Seton asked me to explain my “Strip Piquet” scene in The Wagering Widow.

For the one or two of you who may not have read The Wagering Widow by Diane Gaston, my alter ego, this book told the story of Emily and Guy who enter into a hasty marriage, each thinking the other would provide them financial security and both discovering that they have not a feather to fly with. Guy needs money to save his crumbling estate and the people who depend on him; Emily needs money to escape a marriage to this gambler like her father. Both turn to one London gaming hell to gamble their way to a fortune. Emily wears a disguise, but Guy recognizes his wife immediately, even though his shy, timid wife masquerades as Lady Widow. She does not know he has guessed her identity when he proposes a private game of piquet. They play “strip piquet” losing one piece of clothing for every hand lost.

I loved the idea of “strip poker” for my characters, but poker was not a Regency era game. For Guy and Emily, I needed a card game of both skill and chance for them to play, a game that could lead to a loss of clothing….and more.

I’d first heard of Piquet when reading Georgette Heyer’s Faro’s Daughter. It seemed the perfect game, so I went looking on the Internet for instructions on how to play Piquet.

I found several sites willing to explain the game of Piquet, a card game that has been in existence since 1650. The problem was, I could not understand any of them. The instructions talked about exchanges of cards, declarations, winning tricks, making Repique and piquet, crossing the Rubicon, a partie and on and on. Players were requires to call out their points and remember them. All the terminology was in French.

My husband is not a card player so I had no one to play the game with to try to learn these incomprehensible rules and French words, by attempting to follow the rules. I kept reading site after site to try to find one that really explained the game enough so I could make my characters play it.

I finally discovered Meggiesoft Games, an online card game site which had a computer version of Piquet with a 30 day free download. I downloaded the game, took the tutorial which actually showed what to do, and I played the game over and over and over until I felt like I understood it. I even used the computer game to provide the details for the Strip Piquet scene. I played on the computer and recorded what cards Emily and Guy were holding as they were removing shoes, stockings, dress, shirt, corset, pantaloons……

Meggiesoft Games also had a game called German Whist, a two player version of Whist that helped me understand and write the games of whist in The Wagering Widow. I was a little wary of downloading to my computer but I had no problems at all with the site or its products. Pretty soon I was playing Piquet and Whist when I should have been writing.

Madame Bisou is the owner of the gaming hell where Emily and Guy play their seductive game of Piquet. Madame Bisou appears again in A Reputable Rake, along with Sloane, who was the villain in A Wagering Widow but who becomes a reformed rake in the next book. Madame Bisou also appears in Innocence and Impropriety by Diane Gaston, the love story for Rose from A Reputable Rake.

Innocence and Impropriety is available now from eHarlequin.com in North America and Mills and Boon in the UK. If you prefer to wait for it to appear at your local bookstore, it will arrive March 1.

My websites are in transition and may not be up to date, but if you want to read an excerpt, there is one at Amazon.com.

There you go, Seton. My explanation of Strip Piquet. In Innocence and Impropriety, you will visit Vauxhall Gardens and the King’s Theatre, as well as returning to Madame Bisou’s.

Cheers, Everyone!
Diane

Jane Lockwood, Janet’s naughty alter ego, has joined up with some other writers of erotic historical romance, Celia May Hart, Colette Gale, Kate Pearce, Lacy Danes, Pam Rosenthal, and Sharon Page, to launch a new blog, The Spiced Tea Party. Jane’s blogging today, and through February 7 we’re running a contest with some great books as prizes. Come and visit!

Contest extended! Because Thursday was a day of Blogger pain, we’ve decided to continue our chat with Raelene on Friday, February 2. I hope Blogger is feeling better and actually allows people to visit.

Today we’re joined by Raelene Gorlinsky, who’s here to tell us about her goals of breathing new life into Trad Regencies. Raelene has generously offered an e-book to a visitor who posts a question or comment today only–as usual, the Riskies will pick the winner!

Welcome to the Riskies, Raelene. Tell us about the new line.
Cerridwen Cotillion is our new line of classic, traditional Regency romances. These are Heyer-style Regencies: strong and appealing heroines, focus on the manners and customs of the era, historical accuracy, period language, lots of emotion and love but no obvious sex.These stories are appropriate for both our adult readers and their youngdaughters!

The website is www.cerridwenpress.com. Click on the Cotillion sidebar banner to see the released books. Submission guidelines are on theSubmissions page of the site, along with the Call for Submissions that lists the specific Cotillion requirements.

What do you feel is the essence of a traditional Regency?
An entertaining and accurate reflection of the life and manners of the era.

How did you get into publishing?
I spent twenty-five years in the computer information communication profession, as technical writer, editor and manager. I started editing part time for Ellora’s Cave because it was an interesting variation from my day job in a computer department. It’s a lot more fun to work on “He caressed her body with his gaze” than “Key in the serial number and press Enter.” In January 2004 I moved to Ohio to take on the job of Managing Editor at Ellora’s Cave, allowing me to use my organizational, managerial, and editorial skills on a wide variety of projects. My position is now Publisher, and I supervise nineteen editors, deal with over 350 authors, manage our digital releases, still edit several authors of my own, and am enjoying this job more than any other in my life.

Your name’s synonymous with that of Ellora’s Cave and to some of us, that transition from steamy erotic romance to the polite world of Traditional Regencies seems a bit incongruous. How did the creation of the Cotillion line come about?
Well, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc (ECPI) is two imprints: Ellora’s Cave erotic romances (Romantica) and Cerridwen Press mainstream fiction. We are best known for being the leader and most successful publisher of erotic romance. But we’ve had our Cerridwen imprint for a year and a half now, putting out all types of genre fiction, especially romances.

I’ve always loved Regency-set stories. My very first romances as a young girl were Georgette Heyer. When the big NY publishers abandoned the traditional Regencies because of low sales, I proposed to top management at ECPI that we could make a success of this genre as a line within our Cerridwen imprint. My theory and hope is that there are enough devoted tradReg readers out there who are now so hungry for new stories that we can lure them to try ebooks. And we will be bringing the books out in print following the digital release.

How do you think Cotillion will succeed where Signet and Zebra failed?
We have a couple of advantages.

~ Ebooks versus print books: The dynamics and monetary parameters for e-publishers are very different from large print publishers. We don’t need to sell nearly as many copies of a digital title in order to cover our costs – and hopefully will sell enough to make a profit! So we can capitalize on smaller niche markets.

~ New concept in cover art: I concur with people who feel that the standard covers helped kill the genre. The old tradReg cover art style hadn’t changed in decades. It wasn’t very interesting, and it certainly did not appeal to younger readers or draw new fans into the genre. And the covers were practically interchangeable from book to book, making them annoyingly repetitive and meaningless.

However, the core tradReg readers have some firm expectations for “their” book covers, and you can’t just ignore them. When Kensington tried a new cover style, their Regencies looked like contemporary women’s fiction — not appropriate or effective, and it did not succeed with readers.

So we have tried to create an image that is different and new, but is clearly reflective of the historic period. Our covers are all based on actual Regency artwork (portraits in the public domain). They are therefore both historically accurate and lovely, and we and our authors think they are extremely attractive and appealing.

~ Author participation: For small presses and e-publishers, authors must be heavily involved in self-promotion of their books, far more so that what is common for category lines from large print publishers. Our Cotillion authors are a great group, enthusiastic and active. We toss around a lot of ideas for promoting the books and the line. They are out there actively telling people about Cotillion. >>

Is Cotillion looking for traditional Regency plots or plots that break the mold of what is expected in a traditional Regency?
Cotillion stories may include not just the “drawing room” Regency stories, but other elements such as adventure, mystery or suspense. However, fantasy creatures and paranormal elements (except possibly an occasional period ghost) are not appropriate for this line.

We don’t want cookie-cutter stories, we would like new plot ideas. But they must remain firmly embedded in the social behavior and customs of the era. For example, heroines can be bold and unconventional – but in comparison to what was acceptable in 1820, not what would be considered “unconventional” nowadays. And there must be appropriate responses and consequences to their behavior.

We also accept Regency-set historicals as regular Cerridwen romances, not part of the Cotillion line. Those stories could be of longer length or greater sensuality than is appropriate for Cotillion. And we have erotic Regency romances at Ellora’s Cave!

What do you read for fun (assuming you do read for fun, that is!)?
I wish I had a lot more time to read for pleasure! My To-Be-Read shelves contain over 800 books – I guess I’m a bit behind on my reading. 😉 I try to read in a lot of genres, even Young Adult. Within my favorite genres, I select by author. My current preferred genre is paranormal and vampire romances with a lot of sensuality. Right now I’m dying for the next books from J.R. Ward, Alexandra Ivy, Rosemary Laurey, and Jory Strong. I enjoy contemporary romantic suspense (but not too dark) — Linda Howard, Jayne Ann Krentz, Lisa Marie Rice. My embarrassing secret addiction is several Harlequin Presents authors — those over-alpha Australian and European millionaire businessman heroes. I also read a goodly number of anthologies — fantasy, mystery, and romance. It’s easier for me to steal time for a shorter story in my schedule, plus that way I get to taste a lot of authors.

This past weekend I had the chance to co-lead a writing workshop for some aspiring writers aged 10-12. I had a great time doing it and what a fun group it was!

But one thing that struck me was how each of the girls admitted to having been at times ridiculed or somehow labeled by peers at school and elsewhere. Hippy, goth, nerd, brainy freak: these were some of the assorted terms used to brand them as different, and not in a good way. Some of them reported teachers who must have felt threatened by the differences. One girl was told she couldn’t have spiders and cats talking in a story–um, Charlotte’s Web, anyone????

The co-leader of the workshop and I could recalled similar incidents from our own youths. The girls seemed happy to know they were not alone and not crazy (or at least crazy in a good way). 🙂 Afterwards I reflected that while my writer friends and I have, by and large, found our places in various communities as adults, many of us were somehow “different” as children. These differences were not always appreciated by either our peers or our teachers. But while painful memories can block us, they can sometimes slingshot us into the work and provide source material. It’s no wonder books and films are full of characters trying to cope with being different.

In romance we see a lot of “misfit” types: bastards (whether or not they turn out to be the Lost Heir), heroes with shady pasts, heroines who are hoydens or bluestockings, characters with physical imperfections or even disabilities. I love ’em all, as long as they are unique creations and not imitations of someone else’s misfit character.

Not all heroes and heroines are misfits, of course. Sometimes they get together because of a threat is to the community they’re both part of, or they belong to different communities. Interesting things also happen when one fits in better than the other.

Anyway, here are just a tiny few of my favorite misfits from historical romance:

• Phoebe in Georgette Heyer’s SYLVESTER: she likes horses better than most people, acts like a hoyden and writes a novel featuring the hero as a villain. Her foil, Sylvester, on the other hand, is the perfect duke, obviously welcomed everywhere.
• Lady Alys Weston from Mary Jo Putney’s THE RAKE AND THE REFORMER (a.k.a. THE RAKE). She’s a tall woman with mismatched eyes, thinks of herself as a “great horse” and holds the unusual position of estate manager. The hero, Reggie, is an alcoholic trying to save himself. It’s ironic to me that while some characters thought he took his drinking too far, it was a very socially acceptable vice. Reggie isn’t really the one who doesn’t fit in.
• The hero and heroine of Loretta Chase’s MR IMPOSSIBLE are both misfits after a fashion. Rupert is a ne’er-do-well younger son who doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Daphne is a scholar with a fascination with Egypt and ancient languages.

Having been the nerdy kid with cat’s eye glasses and her nose in a book, I know exactly why I relate to misfits. What I do wonder about is why they are so very popular. Are there really that many misfits who are readers? Or are there “normal” people out there who secretly relate to the misfit?

So why do you think misfits are so popular in fiction and on screen? Do you have any personal favorites?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com