Amanda: Hola, Bianca! It’s so nice to see you again. It’s been a while! How have you been?

Bianca: Quite well, no thanks to you! I’m fortunate to be here at all after everything you put me through. Tavern brawls, duels on desert islands, shipwrecks, pirates, sex in tiny ship’s cabins…

A: Now, that can’t have been all that bad! The lack of space surely meant more–innovation.

B: Well, aye, maybe that part wasn’t so bad. There are certainly some interesting positions to try in a berth. And it’s amusing to watch my shirtless amor Balthazar climb the rigging!

A: Exactly. The reviewer at RT says you jumped into bed with Balthazar too fast to be plausible.

B: What calumny!

A: Hey, I didn’t say it! What do you think about that?

B: Ha! Have you seen Balthazar?

A: Of course! I invented him, remember? And I do see your point.

B: I was in love with him for years before we met again here in Hispaniola. Every girl in Venice was!

A: You didn’t part well, though, did you? Way back then?

B: That was yet another trial you put me through! Making me fall in love with him, then parting us so cruelly and making me think I hated him. It was his father who was the villain, after all, not him. Want another mojito?

A: Thanks! It’s very yummy, considering they won’t be invented for a few more centuries.

B: I only have the best Santo Domingo rum here in my tavern. It’s why I made such a success of it.

A: So, you came here to open a tavern after you ran away from Venice.

B: After a few detours. I traveled, married, worked, was widowed…

A: But you never forgot Balthazar. Hey, that is not an easy name to say after a mojito!

B: Here, have some more. Nay, I never forgot Balthazar. But you know that, having invented him and everything. He must be your dream man, too.

A: Sure. A lot of Orlando, a little Johnny Depp, a dash of Hugh Jackman. A difficult youth he had to overcome, intelligence, strength, a fiercely protective instinct toward his true love…

B: Plus a great fleet of ships, and his own tropical island! And he certainly knows how to handle that, er, astrolabe.

A: (giggling) Okay, what’s in this drink anyway?

B: Our good Santo Domingo rum, sugar from our mills, lime juice, mint–and this odd bubbling concoction you brought with you.

A: Club soda!

B: It’s wondrous stuff. Want another?

A: Why not? It’s not every day I get to sit down with my own character! I like your velvet gown, by the way.

B: Thank you–we’re doing quite well now that Balthazar has finally settled down!

A: Lucky you!

B: Thanks to you and these HEAs. Where did you find the idea for my tale, anyway?

A: Well, when I first met Balthazar in Marc and Julietta’s story, A Notorious Woman, I knew I wanted to know more about him! He was very young and very angry for a man so handsome and so priviliged. That’s when I found out how much he hated his father’s evil-ness, and how much he wanted to explore the world and make his own fortune. I just didn’t know what kind of woman he needed…

B: Until you met me!

A: Exactly! He needed a woman who would stand up to him, and not melt at his feet like every other lady in the world. A woman he could build a life with. I knew that would be you, despite your, er, rocky beginning with him. Plus I’ve always been fascinated by the early European New World. I wanted to find out more about it, and it seemed the perfect place for Balthazar.

B: And did you visit any island taverns like this one when you were discovering our tale?

A: Sadly, no. No beaches or tiki bars or anything fun like that. But I did visit Jamestown with my friend Diane Gaston, where we toured ships of almost the same design of Balthazar’s Calypso, and so I was able to create the love scenes accurately…

B: Well, I am most grateful for that! Another mojito?

A: I don’t mind if I do! Will you join me?

B: Happily! Salut, signorina. And good fortune for our book!

(That’s not the end of our launch weekend! Join us tomorrow when I share more research tidbits and favorite sources for High Seas Stowaway. I’ll give away a signed copy to one commenter this weekend! HSS is on shelves now, or available at eharlequin.com. Next week I will be at eharlequin with a Talk Like A Pirate-style chat week, be sure and join me there! Or join me January 15–my birthday!–at History Hoydens and Unusual Historicals. Excerpts and research info can be found at my own website, too…)

My first Austen was Emma! I read it when I was about 9 or 10, and like all my reads at that time was supplied by my grandmother. She went to lots of garage sales and thrift stores as well as regular bookstores, and lots of people gave her books, too. So there were always boxes of wondrous paperbacks stacked in her hall closet, oodles of Heyers, old Fawcett Regencies by authors like Joan Smith and Marian Chesney, Cartlands, and classics. When we visited her in the summer, I would hide in that closet to get away from my wild cousins and read, read, read!

An old copy of Emma was in one of those boxes, and as I was currently on a 19th century England obsession, I was delighted. I had just finished Jane Eyre and loved it. Emma was a very different book, with a very different heroine, but I loved it, too.

At the time, I knew little about Austen and her stories and didn’t realize that: 1) there was a ‘mystery’ in the story (I took it for granted all along that there was something going on between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, and Emma was silly for not seeing it. On the other hand I was shocked–SHOCKED–by the appearance of Bertha-in-the-attic in Jane Eyre, so was not a very perceptive child), and 2) that I was not supposed to like Emma.

Austen herself wrote, “I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.” But how could I help but like her?? She was “handsome, clever and rich”; everyone in the story seemed to like her; and she seemed well-meaning and good-hearted, even if her schemes didn’t often work out very well. She had perhaps “a disposition to think too well of herself,” but at age 9 I liked her self-confidence, her popularity and sense of belonging, and the cozy little world of Highbury. I guess I still like those.

Later on, I was surprised to find that Emma was unique among the Austen heroines in that she had no financial concerns (unlike poor Jane Fairfax!). Her worries were more subtle. She was an intelligent woman who wanted to do good, even though she was not sure how to achieve that to the best ends. She had little to engage that intelligence, so perhaps it was mostly boredom (plus a lot of that self-confidence!) that led to her misguided machinations? She really had no power to change her location or routine, which, as a shy and dreamy 9-year-old who wanted to be Jane Eyre, I identified with strongly!

After Emma, I ran to the library and grabbed the other books, quickly consuming Pride and Prejudice (plus a video of the Rintoul/Garvie series), Sense and Sensibility (I liked the sisters in that one!), Northanger Abbey (Catherine was my favorite heroine at that age), Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. I didn’t much like Persuasion and MP then–I was just too young for them, I think, much like Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, and Madame Bovary (no, my parents didn’t pay much attention to my reading habits!). Persuasion is now possibly my favorite book of all time, but I do have a soft spot for Emma. Thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for starting me on this journey!

I like both the ’96 film versions of Emma (Paltrow and Beckinsale) though they are very different from each other, and neither is quite the story in my head. I’m not sure such a thing is even possible! I’m just grateful for all the Austen books and films out there to fill my rainy days. They always brighten things up.

Happy Birthday, Jane! From all your fans here at Risky Regencies.

(And check out High Seas Stowaway on Eharlequin for special savings this week. What could be better in a cold December than warm, sandy beaches and hunky sea captains??)