Category: Risky Regencies

Jane Austen, Kick-Ass Heroine

Updated on December 21, 2013 by megan

Happy Birthday, Jane!

It’s amazing that just six books from one woman, writing over two hundred years ago, could so profoundly affect us still–but she was writing universal truths, after all, and those truths don’t go away just because we’ve got lattes, and the internet, and horseless carriages.

Jane, to her credit, did not settle. She persevered in her work in private, only able to grab times to write here and there. She did not get to announce to her family that she had a deadline, and therefore they had to leave her alone and eat mac and cheese for the next few weeks.

She had the chance for a married life, but turned it down. I’m not on top of any scholarship about why she might have said yes, then taken it back twenty-four hours later, but I’m guessing she didn’t want to settle just for the comfort of being a married woman in her own home. It’s heartbreaking to think that Jane–who defined romantic love for many of us in her books–wasn’t able to find it for herself, but at least she didn’t have to pull a Charlotte Lucas and marry out of necessity, as opposed to love.

In that, Jane was a true kick-ass heroine, a woman who did what she wanted to despite the strictures of her situation and society. She wrote, she made her own life choices, and her definitions of life, love, family, and society remain vital guides to readers and writers today.

Happy Birthday, Jane!

Megan

A Jane Austen Gazetteer

Updated on December 13, 2013 by Myretta

Since I’m not on the schedule for next week’s Jane Austen week, I thought I’d get a Jane Austen post in a little early.

Although Jane Austen was not widely traveled, her characters did get around and Miss Austen was very particular about getting the details of their locations right. One of the joys of reading her books is recognizing the geography. At The Republic of Pemberley, we spent quite a lot of time mapping out the novels and finding contemporary sources for each location. Pemberley’s Jane Austen Gazetteer is the result of this labor.

Each novel section begins with Cary’s 1812 map of England. From there, it identifies each county, town, and (when possible) street. Excerpts from contemporaneous travel guides highlight pages on individual towns. For example, Kearsley’s Traveller’s Entertaining Guide through Great Britain (1803) describes Oxford thus:

Oxford, a celebrated university and a bishop’s see. Besides the cathedral it has thirteen parish churches. It is seated at the confluence of the Thames and the Cherwell, on an eminence. The town is three miles in circumference, and is of a circular form. It consists chiefly of two spacious streets, crossing each other in the middle of the town. The university is said to have been founded by the immortal Alfred, receiving from him many privileges and large revenues . About the middle of the twelfth century public lectures of the civil laws were read here not more than ten years after a copy of Justinian’s Institutes had been found in Italy. In the reign of Henry III there were said to be fifteen thousand scholars. Here are twenty colleges and five halls several of which are in the streets and give the city and air of magnificence. The colleges are University, Baliol, Merton, Exeter, Oriel, Queen’s, New, Lincoln, All-souls, Magdalen, Brazenose, Corpus Christi, Christchurch, Trinity, St John Baptist’s, Jesus, Wadham, Pembroke, Worcester and Hertford. The halls are Alban, Edmund, St Mary’s, New Inn and St Mary Magdalen. The most ancient is University College founded before the year 872. Queen’s College resembles the Luxemburg Palace at Paris. Its west wing was destroyed by fire in 1778. New College has a beautiful chapel with painted glass windows. The cathedral belongs to Christ-church college which was begun by Cardinal Wolsey and finished by Henry VIII. The most distinguished libraries are those of

Clarendon Building, Oxford

All-Souls, New College, Christ-church, St John’s, Exeter, Corpus Christi and the Bodleian. Among other public buildings are the theatre, the Ashmolean Museum, the Clarendon printing house The Radcliffe infirmary and a fine observatory. All travellers agree in confessing there is not such another group of buildings nor such another university in the world. Magdalen Bridge is 526 feet long and of beautiful architecture. At Oxford king John , compelled by his barons, summoned a parliament to meet in 1258 the proceedings of which were so disorderly that it was known generally by the name of the ” mad parliament.” When Henry VIII suppressed the monasteries among the new Bishoprics he then erected was that of Oxford. Charles the first assembled a parliament in this city, in 1625 in consequence of the plague then raging in London; and in 1644 he summonsed such of the members of both houses as were devoted to his interests. This city was remarkably attached to that unfortunate king who here held his court during the whole civil war. It is governed by a mayor and corporation dependent upon the chancellor and vice-chancellor of the university.

And then suggests inns: Kings Head, Royal Oak, London Hotel.

Where possible, period engravings are included.

Even if you’re not reading Jane Austen’s divine novels, I think you’ll find some adventure, traveling through her country. Take a look.

To anticipate Jane Austen week here at Risky Regencies, I’m offering a Republic of Pemberley 2014 Amiable Rancor calendar to someone who comments on this post.

Posted in Risky Regencies | 10 Replies

Undressing Mr. Darcy! Karen Doornebos shows you how…

Updated on December 11, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Next week it’s all Austen all the time here at the Riskies as we celebrate Jane’s birthday (December 16) so we have a special guest to get you in the mood. We invited Karen Doornebos to talk about her release UNDRESSING MR. DARCY.
As an ice-breaker to each leg of my Blog Tour for UNDRESSING MR. DARCY, I’m taking you along for a ride to England, where I traveled during the summer of 2012 to do some research for the book.

Where am I on this stop? Today I’m providing you a smattering of some of my London shots that inspired, but didn’t make it directly into the book. Since I’m visiting Risky Regencies here, I thought you’d enjoy the pub sign for Ye Olde Cock Tavern, for obvious, middle-grade humorous reasons! I went into Fortnum & Mason, but my heroine’s friend Sherry, didn’t, and bemoaned the fact that my heroine wouldn’t let her! She certainly missed out.

He’s an old-fashioned, hardcover book reader who writes in quill pen and hails from England. She’s an American social media addict. Can he find his way to her heart without so much as a GPS?

You can read the first chapter here!

Buy now at Berkley Penguin – Indiebound – Amazon – B&N – Kobo – BAM – iTunes

I’d like to thank you, Janet, for having me back at Risky Regencies!

I learned from your bio that you used to work in advertising, and I’m wondering whether that inspired your heroine Vanessa Roberts. Do you identify with her?

Vanessa works in PR, that infinitely more glamorous cousin of advertising. PR girls get to go to all the galas, fundraisers and schmooze the media with wining and dining. But yes, working in the ad world did in part inspire Vanessa’s character. In the worlds of both advertising and PR, everything is very fleeting, deadlines are looming multiple times per day, and you’re always busy. Too busy. Work doesn’t stay in nice tidy boundaries, but overflows into nights and weekends. Since Vanessa is an * older * heroine at thirty-five, it made sense that her busy-ness would have distracted her from falling in love and settling down. I identify with Vanessa career-wise, but I happened to have gotten married at age twenty-six and had two kids by the time I was her age of thirty-five!

One thing I loved about the book was watching Vanessa become a Jane Austen fan. What was your Jane Austen journey?

Thank you, Janet, I’m so glad you enjoyed her coming around to the Jane side! Here was my journey: read about Mr. Darcy at age sixteen; smitten for life. Seriously, though, my journey to appreciating Austen was much more typical than Vanessa’s. P&P was assigned in high school, and I have to say, I really did fall for Darcy within Austen’s first few lines about him, but of course, she deliberately hooked us all. I became an English major, read more of Austen, but I have to say I didn’t come out of the Austen closet until the 1995 version of P&P and then the Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant version of Sense & Sensibility. I discovered Republic of Pemberley online and had already, by 1997, had the beginnings of my first book, DEFINITELY NOT MR. DARCY, written. By 2008 I had joined the Jane Austen Society of North America…and felt like I had found my tribe!

You include real places and real people, including events and speakers at JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America) conferences. What’s your best JASNA experience?

I have to say my best JASNA experience happened to be my first in 2008, but they have all been great, really. The first conference I attended was in Chicago, my hometown, and I presented a larger than life academic poster called How Not to Write a Jane-Austen Inspired Novel that you can see on my website here. But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part happened to be joining in on the Regency promenade and then, without any lessons, getting pulled onto the ballroom dance floor. Janeites are all very friendly!

On your research trip last year did you learn anything about London that surprised you?

I learned that London is still one of my top three places in the world. I didn’t really know that until I went back. What surprised me was that I promised myself another return trip very soon because I didn’t get to do everything I wanted—restored Globe Theatre, anybody?! I also wanted to try and find Benedict Cumberbatch.

(Hmmm. She’s not telling us whether she did or not!) Who is your dreamteam cast for the movie version of the book?

I’ll be dating my * old * self here, but I always saw Julia Roberts as Vanessa…hence the name Roberts. She’s a little too old to be playing a thirty-five year old, though. I could see Henry Cavill as Julian, although he needs to be a little older! Hugh Grant would be wonderful if he were a little younger. Johnny Depp could still play Chase!!!

What do you think is the enduring appeal of Mr. Darcy and P&P?

Janet, I wrote an entire essay on that subject for the January 2012 issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine. It boiled down to the vast size of Mr. Darcy’s…library! Seriously, though, Darcy is an avid reader, with a large and growing library. As I say in UNDRESSING MR. DARCY, he’s the smart girl’s pin-up boy. How clever of Austen to snare her female readers with a man who values reading! Nothing better than the image of a gorgeous specimen of a man reading a book on the settee!

What are you working on next?

Laundry. Frantically getting ready for Christmas! Really, I have to say that once again I have too many ideas for my next project. I need to get serious about which one is worthy. Not sure yet. They’re duking it out in my head.

WIN!

Risky Regency readers, comment below for your chance to win one of TWO copies of UNDRESSING MR. DARCY. What do you think makes Darcy so enduring and…sexy?

To increase your chances of winning you can share this post on your Facebook page or Twitter via our nifty Rafflecopter widget and enhance your social media pleasure by following Risky Regencies, Karen, and Janet on Facebook or Twitter. Contest limited to US entrants only.

Mr. Darcy’s Stripping Off…

His other stocking. At each blog stop Mr. Darcy will strip off a piece of clothing. Keep track of each item in chronological order and at then end of the tour you can enter to win a GRAND PRIZE of the book, “DO NOT DISTURB I’m Undressing Mr. Darcy” door hangers for you and your friends, tea, and a bottle of wine (assuming I can legally ship it to your state). US entries only, please.

Karen Doornebos is the author of UNDRESSING MR. DARCY published by Berkley, Penguin and available here or at your favorite bookstore. Her first novel, DEFINITELY NOT MR. DARCY, has been published in three countries and was granted a starred review by Publisher’s Weekly. Karen lived and worked in London for a short time, but is now happy just being a lifelong member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and living in the Chicagoland area with her husband, two teenagers and various pets—including a bird. Speaking of birds, follow her on Twitter and Facebook! She hopes to see you there, on her website www.karendoornebos.com and her group blog Austen Authors. You can also check out the other stops on her Blog Tour.

WIN!

Risky Regency readers, comment below for your chance to win one of TWO copies of UNDRESSING MR. DARCY…

What do you think makes Darcy so enduring and…sexy?

To increase your chances of winning you can share this post on your Facebook page or Twitter via our nifty Rafflecopter widget below! You can also increase your odds by following Karen and Janet on Twitter or Facebook, or, if you’re not already, following Risky Regencies on Facebook. Contest limited to US entrants only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Interviews, Jane Austen, Risky Regencies | Tagged Karen Doornebos | 15 Replies

What Not to Bare: Too Sexy to Read in Public?

Updated on December 7, 2013 by megan

This past week, my book What Not to Bare was included in a Barnes & Noble post titled 4 Romance Novels Too Sexy to Read in Public. Which was awesome, since of course that is bound to pique people’s interest, particularly people who might not normally pick up a historical romance.

And while I would like to proudly read whatever I want to in public, the truth is I am grateful for e-readers, and am happy I can read whatever I like without anyone judging me. Because while the content might be awesome, the truth is that some of our covers are pretty egregious. Just think of the original covers for two of the best (if not the actual best) historical romances out there–Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels and Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm.

Blech! I like them now, because they are so awful and over-the-top, and I seem to have shed some shame as I’ m advancing in years, but imagine how people who first bought them must have felt, and have had to explain that the books inside were brilliant, even if the covers weren’t.

The worst thing about e-readers is when you have the size magnified, because of that age thing, and you can tell someone is glancing over at what you’re reading while on the subway, and you’re at a really salacious part of the book, and you have to turn off the e-reader for a bit. Not that that’s ever happened to me.

Have you ever felt judged for the books you read?

Megan

Posted in Risky Regencies | 3 Replies

Cold Weather and the Regency

Updated on December 2, 2013 by Diane Gaston

Temperatures in Virginia dipped into the teens this past week necessitating winter clothes. I pulled out my warmest coat and thought about what a Regency lady would wear in winter.

The Regency occurred during the little ice age in Europe and winters were cold. In the early 1800s ladies succumbed to a flu epidemic in great numbers. It was called the “muslin disease,” because the fashions of the day were too flimsy for the cold weather, with their thin fabrics and minimal underclothes. Ladies were not protected from the cold. Fashion had to find some way for ladies to stay warm.

Shawls

Shawls were one popular fashion solution. They were made of long oblong pieces of fabric or were square and folded into a triangle. They could be fringed and embroidered or made of cashmere or woven into a paisley pattern.

Spencers

The spencer was a close-fitting, waist-length jacket. With the empire waists of the Regency dress, the spencers could be quite short. In winter the spencer could be fur-lined, covered by a fur cape called a pelerine, or a fur tippet (a fur scarf).

Pelisse

A pelisse was an even warmer choice for winter. It also could be fur-lined. A pelisse was a full length, fitted coat.

As you can see, winter wear also included hats and gloves as well.

What is your winter wear?

Don’t forget! The Harlequin Historical Authors Holiday Giveaway has begun. Look here for the Advent calendar and click on today’s date to enter. You can also enter my part of the contest right now. Go here.