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Risky Regencies is your trusty Regency Emporium, serving all your Regency needs. Our readers asked for author updates, and so what do we have for you today? Author Updates!

So grab a cup of tea, pull up a cozy chair, and find out what Regency authors are up to…

VICTORIA HINSHAW tells us she’s been recharging her batteries — thinking, playing with lots of different ideas for plots and characters, and catching up on all the reading she missed while writing three books a year for Zebra. She has a Regency historical in the works, and has also been working on a fictional biography of Princess Charlotte. (I’ve noticed a couple other Regency writers have been going the nonfiction route in one form or another — hmm…is this a trend? Or just three individual writers making individual choices?)

What Victoria Hinshaw was too modest to mention (but we know anyway — ha!) is that her 2005 books have been doing extremely well with the recent contests. ASK JANE (Zebra Regency, April 2005) finalled in several prestigious contests, and won the Golden Quill Award for Best Regency. (That’s the contest our own Elena won in the historical category — so we know it’s a good contest.) 🙂 And with her August release LEAST LIKELY LOVERS, Vicky is competing against Diane and Cara for the Booksellers’ Best Award. (And we still like her! How’s that for professionalism?)

JENNA MINDEL reports, “Here’s what I’m up to now…I’ve been working on a contemporary Inspirational romance set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.” She’s also a RITA finalist for her Regency Miss Whitlow’s Turn!

DOROTHY McFALLS “feels blessed to have landed firmly at Venus Press.” She’s obviously been very busy, with FOUR titles out this year, all different subgenres! Lady Sophia’s Midnight Seduction, a short erotic Regency; Neptune’s Lair and its sequel Marked, which are paranormal erotic suspense; and The Huntress, contemporary mainstream. Wow! Plus her Signet Regency, The Marriage List, is a finalist in the National Readers’ Choice Award. For details on all these projects, visit http://www.dorothymcfalls.com

JO ANN FERGUSON is still writing Regencies. She just turned one in to her editor at Signet where she’s writing as Jocelyn Kelley. She’s been writing the medieval series “The Ladies of St. Jude’s Abbey” as Jocelyn Kelley for the past two years. A Moonlit Knight came out in May and My Lady Knight is scheduled for January 2007. Then she returns to Regencies when the Regency-historical trilogy “The Nethercott Tales” are published by Signet Eclipse. For those of you who enjoyed the Priscilla Flanders mystery series from Zebra Regency, look for these books about the three Nethercott sisters that have suspense elements along with ghostly paranormal. The first book in the series (with a working title of The Mistress School) is scheduled for July 2007 to be followed by Gentleman’s Master. She’s also still writing for ImaJinn as J.A. Ferguson. In 2006, she’s got Luck of the Irish (a leprechaun story), Sworn Upon Fire (an alternate world futuristic), and The Wrong Christmas Carol (an angel Christmas story) coming out.

ANDREA PICKENS/ANDREA DaRIF has been busy with a new series for Warner Forever, the “Hellion Heroes.” The first book, The Spy Wore Silk, is out in March 2007. This is what she says about it: “At first blush, Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young ladies is the very pattern card of a proper boarding school. But looks can be deceiving, along with music, art, dancing, and the social graces, the students–all streetwise orphans chosen for their toughness and intelligence–are being molded into an elit fighting force. England’s secret weapon. When a critical government document is stolen from Whitehall, the student known only as Siena is given the assignment to keep it from falling into enemies’ hands…”

So, what have your other favorite Regency authors been up to? Check here every Sunday to find out! And if there’s a certain author you’d love to have an update on, let us know!

The Riskies

I’m home from the RWA conference in Washington, DC, after having a lovely time. I am still so tired from the festivities that all I can do is produce random thoughts.

1. The time started out in a very exciting way! We Riskies (except Janet who was squiring folks around on a Washington DC historic house tour)
were interviewed at XM Radio (more on that in upcoming days!)

2. I danced with Janet (and the Harlequin Historical editors) at the Beau Monde Soiree. But just one dance. We would not wish to set tongues wagging.

3. The Harlequin Party was held at the Ritz Carlton in a ballroom with a great dance floor and the same DJ as in San Francisco (He’s so good!). The theme was Harlquin’s 60 year anniversary, and they set up bars with a theme of the decade. For example, the 1960s bar served Singapore Slings. A video display of old covers was flashed on the wall and on monitors throughout the room. Needless to say, it was a wildly wonderful party.

4. Harlequin was a big presence at the conference and well they should be with the wonderful year they are having, sales-wise. They gave all conference attendees tote bags with a vintage Harlequin cover on them. Keep an eye out for more Vintage cover products, soon to be on sale in Barnes and Noble and Borders and such. Harlequin partnered with a stationary company to produce a bunch of very cool notebooks and things like that. To a few lucky early arrivers at the Harlequin party, I snatched a set of post cards with vintage covers on them. Here is an idea of the covers that will perhaps be featured.

5. The Mills & Boon editors (including Harlquin Historicals) are the BEST!! Not only did Joanne Grant (Historical) and Kim Young (Romance) attend (and dance in spike heels) at the Soiree, they also “made an offer” to aspiring writer and Golden Heart finalist (and later the winner) Jeannie Lin to buy her manuscript Butterfly Swords. Joanne and Kim gave a great workshop on avoiding cliches, a download of which should be available to purchase. (check the RWA site for more on that). I could go on and on about how much fun these two ladies are, but the other editors were equally as friendly. Sheila Hodgson (Medicals) greeted me like an old friend at our Mills & Boon Reception and editorial directo, Karin Stoecker, met me for a friendly drink. (Joanne, Karin, and Sheila also toasted me with champagne in 2006 after my RITA win). Tessa Shapcot (Presents) sat across from me at the Harlequin Historical lunch and was a delight to chat with.

6. Our Riskies get-together did not go as planned. Harry’s Pub was not conducive to such a gathering, but we made do in the Lobby bar and I had a great time chatting with Santa and Keira. Andrea Pickens and Miranda Neville, both past guest authors, also were there. Santa and I even did an impromptu plot-storming session. (Miranda Neville, by the way, helped me solve a sticky plot problem, as well, when we were just chatting at breakfast Sunday). Another Risky interviewee, Pam Rosenthal, won the RITA for BEST HISTORICAL Romance!!!

7. My very favorite part of the conference is running into old friends and making new ones. I love the mystery of why I sometimes see certain people everywhere (either Sandy Coleman and Amy of All About Romance were stalking me or I was stalking them, not sure which, but everywhere I went, they did too.) and others hardly at all. And I also love walking through the halls and greeting old friends.

8. I had great intentions of touring around DC with Keira and Amanda on Sunday, but I was so exhausted that I went home early and barely budged from my spot on the couch. So sorry, Keira and Amanda! I hope you had a good day.

How about you? If you attended the conference, what were your most memorable moments? If you didn’t attend, what else can we tell you about it?

Oh, I also met with Emily Cotler of Waxcreative Design so look for some new stuff at my website real soon. There is a new contest there right now.

Greetings from the Big Apple!

Amanda and I are having a wonderful time. We arrived in NYC Thursday and had dinner with fellow regency author, Andrea Pickens and afterward the three of us went to Lincoln Center to see American Ballet Theatre‘s Le Corsaire.

Friday we went to the Metropolitan Museum and spent lots of time looking at 18th and 19th century paintings and sculpture. Then Andrea and our very own Risky, Megan joined us for lunch and a long tour of the decorative arts section of the museum. Here’s just one example of the sort of items we oohed and aahed over.

Friday night Amanda and I attended a special viewing of the Heart of a Woman exhibit, celebrating 60 years of Harlequin books cover art. My favorite cover was an old one, Love Me and Die. We met Max Ginsberg, cover artist for many of the past Harlequin covers. On display were several of his works, all worthy of being hung in art galleries as fine art.

Saturday was Book Expo America, where Amanda and I signed The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor. Deb Marlowe, the third author of our anthology, was supposed to come with us but she got sick and couldn’t travel to NYC. We missed her!

Harlequin treated us very well, though, and in no time at all we gave away every copy of our book that the publisher provided.

Sunday we went to The Strand Bookstore where Amanda and I bought lots of research books. Our friend Kwana (who took the booksigning photo above) went with us, but she only bought a couple of books. Kwana had also gone to Book Expo and came back with three totebags full of free books. Amanda and I did not get any free books at BEA.

Megan and Kwana joined us for dinner. Also with us was my good friend, Hope Tarr, whom I haven’t really seen since she moved from DC to NYC.

Tonight is Lady Jane’s Salon where Amanda and I will be reading excerpts from The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor. All our New York friends, Megan, Andrea, Kwana, Hope, and others will be there too.

Wish us luck on our readings!

Do you have a favorite place in New York City? Or one place in the city you would most like to see? (Mine is the Metropolitan Museum!)

I can’t wait to welcome our newest Risky, coming this Wednesday, June 3!

Winner of Elizabeth Roll’s Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride will be announced tonight.

The Unlacing of Miss Leigh
, my Undone short estory, hit number one on the Harlequin eBook Best Seller list again last week!

Stay tuned to discover if Deb Marlowe’s An Improper Aristocrat or my The Vanishing Viscountess or Scandalizing the Ton won the Desert Rose Golden Quill contest. Winners should be announced today!


Today–today!–I will open up a new Word document and start writing Road to Desire, the next book in my vastly imagined Road series.

Yay!

And I owe it all to Amanda McCabe. Let me explain. Amanda is in New York City for business and meetings and such, and is staying in our office/guestroom (which for Amanda’s purposes is a guestroom/office), and she and I and Andrea Pickens went out for a splendiferous meal on Wednesday. As writers do, we talked about writing and our next projects (Amanda is about to turn in one book, will begin another; Andrea just agreed to another trilogy with Grand Central), and I? Well, I had to admit I hadn’t written for months.

So the pressure started. Good pressure. “You’re going to start writing, right?” Amanda asked later in her surprisingly low, not so surprisingly mellifluous voice.

“Mm,” I murmured noncommittally.

“Right?”

“Yeah, of course, right,” I said in a firmer tone.

So here I am. Of course I have a gazillion things to do before that precious moment, but it will happen, sometime today.

Thanks, friends!

(And friends, please vote in our Risky Regency tagline contest. Details here.

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