I’m currently off having fun in New York with Diane and Megan! Next week I hope to have some pics and an account of our time here (BEA, museums, theaters, Lady Jane’s Salon, oh my!). But I’ve left this post about a most Risky lady of history, the author and salon hostess Madeleine de Scudery (who died on this day in 1701).

Madeleine was born in Le Havre in 1607, where her father was captain of the port. He died when she was about 7, and she went to live in Rouen with an uncle who had spent time at Court and possessed a large library, which she avidly explored. Sometime after the death of her mother in 1635, she went to live with her playwright brother Georges in Paris. With her brother she attended Catherine de Rambouillet’s famous salon. Eventually she formed her own salon, the Societe de samedi, and became known as the first bluestocking of France.

She wrote many immensely long volumes, both under her own name and the pseudonym pf “Sapho,” including Artamene (10 volumes, 2.1 millions words, 1648-53), Ibrahim (4 volumes, 1641), and Almahide (8 volumes, 1661-3). They are set in the classical world or an imaginary Orient, but their language and plots reflect the life of 17th century Paris, full of philosophical conversations and many abductions of heroines. The characters were often based on Madeleine’s own friends and acquaintances, such as her lover Paul Pellison.

For more information, her biography and correspondence were published in Paris in 1873, and there is a chapter about her in AG Mason’s The Women of the French Salons. I find her fascinating, and would love to write a saloniste heroine someday!

More news from New York next week…

Winner of Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride is….

Eleni Konstantine!!

Eleni, email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your address so we can send you a copy of Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride!

A few weekends ago, I went to an old college friend’s bachelorette party at a fun local dance club. And what do a bunch of sophisticated 30-somethings with jobs, mortgages, boyfriends/fiances/husbands/kids/pets, talk about when they have too many pomegranate martinis? You guessed it–they talk about the Twilight books! It is my shame in life that, deep down inside, I am a Twilight-loving, Gossip Girl-watching 14-year-old. (Speaking of GG, did you see the news that Ed Westwick is going to star as Heathcliff in a new Wuthering Heights movie opposite Gemma Arterton???)

My friends and I, it turns out, are united in many opinions re: Twilight. We share a deep dislike of Bella (weird, since the story is in 1st person and thus all about Bella). We sometimes get mired in details that have no explanation (how do vampires have sex if they have no blood? How did the Volturri get from Italy to Forks anyway? They’re not exactly inconspicuous, and they probably don’t have passports). We would love to see a book all about Alice and Jasper (because Alice is never a passive dishrag like Bella, and Jasper seems like a total bad-ass). But we do not all agree on one very important point–who is the real hero, Edward or Jacob?

The bride-to-be finally announced (loudly), “Come on, Manda! You know as well as I do, Jacob is the guy you marry. Edward is just the guy you ****.” (Because she’s now the arbiter of things marital! And it’s not a party without a few f-bombs, of course). And there you have it. Literature, and life, in a nutshell. There are guys you marry, and guys you ****. In romance novels, he is one and the same, because we want a HEA we can believe in. When we’re young, it’s not always so clear which is which; not always when we’re grown-up, either.

But it made me think. What I like about Twilight is not the whole vampire/werewolf thing (the world-building here is flimsy at best). It’s the fact that it’s really just a framework for a good old-fashioned Forbidden Young Love story. It could just as easily be a Regency tale of the gorgeous young heir to a dukedom who falls for a vicar’s shy daughter. She knows she should marry the nice young shopkeeper’s son who is courting her, but she just can’t stay away from the duke…

I don’t often see this whole Crazy, Unstoppable, Force of Nature Love in romance fiction, and sometimes I do crave a Romeo and Juliet, Cathy and Heathcliff kind of story. I know that it’s not especially realistic, and I definitely do not want to go back to being 16 myself, and live again through my first breakup (whimpering in my dark room as I clutched a dried-out corsage from a dance we went to, and my parents thinking I had gone completely insane). But I do like reading about it at times. Do you? What are some of your favorite “crazy love” books? (And if you know some good romances that fit, let me know!!).

(For the record, I would not want to marry Jacob or Edward. Talk about baggage. You either get the whole unpredictable phasing into a werewolf thing, or you get in-laws in your business for eternity).

And now I have to finish packing and decide what to read on the plane! Tomorrow I’m off to meet Diane and trek to New York for BookExpo America, Lady Jane’s Salon, and all kinds of fun things. If you’re in the area, let us know!

The winner of A Talent for Sin is…….

Virginia!!

The Winner of Tessa Dare’s free download of The Legend of the Werestag and a signed coverflat of Goddess of the Hunt is……

Keira!!

We’ll be emailing you with instructions!!

The Riskies

The unofficial beginning of summer, weekend of swimming pool openings, the Indianapolis 500, spectacular sales at the mall, picnics, clogged highways, and excursions to the beach.

Lest we forget, Memorial Day began as Decoration Day, a day to honor the Civil War dead by decorating their graves with flowers. Although there were early accounts of memorial activities around the country, the “official” birth of Decoration Day stems from an idea by Henry C. Welles, a small town druggist in New York state, to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead. A year later, with the help of General John B. Murray, a civil war hero, the idea got off the ground and on May 5, 1966, the town not only decorated the graves, but the whole town and held a solemn march to the cemeteries.

In 1868, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic proclaimed May 30 to be a day for “decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

By 1882, the day became more widely known as Memorial Day. In 1966 that New York town was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day. In 1971 its date was changed from May 30 to the last Monday of May.

The name of that New York town where Memorial Day originated and the reason why this is relevant to Risky Regencies??

Waterloo, NY

I’ve been steeped in research into the battle of Waterloo and so am more acutely aware than usual of the sacrifices of soldiers. Then and now.

My father was a soldier. He luckily was not required to engage in battle as much as other soldiers in WWII, but he did devote his life to being an Army Officer. So this is a thank you to him, to the soldiers of Waterloo, to those in the Civil War, and to those fighting and dying today.

Do you know a soldier, past or present? Tell us about him or her.

Next week, I’ll bring news from Book Expo America, where Amanda, Deb, and I will be signing The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor! See my Media page for the time and place.