A fast-paced, carnival ride of a book. Publishers Weekly

A few reasons: first, I wanted to feature a secret society of vampire protectors–called The Tutela–and since Italy was just thriving with secret societies at that time (the Carbonari, etc.,), I thought it would make sense. Plus, that was where Byron was at the time, and I wanted Victoria to meet him. And finally….since the headquarters for the Venators is in Rome, I wanted her to go there so she could see it and the reader could thus learn more about the history of the Venators.

What specific research did you do?

I researched about secret societies in Rome–including reading through a very old book about them that is housed in the restricted section of the University of Michigan library that I often use for research. I also pored over a whole book about subterranean Rome (unfortunately, I didn’t use as much of that as I’d envisioned, but it gave me a feel for the tunnels and catacombs.)

I also did quite a bit of reading and research about Lord Byron and what he was like, where he was at that time (in Venice, actually, living with his mistress in her husband’s house….), and about John Polidori, who died under mysterious circumstances. And one thing I tried to research but had little luck doing, was how long it would take a cargo ship to get from London to Venice. Sigh. So I had to sort of not exactly tell. It was…days. Weeks. Yeah, weeks. I think.

Without giving a spoiler, there’s an important secondary character who is killed in this book. I thought it added a profound mythic quality to the book–do you use The Writer’s Journey as a guide, or any other sort of structure?

I love the Writers Journey–as you may know, I did an article for the Romance Writers of America’s journal about that very same topic; and I do workshops about it as well. Anyway, yes, I love the Writers/Hero’s Journey, but I usually use it in retrospect. I don’t necessarily think about it before I write, but I find that if I’m stuck, or nearly done with the book, I can often use it to pinpoint certain events in the book and say, “Yes, that’s an element of the Journey.” Or, “Oh, I didn’t realize she was a Threshold Guardian.” I also have the article posted on my Web site under Extras.

Do tell. Vioget or Max, and will we know in Book Three?

Am I only limited to choosing between Vioget or Max? You’re no fun!! No, you probably won’t know for sure in The Bleeding Dusk (Book Three), but you’ll have an excellent idea by the end of Book Four, which I’m getting ready to work on in a month or so. Any preferences?????

I came across an essay with that title recently in an old copy of Persuasions, the publication of JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America), and it made for some fascinating reading. One of the major themes of Austen’s books is money–who has it, who doesn’t, what size house can they afford, and can they marry, should they marry, must they marry?

Naturally I now can’t find that issue and the article,* but fortunately I took notes, and I also came across this wonderfully useful site, www.measuringworth.com where you can translate the value of the pound from the thirteenth century into modern (2006 British pounds) currency, based on the retail price index. If you double that figure, you get, more or less, today’s $ value. As a rough guide, for calculating yearly incomes, for instance, multiply by one hundred.

Quick currency lesson/refresher: 12 pennies (d for denarius) make a shilling; 20 shillings (sh or s) make a pound (can’t find the symbol on blogger, but it’s a curly L for libra). Then there are guineas, which are a pound and a shilling, and used for some items–wages, horses, carriages, gambling debts–mainly luxury items. Sometime I’d like to research what was priced in guineas and what wasn’t. Anyone know? These are both sides of a golden guinea from the first decade of the nineteenth century.

The article took some prices from Jane Austen’s letters of 1810 and I translated these into the modern equivalent (rounding them up to the nearest 50c). Jane liked silk stockings which cost her 12s a pair or about $65–what you’d probably pay now for silk stockings by Prada (yes, it was an excuse to go onto ebay). She had a cloak made for 10s, about $54, which seems quite cheap for tailor-made clothes. Meat was 8d a pound ($3.50), butter a shilling a pound ($5), cheese 9 1/2d a pound ($4)–fairly close to our prices. But fresh salmon was a whopping 2s 9d a pound for a whole fish, $14–presumably because of the expense of shipping it (anyone know which rivers were the salmon rivers then? I’m guessing the Avon–I think the Thames, coming back now as a salmon river, was too polluted). A copy of Pride & Prejudice cost 18s–$94! She paid 30 guineas for the piano at Chawton, or $3,282–about what you’d pay now for a superior upright.

The most telling figures I found, however, were for the price of a quartern, the four pound loaf, which cost 11 3/4 d (eleven and three farthings) in the period 1800-1804, but by 1810 the price had risen to 2s 6d (half-a-crown), or from $6 to $13. This was the staple food of most common people and laborers made probably only a few shillings a day–life was very hard at the bottom of the social scale.

And now it’s question time. What’s your favorite money-related scene in something you’ve read or written?

Feldman, James, “How Wealthy Is Mr. Darcy–Really?” Persuasions, 1990, Vol. 12.

Sign up for the Riskies newsletter at riskies@yahoo.com and learn how to spin straw into golden guineas. Or not. But put NEWSLETTER in the subject line.

Last night I went to see the opera Tosca and it got me thinking about something we talk about quite a lot here, as readers and writers–the topic of historical authenticity.

Tosca is an opera in the verismo tradition–that is, it’s written to show human passions and emotions in easily recognizable settings (this is opera, if you’re thinking, well duh, what else would you write about? Rather than, for instance, choosing a storyline starring classical heroes or gods and goddesses.) Based on a play by Victorien Sardou, Puccini’s opera refers to real events–the Battle of Marengo; the political situation in Rome, which had briefly been a republic before an official crack-down; and using real locations, including the Castel Sant’Angelo with its statue of St. Michael.

And I just have to stop and say the sets were outstanding, the singing even more so, and it was a glorious evening. This is possibly my favorite opera–what’s not to love? Gorgeous music, a radical lefty hero, a deliciously pervy villain, and the all-too-human Floria Tosca (the pic above is of Maria Callas, urguably the greatest Tosca of all time).

But back to what I’m really talking about. With all his painstaking attention to historical detail, Puccini and his lyricists made one massive error (and Sardou may have as well; to be honest I don’t know). Floria Tosca is a singer. In Rome. In 1800. Uh oh. Only castrati were allowed to sing in Rome then, never women. But Puccini knew what he was doing–Tosca is an artist whose life revolves around her career and love, and that’s why she’s the impulsive, passionate woman who drives the story of the opera. So it’s an error that pays off, bigtime.

And I wonder if you’ve read a book, or written one, where the truth was sacrificed for the story and it didn’t matter, or in fact improved it? Fortuitous errors?

The postscripts: George Bernard Shaw called Tosca “a shabby little shocker.” Pic of the Castel Sant’Angelo courtesy of the City of Rome, and read more about the opera here, and read the Washington Post review of the production I saw. And hop on over to the Spiced Tea Party today where Jane Lockwood will be blogging about the Big O and how to write it.

Janet