Author Archives: Janet Mullany

In praise of hot water

Updated on August 7, 2008 by Janet Mullany

I’m catching up on baths.

Yes, my wonderful hosts at San Francisco (who were very sweet about their front room being turned into a slum) did have a bathtub, but I was too tired every night to do anything but wade through my belongings strewn all over the floor and drop into bed. I was also inspired by Elena’s post yesterday about her visit to Monticello to remember a well-kept secret in Bath County, Virginia–Thomas Jefferson’s warm springs. Elena, you must go there!

In the accurately, if unimaginatively named town (I think it’s a town) of Warm Springs, VA, a couple of hours southwest of the Washington, DC metro area, you can bathe in true Regency (or federal) era style in natural 98-degree mineral water. Jefferson built the original men’s bathhouse in 1818–since it’s of wood, who knows how many times timbers have been replaced–and a women’s bathhouse was added, chastely next door, in 1836.

Now the baths are owned by a huge, luxurious resort up the road in Hot Springs, the Homestead, which has a rather different sort of bath (and all sorts of decadent goodies) and offers full spa services.

But if you want the historical experience, go to Jefferson’s pools. The buildings are round wooden structures, open to the sky, and although they were probably used year-round in his time, now they’re only open in the summer. It’s very relaxing to float in the water–you can also ask the bath attendant to open the sluice while you sit in a sort of wooden channel and receive a water massage (there’s a continual flow of water in and out). According to this article, you can also have a natural ginseng massage.

Bathing suits are optional–my husband reported that all the guys were stark naked (of course). In the women’s house, lithe young things in bathing suits looked on in horror as women of a certain age flaunted their scars, stretchmarks, flab etc.

Here’s more information on Bath County, Virginia.

Do you have any hot water, natural, au naturel, or other, experiences you’d like to share? Your favorite, hidden-away spot somewhere?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bath county VA, Hot Springs, Jefferson, Warm Springs | 12 Replies

Finished, again

Updated on July 24, 2008 by Janet Mullany

I think I’ve finished my book A Most Lamentable Comedy. At least, I hope I’ve finished my book as I have to send it off before I leave for SF.

But I wanted to tell you about some odd things that happened with it, particularly in the last couple of weeks. Elena’s post last month about bears apparently lodged in my brain because the hero’s manservant suddenly reappeared, after quarreling with his master, with a dancing bear in tow. In fact the bear, a male called Daisy which is a very un-Regency type of name, did turn out to be a factor in the resolution of the plot.

There was also a scene, a sudden, wonderful surprise, where the heroine flies a kite.

But the main change was in what happened to the heroine. She’s about to be arrested for her debts when a duke steps in and saves her, on condition she becomes his mistress. Only he doesn’t intend for her to actually become his mistress–it’s a ploy to keep her out of the way of the hero (for various reasons). Now, originally, she didn’t realize what was going on and would wonder why the duke prefers to sit around talking to her about sheep and antiquities (his hobbies) rather than do anything else.

But as I got to know Caroline I realized that of course she’d know something was going on. She’s smart enough to smell a conspiracy (which it is, involving her friends) a mile off. And also, although my idea originally was to keep it a secret from the reader (which is why I’m not giving away huge amounts of plot here), I realized they’d want to know where the hero is. So I let everyone except the heroine, who works it out for herself, know and the hero is involved in the narrative by a series of letters that were lots of fun to write. (This is all about my entertainment, remember. Yep, it’s almost an epistolary novel here and at one point, if the editor allows, there’s a short play within the book.)

Lots of other things changed too, which is why I think it’s always wise to write a very short, vague synopsis.

Writers, tell us about something unexpected that happened in a book.

Readers, tell us about your favorite surprise in a book.

And come on over to the Wet Noodle Posse today where I’m blogging about how to remember names and faces, in preparation for Nationals and the Risky Breakfast on Friday morning (next week)!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged surprise | 15 Replies

Let’s talk about shoes!

Updated on July 17, 2008 by Janet Mullany

As I’m blogging today over at the Wet Noodle Posse on shoe and footcare for the RWA National Conference, I thought I’d talk about Regency shoes and provide you with some sites for your viewing pleasure and time-wasting.

Here’s a nice timeline from the University of Texas showing the progression of shoe design from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, with the change in shape, from high-heels to flats, and in fabrics, embroidered silks to leather. The gorgeous high heels above are from the early 1700s, embroidered silk with a wood heel covered in red moroccan leather (yum). I rather fancy this nice pair of pink and black kidskin slippers from the 1790s that still have a cute little heel. You can get a closer look at these shoes and study the change from heels to flats at allaboutshoes.com.

Here are the Empress Josephine’s slippers from her 1804 Coronation. Totally flat, oh the pain, the lack of support. I hope she didn’t have to spend too much time on her feet. These are made of silk taffeta.

These shoes look old-fashioned but they are the ultimate f*** me shoes of 1800 that belonged to one Rose Marshall, wife of the upstanding Thomas Hay Marshall of Perth, who was responsible for much of the Georgian development of the city. Rose went off to have a wild affair with the Earl of Elgin (yes, he of the marbles) and was divorced in 1803. According to Captain Thomas Watson Greig, an, uh, amateur shoe enthusiast and author of both “Ladies Old-Fashioned Shoes” (1885) and “Ladies Dress Shoes of the Nineteenth Century”: Let us hope this actual pair of shoes did not carry their fair owner away to a chimerical happiness from the path of duty which appeared prosaic in the face of flattery and attention from one whose position far exceeded that of the burgher’s wife.

Some good sources for pix of shoes: The Kyoto Institute, which has this pair of shoes in the collection from the 1830s with braids of straw and horsehair, silk trimming and cockade, and lined with silk taffeta, the Bata Shoe Museum of Canada, and Shoe-Icons.

If you fancy a pair of shoes yourself, check out Burnley and Trowbridge, located near Williamsburg, VA. I rather like the look of these elegant, sturdy eighteenth-century shoes; maybe if Mrs. Marshall had worn this sort of red shoe she wouldn’t have dallied with the Earl. The site is a delight, with information on workshops, patterns, and materials–hand dyed silk ribbons, anyone?

Share your favorite shoes with us? (Amanda, remember other people may want a turn!)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged shoes | 15 Replies

Bad Girls

Updated on July 10, 2008 by Janet Mullany

Who doesn’t love a bad girl, or in romance-speak, a flawed heroine?

There was quite a lively discussion yesterday at Smart Bitches on favorite flawed heroines, following an article in The Guardian where Toni Jordan listed her top ten–a very odd list including Miss Haversham from Great Expectations. Not that many from romance, though, and I’m wondering if it’s because one of the conventions of romance is that we want our heroes and heroines to change, transformed by love and self-knowledge.

Trouble is that quite often it’s the badness of the heroine that keeps us reading, the My God what will she say or do next syndrome.

So how does your character undergo the necessary transformation without losing the vitality?

And here’s my very own bad girl, Caroline Elmhurst, from the book I’m struggling to finish, A Most Lamentable Comedy (Little Black Dress, 2009), leaving London (having just escaped her creditors). She’s promised her maid Mary an inside seat on the coach, but unfortunately only one is available…

“We’ll cut for the inside seat.” I pull my pack of cards from the capacious reticule with which I travel. “High I go inside, low you go outside.”

She cuts a king, and cackles with glee as I pull a four. “High I go inside, low you go outside,” I repeat, and push her toward the coach as she opens her mouth to howl protest. “And if you don’t keep quiet, I’ll tell everyone you stole my petticoats–why else would you wear four?”

I help her onto the roof of the coach with a vigorous shove to the arse, hand her the umbrella (I am not totally without feelings), and settle myself inside, opening the book of sermons I carry to repel male attention.

What bad girls in romance do you love, and do you love them more at the beginning or the end? How do their wild, wicked, impulsive etc. ways transform them or become transformed into something else?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A Most Lamentable Comedy, bad girls | 21 Replies

Happy birthday Robert Adam

Updated on July 3, 2008 by Janet Mullany

Bring out the stylized, Italian-influenced birthday cake with the straight, delicately fluted candles. It’s the birthday of architect and designer Robert Adam (July 3, 1728 – March 3, 1792), one of the great innovative designers of the Georgian period.

What made Adam so popular and influential? I like to think it’s because he made the connection between how people lived and how rooms should look, and that furniture should blend harmoniously with the decor. He created chairs that were made to be sat in with some degree of comfort, lower, and with backs that moulded to the spine, like the lyre back and shield back chairs.

His work reflected the tastes of a generation that considered the Grand Tour the final polishing of a gentleman’s education. He was the first designer to contract his work to other companies, notably that of Hepplewhite. There’s a complete list of characteristics of his work here.

Here are some pictures of Nostell Priory in Yorkshire, which features furniture designed specifically for the house when it was built in 1733.

Even the dollhouse at right with its original fittings and furnishings, has Adam-Hepplewhite style furniture.

While I was poking around online trying to find–and choose between–the many examples of Adam’s work, I found this antiques site, apter-fredericks.com, which has a wonderful timeline of furnishings–warning, I noticed some really awful mistakes in the history, but the furniture illustrations are wonderful.

Adam might not have been too easy to deal with–the National Trust site for Osterley Park, a Tudor house he was hired to modernize, describes him as “self-confident, brusque and with an unrivalled command of classical antiquity.” You get the feeling Mr. Adam liked to get his own way and was right more often than his browbeaten clients.

And talking of antiquity, did you catch Antiques Roadshow recently when this fabulous Georgian box desk, from ca. 1805, was appraised? Check it out.

Have you visited any Adam houses? Share your thoughts on decoration and furniture. Tell us about your latest home renovation projects or your antique fantasy wish list. That box desk is at the top of my list…

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Antiques Roadshow, design, Robert Adam | 7 Replies