It’s Kismet!
The winner of my DVD 1815 The Battle of Waterloo is…….
Susan Wilbanks!
Congratulations, Susan. Email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your snail mail address.
It’s Kismet!
The winner of my DVD 1815 The Battle of Waterloo is…….
Susan Wilbanks!
Congratulations, Susan. Email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your snail mail address.
My beeyoutiful Pink laptop is on the fritz. No documents lost, thank heaven, but it is doing very weird things with my browsers and anything to do with the internet. So I’m working on my old stand-by, the $400 Acer the pink laptop replaced. This Acer just keeps on ticking! My husband (a computer guy) has been working on the pink laptop all weekend.
So I got to wondering what the Regency equivalent to a broken laptop would be. A heroine who could not write a note, perhaps?
Here’s my scenerio. My heroine is out in the country. There is no time to go to the village for supplies. She must must write a note to the hero, lest he put himself in grave danger, but she’s run out of ink. What would she do?
Or she’s run out of writing paper. Where would she get paper on which to write her note?
Or all her quill pens are useless. What would she do?
I’m not solving this problem (although I have a few ideas how to do it). What do you think my heroine should do? Waste time on a Monday. Your ideas can be reasonable or fanciful.
Here for your viewing pleasure is Gerard Butler (since Megan left him to me!). He stars in Law Abiding Citizen, opening in theatres Oct 18.
My Riskies Anniversary prize, a DVD of the documentary 1815 The Battle of Waterloo (still in its shrink wrap) will be announced late tonight. Chosen from all my commenters of the month.
Thanks for supporting Risky Regencies!!
Lois, you have won the gift certificate from Megan’s Celebratory Day! Please email riskies @ yahoo.com to get your fun!
Thanks to everyone for commenting.
Taming Her Irish Warrior is the fourth book in my MacEgan Brothers series. It tells the story of Ewan MacEgan, the youngest brother. Readers might remember him as an awkward teenager in my earlier books, but he has definitely grown up as one of my favorite heroes . . . not to mention how strong he is now! I gave him a heroine ( Honora St. Leger) who is an incredible swordfighter herself, and that caused some fun tension.
Riskies: You also have an Undone, The Warrior’s Forbidden Virgin! What is it about? How does it fit into Taming Her Irish Warrior?
When I was writing Taming, I was asked to do a connecting story for Undone!. “The Warrior’s Forbidden Virgin” shows a lot of the off-scene moments from Taming. It tells the story of the secondary characters, Lady Katherine and Sir Ademar. Don’t worry though—both stand on their own, and you don’t have to read one to understand the other. Still, it gave me the chance to write a bigger book, and try some new things. The character of Sir Ademar is a virgin hero, which I’d never done before. He’s the strong, silent type who has trouble speaking to women, and I absolutely adored writing him. I only wish I could have put the two stories together to do a full-length medieval book!
Riskies: How do these stories fit with your series?
Taming Her Irish Warrior is the second-to-last story of the MacEgan Brothers series. I’m currently working on Trahern MacEgan’s book now, which should be released next fall. “The Warrior’s Forbidden Virgin” is loosely connected to the MacEgans—the heroine Lady Katherine was spurned by Ewan MacEgan, and she’s not too pleased about it!
Riskies: Tell us about the gorgeous tattoo on the cover! Is it in the book?
Ewan ended up with a tattoo as well, but not in the way I expected! I wrote the book, completed revisions and copyedits, and then suddenly the cover art arrived, and the artist had put a tattoo on his upper left arm.
My first reaction was–but, but, Ewan doesn’t have a tattoo! I turned to the history books and found that Celtic tattoos were definitely a part of Irish culture, and many were a mark of honor among warriors. I sent a quick note to my editor, asking if I could add the tattoo to the hero’s physical description. We raced against the printing press, and I’ll let readers discover whether the tattoo description actually made it into the book. J In fact, I’m holding a contest with that very question next month for newsletter subscribers, and the prize is an Amazon gift certificate. Readers who’d like to join can sign up with their e-mail address on my website: www.michellewillingham.com .
Riskies: What’s next for you?
Quite a lot, actually! I’ve written a free online daily read at eHarlequin, starting November 9th. Voyage of an Irish Warrior is tied into my MacEgan Brothers series and features a few cameo characters from Taming Her Irish Warrior and Her Warrior King.
I also have a short story in The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance called “A Wish to Build a Dream On,” available in the
Then in January, I have a Victorian trilogy coming out. “An Accidental Seduction” is another Harlequin Historical Undone! short story, and this time, it’s a direct prequel (with the same hero and heroine) for my February U.S. book The Accidental Countess (It releases next month in the UK in hardback library edition, and January in UK paperback). The Accidental Countess is basically Cinderella meets “The Bourne Identity” where the hero has no memory of marrying her.
In March, The Accidental Princess is a secret royalty story, inspired by The Prince and the Pauper. Two men look exactly alike—but who is the prince and who is the illegitimate son?
Riskies: What are the challenges of moving between medieval
I found that the cultural aspects changed the pacing. Since the medieval time period is so raw and primitive, the characters can be very sensual earlier in the story. The Victorian time period is at the other end of the spectrum, and sensuality has to be extremely subtle. For the hero to touch any part of the heroine with an ungloved hand invites quite a scandal! Still, I enjoyed the challenge, and my Victorians tend to have more of a murder-mystery feel to them. The heroine in The Accidental Countess loves to cook, and I enjoyed exploring Victorian historical recipes, as well.
Today, I’m offering up two prizes for two lucky commenters—a free download of “The Warrior’s Forbidden Virgin” and a signed copy of Taming Her Irish Warrior. Just tell me–do you like connected novels and short stories with the same characters? Or would you rather have them all part of one larger book?
Though I haven’t had much time for blogging lately, I couldn’t miss celebrating the 4th anniversary of the Riskies!
Four years ago, Megan, Cara, Amanda, Janet and I all had Signet Regencies coming out soon and decided that we’d try blogging as a way to promote those books and also to maintain a web presence until we found new publishing “homes”. Although there hadn’t been an official announcement, we all knew the line was ending soon. What I didn’t know at the time was that the Riskies community would also become like the pub everyone goes to after work, a great place to hang out and have fun between wrestling bouts with our muses.
I’ve done my share of wrestling. Last summer I realized how badly stuck I was and also that I needed to part from my agent. Once I did that, I felt freed. My writing started to flow and I was searching for a new agent when life intervened. As many of you probably know, my husband suffered a severe stroke in January, resulting in right side paralysis and speech aphasia. He’s making a slow but steady recovery, but it’s a long, arduous process. For many months, I was both too busy and too overwhelmed to even think about writing. But at some point this summer the urge to write again came over me. This fall, I’ve been trying to carve out some time to write, though husband and children still take most of my time. (The house is officially a Dust Bunny Preserve.) But it’s still hard and sometimes it feels as if we’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But I’ve realized I can’t wait until my husband is through the recovery process or until I can write regularly to be happy. Many of us get caught in this thinking. Writers think they’ll be happy once they get that next (or first) contract. But whether your goal is selling a book or something else, you have to enjoy the process and find happiness along the way. Otherwise you might break down before you get there.
So go do something you love. If that’s not possible, at least make time to enjoy being with friends, like the Riskies. It’s what I’ve been doing. Though I’m often too tired to comment, I visit as often as I can, because so many posts make me smile. Here are just a few of my favorites from this year:
So thanks to my fellow Riskies and to everyone in our community. You are the lights in the tunnel.
No Risky celebration is complete without prizes. To enter the drawing for a copy of the anthology HIS BLUSHING BRIDE which includes my novella, “The Wedding Wager” along with stories by Alice Holden and our dear friend Regina Scott, just tell us some of your favorite posts this year. Or if you’d like, share something that helped you make it through a personal “tunnel” of your own.
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
