Risky Regencies

Shutting The Bedroom Door

Updated on February 6, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Shutting the bedroom door. A euphemism in itself, it means that Nasty Sex Stuff is about to take place offstage in a book and the reader is shut out of the fun.

But not necessarily. As someone who has received the dubious honor of being accused of having both not enough sex in her books or too much (sometimes in reference to the same book) I consider myself something of an expert on when and how to shut the door. But I’m not convinced the door is ever truly shut.

So why end a chapter or section on a hook where it’s obvious what’s going to happen and then not follow through? It’s all to do with rhythm and pacing. I’m not a subscriber to the bang-bang-bang (literally?) school of writing—the theory that you have to establish and maintain a fast pace throughout the book. In very simplistic terms, it’s the difference between listening to disco and classical. You need a variety of shading and tempos; you need fast-paced excitement, slow reflection, and all points between.

It’s also about the relationship you’ve established with the reader. Have you hooked them? Is the reader willing to follow along, to be led where you want them to go; that your style and story have established trust with the reader. If you decide to leave something implied but not stated, the reader should trust you enough at that point to keep going, to imagine for herself what happens at that point. Even though it’s a romance and the love scenes are crucial to the genre, trust your reader enough to vary the amount of detail you apply to each one.

And trust your reader enough to let her enter the bedroom without you, if she wishes. That door never really closes, does it?

Here’s an excerpt from Improper Relations, which a reader told me was one of the sexiest things she’d ever read. She said it was the oyster that sealed the deal.

“Is this usual in marriage? Is everyone like this?”

He kisses me as if to stop my mouth. I am learning his kisses, their variety and hidden messages.

“I hope so,” he says as we come to the top of the stairs and he kicks the bedchamber door open.

Briefly, before I forget everything but Shad, I remember that soon Ann and I shall have the opportunity to compare husbands.

****

The next morning I am none too pleased to find that Shad has left early to breakfast with Beresford, for he and his lady came back to town late the night before. It’s raining—it has rained most of the night. During one of Shad’s half-hour regenerations (and that one was indeed half an hour for we had indulged ourselves mightily) we lay quietly and listened to the hiss of falling rain from the warm nest of the curtained bed. Beneath my cheek, my face pillowed on his chest, I heard the beat of his heart.

“Milady, the Countess of Beresford is downstairs,” the unpleasant Withers announces just as I’m wrapping myself up in the bedclothes to sleep some more.

“At this hour?”

She sniffs in reply and picks an oyster shell from the coverlet.

A reminder–The Malorie Phoenix is 99 cents for Nook and Kindle!

Posted in Reading | Tagged sex, sex in Regencies | 7 Replies

Celebration, Fantasies and Giveaway!

Updated on February 6, 2013 by Elena Greene

This week I am doing a giveaway to celebrate passing the mark of 100,000 ebooks sold. 🙂 Being a writer, I ought to be able to find the words to express how it makes me feel to see my stories getting a new life and reaching new readers. But all I can say is I’m doing the happy dance, thought perhaps not quite as gracefully as this lady!

As I look at my backlist, I remember how much fun I had writing each book. The traditional Regency genre may have been a niche that didn’t pay well, but my editors allowed me a lot of creative freedom. I could let the sex happen naturally and go as far (or not) as it made sense for the couple and the story. I could experiment with everything from a romp to a Gothic. I took my characters everywhere from the villages of the Cotswolds to the Cornish coast. My heroes were not all rakes; I could give the nice guys a chance, too.

I indulged in a lot of different fantasies with these books. It’s one of the great things about being a romance writer and reader. Even if you’re happily married, a little fantasy never hurts!

Since I’m in a good creative place, my current favorite fantasy is my work-in-progress. At other times it may more closely resemble a demon-infested swamp, but right now it’s wonderful. Much of the story takes place in the South Downs of Sussex, a spot I chose because it’s a plausible balloon-ride from London and also because I lived there for three years on international assignment. This picture shows the South Downs Way, parts of which I have hiked. My hero looks a bit like John Corbett, not the way he was in Sex and the City but the way he was in Northern Exposure.

What would your favorite romantic fantasy be? Is it based on a book or film? Where is it set? Who does the hero look like?

Comment for the chance to receive the ebook of your choice from my titles (complete list at www.elenagreene.com/books.html). Void where prohibited. You must be over 18. No purchase necessary. Post your comments by midnight EST on Thursday, June 14th. Please include your email address or check back next Friday, June 15th, for the announcement post.

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

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Posted in Giveaways, Risky Book Talk | 19 Replies

Writing, and Reading

Updated on February 6, 2013 by megan

In between work, home, and the constant urge to nap lies the writing. And, of course, the reading.

I seldom reread, but now that I have an ereader, I find myself rereading way more often than before–previously, if I reread that meant there was another book I wasn’t reading for the first time. With an ereader, all of those books are still right there, which means that if I so choose, I can switch out to another book with a literal press of a button.

So this week I reread one of my favorites, Amanda Quick’s Deception. When I returned to reading romance, it was Quick whom I first glommed (before I even knew what glomming was!). Deception was my favorite of her single-title books, telling the story of Jared, the very organized, slightly dull businessman who looked like a pirate (one eye, velvet eye patch, long hair, refusal to wear cravats), and Olympia, the self-proclaimed “woman of the world” who’d nonetheless never left her small village.

The prose veers on the purple–“womanly portal” is used more than once, and there are some parts I, admittedly, skipped. But the passion between them is delightful, and the book–and the others I’ve been reading–help inspire me to write my own romance when inspiration flags. Because, you know, it can be difficult to get inspired for all kinds of romantic frolics when the dishes have to get done.

Many authors can’t read within their own genre when they’re writing; I find the opposite, that I crave reading historicals when writing them, and definitely want to read as much romance as possible in general. There is only one author whom I cannot read while writing myself, and that is Carla Kelly, whose voice is so strong it infects mine, and I find myself writing a lot like her, which is not me.

If you’re an author, can you read within your genre when writing? What old favorites do you like to go back and dive into again? Are there authors that just haven’t stood up to the test of time?

Megan

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged Megan | 6 Replies

Pretty Pictures

Updated on February 6, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

How is everyone doing this week?? I am closing in on the February 15th deadline, slowly but (hopefully) surely, and looking at summer clothes on shopping websites as I fantasize about sundress and sandal weather coming back again. (Surely it has to be somewhere in the not too distant future??). I’ve also been following the fascinating news about the discovery and identification of Richard III’s skeleton under a Leicester carpark (that was once the Greyfriars church). So amazing.

And I finally got some of the professional photos from my Dec. 15th wedding!

It made me wonder what sort of historical wedding portraits I could find. I discovered things like Arthur Davis’s Mr and Mrs Atherton, ca. 1743 (it was originally thought to have been painted for their wedding a decade earlier, but was then given the later date):

There was Gainsborough’s portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (and more importantly, their grand estate!):

There was Reynolds’s depiction of the marriage of George III:

Queen Victoria’s wedding:

Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage:

And the famous image of Anne of Cleves by Holbein that enticed Henry VIII into marrying her–until he met her in person, then he “liked her not!” (I don’t know–I think she looks pretty enough):

And then there is this lady, Antoine Vestier’s Portrait of a Lady With a Book. I imagine she is thinking about throwing that book at her husband if he says One More annoying thing…

What is your favorite wedding portrait????

Posted in Research | Tagged clothing, Portraits, Weddings | 7 Replies

Regency Football

Updated on February 6, 2013 by Diane Gaston

This past Sunday, like millions of other people, I watched the Superbowl. Ordinarily I am not inclined to watch sports, but we were visiting my in-laws and they wanted to watch the game and I certainly didn’t mind. It could not have been a more exciting game. I had a stake in it, considering that the Baltimore Ravens are practically on our doorstep.

I got to wondering….Did they play “football” (meaning soccer and rugby or any ball games played on a field) in the Regency? The only Regency competitive sports I’ve ever read about were boxing, horse racing or carriage racing, but not team sports. Still, it stood to reason that team sports were played, at least in schools and at village fairs. After all, there is a famous quote that Wellington never said: The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Games using a ball and involving kicking have been around since ancient times and have existed in diverse cultures. In Medieval times games were played on Shrovetide, Easter or Christmas and often consisted on one mob of fellows from one village playing against a mob from another. The ball might have been an inflated animal bladder and the point of a game to bring it to one end of the field.

Between 1300 and 1600 games of football were banned in several parts of the British Isles. In 1349 Edward III banned games of football because it distracted men from practicing archery (and being prepared for war). In 1608 football was banned in Manchester because it created “greate disorder in our towne of Manchester…and glasse windowes broken yearlye and spoyled by a companie of lewd and disordered persons….” Sounds like some things don’t change much!

Except for holidays, the average man had no leisure time to play sports so the places where football flourished were the English public (meaning private) schools, like Eton, Winchester and Rugby. The English public schools were the first to codify football games, although the rules were often different with each school.