Cathy P, Patricia, Irene, bn100, and Catherine L. I’ve sent you an email.
Thanks everyone for playing!
Janet
Cathy P, Patricia, Irene, bn100, and Catherine L. I’ve sent you an email.
Thanks everyone for playing!
Janet
In all the delightful chaos of my life (but not as delightful as Ms. Jewel’s–all those dongles! It sounds rude) I have naturally dithered about promoting my new book A Certain Latitude which is now available on Kindle. Huzzah! And here’s the blurb:
1800—Allan Pendale, lawyer and the youngest son of the Earl of Frensham, is bound by ship for the West Indies, to impart the news to his estranged father that his mother has died. But he also has another mission—to find out the truth of his origins.
Miss Clarissa Onslowe is also on board, traveling to take up the role of governess to the daughter of the wealthy planter Mr. Lemarchand. There is nothing to keep her in England. An indiscretion five years before led to her reputation being ruined; her abolitionist family has disowned her and no gentleman would marry her now. But now she seeks redemption with her family by revealing the truth about the miserable lives of the slaves who work on the sugar plantations.
Clarissa’s previous encounter with love has left her aroused and restless, and Allan is a man for whom lust is a daily pastime; thrown together belowdecks during the long sea voyage, they embark on a sensual odyssey where no desire is left untested. But if they thought their exploration and ecstasy could not be bettered, then there are more pleasures to be taken and boundaries to be broken at their island destination—where “March” Lemarchand, sugar king and master of seduction, awaits them both…
You can read an excerpt here.
Now if all this sounds familiar, there was another book, six years ago (that’s about six centuries in the age of digital publishing and mass market fiction) called Forbidden Shores, by one Jane Lockwood, a name the publisher insisted I adopt to protect those who didn’t know my natural tendency to produce total filth finely crafted erotica. I got the rights back, rewrote, got a new cover, woohoo, we’re in business. (My first selfpubbing experience. It was educational.)
It’s delightful to be able to reinvent oneself and get the chance to spruce up a book that never quite worked. I just hope it works now. But hear for yourself. If you’re in the Greater Washington DC area, I’m reading at our new Lady Jane Salon this Saturday in Rockville along with Eliza Knight and Meredith Bond. Check it out. And enter the contest–I’m giving away five copies of A Certain Latitude.
I’m always impressed by the inventive Google doodles and I’m venturing into Elena territory today by talking about an event that took place in 1797 on October 22–the first descent by parachute by the daring Andre-Jacques Garnerin in Paris. This was how Google celebrated the event:
The parachute, more like an umbrella than a modern parachute, was attached to a balloon that, once it had achieved sufficient altitude, M. Garnerin let rip and plummeted to earth from 3,200′. No graceful floating with this prototype parachute. Allegedly he threw up on the enthralled crowd below. Later he adapted his parachute with a vent to make a less exciting descent for both himself and onlookers. You can read a description of the Parc Monceau, the scene of this daring adventure, at Bonjour Paris.
But it was in the following year that he achieved tremendous notoriety by taking a woman on a balloon ascent. Mon dieu! He had to appear before the Central Bureau of Police to assure them that Citoyenne Henri would suffer no ill effects to her delicate female constitution and that no hanky-panky would take place in the basket. It was eventually decided that a balloon ascent held the same moral danger as sharing a carriage, i.e., not much. Once again a crowd gathered in the Parc to see the first woman in a balloon–ever the showman, Garnerin had wisely chosen a young and pretty woman.
His wife Jeanne Genevieve was the first woman to make a parachute descent in 1799 from an altitude of 900 meters. In 1802, during the Peace of Amiens, he and Jeanne Genevieve visited England and made balloon ascents together, and M. Garnerin gave a parachute demonstration in a field near St. Pancras. On another balloon trip he carried a letter of introduction from the Prince Regent in case of a crash landing.
If you’ve ever been in a hot air balloon or parachuted, please tell us about it, and if you wish, report on the effect on your morals and delicate female constitution. And, this has nothing to do with it unless you consider NaNoWriMo the equivalent of diving into thin air: if you’re in or near Maryland, there’s still time to register for Saturday’s workshop Writing From the Ground Up.
I think it’s pretty much standard that when you write romance you fall in love with the hero, even if at certain stages of the book you want to give him a smack upside the head and tell him not to be such a stubborn, insensitive, clueless idiot. And we hope that our readers fall in love with him and the heroine, or even the relationship itself. Lizzie and Darcy, anyone?
So here’s my Top Ten, in no particular order, of fictional heroes I have fallen in love with:
Black Beauty. Yes, I know he’s a horse. I was six, okay?
Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Ditto faun, and I was eight. But I fell all over in love with him again in the movie and James McAvoy’s goaty goodness. Talking of which, check out this very sexy dance scene from the very indifferent movie Becoming Jane. Ooh.
Henry Tilney. He is the best Austen hero. He knows about laundry. He has social skills, does not practice pluralism, and is the success story of his dysfunctional family.
Lord Peter Wimsey. Or, to be specific, Lord Peter Wimsey in Gaudy Night, when Harriet falls in love with him, finally, and he is translated into instant hotness. Placetne, magistra?
Sam Vine in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. A cop with smarts, a tender heart, a strong sense of justice, and a love of bacon sandwiches.
Lord Vetinari, also from Discworld. What’s not to love! An autocrat who was trained as an assassin, given to sarcasm and steepling of fingers.
Dorothea Brooke from Middlemarch by George Eliot. So she’s a girl (so was George). You have a problem with that?
Will Ladislaw, also from Middlemarch. All that exotic foreign radical hotness.
Jasper Hedges from Pam Rosenthal’s The Edge of Impropriety. Smart, shabby, beautiful hands, glasses, and actually smacks away the heroine’s hand during their first encounter because he can undo his trouser buttons faster than she can.
Temeraire the dragon from Naomi Novik’s series. Even if he does have eggs with other women I love him still.
And #11, bonus material, Will Lawrence from the same series.
How about you?
In honor of Verdi, whose 200th birthday is today, I’m giving you an excerpt (slightly cleaned up) from my soon-to-be released erotic historical A Certain Latitude. The very vague connection is that there is mention of an opera here. The picture is not of Verdi but of Dominic Cooper as Willoughby in the latest BBC adaptation of Sense & Sensibility, who looks something like my hero.
Note that both hero and heroine are in a, uh, horizontal position.
“Tell me about your mistress.”
“Which one?”
“How many have there been? To start with, the one whose husband chased you to the dock.”
“Ah. Lady Ann. A dreadful woman.”
“Then, why on earth—”
“This part of me—” he thrust upward—“did the thinking. And if her husband had sued for divorce, I would have been named and then obliged to marry her.”
“But it doesn’t seem fair. What will her husband do to her?”
Allen ran his hand over her neck, pushing hair aside. “Expect her to be more discreet next time. It’s the way of the world.”
His breathing became faster. Already she knew the signs; she had learned the lessons of his body.
“Who else?”
“Who else what?”
“Who else have you bedded?”
“Hmm. You wish for the whole list?”
“List?” She put her lips to his ear and sang, “Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre … mille e tre.”
Beneath her, he rumbled with laugher. “Not in Spain, but in Bristol maybe.”
“A thousand and three in one city? You mean you outdid Don Giovanni himself?”
He shrugged and fell silent.
“Is my singing so dreadful?”
He muttered, “I shouldn’t—I had this bad habit of seducing merchants’ wives. Silly, bored, rich women, for whom I was a consolation, an entertainment. I didn’t like any of them particularly. I don’t think they liked me much, either. Each one at first presented a challenge, a mystery, but afterward I found I was lonelier—” He stopped and turned his head away.
“Allen—”
“Except,” he added, “this never happened with them.” He laughed, a dry, ironic chuckle. “You may tell me it doesn’t matter. I believe that’s the acceptable, sympathetic thing for a woman to say under the circumstances. God knows it’s never happened before, so I’m not quite sure of the etiquette the situation demands. But, by all means coo something sweet while pitying me—even though you suspect this happens all the time.”
“A moment.” Clarissa eased herself onto her elbows. “May I borrow your writing slope? I must make note of this for any future encounters.”
He laughed and gripped her arms, turning his face to hers. “Don’t move. Do you know, Clarissa, I think you may be the only woman I’ve had that I actually liked?”
“How appalling.” She rubbed her nose against his. “Have you ever been in love?”
He shrugged. “Quite frequently, but it faded. I proposed to a couple of women, but fortunately they turned me down. I suspect I’m a little in love with you, Miss Onslowe, but have no fear. The condition will pass.”
“I rejoice to hear it.” Was it disappointment or relief she felt? “Love might well be a complication for us both. You are quite right.”
Any opera fans out there? Any favorite operas? Favorite Verdi operas? I vote for La Traviata.