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Author Archives: diane

About diane

Diane Gaston is the RITA award-winning author of Historical Romance for Harlequin Historical and Mills and Boon, with books that feature the darker side of the Regency. Formerly a mental health social worker, she is happiest now when deep in the psyches of soldiers, rakes and women who don’t always act like ladies.

We have a new look!

What better way to kick off our anniversary week than to launch our newly designed blog? Our new design is by the lovely and talented Haven Rich, with considerable input from the Riskies and even some polling of our readers.

This is the result.

The image in our logo is from Pierce Egan’s Life in London: “Tom, Jerry and Logic Making the Most of an Evening at Vauxhall” by Robert and George Cruikshank. If you received a Risky Regengy button at RWA, you’ll notice the two dancing figures are from that image. Clever were we not?

So…..What do you think?

Change is hard, even welcome changes. As a result, I’m not entirely certain how I feel about the new design, but only because I miss what is familiar. We human beings tend to stick to the familiar, the secure, but we also sometimes gain the courage to change.

That’s what each of us Riskies did when we first decided to write a book. We mustered up the courage to do something different than we’d ever done before, to change from a person who didn’t write a book into a person who does write a book. I’m glad I did, because it has given me this happy life where I can spend my days in Regency England or hang out with my fellow Riskies and all our friends.

In honor of change and growth–and our anniversary–I’m going to give away a copy of The Vanishing Viscountess, the special Mills & Boon Centenary edition, which includes a bonus story, The Mysterious Miss M–and a Risky Regency Button!

There will be more prizes announced each day this week. All our winners will be randomly selected at the end of the week from all the comments this Anniversary Week. So comment often to increase your chances to win.

And, today, tell us what you think of our new look!

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The History Conference held on the Wednesday before RWA kicks off held a Silent Auction during the Afternoon Tea. I’ve attended several of these Silent Auctions and pride myself on having a fool-proof strategy.

This year was no exception!

My strategy, honed by these years of experience, was to bid on several items so that I would have a good chance of winning at least one or two of the items I most desired. I put my claims in early and checked now and then (between tea sandwiches) to see how I was doing. As time ticked on, I became a little nervous. No one was bidding against me! I was winning EVERYTHING. Several more checks confirmed my fears. I won each and every single thing I’d bid on. The only saving grace to my pocketbook (strained after two and a half days of shopping in San Francisco)was that I’d bid low.
(these series of 3 photos are courtesy of The Beau Monde)

I don’t know. Maybe I should not have attended the Gentleman’s Tipple workshop where we sampled about ten different types of alcohol of which Regency Gentlemen would have imbibed. I tasted them all.

At least I won some treasures!


This lovely plate, donated by our Risky friend, Jane George.

Two prints Jane also donated. These I added to my already long list of items because no one else saw their incredible value and I got them for a SONG. David’s portrait of Napoleon and this other one. I think it says, “The Bank Looking Towards Mansion House.”

A CD – Napoleon: Music of the Empire 1800-1815. This was my year for Napoleon, I guess.

Books, of course. I always donate books to the Silent Auction. Every year I donate the duplicate copies of books that I have purchased for myself. Yes. I do forget and buy the same book twice. This year I donated three books… and purchased three books!

Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron was first published in 1858. The author is Edward Trelawny, who met Shelley and Byron on a trip to Italy. Trelawny was also the guy who designed the boat that Shelley and Edward Williams took out to sea on the last day of their lives.

The Young Melbourne by David Cecil looks good, too. Melbourne is William Lamb, the poor guy who married Caroline Lamb, who had a famous affair with Byron.

And the last book looks like more fun. The Scouring of the White Horse. If you are driving in the Berkshires you might come upon the white chalk figure of a horse carved into a hillside. This book tells about the 1857 festival of the cleansing of the horse by the people of Uffington. It is an eye-witness account by the author of Tom Brown’s School Days.

Many thanks to Jane George and Delle Jacobs for all their hard work on this very successful Silent Auction!

The background of my photos is the Pashmina I purchased in China Town. They assured me it was 100% Pashmina, all for $14.99.

If you attended the Silent Auction, what did you win and what did you lose? What was the most disappointing thing you ever lost in an auction?
‘Fess up. You’ve purchased duplicate books, too, haven’t you?

Visit my website and enter my contest. They both are still there!

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I’m home but already missing my friends from RWA.
This was such a special conference, because for the first time EVER all the Riskies were in one place at the same time AND so many of our Risky friends were also there.

On Tuesday of last week Keira and I spent the day walking around San Francisco and, yes, we did walk up and down hills. Our last stop was at Pier 22 (or something) and here is the proof.

Wednesday was the Beau Monde HHRW Conference and Amanda and Megan and Risky friend Andrea Pickens held a workshop on how to make your historical time period come alive. Amanda brought along Shakespeare and Jane Austen.

Then there was the Soiree, where Louisa aka doglady aka Pam won her category in the Royal Ascot.
Here is lovely and elegant Risky pal janegeorge and our Risky friend, the equally elegant Julia Justiss

Here is Julia again, Louisa, AMANDA, and the beautiful Indian princess, Keira

O Doggie One (Louisa) and me

I pretty much stopped taking photos from there. Here, though is a photo of Amanda, Deb Marlowe and Me at the Harlequin Party.

And, finally, all the Riskies. From Left to right: Elena, Cara, Diane, Amanda, Janet and Megan.

What would you like to know about RWA? We’d be glad to share.

Come visit Diane at her website and read the newly posted excerpt of Scandalizing the Ton and enter her new contest!

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I’m in San Francisco!
I flew in yesterday and my travel was about as problem-free as you could expect. Then my niece Leila, who lives here, came to take me on the town. We walked from the hotel to Pier 39 for dinner, stopping at a Craft Fair on the way and lots of little shops. Then we went on the Alcatraz night tour and received real VIP treatment, because Leila works there. We went on a special private tour of Alcatraz, including the hospital wing where the movie, The Rock, was filmed, and underground, where the foundation for the original Civil War era fort can still be seen.

While we were on the boat I heard, “Diane!” It was Lori Wilde, who writes for Blaze and Grand Central. She and her husband joined our little private tour of Alcatraz.

Some pics:
Entrance to Alcatraz

Diane and Leila

Lori Wilde and Bill

Lori and Diane in jail

Today Leila and I will explore the city and ride cable cars. And tomorrow Keira and I will do our own tour of San Francisco, meeting up with Amanda and later with Deb Marlowe, Michelle Willingham and a bunch of others to end our day at O’Neills Irish Pub.

I wish you were all here, but I’ll take comfort in knowing all the Riskies will be together and we’ll see many of our Risky friends at our ‘breakfast’ at the RWA conference. More about that next Monday…..

Reading about Dorothy’s upcoming Five Star Regency, The Nude, made me suck in a fast intake of air. Her premise, if I’m reading correctly, involves an artist and a nude painting. The book-I-just-turned-in ALSO involves and artist and a nearly nude painting. Yipes!

How many times does this happen? We come up with an innovative plot and BOOM! discover someone else has thought of something similar? I think someone else has a Regency that deals with gossip and the newspapers, like my next one, Scandalizing the Ton…can’t remember who at the moment.

I am very confident that Dorothy’s book and my book will each be unique, but it makes me wonder. Why do we authors come up with similar ideas at the same time?

I mean, think about Cara’s My Lady Gamester and my The Wagering Widow. Both were released in 2005.

Here is the blurb for My Lady Gamester:
MY LADY GAMESTER is the story of an aristocratic card-sharp in Regency London—who just happens to be a woman.
Atalanta James is the daughter of the late Viscount James, who bankrupted his family in a single night of cards. Now Atalanta has arrived for a London Season, and seems to be as determined a gamester as her father.
The Earl of Stoke wants above all things to protect his family from the kind of gambling madness that infected both his father and older brother. Why, then, is he so fascinated by Atalanta James? And why does he feel such a strong urge to protect her from the sharks that swarm around her—and even from herself?

Here is the blurb from The Wagering Widow:
Guy, Lord Keating, laden with his father’s debts, elopes with “heiress” Emily Duprey…only to discover she is as poor as he! Now his only hope of saving his family and dependants is a reluctant return to the gaming tables. Emily needs to escape this marriage to a gamester like her father. But she needs more money than she can win as Lady Keating – so she becomes Lady Widow, a card-playing masked seductress! Then Guy recognizes the beautiful Widow as his quiet, mousy wife – and their inconvenient marriage takes an unexpected turn…

There are lots of similarities!

Cara and I are on opposite sides of the country and we have never been critique partners and yet our stories had similar elements. What wisp of creativity was in the air and traveled a whole continent and hit us both?


All of a sudden there seem to have been several Courtesan books out in close proximity. Because books are written one or two years before their release, it isn’t possible that writers were copying each other’s ideas.
The earliest copyright date I found was Julia Justiss’s The Courtesan (2005)but there are more, like Anna Campbell’s Claiming the Courtesan (2007). Again, the stories are not the same, but something was in the air telling writers to write Courtesan books.

What do you think? Do you see these waves of similar topics? Or am I nuts…..

(Next Monday I’ll be in San Francisco, a pre-conference visit with my niece. I’ll give you all a report!)