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Author Archives: Elena Greene

About Elena Greene

Elena Greene grew up reading anything she could lay her hands on, including her mother's Georgette Heyer novels. She also enjoyed writing but decided to pursue a more practical career in software engineering. Fate intervened when she was sent on a three year international assignment to England, where she was inspired to start writing romances set in the Regency. Her books have won the National Readers' Choice Award, the Desert Rose Golden Quill and the Colorado Romance Writers' Award of Excellence. Her Super Regency, LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE, won RT Book Club's award for Best Regency Romance of 2005 and made the Kindle Top 100 list in 2011. When not writing, Elena enjoys swimming, cooking, meditation, playing the piano, volunteer work and craft projects. She lives in upstate New York with her two daughters and more yarn, wire and beads than she would like to admit.

Three Books and a Movie

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This week is devoted to our favorites of the year — and I’ve decided to add a movie to mine. (I’m not sure if this is breaking the rules, but I have Blogger at my fingertips and I’ve gone mad with power!)

There were lots of great books this year, both by my fellow Riskies (who, as we all know, are fabulous writers) and by other folks…but end-of-year time-crunch panic has set in for me (Todd is sick again and I’m picking up the slack with my hey-wait-I’m-lazy-why-are-we-working hands), so I’m just going to talk about a few of them: one book series, and one movie.

My friend Heather (book pusher extraordinaire) turned me on to Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia books. And — wow.

First off: no spoilers! This is one set of books where spoilers are especially spoiling!

Second off: these are high fantasy, though the kind without huge amounts of magic. The world is sort of Greece, a ways in the past. The hero of the first book is a clever, vain, lazy, charming thief who has more heart than he likes to let on. I’m not going to say who the later books are about, because that would be spoilage!

Anyway, there are three books in the series so far:

1) THE THIEF
2) THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA
3) THE KING OF ATTOLIA

And because this is a romance blog, I’ll just mention that at least one of the books involves a really well-done romance — and one that’s so unusual, I can’t think of anything similar I’ve seen in any book. The characters and relationship have been in my head ever since, and I think about them a lot.

So, in short, I’m saying: read these books — and avoid any spoilers (including back-cover blurbs, jacket synopses, or reviews on Amazon) while doing so!

We’ve previously talked about the movie AMAZING GRACE, with Ioan Gruffud as Wilberforce, so I won’t repeat what’s been said.

But it just a really interesting, very enjoyable, and gorgeous to look at movie. (And all the gorgeous actors in it don’t hurt.)

Well, there you have it…my abbreviated “I have to exchange those books then wrap them then mail them then mail the other things then wrap those others and do my cards and then OOPS I was also going to do this and this and that” list of favorites of 2007…

Cara
who has nothing clever to say in her sig line today

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged | 21 Replies

Pride & Prejudice, with guest blogger Myretta Robens

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“I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on Wednesday evening, my dear Cassandra, and that you will be ready to hear from me again on Sunday, for I feel that I must write to you today. […] I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child from London.” – Jane Austen to her sister, Cassandra, Friday, January 29, 1813

My book is Pride and Prejudice, and it is a bit daunting to talk about Jane Austen’s “darling child,” and perhaps the darling child of most of her readers. For what percentage would readily admit that Pride and Prejudice is their favorite of the six novels? And in what context has the opening line, “”It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” not been paraphrased. If any book is part of the English-speaking world’s collective unconscious, Pride and Prejudice is it.

Shall I summarize it for you? Is it possible you don’t know about Elizabeth and Darcy’s prickly early encounters and gradual journey into love? Do you not know that Lydia eloped with George Wickham and that Darcy made him marry her? Haven’t you heard that despite Darcy’s early efforts, his friend Bingley returned to Hertfordshire to marry Jane? If you haven’t read the book, surely you have seen one of the many adaptations.

Pride and Prejudice is the iconic love story wrapped in a delicious comedy of manners. No one handles the English language like Jane Austen, and no one wields a sharper pen.


“My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly — which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford — between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh’s foot-stool, that she said, ‘Mr. Collins, you must marry. “

In my opinion, no funnier proposal has ever been written.

Contrary to Jane Austen’s satiric “Plan of a Novel,” wherein the angelic heroine and her long-winded father are harried from one European country to another by the anti-hero and a series of importunate lovers, the plan of Pride and Prejudice is practically a perfect paradigm for the modern romance:
1) Haughty, upper-class Hero enters the realm of the less exalted Heroine.
2) Hero and Heroine take an immediate dislike to one another.
3) Friends of Hero successfully detach him from the Heroine, but not before he has had second thoughts about her attractiveness.
4) Hero detaches friend from Heroine’s sister.
5) Hero girds his loins and proposes to Heroine, who still thinks he is an interfering snob and shoots him down.
6) Hero absorbs reproof and goes about reforming himself to be worthy of the woman he once thought it “a punishment” to dance with.
7) Heroine and Hero meet again, heroine has change of heart, but before she can make her feelings known,
8) Heroine’s foolish sister elopes with a scoundrel, later to be rescued (sort of) by Hero. Hero also restores detached suitor to Heroine’s sister.
9) The two meet again, Hero proposes, and they live happily ever after.

A good writer, can take that outline and deliver a delightful, modern Regency Romance. Some have and, I daresay, more will.

Although I would never classify Jane Austen as a romance writer, there is little doubt that she can write romance. And there is little doubt she has inspired several generations of romance writers. Jane Austen, and particularly Pride and Prejudice, is the reason I began to write Regency Romance. And the reason I continue to do so.

So, is this your favorite Jane Austen novel? Is it because of the romance? The humor? The sheer perfection of it? Is it, as Jane Austen said, tongue in cheek, too “light, bright and sparkling?” Is it the reason you read (or write) in the Regency?

Myretta Robens
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“a heroine whom no one but myself will much like”

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This is how Jane Austen herself described Emma, her most flawed heroine. I’m going to focus on this issue because I think it’s the crux of why there are such widely differing opinions on this book.

First I’ll say this isn’t my favorite Austen either. (PRIDE & PREJUDICE and PERSUASION are each my favorite, depending on which one I’ve read most recently.) When I first read EMMA as a teenager, I didn’t like it much. Being insecure myself, I didn’t want to identify with a heroine who made so very many embarrassing mistakes. At the time I would almost (hanging head in shame) rather identify with a Barbara Cartland heroine, though come to think of it they all had that embarrassing inability to complete a sentence in the hero’s presence!

Anyway, once I had outgrown the desire for perfect heroines, Emma grew on me. I’ve become more comfortable with my own flaws so now I also prefer heroines who make mistakes as long as they have the saving grace of learning from them as Emma does.

I even think I’ve come to a better understanding of Emma’s behavior toward Harriet Smith and her unkindness to Harriet’s suitor, the farmer Robert Martin. Emma’s most obvious motivation for “improving” Harriet appears to be an officious desire to manage everything. But reading between the lines, I wonder if part of the cause was loneliness. Emma’s sister married and moved away, then Miss Taylor did the same. She was encouraged to befriend Jane Fairfax but really, Jane Fairfax was not the stuff of which BFFs are made. Even Mr. Knightley admits that she ‘has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.’ That open temper was a quality I think Emma longed for in a friend.

So Emma tried to mold Harriet into something more like herself, with disastrous results. I can sympathise with this because I once made a similar mistake. All I can say is that both Emma and I meant well and we are brave enough to admit when we are wrong. That ought to count for something!

I don’t find EMMA quite as romantic as P&P or PERSUASION, yet there’s a part of the romance that works powerfully for me. I like that Mr. Knightley loves Emma enough to always want to bring out the best in her and that he appreciates her courage in admitting her mistakes. The line from the book, so beautifully delivered by Jeremy Northam in the 1996 film: “I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it” is one of my favorites. I love the idea of someone being totally honest with you and loving you despite–or even because of–your faults.

So anyway, EMMA has grown on me to the point that it’s a strong #3 in my Jane Austen favorites list. But I still understand why it is last on many people’s lists. I have seen reviews of Joan Aiken’s spinoff JANE FAIRFAX (which I haven’t read myself) written by readers who say they detested Emma in the original. Jane Fairfax is a much more obvious choice of heroine by modern romance terms: virtuous, impoverished, an obvious object for sympathy. But being a bit of a contrarian here…why shouldn’t a heroine who is “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition” have a romance too?

Let me know what you think about EMMA, either the main character or any others you’d like to discuss. And don’t forget, we’ll be giving away a copy of JANE AUSTEN’S WORLD to a lucky winner chosen from comments all this week!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged , | 26 Replies

NORTHANGER ABBEY — Jane Austen week continues!

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Welcome to day two of Jane Austen week! In honor of Jane Austen’s upcoming birthday, we’re spending this whole week talking about her novels.

Today: Northanger Abbey!

I first read this novel in college. The only Austen I’d read before was Pride and Prejudice, and I’d found it wonderfully romantic. So I picked up Northanger Abbey one day. I was expecting an emotional, swoon-worthy, and delightfully short book. (I’ve always liked short books. Does that mean I’m lazy?)

The novel wasn’t quite what I was expecting. In fact, I was initially quite disappointed. I’d wanted a smart heroine (like Lizzy Bennet) and a powerful, yummy hero (such as Darcy).

Instead, I got a staggeringly naive heroine. And, sure, naive heroines (particularly young ones) may transform themselves into impressive women, but it seemed to me that would require strength and intelligence, or at least industriousness. Catherine had no great claim to any of the three. No, her best quality was that she was, you know, nice. Pleasant. Friendly.

Gullible.

Tilney was a bit more attractive to my eighteen-year-old reading self, once I figured out that pretty much everything he said was a joke. But Austen refused to let me get romantic about Tilney, no matter how much I wanted to. Instead, she kept pointing out that one of the reasons he was falling for Catherine was that she quoted his opinions on art back to him:

…though to the larger and more trifling part of the [male] sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire any thing more in woman than ignorance.

…she soon began to see beauty in every thing admired by him, and her attention was so earnest, that he became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal of natural taste.

And that wasn’t what I was looking for in a guy, either in literature or real life.

And yet, when The Official Risky Decision was made to blog about Austen’s novels this week, my hand went up with an “oh, can I have Northanger Abbey, please please please?”

It’s definitely one of my three favorite Austens (along with P&P and Persuasion.) And I’m pretty sure I lean toward it more than the average Austen fan.

So…what changed? Why do I love it now, when I was so disappointed at the outset?

I think one of the reasons is that I (extensively) revised my expectations. I no longer pick up the novel to have a wonderful romantic adventure, or admire a heroine or swoon over a hero.

I love the humor. The bright, sparkling, silly fun of the first half of the book is just great comedy. John Thorpe, always boasting… Isabella, so transparent in how she chases men… Mrs. Allen, who wishes she had some acquaintance in Bath… Mr. Tilney, who knows to what use ladies put nine-shillings-a-yard muslin.

And, really, what a lovely existence, in that first half of the book! The worst problems are rain and a bit of boredom, but Mrs. Radcliffe can always cure that. We have country dances and country walks, carriages and cravats, flirtation and quizzes — and no work at all. Ah, yes — that’s the life I want. (Does that mean I’m lazy?)

I confess, I don’t care for the second half of the book nearly as well. Sunshiny, dynamic Bath turns into dark, dreary Northanger Abbey, and most of the comic characters are gone. Tilney lectures Catherine a lot, and the ending is one of Austen’s “I’ll tell you what happened, but I won’t give it to you in a scene” resolutions, like in Mansfield Park, which I always find less than satisfying.

But for me, nothing can equal the first half of the book. I want to be in Bath with the Tilneys and Thorpes and Allens, reading Gothic novels with Catherine and promenading in the Pump Room, with the comic spirit of Sheridan and the Eighteenth Century wits infusing everyone around me.

So…how about you? What do you think of Northanger Abbey?

(And remember, on Tuesday, January 1, we’re going to discuss the BBC TV adaptation of Northanger Abbey — so be sure to stop by!)

Cara
Cara King, author of My Lady Gamester, the story of a heroine who is so industrious that she makes me want to take a nap…then again, you all know how lazy I am…

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