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Category: Risky Book Talk

Posts in which we talk about our own books

Caroline Warfield’s Dangerous Secrets

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DangerousSecrets_600x900Today we welcome back Caroline Warfield, who’s here to talk about her most recent release Dangerous Secrets and she’s giving away a copy of her first book Dangerous Works (Kindle/US only). The winner will be chosen from those who participate by adding a comment or by other means (see below).

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And now let’s talk to Caroline…

I loved the setting of the book–Rome after the Napoleonic wars. Do you have any stories about your research trip there?

Rome to me meant Cicero and Caesar growing up.  I took Latin for four years in high school. I remember winning some sort of medal in a competition.  Rome also meant church and on my first trip there I expected churches and ruins.  I discovered a complex city with layers of history.  (In some cases literally layers such as the excavations below San Clemente that cover 1500 years of history)

It was the Keats/Shelley museum that made me think perhaps I could set a English regency story in an Italian city.  I sat by the Spanish Steps and thought, “What if I put an impoverished hero here?”  The art of the Grand Tour made it clear that the upper classes went to Rome in droves in the early nineteenth century. I knew I was on to something. One of the challenges of writing to the Regency Period is keeping it fresh. I think Rome helped me do that.  Traveling there twice enabled me to envision it.

Any advice on writing children as secondary characters? (I think you did it rather well!)

Thank you! I rather like Isabella, Nora’s niece, myself. I love bright verbal children.  I don’t know that I understand the process of creating them on the page, however.  I suspect one tool in the writer’s collection has to be a good ear. If you listen carefully to how people talk and act it is easier to breathe life into your characters. That is particularly true with children.  If you sit and talk with them you get a feel for how their minds work.  I like the scenes where Isabella holds court after the kidnapping. She loves the spotlight.

Did you find writing a book that’s part of a series but also a standalone difficult? How do you keep track of everything?

I don’t think the standalone part is difficult. Each individual has a unique story.  The challenge, as you know, is managing the characters across several books. I began with a clear back-story for the characters, but I have not done a good job of tracking them book-to-book. I confess to being a pantser. Planning plot doesn’t come naturally.  I’ve had to do some rapid searches through whole manuscripts when a question or two arose. I’m currently indexing them all in preparation for planning a new series.  As an added complication, the stories are being published out of chronological order forcing me to be particularly careful.  Because they are standalone, I was able to submit some that were finished early even though they were out of order series-wise.

Who would you cast as hero/heroine in the movie version of the book?

I pictured several actors before settling on Ewan McGregor for Jamie. He has the right look and feel for the story.  For Nora? That one is tougher.  She needs the right combination of vulnerability and spunk. I think I would choose Michelle Williams. She would convey Nora’s longing for a child effectively and still stand up to the forces around her.

What’s the last great book you read?

“Great” is an intimidating word! Lately I’ve been enamored of C.S. Harris’s Regency mysteries.  I’m also reading my way through Grace Burrowes’s entire body of work. The sheer volume in a short period of time is stunning, stunning because the quality is so high.

Tell us a bit about your next release.

Dangerous Weakness has been scheduled for a September 2015 release.  It takes place in 1818 and tells the story of the Viscount Glenaire.  He is the managing brother in Dangerous Works and interfering friend of Dangerous Secrets. He also plays a similar role in a prequel holiday novella I have in process.  Cold, aloof, convinced he could fix anything for those he cares about; I knew I needed to do more than muss his hair.  This boy needed to get knocked down.

It begins, “If women were as easily managed as the affairs of state—or the recalcitrant Ottoman Empire—Richard Hayden, Marquess of Glenaire, would be a happier man. As it was the creatures made hash of his well-laid plans and bedeviled him on all sides.” The heroine leads him a merry chase that involves London, Constantinople, the Sultan’s Seraglio and some Barbary pirates.

Ooh! And … Carolyn wants to know:

Those of us that love the Regency era read many books set in that world. The author’s greatest challenge is finding ways to tell original stories.  What tropes do you like most in a Regency novel? Which do you miss when if they are gone?

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Posted in Guest, History, Reading, Risky Book Talk | Tagged | 14 Replies

Writing (and Reading) a Series

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First of all a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to the Riskies’ own Diane Gaston, the recipient of a Washington Romance Writers Award for her body of work. I have not read the citation that accompanied the award but expect she may share it eventually!

And now back to the regular schedule:

Series are my favorite thing to read AND write. They must be the single best way to develop a market for books. I wonder if the idea for series grew out of the way stories were serialized in the nineteenth century (you know, Dickens.) If anybody has an answer ton that question please leave a comment.

I have no doubt that series are a great way to develop a reader base because I love them as both reader and as a writer. Here’s why: because it lets you get to know characters better. And if I like the protagonists in a book there is nothing I want more than to know what happens next to them and in their world.

As a writer I like series for the same reason but from a different perspective. I know what happens to my characters after the story ends. One couple is not as happy as I would wish and in another the wife dies in childbirth and she haunts her husband until he finds someone else to love and also someone who will love their daughter. Nope, not gonna tell you what books they are because no romance reader I know wants to hear that the HEA is not quite perfect.

The Pennistan Series I wrote for Bantam (TRAITOR’S KISS is the first) is still in my mind, years after I have technically finished the series. It’s a series where family members appear in each others books and secondary characters find their own romance.

ONE_MORE_KISS_ResizedMy favorite scene is the final one in the final book (ONE MORE KISS) when the whole family gathers for Beatrice and Jess’s wedding. As the Duke, his brother says, “having Jess here makes us a family again. Having every one here for his wedding to Beatrice completes us.”

It was my chance to give readers a look at each couples life since marriage. Elena makes the Duke laugh more. Gabriel’s wife Lynette is still uncomfortable at the thought that her brother-in-law is a duke. Mia and David “make bickering seem romantic” and Olivia Garrett would rather be in the kitchen coming up with a recipe for salmon that will appeal to her almost sister-in-law, Beatrice.

And Michael Garrett, Olivia’s husband, has the time to talk to everyone who approaches him, and in the process learns more secrets than anyone else in the room. The fact he is the Vicar of the Church in Pennsford might have something do with why people are so willing to confide in him.

Michael and Oivia are the launch point for a new series I am starting as soon as I come home from vacation. The stories (I’m thinking 40K word novellas) will be set in Pennsford and each story grows from a secret a parishioner shares with Michael. He never betrays a confidence but we, as readers in his point of view, will see the story develop from the perspective of what he knows.

For sure you will hear how the stories progress right here.

So what do you like best about series as a reader and/or a writer?

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged , , , , | 12 Replies

Guest Julia Justiss and The Rake To Rescue Her

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juliaWelcome our guest today–Julia Justiss who is here to talk about her new release, The Rake To Rescue Her (Harlequin Historical, March 2015). Julia is giving away one copy of The Rake To Rescue Her to one lucky commenter, chosen at random.
See what RT Book Reviews’ Maria Ferrer has to say about The Rake To Rescue Her:

The Ransleigh Rogues return with a passionate and poignant tale of betrayal, revenge, sexual healing and second chances. This is another keeper with strong characters and authentic settings.

RESCUE FRONT COVER 9780373298242HE’S NEVER FORGOTTEN HER.  BUT CAN HE FORGIVE HER

When Alastair Ransleigh sees Diana, Duchess of Graveston, for the first time since she jilted him, he makes her a shockingly insulting offer…the chance to become his mistress.  And even more shockingly, she accepts!

But the widowed duchess is nothing like the bold, passionate girl Alastair once loved.  Years of suffering at the hands of a cruel husband have taken their toll.  And as Alastair resolves to save Diana from the damage of the past, their chance meeting turns feels of revenge to thoughts of rescue…

Thanks to Diane and the other Riskies for hosting me today!

My March release, Book Three of the Ransleigh Rogues, is the story of Alastair, the poet and dreamer whose world is shattered when Diana, the woman he loves, jilts him in a humiliatingly public fashion to marry a man of high rank.  When he meets her again by chance eight years later, now widowed and on the run, he is stunned, then curious, then angry that the girl who once vowed to love him forever seems to be able to treat him with so little emotion, when he is torn, attracted, and seething. While he doesn’t exactly seek revenge when she offers to do what she can to make it up to him—he really wants to try to purge her from his heart and mind once and for all—the idea of making her feel something, after she has put him through every extreme of emotion, is certainly one of his chief motivations.

222808A revenge sub-theme figures in another one of my favorite all-time romances, Reforming Lord Ragsdale by the stellar Carla Kelly.  Her heroine is an indentured Irish servant, detested and scorned by her English masters, whom the dissolute Lord Ragsdale rescues from a very bad situation.  Initially he is inclined to treat her just a tad less poorly than her previous master—his father was murdered by Irish rebels, and he has every reason to hate the Irish.  But he is a deeply flawed man himself, which Emma sees, and gradually, by fits and starts, the two begin to heal each other.

So, too, do Alastair and Diana.  Although Alastair initially rejects Diana’s explanation for why she jilted him as unbelievable, as he slowly puts together the bits and pieces he ekes out of her about what her life with the duke was like, he begins to realize her improbable story was true and appreciate the heroism, and suffering, she endured to protect those she loved.  As he works to bring back to life the girl he once loved and protect her from present danger, she rekindles once again the deep love he’s suppressed for so many years.

Are there any revenge-to-love stories that touched your heart?  Is this a theme that you like to read about? One commenter will win a copy of Alastair and Diana’s book, The Rake To Rescue Her.

Posted in Guest, Regency, Risky Book Talk | 15 Replies

Out tomorrow – Freedom to Love

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Freedom to Love, my newest historical romance–and my first full-length release in over two years!–comes out tomorrow. It has what I think is an unusual and somewhat risky setting for a Regency–most of the story takes place in America in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans.

FTL cover

I specifically asked for this release week because Thursday is the 200th anniversary of the battle. Even though all the story action is after the fighting ends–the first scene is the hero waking up on the battlefield, wounded and dazed–I did a fair amount of research just to know what he’d gone through before the story started. Most of that research involved books that have long since been returned to the University of Washington library (my day job employer and go-to source for dry academic tomes, access to 200-year-old newspapers, and the like), but here are five things I learned about the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans that I didn’t know going in.

1) I’d always been told that the British were so confident of victory and eager to get at the wealth and famously beautiful women of New Orleans that on the eve of battle their sentries’ sign and countersign were “beauty” and “booty.” Turns out that isn’t true–while the British knew they outnumbered the Americans and with some justification believed their regiments to be of superior quality, they also knew they were attacking a well-fortified position across open ground. Also, no matter how much they were looking forward to the pleasures and treasures of New Orleans, “beauty” and “booty” sound far too much alike to be an effective sign/countersign, and the British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, was an upstanding, upright gentleman who would’ve been unlikely to approve its use.

2) Andrew Jackson employed slave-catchers to try to prevent American slaves from escaping to the British (who promised–and delivered–emancipation to any who came to them). However, he also accepted the city’s free black militia into his cobbled-together army over the objections of many officers and civilian officials. This would not be the first or last time Jackson proved himself a pragmatist above all, IMHO.

3) British soldiers too severely wounded to join the retreat were cared for by Ursuline nuns–though my plot required a different fate for my hero, Henry Farlow.

4) Back in elementary and high school, we were taught that the main cause of the war was the British navy’s impressment of American sailors. While that was certainly a cause, the reality, as it often is, was More Complicated Than That. In fact, it was so complicated that I’ll simply recommend that anyone interested read Robin Reilly’s The British at the Gates.

5) Wellington was offered command of British forces in America after Napoleon’s initial abdication, but he politely refused, preferring a diplomatic role as ambassador to France and at the Congress of Vienna. It’s intriguing to imagine how different history might’ve looked if he’d accepted. He might not have been back in time for Waterloo, for starters. While I think Napoleon would’ve ultimately been defeated regardless, the 19th century would’ve looked different if, say, the Russian army rather than the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian forces claimed credit for his downfall. Also, there is simply no way Wellington would’ve attacked Jackson’s fortifications from such a position of weakness. Even Pakenham knew it was a bad idea, but he was pretty much goaded into it by the naval commander, Admiral Cochrane. Since Wellington was as stubborn and confident as anyone living at that time not named Napoleon, he would’ve stood up to the pressure. And if the Battle of New Orleans hadn’t been fought, or it was fought at a different place or time as a British victory…let’s just say we’d almost certainly have a different face on our twenty dollar bills.

Freedom to Love

Louisiana, 1815

Thérèse Bondurant trusted her parents to provide for her and her young half-sister, though they never wed due to laws against mixed-race marriage. But when both die of a fever, Thérèse learns her only inheritance is debt—and her father’s promise that somewhere on his plantation lies a buried treasure. To save her own life—as well as that of her sister—she’ll need to find it before her white cousins take possession of the land.

British officer Henry Farlow, dazed from a wound received in battle outside New Orleans, stumbles onto Thérèse’s property out of necessity. But he stays because he’s become captivated by her intelligence and beauty. It’s thanks to Thérèse’s tender care that he regains his strength just in time to fend off her cousin, inadvertently killing the would-be rapist in the process.

Though he risks being labeled a deserter, it’s much more than a sense of duty that compels Henry to see the sisters to safety—far away from the scene of the crime. And Thérèse realizes she has come to rely on Henry for so much more than protection. On their journey to freedom in England, they must navigate a territory that’s just as foreign to them both—love.

Freedom to Love is available wherever ebooks are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, All Romance Ebooks, and Carina Press.

Posted in History, Regency, Risky Book Talk | Tagged , , , | 5 Replies

Lady Dearing’s Masquerade audiobook on sale!

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Lady Dearing's Masquerade Audiobook CoverHello. It’s been a busy week and I’m sorry to say I don’t have a real post, only some news.

If you are into audiobooks–or would like to try one–the audiobook of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade is currently on sale at Audible for $6.95, over 60% off the regular price.

Lady Dearing’s Masquerade was awarded Best Regency Romance in 2005 from RT Book Reviews. Here’s a short summary:

Lady Dearing became society’s most notorious widow after kissing a stranger at a masquerade but two years later, his memory still haunts her dreams. Sir Jeremy Fairhill has given up hope of finding her, but when he investigates the infamous widow who’s taking in children from London’s Foundling Hospital, his sense of duty clashes with a dangerous passion for the elusive, alluring Lady Dearing.

And here’s a sample.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

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