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Monthly Archives: September 2014

New book Day!

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BetrayedByHisKissCoverIt’s almost October—that means it’s new book day for me!!!!  Betrayed By His Kiss is (almost) available now (see it on Amazon here or at my website for more info)–and you can win a signed copy by commenting on today’s post.  Here’s a little sneak peek at the history behind the book….

I was first inspired to write Isabella and Orlando’s story when I had a yucky cold and spent the weekend lounging around on the couch, having an epic viewing of all three seasons of The Borgias! The sumptuous costumes, the luxurious palaces, the passion and murder and danger. (Not to mention Cesare’s eyes…). I’ve always loved the Italian Renaissance, the beauty and intrigue of it. And I loved finding the characters of Isabella and her Orlando among the palazzos and riverbanks of Florence.

The pinnacle of danger in the Renaissance came with the famous Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478. It was an attempt by a few members of the ancient Pazzi family, along with some powerful allies (including the pope!) to displace Lorenzo de Medici as the de facto ruler of Florence. On April 26, 1478, they rose up in the midst of a crowd of 10,000 at Mass in the Duomo to assassinate Lorenzo and his handsome younger brother Giuliano. Lorenzo escaped; Giuliano did not.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

In league with the Pazzi were Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew Girolamo Riario, who resented Lorenzo de’ Medici’s efforts to thwart the consolidation of papal rule over the Romagna, a region in north-central Italy, and also the archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, whom Lorenzo had refused to recognize. An assassination attempt on the Medici brothers was made during mass at the Cathedral of Florence on April 26, 1478. Giuliano de’ Medici was killed by Francesco Pazzi, but Lorenzo was able to defend himself and escaped only slightly wounded. Meanwhile, other conspirators tried to gain control of the government. But the people of Florence rallied to the Medici; the conspirators were ruthlessly pursued and many (including the archbishop of Pisa) were killed on the spot.

The failure of the conspiracy led directly to a two-year war with the papacy that was almost disastrous for Florence. But the most important effect was to strengthen the power of Lorenzo, who not only was rid of his most dangerous enemies but also was shown to have the solid support of the people.

Cesare1I always love incorporating real historical figures into my fictional stories. Botticelli is one of my favorite artists!  Isabella’s cousins Matteo and Caterina are not real, though Giuliano de Medici certainly might have been in love with the beautiful, fragile Caterina, who is loosely based on his real love Simonetta Vespucci, who died young of tuberculosis and was the model for many of Botticelli’s paintings. . Fiencosole  is also a fictional town, but based on some of the many walled, beautiful fiefdoms of Renaissance Italy.

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Tuesday Things

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So…what have I been doing while I was MIA from the Riskies for a couple of weeks???  Have been a bit under the weather (ugh!), and using up all my energies trying desperately to get caught up on the deadline for my “Regency in Brazil” story–and also in being jealous of Risky Diane and her England adventures!  And being much too excited about the prospect of a new Royal Baby, of course.  (I hope it’s a girl!  Prince George would make a fantastic big brother, LOL)

moscowfireBut today in Regency history–in 1812, the great fire of Moscow broke out and raged for several days.  According to the “In Your Pocket” city guide (which gives some good, concise info on the march to Moscow, and the bitter disappointment to Napoleon that those stubborn Russians were willing to burn the country down to keep it from him!):

On 15 September Napoleon arrived at the Kremlin and the very same day massive fires began in the Kitay Gorod area just to its east. Fanned by high winds and wooden housing, the inferno soon threatened the Kremlin itself and more fires were being spotted in other parts of the city. Moscow was soon ablaze in a terrifying firestorm. As a French diplomat in Moscow later noted in his memoirs, “the air was charged with fire; we breathed nothing but smoke, and the stoutest of lungs felt the strain after a time.” With fire raging across the city, on 16 September Napoleon was forced to leave the Kremlin, relocating to the safety of the Petrovsky Palace, an imperial residence on the road to St. Petersburg, while his troops gave up the fight against the fire and instead took to pillaging whatever treasures remained. 

By 18 September the fire was brought under control and Napoleon returned to the Kremlin at the centre of a city of ashes – still awaiting the tsar’s final surrender. Yet the tsar refused to give up, while Kutuzov was based south of the city, out of reach of the French and busy mustering new troops and bolstering his army. To make matters worse, the great fire had destroyed yet more of the French army’s rapidly dwindling supplies, and Napoleon’s men were now beginning to starve. Finally after occupying Moscow for just five weeks the situation reached critical levels and Napoleon was left with no choice but to begin a long retreat west.

And, of course, these very dramatic events inspired a very dramatic piece of music–Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”!


 

I think it might be time for a re-read for War and Peace!  (Don’t laugh–when I first read it, I took it on a beach vacation, and everyone laughed at me for choosing THAT as a beach read!  But it was fascinating….)

Should we go set off some fireworks today in sympathy??  What have you all been doing this week????

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I Capture the Castle….

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A sketch of Castle Sooneck

… or at least I hope I will.

And not just any castle, but Castle Sooneck, one of the umpteen (and I mean UMPTEEN!) castles, ruin, and other historic sites along the banks of the river Rhine in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. A cultural heritage organisation of the area as well as a local newspaper were looking for a “castle-blogger,” somebody to move into Castle Sooneck for six months and blog (in German and English) about life on the banks of the Rhine. The deadline for applications was at midnight on Sunday – and of course, I sent in my application. For how cool would it be to live in a castle?!?!

Well…

Let’s just say it probably won’t be all roses and rainbows: Apparently the view from the castle-blogger’s bedroom will be the (active) stone quarry next door. And down in the valley up to 400 trains a day pass by on one of the major transport routes of Europe.

Add to that that castles tend to be drafty places and that those thick walls don’t make for particularly warm rooms. What the colder season (= anything that’s not summer) can be like in a historic building is rather vividly described by the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire in the chapter about “Cold Houses” in her book Home to Roost:

“A new heating system was installed when we moved in[to Chatsworth] and it works pretty well. Even so, the wind can penetrate huge old window frames which don’t fit exactly. In September we go round with rolls of sticky brown paper to stop the gaps. When the front door is open and people with luggage dawdle, all our part of the house feels the blast so we’ve cut out a small door out of the big one and you have to enter at speed. There are zones of intense cold, seldom visited in winter: the Scupture Gallery, State Rooms and attics, where a closed-season search for forgotten furniture can feel colder than being out of doors.”

I would imagine that it’s probably different in a castle (if anything, it would be worse). But hey, that’s what woolen sweaters, thick socks, and the tea kettle were made for, right? Moreover, the scenery of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley would certainly make up for any minor inconvenience: it is one of the most beautiful areas of Germany – and Regency people were mad for it.

Tourism dwindled down during the Napoleonic Wars, but as soon as Napoleon was safely banished to his island, the British came back to the Rhine in huge numbers, undeterred by either customs stations or the German beds, which, apparently, were on the horrid side if Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers on the Continent: Northern Germany, 1845 is to be believed:

“One of the first complaints of an Englishman on arriving in Germany will be directed against the beds. It is therefore as well to make him aware beforehand of the full extent of misery to which he will be subjected on this score. A German bed is made only for one: it may be compared to an open wooden box, often hardly wide enough to turn in, and rarely long enough for an Englishman of moderate stature to lie down in.”

No, not even the German beds could deter the British tourists. Happily, they all followed in the footsteps of Childe Harold, often dragging a copy of Byron’s work along on their journey to appreciate more fully the

blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

The ruins and castles still dwell along the Rhine, and it would be a great thrill indeed to explore (and sketch!!!) them all as the castle-blogger of Sooneck. 🙂

~~~

What about you? Would you like to live in a castle for six months? Or would all the stairs put you off?

Posted in Former Riskies, History, Regency | Tagged , | 8 Replies

R.I.P. Deborah Devonshire

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cover of "All in One Basket"I was really sad to learn earlier today that Deborah Devonshire (or, to use her title, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire) has died at age 94. She was the last of the famed Mitford sisters, whose family was fictionalized by Nancy Mitford in The Pursuit of Love. One of the most infamous passages is perhaps this one:

“My Uncle Matthew had four magnificent bloodhounds, with which he used to hunt his children. Two of us would go off with a good start to lay the trail, and Uncle Matthew and the rest would follow the hounds on horseback. It was great fun. Once he came to my home and hunted Linda and me over Shenley Common. This caused the most tremendous stir locally, the Kentish week-enders on their way to church were appalled by the sight of four great hounds in full cry after two little girls. My uncle seemed to them like a wicked lord of fiction, and I became more than ever surrounded with an aura of madness, badness, and dangerousness for their children to know.”

Just a few days ago, I bought several of “Debo’s” books, including Chatsworth: The House and All in One Basket: Nest Eggs by Deborah Devonshire (which includes the books Counting my Chicken and Home to Roost). I love her wry observations about life in the country and life in a giant country house:

“The joys and difficulties of living in such a huge house are all magnified. […] A bag put down in a rare bit of house can be lost for months. The master key can be forgotten in an attic door until panic sets in. It is a terrible place to housetrain a puppy. Letting a dog out in the night is quite a performance, with thirty-four stairs to go down and up again and the complicated unlocking of monster doors. […] On the good side, children can roller skate for miles without going out of doors; on a wet day you can walk for hours, be entertained and keep dry […].” (from Chatsworth: The House)

cover of "Chatsworth: The House"And the following passage perfectly explains why our Regency misses better pack a shawl when they are invited to a country house party:

“A new heating system was installed [at Chatsworth] when we moved in and it works pretty well. Even so, the wind can penetrate huge old window frames which don’t fit exactly. In September we go round with rolls of sticky brown paper to stop the gaps. When the front door is open and people with luggage dawdle, all our part of the house feels the blast […]. There are zones of intense cold, seldom visited in winter: the Sculpture Gallery, State Rooms and attics, where a closed-season search for forgotten furniture can feel colder than being out of doors.” (from Home to Roost)

If you wonder at all the references to poultry in many of her book titles: she kept chickens and apparently loved them very much. There is one fine picture of her, showing her in a ballgown among her flock. On at least one occasion the chickens also came in handy as an alternative to flower arrangements on the dinner table: one cockerel and two hens – all freshly washed for the occasion – were put in glass containers on each end of the table, with little chicks snuggled up in hay-filled china baskets in between.

Obviously, she was rather unconventional (a bit of an understatement) and had a great sense of humor. All of this shines through in her writing and makes her books truly enjoyable reads.

Posted in Former Riskies, Reading | Tagged , | 2 Replies