Happy 2012, everyone! I have a feeling this is going to be a good, healthy, happy year. I am starting off today getting ready to turn in the WIP (just doing a final smoothing-out, taking care of little details look before it goes winging off through cyberspace to London). Wish me luck!

This has been a very different project for me, as it’s the last of 8 books in a new continuity series coming out from Harlequin Historicals later this year. (Carole Mortimer kicks off the series and I end it). It doesn’t have a name yet, but when they asked me to take part in the project they said they envisioned it as “Downton Abbey in the Regency” (a grand house, an old family mired in scandal and financial difficulties, lots of crazy things going on behind a beautiful facade, etc). How could I resist this??? I adore Downton Abbey, and can’t wait for season two to start on PBS this weekend (I’ve been trying to avoid any spoilers, but it hasn’t been easy). This project has been a very interesting one, and a good way to change things up a bit (as well as get to know some other authors), but it has also been a challenge for a pantser writer like me. Often I have no idea what is going to happen in a story until I am writing it, but I had to be far more organized with this story, following plots that were already set up and trying to be true to other writers’ characters.

I hope it has all turned out okay (fingers crossed!). Then it is on to the next project…

In the meantime, as I frantically get on with editing, let’s look at some pretty. I confess, one of the big reasons I love Downton Abbey (besides the fact that I would sit and watch Maggie Smith be a sarcastic Dowager Lady Whatever for days) is the costumes. The Edwardian period is one of the very prettiest for fashions (IMO) and they’ve done a fabulous job. So here are a few favorites, plus a Vogue pic of the 3 sisters (which shows that Edith is not really so plain after all…)

Have you been watching DA? What do you think of it? And do you like to read continuity series in romance???