I know Elena is going to talk about Beach Reads this week. I haven’t been near a beach and I do have the reputation as the World’s Worst Read Romance Writer, (nice alliteration) but I thought I’d let you peek in on the books I’ve been opening this week.

My treat for finishing the manuscript (new title ideas: The Scandal Seeker, Unbidden Scandal, Courting Scandal, A Certain Scandal–see a pattern?) was to pick up the Wellington biography that I won at the Beau Monde Conference tea. I was enjoying it a lot and he was well into Spain when it was time for my trip to Williamsburg with Amanda.

When Amanda and I were not looking at historical items and recreations, we bought books, and it is a bit hard to say which took up more time…. Anyway, the books totally distracted me from Wellington. Then we met with Deb Marlowe and I became even more distracted by our exciting anthology idea (stay tuned…)and when I got home I started reading some books that would help with that idea like Broken Lives by Lawrence Stone, Sex in Georgian England by A.D. Harvey. (Tantalizing, aren’t they?) I read the appropriate parts of each of those books.


But since I really must be about the business of developing a new story idea and a proposal for Harlequin/Mills & Boon, I’ve been leafing through Beloved Emma by Flora Fraser (wonderful book!) and The Wheatley Diary edited by Christopher Hibbert.

This all sounds so lofty and impressive, but the real distractions have been Janet’s The Rules of Gentility and Amanda’s A Notorious Woman, both of which I purchased on my trip. I snagged the last copy of Rules of Gentility in the College of William and Mary Bookshop in Williamsburg, and Amanda’s A Notorious Woman at the Walmart near home (where we went to see if it was on the shelf).

If you have not yet purchased these books, HURRY! (Especially Amanda’s which will only stay on bookstore shelves this month). Amanda’s opening is sooooo intriguing, and Janet’s book is over-and-above charming and witty. Both books are on my nightstand, warring with the need to read my research books!

What glorious problems I’m having!

What is on YOUR nightstand?
Any good research books to share, ones I may not have purchased yet? (I just bought The Girl in Rose by Peter Hobday, about Haydn’s last love. I came across it while writing this blog!)