(Warning: this is going to be a post that depends a lot on you, because I am interested to see what everyone thinks!) Often when I’m wasting my time, er, doing valuable research online I love to read blogs about fashion, beauty products, opera and ballet, jazz, all sorts of things, and I especially love blogs about movies. (Even though this means my Netflix account is totally out of control because of it). One of my favorite movie blogs is the Self Styled Siren, a wonderfully witty and intelligent look at classic movies. She recently had a fascinating post called “Unearthing the Uncool”.

This post started with a statement the Siren made on Facebook: “It is much easier to proclaim dislike for a popular movie than to admit liking an uncool movie,” which sparked a fascinating stream of comments and proclamations of love for movies and actors that are generally deemed “uncool.” (For instance, the Siren defends the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, stuff like Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Stewart Granger, and, gasp!, even Kevin Costner). I myself have a deep and abiding love for movie musicals, like The Sound of Music, Brigadoon, and Camelot, that others often hoot at derisively. (you know who you are, haters!). I know this is also true in literary fiction, and that in mysteries some sub-genres are looked at as “cooler” than others, so I started to wonder if this could apply to romance novels. We definitely don’t seem to have that “cool”/”uncool” divide that movies do, though I suppose there are genres or authors that have a cooler reputation than others. Is it “cool” to admit to liking old-skool stuff like Whitney My Love? (I think I just came to reading historicals too late, when tastes had changed, to get into them. I had very different romantic fantasies). Is it “uncool” to admit we can’t really get into, say, urban fantasy, which seems very cool (as I mostly can’t, much as I want to!)?

Traditional Regencies certainly used to be “uncool,” considered by some to be dry books for stereotypical grannies (I had someone tell me once I couldn’t possibly write them, I looked too young! Which was flattering, of course, but kinda made me want to get all lecture-y on them about the intelligence and variety of trads. Ditto for a friend of my mine who ONE TIME read a Regency, didn’t like it–even though she couldn’t remember the title–and decided they were all like that one). But now that they’re obscure and out-of-print and all that, maybe they’re like some little indie band out of Austin. And on some book blogs there are often threads like “books you like that no one else has read” or “books everyone liked that you hated,” which I guess can be sort of like cool/uncool. Mostly, though, romance genres seem to be pretty much anything goes. If I don’t like something, someone else will, and vice versa, and I like it that way. The variety is what makes it fun.

So I am sending it to you! Do you think there is that “coolness” factor in romance fiction? If so, what would it be? And what movies do you love that others make fun of?

(p.s. I have not seen that movie The Enchanted Cottage, but I totally want to! I mean, look at that poster. People were whispering about them! The whole town!)

One thing I love about February around here is that it’s big book sale month! There are 3 library sales (one is HUGE), and a couple private schools (which also include bake sales, yum). I always find treasures at these sales (even if they’re just treasures to me!), and it’s so much fun to dig around on the tables and in boxes, never knowing what’s going to show up. I already hit one sale last weekend, and found almost a complete set of Will Durant’s Story of Civilization (for $1 a volume!), stuff like The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance and Life in Medieval France, as well as oddities like an intriguing memoir called Love is a Mix Tape, a book of watercolors of Louisiana plantation houses from the 1950s, and some Heyer hardbacks in like-new condition. And this isn’t even the BIG library sale (which is on February 20).

I also like February because it’s Valentine’s Day, which means more stuff about romance novels in papers and magazines, and lots and lots of chocolate in the stores. It’s also release month for me this year, and not just Countess of Scandal! If you’re in the UK, Harlequin is releasing my Renaissance Trilogy in their “Super Historical” line, starting this month with A Notorious Woman. See more about it here…

And yesterday marks the birthday of actor John Philip Kemble, scion of the famous theatrical family and brother of Sarah Siddons! I’ve been fiddling about with a Georgian theater story myself, and thus reading lots about the subject, so this was a nice find. (And thanks to Elena for recommending the book Fashionable Acts! It’s great).

John Philip Kemble was born February 1, 1757 at Prescot in Lancashire, the second child of actor-manager Roger Kemble. His mother was Catholic, and thus he was educated at the Sedgley Park Catholic seminary, and at the English college at Douai, with the expectation that he would become a priest. He found he had no vocation, though, and returned to England to join the theatrical company of Crump and Chamberlain, debuting as the title role of Theodosius at Wolverhampton on January 8, 1776. In 1778 he joined the York company of Tate Wilkinson, making a splash in roles like “Wakefield” in The Recruiting Officer, Macbeth (in Hull on October 30), and in York as “Orestes” in Distresset Mother. In 1781 he obtained a “star” engagement in Dublin, appearing there as Hamlet in November. He was a big hit in Ireland, as Hamlet, Raymond in The Count of Narbonne (a play from Castle of Otranto).

By 1783 his acclaim, along with the immense fame of his sister Mrs. Siddons, landed him an engagement at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he debuted as Hamlet on September 30. His greatest role there was Macbeth, and he also got rave reviews opposite his sister in Edward Moore’s The Gamester. They went on to play together in numerous productions, including Othello, Julia, The Carmelite, and Kemble own adaptation of Philip Massinger’s A Maid of Honor. In 1787 he married the actress (and widow of an actor) Priscilla Hopkins Brereton, and soon after was appointed manager of Drury Lane, which gave him the opportunity to indulge his own vision of the plays they presented (and to take whatever parts he fancied, including a wide variety of Shakespearean characters). He resigned this position in 1802, and in 1803 became manager of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (which he had bough a sixth share in for a high price). The theater burned in September 1808, and the rise in ticket prices after its re-opening led to the Old Price Riots, which suspended performances for over 3 months and nearly ruined Kemble financially (he was saved by a loan, later made a gift, of 10,000 pounds by the Duke of Cumberland). He retired from the stage after a last performance of his best-known role, Coriolanus, in 1817. He died in Lausanne in 1823.

In 1785, the critic Richard Sharp wrote to his friend, the actor John Henderson, after viewing a performance by Kemble: “I went, as promised to see the new ‘Hamlet,’ whose provincial fame had excited your curiosity as well as mine…yet Nature, though she has been bountiful to him in figure and feature, has denied him a voice; of course he could not exemplify his own direction for the players to ‘speak the speech trippingly on the tongue,’ and now and then he was as deliberate in his delivery as if he had been reading prayers and had waited for the response. He is a very handsome man, almost tall and almost large, with features of a sensible but fixed and tragic cast; his action is graceful, though somewhat formal, which you will find it hard to believe yet it is true. Very careful study appears in all he says and all he does; but there is more singularity and ingenuity than simplicity and fire.”

Some sources for this post I found were:
Herschel Baker, John Philip Kemble: The Actor in His Theater
Linda Kelly, The Kemble Era: John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons and the London Stage
(And a book I really like, but which is about John Philip Kemble’s great-niece, a stage star in her own right who married an American plantation owner: Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars, by Catherine Clinton)

What have been some of your best book sale finds?? Seen any good plays lately?

The winner of Countess of Scandal is…Caroline Storer! Please send your snail mail address to laurelmckee7551@yahoo.com to claim your prize….

The Riskies are happy to welcome to the blog for the first time Celeste Bradley! Leave a comment for the chance to win a copy of Rogue in My Arms…

“There’s passion, adventure, non-stop action, and secrets that make the pages fly by” –RT Book Reviews

Celeste: Hi Risky Regencies! So nice to be here!

Riskies: Welcome! Tell us about Rogue in My Arms and the whole “Runaway Brides” series…

Celeste: This has been so much fun to write! All daddies, all the time. The Runaway Brides trilogy had the working title of “Three Lords and a Baby.” One day a tiny girl, Melody, is dropped off on the steps of Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen with nothing but a note claiming that her father is a member of the club. Since most of the club’s members are long past the sowing of their oats, the finger seems to point to the youngest three members, Lord Aidan de Quincy, Sir Colin Lambert, and Lord Jack Redgrave.

In the first novel, Devil in My Bed, Aidan forces himself to face his past and find the woman who broke his heart more than three years past. Madeleine Chandler is running from her own past so fast that she runs right back into Aidan’s arms, at least long enough to get his help in leaving the country. One small lie about having Aidan’s baby doesn’t seem too high a price to pay for temporary sanctuary, until the love she thought was lost returns tenfold. Now with so much more to lose, how can Madeleine confess the truth?

In the second book, Rogue in My Arms, Sir Colin Lambert is searching for the stunning actress Chantal, who rejected him so soundly that he has never looked at another woman since. If he can offer her his new title and wealth, and make their child legitimate, surely she will wed him now? But Chantal has disappeared and Colin must hire saucy theater seamstress Prudence Filby to help him in his search. However, plain and common Pru is really a lady in hiding, protecting her young brother from greedy relations who would steal the inheritance he will receive when he comes of age. Now out of work and broke because Chantal fled town without paying her, Pru and her brother join the search for the flighty actress.

The journey takes them from London to Brighton to Bath, a mad race to catch up with Chantal before she weds another. On the way they encounter scoundrels, players and bandits, along with a string of other lovelorn men hell-bent to find Chantal! When Pru realizes that Colin is a man she could truly love, she can’t bear that he still adores the selfish Chantal. When Colin realizes that Pru is so much more than he first believed, he realizes that he must make a choice. Wed the woman he loves and doom his child to permanent illegitimacy, or try to make a family with the mother of his child?

Rogue in My Arms will be released March 30th! And the third novel, Scoundrel in My Dreams is in progress at the moment. It will tell the poignant story of Lord John “Jack” Redgrave and his journey back from the trauma of war and the discovery of a love he never knew waited for him at home. It will be released in Fall 2010…

Riskies: And what was the inspiration behind this series?

Celeste: I was pondering fatherhood, actually! What makes a man a father? Is it blood? Is it simply a protective instinct? Motherhood is simple and biological–we must love our children. What if any man could learn to be a father, whether the child was his or not? These three men each suspect that Melody is theirs. Yet when they eventually learn the truth, should that change the love that has grown in them? Can letting one little girl into a man’s heart expand it enough to heal old wounds and allow him to love again?

Riskies: Did you come across any interesting or surprising research for these stories?

Celeste: Always! I loved learning about Bath, England. So much fascinating history, dating from Roman times. The story didn’t lend itself to including all the great facts I discovered. I had to be careful it didn’t become “Colin and Pru Go To Bath” because it really could have! I’m going to have to set an entire novel there someday.

In Devil in My Bed I think I enjoyed learning about dumbwaiters the most. I found a lot of 1800 news articles about tragic accidents involving people climbing into dumbwaiters. They would try to use them to get into locked rooms, or to spy on their neighbors, or to escape a bill-collector at the apartment door. Doesn’t that inspire a string of stories in your head??

Riskies: What’s “risky” about this book?

Celeste: Well, I always take risks. I’m notorious for being far-fetched and “history-lite.” I love the Regency era but I can’t resist playing with the facts. I once wrote a book about the Prince Regent clambering through the storm drains with my hero and heroines, but since he would have been close to 80 at the time, I blithely snipped 20 years off his age and went for it. In Rogue, I think the riskiest thing I did was to dispense with a lot of overwrought conflict about class distinctions. As accurate as that might have been to the time, it would have made my characters seems shallow to a modern reader. Besides, money and rank cancels a lot of social errors, even now!

And my love scenes are pretty risky! Of course I have included, as always, my most beloved moment–a bathing scene!–and my favorite device–kidnapping! A Regency novel without a kidnapping is like Star Trek without the Enterprise.

Riskies: LOL! And what’s coming up next for you?

Celeste: I’m very excited about the release of Rogue in a couple of weeks, of course! I’m currently finishing up the third novel, Scoundrel in My Dreams, for publication this fall. I’ll be at the Romantic Times Convention in Columbus in April, and at RomCon in Denver in July. Details are here at my website.

And as I write this I’m on a plane to New York to meet with my agent and publisher about something really new and exciting! Something I can’t tell anyone about yet! It’s killing me to keep quiet, but updates will be on my website very soon.

I’d also like to add a note about my favorite cause, which is Literacy. I believe that most of the evils of the world could be cured with education and the empowerment and tolerance that comes with being well-read. This is a women’s issue as well, since two-thirds of the world’s under-educated are women. A clearinghouse of literacy projects exists at ProLiteracy.org. If you’d like more information, visit this website and join the effort to prevent ignorance and intolerance worldwide!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day, yay! It’s been a busy holiday for me this year. I attended the North Texas Irish Festival weekend before last to sign copies of Countess of Scandal and listen to some great music. Last weekend was our local parade and another booksigning–in a pub! (Every booksigning should be in a pub, it makes them way more fun than usual…). Today I’m talking to a local history group about the 1798 Rebellion, and tomorrow a party. But today we’re having a party at the Riskies!

St. Patrick’s Day was only “officially” placed on the universal liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in the early 17th century, thanks to the efforts of a Waterford-born Franciscan scholar named Luke Wadding, but it was unofficially celebrated in the local Irish churches and in homes from a much earlier date. It’s a holy day of obligation for Irish Catholics (but if it falls on a Friday, the Lenten obligation to abstain from meat doesn’t bind on that day, so bring on the corned beef and lamb stew!). It became a public holiday in 1903, and the first parade in the Irish Free State was held in 1931. In the mid-1990s, the Irish government wisely realized St. Patrick’s Day was the perfect time to showcase Ireland and its culture and increase tourism. They formed the St. Patrick’s Festival, first held March 17, 1996. It was so popular it became a 3-day event the next year, and by 2006 lasted 5 days, with approximately 675,000 visitors. The second-largest Festival is in Downpatrick, County Down, where St. Patrick is rumored to be buried after his death in 461. 30,000 people attended their parade in recent years. Large parades and parties are also held in Belfast, Cork, Derry, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Waterford.

And the US isn’t left out of all the fun, of course! The first parade was held way back in 1737, in Boston. Other early parades included New York (1762), Philadelphia (1771), New Orleans (any excuse for a party! 1809), and Savannah (1813). In 1780, General George Washington allowed his troops a holiday on March 17 “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence,” which became known as the St. Patrick’s Day Encampment of 1780. (This now seems to be re-enacted on every college campus in the country on March 17!).

So everyone get out their green t-shirts and Chieftains CDs for our Riskies St. Patrick’s Party! Here is what you need for your dinner–shepherd’s pie, soda bread, and a shamrock-tini: