(We’re very excited to welcome Regency author Dorothy McFalls! Comment for a chance to win of four prizes–two copies of Lady Iona’s Rebellion and two magnets featuring Dorothy’s beautiful covers)

Riskies: Hello, Dorothy! Welcome to Risky Regencies. Tell us about Lady Iona’s Rebellion. (I’m very intrigued by the artistic heroine…)

Dorothy: Thank you, Amanda and Riskies, for inviting me to talk about my books! (As you already know, I’m a big fan of yours. I’m halfway through your latest, A Sinful Alliance, and am enjoying it. It has intrigue, spies, and a gorgeous, mysterious hero! So naturally I was thrilled when you emailed me about spending some time here!) (Note from Amanda: Blush. And I didn’t even have to pay her, lol!)

My current release, Lady Iona’s Rebellion, is a Regency-set romance published by Cerridwen Press. And yes, it does feature a sculptress heroine! Ever since my husband discovered his artistic side and returned to college to study sculpture, the characters in my books have been a bit more artistic. His work has been rubbing off on me, I think! Luckily, thanks to his art history classes, he’s also a great resource for my research.

When I started to write about Lady Iona, she insisted right away she was no shrinking violet. Though everyone believed her to be a paragon of virtue and, well, terribly dull, she secretly ached to step out of the mold her family and society put her in. And for her, art (which was an acceptable endeavor for ladies of the Regency) was her way of expressing herself without shocking anyone.

But when her father arranges a marriage for her, fully expecting her to happily bow to his wishes, she decides it is high time to put her foot down and assert her independence. Only, she doesn’t know how. She seeks out Lord Nathan Wynter, a handsome rake with a shocking reputation for thumbing his nose at society’s rules, and asks him to teach her to be a bit more like him.

While Iona is seeking adventure, Nathan is doing his best to reform his ways and repair his disastrous relationship with his family. Winning the very proper Lady Iona for a wife would go a long way to achieving that end. So he agrees to her wild scheme of giving her lessons in debauchery.

The more he tries to protect her from running head-long into disgrace, the more he admires her daring spirit and unpredictable antics! Instead of returning her to the obedient world she was raised in, he encourages her blossoming passions. Such a move is surely going to lead them both to ruin. But for love he is willing to risky anything…

Riskies: What was the research like for this story? Did you come across any great new sourcs?

Dorothy: Lady Iona’s Rebellion takes place in Bath, and what a fun place to research! I was able to find some great sources for the period and the area. Perhaps the most useful was the Georgian Bath Ordnance Survey Historical Map and Guide published by the Ordnance Survey, RCHME, and the Bath Archaeological Trust. The map includes the historical property lines within and around the city as well as outlines of the building footprints that are color-coded by whether the structure was built by 1727, 1776, and 1830. While writing the book I had the map, which isn’t small, spread out on the floor of my office, so I could visually trace the activities of the characters. There are similar maps available for other areas of England. It’s a source I highly recommend!

I also searched UK online bookstores for historical books on Bath and found some great resources that way. I found the Bath Historical Society wonderfully generous in answering my emailed questions about the workings of the baths in the Regency. And of course the Beau Monde and Hearts Through History chapters of Romance Writers of America came through whenever I hit a research roadblock or couldn’t find some bit of information in my files.

Riskies: Tell us about your other releases!

Dorothy: Just try and stop me, LOL! My debut novel, The Marriage List, was published by Signet in 2005. Viscount Redford Evers makes a list of his requirements for a wife. Humble tenant May Sheffers meets none of these, so why does his heart beat madly at the sight of her?

Because Regency society was really a small world, some of the characters from The Marriage List show up in Lady Iona’s Rebellion. TML is no longer in print, but you can pick up a used copy at Amazon for less than a dollar–what a bargain!!

I’ve also dipped my toe into the erotic romance ebook market, and have two very different books currently available. Lady Sophie’s Midnight Seduction, from Whispers Publishing, is a sort but very steamy Regency tale. Sophie, a self-avowed spinster, has been happy with with her independence for many years–until Lord Benton-Black enters her world. Now she finds her nights haunted by this man who is determined to seduce her and make her his wife!

Neptune’s Lair, also from Whispers, is a contemporary paranormal romantic suspense. If you like these “strange but true” pocket books that you used to be able to pick up in the grocery store checkout line in the ’60s that told about ordinary people learning extraordinary powers, I think you’ll enjoy this book. It’s worse than a bad hair day! Dallas St. John’s new lover is taking control in the bedroom, an unworldly force if threatening her soul, and she has just learned she isn’t quite human.

I also have several free short stories available on my website, dorothymcfalls.com. They’re a mix of mysteries and paranormal. No Regencies have landed there yet! Those usually bloom into full-blown novels.

Riskies: What has your experience been like with epublishing versus traditional publishing?

Dorothy: Both experiences have been pretty great! With the right editor, I have found lots of creative freedom in the e-publishing route, and through this format I’ve been able to reach some fabulous readers all over the world. However, there are still lots of readers who aren’t familiar or comfortable with ebooks. So I’ve been a little frustrated that some of my print-only readers haven’t been able to read Lady Iona!

Personally, I’m an ebook convert. I’m such a heavy reader, and the small print is difficult on my eyes. I use a Cybook e-reader (bookeen.com), which is about the size of a hardback book, and I keep it loaded with ebooks. In fact, I just returned from vacation and was able to bring about 100 books with me on the ebook reader. My favorite feature is the ability to turn any book into a large print book!

It also seems like most of the major publishers now offer their books in ebook format (which is how I bought A Sinful Alliance!). I love the convenience of that!

So, while the readership of ebooks is currently a bit limited, I believe it’s a fast-growing sector of publishing that is filled with possibilties, and I’m very excited to be a part of it.

Riskies: What is it that draws you to the Regency period as a setting? What are some of your favorite Regency-set novels or period movies?

Dorothy: I love the pageantry and the beautiful language of the Regency! I grew up in beautiful, historic Charleston, SC (a city whose heyday was during the Georgian period), and I think being immersed in that history from a young age is the reason writing Regency romances feels comfortable to me.

And I ask you, what woman can resist a rogue in leather pants?? Not this one! Sigh…

Some of my favorite authors include Catherine Coulter, Tracy Anne Warren, Sophia Nash, Jo Beverley (her latest novel has a Papillon dog in it!), and the list simply goes on and on, depending on who is in my TBR pile at the moment.

Movies? I don’t know. It was great fun to watch the Jane Austen collection on PBS a while ago, and compare each movie to the book!

Riskies: What’s next for you?

Dorothy: I have a new release, The Nude, on the horizon from Five Star/Gale/Cengage. It’ll be coming out in May 2009. This is the book of my heart. It’s a love story I wrote for my husband several years ago. It won the Daphne DuMaurier Award for Unpublished Historical Romantic Mystery/Suspense back in 2003. After a few false starts, it finally found its publisher. I’m really, really thrilled to know this book will soon be in print! And yes, there’s an artist involved.

After Elsbeth,m Countess Mercer’s husband died fighting in the Peninsula, the young widow hoped to quietly spend the rest of her days with her uncle and his 2 spirited daughters. She never expected to find herself at the center of a public scandal.

An exhibition of a painting titled “The Nude” that looks shockingly like Elsbeth has set all the tongues of Regency London wagging. This isn’t the first time the painter, Dionysus, has caused havoc in her life. Though she’s never met him, she fell hopelessly in love with him through his haunting landscapes a decade earlier. Like Cyrano using his poetry to lure a woman to love another, Dionysus used his paintings to trick Elsbeth into marrying the wrong man. She refuses to let him hurt her again, and she vows to find him and force him to prove her innocence.

Nigel, Marquess of Edgeware, a reclusive but powerful figure in the ton, has connections with Dionysus and reasons to protect the artist’s true identity. When Elsbeth sets out to find Dionysus, Nigel abducts the widow and insists she accept his help. When she stubbornly refuses, he decides that seducing the lady might be the swiftest and most effective means of diverting her attentions. Elsbeth soon discovers she is torn between the artist who owns her heart, and the man who can set it free…

Author Sophia Nash gave a quote for this book: “McFalls deftly balances romance and mystery in this masterful story!”

This was fun, Riskies! I love all things Regency, and historical for that matter, so I never turn down an opportunity to talk about it. If anyone has questions about the resources I’ve used for my research, I can be contacted through my website at dorothymcfalls.com

A few weeks ago, I saw a list of “new classics” issued by Entertainment Weekly. It’s movies released since 1983 that they consider to be, well, new classics (is that an oxymoron?). You can see the list here.

I love lists like this, mostly because I enjoy arguing with them! This list inevitably includes some movies I don’t like (Pretty Woman); some I just don’t think will be remembered enough to be “classic” (Speed, Gladiator); some I like but am also not sure they’re “classic” (Office Space, Napoleon Dynamite). And then there are some I totally agree with (Room With a View, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost in Translation, This is Spinal Tap, Moulin Rouge). And, of course, some glaring omissions (no Shakespeare in Love? No Princess Bride? No Babe??)

Anyway, it made me think–what would a list of the “classics” of romance novels look like? What would be the criteria? I suppose there could be books that sort of defined the genre (Heyer, natch; The Flame and the Flower, Whitney My Love). There could be books readers still remember and talk about, long after they first read them. Ones that help break out new sub-genres in a bigger way (like paranormal, or chick-lit). It could be anything, really, and every reader’s list would be different. Just like lists of “classic” movies.

My own list would be not only the books I keep, but ones I re-read and think about long after my first encounter with them. Some of these would be:

Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels
Laura Kinsale’s For My Lady’s Heart and Shadowheart
Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You
Mary Balogh’s Thief of Dreams and Christmas Bride
Taylor Chase’s Heart of Deception
Judith Ivory’s Sleeping Beauty and her Judy Cuevas book Dance
Carla Kelly’s Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand
Mary Jo Putney’s Shattered Rainbows

I do re-visit all of these, despite my TBR mountains. I guess that makes them my own “classics” of the romance genre.

What would your classics be?

Something occurred to me today.

I can understand collecting pristine, unused stamps — keeping them safe, away from light, and only looking at them now and then.

And I can understand collecting postcards which have never been sent, never manhandled or crushed or stained in the mail.

I can even understand keeping collectible action figures in their original, unopened packages. (My Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde action figures are still in theirs, though I have very nearly decided to let them free so they can run about the house and nibble on erasers and whatever else unsupervised action figures do…)

But for some reason, I am quite disturbed by the thought of books remaining untouched and unread so that they keep their value.

To me, an antique book with pages that have never been cut, and must never be cut (to keep the value high), is like a bottle of fine wine which is kept so long it spoils. It just seems wrong.

I’m not certain if there’s a logic behind this feeling of mine, or only my emotional attachment to reading. After all, why not have an unblemished first-edition on the shelf, and read a cheaper, battered copy?

And am I being hypocritical? After all, I have on occasion read a library copy of a book I own, to keep mine in tip-top shape. (Or, as tip-top shape as my books are ever in. I do try, but I’ve moved too many times to keep the dust jackets perfect.)

So…what do you think? Do you approve of can’t-be-read collectible books? Do you ever read cheaper/newer/library copies to keep your treasured books in good shape?

All answers welcome!!!

Cara
Cara King, who thinks people should feel free to read a first-edition copy of MY LADY GAMESTER anytime they wish

CONGRATULATIONS

to

Sara Lindsey

who has won a copy of Nicola Cornick’s THE LAST RAKE IN LONDON

and

Gillian Layne

who has won a copy of Nicola Cornick’s UNMASKED.

Please email riskies@yahoo.com to claim your prizes.

The Riskies

(The Riskies welcome HQn/Harlequin Historicals author Nicola Cornick for the first time to the blog! Be sure and comment for the chance to win a copy either of Unmasked or The Last Rake in London. Yes, it’s a two book giveaway this week…)

Riskies: Welcome to the blog, Nicola! Tell us about Unmasked (I love the Russian heroine…)

Nicola: Thank you so much for inviting me to visit Risky Regencies today! I’m so excited to be here.

Unmasked is a story about friendship and liberty as well as being (I hope!) a very tender and passionate love story. The heroine, Marina Osborne, was born a Russian serf in the house of a British diplomat, the Earl of Rashleigh, in St. Petersburg. He educated her as an experiment and brought her up to be an English lady, but when he died and his son inherited, the new earl forced Mari to make an unholy agreement–she had to become his mistress to buy her family’s freedom from serfdom.

When the story begins, Rashleigh has just been murdered and Mari is the prime suspect. She has come to England and re-invented herself as a respectable widow living in the Yorkshire countryside, but there are so many secrets in her past that it seems impossible she can escape them. The earl’s cousin, Major Nick Falconer, is sent to try to uncover the truth about the murder. Nick is a soldier, as honorable as his cousin was evil. As he starts to discover the truth about Mari he is hugely attracted to her and desperate to help her heal, and she is equally desperate to keep her secrets while at the same time she wants to trust Nick–and is falling in love with him.

It’s a very tender and moving courtship, and I hope readers find it moving, too. I should add, though, that I have leavened the story with some of the humor I always like to put in my books. For example, Nick suspects Mari of being the leader of the Glory Girls highway-women. But then he sees her fall off a horse because she is such a poor rider, and he realizes his assumptions about her might be quite wrong!

Riskies: LOL! Where did you get the initial idea for this story? Was there anything interesting or unusual you came across in the research?

Nicola: The year 2007 was the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in the British Isles, and it was that that gave me the idea for the book. I knew that I wanted to write a story about slavery and freedom, and how being a slave would affect a person’s feelings about themselves and their identity.

The research into the slave trade was fascinating and horrifying. Even though the trade was abolished in 1807, existing slaves were not freed until there was further legislation in 1833. Nor did abolition stop the trade. Some captains who still traded in slaves would throw them overboard to avoid fines if they were in danger of being caught by the Navy.

Riskies: And we always have to ask–what is “risky” about this book?

Nicola: There are a couple things about the book I think are risky. First, it features a group of highway-women, and I know that not all readers like heroes or heroines who break the law. I hope that with the Glory Girls I have demonstrated why they feel so passionately about injustice and inequality, and feel moved to break the law in order to right some of the wrongs in society.

Second, the book has a very strong theme of slavery and abuse, and I know that with such a powerful and emotive subject there is always the possibility of upsetting readers who might have strong views on the subject themselves. So I hope I have dealt with this very sensitively in the story.

Riskies: How did you get started writing? What draws you to the Regency as a setting?

Nicola: I started writing when I was at college, and I used to read chapters of my books to my friends over late night cups of coffee as an antidote to our studies! One of my friends swears she is still in love with the hero of my very first book, True Colors, because he made such an impression on her at the age of 18!

I’ve always loved the Regency period. I find it a fascinating period of history with a glittering world of privilege at one end of the social spectrum and a desperate fight for survival on the other. It feels like a complicated and dangerous society in which to live, and it’s great to be able to set a book against those contrasts.

Like so many other readers, I was introduced to the Regency period via the works of Georgette Heyer. My grandmother recommended her books to me, and I was so entranced I read my way through all of them. From there, I moved on to UK Regency authors such as Sheila Walsh and Alice Chetwynd Ley, whose books I adore. I read every Regency-set book I could get my hands on until I ran out! Then I discovered that US authors also wrote Regency historicals, and I was a very happy reader.

Riskies: Does living in the UK have a large influence on your work?

Nicola: Living in the UK is very useful in the sense that the history is all around me, and that is very inspiring. I like to visit historic towns such as Bath, soak up the atmosphere and the architecture, and visit the museums. Stately homes are also a huge source of inspiration to me–I work as a guide at Ashdown House, which is one of the most beautiful houses in the country. The stories associated with those places are a wonderful source of ideas.

On the other hand, so much of writing is about creativity and imagination, and I don’t think one has to be based in a particular place for the imagination to spark. Some of the best historical romances I’ve ever read have been written by US-based authors and Australian authors who have the excitement and energy and creativity in their writing to make the period really live.

Riskies: You have another book on the shelves recently–The Last Rake in London! I see it has an unusual setting. Tell us about this story!

Nicola: Thank you for asking about TLRIL, and giving me the opportunity to mention my lovely hero, Jack Kestrel. He does seem to be a bit of a hit with readers!

Harlequin Mills & Boon asked me to write an Edwardian-set book as part of their centenary celebration this year. This was quite a challenge for me, as I hadn’t studied that part of history since I was at school. But when I did my research I realized what an interesting era the Edwardian period was, and I wondered why there aren’t more books set in that time. I loved the fact that we were entering the modern period, and there were elements of the period still recognizable today, such as the London Underground, and that there were cars on the streets and the King using the telephone to call up and his friends and tell them he was coming to visit! The potential it gave for the story was enormous. My heroine, Sally Bowes, is the owner of an exclusive London nightclub, and Jack, the last rake of the title, is a self-made businessman, as well as the descendant of the Duke of Kestrel.

Riskies: I also read that one of your favorite historical heroines is Anne Boleyn! She’s also a great favorite of mine (Amanda’s). What draws you to her story? Are there any other historical women you admire?

Nicola: It’s great to meet another admirer of Anne Boleyn! I think she is a fascinating character. I love strong heroines, so what draws me to her is probably that she was such a strong woman at a time when women’s roles and positions were even more constricted than in the Regency. She was brave, she was clever, and she was evidently enormously charismatic. I have a very powerful sense of justice and hate the fact that she was brought down on the basis of false evidence. She would be one of my dream dinner party guests–I would love to meet her!

When I was studying for my MA in Public History we discussed the fact that women are absent in so much of recorded history, not because they did nothing but because, as Anne Elliot says in Persuasion, history was largely written by men! So it is great to find female role models to admire.

Another of my heroines is Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Winter Queen. We tell her story at Ashdown House. After she and her family were exiled from Bohemia in 1620 and her husband died, she brought up her 10 children alone and acted as a focal point for those loyal to the restoration of her son’s ancestral lands. She was another strong and charismatic woman.

Riskies: And what is next for you?

Nicola: I’m currently working on the second book of a trilogy that is linked to Unmasked and features some of the same characters. The first book in the series, Confessions of a Duchess, will be out next summer from HQN Books. I’m also finishing a short story for Harlequin’s new “Undone” e-book series, which will be on sale in November. And I have a first-person Regency coming out in the spring form Harlequin Historicals. It’s based on the classic story Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, and was lots of fun to write!