Congratulations Rebecca Kramer
! You have won the ARC of Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard by Vanessa Kelly. Check your email.
Big thanks to everyone who visited on Thursday and if you haven’t snapped it up yet, the novella that kicks off the series, Lost in a Royal Kiss, is available on Amazon and free (at the moment) for Nook.
I’m delighted to welcome Vanessa Kelly to the Riskies today, with a contest to win an ARC of the first book in her Renegade Royals series, Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard. The novella Lost in A Royal Kiss–just released— introduces the series, in which readers are transported to the court of King George III, where a London street urchin unwittingly plays Cupid, ushering in a new era—and ultimately a new kind of royal…
Welcome, Vanessa! What’s the premise of the Renegade Royals series?
Thank you for hosting me on Risky Regencies, Janet. I’m very happy to be here!
The basis for the series was a tidbit of information in a book about the daughters of King George III. Queen Charlotte had taken in a boy as charity case to be raised as a companion to the royal princes. It was a misguided impulse since the Prince of Wales, for one, resented the unfortunate child. I found that historical snippet intriguing. What would life be like for a boy of humble origins raised with royalty and yet never truly a part of their world? And where in life did he end up?
In my series, this boy became Dominic Hunter, who grows up to be a magistrate, a spymaster, and a trusted liaison to the Court of St. James. But Dominic has never forgotten the ill-usage he suffered in his youth, and the bad behavior of the royal princes continues to irk him. For one thing, they tend to scatter the landscape with illegitimate children, some lacking a proper name or place in the world. So Dominic decides to track down these offspring who are royal in everything but name. He does everything he can to help them find their rightful places in society and make good marriages.
Lost in a Royal Kiss is set in 1786, but the first of the Renegade Royals series, Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard (January 2014), is set in 1814. What do you find most interesting in the differences between these two periods almost thirty years apart?
One interesting difference was in the way the royal court conducted itself. King George III and Queen Charlotte lived modestly, by royal standards, preferring a simple life and a more relaxed protocol at Windsor or Kew to a grand court scene in London. They enjoyed country pursuits and a life that revolved around family entertainments. This dismayed many courtiers, who found life at Kew Palace or Windsor to be boring and lacking in grandeur. Of course when the king fell ill there were even more restrictions, since the queen and her daughters all but lived in seclusion at Kew Palace.
Under the Prince Regent, however, court life was a great deal more extravagant and lively, often to the point of dissipation. But for all his faults, the Regent was a great patron of the arts and architecture, a legacy we see today in structures like the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. George III, often referred to as Farmer George, would not have approved.
Another significant change was with clothing. Georgian attire was quite different from Regency attire: more ornately decorated and with rich materials, particularly for the men. Long hair, wigs, powder…styles changed dramatically under the influence of men like Beau Brummel.
I too was introduced to the Regency by the books of Georgette Heyer, and you and I both read Regency Buck as our first. Do you still like to read/re-read Heyer and do you think she’s stood the test of time? What’s your favorite?
I re-read Georgette Heyer on a regular basis. She’s my go-to author when I’m sick or in need of a little comfort reading. I absolutely think her books stand the test of time, although I laugh now at all the exclamation points she uses—I never thought about things like that until I started writing my own books. My favorites are The Grand Sophy and Arabella. Such witty, entertaining books!
What do you love about the Regency?
The clothing, the architecture, and the absolute gusto for life in that era—Regency folk really knew how to have a good time, sometimes to an insane degree.
Hate about the Regency?
The profoundly disturbing levels of poverty, especially in the cities, and the crime rate. Life for the poor was incredibly grim, and their treatment by the middle and upper classes was often callous beyond belief. The way the Irish were treated was also horrible, although that had been going on for a very long time.
You have an alterego, V.K. Sykes, the combined writing genius of you and your husband. What’s your writing process? Do you find it difficult to switch gears?
Thank you for calling us geniuses! The V.K. Sykes books are contemporary romance or romantic suspense so it can be a bit of a challenge to get into the headspace. Fortunately, I don’t write the first drafts for those books. I do the revisions and the editing, and I write all the sex scenes (hubby just can’t seem to bring himself to do that). We rarely work on the same book at the same time, which is a good way to avoid wrangling over specific elements. Whoever is working on the book has ownership over it. It’s a process that is surprisingly stress-free.
What’s the last great book you read?
The Ape Who Guards the Balance, by Elizabeth Peters. I had read the first few books in the Amelia Peabody mystery series back in college, but I re-discovered them a few months ago. I’ve been tearing through them—they’re so skillfully written and the characters are fabulous. The books are witty and smart, and I love the setting and the archaeological background. Amelia Peabody and her family are the best kind of brain candy.
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing up the second novella in The Renegade Royals before moving on to book three in the series. My husband and I are also working on a new contemporary romance series for Grand Central—small town romances set on an island off the coast of Maine. That will be out in 2015.
Vanessa is giving away an ARC of Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard as a prize today. She’s told us what she loves and hates about the Regency–to enter the contest, share what you love and hate about the period, and help spread the word!
In mid-December we’ll talk about Austen here at the Riskies, something of a tradition as we celebrate Jane’s birthday on December 15. But we’re getting a sneak preview today with guest blogger Pam Mingle, whose new release The Pursuit of Mary Bennet riskily takes on Mary, the girl Austen probably didn’t intend us to like at all! I was lucky enough to be sent an advance copy, and it’s a great read.
Here’s Pam:
In 2013 we have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen’s iconic novel. But it was sheer happenstance that my book, The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, ended up being published the same year. For many years now, Pride & Prejudice has been my go-to book when I seek comfort. When the world looks dark and unforgiving, and I need a better place to be. If that happens, I usually find myself curled up with my battered copy of the novel.
What does it offer that we can’t seem to find anywhere else? Charm, humor, witty dialogue, memorable characters, enduring themes, and at its heart, a love story for the ages. In the end, it’s the romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy that continues to draw me back time and time again. Some have pronounced Pride & Prejudice the first romance novel, one that set the pattern for all those that have followed. In the first half of the book, all the obstacles to a romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are developed: Mr. Darcy’s arrogance, Elizabeth’s family and lack of connections, her attraction to Mr. Wickham, her hasty and premature judgment of Mr. Darcy’s character. Despite all this, he proposes because the “violence” of his feelings for her trumps everything else. Except for her own feelings. The proposal, and Elizabeth’s rejection of him, is one of the great scenes in literature.
In the second half of the book, the obstacles fall one by one. Elizabeth sees Wickham for what he really is; Mr. Darcy, despite his natural reserve, changes. He goes out of his way to help “poor Lydia” and avert disaster for the Bennet family. Elizabeth is not blind to the change in his character. Austen handles it all so beautifully and skillfully. In the end, their coming together is natural and expected. It’s easy to see why Pride & Prejudice is thought of as the original model for love stories.
I chose Mary Bennet as my main character because she, too, is a person in want of change, and with the potential to do so. She reads, she plays music (although not very well). She thinks seriously about matters, even though her conclusions are often faulty. In The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, Mary wants to change, to re-invent herself. She prepares herself to become more independent. If she finds romance along the way…well, there’s nothing wrong with that! Here’s a brief summary:
For most of her life, Mary, the serious and unpolished middle Bennet sister, has been overshadowed by her sisters—Jane, Elizabeth, Kitty, and Lydia. When a very pregnant Lydia returns to Longbourn and scandalously announces she’s left Wickham, Mary and Kitty are packed off to visit Jane in Derbyshire. It is there that Mary encounters the handsome and eligible Henry Walsh.Unschooled in the game of love, Mary finds his warm attentions confounding. With her heart and her future at risk, Mary must throw caution to the wind and begin a journey of discovery that will teach her surprising lessons about herself and the desires of her heart.
HarperCollins has kindly offered two copies of the book, so please enter and spread the word! If you post a comment, Pam would love to hear what you think of the “new” Mary, and the Riskies want to know what YOU love about Pride & Prejudice.
T
oday it’s the birthday of composer Fanny Mendelssohn, born November 14 1805. She’s only recently been recognized as the genius she was and as a composer who may have been more talented than her famous younger brother Felix.
She came from an intellectual wealthy Jewish family, the eldest of four children. Her banker father Abraham (1776-1835), son of the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, shared a passionate love of music with his wife Lea, a gifted amateur pianist and singer. At Fanny’s birth, Abraham proudly reported “Lea says that the child has Bach-fugue fingers.” Sure enough, when Fanny was 13 she played from memory 24 preludes from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier as a birthday present for her father.
Fanny and Felix were very close, musical collaborators and critics. Yet while Felix received his family’s wholehearted support, Fanny received advice such as this:
Music will perhaps become his profession, whilst for you it can and must only be an ornament, never the root of your being and doing
Yet the Mendelssohn family strongly believed that Fanny should receive a good education and encouraged her musical activities within the family. In 1812, the Mendelssohns moved to the less tolerant city of Berlin. In 1816 the children were baptized and Abraham and Leo converted to Christianity in 1822. Abraham changed the family name to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, but it never really stuck. The family became the center of the city’s intellectual life, with writers such as Grimm, Hoffman, and Heine, and composers such as von Weber and Spohr frequent guests. In 1822 they started presenting musicales, starring the Mendelssohn children–Felix and Fanny on piano, Rebecca singing, and Paul on the cello–to which prominent musicians were invited. It was around this time that Fanny met the poet Goethe and set several of his poems to music.
Abraham, and also sadly Felix, were both strongly opposed to Fanny publishing her compositions, mostly lieder, although Felix compromised by publishing six of her works under his own name. Ironically they became some of “his” most popular compositions. In 1829, Fanny married Wilhelm Hensel, a court painter in Berlin (she composed both the organ processional and recessional for the wedding), and had a son Sebastian the following year. Her musical activities declined, with Felix criticizing the larger scale compositions she attempted, possibly because he thought such works were improper for a woman. She devoted herself once more to the musicales, but they discontinued at Abraham’s death in 1835. She was not as close now to Felix, who was busy in Leipzig as a successful composer and conductor. She defied her brother by publishing her song Die Schiffende under her own name, and although he allowed he was wrong when she received critical success, it wasn’t until 1846 that she published again.
Her career revived when she and her husband traveled to Italy and she met Gounod who described her as a …musician beyond comparison, a remarkable pianist, and a woman of superior mind . . . .She was gifted with rare ability as a composer. Encouraged by his support, she found the courage to compose and publish once more, but under her married name, writing these telling words to Felix:
I’m afraid of my brothers at age forty, as I was of Father at age fourteen–or, more aptly expressed, desirous of pleasing you and everyone I’ve loved throughout my life.
Sadly she died suddenly in 1847, and you can’t help but wonder what she could have gone on to achieve. She’s known mostly as a composer of lieder, piano and chamber works although we know that she attempted at least one large choral piece, written in 1831 in response to the cholera epidemics that raged through Europe–the Scenes from the Bible Oratorio, the Cholera Music. It was performed at a musicale, with Fanny conducting. You can read the American Symphony Orchestra’s program notes here.
For a smartass version of Fanny’s diaries check out this:
I go up to him and I’m all, “Why shouldn’t I be able to like publish?” and he’s all ” Blah, blah, blah (something in Hebrew) ” and I’m all, “Grandpa we converted to Christianity, remember, we wanted to fit in.” So he like didn’t have anything to say and after, like two minutes of bizarre awkward silence he asked me if I would like, bake him a strudel, and I was all, like, “No way.” More
And here’s a performance of one her song settings, Die Meinacht
I’m guest blogging today at History Undressed talking about–what else–clothes, and there’s an excerpt from A Certain Latitude. Please come on over and say hi!