Risky Regencies

New Book! The Lord’s Highland Temptation

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Diane Gaston

I have a new book!

The Lord’s Highland Temptation is available now as an ebook and mass market paperback.

Last year around this time I was in Scotland on Number One London Tour’s Scottish Writers Retreat. What a lovely experience! I simply had to put what I saw and experienced in a book. The Lord’s Highland Temptation is that book.

This book was also inspired by an idea I’d held onto for a while. Did you ever see the old movie My Man Godfrey? The original 1936 version starred William Powell and Carole Lombard. It was remade in 1957 with David Niven and June Allyson. A socialite passes off a vagrant as a gentleman and he becomes the family butler, with everyone in the family singing his praises–except the oldest daughter, who did not trust the man at all. In the end it is discovered the butler is a wealthy man and he and the younger daughter, who has idolized him the whole time, fall in love.

The movie bugs me every time I’ve watched it, because the screenwriters picked the wrong heroine! The tension was between the older sister and the butler. She was the one who should have wound up with him!

So I decided to rewrite that story and set it in Scotland in 1816. My Man Godfrey is a screwball comedy and my book is the sort of emotional story I always write, but I fixed that heroine problem!

This book has been getting some very nice reviews. It even received a starred review from John Charles in Booklist: “RITA Award-winning Gaston gracefully tips her literary cap to the classic film My Man Godfrey in her latest thoughtfully nuanced, sweetly romantic Regency historical. While she deftly explores such serious themes as family duty and survivor guilt, Gaston also celebrates the importance of kindness and compassion in our lives.”

Thank you, John Charles!

See more at my website.

Have you ever thought a movie or TV show picked the wrong hero or heroine?

Posted in Diane Gaston, Risky Book Talk, Risky Regencies | Tagged Diane Gaston, My Man Godfrey, Regency Romance, Scotland | 1 Reply

Regency Weddings, The Next Generation

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Diane Gaston

October will be a busy month for me and my family. My daughter is getting married! So naturally, all I’ve been thinking about lately are weddings. You might think I would convince my daughter to have a Regency wedding, but – alas! – she’s always had a mind of her own. It’s too bad. A Regency wedding would have been lovely!

The Regency was a time of great drama and beauty, a time when lords and ladies were expected to marry well, but also a time when the concept of marrying for love had taken hold. From Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer to today’s Regency Romance authors, that concept of marriage for love is what we celebrate. At least my daughter’s wedding will be all about celebrating love!

Now, I was married a brazillion years ago, long before I started writing or reading Regency Romance, but after I started writing Regencies I realized I had actually had a Regency Wedding!

Here I am with my bridesmaids. Notice that our dresses are all empire-waisted. Notice the leg-o-mutton sleeves on my dress and the puffed sleeves on the bridesmaids dresses.

Now compare these dresses to two Regency Fashion Prints from the fashion magazines of 1815.

See the similarities?

I had a Regency Wedding!

Many Regency lords and ladies married in St. George’s, the church on Hanover Square in Mayfair, London.

My daughter didn’t want a church wedding, though. She wanted to be married outside in a garden. Too bad, because she might have been able to be married at the Prince Regent’s summer home, the Brighton Pavilion in Brighton Hove.

In a room like this:

Much too fussy for her, though.

But she did want a bit more fuss than those Regency couples who married in a hurry, eloping to Gretna Green, just over the border in Scotland. Here I am standing at the historic anvil. Regency couples were married “over the anvil” in Gretna Green.
No, this isn’t another wedding photo. It is me with the tour guide at Gretna Green when I visited in 2005. I’m holding a copy of The Wagering Widow which began with a Gretna Green wedding.

Here are some quick facts about Regency Weddings:

Regency brides did wear white, but they didn’t have to. In the Regency, white gowns were popular for many occasions. Other colors like pale pink and blue were also worn at weddings. The older the bride, the darker the color. Wedding dresses were worn after the wedding, too. By the time Queen Victoria became a bride and wore white, the white wedding dress was well on its way to becoming a tradition.
Weddings could take place after reading of the Banns, a license, or a special license. Banns must be read for three consecutive Sundays in the parishes of both the prospective bride and groom. A license, purchased from the bishop of the diocese, did away with the banns but the couple still had to be married in the parish church. A special license, purchased from the Archbishop of Canterbury, allowed the couple to be married in a location other than a church and without banns. Licenses were never blank; different names could not be substituted.
Scottish weddings went by different rules. In Scotland couples could be married by declaring themselves married in front of witnesses, by making a promise to marry followed by intercourse, or by living together and calling themselves married.
Weddings could not be performed by proxy. Both the bride and groom had to be present.
Ship captains could not perform marriages. Couples could be married aboard ship, but only by clergy. (How many times have you read that plot?)
Brides had wedding rings; grooms did not. The bride could give the groom a ring as a wedding gift, but it was not part of the ceremony and didn’t symbolize he was married.

Lastly, here is a photo of my husband and me on our wedding day. Aren’t we cute?

I actually am very pleased at the choices my daughter has made and I cannot wait to share the happy day with her!

Has anyone attended a Regency-themed wedding? What was the last wedding you attended like?

Posted in Diane Gaston, Risky Regencies | Tagged Diane Gaston, Gretna Green, Regency romances, regency wedding dress, Regency Weddings | 1 Reply

Fox Hunting in Regency England

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Diane Gaston

“One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), A Woman of No Importance, act 1.

I first wrote about fox hunting in 2014, but the air has finally turned brisk here in Virginia and autumn leaves are finally turning. November would have been the start of the fox hunting season in Regency England. Pursuing the “uneatable” was a popular sport among Regency gentlemen and the fox hunting season would have lasted until right before spring planting. Fox hunting has a long history in Britain, dating back to the 16th century. It became especially popular after the decrease in the deer population made hunting deer more difficult.

Hunting foxes was once considered a form of vermin control. Foxes were notorious for attacking small livestock, but by Regency times, the main purpose of the hunt was the sheer sport of it. Hounds were bred specifically for fox hunting. Gentlemen kept up to 12 hunters, horses bred for the hunt, so they could hunt six days in a row, using two horses per hunt. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Duke of Wellington kept eight horses and hunted frequently while on the Peninsula.

Hunting was the sport of wealthy gentlemen partly because those gentlemen had the wide expanse of land that the hunting required. Others could only hope to be invited to the hunt. Unauthorized hunting anywhere was considered poaching and could incur severe penalties.

Regency times were times of house parties during which gentlemen rode to the hounds and only a very few ladies did. Ladies were encouraged to ride out with the hunters or to watch the hunt from carriages.

Fox hunting was outlawed in Great Britain in 2005 but still exists in other countries including Australia and the USA.

I love the idea of galloping over the countryside on horseback, but to chase a fox and have it torn to bits, not at all. We have a fox that lives in the woods behind us of whom I am rather fond. I understand the appeal hunting game animals, although I couldn’t do it. Could you? Do you hunt? Have you ever been fox hunting?

Posted in Diane Gaston, History, Regency, Research | Tagged Diane Gaston, fox hunting | Leave a reply

Remembrance Day, Remembered

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Diane Gaston

I originally posted this on November 10, 1914. I’m adapting it today, because….We need to remember!

Today is November 11, Veteran’s Day, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and the 101th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. In the UK and the Commonwealth, November 11 is known as Remembrance Day.

888,246 Commonwealth lives were lost in World War I. 888,246. that’s a staggering number. Can you imagine? Everyone in the UK must have been personally affected by that war.

In 2014, the UK marked Remembrance Day in a truly remarkable way. At the Tower of London 888,246 ceramic poppies were planted, one for each life lost. The poppies could be purchased for 25 pounds each and will be sent to the donors in January.

I visited the Tower of London in September 2014 and saw the poppies that had been planted in the moat so far.
You can see the individual poppies in this photo.

By November 11 the whole moat was filled. The poppies bled from a bastion window, arced above the Tower’s medieval causeway, flowed over the top of the walls and fill the moat with a sea of crimson.

The idea for this art project came from this poem:

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

The blood swept lands and seas of red,
Where angels dare to tread.
As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell,
Again and again.
As the tears of mine fell to the ground
To sleep with the flowers of red
As any be dead
My children see and work through fields of my
Own with corn and wheat,
Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting
Fields so far from my love.
It be time to put my hand up and end this pain
Of living hell. to see the people around me
Fall someone angel as the mist falls around
And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear
Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss
The flower of my people gone before time
To sleep and cry no more
I put my hand up and see the land of red,
This is my time to go over,
I may not come back
So sleep, kiss the boys for me

Today in the UK, think of the 888,246 lives represented in the Tower’s moat in 2014. Think, as well, of the 116,516 American dead in WWI. Or the one and a half million American lives lost in war beginning with our Civil War. Think of all the soldiers who have died in wars.

And honor them.

Do you have a particular person to remember on Veteran’s Day? Mine is my father, Col. Daniel J. Gaston, who spent a whole career in the army.

Posted in Diane Gaston, History, Holidays, Research | Tagged Diane Gaston, Veterans Day, WWI | 2 Replies

Preparing for Christmas…Again

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Diane Gaston

I am the lady of this house, not an exalted country house, but a respectable one and I must not dally any further. I must prepare for Christmas, once again. It is a daunting task in this modern age – 1820. There is so much to do.

Once before I wrote about preparing for Christmas (see blog of 12/3/12). Alas, this year is no different…well, maybe slightly altered.

First I must check to see if Cook has prepared the Christmas pudding. She should have done so five days ago on Stir Up Sunday. I must discuss with her all the food we shall need for the holidays, because the rest of the family and some friends will gather here and they will stay through Twelfth Night.

I should send invitations to the families near here to come for a Christmas meal. I believe I shall have my daughter write them. She has a better hand than I. Soon it will be time to send the footmen out to gather greenery and we must hang a ball of mistletoe to generate some excitement during the party.

Then there are gifts to purchase. I shall make a list and have my husband’s people purchase them in London and send them to me here. Amazon, the butler in our London town house will see to it. And I must exert myself to embroider some handkerchiefs for everyone, because that is the sort of generous person I am.

Speaking of generous, we will also make up baskets of food for those less fortunate than we. I am certain the kitchen staff and maids might take an afternoon away from their duties to assist in filling the baskets. My dh, Lord P–, and I will, of course deliver them to the families. It will take the better part of the day.

It is such a busy time!
What are you doing to prepare for the holidays??

I know one thing you can do. You can purchase my scribbling friend Darlene Gardner’s latest Christmas Romance, The Christmas Cupid. It is set 200 years in the future (2019), but I am certain you will love it.