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Author Archives: Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

About Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Writer (as Amanda McCabe, Laurel McKee, Amanda Carmack), history geek, yoga enthusiast, pet owner!

The Tarnished Rose of the Court

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Today Risky Amanda is launching her newest Harlequin Historical title, The Tarnished Rose of the Court….with a little help from her writing friend Kathy Wheeler, aka Kae Elle Wheeler!  Comment for a chance to win a signed copy…

A dangerous mission at Queen Elizabeth’s bidding is Celia Sutton’s chance to erase the taint of her brother’s treason. Her life is at risk if she’s discovered—and so is her heart when she learns her co-conspirator is also her onetime seducer: brooding and mysterious John Brandon!
John can’t believe the change in Celia—what’s happened to the carefree English rose she once was? Leaving Celia was the only thing to do, but now guilt tears at his soul.He has to heal the sadness in her past, and he’s not above using anything—from expert seduction to royal favors—to achieve his goal.

Amazon
e-Harlequin

Today I’m guest hosting once more for my good friend Amanda McCabe, in a slightly different format though. She has a new release October 1st, Tarnished Rose of the Court. I had just a few questions for her that she so sweetly indulged.   (KLW)
 
Q: It’s obvious you love the Elizabethan period. What is it that draws your interest?
A: I do adore this period! I’ve talked about it here before, but I know that part of it is the sheer energy of the time period. It was such a time of change and movement, bawdy and raw but also elegant in its clothes and architecture, and a moment of artistic creativity almost unmatched in history. There were so many brilliant personalities in the arts, politics, exploration, the military, and it made for an exciting era. It was also really a moment for women. Besides Elizabeth and the intelligent and headstrong women of her court (like Bess of Hardwick, for one example), there was Mary of Scotland, and Catherine de Medici in France. There were a multitude of crazy, runaway romances, thanks to Elizabeth’s aversion to letting any of her courtiers marry. It’s a great setting for exciting stories…
Q: If you could live in that time, would you?
A: Definitely not!! As wonderful as it would be to actually see Elizabeth I, or watch a brand new Shakespeare play at the Globe, I don’t think I could handle the smells. Or the lack of medical care. Or dressing in farthingales and ruffs every day. Much as I love to dress up, sometimes a girl just needs her jeans! But if I could go back in time for a few days to do some in-depth research then come back home…
Q: Who would your heroine be?
A: In this time period, I really love Anne Boleyn. She was such a strong, intelligent, outspoken woman of deep convictions and great ambition, who was way ahead of her time. Her ending was certainly tragic (I cried when I visited the Tower, just thinking about it!), but she passed down those traits (along with a quick temper and mercurial charm) to her daughter.

Q: Your story is set when Mary Queen of Scots is two and twenty, which is much older than I initially believed. I suppose my question is in how you perceived Mary vs. Elizabeth. Did you consider Mary as naïve? And what of Elizabeth?
A: Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most fascinating characters in history (who still has a hold on the popular imagination!), but in truth she was something of a ding-dong when it came to being a queen. She messed up everything in her life in major, major ways, often because she simply didn’t seem to stop and think (or show any self-control!), unlike Elizabeth, who rarely took a step wrong. I wonder if it’s because of the difference in their upbringings. Mary became queen when she was a few hours old, and from the age of 4 onwards grew up at the supremely elegant and sophisticated French court, betrothed to the dauphin, queen to two countries. She was beautiful, spoiled, and always sure of her place in the world, though not very intellectual. Whereas Elizabeth’s mother was executed as a traitor when she was 3, she grew up a bastard, and was often physically in danger and always unsure of her place. It was a miracle she became queen. But she was very well-educated and extremely shrewd. She knew how to get herself out of trouble, and how to stay popular and in control at all times. She was willing to make sacrifices to keep her place on the throne (including not marrying her true love Robert Dudley), where Mary never sacrificed anything at all and had a rare talent for making very bad choices. I loved getting to show something of the contrast between them in this story!
For more info, I highly recommend Jane Dunn’s book Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens…
Q: It is a fascinating time period. Can you tell us a little about your degree in English Literature?
A: I’m afraid I loved going to school so much I ended up changing majors three times! Until my parents told me to pick one and finish the degree asap or they wouldn’t pay for tuition anymore, LOL. It ended up I had taken so many English lit classes that I had almost enough credits to finish it up, so English it was, then I went on to get an MA in Elizabethan poetry. It was great to combine my love of books and history, and even though my dad was sure it made me totally unfit for any “real world” job, it’s been great for being a historical writer!!
Q: What are some of the challenges you face as a published writer?
A: Deadlines. I always seem to be struggling with them. (But if I didn’t have them I doubt I would get anything done—I am a master procrastinator!). And finding time to get online promo and networking done every day can be a challenge (especially when there are so many fashion blogs to visit!). But the people I’ve met, other readers and writers, have been such a huge reward.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about Tarnished Rose of the Court?
A: It all started with the character of Celia! She appeared in my book The Winter Queen, and I wondered what made her so unhappy. At the end of that book, Queen Elizabeth sends Celia on some mysterious errand to visit Scotland (where Queen Mary has just returned after years in France), and I wondered what happened to her there, too. Once I sat down and started thinking about Celia, I realized it was a lost love, and a family tragedy, that made her what she was. But inside she was still vulnerable, especially when her lost love, John, returns.
It didn’t hurt that John happened to look like Henry Cavill in The Tudorstoo! I loved finding out what happened to them in Scotland. It’s always fun writing about court intrigue and mystery, and I wanted Celia and John to be together so, so much.

 

Q: When you’re working on a manuscript, what motivates you? What frustrates you?
A: Deadlines!! As well as being a challenge they’re a motivator. But I love it when I’m eager to spend time with characters every day and see what they want to do next. I get frustrated when what they want to do doesn’t correspond at all to what I planned for them…
Q: What do you like to read?
A: Everything!! Really, I will read anything I find at the bookstore or library that looks interesting, or that friends recommend. I love romance, mystery, a little fantasy sometimes, literary fiction, anything. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction, research-y type stuff (am in the middle of book one of my new Elizabethan mystery series!), but I’ve also finished two novels I am raving about to anyone who will listen—Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette(I never wanted this one to end, I loved it so much) and Meljean Brooks’s Riveted. I am obsessed with steampunk. If anyone here has any more recs, let me know!

Q: One last question that has nothing to do with your book—tell me about this dedication…quite flattered we were! In tears (happy tears!). I wish you much success with Tarnished Rose of the Court.
A: LOL! I guess everyone here should know about the Martini Club. Every Friday (and sometimes other nights) I meet Kathy and our friends Alicia Dean and Christy Gronlund at the Martini Lounge. It’s saved my sanity more than once…and so I just wanted to say a little “thank you” for the friendship (and the great lemontinis)…This is us (without Christy!) at the Martini Lounge…

And at the Museum Rooftop…

 
 

Now for a teeny short review of Tarnished Rose of the Court.

Celia Sutton is caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. She is a tragic figure who has lived through her one true love’s desertion, her brother’s execution for treason, and an abusive husband. And now, in order to secure a future for herself, she has to perform one last service for Queen Elizabeth—travel to Scotland and report Mary Queen of Scots marriage inclinations. If she is fortunate, the husband Elizabeth will bestow upon Celia will not be cruel.
In the meantime, John Brandon’s desertion of Celia years prior was inevitable; he was an agent of the Court. The problem was he hadn’t planned on falling in love with her. And now he is to accompany the party, Celia included, to Edinburgh. And he finds his passion has only deepened, despite the shadows that haunt her eyes. Now he just has to find a way to keep her from Lord Knowlton’s grimy paws.
This is a touching story of rekindled passion that is swept up in a tide of love, with danger lurking around every corner. A heart wrenching story to warm your heart. – Kathy L Wheeler
Posted in Former Riskies, Giveaways, Interviews, Research, Risky Book Talk | Tagged , , , | 8 Replies

National Museum Day

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I heard on the radio this morning that September 25 is National Museum Day!  I had no idea there was such a thing, but I am all for it.  I’ve loved wandering around museums, all sorts of museums, ever since I was a little kid, and it’s still one of my favorite things in the world.  Museums are always so packed with intriguing objects, new information, interesting people, and quiet nooks.

Here are some of my favorites!  (Just a few…would take too long to list all museums I love)

The Frick

British Museum

Musee d’Orsay

The Met (inlcuding the Cloisters–so beautiful!)

Carnavalet

So happy Museum Day!!  What are some of your favorites???

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged | 8 Replies

The Lady Who Broke The Rules!

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The Riskies welcome back Marguerite Kaye, who is here to talk about her new release, the third in the “Castonbury Park” series from Harlequin Historicals….

Slave to Love! And a Giveaway

The Lady Who Broke the Rules is my book from the Regency upstairs/downstairs series Castonbury Park. My heroine is Lady Kate, the eldest daughter of the wealthy Montague family, a philanthropist and abolitionist. My hero is Virgil Jackson, a freed slave.
The Riskies welcome back Marguerite Kaye, who is here to talk about her new release, the third in the “Castonbury Park” series from Harlequin Historicals….
‘We want scandal, scandal, scandal,’ our editor told us eight authors when we first embarked on the ‘Castonbury Park’ journey, and a freed black slave seemed to me like a brilliant starting point. Any man who could survive the horrors of slavery and succeed on his own terms as Virgil does would have to be unbelievably strong-willed, yet at the same time, coming from such a traumatic background, he had to have some deep-seated issues of his own to contend with. Virgil is a free man, but he’s still a slave to his past
The history of slavery is a complex, emotive and controversial subject, one that has always fascinated me, but I have to admit there where times when I thought I’d taken a step too far in making a freed slave a romantic hero. However, with the Castonbury Park series is set at a time when slavery was being challenged in both the Old and the New Worlds, I’m always keen to push boundaries in my stories, so I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did.
The Lady Who Broke the Rules is set in 1816. In the United States, the trade of slaves was abolished in the north in 1804, after which manumission in those states gathered momentum. In the south though, cotton was in increasing demand (paradoxically thanks to the north’s industrialisation of textile manufacture), slaves were a hugely important part of the economy, and resistance to abolition was significant.
Virgil was born into slavery in the south and freed in the north. He was one of the fortunate ones who came to true eminence and used his wealth to give others the chances he had had to make for himself. Though in reality this kind of success was rare, it was not unheard of. Robert Purvis is just one example of the black philanthropists from whom I took inspiration for Virgil, but his entrepreneurial side is an amalgamation of a whole number of black men and women who flourished in Nineteenth Century Boston, renting out real estate, setting up restaurants and beauty parlours, making shoes and clothes for the mass market, taking on the Establishment by training as lawyers and doctors.
Across the pond, a huge number of aristocratic families had derived a large part of their wealth from plantations in the West Indies which relied on slavery, but their influence was on the decline. The actual trade of slaves became illegal in 1807, and although it was not until 1833 that slavery itself was abolished, by 1816 the growing Abolitionist movement, coupled with the decline of the economic significance of the West Indies plantations, made the idea, if not the reality, of slavery much less politically and socially acceptable than it had been a decade or so before.
My research for The Lady Who Broke the Rules taught me that a large number of the British abolitionists were women, and so I made my heroine, Lady Kate Montague, one of them. It was one of the few political causes in which it became acceptable for women to participate, and in which women took a leading and influential role. I relished the opportunity to create a heroine who could, without it seeming a historical anachronism, be active politically and philanthropically. Josiah Wedgewood’s daughter Sarah, who introduces Kate to Virgil, was just one real life example I drew on when writing her.
There’s a huge difference between perception and reality. Kate, like me, had only read about slavery. Virgil had experienced it. As a writer, I had to try and imagine myself in both sets of shoes. Whether I’ve managed it or not – well, that’s for you to decide.
I have a signed copy of Kate and Virgil’s story to give away. Just leave a comment for a chance to win.
The Lady Who Broke the Rules (Castonbury Park 3) is out in October in the UK, digital only in the US and Canada, though it will be released in a print duo (Ladies of Disrepute) with Book 4 in December. Here is the blurb:
‘Your rebellion has not gone unnoticed…’ Anticipating her wedding vows and then breaking off the engagement has left Kate Montague’s social status in tatters. She hides her hurt at her family’s disapproval behind a resolutely optimistic facade, but one thing really grates…For a fallen woman, she knows shockingly little about passion! Could Virgil Jackson be the man to teach her? A freed slave turned successful businessman, his striking good looks and lethally restrained power throw normally composed Kate into a tailspin! She’s already scandalised society, but succumbing to her craving for Virgil would be the most outrageous thing Kate’s done by far…
There’s excerpts, background and more about my books on www.margueritekaye.com.
Posted in Former Riskies, Giveaways, Guest, Regency, Research | Tagged , , | 7 Replies

A Piece of Cake

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Lately I have been thinking about many things wedding (as well as many things deadline and many things revision-y).  My favorites so far have been dresses (of course!), and, since I have a terrible sweet tooth, cake.  I think I want to go for something chocolate, or at least white with chocolate filling, but haven’t made up my mind yet.  So today I decided to take a quick look at some cakes of the past.

In ancient Rome, a barley cake was broken by the groom over the bride’s head for good luck.  (Like so many other wedding things we do and don’t know why–it’s for luck).  In medieval times, there was something called a “bride’s pye” (one recipe of which calls for cockscombs, lam testicles, sweetbreads, oysters, and–thankfully–spices).  The traditional French wedding cake is a croquembouche, sort of like glazed profiteroles glued together with spun sugar) is said to come from another medieval tradition where the bride and groom had to kiss over a large pile of cakes.  Why?  Luck!!  (or superstition–much like the tradition of bridesmaids taking a piece of cake home to put under their pillow so they will dream of their own future husbands.  This sounds very messy to me)

Like so many wedding things, cakes became more elaborate in the Victorian era.  Sugar had become more plentiful and affordable, and after Victoria had a white wedding cake, white icing became known as “royal icing.”  In Carol Wilson’s article “Wedding Cake: A Slice of History” she says that elaborate whorls and decorations of icing and fresh flowers and columns were “a status symbol, a display of family wealth.”  (I tried to link to this, but it doesn’t appear to be available any longer).  I think this notion is still valid, considering how expensive cakes have become.  I have friends who have spent over $1000 for a cake; a new trend is having a cake made of styrofoam, with the guests served discreetly from a cheaper sheet cake.  (my own wedding is very small, so I probably won’t need to resort to quite this level of subterfuge…)

The queen’s daughter Princess Louise (the one who married a “commoner”) had a piece of her wedding cake sold at an antiques fair a few years ago for $215.  A bargain compared to the piece from the 1937 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, which sold for $29,000.

The English traditional cake is a plum or fruit cake (which I think Will and Kate had at their wedding…), in the US we consider a white cake traditional.   When Elizabeth II married in 1947, her cake weighed 500 pounds; Princess Diana’s cake, encrusted with marzipan Windsor coats of arms, was 5 feet tall.  (I wonder if they served sheet cake on the sly??)

These are a few I am thinking about:

(The ones with pink roses look like my parents’ cake 40 years ago, so I was going to try and reproduce it for my own wedding…)

What is your favorite kind of cake??  What is the best cake you ever had at a wedding?

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity, Research | Tagged , | 7 Replies