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Read a Regency!!!! (part 3)

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So, does anyone want to report in on how the “Read a Regency” challenge is going? Has anyone read any good Regencies recently?

Here’s a list of some more award-winning Regencies. These all won the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Regency:

1996 — THE DEVIL’S DUE by Rita Boucher
1997 — MY WAYWARD LADY by Evelyn Richardson
1998 — BEST LAID SCHEMES by Emma Jensen
1999 — MARIGOLD’S MARRIAGES by Sandra Heath
2000 — LORD NIGHTINGALE’S DEBUT by Judith A. Lansdowne
2001 — SUGARPLUM SURPRISES by Elisabeth Fairchild
2002 — THE DISCARDED DUKE by Nancy Butler
2003 — THE INDIFFERENT EARL by Blair Bancroft
2004 — A PASSIONATE ENDEAVOR by Sophia Nash

Has anyone read any of these? Any comments on them?

So, who’s been reading Regency Christmas stories?

I own every Signet Regency Christmas collection ever (I’m far older than I pretend to be) 🙂 and have read just
about every story in every one of them. They’re always enjoyable, and often fantastic!

Two of my favorite stories, both in the collection A REGENCY CHRISTMAS EVE (2000):

“The Christmas Thief” by Edith Layton. Funny, touching, and beautiful. First line:
On the day before Christmas, Lt. Major Maxwell Evers rose early, as was his habit, washed, dressed with care, and went out to steal a Christmas present.

“Little Miracles” by Barbara Metzger. Hilarious, sweet, and romantic. First lines:
They were as poor as church mice. No, they were the church mice.

Which are some of your favorite Regency Christmas stories? Or have you read any good Regency romances lately? Reports on either would be lovely!

Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER, out now from Signet Regency!

All the family gathered ’round

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With all the holiday family-togetherness, and talking here about what a Regency Christmas might be like (no crowded malls! no animatronic Santas singing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer!), I started considering romances which also feature relationships other than the main, h/h thing. Namely–family relationships.

We do see them a lot. You know, the ones where 30 siblings find their perfect loves in 30 books and have a big, happy reunion at the end of Book #30. My own family gatherings are seldom like this, and I imagine most family gatherings in the Regency weren’t, either. With my own family, someone is always not speaking to someone else. Someone gets drunk and cries and/or shrieks. The dog eats pizza and throws up on the carpet. My cousin’s kid takes his diaper off and runs around naked. You get the picture. It’s not so pretty. Hmm-now that I think about it, family reunions in the Regency probably weren’t like THAT, either. Georgian, maybe. 🙂

But there are books (even ones in mega-series!) that can capture the timeless best of families and friends. Their loyalty, their unconditional love, the way they might pick on you mercilessly but God help any outsider who dares to do the same. Family problems and stories never really get solved–they just go on and on, and we learn to live with them, and they become part of us. Some authors have captured these dynamics so well. Mary Balogh’s “Slightly” series. Mary Jo Putney’s Rogues. Gaelen Foley’s Knights. To name just a very few. (I’m sure I could find more if my shelves weren’t blocked by a Christmas tree and a heap of presents waiting to be wrapped). Jane Austen, of course, was ALL about family dynamics, and no one (with the probable exception of Shakespeare) had a greater grasp on the timeless give- and-take exasperation of relatives.

In my own books, I have lots of friends who have “made” families together, a few sisters, a couple of brothers, a mother or two. An aunt and uncle who are surrogate parents. Strangely, I find it harder to write about brothers than sisters, even though I have no sisters of my own. Families have made my characters who they are. They teach them how to love–or not to love!

What are some of your favorite “family” books or series? Why do you love them? Or hate them?

Which Christmas Would You Want?

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It seems to me that I would have done very well with a Regency Christmas. As far as I can determine, there was little in the way of celebration, especially as we now know it, in the Regency period prior to 1815. Customs such as Yule-log burning and decorating with greenery were apparently considered rustic by those of a more elevated position, who left the more primitive celebration to those who were more common. One did dine with one’s friends, and practice charity to the poor at Christmas time, but it was “undignified” to celebrate in any more frivolous way.

Well…I do have a struggle between wanting to do the season justice and dreading its demands. I so love the end results–the sparkling house, the cooking smells, the evergreen, the red ribbon and lights, the candles, the wrapped gifts resting mysteriously under the Christmas tree in the pale light of dawn. BUT…the big BUT…fate seems to conspire to keep me from getting there.

Being a single woman keeping her own house, one would think I could have it under control. Not so. Between a full time job, writing, housekeeping and the deepening snow I soon discover that it is DECEMBER 18TH AND I HAVEN’T SENT OUT ANY CARDS YET. And that is just the beginning.

I know that my stress is shared from my friends. At work, I hear one fretting about the cost of a child’s preference of gift, another bemoaning having to visit the mall yet again, and another worried that her grown child will not be able to visit. There are some who seem to be able to do it all and more, of course, but I can only think of them with awe.

Back to Christmas in the Regency…something about the very simplicity of their celebration appeals to me, although I am inclined to be a bit contrified in my views, because I favor the evergreen and holly and mistletoe and the roaring fire. I like the empasis on charity, too–and food. Who can’t like food?!

Okay, now I have arrived at something. I decide to look up some Regency Recipes in a handy reference, THE NEW FEMALE INSTRUCTOR, published in 1834.

TO ROAST GOOSE
“After it is picked, the plugs of the feathers pulled out, and the hairs carefully singed, let it be well washed and dried, and a seasoning put in of onion, sage, and pepper and salt. Fasten it tight at the neck and the rump, and then roast.” [My note–I am assuming the insides were cleaned out; I imagine this was thought to be understood!]. “Put it first at a distance from the fire, and at degrees draw it nearer. A slip of paper should be skewered on the breast-bone. Baste it very well. When the breast is rising, take off the paper; And be careful to serve it before the breast falls, or it will be spoiled by coming flattened to the table. Let a good gravy be sent in the dish.”

Good heavens. The goose is looking like a bit of work. I had no idea my goose could go flat. I decide to pass on to dessert.

PLUM PUDDING
“Cut a pound of suet into small pieces, but not too fine, a pound of currants washed clean, a pound of raisins stoned, eight yolks of eggs, and four whites, half a nutmeg grated, a tea-spoonful of beaten ginger, a pound of flour, and a pint of milk. Beat the eggs first, then put to them half the milk, and beat them together; and by degrees stir in the flour, then the suet, spice, and fruit, and as much milk as will mix it well together, very thick. It will take four hours boiling. When done, turn it into our dish, and strew over it grated sugar.”

Not so bad. Not very different than certain of today’s recipes, especially if you have one that has been handed down in the family. A lot of work, still do-able. But I’m not too keen on the suit. I wonder what it will do to my cholesterol levels.

Better consider what to drink.

ENGLISH SHERRY
“Boil thirty pounds of sugar in ten gallons of water, and scum it clear. When cold, put a quart of new ale-wort to every gallon of liquor, and let it work in the tub a day or two. Then put it into the cask with a pound of sugar candy, six pounds of fine raisins, a pint of brandy, and two ounces of isinglass. When the fermentation is over, stop it close; let it stand eight months, rack it off, and add a little more brandy. Put it in the cask again, and let it stand four months before it is bottled.”

Ahem. Nothing to drink until next year. Oh, hey, just give me the brandy.

Perhaps I will stop bemoaning today’s Christmases. Either that, or I will go back in time as a wealthy woman with a cook and a full housekeeping staff. Until then…

Link–more recipes: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/recipes/xmasrecipe.html

Link–Jo Beverley’s page on the Regency Christmas, done much better than I could have done: http://members.shaw.ca/jobev/xmasarticle.html

Cheers!

Where’s that brandy???

Laurie

Speak For Yourself!

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It’s really intimidating to be the one who posts on the actual birthday, after celebrating most of the week. And, as usual, I’ve taken the wimp’s way out (have I mentioned ‘conflict-averse’ is my middle name? I didn’t? Oh, I must’ve been scared to).

(With much thanks to Myretta Robens, Regency author and webmaster of Pemberley.com, an incredible site devoted to Jane Austen and the people who love her.)

It’s Jane’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Jane! Instead of speaking about her, though, let’s let Jane speak for herself (click here to read all this, and much, much more).

“Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?”

“I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and ill-informed female who ever dared to be an authoress.”

“. . . But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”

Ah, as in her writing, Jane’s own musings are self-deprecating, wryly funny, and deliberately obfuscatory. As poking around the Pemberley site will reveal, Jane was as shaded as her writings. I bet, if she were around today, she’d be a blast to hang out with, too, delivering her Special Snark in dulcet tones. I wish she were here, so I could buy her a beer to celebrate.

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An Austen first for the Riskies

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The world of Jane Austen scholarship was shaken to the core by the recent discovery of a “lost” excerpt from Pride and Prejudice. Currently undergoing rigorous handwriting, paper, and ink analysis, the fragment reveals a daring stylistic experimentation that has already created fierce controversy in academic circles. The short scene depicts Jane Bennett, who, while waiting for Lizzie to return from Derbyshire, seeks outside help in rescuing Lydia from ruin. With the violent rejection of the classical style,what was Austen intending? One cannot help but wonder, had she pursued this course, how the introduction of a new character, a possible rival for either Bingley or Darcy, would have influenced the romantic element of the novel; and certainly it seems, in its revelation of the seamy underbelly of Meriton, to indicate a possible bloody gang shoot-out as the book’s climax.

It is with great pleasure and the deepest honor that the Risky Regencies Blog presents the world debut of this important addition to the Austen canon.

She’s cool as a cucumber, this Miss Bennett. Not what I expected, not after what I’d heard in the village about the family. She receives me in a drawing room furnished with old-world stuff–nothing fancy, old pieces, the whole set-up breathing respectability and solidity.

“Thank you for coming, sir.” She gestures to a chair, one of those spindly English things. The old dame who took my hat and gloves stays with us in the room, picking away at an embroidery frame to preserve the decencies, I guess.

When Miss Bennett leans to pour tea her gown slips up revealing a pretty good ankle. Not bad, not bad at all, but this is business, and I let her mess around with the teacups while keeping an eye on her. She’s too genteel to offer me a Scotch, but for the moment I’m playing on her terms.

“The weather has been quite remarkably good,” she offers, and the slight tremor in her hand reveals her agitation. “I think, however, we can expect some rain later this week.”

I decide to help her out. “Sure. Say, Miss Bennett, you didn’t call me here to talk about the weather.”

“You are correct, sir.” She produces a small, lace-edged handkerchief and gives a genteel sniffle. “I daresay you have heard…how could you not have…the disgrace that has fallen upon our family. Forgive me, it is dreadful indeed. My youngest sister, Lydia, has…has fallen into the hands of an adventurer and has been persuaded to elope. I think he does not intend to marry her. Sir, you must help us find them.”

“Wickham?” I ask. Things had gotten too hot for him in London, after he’d fallen out with the boys at White’s, and the whole set up stinks of him. He’d tried to set up a rival operation to Bingley and Darcy, but they were too clever for him, and they’d left town after they’d sucked the neighborhood dry. Even so, they’d forced Charlotte Lucas to throw in her lot with the de Bourgh Gang and last I’d heard she was engaged in a struggle for power with Collins.

“I fear so.” She plies the handkerchief, a picture of bewildered innocence. “My Papa and Mama are prostrated with grief, and I do not know to whom I can turn until Lizzie comes home.”

Right, her father operating some sort of scam from his study and her hophead of a mother high as a kite most of the time from all I’ve heard, continually sending her daughters into town to buy more of the stuff at that fake haberdasher’s. “Lizzie?”

“My sister. She will know what to do. She is in Derbyshire, and on her way home even as we speak.”

“Up north?” This stinks more and more. If the Wordsworth siblings, that cold-hearted team of killers, are part of the scheme, there’ll be blood all over this polite drawing-room before we’re finished.

“It is dreadful indeed.” She dabs at her eyes.

“You’re good, sister. Real good.”

“I beg your pardon?” She draws herself up and looks at me with disdain.

“You’re good, real good, all that fake innocence, but I’ve been made a sap of one too many times by dames like you. It’s time to come clean, dollface.”

“Sir!” She leaps to her feet, doing the heaving bosom thing. “I regret we will have no need of your services. Please leave this house immediately, Mr. Spade.”