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Monthly Archives: November 2010

Imagine my shock and horror when I realized we haven’t had a LOLRegencies contest in two years!

LOLRegencies? Yes, indeed. As your friendly Thursday blogger this means that I am destined to blog on Thanksgiving Day, and relating that to the Regency is a bit limited. Yes, they had turkeys in England. Yes, they were interested in Turkey. And yes, it’s around the time of George Eliot’s birthday usually, but I’ve talked about all of those. So in 2008 I held a contest and on the right is the picture that started it all, Lord Elgin on a collection rampage in Europe.

Our winner was Maggie, who produced this little beauty (one of a number of little beauties):

You can view Maggie’s other masterpieces and the entries here.

So how does it work?

  1. See icanhazcheeseburger.com for the LOLcats (and other animals) cultural phenomenon.
  2. Find a Regency print online (hopefully one without copyright) and caption it and send it to riskiesATyahoo.com by Monday, November 22 with LOL Regencies in the subject line.
  3. Use a low-res jpg and don’t make your entry too big–the Elgin one, for example, is 245px x 300px. If it’s too huge and I shrink it down the caption will shrink down also.
  4. Mention how you would like your name to appear with your entry.
  5. You can caption a picture using Paint as well as more complicated programs like photoshop.

And the prizes: I have a truckload of Georgette Heyer books to give away, so I’m offering two Heyer Grab Bags. Most of the books are new, a couple are slightly used.

Obligatory self promotion: I’m signing at Borders, Annapolis this Sunday, November 6, 2-4 pm. Come and say hello and buy books. My buddies Kathy Love, Christie Kelley, Stephanie Draven, and Robin Kaye will be signing too so there’s something for everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! All the leftovers here have been consumed, and I spent far too much money online for Christmas presents–both for my family and for myself. Most of these were books of course, because books make stupendous holiday gifts!

My own new book, Duchess of Sin, is out now (shipping today from Amazon!), and I’m setting out on a blog tour (see the dates here on my blog!). I’m so proud to see Anna and Conlan’s story on the shelves now, as they had to work so hard to find their HEA.

I had lots of inspirations for this “Daughters of Erin” series, and one was my love of non-fiction about historical marriages. I can’t seem to get enough of reading about how couples of the past, whether middle-class sorts like Jane Austen’s family or the nobility, made their relationships work–or not work, as the case may be! There are certainly some spectacular failures in marital history (hello, Prinny and Caroline!). I like to imagine how my own characters will build a life together.

I recently read two books about just such couples. Couples who really had almost nothing in common with each other, except that both wives were unusually strong women and both couples were very much in love. Also they lived through times of immense conflict.

The first was Joseph J. Ellis’s First Family: Abigail and John Adams. Ellis calls them the “premier husband and wife team in all American history” and for 54 years they were lovers and friends, real partners, through very turbulent times. I love the Adamses–theirs was an enviable marriage, and I like to imagine my Anna and Conlan end up something like them, working together in everything and always passionate about each other!

The other was Katie Whitaker’s A Royal Passion about Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Unlike the Adamses, this was an arranged marriage that didn’t start all that well. But it grew into a passionate and devoted marriage. A partnership that ended in disaster, but was fiercely united. Whitaker says that this marriage was both Charles’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. I highly recommend both books!

So, what are your favorite historical couples? Do you find inspiration (or warning!) in their stories??

Yesterday Amanda stole Gerard Butler from me, to use as the model for Conlan, her hero in Duchess of Sin. Today I’m taking him back!!

Take a look at this soon-to-be commercial.

http://www.theexfoliator.com/2010/11/nuff-said.html

Only a manly man can hawk moisturizer!!!

Will you put L’Oreal’s Men Expert, new Hydra-Energetic, Anti-Fatigue Moisturiser on your shopping list for the man in your life?

If this were Regency England, what might you purchase for that special Earl in your life?

Would you go to Floris at 89 Jermyn Street in Mayfair and ask them to create a special scent for your man?

The Floris Shop was founded in 1730 by Juan Famenias Floris. England from his native island of Menorca to seek fortune. Shortly after his arrival in England from his native Menorca he secured premises in Jermyn Street, where the shop still uses the mahogany counter that was purchased directly from the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851. Beau Brummel used to discuss scents with Floris. Mary Shelley sent an order to Floris to send her two brushes and a toothbrush during her time abroad when she wrote Frankenstein.

Perhaps your dear Earl is a studious sort of man. He might prefer a book from Hatchards, the oldest surviving bookshop in London. Hatchards, on Piccadilly since 1797, has served such famous historical figures as Wellington, Byron, Queen Charlotte.

What book would you buy him? Endymion: A Poetic Romance By John Keats, perhaps? Or something educational, like The History of England: From The Earliest Times To The Death of George II by Oliver Goldsmith.

Maybe you cannot give your dear Earl such a personal gift such as scent or a book of poetry. You can always fall back on the holiday standby. Food. He might delight in some tea or spices or preserves from Fortnum and Mason, right next door to Hatchards.

Fortnum and Mason have been selling quality foods since the 1700s, started by a footman to Queen Anne, who enterprisingly remelted and sold the candle stubs, supplementing his income.

I can hardly believe we have to start thinking of holiday gifts! I don’t know about you, but I wish I could be doing my Christmas shopping in Mayfair.

Where in the world would you like to shop?

Come to Diane’s Blog on Wednesday, not Thursday, this week to learn about the exciting Harlequin Historical Holiday Giveaway, with 22 days of prizes and a Grand Prize of a Kindle, complete with several Harlequin Historicals to start your ereading!

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Today I’m so excited to welcome my friend and fellow Harlequin author Nicola Cornick back to the blog so we can chat about our December books! My own release is my second Laurel McKee book, Duchess of Sin, Anna’s story, and Nicola’s is the third of her back-to-back releases, Scandalous Women of the Ton! I’ve been waiting for Merryn’s story ever since the first book came out, and now it’s here in Mistress by Midnight. We sit down to tea and cakes to chat about hunky dukes, intelligent heroines, and history….


“A one-of-a-kind read! Truly an amazing tale, a love to warm the heart and an adventure that never ended. I found myself enraptured by Conlan and Lady Anna, by the surprising love I felt for the Angel of Kildare, and the strong desire for the next story.” –Fresh Fiction, on Duchess of Sin

“(An) emotionally charged romance and a powerful love story!” –RT Book Reviews on Mistress by Midnight

Amanda (pouring the tea and helping herself to a chocolate cake): Welcome to the Riskies today, Nicola! I’m so excited to see the last book of your new trilogy on the shelves. Tell us about it!

Nicola (sipping tea, and trying to ignore that Amanda took the only chocolate cake): Thanks for having me here today! Well, my new series, The Scandalous Women of the Ton, is all about heroines doing outrageous things–traveling to the far-flung corners of the globe, working for a living, marrying five times. Each of my heroines manages to shock society’s sensibilities in a different way.

Merryn, the heroine of my December book Mistress by Midnight, is a bluestocking, very unfashionable, with total scorn for everything she sees as superficial about society. She prefers to attend lectures rather than balls and even has a job, although she has to keep this a secret. Merryn is a sweet girl but she does tend to see everything in black and white and a lot of the book is about how she learns that often the truth is nowhere near as straightforward as she thinks. She’s on a mission to ruin Garrick, Duke of Farne, because she holds him responsible for her brother’s death. But she hasn’t taken into account her raging attraction to Garrick or that fact that he’s out to stop her from revealing the truth!

Amanda: I do love scandalous heroines! Anna Blacknall, heroine of Duchess of Sin, doesn’t have a job like Merryn, but she does like a good party–a lot. She likes to dance, ride her horse fast, and find places she’s not meant to be. She also likes to sneak out of the house and look for adventure, something different from her constrained life as belle of the Dublin social season. But she’s also trying to cover up her deep-seated fears and some bad memories from the Uprising of two years ago. She’s looking for acceptance for who she really is, and she wants to find something useful in life beyond being a Diamond. She’s also looking for a strong man to match her, though she doesn’t know at first that she’s already found him…

Nicola: Oooh, a yummy dark hero! My hero Garrick, is a total sweetie to my mind (I do admit to a bias!). He’s a very honorable hero. I love heroes who are strong protectors and Garrick has made it his life’s work to protect those who are weaker than he is and who need him. When he meets Merryn he has a terrible conflict because she threatens to reveal all the secrets he has kept for years as part of his role as defender. He is very attracted to Merryn and he wants to help her too, but he cannot tell her the truth without betraying others. He’s completely torn.

Amanda: He sounds so much like my own hero, Conlan, Duke of Adair! Besides both being dukes, that is. Conlan’s whole life is dedicated to protecting his people from all the dangers of Irish life, and he’ll do anything to fulfill that responsibility. The last thing he needs is a beautiful Ascendancy lady finding out all his secrets! But Anna needs him too–and he needs her. They’re true soul-mates, it just takes them a while (and several dangerous adventures) to find that out! It doesn’t help that Anna is being courted by Conlan’s villainous cousin, either.


One thing I love to do is find actors or models that look like my idea of my characters, and then I make character collages. (It’s not time wasting procrastination, it’s Very Important Research!). Conlan looked to me like a dark manly-man, like Richard Armitage or Gerard Butler (sorry, Diane! I borrowed him for a bit…). Anna is an aristocratic blonde, like Gywneth Paltrow or Diane Kruger. What about your characters? Who did you “see” while you were writing?

Nicola: Well, one of the things I love about Garrick is that he has auburn hair. I know red-haired heroes aren’t every reader’s cup of tea, but I think a man with red hair can be very sexy. My inspirations for Garrick were Damian Lewis, Prince Harry, and Toby Stephens in his Mr. Rochester guise! If I was to cast Merryn, I think Kate Winslet would be a good choice to play her.

Amanda: Yummy inspirations all! I know that, like me, you enjoy doing research and finding historical tidbits to put into stories. What can we look for in this book?

Nicola: Mistress by Midnight is set against the background of the London Beer Flood of 1814, a real event in which 7 people died. It was a freak accident. the vat on the top of the brewery in Tottenham Court Road exploded, setting off a chain reaction from the other vats and releasing a tidal wave of beer that swamped the surrounding streets. Several people drowned, some were crushed by falling masonry, and one died from drinking too much alcohol. It was all reported in The Times newspaper of the day.

Amanda: OMG, how have I never heard of this??? A real beer flood? There’s no flood of booze in my book, but there is a visit to a pub. I set Duchess of Sin around the upheaval concerning the Act of Union of 1801. Things had calmed down (though the atmosphere was still very tense) after the Uprising of 2 years before, but this political act was like setting a match to gunpowder again. Conlan is right in the middle of the fray, of course, and Anna finds herself embroiled in it as well. I talked about the historical background last week on your own Word Wenches blog!

Nicola: I love how your Daughters of Erin trilogy captures the wildness and spirit of Georgian Ireland. What inspired you to write a book there?

Amanda: I’ve always wanted to do an Irish book, but I just had to find the right characters! You’re so right that Georgian Ireland was full of a wild spirit. It was a place of contrasts, between high fashion and gorgeous architecture (much of which can still be seen), and hot tempers and a love of partying. There’s also so much conflict, it’s ideal for a book! And I also love an Irish Christmas, so I was excited to find out this was to be a holiday release.

Nicola: Did you have an idea of what your heroines were going to be like when you started writing? The Blacknall sisters are all strong characters, but very different from each other.

Amanda: I was so lucky! Each sister kind of sprang into the story fully-formed. Eliza is the eldest sister, very strong and sure of herself, very protective of the others, but also idealistic and strong-minded. Anna was the middle one, the beauty, whose intelligence was sometimes disregarded as she grew up. She feels she has something to prove, to the world and to herself. And Caroline is my bluestocking, the quiet one who prefers reading to dancing. But she finds herself embroiled in quite an adventure with an unlikely hero in her own story, Lady of Seduction (June 2011)! I love each of them, by this point they feel a bit like my own sisters.

Nicola: I feel the same about my Scandalous Women! After all this time, I feel as if I know them so well.

Amanda: And what’s next for you?

Nicola: Next is the fourth book in the Scandalous Women of the Ton, Notorious, in August 2011!

Amanda: Wonderful! Have some more tea. We can toast to gorgeous heroes and the scandalous heroines who love them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our little tea-table chat today! Comment or ask a question for a chance to win both Duchess of Sin and Mistress by Midnight, and be sure to visit our websites for excerpts, more historical background, and contests. You can find me here, and Nicola here!


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Earlier this week, I went to NYU’s Fales Library, which holds a fiction collection that is particularly strong from mid-18th century to today. The 2011 Conference for the International Association For The Study of Popular Romance will be held there, just prior to RWA’s 2011 New York Conference in late June.

So worth coming in early if you’re academically minded and also attending RWA 2011.

But I digress.

The Library’s Head Librarian took me and IASPR’s President, Sarah Frantz, into the stacks to see some of the collection. And, OMG, we got to touch a first edition of Jane Austen‘s Mansfield Park. The book was a lot smaller than books today, and was packaged in a few volumes. Running your hand over the type, you could feel the raised type. Very cool.

And I’m not one to geek out over such things, but looking at the book, at is size, and print and all, I could definitely picture one of our bluestocking heroines reading it, her head bent over to peer at the pages. It’d be small enough to hold in one hand and turn the pages with the other, and discreetly titled enough to hide what she was reading if it was necessary.

So duringthis busy holiday season, let’s all take a moment and sneak away to re-enact our favorite heroines’ favorite pastimes, and open a book and lose yourself for just a bit. It’s research, you see!

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