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Tag Archives: The Wagering Widow

Janet and I (and Cara’s Todd, it turns out) have been caught in a near record-breaking Washington, DC, snowfall. I’m sure this is not a surprise; it’s made the news, but something this big cannot be ignored!

Those of you who live in places where snow is commonplace may not realize the significance of a 30 inch snowfall in Washington, DC (in my Virginia area we only managed 27 inches). We ususally get only one or two snowstorms a year and two or three inches of snow brings us to a crashing halt. Thirty inches in paralyzing.

Here’s the view from my bedroom window Saturday. We still had more snow to come.

And the same view Sunday afternoon after we were almost dug out. That’s my husband, who is 5’11” reaching up to clean the car.

Our front stoop and sidewalk are untouched.

We have not ventured out yet, but the roads remain so bad that the Federal Government is closed. (This is a very big deal here.) Amtrak between New York and DC is halted; planes aren’t flying; buses aren’t running. The only public transportation is the metro subway underground, not above.

We’re the lucky ones. We still have one gallon of milk left and plenty of toilet paper. Thousands are without heat, including some friends of ours who live near Mount Vernon.

Which brings me to the fact that this is not a record breaking snowfall. The unofficial record of 35 inches goes back to January 28, 1772, before official records were kept. How do we know that the snowfall that date was 35 inches? Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson record it in their diaries.

It’s not all hardship, though. Thanks to Facebook, two thousand gathered in Dupont Circle in DC for a Community Snowball fight.

I went on a search for Regency era snow pictures (to make this relevant to Risky Regencies). I found two. This first one is the Liverpool Mail, dating a bit later in the 1830s.

The second is from 1804 (earlier) called: The Neglected Daughter: An Affecting Tale.

This shows what happens to daughters who stray (i.e. have babies out of wedlock)

Are you in the “snow” area? How much did you get? If you were me, would you wish you were stranded in Florida, like my friend, Darlene Gardner? Do you like or hate the snow?

Check my website for new announcements and on how to order Regency High Society Affairs, Vol 12, featuring my second book, The Wagering Widow.

Happy Shoveling!

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On January 10 our Risky Regencies guest will be my friend and debut author, Christine Trent. Christine marked the New Year by finding her book on the Barnes and Noble shelves for the first time ever!

I’ve been waiting for this book ever since Christine answered my question “What are you writing” with, “I’m writing a historical about a dollmaker who makes dolls for Marie Antoinette.” I just knew that she would sell that book and here she is in her local Barnes and Noble holding the book in her very own hands.

The Queen’s Dollmaker is receiving great reviews, including 4 stars from RTBook Reviews. I don’t want to say more because we’ll hear all about it from Christine herself on Sunday, Jan 10.

I finished the very extensive and coming right around the holidays revisions for Book 2 in my Soldiers Trilogy last night at 1 am and am too brain-dead to think of a wonderfully creative blog post. (You’ll get that from Carolyn, I’m sure!) I thought I’d just show you a doll.

Years ago, my friend Helen transformed this Barbie doll into a Regency lady to promote my second book, The Wagering Widow. The doll was part of a raffle basket we made up for that year’s Washington Romance Writers Retreat. The trouble was, I loved the doll so much that I stuffed all my raffle tickets into the bag. As a result, I won my own raffle basket!

And, guess what? The Wagering Widow is being re-released by Mills & Boon in February as one of their Regency High Society Affairs series. The Wagering Widow is paired with Georgina Devon’s An Unconventional Widow in a two-in-one volume and is available for pre-order at Book Depository where shipping is free!

The Wagering Widow, by the way, was the one book I’ve written that needed no revisions at all. None. I’m just saying….

Anyway….for me this week will be catching up on all the things I’ve neglected during the holidays and my frantic revisions.

What’s up for you this week?

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Reading about Dorothy’s upcoming Five Star Regency, The Nude, made me suck in a fast intake of air. Her premise, if I’m reading correctly, involves an artist and a nude painting. The book-I-just-turned-in ALSO involves and artist and a nearly nude painting. Yipes!

How many times does this happen? We come up with an innovative plot and BOOM! discover someone else has thought of something similar? I think someone else has a Regency that deals with gossip and the newspapers, like my next one, Scandalizing the Ton…can’t remember who at the moment.

I am very confident that Dorothy’s book and my book will each be unique, but it makes me wonder. Why do we authors come up with similar ideas at the same time?

I mean, think about Cara’s My Lady Gamester and my The Wagering Widow. Both were released in 2005.

Here is the blurb for My Lady Gamester:
MY LADY GAMESTER is the story of an aristocratic card-sharp in Regency London—who just happens to be a woman.
Atalanta James is the daughter of the late Viscount James, who bankrupted his family in a single night of cards. Now Atalanta has arrived for a London Season, and seems to be as determined a gamester as her father.
The Earl of Stoke wants above all things to protect his family from the kind of gambling madness that infected both his father and older brother. Why, then, is he so fascinated by Atalanta James? And why does he feel such a strong urge to protect her from the sharks that swarm around her—and even from herself?

Here is the blurb from The Wagering Widow:
Guy, Lord Keating, laden with his father’s debts, elopes with “heiress” Emily Duprey…only to discover she is as poor as he! Now his only hope of saving his family and dependants is a reluctant return to the gaming tables. Emily needs to escape this marriage to a gamester like her father. But she needs more money than she can win as Lady Keating – so she becomes Lady Widow, a card-playing masked seductress! Then Guy recognizes the beautiful Widow as his quiet, mousy wife – and their inconvenient marriage takes an unexpected turn…

There are lots of similarities!

Cara and I are on opposite sides of the country and we have never been critique partners and yet our stories had similar elements. What wisp of creativity was in the air and traveled a whole continent and hit us both?


All of a sudden there seem to have been several Courtesan books out in close proximity. Because books are written one or two years before their release, it isn’t possible that writers were copying each other’s ideas.
The earliest copyright date I found was Julia Justiss’s The Courtesan (2005)but there are more, like Anna Campbell’s Claiming the Courtesan (2007). Again, the stories are not the same, but something was in the air telling writers to write Courtesan books.

What do you think? Do you see these waves of similar topics? Or am I nuts…..

(Next Monday I’ll be in San Francisco, a pre-conference visit with my niece. I’ll give you all a report!)


A very nice thing happened this week. Joelle, a “huge fan” (as she describes herself) from France, emailed to tell me that the French edition of The Mysterious Miss M is being released in August and she sent me a jpg of the book cover. Joelle has read my books in English and it was très généreux of Joelle to take the time to tell me about this exciting event, it gave me the idea of showing off my foreign covers.

Harlequin Mills & Boon has world-wide distribution and their authors might have their books released over and over again in different countries. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of one of my books to be released in Japan (can’t wait for that one) but they’ve come out in Italy, Germany, Australia, and now France! My Diane Perkins books will even appear in other countries-Spain and Norway.

The covers are all different, and sometimes the titles are altered in the translation.

My first foreign sales were to Italy. I remember years ago when I traveled to Italy with my friend Susan, I had just started writing romance. I searched bookstores for a romance in Italian, but only found them on newstands. I purchased an Italian Harlequin then, and now my own books have appeared on their newstands. Molto ironico!

The Mysterious Miss M

A Reputable Rake

I am supposed to receive copies of each foreign edition, but that does not always happen. So far, I have the whole set of German releases. One of the first reviewers I contacted to review The Mysterious Miss M was Kris Alice Hohls, who now is publishing a romance review magazine Love Letter. Kris liked Miss M so much she convinced Cora, the German branch of Harlequin, to release it as a single title book. The others came out in their series lines.

The Mysterious Miss M

The Wagering Widow

A Reputable Rake

I love those German covers, with all their bursting emotion.

The most elegant covers, however, are the Australian ones. In Australia, my books were released in a two-books-in-one format, paired with another Regency author. It has been so difficult to find good images of these books and I only had Lords & Ladies to scan.

The Mysterious Miss M in Regency Scandals

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
The Wagering Widow
in Regency Rakes

A Reputable Rake in Lords & Ladies

(Don’t you think the titles for these last two should be reversed?)

So far one of my Diane Perkins books has been released in Spain. This is not my favorite cover–much too contemporary and generic–but it has to be my favorite foreign title.


La Impostora (The Improper Wife)

I tell you, this is all part of the fun of being a romance author!
For more fun go to Romance Novel TV. Click on the RWA 2007 tab and on Girl’s Night Out. If you look quick you’ll see me!

Also hurry over to DianeGaston.com. Only one more day to enter my contest to win copies of The Mysterious Miss M for you and a friend.

To be a winner every month, sign up for our Risky Regency newsletter at riskies@yahoo.com (Put NEWSLETTER in subject line). The newsletter is a prize in itself!

Au revoir! Arrivederci! Auf Wiedersehen! Adiós! G’day, mate!

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