Hi, I’m Janet Mullany and my book Dedication comes out next month. What makes my book a risky Regency? It’s actually like a blueprint for what not to have in a romance:
1. Older, almost celibate hero.
2. Older and not at all celibate heroine.
3. Character who is a writer.
4. Character who is an artist.
5. The higher in rank my characters are, the worse they behave.
6. Unless they’re French.
7. And for a regency, sex.
Frankly I’m just confused by what makes a traditional regency. I always thought it meant a short book with no sex and Mr. and Ms. Middle America wearing their regency costumes on the cover, smiling idiotically. Lots of regency slang, descriptions of clothes, aristos being polite in drawing rooms, and the only balls mentioned were the ones that include dancing.
But let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
I’m gonna see if I can upload my cover art now.
Your book sounds fascinating, Janet! I’d heard it was quite sexy, but obviously it “breaks the rules” in more ways than one! Then again, I was never one of those people who believed that traditional Regencies could only be sweetness and light… (Speaking of which, I kept waiting for a certain publisher to start an imprint called LIGHT & FLUFFY, as in, “It’s a LIGHT & FLUFFY book”!) 🙂
I started reading Regencies way back when (I take the fifth on just how way back it was), and heck, some of the 1970’s Regencies were quite sexy — and certainly had no boundaries. I think it was after the genre started settling down in the late 80’s or early 90’s that people started seeing rules everywhere — and I’m sure Harlequin’s tip sheets helped with that. (I recall they not only wanted their Regencies sweet, but by preference set nowhere but London or Bath — and just think how many early Regencies weren’t even set in the British Isles!)
And of course, I can remember a lot of sexy earlier Regencies from authors like Jo Beverley, Edith Layton, Catherine Coulter, and Mary Balogh. And more recently, from authors such as Elena Greene (hi, Elena!), Leanne Shawler, and Nonnie St George. So I guess I’m trying to say that I don’t find it all that surprising that your traditional Regency is a sexy book! It does sound intriguing — can’t wait!
— Cara
You’re a hoot, Janet. I can’t wait to read Dedication.
*LOL* Janet, your book certainly sounds interesting! A writer *and* an artist?? Oh-oh.
Love your “Mr and Ms Middle America” comment — I’ve seen many covers (trads and historicals) where I thought exactly the same, or something along the lines “Gee, her nose is much too small to be real.” *g*
Cheerio,
Sandy,
who, to add to her sins, included a gay couple in her debut novel 🙂
Can’t wait to read a Regency that breaks “all” the rules! Great job!
Laurie
I laughed when I read the following post by Janet: “I always thought it meant a short book with no sex and Mr. and Ms. Middle America wearing their regency costumes on the cover, smiling idiotically. Lots of regency slang, descriptions of clothes, aristos being polite in drawing rooms, and the only balls mentioned were the ones that include dancing.” I think Janet is right – most people think Regencies are indeed like that – however, most Regency authors today know that many Regencies are much more than that. What I love about writing Regencies is the freedom to explore non-traditional story lines.
I’ve read very unusual stories about: a female architect, emu (or was it ostrich) farming, and dyslexia (the last my own). I’m not sure it would have been an easy job convincing an editor to take a chance on an unusual story if it had been in a different line.
But what exactly is a risky Regency? I’m not certain it is the level of sensuality. While I have had several people annoyed by the higher level of sensuality in my books, there were many authors before me who had sensual scenes such as Mary Balogh and Mary Jo Putney. So I toss the question back to all of you…What is a risky Regency?
Sophia Nash
Lord Will & Her Grace – Signet April 2005
A Passionate Endeavor – 2005 Rita Winner/Romantic Times Best Regency of the Year
Ah, what is a risky Regency? That is indeed the question, Sophia!
Perhaps it is . . .
A Regency the publisher wasn’t sure the audience would like?
Or a Regency the author wasn’t sure the publisher would like?
Or a Regency that’s perfectly normal, but that certain people who make up unnecessary rules say breaks the rules? 🙂
I think sometimes the riskiest Regencies have been the most popular. Heavens, when Karen Harbaugh did THE VAMPIRE VISCOUNT — I’m sure no one knew if it would sell! But I believe it did fabulously well at the time, and is certainly one of the most remembered (and treasured) Regencies ever.
Well, those are my humble thoughts of the moment!
Cara
This morning, I’m feeling particularly intimidated by the risks I’m taking. Because I find myself returning to a theme I’m developing — my heroine’s snapping at her maid again (surely no one will like her if she does that, and I can’t even give her smilies to prove that she really is likeable). But surely people did snap at each other in such proximity as they lived. Because I’m fascinated by the different rules that must obtain in a society where a woman needed help (day in and day out) just to get in and out of her clothes. So many assumptions that we make about what’s personal and private are completely overturned in this world. One of the challenges I wanted to set myself in this novel (and there are far too many, I fear) was to create hot sex among the teacups. Well, not AMONG the teacups, but surreptitiously, just out of sight, but maybe where they can hear the china clinking, if you get my somewhat flaky drift here.
Again, to problematize (as the academics would say) some unexamined assumptions about what’s private and secret and what’s known and just not stated.
So what I’m going for is the sotto voce authorial comment about the weirdness of this world with its different rules of privacy — superimposed on an ongoing plot thing about mistress and maid both knowing a great deal about each other’s amours — and the mistress being rather jealous of the maid’s relatively benign romance with the footman.
It sounds fascinating, Pam!!!
I find it very hard to have an intuitive understanding of the feelings about privacy in a world where so many intimate things were witnessed by others. I think sometimes people thought of servants as “other” — as nonhuman, as not counting, so it didn’t matter — but clearly that wasn’t always the case (and if you look at comic theatre in particular, there are plays across the centuries in which the masters/mistresses are made quite vulnerable by the servants, or show a lot of frustration or irritation…)
As far as your heroine snapping at her maid…seems to me that’s one of those things that any human being would do sometimes, but that for some reason in fiction, this isn’t always acknowledged… But think about it — if you lived with someone cheek by jowl, even if she was your servant, you would sometimes annoy each other. 🙂
As far as sex among the teacups . . . very interesting. There were certainly a lot of very censorious people who were very naughty in their private lives — total hypocrites, in other words. Which of course isn’t quite the same thing, but is a bit similar — the outward thing (the teacups) is delicate and elegant, and the reality is . . . well, more human. More real.
Anyway, those are my ramblings for today!
Cara
The concept of privacy in the era is fascinating. A long time ago I had a Penguin edition of Sense & Sensibility with a foreword by (maybe) Margaret Drabble. Whoever it was made the point that then the concepts of what was private and what was public were pretty much reversed: an example, for instance, being Willougby dumping poor little Marianne in public (tho he was a jerk); and Col. Brandon keeping the subject of Willoughby’s past secret. See, that just proves Col. Brandon is a twit who likes bad poetry. If he’d just had a quiet word with their mum…in fact, why didn’t he MARRY their mother, it would have made a lot more sense.
Way O/T.
Janet
Marry their mother? No! Colonel Brandon was perfect for Elinor! She should have gotten over her attachment to that weakling Edward, that “oops I can’t help it if I accidentally got engaged, and accidentally kept it a secret, accidentally courted you, and I wanted a career but mummy wouldn’t let me” fellow, and married Brandon, who should have gotten over his attachment to “I refuse to ever do anything I don’t want to” Marianne. 🙂
Cara
I love the idea of Colonel Branden marrying their mother. I hate the paragraph at the end of S&S where everybody agrees that being stuck with Colonel B is a perfect fate for Marianne, since she made life so difficult for them all. But then, I imagine a Liaisons Dangereuses sort of jeu d’esprit, told in diary form by Jane Fairfax, where she rather blows the lid off Highbury.
Okay, Janet, but here’s a creepy idea — once Colonel Brandon has married their mother, Marianne finds she can always
get what she wants from him by cuddling up to him and talking baby talk and . . . ew! 🙂
Cara