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Monthly Archives: July 2013

Wanted: HSCD

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Like many of the Riskies, I attended RWA2013 last week, and am still tired–but enthused. As in years past, I roomed with fellow Risky Carolyn Jewel, who remains one of the savviest and sharpest writers I know; she’s been blogging her post-conference thoughts at her own site. Plus she was able to outlast me on the dancefloor on the last night of conference! That never happens!

I got to dance A LOT with Amanda McCabe (as well as trade snark texts during the RITA ceremony; all we want to say is, “that lipstick shade is not your friend!”), and I hugged Janet Mullany and Diane Gaston, and waved at Susanna Fraser. It never gets tired to hang out with smart women who understand what I love and like to do.

Anyhoo, while out there, I discussed various projects I might be working on, and now I actually have to work on them. So there’s that. And that’s good. More news as I have it.

Meanwhile, I am tormenting my Critique Partner, Myretta Robens, with plotting my next historical, leading to the burning question–why WOULDN’T my heroine want to marry the handsome, snarky, charming Duke? I mean, what is WRONG with her? Myretta and I came up with a few ideas, including that she is a private person who values her anonymity, and Duchesses were not anonymous, as well as that she is desperately frightened that she will lose her own identity if she marries, as well as lose her independence. Of course, the handsome, snarky, charming Duke (HSCD) will get her to change her mind–eventually–but it’ll be a struggle.

It’s fun, but hard. Like most rewarding art, right?

So if anyone has examples of that type of heroine in novels, and care to share their motives (and the titles) in comments, that’d be great. I need to gather as much fuel as I can for her being reluctant to wed the Regency Billionaire, because DUH.

Megan

 

Posted in Risky Regencies | 2 Replies

Maggie Robinson pays a call!

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And she has a contest!

One of the highlights at RWA for me was spending some time with historical romance author Maggie Robinson, one of the funniest ladies I know. And here she is at the Riskies, so I’ll just let Maggie take over now…

Summer 2013 TourIt’s delightful to be back with the Riskies, particularly since I am highjacking their blog and changing it to Risky Edwardians! I’ve gone from carriages to cars, hand-written missives to marconigrams, talking face-to-face to telephoning, LOL.

The first book in my new Edwardian Ladies Unlaced series, In the Arms of the Heiress, is set in 1903. My heroine Louisa Stratton has been crashing around the Continent on a year-long motor trip with her loyal maid Kathleen. Louisa’s left her awful, interfering family behind in the dust, and to keep her independence has invented a husband—the perfect man, Maximillian Norwich. When she’s forced to come home, she has to hire an imperfect man, Charles Cooper, to pretend to be the fictional urbane art connoisseur she “married” in Paris.

For the price she’s willing to pay for his services, Charles thinks he can do anything for thirty days. He’s been drinking, is depressed and desperate after serving as a captain in the Second Boer War and administering a concentration camp for Boer women and children. Even with only one good eye, he’s seen things he wishes he could unsee. After witnessing horrific collateral damage on civilians, he assumes Louisa is just another spoiled little rich girl without a thought in her head. To both their surprise, the jaded Charles and flighty Louisa turn out to be perfectly imperfect together, especially when mischief and mayhem move in with them at Rosemont, the family estate.

It’s been such fun researching a different era, but love is love, no matter the time frame. Library Journal gave ITAOTH a coveted starred review, and the book has been called “a must-read” (Tessa Dare), “a marvelous read” (RT Book Reviews with 4 ½ stars and a K.I.S.S. for Charles!), “full of witty dialog and scorching romance” (Elizabeth Essex) and “fun, light and very sexy.” (Semxybooks) [Comment from Janet: I had a sneak peak at this book and it’s terrific. It deserves all this praise and more]

grandmother and auntsI have a copy to give away for one commenter. Here’s a photograph of my very own Edwardian heiresses, my grandmother and her sisters. Are you lucky enough to have family pictures through the ages? What is your favorite family photograph?

Posted in Giveaways, Guest | 15 Replies

A Dream Defiant (with giveaway!)

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Like other Riskies, I’m recently returned from the RWA conference. I stayed a few days extra for a family reunion, so I haven’t had much time yet to digest what I learned. The second leg of the trip turned unexpectedly adventurous, too–on Sunday while on the way to the Six Flags amusement park with some of the family, including my 9-year-old daughter and 10-year-old grand-niece, we had an abrupt flat tire in our rental car. While on I-20. Fortunately we were able to make it over to the shoulder safely, and we had enough fuel in the car to keep the AC running while we waited for AAA to come to the rescue. And that rescue was worth every penny of AAA membership fees we’ve paid for the last DECADE, as far as I’m concerned.

Once we finally got to Six Flags, we only had two hours or so to enjoy the rides before this happened:

SixFlags

We knew it was going to storm, just not quite so…vehemently. That trash can with what looks like waves breaking against it had already drifted five or six feet from its original spot, and within a minute floated out of sight entirely. Once the rain let up even a tiny bit, we sloshed back to our car and drove to my nephew’s house through an hour of rain that alternated between driving and merely heavy. Not the best amusement park excursion ever, but at least the barbecue we stopped for during a heavy rain phase was delicious.

Then when we finally got back to Seattle on Tuesday and started up my car, which we’d left parked at the airport, to our dismay its low tire pressure indicator came on! Since we could see one of the front tires was visibly flatter than its mate, rather than risk a repeat of Sunday’s experience, only on I-5 during rush hour, we located the nearest tire center, five minutes’ drive from the airport, and went straight there. Which was smart, as it turned out. There was a tack in the tire, and a good chance it would’ve gone entirely flat before we could’ve made it home and taken it to the dealership for a check the next day. So, props to Les Schwab Tire Center for patching the tire for free and to Google Maps for finding the closest one. I love my 21st century technology!

A Dream Defiant

But I also love writing about the lower-tech world of 200 years ago. My latest release, A Dream Defiant, hits virtual shelves this coming Monday.

It’s a risky book on several levels. It’s my first-ever novella, so the shorter length was a learning curve for me–less than 30,000 words while my previous books have averaged around 90,000. So I had to ruthlessly cut the plot down to cover a shorter time range and resist the urge to go haring off chasing subplots or elaborating upon backstory. And I ended up enjoying it. While I don’t plan to give up full-length novels by any means, I have at least one more novella in the pipeline, a holiday romance whose title and release date remain TBD, but will be coming from Carina in late 2014.

But the biggest risk I took was writing a black hero. I was inspired by everything from a brief reference to Sudanese soldiers in Napoleon’s army in John Elting’s encyclopedic history Swords Around a Throne to the black soldier visible in the 1822 painting Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog posts about black soldiers in the Civil War.

Still, I hesitated for a long time before starting this story. Who did I think I was to create such a hero, when I’m not just a white woman but one with Southern roots and a Confederate soldier for a great-great-grandfather? And maybe I took too great a risk–though now it’s in the hands of you, the readers, to judge. But I ended up deciding it was an important, little-known aspect of history that was well worth exploring–and also that who my great-great-grandfather was shouldn’t determine what I can and can’t write about 150 years later.

I’m giving away a copy of A Dream Defiant in the electronic format of your choice to one randomly selected commenter between now and Sunday at 9 PM Pacific Time. So tell me about your own travel adventures, wonderful or otherwise, or let me know what risks you think Regency authors should and shouldn’t take.

Posted in Giveaways, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 4 Replies

The Beau Monde

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I’m back from RWA, all bone-weary and brain-dead, but also rejuvenated and ready to conquer everything about the Romance writing world. I did have a lovely time.

The_First_Quadrille_at_Almack'sBefore the RWA conference, though, there was the Beau Monde conference. The Beau Monde is the Regency chapter of Romance Writers of America and they had a one day conference before the big conference. It is a great time to reconnect with writing friends who love the Regency as much as I do.

Big thanks to Isobel Carr who made the Beau Monde published authors little pins of their latest bookcovers. I wore mine proudly the whole week–until I lost it the last day (sniff!!).

Every one of the workshops I attended at the Beau Monde conference was terrific.

The first was by our very own Risky Susanna Fraser who spoke on Your Hero’s Military History: Beyond Trafalgar and Waterloo. Susanna’s love of the Napoleonic War and its heroes equals (or maybe even exceeds) mine and she did a beautiful job of making a huge topic understandable and useful. Plus in her handouts she provided a fabulous set of timelines.

The next workshop I attended was A Quack or Dr. House by Sharon Lathan, RN, which made the different professions in Regency Medicine much clearer. Now I know the difference between a physician, a surgeon, an accoucheur (midwife) and an apothecary.

The afternoon began with Louisa Cornell, who is such a loyal friend of Risky Regencies. Louisa’s topic was A Great Proficient, about the performance of music in the Regency, especially what a proper lady or gentleman might do. One of the fascinating things about her topic was how similar music became popular then as it does in modern times. One heard music performed, say at Vauxhall Gardens, then ran to the lending library or music shop to get the broadsheet so it could be played at home. The real delight of this workshop, though, was getting to hear Louisa sing. I’ve known for years that she was once a professional opera singer who performed all over Europe, but I’d never before heard her sing!

Last workshop I attended was by our very own Risky, Janet, who talked about The Jewish and Black Communities of Georgian London. I won’t say too much about this one in case Janet wants to expand upon the topic for the blog, but she showed the stereotypes portrayed and some of the ways these groups were assimilated and accepted beyond stereotypic expectations. I will say that Janet was her usual very entertaining self and just listening to her was a pleasure!

The workshops I didn’t get to see were Regina Scott‘s What is So Grand About A Grand Tour, Historical Accuracy: When To Worry And When To Fudge with Anne Cleeland, Jade Lee, and Elizabeth Hoyt, and Ashlyn Macnamara‘s How To Play Whist. But I have the conference tapes so I can catch up on those later!

Later that evening we had the Beau Monde Soiree with Regency dancing. I love this part of the conference because so many of the members dress in Regency dress. I didn’t this year, but wore a long “Regency-esque” dress. One lovely part of the Soiree is that the Mills and Boon editors from the UK (Amanda’s and my editors) always attend. It just seems fitting that they should!

Of course I have NO PHOTOS. I’m terrible at remembering to take pictures until it is too late!

For more on the RWA conference-according-to-Diane, see my blog on Thursday.

If you attended the Beau Monde conference, what was your favorite part. If not, which of these workshop titles most appeals to you?

Posted in Regency, Research, Writing | 4 Replies

Busy at home and RITA changes

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ldmaudioPart of me wishes I could be at RWA. It’s been years since I’ve seen many of my writing friends. However, the logistics involved in leaving my disabled husband for that many days make it complicated. Not impossible, but complicated.

This year, I’ve actually been too busy to pine (much).

After mulling the top two auditions, both very good, I picked a narrator, Robin Rowan, for the audio book version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade (cover shown here). I look forward to working with her, because she makes my story sound so good!

I’m continuing to edit Fly with a Rogue to address comments received through critique. Last week I compared being critiqued to sitting in the dentist’s chair. This week it’s more like therapeutic massage. It takes some pressure to work out the knots, but it feels so good afterwards!

I’m also excited to hear that the RITAs will now be open to-self published books. This is partly on a personal note, as I will be able to enter Fly with a Rogue this year. The opportunity for peer recognition is not critical for me—I had already decided, for business reasons, to self-publish this book—but it is nice to know I have the option.

On an organizational level, I think it’s very important. If the purpose of the RITAs is to “promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas”, it doesn’t make sense to exclude self-published romances, many of which have already hit the New York Times, USA Today, and other bestseller lists. As I understand it, entrants will have to be eligible for RWA’s Published Authors Network, which means the contest will be open only to authors with a proven record of sales.

There will also be a new category for erotic romance, which many authors of erotic romance have been asking for. I know there are others who say erotic romance should just be entered in whichever category fits otherwise (paranormal, historical, etc…) I understand their point, but I also know that there are judges whose reaction to extremes of sexuality in a book can impair their ability to judge fairly. Allowing those judges to choose not to opt in for the erotic romance category should help ensure better judging.

I haven’t read enough erotic romance to know for sure if this is always true, but in the ones I’ve read, sexual awakening or healing is an important part of the characters’ journey. This is in addition to being part of the relationship development, as it would be in sexy romances in other categories. The special role of sexuality in an erotic romance is also another argument for a unique category.

What do you all think of the RITA changes?

I hope everyone is having a great time in Atlanta and I’m looking forward to seeing pictures here!

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

Posted in Risky Book Talk, Writing | Tagged , | 4 Replies