Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of the Risky Regencies!

A little history for those who may have joined us more recently. About a year ago, I went to the RWA conference in Reno, where I roomed with Cara and Amanda and met Janet and Megan in person for the first time. Each of us was looking forward to releases of Signet Regencies within the upcoming months. Each was also well aware that the writing was on the wall for the line, though no announcement had yet been made.

Soon after the conference, we decided that starting this blog was better than donning blacks and mourning the demise of Signet Regencies, that this would be a fun way to share our passion for the Regency while searching for new publishing “homes”. And it has been. One of the nicest things for me has been working with this talented and highly individual group of women, including our newest member, Diane.

The idea of calling ourselves the Risky Regencies stemmed from the fact that many of us did things in our upcoming books that felt risky to us. My September release, LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE is a Super Regency. It’s longer and more complex than anything I’d written before, which led to some serious midnight-oil-burning as the deadline approached. It also deals with more serious issues than I’d tackled in previous books. And it’s sexier.

My first traditional Regency, which came out in 2000, was on the “sweet” side. In my second full-length Regency I wrote my first sex scene. Some readers loved it; others castigated me because “ladies didn’t do that in the Regency”. Over the next few books, my stories kept getting sexier (blame my characters did it, I have no control over them!) and I continued to get a mix of rants and raves from readers.

So I was pretty nervous when LDM finally came out. Now the problem child has made me proud, winning the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Regency of 2005 and the Desert Rose RWA’s Golden Quill in the historical romance category.

Meanwhile my fellow Riskies have earned all sorts of awards, as this week’s posts amply prove. So many different books have been honored this year, and so many of them have been ours! It says to me that readers want variety, and the Riskies have been offering just that.

As we near our one-year anniversary, I’d like to ask the visitors what you think of our blog. What have you most enjoyed? Anything you’d like to see more of?

In a spirit of nostalgia, and as a thanks to our visitors over this past year, I’d like to send an autographed copy of my first book, LORD LANGDON’S KISS, to a visitor chosen at random from comments on this post. Sometime this weekend I’ll announce the winner.

To my Risky friends and visitors, thanks for a great year!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, Golden Quill, Best Historical Romance
www.elenagreene.com