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Monthly Archives: October 2012

I’m getting excited for the New Jersey Romance Writers’ conference this weekend. It’ll be the first conference I’ve been to in over four years. I’m looking forward to the PAN (Published Authors Network) retreat which will start with a kick-off speech by Mary Jo Putney, a long-time favorite author of mine. I’m looking forward to several workshops on self-publishing. But I’m especially looking forward to seeing friends again, including Riskies Janet and Megan.

Since it’s a special occasion, I decided to treat myself to something new. While my daughters and I enjoy doing each others’ nails, I’ve never had a professional manucure or pedicure. I tried it for the first time yesterday. The manicure was nice but the pedicure…let’s say I am hooked.

Another new project I’ve been trying is preparing a Print-on-demand version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade. I’ve gone back to Hot Damn Designs for a wraparound cover and I’ve put a lot of work into formatting the text.

It’s so different from e-book formatting! Since individual readers can change fonts on their e-readers, you give up a lot of control over how the book will look. With POD, it’s just the opposite. I’ve been happily immersed in typography. This may be boring to some, but I’m finding it quite absorbing to figure out how to lay out the text so it is readable, attractive and conveys some of the feel of the book.

I don’t expect the POD version to do as well as the e-book, but it will be nice to have the paperback available for readers who prefer it, and also to have copies for giveaways, etc… More on that soon, I hope!

In the meantime, what new things have you tried lately?

And before you go, please check Gail Eastwood’s post to see if you won a Kindle or Nook edition of The Lady From Spain!

Elena

It is October, time for all things spooky. So here is another historical ghost story – pre-Regency, but that’s okay because there is a Wellington connection.

This is from Hillman’s Hyperlinked And Searchable Chambers Book Of Days.

The Wynard Ghost Story

This event was experienced by two military officers, Sherbroke and Wynyard, who were stationed in Canada in 1785. Both were in the 33rd Regiment, which in later years was commanded by Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. Sherbroke and Wynyard were friends who often studied together in Wynyard’s apartment. One day as they were studying, Sherbroke glanced up and saw the figure of a
THE WYNYARD GHOST-STORY

No modern ghost story has been more talked of in England, than one in which the seers were two military officers named Sherbroke and Wynyard. The men occupied conspicuous places in society, and were universally known as persons of honour, as well as cool good sense; the reality of their vision was attested by a remarkable circumstance which afterwards took place; and every effort of their own or on the part of others to give an ‘explanation’ has been vain.
John Cope Sherbroke and George Wynyard appear in the army list of 1785, the one as a captain and the other a lieutenant in the 33d Regiment a corps which, some years after, had the honour to be commanded by the Hon. Arthur Wellesley, subsequently Duke of Wellington. The regiment was then on service in Canada, and Sherbroke and Wynyard, being of congenial tastes, had become friends. It was their custom to spend in study much of the time which their brother officers devoted to idle pleasures. According to a narration resting on the best authority now attainable:

‘They were one afternoon sitting in Wynyard’s apartment. It was perfectly light, the hour was about four o’clock; they had dined, but neither of them had drunk wine, and they had retired from the mess to continue together the occupations of the morning. It ought to have been said, that the apartment in which they were had two doors in it, the one opening into a passage, and the other leading into Wynyard’s bedroom. There was no other means of entering the sitting room but from the passage, and no other egress from the bedroom but through the sitting room; so that any person passing into the bedroom must have remained there, unless he returned by the way he entered. This point is of consequence to the story.
‘As these two young officers were pursuing their studies, Sherbroke, whose eye happened accidentally to glance from the volume before him towards the door that opened to the passage, observed a tall youth, of about twenty years of age, whose appearance was that of extreme emaciation, standing beside it. Struck with the presence of a perfect stranger, he immediately turned to his friend, who was sitting near him, and directed his attention to the guest who had thus strangely broken in upon their studies. As soon as Wynyard’s eyes were turned towards the mysterious visitor, his countenance became suddenly agitated. “I have heard,” says Sir John Sherbroke, “of a man’s being as pale as death, hut I never saw a living face assume the appearance of a corpse, except Wynyard’s at that moment”
‘As they looked silently at the form before them, for Wynyard, who seemed to apprehend the import of the appearance, was deprived of the faculty of speech, and Sherbroke perceiving the agitation of his friend, felt no inclination to address it as they looked silently upon the figure, it proceeded slowly into the adjoining apartment, and, in the act of passing them, cast its eyes with an expression of somewhat melancholy affection on young Wynyard. The oppression of this extraordinary presence was no sooner removed, than Wynyard, seizing his friend by the arm, and drawing a deep breath, as if recovering from the suffocation of in tense astonishment and emotion, muttered in a low and almost inaudible tone of voice, “Great God! my brother!” “Your brother!” repeated Sherbroke, “what can you mean, Wynyard? there must be some deception follow me;” and immediately taking his friend by the arm, he preceded him into the bedroom, which, as before stated, was connected with the sitting room, and into which the strange visitor had evidently entered. It has already been said, that from this chamber there was no possibility of withdrawing but by the way of the apartment, through which the figure had certainly passed, and as certainly never had returned. Imagine, then, the astonishment of the young officers, when, on finding themselves in the centre of the chamber, they perceived that the room was perfectly untenanted. Wynyard’s mind had received an impression at the first moment of his observing him, that the figure whom he had seen was the spirit of his brother. Sherbroke still persevered in strenuously believing that some delusion had been practised.
‘They took note of the day and hour in which the event had happened; but they resolved not to mention the occurrence in the regiment, and gradually they persuaded each other that they had been imposed upon by some artifice of their fellow officers, though they could neither account for the reason, nor suspect the author, nor conceive the means of its execution. They were content to imagine anything possible, rather than admit the possibility of a supernatural appearance. But, though they had attempted these stratagems of self delusion, Wynyard could not help expressing his solicitude with respect to the safety of the brother whose apparition he had either seen, or imagined himself to have seen; and the anxiety which he exhibited for letters from England, and his frequent mention of his fears for his brother’s health, at length awakened the curiosity of his comrades, and eventually betrayed him into a declaration of the circumstances which he had in vain determined to conceal.
The story of the silent and unbidden visitor was no sooner bruited abroad, than the destiny of Wynyard’s brother became an object of universal and painful interest to the officers of the regiment; there were few who did not inquire for Wynyard’s letters before they made any demand after their own; and the packets that arrived from England were welcomed with more than usual eagerness, for they brought not only remembrances from their friends at home, but promised to afford the clue to the mystery which had happened among themselves.
‘By the first ships no intelligence relating to the story could have been received, for they had all departed from England previously to the appearance of the spirit. At length the long wished for vessel arrived; all the officers had letters except Wynyard. They examined the several newspapers, but they contained no mention of any death, or of any other circumstance connected with his family that could account for the preternatural event. There was a solitary letter for Sherbroke still unopened. The officers had received their letters in the mess-room at the hour of supper. After Sherbroke had broken the seal of his last packet, and cast a glance on its contents, he beckoned his friend away from the company, and departed from the room. All were silent.
The suspense of the interest was now at its climax; the impatience for the return of Sherbroke was inexpressible. They doubted not but that letter had contained the long expected intelligence. After the interval of an hour, Sherbroke joined them. No one dared be guilty of so great a rudeness as to inquire the nature of his correspondence; but they waited in mute attention, expecting that he would himself touch upon the subject. His mind was manifestly full of thoughts that pained, bewildered, and oppressed him. He drew near to the fireplace, and leaning his head on the mantel-piece, after a pause of some moments, said in a low voice, to the person who was nearest him: “Wynyard’s brother is no more!” The first line of Sherbroke’s letter was “Dear John, break to your friend Wynyard the death of his favourite brother.” He had died on the day, and at the very hour, on which the friends had seen his spirit pass so mysteriously through the apartment.
It might have been imagined, that these events would have been sufficient to have impressed the mind of Sherbroke with the conviction of their truth; but so strong was his prepossession against the existence, or even the possibility of any preternatural intercourse with the souls of the dead, that he still entertained a doubt of the report of his senses, supported as their testimony was by the coincidence of vision and event. Some years after, on his return to England, he was walking with two gentlemen in Piccadilly, when, on the opposite side of the way, he saw a person bearing the most striking resemblance to the figure which had been disclosed to Wynyard and himself. His companions were acquainted with the story, and he instantly directed their attention to the gentleman opposite, as the individual who had contrived to enter and depart from Wynyard’s apartment without their being conscious of the means. Full of this impression, he immediately went over, and at once addressed the gentleman. He now fully expected to elucidate the mystery. He apologised for the interruption, but excused it by relating the occurrence, which had induced him to the commission of this solecism in manners. The gentleman received him as a friend. He had never been out of the country, but he was the twin brother of the youth whose spirit had been seen.’
From the interesting character of this narration the facts of the vision occurring in daylight and to two persons, and of the subsequent verification of likeness by the party not previously acquainted with the subject of the vision it is much to be regretted that no direct report of particulars has come to us. There is all other desirable authentication for the story, and sufficient evidence to prove that the two gentlemen believed and often told nearly what is here reported. Dr. Mayo makes the following statement on the subject: ‘I have had opportunities of inquiring of two near relations of this General Wynyard, upon what evidence the above story rests. They told me that they had each heard it from his own mouth. More recently a gentleman, whose accuracy of recollection exceeds that of most people, has told me that he had heard the late Sir John Sherbroke, the other party in the ghost story, tell it much in the same way at a dinner table.’

A writer, signing himself COGNATUS states in Notes and Queries (July 3rd, 1858), that the brother (not twin-brother) whose spirit appeared to Wynyard and his friend was John Otway Wynyard, a lieutenant in the 3rd regiment of Foot guards, who died on the 15th of October 1785. As this gentleman writes with a minute knowledge of the family history, we may consider this date as that of the alleged spiritual incident.
In Notes and Queries, July 2nd, 1859, appeared a correspondence, giving nearly the strongest testimony then attainable to the truth of the Wynyard ghost story. A series of queries on the subject, being drawn up at Quebec by Sir  , adjutant general of the forces in Canada, was sent to Colonel Gore, of the same garrison, who was understood to be a survivor of the officers who were with Sherbroke and Wynyard at the time of the occurrence; and Colonel Gore explicitly replied to the following effect. He was present at Sydney, in the island of Cape Breton, in the latter end of 1785 or 1786, when the incident happened. It was in the then new barrack, and the place was blocked up by ice so as to have no communication with any other part of the world. He was one of the first persons who entered the room after the supposed apparition was seen.

‘The ghost passed them as they were sitting at coffee [between eight and nine in the evening], and went into G. Wynyard’s bed closet, the window of which was potted down.’

The next day suggested to Sherbroke the propriety of making a memorandum of the incident; which was done.:

‘I remember the date, and on the 6th of June our first letters from England brought the news of John Wynyard’s death [which had happened] on the very night they saw his apparition.’

Colonel Gore was under the impression that the person afterwards seen in one of the streets of London by Sherbroke and William Wynyard, was not a brother of the latter family, but a gentleman named he thought) Hayman, noted for being like the deceased John Wynyard, and who affected to dress like him.
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Last March I blogged about The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier collection exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art. I had heard of the exhibition and its catalogue book from Jo Manning, author of My Lady Scandalous and several wonderful Regencies and frequent guest blogger at Number One London. I considered myself lucky to purchase the catalogue, because I didn’t have a prayer at getting to Birmingham to see the exhibit.

Then a couple of days ago I saw this at Number One London. The Look of Love exhibit was at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, GA. And guess what?? I was IN Georgia! The dh and I took a detour during our Georgia visit so I could see the exhibition.

Eye miniatures were a brief phenomenon during the late 1700s to early 1800s, started when the Prince Regent, then the Prince of Wales, commissioned eye portraits for him and Mrs. Fitzherbert, his secret, but not legal wife. It became the fashion for lovers to exchange portraits of only the eyes, so that they had a remembrance that no one else could identify. Because of this secrecy, whose eye is depicted on most of the pieces in the exhibit is unknown. In the exhibit catalogue, Jo Manning wrote brief vignettes of how certain eye portraits might have come to be.

I’ve known about eye portraits for some time, but have only seen photos, never the real thing. The first thing that struck me was how tiny most of them were. The smallest ones were set in rings which were worn with the eye-side in, so the lover could gaze upon the image without anyone else seeing it. It is amazing that so many rings survived, because the miniatures were painted by watercolor on ivory and could be very easily damaged. The images were so tiny that the artist must have used brushes with only one hair. And yet the images are amazingly detailed and distinctive.

In addition to rings the miniatures were made into brooches, often encircled with tiny pearls or gems. One was a tiny gold heart pendant. There was also a bracelet, stick pins, and even toothpick boxes. Some of the later items were meant to be mourning jewelry and some also contained locks of hair.

We could not take photos, so the images here are taken from the exhibit’s brochure.

The gift shop sold these button souvenirs of the exhibit. Comment on this blog today for a chance to win one of these little buttons!

Have you seen this exhibit? Have you seen eye miniatures elsewhere?

A big thanks to Number One London for blogging about the exhibition and making it possible for me to see these wonderful treasures!

In my area autumn began a month or so ago when the big oak tree outside my house began to drop acorns which ping continually on the roof and on our car and crunch underfoot. Not much in the way of tree color changes, since it hasn’t got cold enough, but there’s the occasional flash of color from an exposed maple, although not many leaves have fallen yet. The great autumn sock migration has begun, escaping from the washer/dryer so that of five pairs I now have five single socks that don’t match. Why is this? Must I declare sock amnesty and let them creep shamefacedly home, no questions asked?

What does fall mean to you? Start of a new episode, a semester, the beginning of holiday preparations? What’s it like where you live?

Here are a couple of favorite autumn poems. What are yours?

Ode to the West Wind by Shelley

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!   read more

 

Ode to Autumn by Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.   read more

And from the sublime to the supremely self promotional, you can win a copy of Jane and the Damned or Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion at Dark Jane Austen.

 

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Hi, I’m Susanna, and I have trouble with titles.

Not the aristocratic kind. I’ve spent enough time reading and writing the Regency over the past decade that how to speak of dukes, earls, and their relations no longer mystifies me. No, I struggle to name my books.

I’ve now sold four manuscripts, and I’ve yet to have a single one go on sale wearing the first working title to grace my hard drive’s work-in-progress file.

The first book I wrote (the second I sold) began life as Lucy and Mr. Wright. In its first draft, it was a traditional Regency, and the hero was a wealthy but untitled gentleman. Upon further consideration, I promoted James to baronet and renamed the book Lady Wright. Then I realized I wanted to bump James yet higher on the totem pole, so he became James Wright-Gordon, Viscount Selsley. Unfortunately this meant no more clever puns on “Wright,” so I went with The Inconvenient Bride. Years later, as I prepared to submit it to Carina, I decided the title needed a little more oomph and changed it to A Marriage of Inconvenience.



When I started my next manuscript, I was still hung up on those trad-Regency-style titles, so I called it Anna and the Sergeant. However, I quickly realized it just wasn’t a trad story and switched to Soldier’s Lady. Which isn’t a bad title, but it didn’t say, “Get your forbidden star-crossed cross-class lovers here!” quite as loudly as I wanted it to. Hence, The Sergeant’s Lady.

Carina published both those books under the titles I used for submission–possibly because I’d had so long to think them over that I’d actually come up with something good. With my next two sales, my editor’s acceptance email basically read: “Congratulations! We love your book! Your title? NSM. Here’s a worksheet to fill out so we can work together to find something better.”

My November 5 release began life as The General’s Mouse. The hero, Jack, marries the heroine, Elizabeth, upon minimal acquaintance to fulfill a deathbed promise to his best friend. At the time he isn’t seeing her at her best, and he glumly reflects that he’s married a mouse. The rest of the book is all about proving that his so-called mouse has a mighty roar. Clever? Maybe. Based on the title alone, does it sound like a cute kid’s fantasy book about a talking mouse who befriends one of history’s great commanders? Absolutely.

So I brainstormed with my critique partners and filled out the title worksheet. Carina chose one of my suggestions, An Infamous Marriage, which I fully acknowledge is much better than my first choice.

Just this month Carina acquired my first-ever novella. (It took several tries, but eventually my muse accepted that stories can come in sizes other than 90,000 words.) It’s an interracial romance set in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria in 1813, where some British soldiers made fortunes by plundering the captured French baggage train. The plot revolves around a particularly fine ruby necklace my recently widowed heroine is trying to conceal from the soldiers surrounding her so she can go home to England, sell it secretly, and use the proceeds to buy a happy, secure life for herself and her young son.

At first, I called it Widow’s Fortune. But I soon decided that was too prosaic and changed it to Far Above Rubies, which I thought sounded particularly evocative. It comes from Proverbs 31:10, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.” I saw it as both a literal reference to how the hero cherishes the heroine and a symbol for the characters’ dreams of a better life and how they’re able to fulfill them together.

The editorial team, however, thinks it sounds more like a fantasy than a historical…and I figure they’re the experts, so it’s back to the title worksheet for me!

I’ve come to a place of acceptance where I don’t expect my first idea or two to work. In fact, my current ideas in various stages of brainstorming or drafting go by Home Run Blast from the Past (time travel!), Hell, Frozen Over (a winter survival tale), and The One With the Battle of New Orleans (which opens at–wait for it–the Battle of New Orleans). Now I just have to think of something presentable before they go anywhere near my editor’s inbox…

Over to you–what makes a title good or bad? What are some of your favorites and least favorites?