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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.

October started out well enough. I had a slight cold, but the writing was going well and one weekend, I got out to pick apples and late raspberries with my daughters. The following evening, we made fruit crisp with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Then my cold worsened into a sinus infection and I dragged for a while. Fortunately, this week I’m feeling better and working on catching up on everything I dropped, also getting back to exercize and writing. I’m feeling well enough to (perhaps foolishly) volunteer for stuff. A misunderstanding amongst volunteers has left our church Halloween Party hanging by a thread. It’s a much-loved event, the highlight being a Haunted House constructed by our very talented youth group. So when it seemed in danger of not happening, I stepped in for what my oldest called “a noble rescue”. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

So I’m sorry I’ve had no time to write a well-researched post on Halloween or Samhain customs and what people would have done at this season during the Regency! I’m too busy making plans for food, activities and crafts. I’m also finishing up costumes for my kids. Once again, the theme is Star Trek, though this year they aren’t going to “be” Vulcans.

I don’t always dress up, although one year, strapped for time, I went as a Tired Mom in bathrobe and slippers, bearing a ginormous mug of coffee. This time, since I’m coordinating the party, I’m feeling the urge to do something more special. Since my daughters aren’t using their Vulcan ears, I am thinking about borrowing them and going as some sort of Vulcan matriarch. T’Pau would be cool and properly intimidating to any rowdy kids, but the costume looks a bit complicated. And could I find two hunky Vulcan dudes to carry me in? I need to think about this some more!

What have you been busy with this October? Any costumes or other fun stuff in your plans?

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Now and then, writers’ groups will discuss reader reviews, the sort posted on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads and other places. Negative reader reviews can cause angst, especially among new authors.

Although I once hoped to learn from reviews, I’ve found that is tricky unless there are enough reviews to show trends. Looking at individual reviews, one reader will love exactly the aspects of a story that another hates. I don’t think readers should be expected to be objective, not when professional reviewers often disagree. Objectivity isn’t the point, I think. Customer reviews are about voicing opinions and when possible, discussing them. In my opinion, that’s a good thing.

I don’t often post reviews myself, because it takes time away from writing and reviewing fellow authors could lead to all sorts of awkwardness. I do make an exception for books I love, especially if I feel they haven’t gotten the attention they deserve.

Would I make any rules for customer reviews? I’m not sure.

I recently heard that on some sites, there are customer reviews posted before the book is released or even before advance review copies (ARCs) are available. This one is pretty easy. I really don’t think anyone should review a book without having read it!

But does one have to finish? Personally, I wouldn’t review a book (or score it in a contest) without reading all of it. But a few years ago, I decided that I don’t have to finish a book I’m reading for pleasure if it isn’t delivering. I’ll always read at least a few chapters; there are books on my keeper shelf that I thought started slow. But if I’m not enjoying a book by about a third of the way in, I don’t force myself to read the rest. So by my rules, I’d never give a book less than a 3. But maybe it’s OK for readers in general to say “I couldn’t finish” (and the why of it would be helpful).

As for virulently angry reviews, authors benefit by being philosophical about them. Everyone gets savaged once in a while. There was a reviewer who said my first book gave her a headache; it hurt, being an early review, but I felt better when I found out she’d also given 1’s to books by Mary Balogh, Mary Jo Putney and a number of other favorite authors. It’s all in the free expression of opinion.

Anyway, I wouldn’t make any rules other than those usually in place (don’t change the facts, no personal attacks). You can hate the book, but don’t hate the author.

So readers, if one of my books ever starts to give you a headache, I give you permission to stop reading, right away. Then write a scathing review if it will help, but a nice, hot cup of tea might help, too. 🙂

How about you? Do you have any personal rules for reviewing, or rules you think others should follow?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Photo by Laurel Fan

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I recently learned that there is a German Kindle edition of SAVING LORD VERWOOD. I’m excited to be out in four languages now (there are Dutch and Italian versions of LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE).

I’m also impressed with this cover. I liked many things about the original Signet cover (pictured below). The hero looks right (and hot, which never hurts), the house is the right style and period, and composition is pleasing. My only slight gripe was that the heroine should be a redhead, not a blonde. Since she had already appeared as a redhead in two previous stories, I chose not to rewrite her description to fit the cover.

In contrast, the German cover accurately depicts both my hero and heroine. I also love, love, love that the artist took the time to recreate the stormy, craggy western Cornish coastline. This even looks like an actual scene from the book.

As an author, I love it when the cover art conveys my inner image of the characters and setting. As a reader, I used to be annoyed by cover art that didn’t match the story, but even before I knew about the cover art process, I guessed—correctly—that the authors might not always have much control over their covers. Now I enjoy it when a cover fits, but mostly I care what’s inside.

How do you feel do you feel about cover art being accurate to the story? What are some of the worst cover bloopers you’ve seen? Any covers that you thought suited the story especially well?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

When my daughters were young, I read to them all the time. This summer, I had the joy of doing it again.

We’ve always had a rule of reading the book before watching the movie. I wanted us all to be able to watch THE LORD OF THE RINGS together, so I was urging my younger daughter to start reading THE HOBBIT. Although an avid reader, she resisted, saying she didn’t like reading books with long paragraphs. And so I decided to read THE HOBBIT aloud to her, and discovered that she was right. Tolkien did tend to use longer paragraphs than is common in more recent fiction and it can look a bit daunting on the page.

The previous summer, I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE to my older daughter, again in preparation for watching the films. Much as I love Jane Austen, I know her style is difficult for young teens, with sentences that can run paragraphs long and paragraphs that can take over a whole page. And confusing period details. (“No, undressed ball does not mean they go naked.”) So when I suggested she try NORTHANGER ABBEY this summer, she still wanted me to read along with her. How could I refuse?

The whole reading-together project was a huge success. My younger daughter is now reading THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING on her own, and the older one is moving on to EMMA. So I’ve got them firmly hooked on some classics! I feel vindicated as a mother.

As an author, though, I’m aware that modern readers can have difficulty with older styles of writing. I would never write a sentence as long as this one:

Mrs Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books—or at least books of information—for provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all.

There are also some grammatical constructions that trip up the reader, such as “Are not you wild to know?” Did your mind automatically change it to “Are you not wild to know?” That’s what happened to me as I was reading aloud, and it made me stumble.

I want to have a period feel to my books, but I do avoid anything like that that could trip up a reader. I also tend to use pretty short paragraphs, because I think having some white space is easier on the eyes.

But what a shame it would be if no one bothered to get past some of the challenges in the classics, if the stories lived on only in their films (fantastic as many of them are).

What do you think?

But before we chat, here are the winners of this week’s drawing for the Kindle edition of LADY EM’S INDISCRETION.

Willaful
Margay
Cathy P
Girlygirlhoosier52
Tracey

Congratulations! Please send your email and the email of a friend who you think might enjoy the Kindle ebook to elena @ elenagreene dot com.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Like many other historical romance authors, I have a fondness for outdoor love scenes and put one in my new Regency novella, LADY EM’S INDISCRETION. Maybe real Regency folk didn’t spend as much time cavorting around gardens as the fictional ones. But they could have, and based on human nature, I bet some did.

Some of my favorite fictional spaces for outdoor romance: mazes, bowers, and what appears to be another of my fetishes (along with the chaise longue): the classical folly. One of my critique buddies asked when a Grecian temple is going up in my backyard. Maybe after I buy a chaise longue. 🙂

I enjoyed the use of Stourhead Gardens as the setting for the famous rejection scene in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen. They don’t quite kiss, but I find this scene very sexy.

As for favorite outdoor love scenes in fiction, I have many. There was a fun scene in a fountain in Laura Kinsale’s MIDSUMMER MOON. I loved the ending of ILLUSION by Jean Ross Ewing (aka Julia Ross), in which the hero ties up the heroine in chains of daisies.

What are some of your favorite romantic outdoor scenes, whether from books or films?

From comments on this post, I’ll draw five names to receive a Kindle edition of LADY EM’S INDISCRETION. If you win, you can also suggest a friend who will receive one as well. Comment through Friday (one entry per person) and I’ll announce the winners next Saturday.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
Elena’s Facebook Page

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