Like many other historical romance authors, I have a fondness for outdoor love scenes and put one in my new Regency novella, LADY EM’S INDISCRETION. Maybe real Regency folk didn’t spend as much time cavorting around gardens as the fictional ones. But they could have, and based on human nature, I bet some did.
Some of my favorite fictional spaces for outdoor romance: mazes, bowers, and what appears to be another of my fetishes (along with the chaise longue): the classical folly. One of my critique buddies asked when a Grecian temple is going up in my backyard. Maybe after I buy a chaise longue. 🙂
I enjoyed the use of Stourhead Gardens as the setting for the famous rejection scene in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice, with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFadyen. They don’t quite kiss, but I find this scene very sexy.
As for favorite outdoor love scenes in fiction, I have many. There was a fun scene in a fountain in Laura Kinsale’s MIDSUMMER MOON. I loved the ending of ILLUSION by Jean Ross Ewing (aka Julia Ross), in which the hero ties up the heroine in chains of daisies.
What are some of your favorite romantic outdoor scenes, whether from books or films?
From comments on this post, I’ll draw five names to receive a Kindle edition of LADY EM’S INDISCRETION. If you win, you can also suggest a friend who will receive one as well. Comment through Friday (one entry per person) and I’ll announce the winners next Saturday.
Fall is here–officially, at least–and this season, perhaps more than any other, seems to signal a time to get cracking. So cracking we will get!
I am embarking on yet another revision of my Regency-set historial on Monday, with hopes of making its characters’ motivations make more sense (the suggestion was also made to take out some of the sex, since there is lots of it, but I’m not doing that). I’m also going to make yet another (see the pattern?) effort to step up my gym-going, since I always feel better after I exercise, even without the ‘need to lose ten pounds’ incentive.
Fall is warm, cozy sweater time, the reintroduction of hot tea into the daily beverage intake, and root vegetables. Yay!
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope you are having a great week. Mine is not so fun, since I just got back from a lovely vacation in Santa Fe (eating green chile enchiladas, drinking margaritas, laying by the pool, looking at art…) and now have to settle down to work again. But it’s nice to be diving into a new book and thinking about blogs again. 🙂
When I was trying to find subjects for today’s post, I found out St. Hildegard of Bingen died September 17 in 1179. I’ve always thought she was a fascinating woman, and I love listening to CDs of music, so I thought we could take a quick look at her life (even though she is waaaayy earlier than Regency!)
Hildegard was born in (probably) 1098, the 10th child of a noble German family. Overcome with children, they gave her to the Church when she was 8, which proved to be a blessing in her life. She was highly educated for the times, learing reading, writing, and music as a child. She grew up into a composer, philosopher, writer, healer, and visionary (she was plagued by ill health all her life, and had mystic visions during her sicknesses). She was elected abbess of her community in 1136, and founded at least one other nunnery.
70 to 80 of her compositions survive, along with some of her books (the best known is probably Know The Way), a morality play called Play of the Virtues), and books about the healing properties of herbs. She corresponded with popes, emperors, and people like Bernard of Clairvaux, and went on long preaching tours beyond her abbey. When she died, the nuns of her community claimed to see two bars of light appear in the sky and cross over her room.
Of her visions, she wrote:
But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. […] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!
This is just a quick glimpse of her fascinating (and ahead of her time) life! I really like Fiona Maddocks’s biography Hildegard of Bingen: Woman of Her Age (2001). There are some great links to sources on this page and this one too…
Today I’m going to the Library of Congress to hear Mary Jo Putney speak to the Library of Congress Professional Association’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum about her new YA series featuring a group of young mage’s from an alternate Regency world. I gushed about the first book in this series, Dark Mirror, here last May. The second in the series, Dark Passage, is out this month.
Mary Jo has been an important influence in my own writing. Years ago, my friend Helen (who happens to be the present Coordinator of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum) insisted I read The Rake and The Reformer, the book I credit with sparking my love of Regency Romance.
The Rake and the Reformer, 1989, (Re-written and released as The Rake in 1998) still appears on readers’ Favorite Regencies lists, as it would on mine. I loved the strong characters and emotions in that book, as well as the treatment of the very contemporary issue of alcoholism.
After reading the Rake and the Reformer, I promptly searched for, and eventually found, Mary Jo’s first Regency, The Diabolical Baron, and discovered Reggie, the hero of The Rake and the Reformer as the villain. (I used that device myself in The Wagering Widow and my own “Rake” book,A Reputable Rake.)
I went on to read every Mary Jo Putney book I could get my hands on. I loved her complex characters and her creative inclusion of things, like blood transfusion in Shattered Rainbows and opium addiction in The Bargain.
Another early influence from Mary Jo was her essay in Dangerous Men, Adventurous Women, “Welcome To The Dark Side.” This whole book was a revelation to me and I loved Mary Jo’s scholarly take on the appeal of a dark hero.
I admire Mary Jo for her willingness to try new things, to switch from her very popular Regencies to Contemporaries and Fantasy and now her YA fantasies. What’s even better, she’s returned to the Regency again with her Lost Lords series, as creative as ever.
Once early on in my writing life, Mary Jo spoke at the Library of Congress Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum about world building and I attended. I was so honored to be included when the Library employees took her to lunch—I had an “in” then, too. My husband was friends with the woman who was then the coordinator.
I’m expecting to go to lunch this time, too, and, I promise you, I’m equally as thrilled!
Today I’m going to the Library of Congress to hear Mary Jo Putney speak to the Library of Congress Professional Association’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum about her new YA series featuring a group of young mage’s from an alternate Regency world. I gushed about the first book in this series, Dark Mirror, here last May. The second in the series, Dark Passage, is out this month.
Mary Jo has been an important influence in my own writing. Years ago, my friend Helen (who happens to be the present Coordinator of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum) insisted I read The Rake and The Reformer, the book I credit with sparking my love of Regency Romance.
The Rake and the Reformer, 1989, (Re-written and released as The Rake in 1998) still appears on readers’ Favorite Regencies lists, as it would on mine. I loved the strong characters and emotions in that book, as well as the treatment of the very contemporary issue of alcoholism.
After reading the Rake and the Reformer, I promptly searched for, and eventually found, Mary Jo’s first Regency, The Diabolical Baron, and discovered Reggie, the hero of The Rake and the Reformer as the villain. (I used that device myself in The Wagering Widow and my own “Rake” book,A Reputable Rake.)
I went on to read every Mary Jo Putney book I could get my hands on. I loved her complex characters and her creative inclusion of things, like blood transfusion in Shattered Rainbows and opium addiction in The Bargain.
Another early influence from Mary Jo was her essay in Dangerous Men, Adventurous Women, “Welcome To The Dark Side.” This whole book was a revelation to me and I loved Mary Jo’s scholarly take on the appeal of a dark hero.
I admire Mary Jo for her willingness to try new things, to switch from her very popular Regencies to Contemporaries and Fantasy and now her YA fantasies. What’s even better, she’s returned to the Regency again with her Lost Lords series, as creative as ever.
Once early on in my writing life, Mary Jo spoke at the Library of Congress Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum about world building and I attended. I was so honored to be included when the Library employees took her to lunch—I had an “in” then, too. My husband was friends with the woman who was then the coordinator.
I’m expecting to go to lunch this time, too, and, I promise you, I’m equally as thrilled!
Like many other historical romance authors, I have a fondness for outdoor love scenes and put one in my new Regency novella, LADY EM’S INDISCRETION. Maybe real Regency folk didn’t spend as much time cavorting around gardens as the fictional ones. But they could have, and based on human nature, I bet some did.
