I have absolutely nothing to say today, so I thought I’d treat you to some Regency pictures in honor of St. Valentine’s Day.

All these pictures are from http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/rgnclfil.html
a site that will occupy you for hours.

How might our Regency Lady and Gentleman, budding lovers, occupy themselves on St. Valentine’s Day?

Maybe they will go up in a balloon

Or go ice skating

Maybe they will attend a ball and dance.

Or be very naughty and play some parlor games.

Our Regency Lady and Gentleman have great passion for each other, so they must share a lovely kiss.

And, last of all, maybe all this Valentine’s day activity will lead to a hasty trip to Gretna Green!

If I lived in the Regency, I would probably be too repressed for the parlor game and much too scared for the balloon ride. I’d be too cold ice skating, so that leaves me to dance! (And to dream of a kiss like the lovely one depicted here…and maybe an elopement to Gretna Green)

If you lived in the Regency, how would you like to spend your Valentine’s Day?

May all your days be filled with love,
Diane

Seton asked me to explain my “Strip Piquet” scene in The Wagering Widow.

For the one or two of you who may not have read The Wagering Widow by Diane Gaston, my alter ego, this book told the story of Emily and Guy who enter into a hasty marriage, each thinking the other would provide them financial security and both discovering that they have not a feather to fly with. Guy needs money to save his crumbling estate and the people who depend on him; Emily needs money to escape a marriage to this gambler like her father. Both turn to one London gaming hell to gamble their way to a fortune. Emily wears a disguise, but Guy recognizes his wife immediately, even though his shy, timid wife masquerades as Lady Widow. She does not know he has guessed her identity when he proposes a private game of piquet. They play “strip piquet” losing one piece of clothing for every hand lost.

I loved the idea of “strip poker” for my characters, but poker was not a Regency era game. For Guy and Emily, I needed a card game of both skill and chance for them to play, a game that could lead to a loss of clothing….and more.

I’d first heard of Piquet when reading Georgette Heyer’s Faro’s Daughter. It seemed the perfect game, so I went looking on the Internet for instructions on how to play Piquet.

I found several sites willing to explain the game of Piquet, a card game that has been in existence since 1650. The problem was, I could not understand any of them. The instructions talked about exchanges of cards, declarations, winning tricks, making Repique and piquet, crossing the Rubicon, a partie and on and on. Players were requires to call out their points and remember them. All the terminology was in French.

My husband is not a card player so I had no one to play the game with to try to learn these incomprehensible rules and French words, by attempting to follow the rules. I kept reading site after site to try to find one that really explained the game enough so I could make my characters play it.

I finally discovered Meggiesoft Games, an online card game site which had a computer version of Piquet with a 30 day free download. I downloaded the game, took the tutorial which actually showed what to do, and I played the game over and over and over until I felt like I understood it. I even used the computer game to provide the details for the Strip Piquet scene. I played on the computer and recorded what cards Emily and Guy were holding as they were removing shoes, stockings, dress, shirt, corset, pantaloons……

Meggiesoft Games also had a game called German Whist, a two player version of Whist that helped me understand and write the games of whist in The Wagering Widow. I was a little wary of downloading to my computer but I had no problems at all with the site or its products. Pretty soon I was playing Piquet and Whist when I should have been writing.

Madame Bisou is the owner of the gaming hell where Emily and Guy play their seductive game of Piquet. Madame Bisou appears again in A Reputable Rake, along with Sloane, who was the villain in A Wagering Widow but who becomes a reformed rake in the next book. Madame Bisou also appears in Innocence and Impropriety by Diane Gaston, the love story for Rose from A Reputable Rake.

Innocence and Impropriety is available now from eHarlequin.com in North America and Mills and Boon in the UK. If you prefer to wait for it to appear at your local bookstore, it will arrive March 1.

My websites are in transition and may not be up to date, but if you want to read an excerpt, there is one at Amazon.com.

There you go, Seton. My explanation of Strip Piquet. In Innocence and Impropriety, you will visit Vauxhall Gardens and the King’s Theatre, as well as returning to Madame Bisou’s.

Cheers, Everyone!
Diane

This cover discussion begun by our Janet Mullany on Jan 25 is still intriguing me! I know that what makes a good cover is all really personal preference, but I thought it would be fun to continue the discussion

My position is that a handsome man on a romance cover is going to attract more attention than a cover without a handsome man, even if that cover has beautiful flowers on it.

Now, the handsome man does not have to be without half or all his clothes–those covers, I agree can be embarrassing. (So I guess I’m not really fond of “mantitty” covers, as Janet so cleverly called them), but if I am browsing the romance shelves, not in the market for any specific book, the books I’m going to pick up first are the ones with a handsome man on the cover.

This is why I LOVED my cover for A Reputable Rake. I could not have asked for a better cover, by far my favorite. The Rake is just so handsome and his expression perfectly represents the hero of the book.

My Mills & Boon cover for The Mysterious Miss M comes in a close second, because it had a handsome man in a very romantic pose. As my first book cover ever, I was over the moon about this cover and I still love it.

Now I prefer both of these covers to my cover of Innocence and Impropriety, arriving in bookstores March 2007. This cover has both the handsome man and the romantic pose, but it is a tad too sweet for me, and the book is not quite that sweet. Still, I like this cover. I love the setting of Covent Garden in the background. If it were on the shelf right next to A Reputable Rake, I’d bet A Reputable Rake would be picked up first.

I browsed the All About Romance Cover contest archives for examples. Take a look at these two beautiful Jo Beverley covers (the double image means they are “step back” covers).

They are both wonderful covers, but which would I pick up first? The one with that very handsome man.

My cover for The Wagering Widow was nice because it was provokative and hinted at that handsome man by showing his hand. The black and white image is what you would see just inside the cover, so there was a handsome man and the romantic pose if you opened the book.

The same image appeared on Louise Allen’s Jan 2007 Mills & Boon, Not Quite a Lady.

I cannot be objective, though. I don’t know which I would pick up first, if they were side by side, Not Quite a Lady, with its handsome man in a romantic pose, or the provokative, A Wagering Widow?

What do you all think?
Does a handsome man on the cover influence whether you will pick it up, at least to read the back cover copy?

Do you want to vote for a favorite cover? Cover Cafe has a contest, formerly sponsored by All About Romance!

Speaking of handsome men on romance covers, in March, the cover model for The Wagering Widow and Not Quite a Lady, Richard Cerqueira, will be doing a guest interview with Risky Regencies. So let me know if there is anything you would like me to ask Richard about what it is like in a romance cover shoot.

Cheers!
Diane

I meant to do this earlier in the day. Megan could not do the blog today so I volunteered but then I spent the day FINALLY finishing the revisions to The Vanishing Viscountess.

I promised my system for naming characters.

The Regency period was a more formal time than nowadays when everyone from salesclerks to telemarketers want to use your first name. First names were rarely used in the Regency era, except among family or schoolmates. Even so, a little boy with a title would be called by his title, even if he was a mere toddler. Think of it, in Pride & Prejudice no one ever called Darcy Fitzwilliam! and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet addressed themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

I’ve tried to adapt to this style in my books, so I pay attention first to title names and surnames. I make sure my male characters have title names or surnames that will sound comfortable as what we modern folk would think of as given names. So in my March book, Innocence & Impropriety, the hero is Jameson Flynn, but he is “Flynn” throughout the book. His employer is the Marquess of Tannerton or “Tanner” to everyone. (Tanner is the hero of The Vanishing Viscountess)

I often create title names by using The Incomplete Peerage . But I mix up the title names, taking the stem from one of them and putting on a different ending, so “Cornwall” may become “Cornworth.” Then I google “Lord Cornworth” to make certain there isn’t a real one.

My heroines are much more apt to get a first name. Have you noticed how my heroine names mostly start with “M”? My daughter’s name starts with M.

For first names I go to a baby naming site and look up English or Scottish or Irish or Welsh first names, whatever I need. Or I go to a census of the time period and see what names are there. I do this for surnames as well.

I try not to repeat a letter of the alphabet in the book, so if the hero is Tanner, then his butler would not be Turner.

That’s it. That’s my naming style. And if that doesn’t work, I just take a name from a reader–Right Mallory? Mallory Pickerloy is my heroine in The Vanishing Viscountess.

Diane

I promised my editor I would have my revisions to The Vanishing Viscountess to her today and I really slacked off over the weekend. So no time to give you one of my brilliant, exquisitely planned and executed blogs (Who’s laughing?????). I am, therefore going to give you a stream of consciousness blog–don’t look for any unifying theme!

Did you know we authors love to know readers enjoyed our books? Now is your chance to tell us!

EHarlequin is in the nomination stage for its 2006 Readers Choice Awards. Click Here to nominate your favorites. I’m honored to say that my A Reputable Rake by Diane Gaston is mentioned under Favorite Historical and under Sexiest Hero on a Cover. Eventually there will be voting, I think, so keep watching.

All About Romance is also tabulating Reader Favorites and this time you can vote! Reputable Rake is there too, under Best Buried Treasure. Titles are starting to be eliminated and I’d LOVE for Reputable Rake to make it to the final round. So please vote for Reputable Rake for Best Buried Treasure and vote for your other favorites, too. There are plenty of Regencies to choose from and I think you can still add additional choices.
Start here to see who’s been nominated and eliminated so far.
http://www.likesbooks.com/interim2006.html#secondinterim
Go here to vote:
http://www.likesbooks.com/ballotannualpoll.html

Do you know of any other sites doing Reader Favorites?

Speaking of EHarlequin, my friend Melissa James has an online read there now, called The Homecoming. It isn’t Regency but it is a fun read. Melissa writes for the new Harlequin Romance line, the merge of the Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Romance lines. You’ll find Melissa’s story HERE

Speaking of The Vanishing Viscountess, the book of my revisions. It is scheduled for release in early 2008. I believe I have lamented before about this being a “road story.” The coolest thing, though. My son who is studying Geography and Mapping in college is going to do an online map of the places in this book! I’m not exactly sure how he’ll do it, but I’ll have it on my website eventually!

In my husband’s channel surfing he came upon a Japanese film with this premise: “A noblewoman agrees to sleep with a cassanova if he succeeds in seducing a chaste widow.” Wow, I thought. What a great premise. Then I realized it was the premise for Dangerous Liaisons. A day or so later, more channel surfing and he discovers the movie, Valmont also based on the same book as Dangerous Liaisons and released only one year later. It is pre-French Revolution, not Regency, but Valmont stars a young and almost impossibly handsome Colin Firth. Naturally I had to watch it. How’s that for synergy?

Have any of you seen Valmont?

Speaking of impossibly handsome men, it is only 44 more days until the release of the movie 300!

Cheers!
Diane