Go us!
Although I was shocked–shocked!–to hear I wrote a good old-fashioned regency. Oh, I guess they all have bondage scenes, now, right?
Janet
Go us!
Although I was shocked–shocked!–to hear I wrote a good old-fashioned regency. Oh, I guess they all have bondage scenes, now, right?
Janet
Hi, I’m Janet Mullany and my book Dedication comes out next month. What makes my book a risky Regency? It’s actually like a blueprint for what not to have in a romance:
1. Older, almost celibate hero.
2. Older and not at all celibate heroine.
3. Character who is a writer.
4. Character who is an artist.
5. The higher in rank my characters are, the worse they behave.
6. Unless they’re French.
7. And for a regency, sex.
Frankly I’m just confused by what makes a traditional regency. I always thought it meant a short book with no sex and Mr. and Ms. Middle America wearing their regency costumes on the cover, smiling idiotically. Lots of regency slang, descriptions of clothes, aristos being polite in drawing rooms, and the only balls mentioned were the ones that include dancing.
But let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
I’m gonna see if I can upload my cover art now.
Good morning everyone and apologies for this short but sweet and almost totally promotional post. I’m thrilled to announce that Dedication for kindle is now .99 cents this week only as is my other ebook, The Malorie Phoenix. It’s part of a promotion done by me and my buddies of the Wet Noodle Posse, the 2003 Golden Heart finalists who are still friends and slapping each other with wet pasta products as called for–our own Diane Gaston is also a Noodler. We have a lot of great books priced at .99 and you can read about them, and see other Noodler books here at the Cyber Book Sale. (And I don’t know about you but a lot of my cyber week shopping has not been for gifts as such. Gifts for me, yes. My kindle is bursting at its seams.)
Today is the birthday of both C.S. Lewis and Louisa May Alcott and I’m wondering whether you’re a Lewis or an Alcott fan and whether it’s possible to be both. Me, I’m a Lewis girl all the way, even though I find his sexism, his heavy handed religious propaganda, and his careless worldbuilding (if it was winter all the time, how did people eat?) just plain annoying. As for Alcott, I think she’s pretty preachy too, and I can never, never forgive her for marrying wonderful, vibrant Jo off to a German caricature, although I guess his sausage worked well enough to propel her into the final subjugation of motherhood in Little Men (has anyone read that? Don’t, please). But I never got Alcott the way I did C. S. Lewis and Narnia. She never fired my imagination or (occasionally) blew me away with her writing
How about you? Lewis or Alcott? Why?
Hi, Djenet Mallani here. I’m pleased to announce that my Little Black Dress titles have been published in Russian and I had lots of fun working out which was which–unsuccessfully, as it turns out. You can see all three of them here in their old school glory on amazon.
I can read the cyrillic alphabet but if you can’t, this is called Prekrasnaya vodova. What I can’t do is speak any Russian, other than hello, goodbye, thank you, cup of tea, please. All I need to know in any language, really. This, I believe, since one of the blurbs referred to ledi Elmherst and Nikolasa Kongrivansa has to be A Most Lamentable Comedy. The man and woman are pretty good other than floating in an odd almost heart-shaped bubble, but what is that item behind them? A rolltop desk? A primitive computer? A beehive? You tell me.
So that one was pretty straightforward. Now onto mystery book #1, Schastlivoe nedorazumenie. I believe this is Improper Relations since it has characters called Sharlotta Heiden and vikontom Shadderli. He looks like some sort of eurotrash lounge lizard, she looks like his aunty, and I can’t figure out where they are. They seem to be outside but they’re on the wrong side of what I assume to be a balcony railing. They’re teetering on the outer ledge. Possibly he’s threatening to push her off if she doesn’t tell him where the drugs are.
But it’s this one, Skandalnaia sviaz, which really confuses me. Since it stars the aforementioned Sharlotta Heiden and vikontom Shadderli it seems to be another version of Improper Relations. Why does he have a small woman emerging from his butt?–or is it a disembodied head impaled on the wrought iron thing he’s sitting on? It certainly seems to be floating her boat. Is that a lampshade to the left or are they in the fabled Amber Room of the Catharine Palace near St. Petersburg? Thoughts?
So naturally I did a search on the title and came up with this gem:
Eurovision Song Contest participant from Ukraine admitted to sexual relations with a soloist of the group VIA Gra.
Okay.
Also a link to google books and Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading.
I’m confused. Can anyone out there speak Russian? Help?
And I’m guest blogging at Lady Scribes today, talking about the new Dedication and giving away a free download, so please come on over and chat!
Now that I’ve finished reissuing my old “Three Disgraces” trilogy, I’m looking at the remaining two titles in my backlist. I’m pretty sure I want to reissue my novella “The Wedding Wager” which first appeared in the anthology HIS BLUSHING BRIDE, as it is. Although it’s different in style than my later books and may need a different cover to match, it should please readers who like sweet, traditional Regency novellas.
I’m not so sure about my first published Regency, LORD LANGDON’S KISS, which I recently glanced through. To put it as kindly as possible, I have improved a great deal as a writer since then! Some readers and reviewers loved it, but it garnered about 3 stars on the average (which is probably about right). One reviewer talked about the “increasing depth of characterization” in the book and now I understand what she meant. The first half or so could use some work.
The question I’m pondering now is whether to reissue the book at all. I don’t want readers who happen to read this title first to be put off trying my later books. If I do reissue it , should I try for a do-over?
This is the cool thing about reissues. I was tickled when Janet announced that a new edition of her debut Regency, DEDICATION, is coming out from LooseId. Not because the original wasn’t fantastic already, but because this time Janet says it will have “all the sex I really wanted to put in the first time around but which was just inferred”. What’s not to love?
What do you think about do-overs? Any books you would like to rework or see reworked?
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
P.S. Next Saturday, I’ll be interviewing Mallory Jackson, author of THE PENWYTH BRIDE, a haunting paranormal romance set in 18th century Cornwall. Visit and comment for the chance to win an e-copy!