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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.

Last time, I blogged about an event I’m organizing for my UU church’s “Dining for Dollars” fundraiser–a Jane Austen movie night with period refreshments.

Since then, I’ve made progress on a menu.  It’s a fair-sized crowd (about 20 people) with a variety of dietary needs and preferences. I’m looking mostly for recipes that can be at least partially prepared ahead of time at home, then reheated or finished as necessary at the church hall; otherwise I’ll need to hire some servants to help me!

The dietary issues are something I doubt a Regency hostess would have had to worry about, but I do want to make sure everyone has at least a few items they can eat. There will be both meat and vegetarian items. I’ve also figured out a few dishes that are gluten free and nut free. No one has asked for vegan. Perusing Georgian and Regency recipes, I’m finding that many include eggs and/or butter. I would have been willing to tinker with them if necessary, although I’m not sure how accurate the results would be (not that I’m being a real purist here).

Here are a few recipes I’ve tried out so far.

The first is a “White Fricasey” of chicken and mushrooms (above). I used a recipe for Uppercross Cottage Chicken Fricassee from the Jane Austen Centre website, adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse (first published in 1747). With roasted potatoes and glazed carrots, it made a very nice meal. It should be easy to double and reheated well, so this should work as the main meat entree.

The other recipe I just tried out is “Rout Drop Cakes” from The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye. The recipe is adapted from one in A New System of Domestic Cookery, by Maria Rundell, 1806. These cookies are made with currants and flavored with orange juice, rose water, sherry, and brandy. I could see why they might be good for parties as they are small and not too crumbly. Good finger food, and I love the hint of rose-scent!

Some other recipes I may try out soon are a “Vegetable Pie” for the vegetarian entree, a “Swiss Soup Meagre” from the cookbook of Martha LLoyd (with whom Jane Austen lived in the later part of her life), and a hedgehog cake which I hope will turn out as cute as the examples I’ve seen online.

Do you enjoy trying out period recipes? Any notable successes or amusing failures?

Elena

I’m planning what must be one of the most fun “Dining for Dollars” church-fundraisers ever—a Jane Austen movie night, with period foods.

I love working out all the details for events like this. I’m working on a date and figuring out whether it will be best held at my home, where I can use my own kitchen but have a basement decorated in movie posters, or at the church hall, where I’d have to use a gas stove (I’m more used to electric) but which is also more simply decorated, so I could create a little more period ambience.

I plan to poll the guests to figure out which movies they’d like best: whether old favorites or ones they haven’t seen already. We may end up doing a “Pick 2” of the regular length movies. At another movie night, friends and I watched the 2007 Northanger Abbey, with JJ Feild and Felicity Jones, followed by the 1995 Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds. That worked well, since both movies are less than two hours, also because of the contrast of a very youthful couple and an older couple’s second chance at love.

We might also do a mini-marathon, like the 2008 Sense and Sensibility, with Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield as the sisters. I doubt this crowd will be up for a 1995 Pride & Prejudice (Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle) marathon, but I would be down for it.

I thought about wearing my Regency gown, but I’ve decided against it.  I don’t want guests to feel they have to come in costume. I’d also rather cook in clothes I don’t mind messing up, since I don’t have the requisite army of servants in the kitchen.

I don’t have enough fine china for this size of crowd and can’t afford to go all out on other props, so I may go with a somewhat kitschy-Regency vibe. These pretty plastic plates might be a good option. I’ve found plates like this can often be washed and reused, so I can be environmentally conscious and not blow the budget.

The most fun part may be figuring out the menu. I’ve spent some time with my Jane Austen Cookbook and also online at the Jane Austen Centre’s recipe page and similar places.

Although I’ve made some period desserts, this will be my first attempt at savory dishes. I’ve found several recipes for “white soup”, which is supposed to be a standard for balls. I’m excited to have found this recipe for lobster patties from Anna Campbell, in an interview by Catherine Hein.

As for desserts, I’m thinking perhaps a proper trifle, made with syllabub and Naples biscuits (recipes from The Jane Austen Cookbook). I’m also thinking about the rout drop cakes from the same book. And then there’s this adorable hedgehog-shaped cake, adapted from a recipe by Hannah Glasse. So cute!

For drinks, I’m thinking of serving lemonade, burgundy, claret, and hock. Should I learn how to make negus, ratafia, or orgeat as well? I’m also intrigued by this recipe for Regent’s Punch which includes green tea and champagne. It sounds like something to try.

What do you think? What movies, food and drink would you have at your dream Jane Austen-themed party? Have you have hosted one, and if so, do you have any suggestions for mine?

Elena

This past weekend I dropped off both daughters to college (the younger for the first time). It’s a very strange experience to become an empty-nester. I miss them so much! But I’m also an introvert recovering from a challenging phase of my life, so being alone is very healing. Since this past year my focus was getting my daughters on track and supporting their education and career goals, I’m also looking forward to more time to write.

Fellow Risky Gail invited me to spend a day with her before heading home. We had a lovely time, talking about life and writing while painting rocks. It was a good way to transition into this next phase, helping to ease my fears of getting back to creative work.

So it’s a year of big changes for me, but also for the Riskies. We’ve talked before about wanting to make some changes and now we’re ready to make it real. We’re still fleshing out details, but here’s the general idea:

  • Since many of our readers prefer to engage on social media, we’re going to add a Facebook Group–a place where we can all hang out, posting in a way that’s more short, fun, and spontaneous. Maybe we’ll have some Facebook parties and giveaways, too. We hope as many of you can join us as possible.
  • We’ll keep the blog and still post occasionally when we want to announce new releases or share a more substantive post about research or other topics.

So stay tuned for more details, and let us know if you’ve got comments or ideas regarding our makeover.

Thanks for your support!

Elena

Posted in Writing | 3 Replies

One Grey Seal looking. Located Newquay, Cornwall, UK.

A lot of my favorite romance authors include animals in their romances. In Regencies, we often have horses, but other animals, usually pets, can add fun to a story. Laura Kinsale usually (always?) includes some sort of “mascot animal” in her books, including a horse, a gyrfalcon, a shark, and a pig. Mary Jo Putney is a cat lover and many of her books include cats.

There are almost always named horses in my books, and some of my characters have had pets. I included goldfinches, a hedgehog, and a pony in Lady Dearing’s Masquerade, since there were so many children in that story who would enjoy them. In Saving Lord Verwood, the hero gives the heroine a kitten as a wedding present and later gives her the more practical gift of a mare to ride. Later, he also lets her talk him into rescuing an orphaned seal pup, which they later release back into the wild.

I got the idea for that story element after a visit to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary, a fun place to visit and learn about wildlife rescue. People at the center helped me figure out plausible ways for my characters to care for the baby seal.

Saving Lord Verwood by Elena GreeneThis month, I’m running a 99 cent ebook sale of Saving Lord Verwood, with my share of the proceeds going to the Sea Life Trust which runs the Cornish Seal Sanctuary and other sea life centers.

Saving Lord Verwood is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
Apple, and Kobo.

If you’d like to donate directly, just visit the Sea Life Trust website.

Do you enjoy animal characters in Regency romance? What are some of your favorites?

Elena

This month, I’m continuing my series of ebook sales for good causes. The Redwyck Charm is currently on sale for just 99 cents.

Here’s the blurb:

Marcus Redwyck, Earl of Amberley, reluctantly agrees to wed an heiress in order to save his estate. But his equally reluctant bride, Juliana Hutton, runs away and masquerades as an opera dancer. When they meet, passion leads them to the edge of scandal. Even when all is revealed, it will take all of Marcus’s resolution and the fabled Redwyck charm to win the spirited Juliana’s heart.

I realize that it’s a bit of a stretch for a properly raised young woman to impersonate an opera-dancer. I work around that a bit by not having her dance that well! But also I did have some historical justification. In The Mirror of Graces (by a “Lady of Distinction, 1811) I read that young ladies sometimes took ballet-lessons to improve their ballroom performance.

“Extraordinary as it may seem, at a period when dancing is so entirely neglected by men in general, women appear to be taking the most pains to acquire the art. Our female youth are now not satisfied with what used to be considered a good dancing-master; that is, one who made teaching his sole profession; but now our girls must be taught by the leading dancers at the Opera-house.

“The consequence is, when a young lady rises to dance, we no longer see the graceful, easy step of the gentlewoman, but the laboured, and often indelicate exhibitions of the posture-mistress. Dances from ballets are introduced; and instead of the jocund and beautifully-organized movements of hilarity in concord, we are shocked by the most extravagant theatrical imitations. The chaste minuet is banished; and, in place of dignity and ease, we behold strange wheelings on one leg; stretching out the other till our eye meets the garter; and a variety of endless contortions, fitter for the zenana of an eastern satrap, or the gardens of Mahomet, than the ball-room of an Englishwoman of quality and virtue.

“These ballet dances are, we now see, generally attempted. I say attempted, for not one young woman in five hundred can, from the very nature of the thing, after all her study, perform them better than could be done any day by the commonest figurante on the stage. We all know, that, to be a fine opera-dancer, requires unremitting practice, and a certain disciplining of the limbs, which hardly any private gentlewoman would consent to undergo. Hence, ladies can never hope to arrive at any comparison with even the poorest public professor of the art; and therefore, to attempt the extravagancies of it, is as absurd as it is indelicate.”

The picture above is a waltzing scene from La Belle Assemblee, February 1, 1817 which I think clearly shows the influence of opera-dancing on social dances.

This was a fun book to write, definitely in the category of “romp”. It was also a stretch for me to write a heroine like Juliana, who did things I’d never have dared. One reader did complain that Juliana is spoiled. But the way I look at it, even now a woman can be born to wealth and material advantages but still have to fight to determine her own destiny.

When Juliana is faced with the prospect of a marriage of convenience with Marcus, she is finally swayed by the fact that he needs her money to save his estate from falling into the hands of a man who would neglect his tenants for a quick profit. Juliana’s compassion surpasses her personal desires (at the time at least—once she realizes she’s in love with Marcus, it’s all good).

So I think it is fitting to donate the proceeds of this sale to the Flint Child Health and Development Fund, dedicated to the “long term health and development needs of Flint children exposed to lead”. If you are not familiar, here is some background on the Flint water crisis and a more recent update.

The ebook version of The Redwyck Charm is on sale at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks and Kobo.

If you’d like to donate directly, go to Flint Kids and just use the “Donate” button.

Do you like “heiress” stories? Do you have any favorites?

Elena

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