Author Archives: Elena Greene

About Elena Greene

Elena Greene grew up reading anything she could lay her hands on, including her mother's Georgette Heyer novels. She also enjoyed writing but decided to pursue a more practical career in software engineering. Fate intervened when she was sent on a three year international assignment to England, where she was inspired to start writing romances set in the Regency. Her books have won the National Readers' Choice Award, the Desert Rose Golden Quill and the Colorado Romance Writers' Award of Excellence. Her Super Regency, LADY DEARING'S MASQUERADE, won RT Book Club's award for Best Regency Romance of 2005 and made the Kindle Top 100 list in 2011. When not writing, Elena enjoys swimming, cooking, meditation, playing the piano, volunteer work and craft projects. She lives in upstate New York with her two daughters and more yarn, wire and beads than she would like to admit.

First ever Risky Regencies 99 Cent Ebook Sale!

Updated on February 9, 2014 by Elena Greene

The Risky Regencies welcome you to our first ever 99 cent ebook sale, running all this week in celebration of Valentine’s Day!

Participating authors include our guests, award winning, bestselling authors Ashley Gardner (aka Jennifer Ashley) and Sherry Thomas, along with Riskies Carolyn, Janet, Gail, Susanna and Elena.

Each day, we’ll share a post featuring one of the sale ebooks. You can also visit the 99 Cent Sale page for a complete listing. If any titles there are not yet 99 cents, they will be soon.

So treat yourself to any of these titles. Or for the price of a fast food meal, you can get them all!

The Riskies

Sick of winter?

Updated on February 7, 2014 by Elena Greene

Please don’t throw things at me, but when I see memes like this on the Internet, I laugh but I also feel torn.

Don’t misunderstand. I don’t enjoy crazy sub-zero temperatures. And despite years of experience driving in all sorts of conditions with no mishaps, I don’t enjoy driving on icy, snowy roads.

I still don’t want winter to rush by too quickly. I’ve been too busy guiding my oldest daughter through the college search and application process to get out to the slopes. Maybe once I get my skiing fix in, I’ll be more ready for spring.

But that’s not all of it. Part of it’s my affinity for a time when more people agreed with the following quote from Edith Sitwell (British poet and critic, 1887-1964).

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”

Although I’d add winter sports to her list, I agree with the idea of enjoying the season, rather than rushing about keeping to our usual schedules even in wintry weather. It’s too bad we often don’t have a choice about it. I once worked for an employer who would not close our facility even during states of emergency, as if our work was so important it was worth rising peoples’ lives. More likely, they just wanted to save money by forcing us to take vacation time.

Now that my jobs are stroke caregiver and writer, snow days don’t bother me except for worrying about those who are still obliged to travel to work.

Since my daughters are old enough to leave me alone if I take an hour or two to write, snow days are pretty near perfect. Even when they were small, I enjoyed going out to play in the snow, making soup or cookies, watching movies, playing board games or cutting paper snowflakes. We still do a lot of these things. Since my oldest is heading off to college next year, I cherish the extra time together.

Maybe that’s really what it is this year. I don’t want time to speed up when I’m heading toward a change for which I don’t feel quite ready.

How about you? Are you one of the many who are sick of winter? Or are there things you still enjoy about it?

For those of you who are sick of winter, we Riskies are planning something that may cheer you up. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we’ll hold the first ever week long Risky Regencies 99 Cent Ebook Sale, including titles by the Riskies and some special guests. More details coming soon!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Anything but writing | Leave a reply

Cover Makeover and Free Download!

Updated on January 30, 2014 by Elena Greene

This is the original cover for my sexy novella, Lady Em’s Indiscretion. I think it’s lovely, as are all my covers from Kim Killion. However, it turns out to have been an error in branding.

After publishing it, I learned that some readers do not read book descriptions before buying. There were complaints that it was too short and too sexy. My guess is the cover and title were too much like the cover and title of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade and misled some people into thinking Lady Em’s Indiscretion would be another long historical, sexy but with many other story elements. This, even though the description included the words “sexy” and “novella”.

Lady Em's Indiscretion - New Cover
Anyway, there’s no point in blaming readers. So after a while, I asked Kim Killion to do a different cover, one that would make the heat level more obvious. Here’s what she came up with. Although I’m sad the folly had to go, since the switch reviews have been consistently positive. I only wish I’d done it sooner. Live and learn.

What readers are saying now:

“What a great story. A sweet romance of hope everlasting and the power of physical attraction. I really enjoyed the read, quick and very fun.”

“I don’t think the bad reviewers were really paying attention to what they were buying. This is a SHORT and sensual story, well worth the 99 cents I paid for it. It is well-written and sexy, and the author has a good sense of the time period.”

Lady Em’s Indiscretion is free on Amazon today through February 4. Just please do NOT download if you are looking for a sweet traditional Regency!

Which cover do you like best? What sorts of covers signal sexy to you?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged branding, covers, Kim Killion, Lady Em's Indiscretion | 6 Replies

Getting inside their heads

Updated on January 24, 2014 by Elena Greene

Lord Langdon’s Kiss was the first book I wrote. Although some readers have asked about it, I haven’t reissued it yet because I thought it needed work. I’m in the thick of it now, about 5 chapters in, and I rather wish someone had told me back then to cut 10,000 words. Yup. 10,000.

Lord Langdon’s Kiss was originally published at about 85,000 words. My other traditional Regencies, the “Three Disgraces” series, are all around 75,000. And Lord Langdon’s Kiss has no more plot than any of them. What it does have is introspection. Tons and tons of introspection. What was I thinking?

I was thinking that it was so fun to get inside my characters’ heads.

And it is. Why people do things is still fascinating to me, and that applies to my characters as much as it does to real people. What I learned from the next story I wrote, a novella, The Wedding Wager, was that I didn’t need to use introspection to reveal everything. Writing a 20,000 word story taught me to tighten, tighten, and tighten some more.

I have a confession to make, though. I still love introspection, but I use it in a more disciplined way now. If a character can express him or herself through dialogue, action or body language, I use that instead. But there are times when a character has good reasons not to want to reveal his or her thoughts or feelings to others, and then I think a little internal dialogue is just fine.

Looking back over some older traditional Regencies, I see that I wasn’t the only one to write paragraphs and paragraphs of introspection. Perhaps one reason for it is the mores of the Regency, when it would have been improper for couples to express their feelings to each other before having an “understanding”. But I also think it’s a more old-fashioned way of writing.

What do you think of introspection? How much is too much? Can there be too little?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged Editing, LORD LANGDON'S KISS | 3 Replies

Regency To Do List and Winners of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade audiobook

Updated on January 9, 2014 by Elena Greene

It’s Thursday. I’m going to be taking my oldest on one last college visit tomorrow and I’m casting about for something to post tomorrow, but my mind is shot.

Here’s a snap of my To Do List for the week. Note how many items are still not crossed off. And they include gems like “Fill out CSS Profile”. For the lucky ones who don’t know, the CSS Profile is a detailed financial aid profile required by some colleges (including my oldest daughter’s #1 school) which makes the FAFSA look like child’s play. I’m half-expecting a line item asking which extra organs we’re willing to sell online in order to afford tuition.