Category: Guest

Guest posts

Marguerite Kaye Visits The Riskies!

Updated on January 19, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Diamonds Are Forever

Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah, my latest release, is what I would call a Regency with a definite twist. My heroine writes hugely popular erotic novels for a living. I know, I know but I had the idea for this book long before THAT book went viral. Elliot, my hero, is a soldier turned housebreaker. They meet when Elliot falls off a drainpipe while making his escape after robbing a country house, and lands on Deborah who is wandering the grounds in the middle of the night. If you want to know why she is doing this I’m afraid you’ll have to read the book. Anyway, the loot that Elliot has snaffled is a blue diamond, rectangular in shape and strangely faceted, at about one hundred carats, half the size of the original from which it was cut. Elliot’s ill-gotten booty is in fact part of the stolen French crown jewels.

Louis XIV acquired the French Blue stone in 1678. He had the diamond cut and set in gold, and wore it around his neck. The next Louis had the diamond reset again and turned it into the Order of the Golden Fleece, which the next Louis, the unfortunate XVI wore only occasionally. In 1792, while Louis and Marie-Antoinette were awaiting their fate, the French crown jewels were stolen. Most of the pieces were recovered, but the French Blue disappeared without trace.

I first read about this diamond when I was researching for my last book, Rake with a Frozen Heart. I abandoned the overly-complex crime caper which was originally at the centre of that story, but I filed away my research. Then Elliot, my housebreaker hero, popped into my mind, and I remembered the French Blue story. Waste not, want not, as my gran was fond of saying (usually when trying to make me clear my plate!).

According to legend, the French Blue turned up in England in the early part of the Nineteenth century. Some say it was cut into two before it left France, some that it was never stolen but appropriated by the revolutionary Danton, who used it to bribe the Duke of Brunswick, and that it was he who had it cut.

Caroline, Brunswick’s daughter, was the despised wife of the Prince Regent. So appalled was Prinny by her lack of personal hygiene that he managed to force himself to do his marital duty just the once.

The prince was not generous to poor Caroline, who was forced to sell many of her jewels in order to support herself, and it has been argued that the French Blue was one of them. In 1812, there is evidence that a jeweller called Daniel Eliason owned a diamond which resembled the French Blue. Did he buy it from Caroline, or from one of the original thieves? Strangely enough, there is evidence that Caroline’s husband, the Prince Regent, also had a diamond very similar to the French Blue. Was this the other half or the original? What we do know is that diamond disappeared when the prince, by this time King George IV, died.

Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah is set in 1817. I have chosen to believe that the original French Blue diamond was cut in half by the French thieves, and that Deborah’s relative from whom Elliot steals it, acquired it by nefarious means from them. The ‘real’ French Blue, which is known as the Hope Diamond, has had a chequered path through history, with a reputation for bringing death or tragedy to its wearer. Tavernier, who sold it to Louis XIV was reputed to have been torn to pieces by wild dogs. Louis himself died of a festering wound. Louis XVI, as we know, ended up on the guillotine. Various owners have been murdered, died in freak accidents, or committed suicide, though since it was donated to the Smithsonian, where it now resides, the curse has lain dormant. For Elliot, it’s a lucky stone, because it brings him Deborah. The path of true love is by no means straightforward for my hero and heroine, but it’s fun, sexy, and ultimately rewarding journey.

Do you believe in lucky charms? What’s yours? I have a signed copy of Deborah and Elliot’s story to give away. Just leave a comment for a chance to win.

Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah is out now in the UK, US and Canada. Here is the blurb:

JUST WHO IS LADY DEBORAH? I am the Dowager Countess of Kinsail, and I have enough secrets to scandalise you for life. I will never reveal the truth of my soul-destroying marriage – some things are too dark to be told. But at least no one can guess that I, a famously icy-hearted widow, am also the authoress of the shamelessly voluptuous romances currently shocking the ton…! Only now I have a new secret identity, one that I will risk my life to keep – accomplice to Elliot Marchmont, gentleman, ex-solider and notorious London thief. This adventurer’s expert touch ignites in me a passion so intoxicating that surviving our blistering affair unscathed will be near impossible…

And here’s what the Romantic Timessaid about it when they gave it four stars:

Daring. Dangerous. Delightful. Kaye’s new Regency romance is a riveting and thrilling adventure between a writer and a thief, both bent on revenge, and neither expecting to find love at last. Kaye has another winner on her hands, with an original plot, lots of sizzling passion and enough nail-biting action to satisfy every fan.

There’s excerpts, background and more about my books on www.margueritekaye.com.

Posted in Giveaways, Guest | Tagged Harlequin Historicals, jewels, Marguerite Kaye | 21 Replies

Guest Blogger Helen Dickson

Updated on January 17, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Book number two in the Castonbury Park series, The Housemaid’s Scandalous Secret by Helen Dickson, is out in September! Helen visits us today to share the duties of a Regency-era maid–do you think you could carry them out?? Comment for a chance to win a copy…

DUTIES OF A LADY’S MAID

Her education should be superior to that of the ordinary class of females. She must be neat and clean in her person and dress, have strict regard to religious and moral obligations, be of a cheerful disposition and courteous in demeanour. Her character must be remarkable for industry and moderation and her deportment for modesty and humility. She must never betray her lady’s confidence, and must devote herself to those she is engaged to serve.

It is her duty to put in readiness everything her mistress may require to wear during the day and for dinner. She must dress and undress her mistress, and in this she should be knowledgeable, quick, and to manifest good taste by suiting the jewellery and decoration of her dress to the complexion, age and general appearance of her lady’s person. She must be an excellent hairdresser and have a good knowledge of remedies for beauty treatments – from getting rid of pimples, freckles, thickening and strengthening hair, to bad breath and toothache.

She is responsible for repairing and removing stains, to wash the lace and fine linen. When not in attendance she retires to her workroom where she employs herself at needle-work and to be available at all times if needed.

She must wait up for her mistress to return from evening engagements, and when she has retired she has to carefully examine her clothes and do all that is necessary to be done to them before she folds them away and puts away her jewels. Only then can she seek her own bed.

If her mistress is elderly or infirm, she will be required to bring her work and sit with her, to sometimes read to her and administer her medicines.

She is allowed to walk out in the afternoons (depending on her lady’s indulgence) and to attend church on Sundays.

The wages of a lady’s-maid vary depending on the income and expenditure of the family that employs her – between eighteen and twenty-five guineas per anum.

Helen Dickson

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Regency, Research | Tagged Castonbury Park, Helen Dickson, servants | 13 Replies

Welcome Syrie James

Updated on January 17, 2013 by Janet Mullany

I’m thrilled today to welcome Syrie James, one of my favorite Austenesque authors. Syrie is giving away a copy of her latest book, The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen, to one person who comments today.

S Syrie JamesAuthorPhoto2011 - Credit William James yrie James is the bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed novels, including The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, Dracula My Love, Nocturne, Forbidden, and The Harrison Duet: Songbird and Propositions. Her books have been translated into eighteen foreign languages. In addition to her work as a novelist, she is a screenwriter, a member of the Writers Guild of America, and a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. She lives with her family in Los Angeles, California. Connect with her on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Syrie’s talking about a subject close to the Riskies’ hearts today–research. Take it away, Syrie….

The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James I had done a great deal of Austen and Regency era research when I wrote my novel The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, an education which has been enhanced over the years by additional reading and by JASNA’s many fun and informative conferences and meetings. I’d visited England many times including a wonderful, self-guided Jane Austen tour several years before.

To add to that background, I paid great attention to the story structure, character types, character arcs, locations, situations, and themes of Austen’s novels, to ensure that the book would fit within her canon, and be the kind of novel she might have written. I immersed myself in research about life in the Regency era. I pored over the annotated versions of Austen’s novels edited by David M. Shapard, finding valuable information about the world and the language in the annotations themselves. I re-read Jane Austen’s letters again and again, because they are full of a wealth of small details.

The novel also required research into a variety of additional subjects related to specific aspects of the story. I found a friend and Londoner who was kind enough to research obscure facts for me, such as clerical stipends and the cost of nineteenth-century bell forging. She also read the first draft of the manuscript to make sure it didn’t contain any egregious Americanisms.

For the modern day story, I worked with a doctor to hammer out and verify the medical details, such as Mary I. Jesse’s condition, the subplot regarding Samantha’s doctor boyfriend, and the back story regarding her mother’s illness. I worked with a university Special Collections Librarian to understand Samantha’s current occupation, and with an English professor to gain insight into Samantha’s teaching background.

I contacted Oxford University for details regarding their doctoral program. I researched the sales records for the most expensive manuscripts ever sold. I studied the way sales are conducted at Sotheby’s Auction House. And of course I continued to re-read Austen’s novels the entire time I was writing, to keep her voice in my head!

Question of the day–what’s YOUR ideal research trip?

Update: Entries open until Saturday 12 midnight EST.

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Jane Austen, Research | Tagged Syrie James, The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen | 15 Replies

The Lady Who Broke The Rules!

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

The Riskies welcome back Marguerite Kaye, who is here to talk about her new release, the third in the “Castonbury Park” series from Harlequin Historicals….

Slave to Love! And a Giveaway

The Lady Who Broke the Rules is my book from the Regency upstairs/downstairs series Castonbury Park. My heroine is Lady Kate, the eldest daughter of the wealthy Montague family, a philanthropist and abolitionist. My hero is Virgil Jackson, a freed slave.

The Riskies welcome back Marguerite Kaye, who is here to talk about her new release, the third in the “Castonbury Park” series from Harlequin Historicals….

‘We want scandal, scandal, scandal,’ our editor told us eight authors when we first embarked on the ‘Castonbury Park’ journey, and a freed black slave seemed to me like a brilliant starting point. Any man who could survive the horrors of slavery and succeed on his own terms as Virgil does would have to be unbelievably strong-willed, yet at the same time, coming from such a traumatic background, he had to have some deep-seated issues of his own to contend with. Virgil is a free man, but he’s still a slave to his past

The history of slavery is a complex, emotive and controversial subject, one that has always fascinated me, but I have to admit there where times when I thought I’d taken a step too far in making a freed slave a romantic hero. However, with the Castonbury Park series is set at a time when slavery was being challenged in both the Old and the New Worlds, I’m always keen to push boundaries in my stories, so I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did.

The Lady Who Broke the Rules is set in 1816. In the United States, the trade of slaves was abolished in the north in 1804, after which manumission in those states gathered momentum. In the south though, cotton was in increasing demand (paradoxically thanks to the north’s industrialisation of textile manufacture), slaves were a hugely important part of the economy, and resistance to abolition was significant.

Virgil was born into slavery in the south and freed in the north. He was one of the fortunate ones who came to true eminence and used his wealth to give others the chances he had had to make for himself. Though in reality this kind of success was rare, it was not unheard of. Robert Purvis is just one example of the black philanthropists from whom I took inspiration for Virgil, but his entrepreneurial side is an amalgamation of a whole number of black men and women who flourished in Nineteenth Century Boston, renting out real estate, setting up restaurants and beauty parlours, making shoes and clothes for the mass market, taking on the Establishment by training as lawyers and doctors.

Across the pond, a huge number of aristocratic families had derived a large part of their wealth from plantations in the West Indies which relied on slavery, but their influence was on the decline. The actual trade of slaves became illegal in 1807, and although it was not until 1833 that slavery itself was abolished, by 1816 the growing Abolitionist movement, coupled with the decline of the economic significance of the West Indies plantations, made the idea, if not the reality, of slavery much less politically and socially acceptable than it had been a decade or so before.

My research for The Lady Who Broke the Rules taught me that a large number of the British abolitionists were women, and so I made my heroine, Lady Kate Montague, one of them. It was one of the few political causes in which it became acceptable for women to participate, and in which women took a leading and influential role. I relished the opportunity to create a heroine who could, without it seeming a historical anachronism, be active politically and philanthropically. Josiah Wedgewood’s daughter Sarah, who introduces Kate to Virgil, was just one real life example I drew on when writing her.

There’s a huge difference between perception and reality. Kate, like me, had only read about slavery. Virgil had experienced it. As a writer, I had to try and imagine myself in both sets of shoes. Whether I’ve managed it or not – well, that’s for you to decide.

I have a signed copy of Kate and Virgil’s story to give away. Just leave a comment for a chance to win.

The Lady Who Broke the Rules (Castonbury Park 3) is out in October in the UK, digital only in the US and Canada, though it will be released in a print duo (Ladies of Disrepute) with Book 4 in December. Here is the blurb:

‘Your rebellion has not gone unnoticed…’ Anticipating her wedding vows and then breaking off the engagement has left Kate Montague’s social status in tatters. She hides her hurt at her family’s disapproval behind a resolutely optimistic facade, but one thing really grates…For a fallen woman, she knows shockingly little about passion! Could Virgil Jackson be the man to teach her? A freed slave turned successful businessman, his striking good looks and lethally restrained power throw normally composed Kate into a tailspin! She’s already scandalised society, but succumbing to her craving for Virgil would be the most outrageous thing Kate’s done by far…

There’s excerpts, background and more about my books on www.margueritekaye.com.

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Regency, Research | Tagged Castonbury Park, Marguerite Kaye, Slavery in the Regency | 7 Replies

The Riskies Welcome Ann Lethbridge!

Updated on January 10, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Sexy French Chefs, Naughty Women, and Food

~ by Ann Lethbridge ( http://www.annlethbridge.com)

Lady of Shame is # four in the eight part Castonbury Park Series. Available in print in the UK now, and as e-book in North America, it is also coming out in print, in a duo with book three, in January 2013, with HQN titled Ladies of Disrepute. I must say I am loving these titles, and I just had to take a picture of the whole series, they look so lovely on my bookshelf.

I have always been fascinated by the kitchens in the stately homes I have visited over the years, so I the idea of having a sexy French chef as my hero was as irresistible as a chocolate soufflé.

As was the thought of the scandal if one of the ladies of the house should be tempted by a lowly, if handsome and charming, chef. And just think of the problems a trouble in the kitchen would cause for the same lady who was trying to woo a new husband. After all the way to a man’s heart is supposedly through his stomach.

Part of my fascination with kitchens and cooking at this time stems from the changes occurring during Regency. The move forward into our modern world. The mass production of iron and copper goods made it possible for chefs to stock their domains with every size and shape of saucepan and novel gadget. There were other innovations too, such as the use of metal grates and hobs which made boiling and stewing faster and easier. Easier is a relative term, of course. Today it would all sound like terribly hard work.

Also at the end of the Napoleonic wars, British nobility once more embraced everything French from fashions to food. There was an influx of French chefs, including the great Carême himself, once chef to Napoleon Bonaparte who came to work for the Prince Regent.

Menus in this age of excess were not about eating. They were about theatre and taste and extravagance. I quickly discovered in my research – warning the following may not be for those with weak stomach and you may want to skip ahead – that many of the foods eaten in the Regency are never seen on tables today. At least not on mine. Such things as cockscombs (wattles), cocks-stones (you can take a guess at what that is I am sure), eels, lamb brains and calves udders, to name but a few, were considered delicacies. Um none of those show up in my book you will be happy to hear.

A dinner at a nobleman`s house would be designed to show his wealth and prestige. For example, an intimate dinner for four people would have at a minimum a first course of eight dishes and a second course of nine dishes, followed by a dessert course of four or five dishes. Each course would be put on the table in large serving dishes all at once in perfect symmetry, in a pleasing balance to the eye. Guests would pass the platters nearest to them to those that requested them. The gentlemen would carve the roasts for the ladies.

Here is a sample menu of the first course for one such small intimate dinner designed by Louis Eustache Ude, Ci Devant Cook to Louis XVI and the Earl of Sefton. The cook book then goes on to give the recipes, or receipts as they were called, and if you are interested you can find them on line.

Soup Course

Soupe printannier, or spring soup

Crimp cod and oyster sauce

Two Removes

Foul àla Montmorenci, garnished with a ragout à l`Allemande

Ham glazed with Espangnole

Four Entrées

Fricassée of chicken with mushrooms

Lamb chops sauté with aspargust, peas, etc.

Fillets of fat chicken, sauté au supreme

Petits pâtés of fillet of fowl a la béchamelle

And that is just the first course. If you are wondering about the term “ removes “ These are the dishes put on the table while the staff clear away the soup, so you are not left sitting with nothing to eat before the entrées arrive.

I used this book and others to create my menus for the story, but sadly to my hero’s chagrin all does not go well with the meals.

Here is a short excerpt:

Claire watched him from the corner of her eye, looking forward to the same reaction of pleasure and delight that had accompanied the first course. As hostess of the dinner, the credit would fall to her as well as the Duke’s famous French chef.

Dyer masticated with evident pleasure, then his face turned red, he gazed wildly around and then lifted the table cloth and spat the contents of his mouth into its folds.

Everyone at the table stared at him in astonishment, too polite to say anything, but clearly revolted by the sight.

Mr Dyer’s face turned purple. He grabbed up his wine glass and gulped its contents, while fanning his hand in front of his face.

“Mr Dyer,” Claire said. “Are you all right? Did you swallow a fishbone?” There should not have been any in this dish. This she had agreed with Andre.

He coughed and spluttered and drank some more wine. “All right?” He choked out. “No, I am not all right.”

His mother patted his back. Miss Seagrove did the same thing from the other side.

Claire leapt up and poured him a goblet of water from the pitcher on the sideboard. The man seemed ready to expire.

Slowly the gasping and coughing subsided, though the man’s high forehead remained a deep red and beaded with sweat as he drew in one rasping breath after another.

Could he be suffering an apoplexy?

The Reverend Seagrove pulled the fish platter towards him. It was the only dish no one else had sampled. He spooned a small amount onto his plate and tasted it warily.

“Horseradish?” he said, with a wince. “Or too much pepper?”

Mr Dyer, with his bulging eyes and opening and closing mouth as he breathed heavily, looking a bit like the cod that was causing him such distress, shook his head.

Claire blinked. “Are you saying there is something wrong with the food, Reverend?” It wasn’t possible.

He pushed the dish towards her and she dipped her desert spoon into the sauce. She tasted it carefully just on the tip of her tongue and recoiled. It was like eating fire.

What a disaster.

I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but things go downhill from there….

Have you ever had a disaster of a meal? I have and will share mine, if you share yours. The best or rather, worst, story, wins a copy of The Gamekeeper’s Lady.

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Research | Tagged Ann Letthbridge, Castonbury Park, Regency Dining | 11 Replies