Category: Guest

Guest posts

Vanessa Kelly pays a visit with a contest!

Updated on December 5, 2013 by Janet Mullany

I’m delighted to welcome Vanessa Kelly to the Riskies today, with a contest to win an ARC of the first book in her Renegade Royals series, Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard. The novella Lost in A Royal Kiss–just released— introduces the series, in which readers are transported to the court of King George III, where a London street urchin unwittingly plays Cupid, ushering in a new era—and ultimately a new kind of royal…

Welcome, Vanessa! What’s the premise of the Renegade Royals series?

Thank you for hosting me on Risky Regencies, Janet. I’m very happy to be here!

The basis for the series was a tidbit of information in a book about the daughters of King George III. Queen Charlotte had taken in a boy as charity case to be raised as a companion to the royal princes. It was a misguided impulse since the Prince of Wales, for one, resented the unfortunate child. I found that historical snippet intriguing. What would life be like for a boy of humble origins raised with royalty and yet never truly a part of their world? And where in life did he end up?

In my series, this boy became Dominic Hunter, who grows up to be a magistrate, a spymaster, and a trusted liaison to the Court of St. James. But Dominic has never forgotten the ill-usage he suffered in his youth, and the bad behavior of the royal princes continues to irk him. For one thing, they tend to scatter the landscape with illegitimate children, some lacking a proper name or place in the world. So Dominic decides to track down these offspring who are royal in everything but name. He does everything he can to help them find their rightful places in society and make good marriages.

Lost in a Royal Kiss is set in 1786, but the first of the Renegade Royals series, Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard (January 2014), is set in 1814. What do you find most interesting in the differences between these two periods almost thirty years apart?

One interesting difference was in the way the royal court conducted itself. King George III and Queen Charlotte lived modestly, by royal standards, preferring a simple life and a more relaxed protocol at Windsor or Kew to a grand court scene in London. They enjoyed country pursuits and a life that revolved around family entertainments. This dismayed many courtiers, who found life at Kew Palace or Windsor to be boring and lacking in grandeur. Of course when the king fell ill there were even more restrictions, since the queen and her daughters all but lived in seclusion at Kew Palace.

Under the Prince Regent, however, court life was a great deal more extravagant and lively, often to the point of dissipation. But for all his faults, the Regent was a great patron of the arts and architecture, a legacy we see today in structures like the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. George III, often referred to as Farmer George, would not have approved.

Another significant change was with clothing. Georgian attire was quite different from Regency attire: more ornately decorated and with rich materials, particularly for the men. Long hair, wigs, powder…styles changed dramatically under the influence of men like Beau Brummel.

I too was introduced to the Regency by the books of Georgette Heyer, and you and I both read Regency Buck as our first. Do you still like to read/re-read Heyer and do you think she’s stood the test of time? What’s your favorite?

I re-read Georgette Heyer on a regular basis. She’s my go-to author when I’m sick or in need of a little comfort reading. I absolutely think her books stand the test of time, although I laugh now at all the exclamation points she uses—I never thought about things like that until I started writing my own books. My favorites are The Grand Sophy and Arabella. Such witty, entertaining books!

What do you love about the Regency?

The clothing, the architecture, and the absolute gusto for life in that era—Regency folk really knew how to have a good time, sometimes to an insane degree.

Hate about the Regency?

The profoundly disturbing levels of poverty, especially in the cities, and the crime rate. Life for the poor was incredibly grim, and their treatment by the middle and upper classes was often callous beyond belief. The way the Irish were treated was also horrible, although that had been going on for a very long time.

You have an alterego, V.K. Sykes, the combined writing genius of you and your husband. What’s your writing process? Do you find it difficult to switch gears?

Thank you for calling us geniuses! The V.K. Sykes books are contemporary romance or romantic suspense so it can be a bit of a challenge to get into the headspace. Fortunately, I don’t write the first drafts for those books. I do the revisions and the editing, and I write all the sex scenes (hubby just can’t seem to bring himself to do that). We rarely work on the same book at the same time, which is a good way to avoid wrangling over specific elements. Whoever is working on the book has ownership over it. It’s a process that is surprisingly stress-free.

What’s the last great book you read?

The Ape Who Guards the Balance, by Elizabeth Peters. I had read the first few books in the Amelia Peabody mystery series back in college, but I re-discovered them a few months ago. I’ve been tearing through them—they’re so skillfully written and the characters are fabulous. The books are witty and smart, and I love the setting and the archaeological background. Amelia Peabody and her family are the best kind of brain candy.

What’s next for you?

I’m finishing up the second novella in The Renegade Royals before moving on to book three in the series. My husband and I are also working on a new contemporary romance series for Grand Central—small town romances set on an island off the coast of Maine. That will be out in 2015.

Vanessa is giving away an ARC of Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard as a prize today. She’s told us what she loves and hates about the Regency–to enter the contest, share what you love and hate about the period, and help spread the word!

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Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Interviews | 30 Replies

Pam Mingle & Mary Bennet

Updated on November 20, 2013 by Janet Mullany

In mid-December we’ll talk about Austen here at the Riskies, something of a tradition as we celebrate Jane’s birthday on December 15. But we’re getting a sneak preview today with guest blogger Pam Mingle, whose new release The Pursuit of Mary Bennet riskily takes on Mary, the girl Austen probably didn’t intend us to like at all! I was lucky enough to be sent an advance copy, and it’s a great read.

Here’s Pam:

In 2013 we have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen’s iconic novel. But it was sheer happenstance that my book, The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, ended up being published the same year. For many years now, Pride & Prejudice has been my go-to book when I seek comfort. When the world looks dark and unforgiving, and I need a better place to be. If that happens, I usually find myself curled up with my battered copy of the novel.

What does it offer that we can’t seem to find anywhere else? Charm, humor, witty dialogue, memorable characters, enduring themes, and at its heart, a love story for the ages. In the end, it’s the romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy that continues to draw me back time and time again. Some have pronounced Pride & Prejudice the first romance novel, one that set the pattern for all those that have followed. In the first half of the book, all the obstacles to a romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are developed: Mr. Darcy’s arrogance, Elizabeth’s family and lack of connections, her attraction to Mr. Wickham, her hasty and premature judgment of Mr. Darcy’s character. Despite all this, he proposes because the “violence” of his feelings for her trumps everything else. Except for her own feelings. The proposal, and Elizabeth’s rejection of him, is one of the great scenes in literature.

In the second half of the book, the obstacles fall one by one. Elizabeth sees Wickham for what he really is; Mr. Darcy, despite his natural reserve, changes. He goes out of his way to help “poor Lydia” and avert disaster for the Bennet family. Elizabeth is not blind to the change in his character. Austen handles it all so beautifully and skillfully. In the end, their coming together is natural and expected. It’s easy to see why Pride & Prejudice is thought of as the original model for love stories.

I chose Mary Bennet as my main character because she, too, is a person in want of change, and with the potential to do so. She reads, she plays music (although not very well). She thinks seriously about matters, even though her conclusions are often faulty. In The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, Mary wants to change, to re-invent herself. She prepares herself to become more independent. If she finds romance along the way…well, there’s nothing wrong with that! Here’s a brief summary:

For most of her life, Mary, the serious and unpolished middle Bennet sister, has been overshadowed by her sisters—Jane, Elizabeth, Kitty, and Lydia. When a very pregnant Lydia returns to Longbourn and scandalously announces she’s left Wickham, Mary and Kitty are packed off to visit Jane in Derbyshire. It is there that Mary encounters the handsome and eligible Henry Walsh.Unschooled in the game of love, Mary finds his warm attentions confounding. With her heart and her future at risk, Mary must throw caution to the wind and begin a journey of discovery that will teach her surprising lessons about herself and the desires of her heart.

HarperCollins has kindly offered two copies of the book, so please enter and spread the word! If you post a comment, Pam would love to hear what you think of the “new” Mary, and the Riskies want to know what YOU love about Pride & Prejudice.

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Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Jane Austen, Reading | 10 Replies

Guest Elf Ahearn and Regency hoarding

Updated on August 21, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Today we welcome guest blogger Elf Ahearn, here to talk about her new book, the second in the Albright Sisters Series. Currently at work on the third book, The Duke’s Brother, Elf (and yes, that really is her name) is giving away a download of A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (Book I) and Lord Monroe’s Dark Tower (Book II).

Two years of bewildering silence have passed since Claire Albright’s passions were first inflamed by the powerful, brooding, Lord Flavian Monroe. On the brink of her debut in London he suddenly summons her, asking that she use her knowledge of healing to help his ward—a girl who hoards castoffs in memory of her dead brother. Embroiled in a desperate attempt to curb the child’s destructive madness, Claire struggles to understand Flavian’s burning kisses yet cold demeanor. Can she reach his heart before his ward’s insanity undoes Claire’s chance at love?
When he was fourteen, Flavian made a mistake so devastating it ruined all hope for happiness. Years later, he’s still paying for his sin. But before his ward’s troubled mind destroys his home and family, he must see Claire once more. Vowing to keep their relationship professional—she the healer, he the guardian—he finds the bonds of his resolve snapping. Somehow, he must content himself with the love that could have been . . . but he cannot resist . . . one final embrace . . .

And now in Elf’s words, her inspiration for the book:

I find it exceptionally appropriate to introduce my latest novel, Lord Monroe’s Dark Tower, on a blog titled “Risky Regencies,” for its plot is risky indeed.

Naturally, the love story is front and center, but in this book I don’t limit my villain to occasional appearances – she is the hero’s ward – and therefore mingles and interrupts and winds herself around the budding couple’s every action.

My villainess, Abella, is very loosely based on my sister who became a hoarder following the death of my father. My sister is a brilliant, creative woman who ran her own theatre company, which my father supported in every way you can imagine. When he died, I think the floor dropped out beneath her and she just couldn’t cope.

He was a collector of books, maps and Asian antiquities, and our house, which was quite large, was jammed with his stuff. The moment any one of us left for college, he turned our bedroom into a library. By the time he died, we had more than 27,000 volumes in the house—about what a small local library might carry.

My mother invited booksellers from across the country to buy the collection. She emptied the majority of the shelves, but during my father’s last years, he’d taken to purchasing just about anything with pages and a binder. These were the books my sister felt obligated to protect.

In front of her small home by a running stream, under thick pines, my sister stacked about fifty boxes of books then covered them with a black tarp. This makeshift shed was so large the front door couldn’t be seen. The only way to access her house was through a narrow trail banked by teetering boxes. Then she filled the inside of her house with more boxes—boxes of old travel pamphlets, sheafs of the same theatrical flyer and resume shots of actors she’d never auditioned. When she ran out of floor space, she hung possessions from the ceiling.

A nearby theatre company threw out its sets. She brought them all home and built more tarp-covered sheds. Unscrupulous neighbors dumped garbage on her property. The moisture from the stream, trapped by the pine trees, and nurtured in the dense atmosphere in her house caused an outbreak of mold.

Sick from the foul air, my sister could no longer work. With no money she took to “shopping” at the local landfill. More sheds sprouted on her property, more belongings were crammed into her tiny space.

From this wreckage, she planned to start another theatre company. How would she use this string of Halloween lights with some of the owls cracked off? She’d found the other owls—she’d glue the string back together—put on a new plug. It was valuable. We couldn’t throw it out.

Finally, she was diagnosed with a lupus-like disease, and my mother lured her down to Florida for the winter. During their absence, another family member and I cleaned the place up. When she returned, her outrage was absolute. She still suffers from the sting of our betrayal—after all, we took everything of value from her.

What I try to portray in Abella’s character is the strange, impenetrable logic used by people who hoard, but I want to make it clear, her personality is nothing like my sister’s. Abella is a psychopath. My sister is a sweet lady who suffered a mental collapse, but has since gotten herself together, and now leads a successful life.

They say, “Write about what you know.” My hope is that readers will enjoy delving into the mind of someone who hoards, and that the action-packed adventure and steamy love story, will keep them turning the pages.

Hoarding has become increasingly prevalent. I’d like to ask if anyone knows someone who hoards; if they find themselves tending to pack the corners of their own households; or if they dig watching the TV show, Hoarders, which frankly, I find mesmerizing. There’s a free download of both A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing AND Lord Monroe’s Dark Tower, for the best, most truthful answer.

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Interviews | Tagged hoarding | 33 Replies

Maggie Robinson pays a call!

Updated on July 24, 2013 by Janet Mullany

And she has a contest!

One of the highlights at RWA for me was spending some time with historical romance author Maggie Robinson, one of the funniest ladies I know. And here she is at the Riskies, so I’ll just let Maggie take over now…

It’s delightful to be back with the Riskies, particularly since I am highjacking their blog and changing it to Risky Edwardians! I’ve gone from carriages to cars, hand-written missives to marconigrams, talking face-to-face to telephoning, LOL.

The first book in my new Edwardian Ladies Unlaced series, In the Arms of the Heiress, is set in 1903. My heroine Louisa Stratton has been crashing around the Continent on a year-long motor trip with her loyal maid Kathleen. Louisa’s left her awful, interfering family behind in the dust, and to keep her independence has invented a husband—the perfect man, Maximillian Norwich. When she’s forced to come home, she has to hire an imperfect man, Charles Cooper, to pretend to be the fictional urbane art connoisseur she “married” in Paris.

For the price she’s willing to pay for his services, Charles thinks he can do anything for thirty days. He’s been drinking, is depressed and desperate after serving as a captain in the Second Boer War and administering a concentration camp for Boer women and children. Even with only one good eye, he’s seen things he wishes he could unsee. After witnessing horrific collateral damage on civilians, he assumes Louisa is just another spoiled little rich girl without a thought in her head. To both their surprise, the jaded Charles and flighty Louisa turn out to be perfectly imperfect together, especially when mischief and mayhem move in with them at Rosemont, the family estate.

It’s been such fun researching a different era, but love is love, no matter the time frame. Library Journal gave ITAOTH a coveted starred review, and the book has been called “a must-read” (Tessa Dare), “a marvelous read” (RT Book Reviews with 4 ½ stars and a K.I.S.S. for Charles!), “full of witty dialog and scorching romance” (Elizabeth Essex) and “fun, light and very sexy.” (Semxybooks) [Comment from Janet: I had a sneak peak at this book and it’s terrific. It deserves all this praise and more]

I have a copy to give away for one commenter. Here’s a photograph of my very own Edwardian heiresses, my grandmother and her sisters. Are you lucky enough to have family pictures through the ages? What is your favorite family photograph?

Posted in Giveaways, Guest | 15 Replies

Sally MacKenzie and Surprising Lord Jack

Updated on March 9, 2013 by diane

Diane here.
Today we welcome back Sally MacKenzie to talk about her latest Regency, Surprising Lord Jack. Sally just keeps giving us charming books. First the Naked series, now the Duchess of Love series. By giving, I also mean Sally is giving away a signed copy of Surprising Lord Jack to one lucky commenter chosen at random.

Here is what reviewers are saying about Surprising Lord Jack

*Starred review* “MacKenzie has penned another humorous Regency-era gem that will get a collective thumbs-up from readers.”–Shelley Mosley, Booklist

Four stars. “MacKenzie delights her devoted fans once again with a quick-witted, steamy romp. Add a touch of mystery and another bright tale of love and laughter is born. An engaging, and meddlesome, cast whips this lusty tale into a perfect heart-holiday treat!”–Anne Black, RT Book Reviews

4.50 / 5 -Reviewer Top Pick. “I recommend this book to all my fellow historical romance fans.”–Debra Taylor, Night Owl Reviews

Welcome back, Sally!

Hello, Riskies! I’m so glad to be stopping by again. I had a chance to see Diane at the Washington Loves Romance gathering in February. She was apparently deep in deadline craziness, but she looked calm and composed as always– (Diane note: Most likely I was merely sleep-deprived…)

Tell us about Surprising Lord Jack.

Surprising Lord Jack is the second book in my Duchess of Love trilogy. (Well, it’s a trilogy plus a novella: “The Duchess of Love” is the prequel to the series and tells how the duchess met her duke.) It’s about the duchess’s youngest son, and it begins where Bedding Lord Ned, the first book in the series, ends.

Here’s the back cover copy:

Unladylike behavior…

Frances Hadley has managed her family’s estate for years. So why can’t she request her own dowry? She’ll have to go to London herself and knock some sense into the men interfering in her life. With the nonsense she’s dealt with lately, though, there’s no way she’s going as a woman. A pair of breeches and a quick chop of her red curls, and she’ll have much less to worry about…

Jack Valentine, third son of the famous Duchess of Love, is through being pursued by pushy young ladies. One particularly determined miss has run him out of his own house party. Luckily the inn has one bed left. Jack just has to share with a rather entertaining red-headed youth. Perhaps the two of them should ride to London together. It will make a pleasant escape from his mother’s matchmaking melodrama!

There a Jack the Ripper sort of plot thread as well: someone is slitting the throats of prostitutes and even society women with soiled reputations, a class into which Frances now falls.

I’m excited because ALA Booklist gave Jack a starred review!

What is risky about the book?

Well, three things come to mind, though they might be more tricky than risky.

First, I wanted to try my hand at a “chick-in-pants” book, where the heroine pretends to be a man–or, in this case, a boy. Sometimes in these stories, the hero begins to fall in love with the heroine even before he knows her true gender. However, I happened to be working on Jack’s book during the Jerry Sandusky scandal. I followed the news reports pretty closely, partly because I have sons who’ve competed in Division I varsity athletics (and I went to the University of Notre Dame), so I’m interested in the whole question of the power athletics has in a college’s culture. But mostly, of course, I was reading and listening to news reports because the story was so horrifying. And since I’m the mother of boys, these kinds of events make me start questioning my sons to see if any coach or scout leader or other male in their lives ever did anything inappropriate with them. (My questioning drives them crazy, by the way. None of the men I’m related to wanted to discuss the trial.)

So with that, there was no way I was going to have Jack feel any sexual attraction for Frances while she was pretending to be male. Frances, however, was free to fall in love with Jack, except she hates men. So making their relationship develop when she’s in disguise was tricky.

Second, Jack’s book is the middle of a trilogy, and, unlike the Naked series, I planned these books to fit together. The first book had the advantage of setting things up, and the last book gets to tie things together (I hope). But the middle book is, well, in the middle. It’s got the threads I planned to run through the series coming and going. It has to be able to handle that, but be a satisfying, complete story on its own. So it was a bit tricky keeping things balanced. I think I managed it, though. A reviewer who’s read only Jack’s book told me she didn’t feel the need to have read Ned’s story first, so that was a big relief!

Third, the books are set in a pretty tight timeframe. Jack’s book actually begins as Ned’s is ending. I haven’t tried that before.

Was it easy to write?

Argh!! No. Maybe because it was the middle book, it just about killed me. I finished the first draft and revised and polished, but the book wasn’t working. I had to do pretty much a complete rewrite–or at least it felt that way. And since my publisher had moved the release date up, I had a real honest-to-God, drop dead deadline. The icing on the cake was that the D.C. derecho roared through a few days before that deadline, leaving our house intact, thank God, but taking our electricity and internet. I had to write with an eye on my laptop battery’s charge indicator and be creative in finding places to recharge when it got low. I discovered the church’s “crying room” had an outlet that worked, so I sat through Sunday Mass plugged in. (No, I wasn’t working, and no, there weren’t any babies in the room with me at the time, and yes, I felt very good about going to church that week.) When we went out to eat, I asked for a table with an outlet. The upside was that I kept my nose to the grindstone–no internet to distract and no battery power to waste on endless games of computer solitaire. When I was done–the day I had to send the manuscript off–I went to Panera’s to use their internet.

Did you come across any interesting research?

Yes–and Janet has already told you all about it. Back on November 15, Janet posted about the Threads of Feeling exhibit*. I was so excited! No, I didn’t know about the exhibit (until Janet mentioned it), but I had been researching London’s Foundling Hospital, so I knew mothers used to leave scraps of fabric when they gave up their babies, sort of like a claims check, I guess…so they could come back and reclaim their children once they were able to care for them.

I knew Jack was going to have some sort of charity he was involved in, and it made sense to me that since Ned’s son died in childbirth, the charity would have something to do with children. Well Jack actually has two charities–one for prostitutes who want a way out of that life and one for abandoned children. I researched the Foundling Hospital to see if such a plan would work, though the children at Jack’s house are mostly the offspring of prostitutes, abandoned on the streets. He finds them, brings them to his “foundling hospital,” and educates them until they are old enough to find work.

Bedding Lord Ned had a thieving cat. There’s a dog on Surprising Lord Jack’s cover. Does he have a role in the story?

Of course! The dog’s name is Shakespeare; Jack and Frances discover him with an abandoned baby in the stews, and he can do all kinds of tricks.

I may have said before that I’m a bit of a pantser–the story develops as I write it. I realized that Shakespeare had belonged to a local actor who’d decamped for parts unknown, leaving his dog behind. I thought that was a bit odd, and I filed it away as a “possibly important but currently mystifying” detail. At the end of the story, I discovered that Shakespeare’s former owner had a role to play in resolving the Jack the Ripper thread.

And I’m sure any dedicated plotters reading this are now twitching.

I never thought I would be a pantser. If you ask any of my four sons, I’m sure they’d say I’m a control freak. I think I scored “possible army officer” on the career test I took in college. But, to quote Popeye, “I yam what I yam.”

What’s next for you?

I’ve finished the first draft of Loving Lord Ash, the last book in the trilogy which should be out in Spring 2014. Maybe because I’m a pantser, I can’t just type “the end” and send a manuscript off to my editor, though. I usually take several weeks to a month to revise and polish before I’m willing to part with a story. I’m just hoping Ash doesn’t give me the fits Jack did!

And now a question for your readers: Do you have a favorite book that features a cross-dressing heroine? Mine is Fool’s Masquerade by Joan Wolf. I have to say I’m a big fan of Joan Wolf’s Regencies–I have many of them on my keeper shelf. (Okay, really a keeper box.) Why do you like this kind of story–or if you don’t like “chick-in-pants” books, why not?

Thanks for being our guest, Sally. Readers, do not forget to comment for a chance to win Surprising Lord Jack.

*The Threads of Feeling exhibit comes to Williamsburg, VA, May 25, 2013.

Posted in Guest, Interviews | Tagged Sally MacKenzie, Threads of Feeling | 28 Replies