Yikes! I may have confused which bookcover Michelle Buonfiglio of Romance B(u)y the Book said had Nathan Kamp on the cover. It might have been this bookcover!!
This fellow does look like Nathan Kamp!
So who is A REPUTABLE RAKE?????
My apologies to the model on A Reputable Rake. I am certain there are many readers dying to identify you. When I find out who you are, I will do a whole blog on you!
Diane (slinking away after making a major boo boo, she thinks)
This weekend I attended Washington Romance Writers Spring Retreat in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, one of the highlights of my year. On Sunday of the Retreat we always have someone speak seriously on the Romance industry. That speech comes right before Nora Roberts’ speech, which is never serious! This year our guest speaker was Michelle Buonfiglio, Romance Columnist for Romance B(u)y the Book (www.WNBC.com/Romance) and her companion site Romance: by the Blog (http://romancebytheblog.blogspot.com/) I knew nothing of these sites! Michelle reviews Romance novels in her column and is a wonderful advocate for the genre. I urge everyone to read the column and visit the blog.
Michelle announced to the group that my cover of A REPUTABLE RAKE (on display along with our other authors’ bookcovers) featured cover model Nathan Kamp.
Here is the cover:
(I think my Rake is sooo handsome and I love that hint of devilment in his expression)
Here is a photo of Nathan Kamp:
What do you think? Is this the same guy?
If you would like your very own Rake, A REPUTABLE RAKE by Diane Gaston should be available in your bookstores TODAY.
By the way, Romance B(u)y the Book will feature an interview with Nathan Kamp on May 9 and May 16.
Speaking of cover models, I’ve teamed up with Richard Cerqueira for a promotion at the Romantic Times Booklovers convention in Daytona Beach May 16 to May 21. For attendees, I will be raffling two cover flats of THE WAGERING WIDOW, signed by me and Richard Cerqueira. I’ll also be giving away Richard’s bookmarks.
Here is a picture of Richard on my February release, THE WAGERING WIDOW:
Well, that’s Richard’s hand, but a very strong and sexy hand.
Here is a better photo from the book spine:
And another—not in Regency garb.
Richard is perfect in Regency clothes ( and out of them, too! ) I hope all of him appears on the FRONT of one of my books sometime. Properly dressed in buckskins and hessians, of course.
Aren’t I lucky in my Regency heroes?
And just so you do not think I am unfaithful to GB
Cheers!
Diane
Let’s face it. I’m in this business for the heroes.
What could be better than spending your days with some hunky gentleman in pantaloons, Hessians, and a coat by Weston, who says things like, “You’ve bewitched me, body and soul.”
Sigh!
The Regency gives us such wonderful heroes. Wealthy marquesses and dukes. disreputable Rakes (as opposed to my Reputable Rake, on sale in May, shameless self-promotion here), corinthians, gamblers, impoverished vicars, and my favorite–
The soldier.
I’m with Mrs. Bennett when, in Pride & Prejudice, she says, “I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart.”
That’s me. Show me a man in his regimentals and I’ll show you a potential hero.
Take a look at these fellows:
Sigh!
Maybe I love military heroes because my father was an Army colonel. I grew up with that whole military mind-set of duty and honor and country. Woke up to reveille. Went to sleep hearing taps. Or maybe it was listening to all those Chivers audiotapes of the Sharpe series, hearing William Gaminara read, “Sharpe swore.”
Writing a soldier for a hero gives so much dramatic potential. The hero faced hardship, faced death, experienced scenes we would find horrific. He’s honed his body to be strong. When he returns to England from war, he must look on the society to which he returns in a whole new light. I think it makes for lots of interesting possibilities.
I have a brazillion books on the Napoleonic war. Three of my favorites are:
Waterloo: Day of Battle by David Armine Howarth. It tells the story of Waterloo from the soldiers point of view.
Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket by Richard Holmes, This book covers everything about being a soldier during that time period.
Galloping at Everything: The British Cavalry in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, 1808-15 by Ian Fletcher. This covers all the major operations engaging the cavalry and discusses some of the controversy around them.
I have another book that makes me sad: Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula, Julia Page, editor. These are the letters and diaries of Major the Hon. Edward Charles Cocks, a man who loved soldiering with a passion that makes the journals occasionally boring. It makes me sad because the war takes his life. Even Wellington grieves his loss.
I’d love to write a series of Napoleonic war love stories, sort of Bernard Cornwell-style but with a really satisfying romance. A lofty dream.
Okay, let’s face it. I just want to spend my days with some hunky officer in regimentals.
Diane
Okay. It’s not Regency but it is Gerard Butler as Spartan King Leonides at the Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC. Hey, he’s a soldier, too, right?
Argo won Best Picture at the Academy Awards last night, a movie about government intelligence and secrets and cunning and daring. I was holding out for Les Miserables, but, oh well.
193 years ago, on Feb 23, 1820, government intelligence of the domestic sort and an almost revolution of the French sort played a crucial role in an event that became known as the Cato Street Conspiracy.
The times were unsettled. The end of the Napoleonic Wars and the shift from the rural agricultural society to an Industrial one set off economic hardships. Events such as the Spa Field Riots in 1816 and the Peterloo Massacre the previous August showed the social unrest and the call for parliamentary reform. The government’s response to the unrest were The Six Acts, repressive measures which were aimed at limiting the freedom of the press, preventing large meetings, and otherwise attempting to prevent the possibility of an armed insurrection.
When King George III died in January, 1820, a revolutionary organization called the Spencean Philanthropists saw an opportunity. They hatched a plan to barge in on a dinner to be held by Lord Harrowby and slaughter the entire British cabinet and the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool. The man who suggested the plan was George Edwards, second-in-command to the leader, Arthur Thistlewood. The killing of the cabinet ministers would be the first act an overthrow of the government and would spark a revolution similar to the French Revolution. Or that was the plan.
The problem was, it was a set-up. George Edwards was an agent provocateur, a government spy. While the conspirators gathered at a house on Cato Street to launch their attack, a Bow Street Magistrate and twelve of his Bow Street Runners were waiting across the street. At 7:30 pm they apprehended the conspirators. In the ensuing brawl, Thistlewood killed one policeman. All the conspirators were apprehended at the scene or later.
Four of them, including Thistlewood, were hanged and beheaded. Others were transported.
The government used this event to justify the Six Acts but in the House of Commons, Matthew Wood MP argued out that the government had used entrapment to smear the campaign for parliamentary reform. Had the government merely set the whole thing up or had their clandestine activities prevented a collapse of the government?
That could be the difference between the endings of Les Miserables and Argo!
What movies did you want to win at the Oscars? Which movie stars? (I was glad Ann Hathaway won)
(My first time blogging to Risky Regencies, that is. What were you thinking?)
Julia Ross is a hard act to follow but I’ll try. I thank Janet Mullany for my interview of last week. It gives a good idea of my writing life, my split personality, and the books I have out (and my A Reputable Rake coming in May!)
One thing Janet did not ask was why I chose to write in the Regency time period. I suspect my fellow Riskies have discussed this before. I have not searched all the previous blog entries, so I don’t know for certain. I may belabour this topic over the next few weeks, so this is just an overview, adapted from my Author! Author! article on the Warner website.
First of all, the Regency was a beautiful time period. The lovely Classical architecture and decor of the Georgian age became more varied and colorful, but avoided the excesses of the Victorians. The Regency was a time of great wealth, of beautiful Country houses and gardens, of lovely, elegant fashions. Gone were powdered hair, white wigs, and heavy make-up of the Georgian age. Regency women wore beautifully draping empire-waist silks and muslins, dresses that would still be considered lovely today. Men’s clothing also became more like our modern clothing, the bright-colored brocades and laces of the 1700s giving way to the simplicity, cleanliness, and perfect tailoring Beau Brummell insisted upon. Men and women rode though Hyde Park in fine carriages drawn by perfectly matched horses. The titled elite gathered in exclusive places like Almack’s and White’s. Men sported at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon or Tattersal’s. Ladies made “morning calls” in the afternoon, and made their curtsey to the Queen in opulent gowns.
Exciting people lived during the Regency. My favorite is the truly great but imperfect Duke of Wellington, the man who defeated the Emperor Napoleon, but there is also the Prince Regent (“Prinny”), Lord Byron, Beau Brummell, Jane Austen, Caroline Lamb, Harriette Wilson (who Amanda wrote about in her April 15 blog about courtesans), and so many more fascinating people.
The Regency time period echoes our World War II era in my mind, a time of great courage, honor, and drama, and one that eventually led into great social change. The drama of the long war with Napoleon, culminating in Waterloo, a battle still discussed, written about and fictionalized today. Also occurring at this time was the War of 1812, less victorious for the British, events in India, and the humming of impending social change, the beginning of the decline of the upper classes and the growth of wealth from industry and trade, social unrest nipping at the heels of the class system.
The Regency is a transitional period between the decadence of the 18th century and the repression of the Victorian Age. As such there are elements of both, providing rich opportunities for dramatic conflict. For example, it is an age when the idea of marrying for love came to the fore, and yet, marriages of convenience still took place. Women–married women, that is–were still allowed to enjoy a sexual relationship, although more discreetly than did their Georgian mothers. Their poor Victorian daughters were not so lucky. Roles and behavior were more fluid in the Regency, less defined than the eras before or after, allowing the novelist great license to explore.
The Regency is an accessible period: Distant enough to provide an escape from every day life into a world of beauty and conflict, but familiar enough to be able to imagine ourselves living in it.
I love going into the world of Regency England every time I sit down to write. It often becomes as real to me as if I truly lived there. I aspire to bring the Regency vividly alive in my books so readers might love it as much as I do.
It is great to be among this wonderful group of authors who feel that same love of the Regency and that same desire to explore it in new, exciting, and “risky” ways.
Cheers! Diane