As anyone who’s paid even passing interest to my posts lately knows, I’ve just moved. After 13 years of being in the same apartment.

So writing? No, not so much lately.

But I have set up my office, sort of; when Amanda was visiting, she helped me lug boxes of research and Regency books up to the second floor, where I sit typing now. Last week, I managed to get them onto the shelves.

I have a lot of books, especially for someone who admits she’s not much of a researcher. What I do get from my vast collection, however, is inspiration; for example, I have a book I snagged from my dad’s even vaster collection:

The Hell-Fire Club by Donald McCormick

I haven’t even opened it (mostly ’cause it smells funny, the way old paperbacks do), but how inspiring is it, even from the cover? The top line on the book reads “The Weird Story of the Amorous Knights of Wycombe.” Come on, how awesome would it be if one of our heroines snuck into the Hellfire Club? Or the hero was a member?

I also have on my shelf a book I’ve mentioned here before, the Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low (do you smell a trend? Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be writing about a traditional debutante and her Season anytime soon. My new agent likes it that I’m edgy, which is cool).

Another book that will be way useful, when I actually open it, is The Great North Road by Frank Morley, which my dad (my research partner) left notes in after writing me a huge document on all roads leading to London (I am writing a “Road To . . .” series, so my characters are traveling to and fro).

Mostly, though, I sit here and look up and smile because the two shelves look like they belong to a Regency Author’, which is what I am.

What are your favorite history books? Besides the Regency, which are your favorite periods to know about?

I’ve been brainstorming about names for a week or two, in between heat waves and book binges and headaches and out-of-town visitors.

I like finding the right sound for a character name, but I also like playing with connotations. In MY LADY GAMESTER, I named the hero’s somewhat immature, rather weak younger brother Edmund — hoping to draw on memories of either the Edmund in THE LION, THE WITCH & THE WARDROBE, or the one in MANSFIELD PARK (or both).

On the other hand, the heroine’s younger brother was Tom. As opposed to Edmund, Tom was boyish, energetic, and none too sophisticated.

But right now, I’m figuring out names for my work in progress, which is a young adult novel (and, eventually, a loosely-linked series of young adult novels.) The first one has a lot of minor characters, so I need to find names which are memorable, distinct, and sound like the character they represent. And, if I’m lucky, the social group the character belongs to!

See, in the modern-day high school where my story takes place, there are two basic social groups I’m dealing with:

1) the group which, for lack of a better term, I’m currently calling the POPULAR KIDS, who are high-achieving, good-looking, athletic kids from well-to-do families; and

2) the group which for convenience sake I’m calling the NERDY KIDS, who are brainy and studious and come from more varied backgrounds than group #1.

However, I’m having a little bit of difficulty, so…if you could all help me out a bit, I’d really appreciate it!!! Could you let me know, on first seeing each of the following girl’s names, which of the above two groups you would expect them to belong to? (Knee-jerk reaction here.)

Gretchen
June
Harmony
Nia
Wren
Jena
Wynne
Jazz
Tabitha
Holly
Wenda
Hope
Ivy
Jasmine
Winter
Jenny

Thank you all SO much!!!!

Cara
Cara King, who hated her hard-to-spell-or-pronounce name as a kid

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