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Monthly Archives: December 2007

After Christmas we spent a few days visiting my in-laws in Williamsburg, Virginia, and this time we actually took a stroll down historic Duke of Gloucester Street to see the Christmas decorations. The weather was beautiful!

I knew from doing the booksigning that the Barnes & Noble in Historic Williamsburg didn’t carry Harlequin Historicals, but emboldened by discovering my book in two local Northern Virginia bookstores, I set out on a quest to see where in Williamsburg I might find The Vanishing Viscountess on the shelf.

The answer? NOWHERE

After our walk in Colonial Williamsburg, we drove to the Barnes and Noble in “New Town” (a nearby trendy new shopping center/residential complex that is supposed to mimic a city street, except the fake rocks beneath the lamposts play Christmas music). No Harlequin Historicals there. In fact, they only had a very small Romance section tucked away in a corner beyond the manga and the sci fi. Why stores limit their Romance sections is beyond me. You would think they would love the genre which sells almost 50% of all mass market books.

But I digress.

I begged for us to make one more stop–A Books A Million store in a perfectly ordinary shopping center in Williamsburg. Surely they would carry Harlequin Historicals–But they didn’t. By this time my husband and in-laws just wanted to get home to eat some dinner, so they wouldn’t take me to check the local Walmart, which I was almost sure would have The Vanishing Viscountess.

I love writing for Mills & Boon Historical/Harlequin Historical. I think Harlequin Mills & Boon produce wonderful books and innovative ones. They are not at all afraid of taking a chance on new time periods and settings, like Amanda’s A Notorious Woman, or on “the Regency underworld,” my little niche. They continued to print Westerns when the other publishers wouldn’t touch them.

The Harlequin Historical line was almost discontinued in 2003-2004. Instead, Harlequin turned the acquisition over to Mills & Boon Historical, which has done wonders with the bookcovers and has increased the number of books released per month. To save the line, however, they also limited distribution to only their best selling venues.

This means you don’t see Harlequin Historicals in grocery stores or lots of places that carry the other Harlequin lines. Obviously, not every big bookstore sells them, either. If a bookstore does sell them, they are typically with the other Harlequin lines and are usually on a bottom shelf. You have to work hard to find Amanda’s and my books in a bookstore.

Most of our Riskie readers are familiar with ordering books online , but if you want to buy a Harlequin Historical in a bookstore and you can’t find it, there is something you can do.

Ask.

Ask a clerk if they have the book buried in a bottom shelf. If they don’t, ask the clerk to order a copy. All of the bookstores that did not carry The Vanishing Viscountess told me they could order it for me.

And if you do see Harlequin Historicals in a bookstore, do us a favor and turn some of them out so they catch the browsers’ eyes.


Everyone have a very safe and happy New Year’s holiday! This is not one of my favorite holidays, because of the whole drinking and driving thing and because my kids will be “out there” where people are drinking and driving. My husband, the cats, and I will stay at home and watch TV and maybe have champagne. However you celebrate…stay safe!

And let me know if you see my book on a bookstore shelf. Oh, Michelle Willingham’s latest Harlequin Historical is out in January, too, so also look for hers. We’ll be interviewing her this month.

Today I’m off to see PS I Love You…again! Yippee.

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Warning: Totally frivolous and useless post ahead! Some of you probably need a little break from the holiday craziness (like me!), so here are a few fun Internet finds to wile away some quiet moments as you plan your New Year’s Eve.

Cat Head Theater: Animated cats performing a scene from Hamlet ‘Nuff said.


A music video
using scenes from Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and North and South. Kinda sappy (okay, really sappy), but fun!



An article
on how to make your own green evening gown from Atonement, if you’re so inclined. And if you are, I’ll buy it from you! But will someone please give Keira Knightley a cheeseburger, immediately!!! (Bertie, can I count on you?)

Tartx jewelry–I think I’ve talked about this site before, but I just love it so am doing so again! The necklaces are beautiful, and the quality terrific, too (I own a couple of pendants, Marie Antoinette and Jane Austen, plus keep a wishlist there!)



Richard Armitage Online
Because I got my own DVD of North and South for Christmas, and I’ve been watching it way more than is good for me this last week. It almost makes me want to write a Victorian-set story! Maybe I’ll rewatch P&P, too.

A short trailer for the movie The Duchess. I’m still trying to figure out if that bit with the pillared balcony is set at the assembly rooms in Bath (Diane and Deb, what do you think??)

Happy New Year, everyone! What are your resolutions? I have the usual. Go to yoga class more. Eat more vegetables (french fries don’t count). Write 10 pages a day. Okay, 8. And, for now, cut back on watching North and South. I also have a new dress for the New Year’s party, but sadly things on that holiday never seem to go like in that cheesy-but-great movie The Cutting Edge. You know–sparklers, music, a handsome hockey player-turned ice skater to kiss at midnight. But I have hopes for this year…

See you in 2008!

Megan’s not missing, but I needed the alliteration. She’s merely stuck in New Jersey and unable to blog today. So I thought it would be a good idea to go to a movie.

Like PS I Love You (I can’t believe that a Gerard Butler movie has been out for one week and I haven’t seen it yet. )

Or Sweeney Todd with the versatile Johnny Depp (Is there nothing Depp cannot do?)

Or Keira Knightly and dreamy James McAvoy in Atonement

Or Juno or Enchantment or National Treasure or The Golden Compass or….several more. This is a great week for movies. Have you seen any of these yet? (I haven’t seen a one, but I might get to PS I Love You tomorrow!)

If you could go to the movies tonight, which movie would you see?

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That was the header of a piece of spam I received recently that struck my fancy because I think it pretty much sums up what happens when you read a good book.

And here’s picture/map that I think is so charming I decided to post it, although know nothing about it; I don’t know the artist or title–I’d guess it’s eighteenth or nineteenth century. It’s so clever! I’ve been wanting to share it ever since I first found it. Do any of our learned and esteemed visitors and friends know any more about it?

Other than the random nature of this post, I wanted to talk about my 2007, which has been a real learning experience, both good and bad. Here are some of my highlights, although some of them are things I’ve known for years but thought you’d like to know:

  • Running out of tea is a state of national emergency.
  • You really don’t need to clean your bathroom more than once every six months but it’s easier if you do it more often.
  • TV is for folding laundry.
  • It’s possible for a publisher to contract a book as one subgenre and market it as another and not tell the author.
  • Google is for other things than looking up your own name.
  • If you buy a case of toilet paper and live in a small house, after a while you get used to the box in the living room.
  • If you squeeze a couple of pages out every day it amounts to more than if you don’t.
  • When a cat sleeps on your bed with you, s/he expands to about a yard wide and 200 degrees.
  • No one ever wants the last cookie, so go for it. You’re doing them a favor.
  • No one ever wants to eat sardines or beets, but they don’t want you to eat them either.
  • You should always carry reading material.
  • Make sure you have sufficient dust bunnies, books, and old newspapers under the bed for any contingency.
  • If you or the man in your life buys navy blue socks in bulk they will never match once they’re worn and washed.
  • If you can’t avoid visitors, plug in the vacuum cleaner and leave it ostentatiously in the middle of the room. They will actually believe you are halfway through cleaning. (Of course, if you can’t find the vacuum cleaner you’re out of luck.)
  • If there is a cold going around at work, avoid any bowls of candy on your colleagues’ desks.

Read well and respond urgently–share your pearls of wisdom with us!

Receive a great honking pearl of wisdom every month with the Riskies newsletter: sign up by sending an email with NEWSLETTER in the header to riskies@yahoo.com. And while we’re in the small, eye-catching italic section, check out what Pam Rosenthal is giving away in her contest; and read an alternate ending to The Rules of Gentility and enter to win a prize at janetmullany.com.

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Happy Boxing Day!

Of course, I’d heard about Boxing Day before but since I never needed it for a story, I had only a vague idea that it had to do with giving presents. In boxes, of course. So exactly what is Boxing Day and what are the associated traditions? I googled and found a delightful explanation on the website of the Woodlands Junior School in Tonbridge, Kent. Boxing Day is a time of charity. During the Regency, people would give gifts to their servants and to the poor. According to the website, an “‘Alms Box’ was placed in every church on Christmas Day, into which worshippers placed a gift for the poor of the parish. These boxes were always opened the day after Christmas, which is why that day became know as Boxing Day.”

Other traditional Boxing Day activities include fox hunting, indoor games or appropriate wintry outdoor pursuits. There is also a custom of hunting the wren, a bird one was not allowed to hunt any other day (though why one would wish to hunt wrens is beyond me).

Today, I will not be foxhunting, nor ice skating, nor hunting wrens. Instead, I’ll be on a family outing organized by my parents to see a dinner theatre performance of “White Christmas”. The group will include all 5 grandchildren ranging in ages from 5 to 11. I don’t know if my parents know what they are letting themselves in for! My own children are among the older ones and they will behave (or risk, as Dumbledore put it, “a very painful death”). But as for the others–all bets are off. Plan A: pretend we don’t know them. Plan B: drink heavily.

So what are you doing to celebrate Boxing Day?

If you are looking for something to do, why not send a postcard to the Woodlands Junior School? (Here’s the address.)

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

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