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School’s out…

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…and I’m desperately holding onto sanity.

This painting by John Linnell depicts “Lady Torrens and her Family” (1820). Linnell wrote “There Lady Torrens, in the most exemplary manner educated her six children to the admiration of all who witnessed the harmony & happiness with which her family was conducted…”

This level of serenity and harmony is actually what I strive for–and even often achieve, in my own family. But at transitions like this first week of the kiddos home, it isn’t easy. I can’t help thinking that Lady Torrens (in addition to having servants help her with household cares) wasn’t also trying to write a book.

Frankly, I’m a creature of habit, and changing schedules disorient and stress me out. I try hard to balance things, but crafting that balance requires different strategies at different seasons and different ages. Until it’s all figured out, my muse sulks somewhere complaining that I love the children more than her. And the fact is, they do come first, but until I get the schedule down that allows me some writing time, I feel like I go a little crazier every day.

In the past, I’ve relied on a few weeks of summer camp to get me some clear writing time (and the kids love them, too, so there’s no guilt). Other weeks, though, I need to scrounge writing time here and there. In the past I’ve had trouble getting my darlings to leave me alone while writing. Their definition of an emergency is a bit different from mine (I do not consider losing a doll’s glasses an emergency).

But I have to say this week is going better. For two days now they have actually left me alone for an hour each morning. Perhaps it was my paraphrasing Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter’s mentor, who cautions the students at Hogwarts “…the third floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Anyone else out there trying to rebalance life with kiddos at home? Any tips and tricks that work for you?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, Romantic Times Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

Favorite Heyers

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Georgette Heyer. Frequently imitated, never duplicated. Yes, other authors have done wonderful things, splendid, hilarious, beautiful things — but these are their own wonderful things. No one can replicate Heyer’s touch, Heyer’s style, and the wise do not try.

So . . . what are your favorite Georgette Heyer books?

By the way, I love this question. I’ve heard at least twenty different novels listed on “favorites” lists. Some crop up a lot, some crop up rarely, but it seems no one’s list of Heyer favorites is exactly the same as anyone else’s.

Do you like her early, 18th-century books, full of masquerades and highwaymen and Scarlet Pimpernel-influenced escapades? These Old Shades, Powder and Patch, The Masqueraders, The Convenient Marriage? Or do you like just some of these, and not others?

Do you like her more serious romances? Her more farcical ones?

Do you prefer her alpha males (such as the heroes in Venetia and Regency Buck) or her more sensitive men (such as the heroes in Cotillion or The Foundling)?

Have you read Heyer’s mysteries? Her modern novels? If so, do you like them at all?

How about her more historical works, such as Royal Escape and The Conquerer? Or do you prefer to stick to her Georgian and Regency fiction?

So — what are your favorite Heyers? All opinions welcome!

Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — Booksellers’ Best Finalist for Best Regency of 2005!

Finding Regency in all the Strange Places

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The weekend of June 17 I was in Alabama for my high school reunion. I lived at Fort McClellan, Alabama, those years, an army post that closed about five years ago and is now being rejuvenated into a very nice community. My friend Barbara and I visited the neighborhood where we used to live, a neighborhood that is now a historic site, Historic Buckner Circle (just like Chatsworth!). here is a picture of my house and a view of the neighborhood:

Barbara and I attended Jacksonville High School. Our high school building has been demolished, but the town of Jacksonville is very unchanged. We went into a used bookstore in town and look what I found!

It is a book I didn’t own, too. But I own it now.

We also killed time one day at an antique shop and I found this:
It is, of course, a print of the famous Gainsborough portrait of one of my favorite historic figures, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. I have not taken it out of its frame to see if it is an original engraving, but most likely it is a reproduction. In any event, I happily bought it. She looks so beautiful.

The moral of this story is, never pass up a book store or an antique store. You never know what you’ll find.
But I’ll bet you all knew that already.
Cheers,
Diane

REGENCY AUTHOR UPDATES

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Risky Regencies is your trusty Regency Emporium, serving all your Regency needs. Our readers asked for author updates, and so what do we have for you today? Author Updates!

So grab a cup of tea, pull up a cozy chair, and find out what Regency authors are up to…

VICTORIA HINSHAW tells us she’s been recharging her batteries — thinking, playing with lots of different ideas for plots and characters, and catching up on all the reading she missed while writing three books a year for Zebra. She has a Regency historical in the works, and has also been working on a fictional biography of Princess Charlotte. (I’ve noticed a couple other Regency writers have been going the nonfiction route in one form or another — hmm…is this a trend? Or just three individual writers making individual choices?)

What Victoria Hinshaw was too modest to mention (but we know anyway — ha!) is that her 2005 books have been doing extremely well with the recent contests. ASK JANE (Zebra Regency, April 2005) finalled in several prestigious contests, and won the Golden Quill Award for Best Regency. (That’s the contest our own Elena won in the historical category — so we know it’s a good contest.) 🙂 And with her August release LEAST LIKELY LOVERS, Vicky is competing against Diane and Cara for the Booksellers’ Best Award. (And we still like her! How’s that for professionalism?)

JENNA MINDEL reports, “Here’s what I’m up to now…I’ve been working on a contemporary Inspirational romance set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” She’s also a RITA finalist for her Regency Miss Whitlow’s Turn!

DOROTHY McFALLS “feels blessed to have landed firmly at Venus Press.” She’s obviously been very busy, with FOUR titles out this year, all different subgenres! Lady Sophia’s Midnight Seduction, a short erotic Regency; Neptune’s Lair and its sequel Marked, which are paranormal erotic suspense; and The Huntress, contemporary mainstream. Wow! Plus her Signet Regency, The Marriage List, is a finalist in the National Readers’ Choice Award. For details on all these projects, visit http://www.dorothymcfalls.com

JO ANN FERGUSON is still writing Regencies. She just turned one in to her editor at Signet where she’s writing as Jocelyn Kelley. She’s been writing the medieval series “The Ladies of St. Jude’s Abbey” as Jocelyn Kelley for the past two years. A Moonlit Knight came out in May and My Lady Knight is scheduled for January 2007. Then she returns to Regencies when the Regency-historical trilogy “The Nethercott Tales” are published by Signet Eclipse. For those of you who enjoyed the Priscilla Flanders mystery series from Zebra Regency, look for these books about the three Nethercott sisters that have suspense elements along with ghostly paranormal. The first book in the series (with a working title of The Mistress School) is scheduled for July 2007 to be followed by Gentleman’s Master. She’s also still writing for ImaJinn as J.A. Ferguson. In 2006, she’s got Luck of the Irish (a leprechaun story), Sworn Upon Fire (an alternate world futuristic), and The Wrong Christmas Carol (an angel Christmas story) coming out.

ANDREA PICKENS/ANDREA DaRIF has been busy with a new series for Warner Forever, the “Hellion Heroes.” The first book, The Spy Wore Silk, is out in March 2007. This is what she says about it: “At first blush, Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young ladies is the very pattern card of a proper boarding school. But looks can be deceiving, along with music, art, dancing, and the social graces, the students–all streetwise orphans chosen for their toughness and intelligence–are being molded into an elit fighting force. England’s secret weapon. When a critical government document is stolen from Whitehall, the student known only as Siena is given the assignment to keep it from falling into enemies’ hands…”

So, what have your other favorite Regency authors been up to? Check here every Sunday to find out! And if there’s a certain author you’d love to have an update on, let us know!

The Riskies

What Amanda Is Doing Now

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If I told RR every project I have in the works, it would take a triple-length post, I think! I have a confession to make–my name is Amanda, and I am a researchaholic. I’m addicted to libraries, to the papery smell, the quiet, the cool air, everything. Give me a desk tucked behind some stacks and a pile of history books, and you won’t see me for weeks. It was a favorite method of my parents when I was a kid. I’m also very easily distracted by stray factoids I come across in researching, so lack of ideas is never my problem. The problem is stopping with the research and starting on, you know, writing a book.

So, I’ll just let you know about my Top Two (okay, Top Three) projects of the moment, ones that are actually sitting on various editors’ desks and not just a gleam in my eye and a bunch of research titles on my Barnes and Noble receipts.

1) Historical fiction number one, working title Tincture of Secrets. This one is set in Florence and Venice in the 1470s. Our heroine, Isabella, wants to be an artist. And, lucky for her, her cousin happens to be Botticelli’s favorite model–but she also happens to get Isabella mixed up with the Medici, right at the height of the bloody Pazzi Conspiracy. Art, murder, revenge, gondolas–what else does a story need???

2) Historical fiction number two, working title Fortune’s Fools (thanks, Cara!). No gondolas here–it’s set in Elizabethan England, early 1580s. Penelope was a Maid of Honor to the Queen, until her naughtiness got her exiled to rebellious Lancashire. There she meets a young Shakespeare, a Catholic conspiracy, a new love–and gets set on a path to the Tower.

3) And, since this is Risky REGENCIES, a Regency historical called The Alabaster Goddess, Book One of the Muses of Mayfair. An aristocratic thief, archaelogical high jinks, a mysterious artifact (the titular goddess), and a hero and heroine on a collision course with fate–and each other. No gondolas here, either, but then you never know what might happen in Book Two… 🙂

And that’s what Amanda is doing on her summer vacation!

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