and many good things.

I’ll be on panels talking about vamps, erotic romance, and keeping the history in historical fiction. We have some terrific guests including local writers like Stephanie Draven, Laura Kaye, and Christie Kelley. My out of town friend Miranda Neville will be there with me tomorrow and my other buddy Pam Rosenthal will talk on Saturday evening. We’ll all read from our books which you’ll be able to buy on the spot courtesy of Ukazoo Books (Baltimore is also rich in indy book stores).

There will also be drawings and giveaways and a bunch of us who are talking about vampires on Friday are doing a gift basket that has various treasures packed into a True Blood lunch bag (I think it would put me off my lunch, but there you go)–books, chocolate, jewelry, and one of my Austen mugs. I hate being involved in chocolate-heavy events. I just know I’m going to absent mindedly eat it.

So if you’re in spitting distance of Charm City, please visit the Baltimore Book Festival. You’ll have a lot of fun.

If you had to plan a book festival, who would you invite?

 

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I believe an introduction is in order…

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Greetings! I’m Susanna Fraser, and Elena Greene was kind enough to invite me to be a guest poster here with the Riskies on the third Friday of every month. So I suppose I should begin by telling y’all a little about myself.

It’s all Sean Bean’s fault.

Eleven years ago now, when I was busy writing my first, extremely rough draft of the book that eventually became my second published novel, A Marriage of Inconvenience, my dear Mr. Fraser and I went to see Fellowship of the Ring on its opening weekend at Seattle Cinerama. I loved everything about the movie, but above all I just couldn’t take my eyes off one character.

When I got home, I went straight to the Buffy board that was then my main internet community and said, “WHO is that actor who plays Boromir?”

One of my friends, knowing I was working on a Regency romance, said, “Oh, honey, are you ever in for a treat!” and pointed me straight at the Sharpe’s Rifles series. So I rented them, one by one–I think most of them were videotapes rather than DVDs, since this was Ye Olden Days. Once that was done, I read the Sharpe books and the Aubrey-Maturin series, and, as is my custom since I’m that much of a history geek, decided I needed to learn more about the real history behind my new favorite books.

I haven’t looked back. Every book I’ve written since has had a military hero, and for the second book I wrote (and the first to be published), The Sergeant’s Lady, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make my hero a rifleman. Next thing I knew, my research bookshelves started to look like this…

…and I found myself developing something of a historical crush on this gentleman:

That’s right, Diane Gaston and Kristine Hughes! Consider yourself put on notice that I will not allow you to monopolize my dear Artie’s affections.

I look forward to future posts, when I shall probably talk food, music, football, baseball, and my next book, among other things. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with some Five Favorites lists. Please feel free to share your favorites in the comments so I can get to know you, too.

My Five Favorite Current TV Shows:
1) The Legend of Korra
2) Castle
3) Game of Thrones
4) The Daily Show
5) Chopped

My Five Favorite Romances Read (but not necessarily published) This Year
1) Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (not out till November, but I bought the eARC)
2) Catching Jordan
3) Doukakis’s Apprentice
4) The Wives of Bowie Stone
5) My Fair Concubine

Five Authors I Love
1) Jane Austen
2) Lois McMaster Bujold
3) Dorothy Sayers
4) Julia Spencer-Fleming
5) Jacqueline Carey

Five Fictional Crushes
1) Aral Vorkosigan (from Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga)
2) Lord Peter Wimsey (from Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries)
3) Marcus Didius Falco (from Lindsey Davis’s mysteries)
4) Joscelin Verreuil (from Carey’s Kushiel series)
5) Tenzin (from Legend of Korra)

Finally, a warning that I may be a little slow on commenting. I have a day job with little non-work internet access, and my dear Mr. Fraser turns 40 tomorrow. Tonight Miss Fraser (age 8) and I are taking him to a Mariners game, and tomorrow is his party.

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Cosmetics – Regency Style

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This past weekend I spent some time thinking about cosmetics. I’m about out of my skin care products and make-up and so I have decisions to make.

Years ago I used Merle Norman cosmetics exclusively, both skin care products and make-up, but the store where I purchased them closed and I thought the company went out of business. But I found one in Georgia a couple of years ago, then looked on the internet and found a shop near me. So my last purchase was from Merle Norman.

Before that I was using Bare Minerals for make-up, products I do like a lot, but I wanted to try Merle Norman again. I’d also been using Avon Products for skin care.

Now I’m at a deciding point again. Which should I choose? Merle Norman? Bare Minerals? Avon?

The Regency woman had a lot fewer choices.

Actually, the Regency woman did not have a great need for make-up. The era was one that valued the natural look, in contrast with the Georgian era which favored white faces with rouged cheeks and black patches. Unfortunately, one of the main the ingredients of this Georgian make-up was lead, leading to disfigurement and even death.

For the natural look of the Regency, there were some tinted foundations, mostly used by older women. Rice powder or talc powder was sparingly used and a light touch of cheek tint was acceptable, as well as lip color, some of which was not too different from today’s lip gloss.

Here’s a great website that tells more about Regency cosmetics.

Skin care products were more widely used and for the same reasons I use them–to improve the skin and fight signs of aging. And for reasons I used to use them many moons ago–for skin eruptions or, as we called them, pimples.

One of the products used lead or mercury, both very toxic and harmful. Other products had familiar ingredients, like rose water and almond oil.

A problem with the skin care products of the Regency were that they might include ingredients like milk or cream that would spoil, so they didn’t have a long shelf life.

For more about Regency skin products, look here.

Here’s a whole book written in the late 1700s – The Toilet of Flora by Flora (a goddess).

And here is a podcast from Historic Williamsburg that talks about “the art of beauty” in the Georgian and Regency eras.

So….What is your favorite cosmetic or skin care product? Any advice for me?

Come to Diane’s blog THIS Thursday for my interview with Superromance author and pal, Darlene Gardner. (I forgot it was Thursday last week and missed posting this blog! THIS Thursday for sure.)

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