So last week was a fun-filled extravaganza of friends, books, and great food! I still haven’t quite recovered (the suitcase is only half-unpacked, and the new books from our trek to the Strand are piled up waiting for shelf space to open), but I did learn a few things:

1) On Thursday evening, Diane and I joined Andrea Pickens at ABT for Le Corsaire (based on the Byron poem!), and I learned some plotting tips. All a story really needs to be exciting are some fights, an abduction or two, a pirate grotto, a ship wreck, an eeeevil villain, and a hunky shirtless guy. Pretty clothes don’t hurt, either.

2) Those old Harlequin covers are hilarious! Why don’t we have more like that now? And great titles like Pardon My Body and Love Me and Die… (this exhibit is up until June 12, if you’re in the NYC area)

3) BEA is, well, very large. And very crowded. And full of eye-catching book displays that meant I kept tripping over my feet while trying to look at them AND walk. I only got 2 free books, though, unlike Kwana and her 4 big bags full. Next time, I am sticking with her for the whole day. (Crush It!!)

4) Rose laasi + Chicken tikka + Dinner with friends like Hope Tarr, Megan Frampton, Diane, and Kwana = Awesome (street fairs with cheap summer dresses and jewelry on the way to the restaurant just makes it that much better)

5) Cocktails called “French Lavender” are really, really yummy (thanks to Elizabeth Mahon for suggesting Dove Parlor!)

6) I want to live in the Decorative Arts galleries at the Metropolitan Museum

7) Lady Jane’s Salon is totally as much fun as it looks. I wish I could get together something like that for romance fiction lovers here! (And finding out how covers evolve was very interesting, thanks to my editor at Grand Central Publishing)

8) Recording podcasts = Not as fearsome as I thought

9) Sadly, I missed a week-long display of costumes from the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet in the lobby of the Time Warner building. This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I was kicking myself when I found out (after we had already left NYC)!

10) I always feel so much more energized and ready to write after spending time with friends. Now I can’t wait for RWA, which is only 5 weeks away! (Who is planning to be there? We’re hoping to get together a Riskies gathering…)

(And thanks to Kwana for the NY pics!)

Gillian Layne, you’ve won an autographed copy of Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked! Please send your address to us at riskies@yahoo.com

The Riskies are very excited to welcome debut author Jennifer Haymore to the blog today! Her first book, A Hint of Wicked, is out this month from Grand Central Publishing. Comment for a chance to win an autographed copy…

Riskies:Welcome to the blog, Jennifer! Tell us about A Hint of Wicked…

Jennifer: Thanks so much! This is one of my favorite blogs, so I’m thrilled to be here! A Hint of Wicked is the story of a woman who’s spent 7 years mourning her husband lost at Waterloo to finally marry again, only to have her first husband appear less than a year into her new marriage. She’s legally bound to her first husband, her second husband is appealing to the courts, and she’s completely torn between the two men.

Riskies: Sounds exciting! How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Jennifer: My husband usually brainstorms with me, and one night I wanted to brainstorm some new ideas for a Regency. He said, “What do you think of a husband walking in on his wife having sex with someone else?” I shuddered and said, “That’s a horrible idea–nobody likes adultery in their romance!” He said, “Hmmm…but what if she doesn’t know she’s committing adultery? What if…what if she thinks her husband is dead?”

Hehee! That’s how A Hint of Wicked was born. I took that idea and ran with it. My husband read an early version of the manuscript, and after he finished he turned to me with a scowl on his face. “This is nothing like I imagined it,” he said. “Nothing!” I just grinned at him and said, “Too bad.” It was his original idea, but MY story, after all!

Riskies: And what’s “risky” about this book? (this one should be easy, LOL!)

Jennifer: AHOW strays a little from some of the established conventions of romance. There is truly more than one hero in this book, and one doesn’t get a happy ending. As much as I wanted my heroine to end up with both men (and as much as she wanted it!), it wouldn’t have been a realistic ending for the character in the world she lives in, not to mention that her husbands wouldn’t have accepted such a resolution. Fortunately, she does end up with the man who is right for her, and the other hero will get his own HEA in a big, big way—A Touch of Scandal will be released by Grand Central in April 2010.

Also, I don’t want to give away spoilers, but I will say the heroine is sexually attracted to both men. And she has certain fantasies I would definitely call risky…

Riskies: Did you find any interesting or surprising research tidbits that went along with this book?

Jennifer: Oooh, I found tons. I spend hours reading through books and resources written in the early 19th century. From theatre reviews (the performance of A Vision of the Sun depicted in AHOW was actually performed in Covent Garden on that date) to medical journals (I feel like an expert on laudanum and opium overdose now!) to dinner menus, I had a great time with all of it.

Riskies: And what’s next for you?

Jennifer: I’m finishing up edits on A Touch of Scandal as we speak. By the end of the month I’m going to start work on Lady Rebecca’s story. (Rebecca is the younger sister of one of the heroes in A Hint of Wicked), and I’m so excited about that!

Thanks for having me here at the Riskies!

You can visit Jennifer’s website for more information and research info! Remember–be sure and comment for a chance to win a copy of this very intriguing book!! And join us next weekend as we welcome Terri Brisbin…

I’m currently off having fun in New York with Diane and Megan! Next week I hope to have some pics and an account of our time here (BEA, museums, theaters, Lady Jane’s Salon, oh my!). But I’ve left this post about a most Risky lady of history, the author and salon hostess Madeleine de Scudery (who died on this day in 1701).

Madeleine was born in Le Havre in 1607, where her father was captain of the port. He died when she was about 7, and she went to live in Rouen with an uncle who had spent time at Court and possessed a large library, which she avidly explored. Sometime after the death of her mother in 1635, she went to live with her playwright brother Georges in Paris. With her brother she attended Catherine de Rambouillet’s famous salon. Eventually she formed her own salon, the Societe de samedi, and became known as the first bluestocking of France.

She wrote many immensely long volumes, both under her own name and the pseudonym pf “Sapho,” including Artamene (10 volumes, 2.1 millions words, 1648-53), Ibrahim (4 volumes, 1641), and Almahide (8 volumes, 1661-3). They are set in the classical world or an imaginary Orient, but their language and plots reflect the life of 17th century Paris, full of philosophical conversations and many abductions of heroines. The characters were often based on Madeleine’s own friends and acquaintances, such as her lover Paul Pellison.

For more information, her biography and correspondence were published in Paris in 1873, and there is a chapter about her in AG Mason’s The Women of the French Salons. I find her fascinating, and would love to write a saloniste heroine someday!

More news from New York next week…

A few weekends ago, I went to an old college friend’s bachelorette party at a fun local dance club. And what do a bunch of sophisticated 30-somethings with jobs, mortgages, boyfriends/fiances/husbands/kids/pets, talk about when they have too many pomegranate martinis? You guessed it–they talk about the Twilight books! It is my shame in life that, deep down inside, I am a Twilight-loving, Gossip Girl-watching 14-year-old. (Speaking of GG, did you see the news that Ed Westwick is going to star as Heathcliff in a new Wuthering Heights movie opposite Gemma Arterton???)

My friends and I, it turns out, are united in many opinions re: Twilight. We share a deep dislike of Bella (weird, since the story is in 1st person and thus all about Bella). We sometimes get mired in details that have no explanation (how do vampires have sex if they have no blood? How did the Volturri get from Italy to Forks anyway? They’re not exactly inconspicuous, and they probably don’t have passports). We would love to see a book all about Alice and Jasper (because Alice is never a passive dishrag like Bella, and Jasper seems like a total bad-ass). But we do not all agree on one very important point–who is the real hero, Edward or Jacob?

The bride-to-be finally announced (loudly), “Come on, Manda! You know as well as I do, Jacob is the guy you marry. Edward is just the guy you ****.” (Because she’s now the arbiter of things marital! And it’s not a party without a few f-bombs, of course). And there you have it. Literature, and life, in a nutshell. There are guys you marry, and guys you ****. In romance novels, he is one and the same, because we want a HEA we can believe in. When we’re young, it’s not always so clear which is which; not always when we’re grown-up, either.

But it made me think. What I like about Twilight is not the whole vampire/werewolf thing (the world-building here is flimsy at best). It’s the fact that it’s really just a framework for a good old-fashioned Forbidden Young Love story. It could just as easily be a Regency tale of the gorgeous young heir to a dukedom who falls for a vicar’s shy daughter. She knows she should marry the nice young shopkeeper’s son who is courting her, but she just can’t stay away from the duke…

I don’t often see this whole Crazy, Unstoppable, Force of Nature Love in romance fiction, and sometimes I do crave a Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliff kind of story. I know that it’s not especially realistic, and I definitely do not want to go back to being 16 myself, and live again through my first breakup (whimpering in my dark room as I clutched a dried-out corsage from a dance we went to, and my parents thinking I had gone completely insane). But I do like reading about it at times. Do you? What are some of your favorite “crazy love” books? (And if you know some good romances that fit, let me know!!).

(For the record, I would not want to marry Jacob or Edward. Talk about baggage. You either get the whole unpredictable phasing into a werewolf thing, or you get in-laws in your business for eternity).

And now I have to finish packing and decide what to read on the plane! Tomorrow I’m off to meet Diane and trek to New York for BookExpo America, Lady Jane’s Salon, and all kinds of fun things. If you’re in the area, let us know!