Like Diane, I have deadlines, oh, tomorrow! Two projects have to go in, so I am a bit crazed here in the Writing Cave (and thanks to some scheduling snafus on my part, the new Victorian-set book had to be written in two months, so I am especially happy to see the back of it for a while!). So let’s look at some handsome men for today while I sit over here and quietly go crazy. There are lots of summer movies out now/coming soon featuring hunky heroes, none of which I have seen yet but I’m definitely planning to. (There’s Thor, the new Pirates of the Caribbean, and X Men: First Class, which I will probably see even though I am not a huge X-Men fan because, hello, it has Michael Fassbender AND James McAvoy…)
And on another note, my RITA finalist Countess of Scandal is an excellent deal in ebooks right now, only $1.99 on the Kindle and the Nook…
What movies have you seen lately? Any you’re looking forward to?Read anything good lately???
1) Writing! One project done (I think–or maybe I’m just sick of it now), one to finish. Then one to start. And RWA in about 4 weeks. Good times.
2) What to do since the Vampire Diaries season is over and True Blood hasn’t started yet? Thanks to the wonders of Netflix streaming (honestly, what did we do without this??), I have been wasting much time watching many episodes of Top Gear. That show is made of awesome. Also Bollywood movies.
3) Getting my (very excited) little ballet students ready for their recital in two weeks. It is all pink tulle all the time over there now!
4) Also getting ready for book three of my “Daughters of Erin” trilogy to hit the shelves next week! Visit us Sunday for the chance to win a signed copy. It’s hard to say good-bye to these characters… (and the first reviews are coming in! Here and here...)
My current project (One Naughty Night, which will be out from Grand Central Publishing in June 2012) is Victorian-set, so I’ve been spending a lot of time reading Victorian research books lately. In trying to find something to blog about today, I discovered that May 24 is Queen Victoria’s birthday! So happy 192nd birthday.
Princess Victoria was born on May 24, 1819 at about 4:15 in the morning at Kensington Palace to Edward, the Duke of Kent (4th son of George III) and his wife Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (sister of Princess Charlotte’s widower Prince Leopold). Princess Charlotte’s death in childbirth in 1817 set off a succession crisis–none of King George’s many sons had managed to come up with any more legitimate heirs, but they now scrambled to find suitable wives and produce little heirs to the throne. Victoria was born 5th in line of succession, after her father and his three elder brothers, the Regent and the dukes of York and Clarence. The Regent was long estranged from his wife Caroline, and now his only child was dead; York was also all but estranged from his wife, and she was too old to have children anyway; and Clarence (who married his wife Adelaide the same day as the Kents) had two legitimate daughters who died in infancy, even though he had copious amounts of children with his longtime mistress Dorothy Jordan. Victoria won the heir stakes.
She was christened in a small ceremony by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace on June 24. She was meant to be named Victoria Georgina Alexandrina Charlotte Augusta, or some combination therein, but the Regent threw a big fit which made the Duchess of Kent cry and made them take off the Georgina (after him) and the Charlotte (because of his daughter). The Alexandrina was after one of the baby’s godfathers, Tsar Alexander of Russia.
Victoria’s father died in 1820, and her childhood she later described as “rather melancholy.” For more information and images, you can go here…
What is your favorite TV show right now? Did you watch the Vampire Diaries season finale (what did you think)?? Are you going to be at RWA this year? And who is your favorite dysfunctional family in history? (The Tudors, maybe?)
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I was out last night, hanging out in the bar of my favorite local restaurant (Ludivine, if you happen to be in the Oklahoma City area! Go there–it is fantastic…), and we started speculating on what the first cocktail might have been. So we had to get someone’s phone out and Google it. Here is what we found:
There were things like punches and syllabubs that had recipes from the Renaissance era, but the earliest known printed use of the word “cocktail” was on April 28, 1803 in The Farmer’s Cabinet: “Drank a glass of cocktail—excellent for the head…Call’d at the Doct’s. found Burnham—he looked very wise—drank another glass of cocktail.”
The earliest definition of a cocktail can be found in The Balance and Columbian Repository out of Hudson, NY: “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.”
The first bartender’s guide could be 1862’s How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon Vivant’s Companion by “Professor” Jerry Thomas.
One of my favorite drinks, especially now that the weather is turning cooler, is a chocolatini–this looks like a good recipe here…
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope you are having a great week. Mine is not so fun, since I just got back from a lovely vacation in Santa Fe (eating green chile enchiladas, drinking margaritas, laying by the pool, looking at art…) and now have to settle down to work again. But it’s nice to be diving into a new book and thinking about blogs again. 🙂
When I was trying to find subjects for today’s post, I found out St. Hildegard of Bingen died September 17 in 1179. I’ve always thought she was a fascinating woman, and I love listening to CDs of music, so I thought we could take a quick look at her life (even though she is waaaayy earlier than Regency!)
Hildegard was born in (probably) 1098, the 10th child of a noble German family. Overcome with children, they gave her to the Church when she was 8, which proved to be a blessing in her life. She was highly educated for the times, learing reading, writing, and music as a child. She grew up into a composer, philosopher, writer, healer, and visionary (she was plagued by ill health all her life, and had mystic visions during her sicknesses). She was elected abbess of her community in 1136, and founded at least one other nunnery.
70 to 80 of her compositions survive, along with some of her books (the best known is probably Know The Way), a morality play called Play of the Virtues), and books about the healing properties of herbs. She corresponded with popes, emperors, and people like Bernard of Clairvaux, and went on long preaching tours beyond her abbey. When she died, the nuns of her community claimed to see two bars of light appear in the sky and cross over her room.
Of her visions, she wrote:
But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. […] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!
This is just a quick glimpse of her fascinating (and ahead of her time) life! I really like Fiona Maddocks’s biography Hildegard of Bingen: Woman of Her Age (2001). There are some great links to sources on this page and this one too…
Happy Tuesday, everyone. I am off on vacation this week (the first time I could get away all summer!), and having a great time shopping, eating, swimming, and above all–reading! So this will be a short post–longer next week, I promise…
I’ve been reading Linda Urbach’s new historical novel Madame Bovary’s Daughter, about what happens to poor Bertha Bovary after the death of her parents. It’s a great concept, and I know there have been several novels out lately concerning minor characters from classics (especially Austen novels!). I think I would love to see what happened to Adele from Jane Eyre…
