Thanks so, so much to everyone for your good wishes after my emergency surgery last week! It was scary, but I’m now on the road to recovery and looking forward to stories our of RWA Nationals this week. Knowing I have some great friends has made things so much easier. Stay tuned next week when I can (hopefully!) stay on the computer longer than 5 minutes and will have a proper post…
Today I’m on my way to the Romance Writers of America conference in New York City. As if that were not exciting enough, I’m getting there by car!
Lest you think a road trip from Virginia to NYC via the New Jersey Turnpike is nothing to get excited about, I’m riding with Lavinia Kent, and Julie Halperson, my long-time writing friend. Julie and I hardly ever get to see Lavinia so 4 or more hours to talk will be a super treat.
My modiste Helen made this dress for me, too.
I didn’t even recognize Amanda at first in this costume. And I was with her when she purchased the hat in Williamsburg.
I’ve always thought of LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE more as a Regency historical than a traditional Regency, both because of its length (90,000 words versus the 75,000 my traditional Regencies usually ran) and because it takes the heat up a notch from my earlier books.
So I’m brainstorming ideas for a new title that sounds a bit less like a traditional Regency. I’d love to hear your suggestions. I can’t guarantee that I’ll use any of them, but I will send a copy of the paperback version of this book to a commenter chosen at random.
Comment all week long, and I’ll pick a winner next Saturday.
To stimulate your creativity, here’s the back cover blurb:
Hearts in Hiding
She became the ton’s most notorious widow after kissing a costumed stranger at a masquerade. Her reputation was destroyed overnight in a swirl of spiteful rumor. Shunned by polite society and unable to forget years of a desperately unhappy marriage, Olivia, Lady Dearing now hides her heart where no man will ever find it. Though she fills her life with children she has taken in from London’s Foundling Hospital, a stranger’s seductive voice haunts her dreams.
He has given up hope of ever finding her, but two years later, the empty place in his heart still aches for the beauty he kissed at the masquerade. Sir Jeremy Fairhill, a widower with painful secrets of his own, devotes himself to the cause of the Foundling Hospital. When he learns that an infamous widow has taken some of the children into her own home, duty alone compels him to investigate. But passion will soon engulf them both, leading to a disastrous scandal—or love.
Comment away! Funny as well as serious ideas welcome.
Elena
Now, while I like mash-ups in general, reveling in the ridiculous conflagration of, say, The Watchmen and My Little Pony:
But one thing I’ve never been on-board with is messing with my faves, unless it’s sufficiently separate from the source (in other words, I liked Clueless).
So I’ve got trepidation about the upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie, currently being cast. Emma Stone (who was in Easy A and Zombieland) is in talks to play Elizabeth Bennet, and James MacAvoy’s been mentioned as Darcy. Now I own the book, but haven’t read it; I’ve heard it’s delightful, but like I said, I’m nervous.
Not that authors, books and concepts should be sacrosanct, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this concept. Maybe because I find zombies so unpleasant in the first place?
Some of you have read it, while some of you feel as I do. What do you think?
My next book, the second about Jane Austen as a (part-time/temporary) vampire, Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion, is released in October, 2011 and I thought you’d like to see the beauteous cover. I love it! Note the bat-shaped pen and Jane’s fang.
It’s set in 1810, when Jane, with her mother, sister and best friend are living in Chawton and Jane is about to get down to some serious writing. But then, as so often happens in Austen’s own novels, new tenants lease Chawton Great House, owned by one of Jane’s brothers.
Here’s the beginning of the book:
Chawton, Hants, 1810
“She’s an extraordinarily troublesome girl,” the Reverend James Austen said.
Jane watched in fascination as the girl in question, her niece Anna, pulled a hideous face at her father, an expression that lasted only a second before her pretty face resumed its normal sweetness.
“Come, brother, you’d rather have her commit folly at twenty-seven than seventeen?”
“I was sixteen when it started, Aunt Jane,” Anna said.
“Indeed, a whole year of foolishness.” James stood as his mother entered the drawing room. “How goes the garden, ma’am? I have brought you some cuttings; your garden boy has them.”
“You did? Heavens, he’ll probably kill them by looking at them. What possessed your brother to send me that boy I cannot imagine. He’s all thumbs and none of them green. Come now, James, give your old mother a kiss. And you, too, Miss Anna, you must help me in the garden.”
James frowned at the display of affection between Mrs. Austen and her granddaughter. “She is here to reflect upon her foolishness and inconstancy, ma’am, not to enjoy herself.”
“Oh, of course,” Jane murmured. “But you hate gardening, do you not, Anna? And going for walks, and playing upon the pianoforte, and talking nonsense, and reading novels, for that is all we do here, I fear.”
“Hmm.” As James spoke Jane saw a quick glance of affection between father and daughter, quickly masked. “I had in mind some improving literature and early nights.”
“Naturally. Bread and water we can supply too, James. Never fear. We shall be the consummate jailers.”
“Oh, stop talking nonsense and make tea for us, Jane.” Mrs. Austen removed the wide-brimmed, unfashionable straw hat she wore for gardening. “We shall keep Anna busy, you may be assured, and fortunately there are no eligible bachelors in Chawton.”
“Indeed, yes,” Jane said, measuring tea into the teapot. “For Mr. Papillon is destined for me, you know. If you set your cap at him I shall be most displeased, Anna, and send you packing off home to Steventon again.”
“Really? You have a beau, Aunt Jane?”
“Your aunt is funning you.” James, softening a little, winked at his sister. “How goes the scribbling, Jenny?”
“Fair enough. Gallons of ink, acres of paper, and every morning my sister and mother and Martha have to wade through my torn out hair a foot deep on the dining room floor. I thank you for asking, brother.”
“I’m not so sure it wasn’t novels that caused all this trouble in the first place,” James said. “They contain much romantic silliness.”
“Oh, heaven forbid we should act as rational creatures,” Jane said. “Do you think we do not know the difference between fact and fiction, James? That all we read in novels is but a fantasy of the life we lead, and we such poor creatures we cannot tell the difference? And,” she added, “mine don’t contain romantic silliness. Silliness, possibly. Romance, possibly. But the two together? Impossible.”
Enjoy and hope to see many of you in NYC next week!
