Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope you’re all ready for Thanksgiving (I’m going shopping for the ingredients for a chocolate-cherry cake later! Wish me luck, I haven’t tried this one before). I’ve been unpacking from my trip last week (the book signing was a big success!), and diving into a new book. I love them at this point, when they’re all shiny and new and the characters haven’t started acting all stubborn yet.

I also have a holiday contest! Visit my Laurel McKee website before December 16 and enter for a chance to win an ARC of Countess of Scandal (out in February 2010!!)

Speaking of stubborn characters, I found out today is the birthday of one of my favorite childhood authors, Frances Hodgson Burnett! I first encountered her work when I found a battered old copy of The Secret Garden at my grandmother’s house, and I love, love, loved that book. I wanted to go live at a crumbling, dark old manor house on the moors and work in the garden. I even loved cranky little Mary, who, unlike those horrible Elsie Dinsmore stories my grandmother tried to push on me, got to be unhappy and contrary (until nature saved her!). I also loved A Little Princess, with solemn, smart Sara and the gorgeous descriptions of her luscious wardrobe (until she was banished to the garret!). These stories created a world I adored and wanted to learn more about. I guess they were my first intro to the British historical.

Frances Hodgson was born in Manchester on November 24, 1849. When she was 4, her father died, leaving her mother with 5 children to raise on her own. Her mother tried to carry on with the family business, running a wholesale company that supplied art materials to manufacturers, but the company soon failed. Through these trials, little Frances was growing up precocious and observant. She wrote her first poem at age 7. In 1864, her family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to join her mother’s brother, but their finances did not improve.

Following the death of her mother in 1867, 18-year-old Frances was left responsible for her 2 younger siblings, and she turned to writing to support them all. Her first story was published in Godey’s Lady’s Book (Hearts and Diamonds), and she was soon printed regularly in that magazine along with Scribner’s, Peterson’s Ladies’ Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar. She became known for her ability to combine details of real, working-class life with romantic plots and sensibilities. She usually earned $10 apiece for these tales.

In 1873 she married Dr. Swan Burnett, a man she had known since she was 15, and had her first child, Lionel, the following year. Her second son, Vivian, was born soon after on an extended trip to Paris. Her first book, That Lass o’Lowrie’s, about a pit girl working in a coal mine, was published in 1877 to great praise. On their return to the US that year the family settled in Washington DC where she began moving in literary circles and entertained lavishly. She was also prolific–she wrote in quick succession Haworth’s (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), and Through One Administration (1883), as well as a play Esmeralda (1881). But she often struggled with illness and depression despite her success.

In 1885 she published her “breakout book,” Little Lord Fauntleroy, said to be inspired by her son Vivian. This book earned her more than $100,000, with a hugely popular theatrical adaptation following. Velvet suits became worldwide craze, much to the lasting horror of little boys everywhere.

In 1887 she traveled to Europe with her sons, visiting London for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and then on to France and Italy. A Little Princess (originally published under the title Sara Crewe) was published at this time. But in 1890 her eldest son died, and she was consumed with grief. She became interested in spiritualism and Theosophy (she wrote about these beliefs in The White People). Her marriage ended in divorce in 1898 and she married her business manager, but this second marriage also ended in divorce less than 2 years later. Her best-known work, The Secret Garden was published in 1911, after she had been living at Great Maytham Hall in England for many years and actually found a hidden garden there.

She lived practically as a hermit, hounded by the gossip press, for the last 17 years of her life in Plandome, New York, and is buried next to her son Vivian in Roslyn Cemetery there.

Aside from the novels themselves, I have an excellent biography of Burnett, Frances Hodgson Burnett: Beyond the Secret Garden by Angelica Shirley Carpenter and Jean Shirley. And just as an example of the fashion porn in A Little Princess: Her dresses were silk and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed quite as grandly as herself, too.

Did you love these books when you were a kid, too? What were some of your childhood favorites? And what are you cooking for the holiday???

I’m out of town for a few days and on a borrowed computer, so this week’s post is short and image-heavy! Enjoy…

After I finished the last deadline, and before I started the next one, I had the great luxury of reading not 1 but 2 romances from my TBR pile! One was Carolyn’s Indiscreet, which was wonderful–exotic locale, deep, dark emotion, complex characters. The other (which shall remain nameless, but was not by a Risky!) featured a hero who was such a man-slut (and probably an alcoholic, too; on top of which he was not very bright) I feared the heroine (who seemed like a nice girl) would catch some terrible disease from him. When they married at the end, I thought he would be faithful–until the next woman crossed his path.

To cleanse the palette, I went to my ultimate go-to “cheer up” writer–Jane Austen, of course! I do love nearly all her heroes (except Edmund Bertram, who let’s face it is something of a priss. But he does seem perfect for Fanny, and will probably never cheat on her or have his nose fall off from syphilis! And Knightley seems kinda bossy). Darcy, Wentworth, Tilney, etc–reliable, attractive guys all. It’s the Willoughbys and Wickhams who are trouble (and not the fun kind, either), and who get kicked to the curb in the end. Here are a few reasons to love an Austen man:

(I know he’s not an Austen man, but I couldn’t resist including him!)
Ditto this one…

Who is your favorite???

A few weeks ago I blogged on the birthday of a “bad girl of history,” Pauline Bonaparte. Today is the birthday of another one! Ninon de Lenclos, who was born November 10, 1620. Ninon was a writer, courtesan, and patron of the arts in Louis XIV’s France. When she died at the age of 85, Saint-Simon wrote of her, “A shining example of the triumph of vice, when directed with intelligence and redeemed by a little virtue.”

She was born Anne de Lenclos in Paris, “Ninon” was her childhood nickname. In 1632 her father was exiled from France for dueling, and when her mother died a few years later Ninon entered a convent. This didn’t last very long. She was determined to remain unmarried, but also to devote her life to pleasure of all kinds–not a life suited to a convent! On her return to Paris, she quickly became very popular in the salons, and soon opened her own, which was a center of the literary arts. Moliere was her protege, and on her death she left money for the 9-year-old son of her accountant to buy books–he would later be known as Voltaire.

She also took up the life of a courtesan, with a succession of rich and noble lovers, including the King’s own cousin Gaston de Coligny, and the duc de la Rochefoucauld. Saint-Simon wrote, “Ninon always had crowds of adorers but never more than one lover at a time, and when she tired of the present occupier she said so frankly and took another. Yet such was the authority of this wanton, that no man dared fall out with his successful rival; he was only too happy to be allowed to visit as a familiar friend.” Her profession and her outspoken opinions against organized religion caused her to be imprisoned at the Madelonnettes Convent in 1656 at the instigation of Anne of Austria, Queen Regent for her son Louis XIV. (When he grew up, of course, this sort of life was much more accepted!). She was soon visited by Queen Christina of Sweden (then abdicated and traveling around Europe), who wrote to Cardinal Mazarin and arranged Ninon’s release. (At one point in her life, Cardinal Richelieu offered her 50,000 crowns for one night in her bed. She took the money, but sent a friend instead. Just one of the many anecdotes of her eventful career…)

In 1659, Ninon wrote La coquette vengee, defending the possibility of living a good life in the absence of religion. She became friends with Racine, and also with Francoise d’Aubigne (later known as Madame de Maintenon, secret wife of Louis XIV). She went on writing and hosting her salons until her death in 1705, a very wealthy and famous woman.

There aren’t a lot of sources on her life in English, though she appears in many bios of other figures of the period. I have an old volume in translation by Antoine Bret, The Biography of Ninon de Lenclos, and there is one in French by Rogier Duchene. And there is a Dorothy Parker poem, Ninon de Lenclos On Her Last Birthday.

I guess Ninon could be the heroine of one of the popular “courtesan” romances, except she never settled down! 🙂 Do you like courtesan heroines?

And I almost forgot! I have a UK release this month, To Kiss a Count (the third in my Muses of Mayfair trilogy! These will be out in the US in April, May, and June 2010…)

I’ll also be at a 6-author booksigning at a Borders in Albuquerque on Saturday the 14th–if you’re in the area come by and say hi!

Deadline status–The book is turned in, yay! I celebrated by spending all day Sunday sitting around and–gasp!–reading a romance novel and eating leftover Halloween candy. It was wonderful. Now onto the next project.

In the meantime, what with this just-finished book and various projects in various stages, I’ve been thinking a lot about characters. A few weeks ago I blogged about a book I was reading called Sixpence House by Paul Collins, where he talked about his family’s move to Hay-on-Wye, “the town of books.” In one chapter he talks about a trend in the 1920s for books supposedly “written” by a Puritan woman named Patience Worth via Ouija boards, but actually written by a very sneaky man named Casper Yost. Collins writes, “Yost rightly sensed that many people are partial to the notion that, like St. Louis housewives with Ouija boards, all writers are somehow mere vessels for Truth and Beauty when they compose. That we are not really in control. This is a variation on that twee little fable that writers like to pass off on gullible readers, that a character can develop a will of his own and “take over a book.” This makes writing sound supernatural and mysterious, like possession by the fairies. The reality tends to involve a spare room, a pirated copy of MS Word, and a table bought on sale at Target. A character can no more take over your novel than an eggplant and a jar of cumin can take over your kitchen.”

Well, of course this is technically true. I have never had a character barge into my writing space and snatch the keyboard out of my hands to write the story themselves. I wish they would. I also think it would be kinda fun if the fairies burst in and gave me some help here. (I also wish the eggplant and cumin would take over my kitchen so I don’t have to make dinner myself!). Yet there are definitely times when I feel I am not completely in charge of the story. As the creator of the tale, I can make the characters do what I want–in theory. In fact, if they don’t like where I am taking them they often make the story stall. It won’t move forward no matter what I try. They’re like stubborn toddlers who sit down in the middle of Target and start shrieking because they don’t like where things are going. Once I figure out how exactly I am going against their characters, how the story is being forced on them, things usually start moving again. The characters always take precedence over the plot–it’s their natures that make the plot move, at least for me. In that way they do take over the story, but I still have to be the one to do the hard work while they’re running around having adventures and falling in love.

Secondary characters do this, too. In the book I just finished, Duchess of Sin, there were 2 romances in addition to the main one of Anna Blacknall and Conlan McTeer. One was just a beginning–it continues in book 3, Lady of Seduction, but the other played out in its entirety here. And those two really, really wanted more time! I think Harlequin has the right idea with their “Undone” stories–they’re often connected to a longer book, and are a great way to give fascinating secondary characters their due. I can placate them with that, and they leave the main narrative alone. Same with characters who get their own full-length book. But what about when they are just meant to be supporting characters for this one story, and still insist on being scene-stealers???

When I’m working on a book, these characters do tend to run my life. I have conversations with them (out loud!) in the car, and forget to buy bread at the grocery store because I’m arguing with them about a plot twist. Then they are sent off to my editor’s desk and a new set of stubborn people move in. It’s wonderful, really.

Do your characters take over your life? What makes a memorable, realistic character to you? And are you as hungry for eggplant parmesan as I am???

(BTW, on Wednesday and again on Sunday I’ll be at Unusual Historicals, with excerpts and interviews on The Winter Queen, with one more chance to win a signed copy. And on the 5th I’ll be reading from TWQ on Blog Talk radio at 12 pm CST!)

The winner of a signed copy of The Winter Queen is…Leona! Please send us your snail mail address at riskies@yahoo.com