Congratulations to our Jane Austen Week Winners, chosen at random from all the comments we received this week.
JANE AUSTEN wins a copy of A Charming Place: Bath in the Life and Novels of Jane Austen by Maggie Lane
LOIS wins signed copy of Carrie Bebris’s Mr. and Mrs. Darcy mystery Pride and Prescience
Email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your snail mail addresses!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to share our celebration of the incomparable Jane Austen!
The Riskies
All this week Risky Regencies celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday. Monday through Saturday each of our blogs will relate in some way to Jane Austen, one of the greatest novelists of all time, a novelist who wrote with such acute authenticity about her own time that she gave subsequent generations such love of it that we still savor Regency novels today.
In celebration (and appreciation) of Jane Austen we will be giving away prizes to two of our Risky Regency commenters this week. Amanda has donated a signed copy of Carrie Bebris’s Mr. and Mrs. Darcy mystery Pride and Prescience, and I have a copy of Maggie Lane’s A Charming Place: Bath in the Life and Novels of Jane Austen to give away. Our winners will be selected at random from all the comments of the week and will be announced next Sunday, Dec 20.
Jane Austen visited Bath as a young woman, once the guest of her aunt, Mrs. Leigh Perrot, who was later falsely incarcerated for stealing a bit of lace. In 1801 Jane’s father decided to retire to Bath, thus Jane had to leave the country village of Steventon to live in a busy city with her parents. Not being wealthy, their circumstances in Bath were less than ideal and the years from 1801 to 1805 (when her father died) were not happy ones for Jane. It is thought that she did no writing in Bath. Still, the city provided her with many opportunities to observe the various characters who lived in Bath and those who visited to take the waters. Perhaps Catherine Moreland of Northanger Abbey reflects the youthful Jane’s impressions of Bath. Anne in Persuasion showed Jane’s more mature, less admiring view.
When Amanda and I visited Bath on the 2003 Novel Explorations Regency Tour, what often filled my mind was that Jane Austen had walked these same streets and saw the same sites.
This is one of the places she called home.
I could imagine her walking a street like this one.
To visit the shops
And gaze in the shop windows.
Maybe she would explore the city and walk down steps like this.
Or visit someone’s Georgian garden.
She, of course, would view the Royal Cresent
And, like we did, she would have danced in the Assembly Rooms.
That’s me, second to the left in the dark blue dress. Amanda is just a little left of center and Deb Marlowe is a little right of center.
If you have visited Bath, what was your favorite place to see? If you’ve never been to Bath, what would you like to see? Do you have any tidbits about Jane Austen’s time in Bath?
Remember to comment for a chance to win! And to visit every day this week
And, don’t forget, Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady is still in bookstores. Visit my website. I have a contest too.
ALISON
Congratulations, Alison, you have won a signed copy of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady
Email us with your snail mail address at
My interview went up a bit late yesterday so today I thought I would just do a commercial (Ha! bet you thought it would be an Addendum!)
Like Sarah Palin, I’m going on a book tour, but my tour is virtual, my schedule less demanding, and my visitors, undoubtedly, fewer.
Here’s my schedule:
Dec 9 Interview on Harlequin Historical Authors Facebook page
Dec 9 Article on Regency Art on Harlequin Historical Authors MySpace page
Dec 11 Article on Regency Theatre at Romance Dish
Dec 16 eHarlequin’s Holiday Open House
Dec 27 Interview at Romantic Crush Junkies
I hope you all stop by!
I was lucky enough to have Megan and Carolyn come up with questions for my interview yesterday. Weren’t they creative asking how many research books I own? I really think they thought I would go upstairs, trip over the boxes and other junk, and count every last one of those books. Not me! I did Math. I estimated.
When I have to make up questions I lack such creativity, though. So my challenge for you today is to tell us what questions you want us to ask our guest authors. If you want me to answer any of these questions I will, but mostly I want to know what you want to know!
Don’t forget to leave a comment on yesterday’s interview blog for a chance to win an autographed copy of Gallan Officer, Forbidden Lady. I’ll choose a winner after midnight tonight.
Tomorrow is the official release date for Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady, even though it seems to be in bookstores already and is available at online bookstores. The ebook version will be released tomorrow (Kindle owners take note!)
It is impossible to know for certain if your book “works” until comments appear, so I’ve been biting my nails a bit in anticipation of the feedback that comes with reader comments and reviews.
I’ve been so lucky that both Judy and Keira gave me mini-reviews in their comments to my blog last Monday. I almost breathed a sigh of relief reading what they had to say. And Judy wrote a lovely review on Amazon, which was very nice of her to do.
Early on I received a 4 star review from RT Book Reviews; that’s always a pleasure.
And yesterday a new review appeared on CataRomance. Debby Guyette calls it “one captivating book.” Yay!!!
But not all is rosy. Two reader reviewers on Amazon gave the book 3 stars, which is disappointing, because one hopes everyone loves the book, even if that is impossible. At least these readers explained their reasoning and listed both positives and negatives, which I appreciate.
Many of my author friends say not to read reviews, not to pay any attention to them. And it is true that I can quote the less enthusiastic lines from my very first and only Publishers Weekly review of The Improper Wife, but I also remember the PW reviewer thought I wrote “sizzling love scenes.” The way I figure it, if I didn’t look for reviews, I wouldn’t see the positive ones, and I wouldn’t know if my book “worked” for anyone.
There is also debate among my friends as to how much people pay attention to reviews. I personally think that they do influence whether or not a person buys a book. I have to admit that I read Amazon reviews before buying a book, unless I know the author or have read something else by that author. I try to assess whether the reviewer has an agenda behind a low review, though. You can mostly tell. And I’m not usually purchasing Romance books when I look at Amazon reviews. I also read RT reviews but typically to see how they’ve assessed friends’ books, not to develop a reading list.
Of course, I no longer feel I’m a typical reader, so it is hard to say how much reviews would affect my book buying habits if I were. Before I was writing in earnest there weren’t as many reviews online and I mostly went on reading “kicks.” Reading all the Dick Francis books at one point; all the Victoria Holt, Bernard Cornwell, Georgette Heyer, Lois McMaster Bujold, any traditional Regency I could find. A book from the Washington Post Book World might have captured my attention, but mostly my choices seemed pretty random or began with a friend’s recommendation.
How do you select a book?
How do reviews influence you? (I’m assuming they do)
Dec 2 I’m blogging with Romance Bandits and giving away a copy of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady
Dec 6 I’ll be here at Risky Regencies, also giving away a copy.
Check my website for the complete schedule.