Tag Archives: Gail Eastwood

Those Bluestocking Women

Updated on April 4, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

In Regency times, would you have been a “bluestocking”? How many times have you read about (or written) a heroine who either considered herself one, or was warned in no uncertain terms by her mother/aunt/sponsor or best friend against becoming one?

Not too long ago I was invited to join a group of Regency authors calling themselves The Bluestocking League. (A lot of authors are finding it wise to band together to help promote each other’s work.) We haven’t been very active yet, but we discovered soon after naming ourselves that another group of authors had recently formed a group called the Bluestocking Belles. You see? Bluestockings are back!! So it seemed timely to take a look at what was originally an 18^th century women’s society, and in the Regency became a (derisive) slang term for educated women with intellectual interests –who might, after all, threaten the social order!

The 18^th century, “The Age of Enlightenment,” earned the name because ideas and intellect flourished during the period. While women had few rights, two things they –could- do (and were expected to do) were socialize and engage in the arts. Salons were popular, and hostesses angled to have the most illustrious leaders of culture and literature as guests. The London salons hosted by the well-to-do and well-educated friends

Elizabeth Montagu

Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), Elizabeth Vesey (c.1715-91) and Frances Boscawen (1719-1805) attracted some of the greatest intellectual minds of the times, such as the writer Samuel Johnson, and artists Francis Reynolds and her brother Sir Joshua Reynolds. By mid-century these get-togethers evolved into a loosely organized network, kind of a “women’s club” that offered more than intimate gatherings for conversation, supplying mutual support, friendship and patronage for a growing pool of writers, artists, and intellectuals. Writers Hannah More and Fanny Burney, poet Anna Seward, and artist Angelica Kaufmann were regulars among many others in later years. The women, and their male guests, also advocated for education and explored options for civic and social improvements.

Most of the women portrayed as young Greek Muses in this group portrait by Richard Samuel were Bluestockings. Singer Elizabeth Ann Sheridan is in the centre. Artist Angelica Kauffman sits at the easel with writer/poet Elizabeth Carter and poet Anna Letitia Barbauld behind her. The five at right are (L-R) historian Catharine Macaulay, hostess & literary critic Elizabeth Montagu, and writer Elizabeth Griffith (all seated), and standing behind them, writers Hannah More and Charlotte Lennox. Some were much older than shown by the time the picture was exhibited in 1779. (Montagu was 61.)

The story of exactly how the network acquired the affectionately applied name of the Bluestocking Society, or the Bluestocking Circle, is debated. Blue wool stockings were commonly worn for informal or daytime dress then, with white or black silk reserved for evening or more formal occasions. The informal style (and the cross-class nature) of the salon gatherings was unprecedented and set a new style for socializing. One version of the story holds that Mrs Vesey (or Mrs Montagu), inviting the botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet to attend a salon, assured the man who had given up polite society that he was welcome to come “in his blue stockings.” Another version says Stillingfleet simply showed up wearing them. OTOH, the French version of the term (bas bleu) had actually already been in use since the 1500s. At any rate, the group adopted the name with pride. The network expanded well beyond London, and probably peaked during the 1780-90’s, when Elizabeth Montagu opened her new Portman Square home for meetings, and was hailed by Johnson as “the Queen of the Blues”. Hannah More’s poem “Bas Bleu, or the Conversation” was published in 1789.

Typically, though, as the term “bluestocking” became widely accepted as a tag for an intellectual woman, it also began to be perverted into derisive slang, belittling the very values it once stood for. The original Bluestockings were dying off at the start of the Regency, and their supportive network had suffered setbacks such as the loss of friendship between Montagu and Johnson, a scandal over patronage and money involving Montagu, More, and the poet Anna Yearsley, and later, scandalous lifestyle choices made by members like Macaulay. Ridicule replaced admiration in the eyes of society –Byron scorned them and Rowlandson did a cartoon, “The Breaking Up of the Bluestocking Club” published in 1815. In the Regency, to be a bluestocking was considered tantamount to declaring spinsterhood and rejecting society.

The original Bluestockings were the feminists of their day, ahead of their time in many of their ideas, but especially in valuing the female mind. Their moniker shows up these days in all sorts of ways, from the name of bookstores and a play, to a week-long celebration of women in education at UQ in Australia. I’m happy to be among women ready to reclaim the term and put it back into its original perspective and meaning. So, are you a bluestocking, too?

If you want to read more, there’s a great article connected to an exhibit at London’s National Portrait Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2008/brilliant-women/the-bluestockings-circle.php, and another with great detail at https://bluestockingssociety.wordpress.com/the-blue-stocking-history/.

Also, there’s a book: Biographical Sketches of Principal Bluestocking Women, by Anna Miegon. I want to read it now! There’s also a collection of essays: Reconsidering the Bluestockings, by Nicole Pohl & Betty A. Schellenberg, and much more, of course. I think the original Bluestockings would be pleased to see how far we women have come, don’t you? Although perhaps dismayed that it took as long as it has, and that we still have more to achieve. What do you think? Please comment!

Posted in History, Reading, Regency, Research | Tagged 18th century women, Bluestockings, feminism, Gail Eastwood, women's education, women's history, writers | 17 Replies

Lighting the Regency Night (Things We Take for Granted)

Updated on March 6, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

This ice-encased lamp by my front door started me on this trip down the rabbit hole, which has nothing (so far) to do with any of my current writing projects. The two-inch-thick ice gave the light shining bravely through it a beautiful glow, and admiring it, I thought, “Thanks for electricity! This couldn’t have happened during the Regency.” Well, at least not without considerable effort to melt, chip, or break through the ice, since the lamp would have needed to be lit.

That made me think about who would have had to do it, and lamplighters in general, and street lighting, and how in the Regency the transition from oil street lights to gas was actually a Big Deal that I’ve never seen mentioned in any of our novels. (Have you?) It’s just one more way the Regency era was the dawn of the modern age. Gas street lights were still in use into the 20^th century, and there are still some in London. (I’ll come back to this!)

Our busy London characters never seem to run into any lamplighters, yet an army of them were out there at dusk every evening, with their ladders and long poles, making sure that the city was alight for the busy evening of activities ahead. And in homes that fronted along streets, someone had to light the exterior lamps every night, no matter the weather. (Doesn’t that make you start to appreciate the simple flipping of a switch?) Prior to the introduction of street lighting (and in rural areas), nighttime excursions depended entirely upon the moon or light you provided for yourself, that traveled with you, plus the light from houses along your route. I ran across a reference to some regulations that required homeowners to provide lights, at their own expense, so it wasn’t just a courtesy! Light you provided yourself might have been a portable lantern, or lamps on your carriage, or even a hired “link boy” who would carry a torch to light your way safely (if he wasn’t in league with a group of thieves). Hmm, that could be fun….

The system of oil street lamps in London and major towns was put into place starting in 1750, so the major changes in city life that came with such improvements –the reduction of crime, improved personal safety, and the glittering array of late night entertainments our characters enjoy: at theaters, pleasure gardens, private balls, assemblies, gambling hells, or even extended shopping hours– had become the norm only within a generation or two of our Regency characters. Travelers to London were suitably impressed, sharing descriptions like this in their writings: “In Oxford Road alone there are more lamps than in all the city of Paris. Even the great roads, for seven or eight miles round, are crowded with them, which makes the effect exceedingly grand.” – Archenholtz, 1780s

The next big thing, the introduction of gas lighting, did not happen easily, even though gas burned much brighter than oil. As I dove into this topic, I quickly found I had 11 printed pages of notes!! This is what happens –most of you reading this are research junkies, too, so you understand. LOL. Even my attempt at a brief timeline came out too long to put here — there’s so much fascinating stuff!!

So, the short(er) version:

After the discovery of natural coal-gas in mines and its flammability, people began experimenting. In 1739 Dr. John Clayton first manufactured coal gas by heating coal placed in a small retort. More experiments followed. In 1792, William Murdoch, a Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor who worked with steam engines in Cornwall for the firm of Boulton and Watt, and who had been experimenting with practical uses for coal gas, set up a retort in his own home in Redruth, Cornwall, laid pipes, and lit all of his house and workshop with gas, the first to achieve this.

Murdoch went on to become the manager of Boulton and Watt’s steam engine works in Soho, Birmingham, where he used gas to light the main building of the Soho Foundry in 1798. In 1802, Murdoch lit the outside front of the building by gas, to the astonishment of the gathered locals. Boulton and Watt began making gas retorts and pipes, and sent Murdoch to fit up many of the big cotton mills in the North with the new lights (which enabled extended working hours, for better or worse!). Murdoch later went on to invent other useful items, but that’s another story.

Other people were also pursuing the prospects for using gas. Frederic Albert Winsor, a German, came to London with knowledge of a French patent for piping gas. Despite little knowledge of chemistry or engineering, Winsor claimed to be an authority on gas and pursued his ultimate aim of lighting the streets of London. He wanted Parliament to set up a national gas company. Samuel Clegg, a fellow employee (or a student? or both?) of Murdoch’s at Boulton and Watt headed to London, where he apparently teamed up with Winsor, for he is named as one of the founders of the company Winsor eventually succeeded in starting.

1803 — Winsor gave a demonstration of lighting the Lyceum Theatre in the Strand with gas.

1804 – Winsor began to give public lectures about the uses of gas.

1807 –Winsor leased a pair of houses in Pall Mall where he conducted experiments and public demonstrations, trying to attract investors for his plans. He installed 13 lamp-posts in Pall Mall fed by a pipe buried under the pavement from his house. On January 28, he introduced the first gas street lights in the world. The lights stretched from St James’s to Cockspur Street and when lit, observers noted their light had “much superior brilliancy”. On June 4 of that year, to celebrate the King’s birthday, Winsor placed gas lights along the walls of Carlton Palace Gardens between the Mall and St. James’s Park. The gas was again supplied by the furnaces inside his house on Pall Mall.

Many people did not believe the city could be lit in this way, including the renowned scientist Sir Humphrey Davy. Some thought that the gas came through the pipes already on fire, which of course seemed dangerous! Rowlandson did a cartoon of the lighting in Pall Mall:

In 1809, Parliament did not approve Winsor’s “national company”, but finally Winsor “and his associates” (Samuel Clegg?) did obtain a Royal Charter for their London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company to supply gas to those cities and the borough of Southwark for 21 years. On New Year’s Eve, 1813, the Westminster Bridge was lit by gas. Gas began to flow through the London streets that year and soon other companies were seeking permission to lay their own gas pipes. The laying of gas lines –think of all the construction in those busy streets!! Is it unromantic to have our characters inconvenienced by the mess?

By 1823, “40,000 lamps covered 215 miles of London’s streets.” And by 1826, “almost every city and large town in Britain, as well as many in other countries, had a gas works, primarily for lighting the streets. In these towns, public buildings, shops and larger houses generally had gas lighting but it wasn’t until the last quarter of the 19th century that most working people could afford to light their homes with gas.” (From the National Gas Museum website: http://nationalgasmuseum.org.uk/gas-lighting/)

Apparently the “gas works” were discussed in an episode of Downton Abbey (since gas was still primarily in use in the 1920’s) –I don’t watch that series so someone else might comment!

It’s interesting to note that in 1808, Murdoch read a paper before the Royal Society, staking his claim as the first to harness gas for a practical purpose. He said, “I believe I may claim both the first idea of applying and the first application of this gas to economical purposes.” He received the Society’s Gold Medal recognizing his work.

In June 2007, the Westminster City Council installed a Green Plaque at 100 Pall Mall, London, to mark the the bicentenary of the “World’s First Demonstration of Street Lighting by Coal Gas”, marking Winsor’s achievement.

As for gas lamps still in use, this website: (http://www.urban75.org/london/london-gas-lamps-and-gaslighting.html) has a collection of photos of gas lamps still in use in London and their locations – a surprising number of them! And also a photo of a modern day lamplighter. Who knew?

And another “who knew?” –the connection between street lighting and crime is once again an issue in Britain, where a December 2014 report states that all over England communities are switching off or dimming their street lights to save money. Heading back to the 18^th century, anyone? (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/safety-risk-as-councils-dim-or-switch-off-a-quarter-of-street-lights-9939124.html)

Let’s talk about it! Please comment on anything you read here. 🙂

Posted in History, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, lamplighters, Lighting, Regency, Regency lighting, research, street lights | 10 Replies

Mourning Becomes Her: Regency Mourning Dress & Customs

Updated on January 29, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been running a lovely costume exhibit (“Death Becomes Her”, which closes tomorrow) covering mourning fashions roughly 1820-1920. I was invited to see it with a friend who knows how much I love costume history, and we recently spent seven hours at the museum, viewing many things in addition to the costume exhibit. We took a lot of photos –some will turn up in future blogposts! It was exciting to see two real examples of mourning gowns, from 1820 and 1824, that were worn at the end of our period. Don’t you love museums?

The Regency era technically ended on January 29, 1820, when the old mad King George III died and Prinny succeeded to the throne. One reason his Coronation wasn’t held until the following year had to do with mourning customs –it wasn’t seemly for the royal family or the bereaved country to hold a grand celebration too soon after the death of the old monarch.

Mourning customs followed by the upper classes at the personal level were even more de rigueur when it came to royal mourning, and the British had seen quite a lot of that by 1820. In November, 1817, Prinny’s only child, Princess Charlotte, died after giving birth to a stillborn baby. The old king’s Queen Consort, Charlotte, died in 1818. Prinny’s brother, the Duke of Kent, died just six days before their father, on January 23, 1820, so there was double mourning then. (The duke had won the race to produce the new heir to the throne with the birth of his daughter, Victoria, only eight months earlier.)

It’s not known if this 1820 dress exhibited at the Met was worn for the decreed royal mourning or for a personal loss, or both, but its sheer overlay on the bodice and sheer sleeves were very fashionable. Compare the 1818 illustration below.

My friend and I also loved this 1824 Scottish gown (below) embellished with ribbon trim and large scroll appliqués around the hem. But you can see clearly how the fashionable lady’s silhouette was changing from the slim columnar shape favored in the earlier years of the Regency!

Wearing black for mourning dates as far back as the ancient Romans. As social mourning customs evolved, they dictated all levels of behavior –not only what you could and couldn’t do, but also what you were expected to wear, right down to the types of fabrics, for several distinct stages of mourning.

Widows were expected to mourn for at least two years, one of full mourning and one of the lighter half-mourning. Socializing was proscribed for at least six months to a year. Widowed men were not subject to the same expectations! The rules were less severe for the losses of other family members: a year to mourn parents and children, six months for siblings and grandparents, three months for aunts and uncles, and six weeks for cousins. Servants, and anyone in uniform, such as the military, wore black armbands. Door knockers were swathed in black to serve notice when a household was in mourning.

1818 Mourning Eveningwear

Naturally, the Regency fashionable were guided in all this by such venerable tomes as Ackermann’s Repository. (Research tip: you can find issues online by searching www.archive.org.) The February issue for 1820 features a number of examples of mourning dress, for after all, one needed to carry the mourning through all occasions in the course of a day. How do you like this walking dress, or these two versions of evening gowns?

The rules for public mourning were announced by the Lord Chamberlain’s office, and could vary. Prinny, now the uncrowned George IV, “in consideration of the interests of trade” declared a “shortened” period of public mourning for his father, essentially three months. The first stage lasted until March 19, just over six weeks of wearing bombazine and crape. The so-called “first change” or second mourning called for “plain black silk” with “French grey bombasine” for undress, until April, and then colored ribbons and flowers could be added to the black silk, or white with black trimmings could also then be allowed. Ackermann’s noted that in addition to French gray bombazine, pelisses made of gray levantine (trimmed with black velvet), and some “high dresses of poplin” (trimmed with black gauze or net) as well as gros de Naples and corded silk had been seen. Mourning was to end on April 30.

The exhibit at the Met offered a lot of fascinating details about the fabrics used for mourning clothes. For instance, crape was favored, they said, because while it satisfied the first stage requirement of having no sheen, its fine weave and flexibility made it very suitable to be pleated or crimped or shaped into purely decorative ornaments that allowed the wearer to be fashionable while still following the rules of mourning.

While styles changed radically over the course of the 19^th century, I noticed the same fabrics continued in use throughout. I have to include this picture of two dresses from the 1840’s, just for Susanna. Note the model’s “spaniel curls”!

I also have to include this photo (below) of two gorgeous sequin-covered 1902 evening gowns worn by Queen Alexandra (Victoria’s daughter-in-law) in half-mourning colors after Victoria’s death –they are mauve and purple–for Elena, because they are 100% sparkly!!

However, advances of the Industrial Revolution: fabrics more available and less expensive, improved black dyes, and the boom in ready-made clothes after the invention of the sewing machine, served to support and spread the observance of mourning customs to the middle classes and beyond (more than Queen Victoria’s long mourning for Prince Albert). The “mourning trade” became big business after the Regency, with entire warehouses catering to the need for mourning attire. No doubt they had a vested interest in encouraging the fashion for public display, but if you went too far, you could be criticized for being ostentatious or, worse, insincere in your grief!

My heroine in The Persistent Earl is a widow. While I didn’t know as much about mourning customs and dress when I wrote that book as I do now, I tried to keep Daphne dressed appropriately in half-mourning colors. You may imagine my shock when I first saw the cover Signet gave that 1995 book –the heroine is depicted in a lovely, bright gold satin gown! When readers have asked me what scene in the story it represents, I’ve cheerfully told them it’s from AFTER the story ends. 🙂

Today, the complex social rules of mourning that held sway during the Regency and flourished during the 19^th century are mostly obsolete. People follow the customs dictated by their religions, but mourning is generally a private affair. Governments may order flags at half-staff for the death of important public figures, but there are no society-wide expectations or judgment laid down. Attitudes about mourning have changed. Do you think that is for the best? Are we better off sucking it up and trying to function as normally as we can manage instead of wallowing in our sorrows and making a public show of our grief? Or was there a kernel of common sense that we’ve lost underlying these old rules, that gave the grieving some recognition and respect, a bit of protection, structure, and time to recover? Please comment, for I’d really like to know what you think!

“She’d worn that color, or gray in its place, for three years now. And unrelenting black for a year before that. It had been a bit of a badge, she realized, a uniform of sorts. One never had to worry about who one was when one’s clothing proclaimed it so loudly.”
― Julia Quinn, When He Was Wicked

Posted in History, Regency, Research | Tagged Fashion, Gail Eastwood, mourning, Regency Mourning, research, Victorian mourning | 7 Replies

Looking Forward and Back: Some Changes in the Wind

Updated on January 2, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’ve been enjoying the holidays, and found some time to relax, read, write, or at least spend some time with loved ones. It always feels refreshing to me when we start a new year. I like to do the Janus-thing –you know, the Roman god of new beginnings & reflection, who looked both forward and backward. Do you like to do that, too?

Looking forward, we are considering some changes here at the Riskies, and we would love to have your feedback. So, below I’m going to post some questions and hope you’ll take the time to consider them and share your thoughts with us. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any changes we decide to make!

Before I post the questions, I’ll share a little of looking backwards over my holidays. First, I learned why it’s best to spoon the brandy already in the pan over the plum pudding after it’s alight. My family always has plum pudding (with hard sauce) at Christmas dinner, a nod to our English heritage. But you must understand the job of flaming the pudding is usually undertaken by my sister, who could not be with us this year. Here’s what happens if you light the pudding, then decide to pour more brandy on it after it’s flaming nicely –the blue flame travels up the stream of brandy to the receptacle you are pouring from, making you dump the rest quickly and without much grace, before your sleeve catches on fire. <g> I must say that creates a really good blaze!! Good thing I was using a heat-proof glass measuring cup! Hmm, maybe that’s why the pudding package says to use just a teaspoon or two of brandy, but we have found that’s nowhere near enough! I might have to use this in a story…

Second, I learned a lot about foods that are considered to be lucky, or lead to prosperity and good health, if eaten on New Year’s Eve. We usually stay in and have friends over for dinner on New Year’s Eve, so this year I planned a menu made up almost entirely of these sorts of foods: shrimp (before dinner), lentil soup, butternut squash soup, roasted pork tenderloin, soba noodles (with water chestnuts, spinach, and curry sauce), salad of dark leafy greens with poppyseed dressing, sour cream & chive mashed potatoes colored gold, lemon poppyseed muffins. Explaining them all would be another whole blogpost! (Desserts were exempt from the theme.) Aside from the fact I prepared almost twice as much as we needed, we had a lovely evening, watched the 2006 movie Miss Potter (about Beatrix Potter) and all managed to stay awake to watch the NYC ball drop on TV and make a toast to the new year at midnight. Now we are all expecting great things from 2015.

I am sure I should be posting profound insights here, but after also having relatives over for dinner on New Year’s Day who couldn’t come on Christmas, I am still (or again) cleaning up my kitchen and am too tired to think that hard. I do love the holidays, but still, I can’t wait to get back to work on my Christmas novella (for release next fall), my rewrite of The Magnificent Marquess, my series and other writing projects. Do you feel a bit relieved when life starts to return to “normal” routines?

The normal routines here at the Risky Regencies are already a little changed with the departure of Megan and Myretta. We will miss them greatly! Thank goodness we can still visit with them in their other online homes. And we’ve invited some wonderful guests and may be expanding the ranks of the Riskies, as we have before. But we are taking a hard look at our blogging schedules, and wondering about making changes. So here are some questions we’d love to have you answer:

1) How often do you read the Risky Regencies blog? Daily, every few days, weekly, or less often?

2) Do you read several postings at a time, to catch up, if you don’t visit every day?

3) If we cut back the posting schedule so there were only three or four posts each week, would you still check in with us to read the posts?

4) Do you tune in to read only certain Risky authors, or do you read all/any of us? Do you pay attention to the schedule of who posts when?

5) Do you prefer one type of post over another? (i.e research posts, personal posts, writing related posts…)

6) Are you on Facebook? Do you think we should make the Riskies Facebook page a more active venue for discussions and posts?

We have tried to keep a schedule where there’s a new post almost every day. While we love the sharing with you, keeping to that schedule can really cut into writing time, and we are thinking a somewhat reduced schedule might be a help to all of us. What do you think?

Please, share your thoughts with us? We really would like to know. You can post in the comments here, or on the FB page, or in anyone else’s comment spaces in the next week.

In the meantime, I (and all my fellow Riskies, I’m certain) wish you all the very best in 2015, and look forward to many more conversations in this space!

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged changes, Christmas, Gail Eastwood, Janus, plum pudding | 22 Replies

How Did You Get Hooked? The Origins of Our Addiction (to Historical Romance)

Updated on November 7, 2014 by Gail Eastwood

How did you fall in love with historical romance stories, as a genre? Last weekend’s “Fall Back in Time” campaign had a lovely nostalgic twist to it when people posted photos of beloved old historical romances that set them on the path to addiction –oh, wait, I mean, that introduced them to the genre.

Those included Jane Austen novels and the now-classic Kathleen Woodiwiss romances like The Flame and the Flower, as you might expect, but also a huge range of other books and authors. We writers never know when one of our own stories may serve as the “gateway” book for a new historical fiction fan’s addiction. Of course, we take a kind of evil delight when that happens. Hooked another one! Heh-heh. It’s a lovely validation of what we do.

Readers seem to fall into one of three camps with how their interest started. Where do you fit? Did you discover historical fiction first, perhaps in childhood? Or did you discover romance novels first, then the historical ones as a subgenre? Or did you find historical romance as a new type of story to love, all at once?

I fit into that first category, hooked on historical fiction very early. As a young reader I devoured the “Little Maid” series written by Alice Turner Curtis (American history). Originally published in the 1920’s, those fired up my imagination and influenced some of my early attempts at writing. I was lucky to have a mom who knew about them. Despite how dated the writing seems now, I would still buy the reissues on Amazon if I had any young girls in my family! From there, I loved to read any story that was set before the 20^th century.

Then there was Earthfasts by William Mayne. It mixed contemporary and historical time, fantasy and reality and the supernatural, and it is set in the Dales in England –who could resist a book like that? I still take this book out and re-read it from time to time, still plunged right into the story by Mayne’s vivid writing.

I stumbled upon Pride and Prejudice on the library shelves (I do so miss browsing, don’t you?) in 7^th grade. Even though I didn’t understand half of it at the time, I couldn’t get enough. The combination of historical setting with romance mixed in was intoxicating. I started reading my mother’s copies of Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt/Phillippa Carr, and then I discovered Barbara Cartland. (I know.) I read everything. I was on a quest. But the Regency time-setting very quickly became my favorite, along with authors like Edith Layton, Mary Jo Putney, Joan Wolfe and Mary Balogh. Now my list has too many authors on it to name them all!

So, what authors got you started, and how did you start? Who were your favorites? I’d love to know. If you want to post pictures, we might be able to have some of the discussion over on our Riskies’ Facebook page, which I tend to forget about. But please comment here first, and then let us know if you are going to post there! In the meantime, happy reading!!

Posted in Reading, Risky Book Talk, Writing | Tagged books, Gail Eastwood, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Reading and Writing | 13 Replies