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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.

Home from RWA Atlanta

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Hello, Everyone! I’m back from the RWA conference in Atlanta where I had a wonderful time! It was truly a golden conference for me–or rather for Diane Gaston. My A Reputable Rake by Diane Gaston won the RITA award for Best Regency Romance. You’d think that would be enough good fortune for any one person, but The Mysterious Miss M won a National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency. Janet’s Dedication was also a finalist in the NRCA and it could very easily (and just as happily) been her book to win Best Regency.

It was a great conference for Riskies. Cara’s My Lady Gamester won the Booksellers Best Award for Best Regency and Amanda’s Lady Midnight won the Booksellers Best Award for Best Long Historical.

There were so many highlights of the conference I don’t know where to begin or what to include. The very best part is seeing all my Romance writing friends, some whom I only see at the national conference. It was fun seeing Megan and I had time to share Wet Noodle Posse fun with Janet and Amanda and I snuck in a short half hour for a “comfortable coze.”

The Mills & Boon editors were so cute. Well, Sheila Hodgson was elegant but Joanne Carr and Jenny Hutton were lovely, young, gorgeous and enthusiastic– and tall! All the Mills & Boon folks and the Harlequin folks were lovely to me, even before I won!

The whole atmosphere of the conference was exciting, supportive, and joyful. I loved every minute.

Blogger would not let me post photos but I will put them on a blog as soon as Blogger decides to behave.

Cheers!
Diane

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Real Research?

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476px-Edmund_Blair_Leighton_-_The_Windmiller's_GuestYesterday I went to an all day workshop with Bob Mayer, who had many good things to say about bringing your germ of a story idea to fruition into a full-fledged novel.

But he said one thing that gave me, as an author of historical romance, pause….

He said that the best way to do research was from the novels of successful authors in your genre. The best way. He mentioned a best-selling author of military thrillers who researched from other books in his genre.

Bob’s point was that readers have already shown that they like the world created by the best-selling author, so, even if it is inaccurate, it is what sells.

1815 019 no 2In fairness to Bob, he was talking about the sorts of books he writes, not Regency romance, but it made me think about our ongoing debate about the importance of historical accuracy in “our” books. Regency authors (like our marvelous Myretta Robens) love to discuss the pros and cons of historically accurate Regencies to “wallpaper historicals” to those who just get it wrong. And we’ve often talked about the tiny Regency inventions Georgette Heyer put in her books to catch the authors who were using her for their history.

To me part of the fun of writing historicals is to fit the real history into a story that (hopefully) will appeal to the modern reader, but that is not necessarily every historical author’s goal nor is it necessarily what every reader of historicals enjoys.

Bob did mention that the best way to research setting is to actually go to the place and see it for yourself. If that was not possible, he advocated using books, websites, videos, maps to get the setting right. He did stress the importance of getting time and distance correct, which is something that sometimes bugs me in historicals. When I read of characters sailing here and there or traveling by carriage here or there in modern rates of speed, it does pull me from the story and tempt me to throw the book against the wall.

But does even that bother readers?

What do you think? Does any of this matter to you?

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Diane’s Beach Reads

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Amanda, Megan, Janet and I are bound for the RWA Conference this week, not exactly a “day at the beach,” but a lot of fun in its own way. Still, it did get us thinking about vacations, especially beach vacations. Instead of proceeding through our hectic lives or the hectic conference, we imagined going to the beach and sitting under a beach umbrella, listening to the waves and READING!

What books, we asked ourselves, would we pack?

In each of our blogs this week, we are going to tell you!
Starting with me.

Traveling to Atlanta today, Monday July 24, I will worry only about what book to take on the airplane. (That’s not all I’ll worry about. At the conference I’ll discover if The Mysterious Miss M wins Best Regency in The Bookseller’s Best or The National Reader’s Choice Awards. And if A Reputable Rake wins the RITA for Best Regency. Yipes!)On my return flight, I’ll likely pick one book among the many freebies we’re bound to receive.

But if I were going to the beach? I scoured my To-Be-Read piles and selected the books I’d most want to read if I could spend this week sitting under a beach umbrella. My choices are confined to friends’ books. I don’t even dare to consider widening the book pool to include all the possibilities.

Regency Books:
Lady Midnight by Amanda McCabe – “our” Amanda. I’ve had the book for ages and it is on the top of my pile and is a Booksellers Best finalist for Best Historical.
The Naked Marquis by Sally MacKenzie – I enjoyed her Naked Duke and want more!
Love is in the Heir by Kathryn Caskie – her conclusion to the Featherton sister series
To Love a Thief by Julie Ann Long – her RITA finalist for Short Historical

Others: (these are all by my pals in the Wet Noodle Posse, who are way too prolific for me to keep up)
A Rogue in a Kilt by Sandy Blair – I loved her debut, A Man in a Kilt
Run for the Money by Stephanie Feagan – Again, I loved Show Her the Money, up for Best First Book in the RITAs.
Learning Curve by Terry McLaughlin – a Harlequin Superromance I peeked into and can’t wait to finish
The Runaway Daughter by Anna DeStefano – ditto
The Mancini Marriage Bargain by Trish Morey – one of those delicious Harlequin Presents
Oh, there are so many more I could list! I could not possibly get through all of these on my beach week, but these are the ones I would pack.
(speaking of packing……did I remember everything?)

Cheers!
Diane

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India – Pre-Regency

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I’ve been enjoying my research into India during the Regency for Wolfe’s story (Wolfe of the Ternion in The Marriage Bargain). The story will begin in India, assuming Warner’s approval of my next idea, but will mostly take place in England.

I’ve discovered some interesting things about the English in India. In the early years of the East India Company it was not uncommon for the English company men to adopt a native lifestyle, native dress, taking Indian wives. Such men were tolerated in the early years and not much was made about them, but later, closer to our time period, adopting native habits was beginning to be frowned upon or looked upon with suspicion. Typically, by the Victorian age, it was not tolerated at all, given the certain belief that the British were superior in all ways.


I’m reading White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth Century India by William Dalrymple, which tells the story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, a Colonel and an Ambassador, who married Khairunnissa, the daughter of an Indian noble family. Kirkpatrick converted to Islam to marry her and—according to a web article—spied for the Nizam against the British. The marriage was a happy but brief one, lasting only four years. The couple produced two children who were sent to England. Shortly after, Kirkpatrick unexpectedly died. It was 1805. Their mother never saw them again. She was soon seduced by Kirkpatrick’s assistant and kept as his mistress until she died a few years later at age 27.

At the time of Kirkpatrick’s marriage, one of the British who expressed concern over Kirkpatrick’s allegiance to Britain was Colonel Arthur Wellesley, in India after vanquishing the Tipu Sultan.

In the book Original Letters from India by Eliza Fay there are interesting details about life in India, but also a great amount of detail about her travel to India. Across the Suez, her caravan was attacked. And later, finally in India, the ship was boarded by the local Indian governor’s soldiers and Eliza, her husband, and the other passengers and crew were taken prisoner. She hid their watches and other small treasures in her hair.

Cheers,
Diane

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