Category: Guest Bloggers

WHY I LOVE THE REGENCY

I write sensual, Regency-set historical romances—and I’m not the only one!  Take a look at any bestseller list and you’ll see lots of Regency authors like Mary Balogh, Eloisa James, and Stephanie Laurens topping the list.  The competition is fierce, and there are so many terrifyingly good historical authors out there, you have to wonder why anyone would be fool enough to attempt to break into their ranks.  Fortunately for me, readers love the Regency period, and are loyal and voracious consumers of romances set in this fascinating period.

So what is it, exactly, that we love about the Regency?  There are some obvious answers, of course.  The glamour, for one.  Aristocrats of the time loved to party, and party large.  The clothes were elegant, the soirees elaborate, and the conversation devastatingly witty.  And when the wealthy weren’t racing from one ball to the next in the city, they were hosting large gatherings at their country estates, where they hunted, feasted, gambled, made love, and generally had a great time until the wee hours of the morn.  These settings are like gold to the writer, providing all kinds of opportunities for color, drama, and comedy amidst the social whirl of the ton.

The Regency was also populated with fascinating characters like The Prince Regent, Beau Brummell, Harriett Wilson, Byron and Caro Lamb, Lady Jersey and the other aristocratic hostesses who dictated the social rules governing high society.  These figures often people the novels of Regency romance, and provide fascinating authenticity to the period we love so much.

But underneath all that opulence and splendour lived another England—one that was violent and dark, and suffered all the evils of poverty and a society on the verge of massive change.  For the Regency author, this gothic underworld is a rich source of dramatic conflict.  It’s especially interesting to explore the subtleties of class distinctions that make English society so unique.  And what better way to do this than by creating a hero and heroine separated from each other by social class and wealth.  Those were huge barriers back in the early nineteenth-century, ones we have trouble imagining today, and it’s so much fun—as a writer—to explore those differences. 

I came to my love of Regency romance like many readers of the genre—by falling in love with the novels of Jane Austen.  So much so, that I went on to study English literature of the Regency period in graduate school.  I specialized in the novels of Fanny Burney, and studied the theme of madness in her books.  Years later, that theme was still rattling around in my head, and when I started writing my own Regency romance, madhouses and conniving relatives, and dastardly villains soon made their way into my book.

MASTERING THE MARQUESS is the story of a woman intent on saving her little sister from incarceration in an insane asylum.  My heroine, Meredith, turns for help to the Marquess of Silverton, a man above her class, and arrogant and powerful to boot.  Meredith has always led a sheltered life in the country, but she soon finds herself thrown into the unfamiliar and bewildering world of London’s high society.  Add in the madhouse and the villains, along with the social snobs, and you have a romance that combines the glittering elegance of the Regency ton with the dark underworld of the Gothic.

So, dear readers, what do you think?  What is it about that Regency that fascinates us so much, and makes it such a great period to read and write about?

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Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of MASTERING THE MARQUESS. Entries accepted until midnight, PST.

To read Vanessa’s bio and the back cover blurb for MASTERING THE MARQUESS, please see yesterday’s post.

To learn more about Vanessa and her upcoming books, please visit her website.

BALLOON DAYS

Cindy, thank you for having me here. I am so excited. SOUL STEALER, my first book, was released from Samhain Publishing on Saint Patty’s day. And I haven’t stopped celebrating yet. In fact, it’s all been one big party.

The day I got the call from Samhain editor, Deborah Nemeth, (well, really it was an email) felt like my birthday. It was as if I had gone to bed the night before as me, struggling writer, and woke up reborn as the published author I’d always dreamed of being. Okay, that sounds WAY too melodramatic, but anyone who has ever worked at a goal for twenty years will know exactly what I’m talking about. An honest-to-goodness editor from a wonderful publishing house loved my book, SOUL STEALER.  Yep, it was my birthday. To prove it, one of those helium birthday balloons dropped from the heavens and landed in my front yard. Honestly. I don’t know where it came from, or who it belonged to, but I put it up in the entryway and left it there for a month. After so many years of writing and five years of working nonstop to get published—the day had finally arrived. I’ve got to tell you, it was my best birthday ever!

SOUL STEALER started out as a very bad writing prompt. My local newspaper posted a short story contest with the winner receiving a free scholarship to a writer’s conference. I wanted to go, but the writing prompt was about a man who sees a beautiful woman and kills her. Ewww. I didn’t think I could do it. I can’t even read serial killer stories! I’d have nightmares, shoot, I’d never sleep again. I mulled the idea over in my head and came up with a plan. What if I turned it into a love story? What if the man was really Death and the woman he comes to kill is the one woman he can’t live without? Ah-ha! The germ of an idea for SOUL STEALER was born. And no. I didn’t win that contest, LOL. But the idea took hold and I kept writing until SOUL STEALER was a completed book. I truly love it and hope you will too.

Now, tell me, what would you offer Death for a trade for more time?

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Leave a comment to enter for a chance to win an ebook of SOUL STEALER. Entries accepted until midnight, PST.

To read Kimberley’s bio and the blurb for SOUL STEALER, please see yesterday’s post. A link to an excerpt for SOUL STEALER is also in yesterday’s post.

To learn more about Kimberley and her upcoming releases, please visit her website.

RESEARCH IS FUN

My husband tells the story about going into a cubicle at work to see the ladies in accounting. We were dating at the time. The ladies asked him, point blank, if he was the model for all my romantic heroes and if he helped me research the love scenes. As he tells it, he blushed mightily and ducked out of the cube FAST!

That kind of exploration is fun. But investigating a book can open your eyes to other things too, which can be fun as well. For my recent release, KENTUCKY COWBOY, I learned about the Professional Bull Riders—about bull ropes and suicide wraps, “rank” bulls like the famous and dangerous Bodacious, and courageous cowboys like Ty Murray and the Brazilian Adriano Moraes.

Researching meant my husband and I had to take many enjoyable field trips to see PBR events. That’s me riding a stuffed bull at a competition in Nashville. How do you like my form?

Bull riding is “America’s original extreme sport” and it’s no job for the faint of heart. Like my hero Judd Romeo, the cowboys are in it for the love of competition and the love of the sport.

Come to think of it, that’s why I write romance. It’s not because I enjoy deadlines and the editor’s edits. It’s certainly not because of the money. I write romance because that’s who I am—a writer. And I choose romance because I like happy endings. Too much in life is not happy and a good romance novel can take us away for a while and make us forget our problems.

KENTUCKY COWBOY is part of my series called Bluegrass Reunions:

They thought the boys they loved were out of their lives. They were wrong.

KENTUCKY COWBOY: She dumped him in high school because he was a risk-taker. Available in various electronic formats and in paperback in March 2009.

KENTUCKY WOMAN: She had his brother’s baby, but never forgot him. Available now in e-formats from Resplendence Publishing.

KENTUCKY FLAME: She had his baby and he left not knowing the truth. Available in May 2009.

I hope you join me in Kentucky—even if only through my books. And I hope you have fun when you research—no matter what kind of research you do!

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Please leave  a comment or question for Jan to enter to win an ebook of KENTUCKY COWBOY (available formats: Adobe PDF, HTML, Microsoft Reader, Palm-Mobipocket, Rocketbook, Fictionbook, and Blackberry file formats). Entries accepted until midnight PST.

Please visit yesterday’s post to read the back cover blurb for KENTUCKY COWBOY and to check out Jan’s bio. To learn more about Jan and the rest of the books in her Bluegrass Reunions series, please visit her website.