History Hoydens

Teen Brides & Other Age Related Misconceptions

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

A simple question on Twitter about whether readers preferred younger or older heroines led to me want to address what appear to be rather common misunderstandings about the late Georgian/Regency period (much like my Just How Tall Were People? post, I hope this will be helpful to readers and other authors who just want the facts laid out). So we go, let’s spend a little time talking about things like life expectancy and just how old was a girl when she was deemed to be “at her last prayers”?

My go to book for this is the wonderfully detailed The Family, Sex and Marriage by Lawrence Stone. It’s full of wonderful charts such as the “Proportion of children of peers who reached the age of fifty and never married” to the “Median age at first Marriage of children of peers” and the “Median life-span of heirs of the squirarchy and above who reached the age of twenty-one”.

The editor who posted the original question thought that young (teen) brides were the norm for the Regency and that “30 was middle-aged”. Neither of these statements is true per Stone’s analysis of the historical record (and seeminly large age gaps were not the norm either).

Let’s begin with the most important question: How old were most daughters of the peerage (the most common heroines in our books) when they married for the first time? Stone’s chart shows that during the first part of the era, the median age was ~20-22. Post 1750 (correlating with the passage of Hardwicke’s Marriage Act; Coincidence?), that age jumps up to ~23-24. So, the most common age for the daughter of a peer to marry was not when she was in her teens, but when she was in her early 20s, and an unmarried twenty-five year old would not really be much of an outlier.

Among the sons of peers there is another interesting bit of information: up until c. 1725 the heirs had tended to marry before their younger brothers (~26 vs. ~28). But like the girls, the median age of heirs’ first marriage suddenly jumps up until by 1750 they are holding out until they’re 29-30 (there is no corresponding change for younger sons).

The percentage of peers’ children who had not married by the time they were 50 bounces around between 15%-20% for both sexes, with the percent of “old maids" being a steady 2%-3% larger than that of “confirmed bachelors”.

Finally, life expectancy for these same heirs is in the 65-70 year range (so about 5-10 years less than today, which is unsurprising given the huge strides medicine has made in treating disease and the care of the elderly).

So there’s a little fact-based blog post you can point people to should this crop up again on Twitter (as I’m sure it will) or should a reader ask you about why your heroine is so damn old, LOL!

The Garden Intrigue

2012-01-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

I've been in the midst of Book Launch Countdown for my next book, The Garden Intrigue (coming to a bookstore near you on February 16!). There's a reason it wound up with "Garden" in the title. A large part of the book is set in Josephine Bonaparte's famous garden at Malmaison. Since the plot was so dependent on the location, I knew I had to go check it out. (Although I was pretty sure I wouldn't run across anything like this.)

Malmaison is a bit of a strange beast– er, house, and never more so than in the summer of 1804, when The Garden Intrigue takes place. As you can see from the facade pictured here, it started out as a simple gentleman’s house, not what anyone would call humble, but certainly not a palace. It served as an informal weekend place for the Bonapartes and their friends, a place where Josephine’s teenage children and Bonaparte’s younger aides would play games of Prisoner’s Base in the back yard and the entire family would engage in amateur theatricals.

The problem? In 1804, Napoleon had himself voted Emperor. Malmaison scarcely had room for the imperial family, much less their retinue. What it did have, though, was land. Lots of land. Josephine Bonaparte had the grounds at Malmaison designed and redesigned, constantly adding to her garden. There was room to build a miniature theater for the family's amateur theatricals and also to erect temporary tents to house the growing numbers of staff required to wait upon the Bonapartes and their growing retinue.

The back of the house boasted a wilderness garden, complete with artificial stream and artfully artless follies. Here’s one of my rather lopsided photos of the back of the house:

Here’s what it would have looked like when Emma (heroine of The Garden Intrigue) was partying there:

And here I am, checking it out. (Confession: I’d broken the heel off a shoe tromping around Paris, so I was forced to roll up the hems of my jeans and resort to my only-in-case-of-emergency pink moccasins. That's why I look like a little kid playing dress-up in someone else's clothes.)

I’m standing right near the spot where Napoleon’s private theatre once stood. Unfortunately, it was torn down long, long ago– but it was there in 1804, home to the Bonaparte family’s amateur theatricals. (And, of course, to a masque by one Mr. Augustus Whittlesby!)

Sadly, not much of Josephine’s famous rose garden remains. I visited in October– and the book is set in summer– so you have to imagine all of this blooming wildly. You can also read all about in Jardin De La Malmaison: Empress Josephine's Garden .

On the other hand, Napoleon’s summer house did survive. The Emperor liked to work out here in hot weather, a detail than proved very useful for the purposes of my plot.

What struck me the most about the place-- which I hope came through in the book-- was how very small and modest it really was. You could see why they had to put servants, and sometimes their guests, in tents in the garden. More than anything else, Malmaison provides a visual representation of the odd leap from private citizen to Emperor. No matter how Napoleon tweaked the estate, it could never be a truly imperial residence.

You can find the first chapter of The Garden Intrigue here.

I have a touch of the Lawrence today

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Sweet Disorder, my current WIP, is set in Sussex. As part of my research I read A Glossary of the Provincialisms in Use in the County of Sussex by William Durrant Cooper, first published in 1834. I had it printed at Third Place Books on their espresso machine. The guy who worked there did a whole comedic bit: "Why don't we stock this all the time? We really didn't have this on the shelves?"

The quote says "Juvat haec obsoleta servari, aliquando profutura. --WACHTER." Any Latin speakers out there want to translate?

Language is obviously one of my favorite things (as I suspect it is for a lot of you) so I was absolutely fascinated! (And incidentally I was able to understand some dialogue in the Cold Comfort Farm movie that previously eluded me.)

Many of them are very specific and have to do with farming, wildlife, and the Sussex landscape, like:

"BACKSTERS, s. Wide, flat pieces of wood, shaped to the feet, to walk over loose beach." (s. means noun, presumably short for "subject"?)

"DALLOP, s. A packet or lump of tea, weighing from six to sixteen pounds, so packed for the convenience of smuggling."

"JUG, s. A nickname given to the men of Brighton."

And look at this: "BARTON, s. A yard or enclosure near a house." Barton Cottage, anyone?

There are a lot of words, too, which were regionalisms at the time and have now entered into the common language: "bosky," "bumptious," "cosy," "fogey," "frumpy," "gallivanting," "grumpy," "moonshine," "nudge," "ramshackle," "skinflint," "slam," "a to-do," "transmogrify" (!), and more.And look at this: "DIBS, s. The small bones in the knees of a sheep or lamb, uniting the upper and lower bones of the leg: a game is played with five of these bones." Is this the origin of "I call dibs"?

Apparently there are also many similarities linguistically between Sussex dialect and the English of the American South! Cf. the use of "be" as the conjugated form of "to be" or "CRACKLIN, s. The hard skin of roast pork."

But some of them are just great words that I think it is a shame are NOT in common usage! Here are a few of my favorites, which I would like to reintroduce into the language:

"ARGUIFY, v. and adj. Signify, argue. To import, have weight in an argument." I really wish there were more usage examples in this book! I imagine this being used in a sentence something like this: "Clark Kent wears glasses, which arguifies that he cannot be Superman."

"BAIT, s. Luncheon."

"BARNACLES, s. Spectacles."

"BONKER or BUNKER, v. [Bon coeur, Fr. Good heart.] To outdo another in feats of agility, such as to jump better over a gate, ditch, wall, or hedge, a good heart or courage being neceassary." I'm glad he gave so many examples of things you can jump over!

"CARP-PIE, s. To eat carp-pie, is to submit to another person's carping at your acts, &c."

"CHAVISH, s. A chattering of many birds or noisy persons."

"DUNNAMANY and DUNNAMUCH. [Corruptions of I don't know how many or much.]"

"FLUTTERMOUSE, W.; FLINDERMOUSE, E.; FLITTERMOUSE, E., s. [Fledermaus, G.; Vliddermuys, Du.] A bat." The W means West Sussex and the E means East. I know that Fledermaus is just the German word for bat but I still find the word "fluttermouse" so precious.

"GAPESEED, s. A passing object to stare at. A servant staring from a window is said to be 'sowing gape-seed.'"

"LAWRENCE, s. A kind of imaginary saint or fairy, whose influence produces indolence, thus, 'I caunt get up, for Lawrence ha'e completely got holt an me,'--"I ha'e got a touch o' ol' Lawrence to-dee; I be troubled to git ane wud me work.' This person is also known in Dorsetshire, &c."

"MOCK-BEGGAR HALL, s. A house which[...]has an inviting external aspect, but within is poor and bare, dirty and disorderly, disappointing to those who beg alms at the door."

"MUCH-OF-A-MUCHNESS, and MUCH ONE. Much the same; with little or nothing to choose between."

"SLAPPEL, or SLAVVEN, s. A large piece. Synonymous with hunk."

"SNACK, v. [Snacken, Du., a match.] To share or be in partnership with. 'We'll go snacks;' i.e., 'We will divide.'"

"SNOOZLE, v. To lie close together; to nestle; to cuddle; to hide the face in the bosom, as children do."

"TOL-LOL, adj. Tolerably well."

"WHILK, v. To howl like a dog, S. To mutter to one's self, as a person does when offended. E."

If you could bring one word or phrase into common usage, what would it be?

Way Back Then – or Was It?

2012-01-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to stumble across an occasion where I’m not sure what century it happened in.

Very early one morning, I was driving down a narrow road through a national park. A brick house rose out of the mist and forest to my right. A Civil War soldier relaxed in the doorway, rolling a cigarette, his musket beside him. When I glanced back an instant later, he’d vanished – with no signs of another modern vehicle anywhere around.

I felt as if I’d set foot on a Civil War battlefield during the 1860s.

The first time I visited Williamsburg, the weather was freezing cold and the wind howled. Very few guests came that February. Traversing the old city meant dashing from one building to the next, always hoping the door would be unlocked. By the end of the day, my family was chilled to the bone and desperate for more comfort than a historically accurate slate floor to rest our senses on.

We lunged into the last house before the bus stop back to the hotel, figuring it would be more comfortable to wait there than on a bench in the open air.

Instead we found soft pastel colors and artwork, wrapped in warmth. The mansion was a beautiful house, a loving recreation of where Williamsburg’s finest citizens had once debated the meaning of patriotism. We started to happily wander its halls but a delicious aroma caught our attention.

Soon we found ourselves downstairs, in the kitchen, staring at an enormous table covered with a feast fit for a king. A turkey, a goose, and more, glowed under candlelight, more lovely and believable than any magazine spread because I could see all the little details behind making it.

And it all smelled so incredibly good.

For an instant, I felt as if I’d been transported back to 1775 Williamsburg.

When I write, I try to capture moments like those, when my senses came alive in another time period, and use them for my characters and their world. The relaxed ease of a man, his cigarette, and a heavy musket. The enormous cave of an old-fashioned kitchen hearth with its heavy pots, balanced by the food’s subtle aromas… Hopefully, the result’s vivid enough to transport the reader back to another century.

Authors, have you ever experienced a moment when you almost touched another time? Have you used it in your writing?

Readers, have you ever read something that swept you into another time?

Welcome, Sara Ramsey!

2012-01-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

Sara Ramsey is a local Romance Writers of America chaptermate of mine, so I've been conversant with her career trajectory for several years now. She's a past Golden Heart winner (two of her books have finaled), and I'm really excited that these books are now being released into the wild as The Muses of Mayfair Series (with two more to come after her debut).

HEIRESSWITHOUT A CAUSE is a Nook First pick and will be availableexclusively on the Nook starting January 23. It will release in print and onall other ebook platforms on February 23. Sara will give away an ebook copy(any format) to a random commenter on today’s post, and will be stopping bythroughout the day to answer questions.

You can read the first chapter here (and if you're anything like me, you'll be hooked!).

One title to change his life…

A disgraced son with a dark reputation, William “Ferguson” Avenel is content to live in exile – until his father dies in the scandal of the Season. With rumors of insanity swirling around them, his sisters desperately need a chaperone. Ferguson thinks he’s found the most proper woman in England – and he won’t ruin her, even if he desperately wants the passionate woman trapped beneath a spinster’s cap.

One chance to break the rules…

Lady Madeleine Vaillant can’t face her blighted future without making one glorious memory for herself. In disguise, on a London stage, she finds all the adoration she never felt from the ton. But when she’s nearly recognized, she will do anything to hide her identity – even setting up her actress persona as Ferguson’s mistress. She’ll take the pleasure he offers, but Madeleine won’t lose her heart in the bargain.

One season to fall in love…

Every stolen kiss could lead to discovery, and Ferguson’s old enemies are determined to ruin them both. But as their dangerous passion ignites their hearts and threatens their futures, how can an heiress who dreams of freedom deny the duke who demands her love?

HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE is set in 1812. Is there a particular reason you chose that year? Any keyhistorical event you wanted to include (or avoid!)?

Sarah Siddons, one of the most beloved actresses of her day,retired in 1812. She doesn’t appear in my book, but my heroine is an actress,so 1812 is a subtle homage to Mrs. Siddons. Also, the next books in my seriesinvolve bits about the East India Company, the Corn Laws, and Waterloo, so itmade sense to kick off the series earlier in the decade. And I want to avoidthe “year without a summer” in 1816 and the mourning for Princess Charlotte in1817, since it sounds positively miserable!

How did you become interested in this timeperiod? What do you love about it?

I fell in love withthe Regency through the romance novels I started reading (way too young, coughcough) – I started with Westerns and medievals and sheikhs and pirates, but Ialways found my way back to Regencies. I think the Regency is so belovedbecause it yields all sorts of awesome fantasies, but it’s also more accessiblethan earlier time periods and less industrialized than later ones. The clothesare way more appealing than Georgian powdered wigs or Victorian hoopskirts. Theparties are fabulous, the houses have more privacy than in past centuries, andthe plumbing is on the verge of getting better (yielding heroes whom you canbelieve actually bathe every day ;)

The Regency isalso interesting to me because I think it mirrors 21^st centuryAmerica – wars fought on foreign soils without a lot of sacrifice (from arationing sense) on the homefront; extreme divides between rich and poor; andodd, uncomfortable shifts between vast excess and prudishness. So I think booksset in the Regency give authors and readers a chance to think about modern lifewith a glossy bit of distance for those who just want the fantasy.

What do you like least about this period?Anything that constrained you or that you had to plot carefully around?

I don’t love theactual position of women in Regency society. If I lost my entire identity andall my rights upon marriage, I would either never marry, or find a totteringold (and titled, of course!) dude and hope for a quick end to him. But currentromance novels tend toward heroines who aren’t meek, well-behaved, obedientwives. I’m sure strong, rebellious women existed, but I’m also guessing that –like all the dukes we’ve created – they didn’t exist in the droves thatpopulate Romancelandia. I try to have my characters behave appropriately forthe period, but I’ll happily admit that my heroines are probably more empoweredthan they might have been in 1812.

Anything you flat-out altered or “fudged”? Ifso, why?

I completelyignored the assassination of Spencer Perceval, the prime minister, on May 11,1812. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it mentioned in a Regency romance, and Ididn’t know it had happened until I was checking the timeline for the book, soI decided most readers wouldn’t notice if I didn’t acknowledge it. If nothingelse, we should all just pretend that my hero and heroine don’t care aboutcurrent events J

Also, I’m sure there are times when Ferguson should be wearingpantaloons instead of breeches. But let’s face it – pantaloons just don’t soundsexy. I’d rather get flak over his pants from the people who know than havemodern readers incorrectly picture him in some sort of frilly bloomers!

Any gaffs or mea culpas you want to fess up tobefore readers get their hands on the book? I know I always seem to find at leastone after the book has gone to press. *sigh*

I found a potentialgaff just this week. My hero’s father and brother die in a murder/suicide,which the family covered up as a carriage accident. But I didn’t know thatsuicide was such a legal issue during the Regency – I knew it was a scandal,but I didn’t know that a suicide would be punished postmortem by confiscationof property. Luckily the brother was the suicide and wouldn’t have had muchleft to confiscate, but if I had known that earlier, I might have referrencedit.

Tell us a little about your hero. Somethingfun, like his favorite childhood pet, or his first kiss. Or maybe whatHeyer heroine you could see him falling for?

Ferguson startedout as a redhead, but after two different beta readers said they were seeingCarrot Top rather than Prince Harry, I yielded to public opinion and made him adark auburn. And he’s definitely a schemer – he plots to get what he wants, andsince he wants my heroine, you can be sure he’ll contrive some great schemes towin her. He can laugh at almost anything, so if a plan fails, don’t expect himto brood for long.

Did you have to do any major research for thisbook? Did you stumble across anything really interesting that you didn’talready know?

I knew next tonothing about British theatre, but my heroine, Madeleine, is an actress, so Ihad to do some research there. Madeleine plays Hamlet, and even though everyoneknows she’s a woman, the wig and costuming help to protect her real identity.The most fascinating bit I learned about the theatre was how often women duringthe Regency played “breeches roles” – either roles written intentionally forwomen dressed as men, or originally male roles given to a woman. Sarah Siddonswas the first woman to play Hamlet in the late 1700s, but these cross-dressingroles continued throughout the Regency. I had already planned to have Madeleinecross-dress at the theatre, but I was extremely relieved when my researchsupported my plans.

I was amused to see that you and I share anobsession with Robin McKinley’s wonderful Damar books (The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword), and that most of your favorites are also on mylist of keepers. Would you like to talk a little about whatmakes these particular kind of heroines your favorites?

I’m really drawn to all of McKinley’s heroines because they havea sort of stiff upper lip – like real people, they getworried/terrified/overwhelmed, but they just keep going and muddle their waythrough with intuition rather than letting all the things they don’t knowpetrify them. A lot of my life has felt like that – I may not be fightingdragons or demon sorcerors, but moving from Iowa to California at eighteen andpursuing writing were both leaps into the great unknown that I was completelyunprepared for. So I love stories about normal, unprepared women doingextraordinary things for themselves and their friends.

Care to share a bit about your writingprocess? Are you a pantser or a plotter? Do you write multiple drafts or cleanup as you go?

My writingprocess is really, really ugly. I’m theoretically a plotter, but I’ll gethalfway into the book and pants my way into a completely different ending,which requires multiple drafts to sort out. I tend to do the equivalent of 1.5rough drafts, since I have to rewrite so much of the beginning to match the newending; then I go through a polish draft and a proofreading draft. I’m tryingto avoid scrapping every beginning, but I haven’t been successful yet – ifanyone has any tips, I’d love to hear them!

The Golden Heart. I have to ask about it.Anything you want to share about your experience (I blathered about mine on mywebsite, LOL!)?

Winning theRegency Golden Heart in 2009 and finaling in 2011 were an absolutely amazing experiences,and I can’t speak highly enough about the opportunities and confidence it gaveme. It sped up the process of signing with an agent, and the week of Nationalsfelt like an extended prom – one where I was the belle of the ball, not hangingout on the bleachers with my friends (my school was tiny, and prom was in thegym...so the Golden Heart beats it by a mile).

The best part ofthe Golden Heart, though, was meeting so many other great writers from all overthe US, Canada, and Australia. The 2009 group has stayed very active, startingthe Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog, and the 2011 group has also stayed intouch. This was possibly the best way to meet authors I wouldn’t have otherwisegotten to know, and since they’re all great writers with bright futures ahead,I feel really, really lucky to be involved with them.

What are you planning to work on next?

I’m finishing upedits on SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES, which is the follow-up to HEIRESS WITHOUT ACAUSE – it should be out in March. The series focuses on a secret club offemale artists who help each other pursue their artistic passions: HEIRESSfeatures an actress, SCOTSMEN has an author, and the third book, THE MARQUESSWHO LOVED ME, involves a painter. If the audience loves these books, I’ve gotthree more in the plotting phases; if not, I’ll cry into my wineglass for a dayor two, and then finish the super-secret YA project I keep coming back tobefore starting a new Regency series. 2012 is going to be a busy year, and I’mreally excited to get my books out to readers!

Don't forget that Sara is giving away a copy and that she'll be stopping by to answer questions!

Historical Romance: The Keeper Collection

2012-01-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I stop reading romance. I have to, I find. Usually it's when I am in one of those moods where it doesn't feel like the stories could possibly ever really happen---no man is ever that much of a hero and no heroine is ever that beautiful and plucky, or resilient, or brave, or smart...

So I try other kinds of fiction for a while and usually come to a sad place where I feel like I might have "outgrown romance" ---as a reader and a writer.

Then I stop writing romance for a while. I can't find my muse, can't find the time, or frankly, I start feeling like I just "don't feel the love" for romance...if you know what I mean.

But then out of the blue, something happens and I snap out of it. I read a book that fires me up and excites me, keeps me thinking about it long after I've finished that last page. This time that book was published a decade ago, but one that I have only just discovered and will certainly put in my "Keeper Collection."

The book is FLOWERS FROM THE STORM, written by the wonderful historical romance writer Laura Kinsale.

Wow. What a story. A rakish duke, felled by a stroke and plotting family, is seriously handicapped and angry---and rescued by a Quaker heroine, one who is not so beautiful and who's good at math. This book is 533 pages long and steeped in conflict and characterization and in deep emotion. These amazing characters drove the story in a way that was so plausible, so real I felt for them.

And kudos to Ms. Kinsale for the incredible amount of research that made that book transport me back in time---to a place where stroke victims were thought to be lunatics because they could not understand, be understood or speak, and were often sent to an insane asylum. The author's careful attention to inheritance law, and to the facts surrounding the Quaker movement in England and yes, to the academic study of mathematics at that time is so apparent and so well done.

For a few hours on New Years Eve in 2011, right into the first few hours of 2012 I sat there reading FLOWERS FROM THE STORM, lost in the time and place, caught up in the lives of these two people (who were soooo meant to be together). I read until 2am. That doesn't happen too often. This was a book I could not put down.

What a way to ring in the New Year!

I'm back on the romance writting (and reading) wagon again. Glad to have found an old book that gave me a new, renewed enthusiasm for a genre I will always love. I will always be a fan, I know.

Has anyone had read one a "keeper" romance lately that got you going again after a dry spell? I'd love to hear about it. I want more!

The Younger Set

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

My daughter Mélanie turned four weeks old yesterday. It's hard to believe it's already been four weeks, but at the same time it's already difficult to remember there was ever a time when she wasn't a part of my life. Of course babies and children are much on my mind. When I got back to writing - the week between Christmas and New Year's, well before I thought I'd be able to - I found myself tending to have the heroine remember when her son (who is a two-year-old in the book) was a newborn. I can already see that Mélanie is going to influence my writing. Yet though this will be the first book I've written as a mother, there've been children in every book I've written, going back to the Regency romances I wrote with my own mom. I even wrote one book where the heroine gave birth - I've rarely done research which later proved so relevant to my own life.

I've always liked children in books. Georgette Heyer has some wonderful young characters, from Charles Rivenhall's young siblings in The Grand Sophy to Jessamy and Felix in Frederica to Edmund in Sylvester. All of them are interesting, well-rounded characters in their own right, and they also serve as interesting foils for the heroes and heroines, bringing out different sides of their personalities, creating conflict, and giving them common cause. They can cut right through the elaborate formality of an aristocratic historical setting, as Felix does with his talk about his scientific experiments and cheerful disregard for protocol.

Lauren has a wonderful pair of children in The Orchid Affair. They can be said to bring the heroine and hero together, in that the hero is their father and the heroine becomes their governess, but the children, particularly the girl, who is older, are far from fostering any developing romance. Watching the children, and their relationship to both their father and the heroine, grow and change is one of the delights of the book. The children add moments of humor and also raise the tension as the hero's enemies threaten his children as well.

What are some of your favorite child characters in books? Writers, do you like writing about children? What elements do you think they bring to a story?

Anatomy 101: The Hymen (revisited)

2012-01-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Over at SmartBitches, Sarah has a lovely rant on this topic, so I thought I'd dredge up and repost the one I did back in 2006. I'm really happy to see that others agree with me on this topic, and I'm glad to see it reaching a wider audience. I'd like to recommend a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves to every woman out there. Seriously, we should all own a copy of this book. It should be handed out in health classes in junior high.

The original post

Contrary to what appears to be popular mythology (at least among the writers of romance and erotica) the hymen is not a “barrier” (except in RARE cases that require surgery; 1 in 2000 per Blaustein's Pathology of the Female Genital Tract) nor is it up inside the vaginal canal as it is commonly represented to be in fiction.

It’s a tiny bit of sensitive skin that usually runs along the sides and bottom (along the perineum) of the vaginal opening. Yep, right there on the outside, and it only disappears when a woman gives birth (so it’s not a reliable method of verifying chastity). Fingers, tampons, and usually penises will slide right past it without disturbing it in the least (less than half of all women surveyed report bleeding resulting from their “first time” per Forensic Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects).

This being the case, when a woman has intercourse for the first time the man is not going to encounter some tell-tale barrier membrane that he has to burst through, and even if it were, it would prevent him from inserting his penis at all, he wouldn’t be part way in and then feel it.

I’m tired of encountering anatomically impossible deflowering scenes, so today’s post is my blow for physical accuracy. Am I the only one out there who is amazed that women can be so ignorant about their own bodies? Am I the only one disturbed that editors don’t catch this? I mean come on, this is basic anatomy.

Gauchos & Gumption

2012-01-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

My new book, Gauchos & Gumption, My Argentine Honeymoon, will be released in digital format January 7th from Turquoise Morning Press (www.turquoisemorningpress.com). It’s a (fictionalized) diary kept by my grandmother, Leora Marie Banning, who as a new bride of 18 sailed off to South America to run cattle on the Argentine pampas. The year is 1910.

Far from civilization, Marie struggles to adjust to the rough life of the pampas, to be accepted for herself, and to realize what loving her husband demands. She learns to make ostrich egg omelets, converse in Spanish with the gauchos, and wear “bombaches,” the baggy, calf-length pants worn by the Argentine cowhands.

Then, camped a thousand miles from Buenos Aires, Marie discovers she is pregnant. The battle to save herself and her unborn child challenges everything she believes in.

This memoir is based on stories that Marie related to her granddaughter, author Lynna Banning, while she was growing up. The photographs included in the print version of the book are those Marie herself took during her travels using a simple Kodak box camera; these photos were later inherited by the author.

The print version of the book will be released January 22.

Below are the opening entries in the diary…

July 17, 1910

I have had a disaster, of all things. This morning old Mr. Strader’s new buggy and that horse he’s so proud of ran away with him on the way to town. I was just starting across the Floras Creek bridge when I heard it coming and saw Mr. Strader, his eyes wild, hauling on the reins and yelling, “Get out of the way, ya damn fool!”

Well, I couldn’t. The horse was coming too fast, and I was caught halfway across. I clung to the side rail and made myself as small as possible, but the mare’s front hoot caught my skirt and down I went. I didn’t feel a thing at first except for my skirt ripping, but when I tried to get up, I knew something was broken.

Something, indeed! Dr. Engell in Langlois pronounced my ankle crushed and suggested I keep off my feet until the bones could mend. It isn’t my broken ankle that was troublesome, I told him. It’s that my wedding is only four days away! “Postpone it,” he said.

But of course I cannot. Claude has booked passage on the Franklin Pierce—we sail for South America the day after the ceremony. If necessary, I have decided I will be married on crutches.

But oh, the aggravation of it! I hope the next time Mr. Strader takes that buggy out he turns it over and breaks his neck!

July 21, 1910

Crutches it was. Bulky wooden contrivances so heavy they weigh more than I do. Early in the day, Claude rode in from Dixonville and we spoke our vows under Mama’s rose arbor. Olla stood up with me, even though she is in a condition and beginning to show. She cried and Mama cried, and I could hear Papa snorting into his handerchief.

I managed to stand up for the entire ceremony and greet most of the guests from neighboring ranches with my new husband at my side.

Afterward, Papa took me aside. He called me his “kleine Molly,” but when he opened his mouth to say more, nothing came out. He blew his nose again and hugged me so tight one of my crutches toppled into Mama’s yellow Damask rosebush. Claude retrieved it while I dried my eyes.

Tomorrow I will sail far away, below the equator, and I am sad at the thought of leaving. I am the second of their seven—only Grace is older. I will miss the others, and Mama of course. But it is only Papa who seems old. He moves stiffly, as if his boot soles were weighted with iron. Streaks of gray run through his russet beard. Mama says I get my red hair from Papa. My heart hurts when I think I might never see him again.

After the wedding we drove away in Papa’s old buggy. The last thing I saw before the dusty road dipped over the hill was the flash of Mama’s yellow roses against the soft violet sky. I waved until my arm ached. And then I cried.

I am eighteen years old and frightened to death.

Some like it in the pot, nine days old

2012-01-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Last month I took the Regency Culinary World class offered by the fabulous Delilah Marvelle through the Beau Monde Academe program. If you are interested in food and ever have the chance to take this class, do it! I learned so much and Delilah was incredibly helpful about answering questions. Our big assignment for the class was to recreate a Regency dish. I like cooking, so I decided to do a full dinner. My menu: pease porridge, fried sausages and apples, onion pie, and potato cakes for dessert.

Me in my Agnes and the Hitman apron.

I took the recipes from Hannah Glasse's The art of cookery, made plain and easy (1774). It's actually a pretty straightforward cookbook compared to some others I've seen from the same era; her confectionery book, which I read for Sweet Disorder, is great too. And read her Wikipedia page, it's fascinating! (Sample: "In 1760 Ann Cook published Professed Cookery, which contained a 68-page attack on Hannah Glasse and her work. Ann Cook lived in Hexham, and was reacting to an alleged campaign of intimidation and persecution by [Hannah's half-brother] Lancelot Allgood.")

As you can see, I chose a menu that wasn't too daring, but that were still flavor combinations I wasn't too familiar with. (I had no desire to, say, jug a hare, although I'd love to eat one if someone else did all the work!)

To make pease porridge.
TAKE a quart of green pease, put to them a quart of water, a bundle of dried mint, and a little salt. Let them boil till the pease are quite tender; then put in some beaten pepper, a piece of butter as big as a walnut, rolled in flour, stir it all together, and let it boil a few minutes; then add two quarts of milk, let it boil a quarter of an hour, take out the mint and serve it up.

I've never seen milk used in pea soup before! I chose this one first of all because of the nursery rhyme, and second of all because all the other pea soups required me to strain/rub them through a cloth. That's a lot of work, and I really enjoy pea soup where you can taste the peas. Fancy Regency cooking was VERY into smooth textures, I guess because it showed how much labor you could afford. I did a half-recipe of this and ended up having to add quite a bit more water to keep the peas from sticking--just make sure you still end up with something very thick. I added the full quart of milk and at first thought it would be far too much, but I just let it simmer for half an hour instead of 15 minutes, and it thickened up beautifully.

The flavor was a little unexpected, but actually quite good. It was even better cold the next day--I haven't tried it in the pot nine days old however! I guess when it was kept continuously hot in the kettle over the hearth, the risk level for food poisoning was...acceptable?

Fried sausages.
TAKE half a pound of sausages and six apples; slice four about as thick as a crown, cut the other two in quarters, fry them with the sausages of a fine light brown, lay the sausages in the middle of the dish and the apples round. Garnish with the quartered apples.

Stewed cabbage and sausages fried is a good dish; then heat cold peas-pudding in the pan, lay it in the dish and the sausages round, heap the pudding in the middle and lay the sausages all round thick up, edge ways, and one in the middle at length.

Peas-pudding is peas and butter boiled into a pudding shape by tying them up in a cloth while cooking, evidently. Not very exciting. I don't really understand these instructions for presentation, either--do you end up with sausages sticking up out of your pudding like weird little phalluses? Anyway, I opted to just go with the sausages and apples--5 sausages plus 3 good-sized apples worked out well for my dinner for four, although I had to split it into two frying pans.

I wasn't able to find even remotely authentic sausages--everything at the supermarket was either Italian or German or standard breakfast sausage, which might actually be authentic but I'm not a huge fan and I already know what it tastes like so it wouldn't be expanding my horizons. In the end I just went with my beloved bratwurst. It took a little over half an hour on medium heat to get them cooked through, which was also the perfect amount of time for the apples. I will definitely be making this again! It was totally delicious and of course very easy. I used my favorite kind of apple, Cameos, and the flavor combination was awesome.

To make an onion pye.
WASH and pare some potatoes, and cut them in slices, peel some onions, cut them in slices, pare some apples and slice them, make a good crust, cover your dish, lay a quarter of a pound of butter all over, take a quarter of an ounce of mace beat fine, a nutmeg grated, a tea-spoonful of beaten pepper, three tea-spoonfuls of salt, mix all together, strew some over the butter, lay a layer of potatoes, a layer of onion, a layer of apples, and a layer of eggs, and so on till you have filled your pye, strewing a little of the seasoning between each layer, and a quarter of a pound of butter in bits, and six spoonfuls of water. Close your pye and bake it an hour and a half. A pound of potatoes, a pound of onions, a pound of apples, and twelve eggs will do.

I wasn't sure if "eggs" meant raw, or hard-boiled and crumbled. I asked Delilah, who said definitely hard-boiled, and that for a pie like this oftentimes the different filling ingredients would be cooked in advance to ensure even cooking. So I also sliced and roasted the potatoes on a cookie tray.

Mace is a spice derived from the dried covering of the nutmeg fruit seed; they didn't sell any at my grocery store so I just used regular old nutmeg instead.

Here's the crust recipe I used:

A cold crust.
TO three pounds of flour rub in a pound and a half of butter, break in two eggs, and make it up with cold water.

Four cups of flour, two sticks of butter, and an egg would be plenty for a two-crust pie (I made a half-recipe even though in my heart I knew better and wound up with WAY too much dough). On Delilah's advice I cooked the bottom crust alone for 15 minutes at 375 (actually, 400 because my oven runs cold, but whatever). I then put it in the fridge until it was cool, filled it up with my layers, rolled out the top crust, and baked it for about half an hour at 350 (you can tell when it's done because the crust will start to turn golden; once it's completely lost that doughy, translucent look, you're done!).

The crust came out nice and flaky, and it was super easy to roll, too, maybe because of the egg. Next time I might chill the bottom crust before baking and then the whole pie once it's assembled, to see if I can get just a little more flake, but it's really not necessary. I halved the recommended amounts and still ended up with a lot of leftover filling stuff, I think next time I'll start with one large potato, half a large apple, half a large onion, and four hard-boiled eggs. But I just made an egg-salad-potato-avocado sandwich with the leftovers the next day (so awesome, will eat again!). (I also used a lot less butter layered with the filling than recommended, probably only two to three tablespoons, and it came out well, but I'm going to be slightly more indulgent next time.)

I thought this was just okay (although my guests were enthusiastic), but when I tried it cold the following day, it was fantastic. The flavors and textures combined really well cold and overnight.

I put everything on the table for guests to help themselves, as would have been done in the Regency. Classy! You can also see the bottle of wine and our pig salt-and-pepper shakers...and that we don't own a ladle so we used a half-cup measure. Oops! I moved out of a shared house not that long ago, and it turned out a lot of essential cooking stuff belonged to my roommates.

(The little rolly cookies are rugelach--the u is an uh, not an oo, and the ch is a hard H like Chanukkah--a delicious Ashkenazi Jewish cookie that, while it did exist during the Regency, was unlikely to be on Hannah Glasse's radar. I used a very modern recipe which I highly recommend, I get the most compliments on those cookies of anything I make ever.)

And for dessert:

To make potatoe cakes.
TAKE potatoes, boil them, peel them, beat them in a mortar, mix them with the yolks of eggs, a little sack, sugar, a little beaten mace, a little nutmeg, a little cream or melted butter, work it up into a paste; then make it into cakes, or just what shapes you please with moulds, fry them brown in fresh butter, lay them in plates or dishes, melt butter with sack, and pour over them.

I definitely messed these up in that I added a little too much cream and they didn't cohere and flip nicely while frying, so be careful and stop while you still have a very thick texture. They were still delicious though! I totally recommend.

Sack is a old-school type of white fortified wine; I used the sweetest cheap sherry they had at the store as a substitute. Make sure you boil the butter/sherry sauce mixture until it stops smelling strongly of alcohol and starts tasting really, really yummy (I added a little sugar into the sauce too although I might try without in future).

Happy new year, everyone! I hope the coming year is full of deliciousness.

Tell me about the best dinner party you ever threw or attended!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

The Hoydens will be back in 2012 with more history, more books, and more great guests. Have a merry and safe New Year's celebration and we'll see you soon.

Silhouettes with Candice Hern

2011-12-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays to everyone! And many thanks to the Hoydens for hosting me again.

I recently traveled to London and, as always, brought home a few treasures. This time I added new pieces to my collection of Georgian painted silhouettes, specifically silhouette jewelry, and I am going to share these pieces with you today. You can read more about painted silhouettes on mywebsite, but let me briefly explain what they are.

Rather than silhouettes cut from black paper, the silhouettes I collect are painted. You still get the profile of the sitter, but painting allows for more detail in the hair and clothing. Silhouettes, which were called profile miniatures or shades, were painted on paper, plaster, and ivory, and reverse-painted on glass. The pieces I am featuring today are all painted on ivory, which was the most common medium for jewelry. The black pigment used was generally made of lamp black mixed with beer, though fine details were sometimes done with India ink. Bronzing – the technique of adding details in gold against the black – was done using either gold or bronze powder mixed with gum arabic.

Profile artists, or profilists, offered a cheaper and faster alternative to the fully painted portrait miniature, which was hugely popular during Georgian times. The sitter's profile was typically traced using a pentagraph or other mechanism, which took only a few minutes. The sitter need not be present for the profilist to finish the work, painting in the profile and adding hair and fashion details. The original profile could be saved and used again. For example, if the original commission was for a single framed profile miniature, the sitter or his family might later want more copies, or perhaps smaller versions set into jewelry. The pentagraph could reduce the profile to any size.

The most famous profilist of the Georgian period was John Miers, who worked from the early 1780s until his death in 1821. He worked strictly in black, ie no bronzing or colored details, and his delicate rendering of ruffles and lace and other fashion details is extraordinary. His most famous protégé was John Field, who came to work in Miers' studio on the Strand in 1800 and stayed until Miers death, after which he set up his own studio. Field is best known for his bronzing details, which are extremely fine. All of the pieces shown here are either signed by or attributed to John Field during his tenure in the Miers studio, ie from 1800 to 1820. As you look at these images, remember they are VERY small, so all the details of hair and clothing, and even eyelashes, are teeny-tiny.

This first piece, shown above, is a locket set in gold with a lovely braid of hair (presumably from the sitter) surrounding the profile. The profile, painted on ivory, is signed "Miers" in Field's hand. The lack of bronzing places is early in Field's career, probably before 1810. It measures 1" x ¾". I especially love the rendering of the neck ruff. The addition of the braided hair marks this as a sentimental piece, but whether it was a love token or a mourning token is not clear.

The second piece is also a locket set in gold, though much larger at 1¾" x 1¼". The reverse is encased in glass, which would have held a lock of hair, though none is present. It is painted on ivory, and though unsigned, is attributed to Field. The interesting thing about this silhouette is that it came with a tiny handwritten note stuck to the back that says, "Robert Lowrie, killed in Peninsular War." A bit of googling led me to Captain Robert Lowrie of the 91st Foot. He died on Oct 3, 1813 from a wound suffered in the Battle of the Pyrenees on July 28. He was 36. A tablet was erected to his memory in St. Martin's Church, Lincoln (where he was born), by his brother officers as a mark of their esteem. Field's skill, learned from Miers, is particularly evident in the shirt ruffle.

The third piece is a small brooch set in gold, measuring 7/8" x 5/8". Painted on ivory and signed "Miers" in Field's hand, it shows his skill at bronzing, picking out details of hair, jewelry, and dress. Whenever bronzing was used, the face was always left in solid black, though ears, as here, or a man's whiskers might be bronzed. Doesn't this one look like a perfect Regency Miss?

The fourth piece is another brooch, even smaller at ¾" x ½". Painted on ivory and set in an octagonal gold frame, this profile is again signed "Miers" in Field's hand, and is likely another early piece. Once again, the neck ruffle is wonderfully painted, especially considered the size.

The last of my new pieces is another locket, measuring 1¼" x 1". Painted on ivory and signed "Miers" in Field's hand, the profile is edged in black inside the gold frame. This marks it as a mourning piece. The glass case on the reverse is completely filled with braided hair, presumably from the sitter. Silhouettes were very popular as mourning jewelry as they could be copied and sent to friends and family of the deceased – a much more personal memento than a mourning ring.

I have been collecting silhouettes for years as I find them more haunting than fully painted portrait miniatures. And I am amazed at the level of detail that can be attained in simple black. I got started collecting years ago when I fell in love with a lot of about 6 silhouettes at an auction in San Francisco, and luckily placed the winning bid. As it happens, all the silhouettes shown here were also purchased at auction, this time in London. Collecting is a terrible addiction!

Holiday settings

2011-12-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

A very quick post from me today, as eight days ago I gave birth to a new hoyden - my daughter, Mélanie Cordelia. We're both doing great, but I haven't had time for much beyond settling in with her this past week. However, I have been thinking about the holidays and particularly holidays in literature. My mom and I wrote a couple of Christmas novellas, but I've never written a Christmas book, like Lauren's wonderful The Mischief of the Mistletoe. However, I have had holiday scenes in a few of my books. The epilogue to Vienna Waltz takes place at a Christmas Eve party given by Dorothée Talleyrand (who really did give a party on Christmas Eve in 1814 at the French embassy in the Kaunitz Palace in Vienna). And my historical romance, Rightfully His (which I just released as an ebook on Nook and Kindle) begins over the holidays in 1822.

In both books it was fun weaving in holiday traditions - Vienna Waltz allowed me to have a Christmas tree, a custom Dorothée brought with her from Berlin. I also made a mistake in anticipating the composition of Stille Nacht by two years. It's always the things I think I know and don't look up that trip me up... Rightfully His has scenes of Yuletide decorating, aholiday party, and assembling Christmas baskets. I was trying to remember today why I chose to start the book over the holidays. I'm not sure it was a conscious decision, but I think perhaps I wanted to juxtapose the holiday cheer against the less than cheerful events that begin the story. Which is quite different from the novellas my mom and I wrote where our aim was to evoke an atmosphere of holiday warmth and cheer.

What are your favorite books or stories that feature any of the mid-winter holidays?

Word Abuse

2011-12-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

A few of us were having a grand old time on Twitter recently with the OED. Yes, we’re geeks of first order. It was brought on by my semi-regular #RegencySlang postings, wherein I highlight words from A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785/1811; yes the editions are different). I’m often surprised by words that were clearly in use at the time. Bedfordshire, for example (as in “I am for Bedfordshire”, i.e. going to bed) seems very modern to me (it’s also one of the words that’s in the 1811 edition, but not the 1785 edition). I also like to highlight strange or fun words that I think should be added to our collective Georgian/Regency vocabularies. Beau Trap is one that I love. It’s that loose stone in a cobble street that splashes dirty water onto your shoes and stockings when you step on it. Brilliant! And Bedizened (over-dressed, awkwardly ornamented, gaudy). Sounds like “bedazzled” and I think in context any reader would get it (as in this quote from the OED: “I took him for a Captain, he's so bedizen'd with Lace.”).

The discussion segued (as happens on Twitter) into a mea culpa discussion about words that we knowingly use even though they’re not period. One of my main contenders is Mount. The act of climbing into the saddle (1330) or sexual intercourse (1475) are both perfectly period for my 18th century settings, but—and this is a big but for me—the use of mount as a synonym for horse is Victorian (1856). Even knowing this, I use it anyway, as I tend to write “horsey” characters and the need for synonyms is pressing.

I don’t make this decision lightly. It comes down to whether or not I think the usage breaks the historical mood and is likely to make the reader stumble and think, “When the hell was this book set again?”. And I don’t think it does. I think you could get away with “His mount snapped his teeth at the rider beside them.” in a book set in Roman Britain as well as a 21st century Texas.

Are there any words that you know aren’t period, but you can’t resist using? Come on, fess up?

From the OED

a. intr. To get up on to the back of a horse or other animal (occas. on a person's shoulders) for the purpose of riding. With on, upon, †to.

c1330 (1300) Arthour & Merlin (Auch.) (1973) 9230 Þo mounted Arthour, Bohort, and Ban Wiþ alle her wi't compainie.

a. To climb on to (a partner or mate) for the purpose of sexual intercourse. Also intr.In early use freq. with punning allusion to sense 13c; and in quot. c1564 to sense 5b.

a1475

[implied in: a1475 in F. J. Furnivall Jyl of Breyntford's Test. (1871) 31 The leste fyngere on my honde Is more than he [sc. the penis], whan he dothe stonde‥Sory mowntyng come there-on. [at mounting n. 1]

a. orig. colloq. A horse, bicycle, etc., on which a person is mounted or which a person rides or drives; a horse, etc., provided for riding.

1856 ‘Stonehenge’ Man. Brit. Rural Sports 363/1 The jockey‥receiving information from the trainer as to the peculiarities of his mount.

Frankly, my dear . . .

2011-12-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Every single year I watch “Gone With the Wind” again, and every single year I thrill to the burning of Atlanta and Rhett’s impassioned kiss as he goes off to join the army and I weep at the sight of hundreds of wounded men lying untended in the railroad yard. This year I decided to re-read Margaret Mitchell’s book, which I haven’t done since I was 16, and I must admit I learned a great deal about writing.

First, it’s very, very difficult to read heavy dialect such as Uncle Peter’s and Mammy’s. Mitchell grew up in Atlanta, a Southerner through and through. She began working on the book in 1926 and understood instinctively that simplifying the dialect of the 1860s would not have been authentic. Consequently, I ploughed through passages like “Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis’ hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud … “You is as bad as Miss Pitty an’ she lak a chile ‘bout gittin’ her feets wet. Lemme cahy you.”

I now understand why my editor says “go easy on using dialect.”

Second, Mitchell has pages and pages of inner thought for Scarlett, and as fascinating a character as she is, after a while the reader tires of such extensive ruminating. Today’s readers (as today’s editors understand) have much shorter attention spans; hence, passages of inner-thinking are more limited.

Third, I see why the screenwriters limited the number of characters. In the film, Scarlett’s first child, Beau, conceived with Charles Hamilton, is omitted entirely. In the book, Scarlett’s treatment of Beau as an encumbrance and an annoyance shows her selfishness, but in the film these qualities are shown through her actions, her speech, and her facial expressions. Consequently, Beau is not really needed.

I take this to heart as a writer who tends to sprinkle secondary characters here and there simply because they are interesting to me. They may add background color, but they don’t augment the plot.

Fourth, I note that the scene choices made by the screenwriters are limited to the most memorable, most character-revealing, most action-oriented ones: Ashley and Scarlett in the library at Twelve Oaks; Melanie’s birth scene; Scarlett’s discovery of her mother’s body when she returns to Tara and her oath after eating the radish; Big Sam and the “Hoss, make tracks!” line; Rhett’s proposal after Frank Kennedy’s funeral; Bonnie’s death. And of course, Melanie’s death, which for the past 25 years has left me sobbing.

As a writer I learned from the film’s screenwriters to make my scenes full of action, visually memorable, and emotionally moving.

Finally, as to the epic scope of a novel: In the book there are long, long passages of war strategy and the ups and downs of particular battles. As a history buff I thoroughly enjoyed these episodes, but as a writer I realize most readers won’t. The screenwriters limited such exposition to written summaries scrolling across the screen and a few “telling” scenes of wounded soldiers, ragged refugee, and Twelve Oaks burned out to a single staircase.

Of great interest to me as a writer is Mitchell’s method: she jotted down bits and pieces on the backs of notebooks, working from the last page to the front (I thought I was the only one who did that). She began work on the manuscript in 1926 and wrote until poor health made her stop. She forgot about it until 1935, when Macmillan Company first read it and immediately decided to publish it. Three weeks after publication in 1936, the book had sold 176,000 copies; after one year, 1,383,000 copies had been printed. In 1937 Mitchell won the Putlitzer Prize and in 1939 the motion picture version was released.

Over 20,000,000 readers have read the work; 26 foreign language editions have been printed, and it has appeared in both Braille and Talking Book forms for the blind.

To the question, “Did Scarlett get Rhett back?” Mitchell consistently said she didn’t know. To her, the book ended where it ended. In 1949, Margaret Mitchell died in Atlanta.

Each time I see “Gone With the Wind,” I note something new that a writer such as myself should pay attention to. Now I await next year’s screening . . . .

Rodney for ever

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

I love novelty mugs. My roommate and I have a pretty hefty collection.

And I love looking at other people's mugs when I'm in their kitchen. It's not as good as snooping in their bookshelves, of course--but then, what is?

A Lily Among Thorns has a scene where my hero makes hot chocolate for my heroine after she wakes up from a nightmare. I knew if Solomon were living today, he'd be one of those guys who owns six mismatched plates and four mugs, all of which were given him by his family ("Team Jacob" from his little sister, "Chemists do it on a table periodically" from his uncle, and a Moulin Rouge souvenir mug from his twin brother's semester in Paris). But I wasn't sure what the Regency equivalent would be. Turns out the Regency equivalent is novelty mugs! Consumer impulses haven't changed much at all. There were commemorative mugs, mugs with political cartoons on, souvenir mugs from places...

I ended up giving Solomon one that said "A Present from Swansea" (he's from Cheshire, which borders Wales), and one with Nelson's portrait on it. I took the first one directly from this lovely plate in the Swansea Museum:

It's from 1855, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I'm a little in love with this plate, to be honest.

Nelson memorabilia was a huge thing. You can see lots more of it in this Molly Joyful blog post and this auction website, but here's one of my favorites (from that second link), a Staffordshire jug with Nelson on one side and Hardy on the other. The site gives it a tentative date of 1810, but all the other similar ones I've seen were released closer to Trafalgar, so who knows. (Any Nelson/Hardy 'shippers in the house? If you haven't seen this Kate Beaton comic, you definitely should.)

Amazingly, I found another example of the EXACT SAME JUG, only painted to say "Captain Berry"! I like to imagine that it was common for girls to ask each other, "Are you Team Hardy or Team Berry?"

Here are a few of my favorites from Martyn Edgell Antiques, a great resource for these. This one was apparently put out for an election. The caption says, "Sir Philip Musgrave was elected M.P. for Westmoreland."

Why don't politicians do this now? Or do they and I just don't know about it?

Here's one that I almost want to leave without any context because it's so amazing:

Rodney for ever! You can see some more angles and the outside of the bowl at the site, here, which says "Pearlware bowl commemorating Lord Rodney, circa 1790." Turns out he's another British naval hero. My favorite line of his Wikipedia entry is probably, "In London he suggested to Lord George Germain that George Washington could 'certainly be bought--honours will do it.'" (But the whole thing is really interesting!)

I'll end with a couple of cool Queen Caroline mugs:

The site says this is to commemorate her death in 1821.

This one's in the Museum of London. Apparently the other side reads:

As for the Green-Bag crew
Justice will have its due
God Save the Queen!
Confound their politicks
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On HER our hopes we fix
God Save the Queen!

("Green-Bag crew" is a reference to the royal divorce trial, when George IV submitted the alleged evidence of his wife's adultery to the House of Lords in two green bags.)

Tell me about your favorite mug!

New Hoyden: Rose Lerner!

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

I’m beyond thrilled to announce that Rose Lerner is joining History Hoydens. Rose writes the most amazing historical romances, with a Heyer-esque feel (and I mean that in the best sense possible) and heroines that are endearingly real and wonderfully tough in their own, special ways.

Rose’s debut novel, In For a Penny, crashed into the romance world with a great deal of very positive buzz. Eloisa James called it “charming and original”. I know those words are often attached to books, but in this case they’re utterly true. Rose’s follow up, A Lily Among Thorns was equally well received. Courtney Milan claims to have loved it even more than In For a Penny, which is saying something! The fact that she was voted best debut author for 2011 by readers over at All About Romance tells its own story.

Rose is also a major research wonkette, like so many of us here, so I expect her contributions to the blog will be insightful and very, very interesting.

Please join me in welcoming her to the blog!

History in the Attic

2011-12-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

Did anyone see the 150
year old photo of slave children that has recently turned up in an attic estate sale? A rare photo, very haunting, but a testament to a dark time in American History. The boys, one who is identified as John (and who was purchased for a price of $1150) are looking straight into the camera and the sadness and suffering is so apparent. This particular photo was taken around the end of the civil war so they might have been recently freed (one can only hope) but they still look so lost.

I've found some history in the houses I have lived in: old medicine bottles with the labels still on them. Dr. Whitaker's Elixir (cures gas, chilblains, sort throats, melancholia and diarrhea....); old Civil War photos of family members who were soldiers, a post card from the front in WWI from a sad soldier who feared his sweetheart had forgotten him. I've found a stash of 1888 ceramic beer bottle caps with the brewers stamp still readable and a life-sized poster of John Wayne from the 1940s. My friend found her great grand mother's Parisian opera fan (ostrich feathers!) in a trunk, circa 1900.

Finding these things makes me think about the person who owned them and what their life was like. The monetary doesn't matter so much, but the history to me is priceless. What have you found in an attic, basement or behind the mantle piece? Anything interesting?

History in the Attic

2011-12-02T21:11:00.001-08:00

Characters Downstairs

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

As an historical novelist writing about early 19th century aristocrats, servants inevitably play a large role in my books. Particularly valets and ladies' maids, who were intimately involved in their employers' day-to-day lives. I confess I find this a difficult relationship to juggle, and I often worry that my own modern-day sensibilities make me not do it justice. I want to be true to the period. On the other hand, there’s a wide range of behaviors in any era and people are people with the same emotions and compassion. It’s hard to believe there wouldn’t, at least in some cases, be a strong emotional bond between two people who spent as much time together as valets and ladies’ maids and their employers.

When I blogged about this on my own website, the post elicited some fascinating comments. Some pointed out that servants, particularly valets and ladies' maids, can often have interesting insights into the heroes and heroines and their situation. They are close observers of their employers' lives yet at at the same time a little removed. Our own Pam Rosenthal does this brilliantly with the heroine's maid in The Slightest Provocation. The maid is quite uncompromising about her mistress's faults and the heroine, though a very sympathetic person, is often quite blind to her maid's feelings.

Other readers pointed out that in a number of novels the heroes and their valets have served together in the military, and that these shared adventures can create a bond that breaks down class boundaries, at least to a degree. One wonderful example of this type of relationship is Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter, who served together in Word War I. Neither is the sort to verbalize his feelings, but the respect and affection between them is evident. My mom and I had a hero and his valet (his former batman) with a similar sort of relationship (less formal actually) in one of our Anthea Malcolm Regencies, A Touch of Scandal.

Lord Grantham and Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey have also served together in the military. One of the things I love about Downton Abbey is the subtlety and insight with which it handles the relationships between the family and the staff. You see the intolerable nature of the whole system and yet the earl and countess are decent people who genuinely care about their staff. Which makes the fact that it’s an intolerable system all the more interesting.

One of my favorite hero/valet relationships is Lord Damerel and his valet Marston in Georgette Heyer's Venetia. Neither has been in the military, but they have had a lot of adventures together all over the Continent. Their friendship is understated but evident, and to the disapproval of some of the other servants, neither behaves precisely like a typical master and valet. I love the scene at the end where Marston congratulates Damerel and Venetia on their betrothal. Marston is one of my favorite valet characters.

In my own series, the heroine Suzanne and her maid Blanca have a distinctly atypical relationship. Both are playing roles, just as Suzanne is playing a role in her marriage and her position as a diplomatic wife. While Suzanne and Blanca conform to the roles of aristocratic lady and lady's maid in public (including to a large degree in front of Suzanne's husband) in private they are friends. Both women can be honest with each other in ways they can’t even with the men in their lives. Which is fun for me to play with as the author. Suzanne's discomfort with the whole idea of servants (while at the same time she acknowledges the luxuries of the world she lives in) reflects some of my own discomfort.

Suzanne's husband Malcolm and his valet Addison have a much more conventional relationship, yet they too have shared adventures and they too are very fond of each other, though neither would put those feelings into words. Their relationship, as a reader pointed out in the comments on my website, is based “more on action than words.” Both are hemmed in by the roles they were born to (even though Malcolm in many ways disagrees with those roles). And then there’s the fact that neither is good at putting his feelings for anyone into words – including the women they love.

What are some of your favorite valet, lady's maid, and other servant characters in books? Writers, what challenges have you faced in writing about the "downstairs" world?

Lace

2011-11-28T09:09:00.001-08:00

Over Thanksgiving I had a discussion with a re-enactor girlfriend in which she stated that she hadn’t seen lace used much as a trimming on gowns in the Georgian era, but that she was reading it all the time in books, and it bugged her. While I agree that the use of lace (or “blond” as it was sometimes known) doesn’t appear to have been as widely used as self-fabric trims, eyelash trims, and other bits of “passimentarie”, it was used*. Here are a few examples:

Saque c. 1770s.

This beautiful silk gown is trimmed with lace both at the edges of the bodice and sleeves as well as in patterns on the petticoat and skirts.

Round gown c. 1800-1805

This silk gauze gown from the beginning of the 19th century has a large lace frill about the neckline as well as bits of matching lace on the short sleeves.

Apron-front gown c. 1810-1812

This taffeta gown as a simple lace frill all the way around the neckline.

*It should be noted, however, that the two most common uses I see in books are lace trim on shifts/chemises or on corsets, and this IS incorrect for the era. I don’t start to see such trims on extant garments until the mid-Victorian period (c. 1850-1860).

Thanksgiving day adventure

2011-11-26T15:29:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving day I walked (along with some movie actors in "The Way")the pilgrim road to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain! The reason I found this so fascinating and satisfying is that the movie was filmed on-site in Southern France and northern Spain, and this is the setting for my very first novel--the story of doomed love between a Muslim sheik and a Christian novice in the 12th century.

Back in 1993, I was a raw beginner at novel writing, but I got hooked one day by a photograph of a darkly handsome Arab man with the most mesmerizing expression in his eyes... and that started me thinking about what story might be behind that look. So I started in... and I wrote for 7 months, rewriting the whole thing every few chapters as I learned something new about writing fiction (after 30 years as an aerospace editor I knew nothing - absolutely nothing - about writing fiction).

Long story short: I finished this work and on a whim sent it in to Harlequin Historicals. Lo and behold, the editor who ended up with it in his (Don D'Auria's) lap liked it and sent it "upstairs" to the head editor, with a recommendation to buy. This he kindly told me when I inquired by telephone... and in a later telephone call he related the problem.

The head editor read the ending, screeched, and said "I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole! It's a hot potato."

This was about the time that Salmon Rushdie had fled to London with a Muslim fatwa on his head, so I can (somewhat) understand her hesitation.
Well, not hesitation--it was flat-out rejection.

I should have been crushed, but I was too naive to be deterred. I then started another novel, a western about my grandparents' courtship on adjacent ranches in Oregon, and that book ("Western Rose") was bought by the same editor.

O frabjous day!

But each and every day since then I have mooned over my 12th century Spain love story... and that's why I loved "The Way." However, I confess I was watching the scenery so closely I missed a lot of the fine acting of the principal characters.

And that's why I'm working on this 12th century Spain story again... revising extensively because I've learned a lot in the 18 years since I first started writing fiction. And thinking again about that Arab man with the arresting face and haunting expression in his eyes . . .

2011-11-23T07:53:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday, family, and friends (the latter two still apply even if you're not an American).

We'll see you next week!

2011-11-21T11:06:00.001-08:00

I'm over on Man Candy Monday's blog today talking about historical films and the men we love to see in them. Tonight (6PM PST), I'll be joining the gang on Twitter under the hastag #ManCandyMonday to see everyone's contributions to the topic.

Hope to see you there!

Research on the Run

2011-11-18T02:23:00.000-08:00

As the days grow shorter and colder, I find myself looking for ways to investigate in comfort. You know, look up historical facts while wearing my pajamas and sipping hot cocoa, rather than after driving downtown and hunting down a parking spot. Or visit an eighteenth century frigate at sea, as in my photo.

Thankfully, modern technology is more than happy to ride to my aid. A laptop equipped with wireless can quickly connect me to the Internet and the wonderful variety of websites to be found there.

Tablets, such as the iPad and its Android cousins, offer even more comfortable ways to do research. When something weighs less than a pound and a half, it’s easy to slip it into a purse then pull it out later for some quick dives into history.

My household is graced with four iThings – uh, that’s members of the Apple family that can be used for research. The apps that suck me in the fastest are (in alphabetical order):

Bing: This app has the snazziest interface ever for a search app. I swear I look stuff up, just to play with it. Luscious. Free.

Bodleian: Yes, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University is digitizing their treasures in high-def. There’s truly astonishing stuff here, like ancient Roman scrolls and an unfinished manuscript from Jane Austen. There’s also a rich interactive experience, including a timeline, games, explanations from the curators, and the opportunity to suggest the next treasures to be digitized. Free.

British Library: Every 19th century book in its collection is here. Bliss, total bliss – and they keep adding more from other collections! Free.

Dictionary.Com: Free, fun, and quirky. And did I mention free?

Google Search: Hey, it’s Google, what else do I need to say? It’s nowhere near as much fun as Bing, but you need to have it, right? Free.

Oxford English Dictionary: Yes, that’s right, you too can have the entire Oxford English Dictionary on your iPad – fully searchable and in a readable font! I’m in heaven. Dictionaries for other languages are also available. $54.99

The Civil War Today: The History Channels brings you a day-by-day account of the American Civil War, complete with maps, photos, newspapers, and diaries. Plus, there’s a game and amazing factoids to surprise you, just when you thought you knew what to expect. Amazing. $5.99

Virtual History Roma: Gorgeous graphics in three dimensions and tons of facts bring to life Imperial Rome. You can zoom in and rotate objects to find hidden delights. I wish more cities and ages could be explored this way. Free.

What’s your favorite app? Do you have a website you can’t live without?

Blurring the Lines

2011-11-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Recently, I had the great honor of contributing to an anthology of stories inspired by Jane Austen (there's a reason the title of the anthology is Jane Austen Made Me Do It!). There are some wonderful Austenian stories in there by Regency veterans such as Syrie James and Jo Beverly. Having spent a good deal of time in 1804 recently, I decided it would be fun to do something modern, something a little quirky... something involving a team of ghost hunters and a "real" Northanger Abbey. I call it my Scooby-Doo story.

This has now spawned my absolute favorite angry email. My correspondent irately informed me that if I had taken five minutes to Google, as he did, I would have known that Northanger Abbey wasn't a real place. And I should be ashamed of myself. Hmph.

Okay, so he didn't actually say hmph. It was, however, highly implied.

Of course, Northanger Abbey isn't a real place. (As far as I know-- there are more things in heaven and England....) That's the fun of it. Maybe it says something about my lifelong desire to slip into the pages of the books I'm reading, but I've always enjoyed blurring the lines between fiction and fact, incorporating real people and places into fiction, and, on the opposite end, treating fictional people and places as real.

I've played this game before, with my first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, in which the premise was that the Scarlet Pimpernel had been real, and had given rise to a host of other flowery spies, including the Purple Gentian, the Pink Carnation, and their dastardly French foe, the Black Tulip. I once overheard someone solemnly telling a friend that, naturally, I'd made up the Pink Carnation, but everyone knew the Scarlet Pimpernel had been a real person. As a former historian, there's a little fact problem there. As a writer, it de lights me that Baroness Orczy's character has become so real that people believe he existed in the flesh as well as in fiction. (And, to be fair, there was actually a spy running around France under the alias Le Mouron. Sadly, he wasn't Sir Percy Blakeney and he didn't look like Anthony Andrews. In real life, he was French and no one sought him here or there.)

It always thrills me when I come across references to fiction as fact in other peoples' novels. There's an old Regency by Elsie Lee, The Wicked Guardian, in which a character refers disparagingly to "that Blakeney boy" who ran off to play spy in France. Sara Donati incorporates Diana Gabaldon's Claire Fraser in her Into the Wilderness. I was, as you can imagine, over the moon when our own Mary Blayney decided to incorporate my Lord Richard Selwick into her Traitor's Kiss.

How do you feel about fictional people or events being incorporated into fiction as fact?

(And, authors, I know I probably shouldn't ask this, but I can't resist.... What's your favorite angry email?)

Madame Pompadour's Backside

2011-11-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

History Today's blog (URL below) is running a profile on a series of racey, humorous caricatures from the mid to late 1700's. The November issue of the journal History Today features 'The Other Cheek', and authors Colin Jones and Emily Richardson reveal who a little-known collection of obscene and irreverent caricatures targetting Madame de Pompadour from a book of drawings entitled the Livre de caricatures tant Bonnes que mauvaises.

Many of the drawings are a little--well, what should I say? They reflect French humor of the time (the image posted here is very tame compared to many of them). You can see them all here:
http://www.historytoday.com/colin-jones/madame-de-pompadour-other-cheek

The cartoonist, one of Madame Pompadour's contemporaries, told it like he saw it, that's for sure. The 'Book of Caricatures both Good and Bad' was composed over almost 30 years from the 1740s to the 1770s. The man responsible for them was Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin, who was, from the 1740s, embroidery designer at the royal court. He never fessed up to drawing these images (it would have certianly cost him his head) but it seems like everyone knew it was him.

Powerful women in history have always intrigued me and Madame Pompadour had plenty of power. That she was the subject of such wickedly cutting cartoons is proof of her domination of the political scene at the time. Interesting to see this from era when a different kind of media ruled. No way would these cartoon ever see the light of print today. What do you think? Would a powerful woman today be publically spoofed like this? Or a man, for that matter?

Theatrical References

2011-11-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

I spent this past weekend in Ashland for the closing weekend of the season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Crisp air, gorgeous autumn leaves, snow-capped mountains, lovely time with friends, and a glimpse of three of our own Leslie's books prominently displayed in the Tudor Guild gift shop. And three wonderful plays, all of which I was seeing for the second (or in the case of Measure for Measure the fourth) time.

One thing I noticed is that all three plays dealt with theater in a variety of ways. Saturday I saw Ghost Light, a fabulous, wrenching world premiere developed by Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone, written by Taccone, and directed by Moscone, It's a wonderfully theatrical play both in style (moving back and forth in time, combining elements of dream and reality) and in substance, as the central character struggles to come to terms with his father's assassination while directing a production of Hamlet. The scenes of the production team discussing how to handle the Ghost of Hamlet's father, and of Jon, the central character, working with his acting students and auditioning actors are spot-on and at moments hysterically funny.

Saturday I saw a matinee of Julius Caesar, a play, as the production notes pointed, filled with theatrical references, from the assassins meeting in the porch of Pompey's theater to the political theater of Marc Antony's funeral oration (not to mention the fact that Antony's scene where he seemingly makes peace with the conspirators just after the assassination is a brilliant piece of acting). That evening I saw Measure for Measure, another play where the story is largely played out upon the public stage (particularly in the denouement) while a key plot element involves one woman playing the part of another in a secret tryst.

During breaks between plays I was working on a sequence in my current WIP that takes place backstage at the Comédie-Française. I love theatrical references in books and plays. Actual scenes backstage and onstage become metaphors for the roles we all play - with different people, in different aspects of our lives. For the fine line between illusion and reality, for the difficulty of discerning truth amid artifice and the way that theatrical artifice can sometimes ring with truth. Reading Isobel's great interview with Joanna Bourne on Monday, I was thinking that a large part of why I love writing about spies is that like actors they too play many parts, though on a rather more dangerous stage. The sequence I was working on set at the Comédie-Française gave me lots of opportunities to play with the parallel, as it involves the escape from Paris during the White Terror of an actress who is also an agent.

Do you have favorite books that deal with theater, whether on stage or backstage? Does theater become a metaphor for other elements in the story? Writers, do you like writing scenes set in the theater? Do you get inspiration from plays?

Welcome, Joanna Bourne!

2011-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

The amazing Joanna Bourne is here with us today to talk about her new release The Black Hawk. She'll also be giving away a copy to one lucky commenter! If you're like the rest of us, you're addicted to Jo's very special world of intrigue, and you're chomping at the bit to read Adrian's story...

Attacked on a rainy London street, veteran spy Justine DeCabrillac knows only one man can save her: Hawker, her oldest friend . . . her oldest enemy. London's crawling with hidden assassins and someone is out to frame Hawker for murder. The two spies must work together to find who's out to destroy them...

Black Hawk is set during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. That's from 1794, running to 1818. Isthere any particular reason you chose these years? How did you become interested in this time period? What you love aboutit?

Romancegenre was my gateway drug to the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century. I'll point to Georgette Heyer and herlight-hearted Regencies and to Sergeanne Golon's sprawling Louis XIV world.

There's afifty or sixty year period in the Eighteenth Century when our whole view of howpeople should live, and interact with one another, and be governed changedirrevocably.

When theDeclaration of Independence talked about 'all men are created equal,' and'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' and 'deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed,' they are not stating old, well-establishedtruths. These were hot new ideas.

Excitingstuff.

What do youlike least about this period? Anything that constrained you or that you had toplot carefully around? Anything youflat-out altered or “fudged”? If so, why?

There's theusual lack of washing and opportunity to pick up personal wildlife. I think anybody writing fiction in the pasthas to deal with this.

You want toknow little thing that drives me nuts?

Hats. And gloves.

Anybodyrespectable was walking around with a hat on their head most of the time andpretty much universally gloves. And Irefuse to picture my characters wearing hats. Especially my male folks. I donot think it is manly and heroic to wear hats, and I know this is narrow mindedof me and I am sorry.

So generallyI don't talk about this. Or think aboutit. And I just wish it would all goaway.

Any gaffs ormea culpas you want to fess up to before readers get their hands on the book? Iknow I always seem to find one after the book has gone to press. *sigh*

I think Imake mistakes all the time and mostly the readers are too polite to bring theseto my attention. I know I did once put areference to a 'kept woman' living in St John's Wood in London about thirtyyears before this would have been common. And I made at least one mistake in the timing of some backstory once.

The mostimpressive Black Hawk gaff is something I didn't do myself and didn'teven know about till it was far too late to prevent. It's on the stepback cover, and I'll letfolks have the joy of discovering it for themselves.

Tell us alittle about your hero. Something fun, like his favorite childhood pet, or hisfirst kiss.

This nextbook, Black Hawk, is Adrian's book, so I'll tell you a bit about Adrian.

Adrian has acat. What happened was this:

When he wasyoung and working for the King Thief of London -- that was a position of someprestige where he came from -- he had occasion to break into BritishIntelligence Service Headquarters with the intent of removing paperstherefrom.

He gotcaught at it. This is one of thosehazards of the thieving profession. And while he stuck knives into severalService agents, in the end he got subdued. His kneecap was dislocated in the process and it never did get entirelyright again, which no doubt served as a reminder to avoid physicalconfrontation where possible. For anyonewho's read some of the other books, Doyle's the one who did that to his knee.

In any case,Adrian ended up in a secure room in the attic where the Service put people theyhadn't decided what to do with yet. Ithad a flap on the door for passing food in.

Adrian waslaid up on a mat with his leg strapped to a board. This was tedious for him, even though he hadthe excitement of waiting for the Service to turn him over to the hangman. A bumbling six-week-old kitten pushed throughthe door flap every day. Adrian calledit 'Cat' and started feeding it the best of his food and teaching it to fetchand so on.

It wasAdrian's treatment of Cat that told the British Service the boy was worthkeeping alive.

What sparkedthis book? Was it a character? An historical event? A scene you just couldn’tget out of your head?

I had somereaders mention that they'd like to see a book with Adrian as the maincharacter. I guess I was responding tothat, initially. But when I startedthinking about it, I got excited by the idea of giving Adrian his own happyending.

I really likehim as a character.

Did you haveto do any major research for this book? Did you stumble across anything reallyinteresting that you didn’t already know?

I alwayshave to do major research.

Research onthe Louvre building. There was a lot ofthat.

Research onassassination attempts on Napoleon. People just kept doing this, did you know? Going after that man with poison andpistol. I had no idea.

So I satdown and asked myself how one would go about killing the man and it turns outsomebody or other had tried just about everything under the sun, so I wasauthentic no matter what I did.

I guess whatsurprised me most was that one of the earliest fire extinguishing pumps everwas installed in the Louvre just before my story takes place. So cool.

What/Who doyou like to read?

I mostlyread nonfiction, when I'm kicking my feet up and relaxing. I do enjoy journals and letters of the periodI'm writing in. My fiction is a prettymixed bag. Some Romance, some Fantasy,and the occasional mystery.

Right nowI'm reading Stephen King's On Writing, Thomas Allen's GeorgeWashington, Spymaster, (Spymaster. Now that's a goodtitle,) William McNeil's Plagues and People, and Alfred Cobham, Aspectsof the French Revolution.

In fictionI've been doing a bunch of YA lately. Recently finished Julie Kagawa's The Iron King, Mary Stewart'sMerlin trilogy, and Mercedes Lackey's The Fire Rose. I'm in the middle of Mary Jo Putney's Kissof Fate. Next on the fictionbookshelf are Joann Ross', Out of the Mist, Emma Bull, War for theOaks and Rhys Bowen, Her Royal Spyness.

Care toshare a bit about your writing process? Are you a pantser or a plotter? Do youwrite multiple drafts or clean up as you go?

I have beentrying to outline more and plan more so I don't end up doing these multipledrafts. I hate to write my way down ablind alley and then have to throw out lovely writing.

So you couldcall my method, 'in transition.'

What are youplanning to work on next?

This bookthat's coming out now is Black Hawk. It's Adrian's story, as I say.

In BlackHawk, we have a spy for England and a spy for France, one each. Adrian Hawkhurst and JustineDeCabrillac. In the small spy communityof Europe, everybody knows everybody else. These two have been friends and enemies and cautious allies andsometimes lovers.

But theycan't be together. They can never whollytrust each other. This business of beingon opposite sides in a long war is a complicating factor of great magnitude.

Now, afterthe war is over, someone's out to kill Justine . . . And frame Hawker for thedeed.

The storyafter this, getting to your question, is Pax's story.

Gauchos and Gumption

2011-11-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

Gauchos were the residents of the South American pampas or Patagonian grasslands, found in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile and Southern Brazil. Loosely, the word is the South American equivalent of “cowboy,” (vaquero in Spanish), and, like that of his North American counterpart, it’s mostly a 19th century term.

Theories as to origins of the gaucho vary. The term may derive from the Mapuche cauchu (“vagabond”) or the Quecha huachu (“orphan”). The first recorded uses of the term date from the time of Argentine independence in 1816. At one time, gauchos made up most of the rural population in Argentina, herding cattle and practicing hunting in addition to serving as guerrilla fighting forces.

Cattle came to the pampas from Paraguay in 1580. In the 18th century, the gauderios, who lived by hunting wild cattle, were recorded by the travel writer Alonso Carrio de la Vandera when he passed through northern Argentina. Commercial cattle ranching began in the second half of the 18th century.

My grandfather, who ran cattle on the Argentine pampas from 1910 to 1913, told me the gauchos were descendents of the native Indians who escaped over the mountains from Chile during periods of political oppression. The gauchos who worked for my grandfather, Claude Banning, were a tough, scrappy-looking lot; some even looked astonishingly young.

They were hardworking, loyal, good-humored, and, yes, prone to violence (see photo). They were also generous and gentle toward womenfolk (my grandmother, Marie Banning, and her mother-in-law, Lizzie Rice Banning). My grandfather and his brother, Ray, admired them so much they adopted the typical gaucho dress—bombaches and a serape of sorts, plus a gaudy woven sash (see photo).

Gauchos were nomadic, living on the pampas--the plain that extends from Patagonia, bounded on the west by the Andes and extending to the east to Uruguay and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, which belonged to the Spanish Crown for over two centuries before it became a Portuguese possession in 1750. Most gauchos were of Spanish and/or Portuguese and/or Amerindian (native American) ancestry; they lived by hunting wild cattle, both for meat and for leather.

The gaucho plays an important symbolic role in the nationalistic feelings of the Argentine pampas. As depicted in the poem “Martin Fierro,” by Jose Hernandez, the national epic of Argentina, the gaucho is a symbol of forces against corruption. Pitted against Europeanising forces, Martin Fierro, the hero of the poem, is drafted into the Argentine military for a border war; he deserts and becomes an outlaw and fugitive. The image of the free gaucho is thus often contrasted to the slaves who worked in the northern Brazilian lands.

During the wars of the 19th century against the dominance of the Spanish Crown, the cavalries on all sides were composed almost entirely of gauchos. In Argentina, gaucho armies slowed Spanish advances and many caudillos relied on gaucho armies to control the Argentine provinces.

Gauchos were generally reputed to be strong, honest, silent types but proud and capable of violence when provoked. Their use of the facon (a large knife generally tucked into the rear of the gaucho sash) is legendary, often associated with considerable bloodletting. Historically, the facon was the only eating instrument that a gaucho carried.

Like his North American cowboy counterpart, gauchos were proud and they were also great horsemen. A gaucho’s horse was almost all he owned in the world. The gaucho diet consisted almost entirely of beef while on the range, supplemented by yerba maté, an herbal tea-like drink rich in caffeine and nutrients.

The gaucho dressed quite distinctively, and they used bolas or boleadoras (three leather-bound rocks tied together with leather straps, in addition to the North American lariat or riata. The typical gaucho outfit included a poncho, which doubled as both saddle blanket and sleeping gear, a facon (knife), a rebenque (leather whip) and loose-fitting trousers called bombaches, belted with a woven cloth tirador or a chiripa. In winter gauchos wore heavy wool ponchos.

Just as the disappearance of the “wild west” altered the character and employment of cowboys, so did the nature of gauchos change. But their image still suggests high adventure and romance.

For my grandfather, memories of the gauchos he rode with on the Argentine plains stayed with him all his life. Granddad’s most prized possession was a maté cup given to him by his foreman when the family left Argentina and returned to the States. Until the day he died, this cup hung on Granddad’s bedroom wall, along with his woven striped wool sash, his silver-handled revolver, and a framed ink drawing of the Banning cattle brands.

Source: Gauchos & Gumption: My Argentine Honeymoon, by Lynna Banning (to be published in January 2012 by Turquoise Morning Press). Photos by Marie Banning.

Errata

2011-11-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

Not so very long ago, my editor's assistant called with a question from the copyeditor. In The Orchid Affair, my modern character, Eloise, makes a joke to her boyfriend about "Sit, Boo Boo, sit! Good dog." Did I mean "sit, Ubu, sit"? Or was it something else entirely?

Well, it was and it wasn't. It was really a reference to that old tv bit, "Sit, Ubu, sit" (does anyone else remember this?), but Eloise, being Eloise, had misheard it and thought it was Boo Boo, because that's the sort of thing Eloise does. It's a good thing she has lots of reference works in her professional career as a historian, because in daily life, she's constantly mis-hearing, mis-quoting, and mis-remembering. Not like I'm drawing this from personal experience or anything.

This little interchange did get me thinking, though. Is there a higher standard of accuracy for fiction? In our false world, must our facts be more true?

In real life, people get things wrong all the time-- or, at least, I do. As my Evidence prof in law school loved to point out, human perception is notoriously faulty. He had a favorite example he liked to call the Blue Bus Problem: in a community where the large number of buses are blue and a minority are yellow, if someone is hit by a bus, witnesses will likely claim the bus was blue, because they'll have expected it to be so, even if it wasn't. (Of course, I might be misremembering the Blue Bus Problem, which would just go to prove his point.) We see what we expect to see; we hear what we expect to hear. Memory garbles and hindsight corrupts.

My personal bugbear are song lyrics. In the past, I've come up with such classics as "You're my lover, not my Bible" instead of "you're my lover, not my rival" in Culture Club's Karma Chameleon; "You rocked me all night long" in place of "You shook me all night long"; and, one of my true triumphs, replacing OutKast's "Hey Ya!" with "Hang On". Hey, it made more sense that way. "Haaaang on!" Don't you agree? Naturally, I am always convinced that my version is correct-- until told otherwise while singing at the top of my lungs in a car or at a friend's wedding, just for maximum mockery potential.

On the other hand, in the fictional world, our characters are expected to get their details right. When they quote poetry, everything down to the last comma has to be completely correct, unless we tag it as "he misquoted". On one level, this bothers me. If we're trying to recreate the world, inaccuracy and misperception is a large part of that world. It also tells us a lot about characters' characters-- but only if the reader realizes it's deliberate. And there's the rub. If it looks like an authorial accident, you lose the reader's trust, throwing the reader out of the story. In fiction, that's Game Over.

There are ways around it; you can tag the misperception, have another character comment on it, or set up certain characters as unreliable from the word "Go" (Bertie Wooster, for instance, can misquote with impunity, as can my Turnip Fitzhugh). But, for the most part, it becomes safer, when the copyeditor calls, to say, "Okay, change it."

Would you change it? Or would you keep Boo Boo?

Souling

2011-10-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

Your Regency characters might not be able to go trick-or-treating, but the next day they could go souling. All Saints' Day survived the birth of the Anglican church and was still a tradition in many rural locations. The day was dedicated to commemorating the dead.

Many households would prepare soul cakes to hand out (the gifting of food was good for the soul, and traditionally the eating of them was supposed to help the soul they were dedicated to out of purgatory, and even though the concept of purgatory had been rejected, the tradition survived). They would also have apples, hot drinks, and small coins to distribute.

The roving participants (mostly children) would go door to door in the village singing their souling song and partaking of the day's bounty .Some households may have chosen to bake cakes to be distributed to the poor (the local workhouse for example) rather than hosting visitors.

I love putting little details like this into my books. One of my favorite sources is The English Year by Steve Roud. I highly recommended it to anyone writing English-set historicals.

George Washington's Riotous Spirits

2011-10-28T02:06:00.000-07:00

Riotous spirits – and George Washington? Relax, I’m talking about how George Washington used his era’s relaxed attitudes toward alcohol to advance his career.

Back in the eighteenth century, fresh water wasn’t always clean. In fact, it was often muddy, slimy – or worse. Drinking alcoholic beverages was healthier. Alcohol cured the sick and strengthened the weak. Women in labor received a shot or two to relieve their discomfort. Social occasions – such as christenings, weddings, funerals, trials, even craftsmen’s work – were lubricated by the delicious spirits.

People drank their way through the day. John Adams started his day with hard cider, Patrick Henry smuggled wine and served home brew to guests while governor of Virginia, and Samuel Adams managed his father’s brewery. Frankly, most didn’t care what anyone else thought of how much they consumed. Social drinking was simply a necessity of life – especially when it came to elections.

In Colonial America, elections were held where the voters could be found. Thus, the polling places were next to the neighborhood tavern and every ambitious politician courted votes in the taproom. Young George Washington was no different. Legend says he handed out free beers to win his first election to Virginia’s House of Burgesses.

Virginia chose different libations as it grew from a colony to a state. Madeira wine, imported in English ships, was popular for the great wine punches. Colonists distilled their own rum from molasses but ruefully understood good Caribbean rum’s higher quality. Cider and beer were easily brewed locally and became the principal drinks during the Revolution, when imports dried up.

After the Revolution, Virginians needed to reconsider their drinks, since they couldn’t obtain cheap booze from other English colonies any more. George Washington needed to find new sources of income, to make up for what he’d lost during the Revolution. With a new plantation manager’s help, he established a distillery and produced rye whiskey, America’s original signature whiskey.

Rye whiskey was so important to the United States’ citizens that Northerners rose up in arms over it, in the Whiskey Rebellion. American rye whiskey, as distinct from its Canadian brethren, must include at least 51 percent rye. It’s a different whiskey than bourbon and often described as edgier. George Washington and his friends drank it neat. Humphrey Bogart’s generation enjoyed manhattans made with rye, a more dynamic drink than the same cocktail made with bourbon.

Washington’s rye whiskey was so fine, that he soon had the largest distillery in the nation, turning out 10,000 gallons a year. It also produced peach and apple brandy, to provide the General more income than any other part of his plantation.

Today, Mount Vernon is once again distilling rye whiskey to provide riotous spirits for Virginia’s citizens. It’s based on George Washington’s original recipe – or mash bill – and created using traditional ingredients and techniques. The first year’s production sold out in one day.

I think the General would be proud – and would want to join the parties where it’s featured.

What historical drink would you like to taste? Have you ever read a historical scene where the drinks surprised you?

Music: the Food of Love?

2011-10-26T01:00:00.000-07:00

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
the appetite may sicken, and so die.

~ Duke Orsino, Twelfth Night, I, i. 1-2

Hint: in the Elizabethan era, "die" was also a euphemistic synonynm for orgasm. But sometimes a banana was just a banana. And die just meant die.

When it comes to a little background music, do you adore it to the point of ecstasy -- or is all that cacophony killing you? Inspiration? Or distraction?

Much of the writing we hoydens do, and read, is the food of love, whether fiction or nonfiction as it relates to the lives of our characters. And each of us has our process as we work, or chill and enjoy a pleasure read.

Is music part of yours, and how does it feed your creative appetite? Do you listen to music as you work? Does it have to be from the era in which your story is set in order for you to feel immersed in your narrative as you craft it, or do you have favorite symphonies, tracks, or Broadway and film scores that get your juices going, even if they're from a different time period? At one point, while I was simultaneously slogging away at three survival jobs while I was writing my first five novels (and this was in the pre iPod days), I had the cassette of the soundtrack of The Last of the Mohicans blasting in my ear during my walk to the subway every day, and I wasn't even in front of the computer at the time. But it served as my daily dose of artistic inspiration and sufficed until I was able to get back to work on my writing career.

Are you a Rodgers & Hammerstein type, and your hills are alive with the sound of music? Or, like Simon & Garfunkel, do you prefer the sound of silence while you work?

Lolita Fashion

2011-10-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Lolita fashion is a fashion subculture originating in the 1970's in Japan and is based on Victorian-era clothing as well as costumes from the Rococo period. The style has expanded greatly. There are Gothic Lolitas, Sweet Lolitas, Punk, Classical-Aristocrat Lolitas etc., but what I find most interesting is the decidedly historical flare to the outfits AND and that the Lolita look began primarily as one of modesty.

That's right, modesty.

The whole looks seems to have little to do with the literary Lolita theme revolving around a middle-age man falling in love with a 12 year old girl.

Or does it?

The original Lolita fashion silhouette is of a knee length skirt or dress with a 'cupcake' shape assisted by petticoats, but has expanded into various different types of garments including corsets and floor lengths skirts. Blouses, knee high socks or stockings and headdresses are also worn. Lolita fashion has evolved into several different sub styles and has a subculture that is present in many parts of the world, but the look is decidedly young, in my opinion, and also classically historical (orginally).

As per "Wikipedia":

In the context of fashion, the term 'Lollita' does not relate to sex. The usage of the word may also be considered wasei-eigo or and derives from the female given name, 'Lollita'.

The fashion movement is based on a strong reaction by the wearers against the exposure of the body and skin in today's society, specifically in regard to young women. Adherents fight the current fashion with modesty presenting themselves as "cute" or "elegant" rather than "sexy". One follower of the Gothic Lolita fashion explained:

We certainly do not do this for the attention of men. Frequently, female sexuality is portrayed in a way that is palatable and accessible to men, and anything outside of that is intimidating. Something so unabashedly female is ultimately kind of scary—in fact, I consider it to be pretty confrontational. Dressing this way takes a certain kind of ownership of one’s own sexuality that wearing expected or regular things just does not. It doesn’t take a lot of moxie to put on a pencil skirt and flats. It’s not, as some commentators have suggested, some sort of appeal to men’s expectation that women should be childlike....or to emulate little girls, despite the name Lolita."

What do you think? Do you like the look? Have you seen Lolita fashion stateside in the big cities?

The Magic of Masquerades

2011-10-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's autumn - rose gold light, pumpkin spice lattes, cuddly sweaters (well, maybe not yet in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we're having some of our warmest weather of the year). And Halloween is just around the corner. It was always one of my favorite holidays growing up, not for the candy but for the magic of masquerading as someone else (inevitably a favorite historical or fictional character) for the day.

Thinking about Halloween made me think about masquerade balls. I've always loved them in books. Costumes allow characters to highlight their personalities or to masquerade as someone quite different. And masks allow for all manner of intrigue, romantic or otherwise. My mind tens to run to suspense when it comes to intrigue. My idea for my book The Mask of Night began with the image of a masked man floating, stabbed to death, in a fountain, and my masked heroine reaching into the water to examine the body.

Masked balls were a frequent form of entertainment at the Congress of Vienna. In a city filled with dukes, princes, kings, and emperors, where rules of protocol and precedence hung over most public events, masquerades provided unexpected freedom. Not to mention an opportunity for sexual and diplomatic intrigue. A masquerade at the Hofburg Palace marked the start of the Congress. At another masked ball at the Hofburg on 30 October, 1814, a masked figure slipped Prince Metternich a note from his political and romantic rival, Tsar Alexander, concerning Wilhelmine of Sagan, a woman they both pursued.

Costumes at these masked balls followed a variety of themes. At a masquerade Mettternich gave in November at his summer villa (which is the setting for a sequence in my Vienna Waltz), the sovereigns were told to wear black and ladies were asked to dress in regional costume. Peasant dresses swirled on the dance floor, many stitched with enough jewels to feed an entire peasant village for a month. Lady Castlereagh excited comment by wearing her husband's Order of the Garter in her hair. At midnight, many of the guests exchanged masks, adding to the masquerade mischief. And despite the glittering guest list, not all those present were monarchs and aristocrats. Metternich sent Wilhemine of Sagan tickets for her maid Hannchen and Hannchen's daughters and even suggested Hannchen and Wilhelmine could switch masks if they liked.

In January, yet another masked ball at the Hofburg followed a glittering sleigh rideto the Schönbrunn and back. Only Lent put an end to the endless round of masquerades, though not to the romantic and political intrigue.

Do you enjoy masked balls in books, as a reader or a writer? What do they allow that isn't possible in non-masquerade party scenes? Any favorite sequences in books?

Hoops, False Rumps, and Other Padding

2011-10-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Most people know what “panniers” are (the wide skirt supports we all think of when we picture Marie Antoinette in her WIDE formal gowns). During the Georgian era in England, they were simply known as “hoops” and they took many forms, from the full, round hoops of the 1730s (very Scarlet O’Hara, though 100+ years earlier) to the wide, but flat hoops of the 1760s (which are collapsible, so the lady could lift them, tuck them under her elbows, step through the doorway, and then let them back down), to the smaller “pocket hoops” of the 1770s. To the left, you can see a pair made of bent willow cane.

What a lot of people aren’t familiar with are the false rumps of the 1780s. These could be stuffed, like a cushion, or they could be made of cork. The use of cork led to some rather amusing cartoons of women being used as shuttlecocks or racing down the Thames balanced on them like tiny boats. To the right is my favorite, The New Rigatta.

In the late 1790s, when gowns go Grecian, there was still a small moon-shaped pad at the “waist” which was there to hold the gown out away from the body and the small of the back and to help keep it from forming to the lady’s posterior. These were used well into the Regency period, up until the 1820s when the high-waist dropped down to the natural waist and petticoats became fuller, obviating the need for them.

Of course then they simply move to the arms, where they are stuffed with down and used to hold out the large, ridiculous sleeves of the late 1820s and 1830s.

Curricles, with Candice Hern

2011-10-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to the History Hoydens for allowing me to guestblog today. I don't have a blog of my own (not sure I want one), but sometimesI just like to talk history with like-minded folks. So here I am.

I have a thing for carriages. I don't know why. I assume they were uncomfortable andbone-rattling, no matter how well-sprung. I would not particularly like to have to rely on one to get around. And yet, somehow I love them. I love picturing my characters seated inthem, or driving them. Especially thesporting vehicles. The sports cars oftheir day.

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Carriage Museumin Maidstone. Greg and I were the only ones there, with the caretaker at our disposal,patiently answering all my questions. Iwas in hog heaven. I *so* wanted to beable to climb into various carriages, to know what it felt like, to imaginemyself in a Regency gown trying gracefully to get in and out without showingtoo much leg. As accommodating as thecaretaker was, he wouldn't go that far. Believe me, I asked!

I spent most of my time studying a curricle from the late1790s. That's the one I most wanted to climb aboard, because so many of myheroes have driven one, often with the heroine at his side.

A bit of background before I talk about this specificcurricle.

The curricle, a two-wheeled open-air vehicle with acollapsible hood, was first made in Italy. French carriage-makersimproved on the design, and it became extremely popular there in the early 18thcentury. It took almost a century for itto catch on in England,where in the last years of the 18th century it began to supplant the four-wheeledphaeton as the sporting vehicle of choice.

There were many reasons for the huge popularity of thecurricle. It was the only two-wheeledcarriage at the time that allowed two horses to be driven abreast. Instead ofone horse driven between a pair of shafts (which was the usual method for asingle-axle carriage), the curricle used a pole attached by springs to aspecial bar that lay across the saddles on the horses backs.

The use of the curricle bar made it essential that the twohorses be of exactly the same height and stride. That's why we always hearabout men wanting "matched pairs" for their curricles. It was not purely for aesthetics. With balanced springs and a matched pair ofhorses, the result was an easy, buoyant motion – a comfortable carriage.

The sleek design, though, did have aesthetic appeal. Therounded body was enhanced throughout by elegant curves: the dashboard slopinggently outward over the horses, the large C springs in the back, thescooped-out entrances. Hardly anystraight lines to be seen. The earliest models were quite elevated, in thestyle of the high-perch phaeton. But by the mid-Regency, more moderateelevations became the norm. The curricle seated two, rather snugly, and therewas often, but not always, a groom's seat in the rear between the springs, asseen in the print of the Marquis of Anglesey driving his curricle with a tigerseated in the rear.

The expense, and difficulty, of finding horses matched insize and pace and of a quality suited to the curricle made keeping such acarriage only within the means of the wealthy. And so the carriage makersspared no expense in making the curricle as decorative as their clientsdesired. Dandies and Corinthians drovecurricles in all colors and with all manner or ornament.

Curricles required good driving skills, as they were proneto accidents. Because of the curricle bar, if one horse lost his footing, bothhorses could be brought down, and the driver sent flying. That's why curricle races were heavily wagered.At high speeds, there was bound to be an accident.

Back to that curricle at the Maidstone Museum.

It is decorated with the arms of Sir Robert Kemp, who diedin 1761. However, both the museumcaretaker and I agreed that it must have belonged to a later baronet, probablySir William Robert Kemp, the 9th baronet, who lived until 1804. A curricle ofthis style was simply not being made in England in the 1760s. Based oneverything I've read, I would date it to the 1790s.

You can see from the first photo above that there is nogroom's seat in the back. This sometimes required the placement of a quantityof iron in a box on the rear undercarriage to counteract the weigh of thedriver, whose seat was slightly in front of the axle. I suspect heavy luggagemight have served the same purpose, though it appears in this case that the boxyou see did indeed hold iron weights. Beneath the leather flap in the back, youcan see the edge of the sword case.

Even though it is the worse for wear, being over 200 yearsold, it is still an elegant-looking vehicle. Note the padded leather seats, the gadrooned wooden fittings, and thewonderful carriage lamp. There alsoseems to be a closed storage area beneath the seat. I like to think a gentleman would keep apistol or two there, to be easy at hand if needed.

Since I was not allowed to climb into it, I took a lot ofphotos and made a lot of notes in order to come to some understanding of whatit would have been like to get into it. This is an early curricle, so it is oneof the higher versions.

The first thing one would have to do is step into the ironstirrup (one on each side) that sits about 14" off the ground. Enteringfrom the left side, you would place your right foot in the stirrup. Next, youwould place your left foot onto the metal plate that sits 12-13" up fromthe stirrup, and about 10" to the left. Then you'd have to sort of swingyour right foot over and up about 6" onto the floor of the carriage. Thereare lots of things to hold onto while you climbed in, and I have no doubt afashionable gentleman made a point of alighting with quick ease and grace. Ithink a woman in long skirts would have had more difficulty, but she, too, musthave developed a special grace for entering all sorts of carriages. The lowercurricles, like the one shown above with the Marquis of Anglesey, would likelyhave been more manageable, though the steady hand of a gentlemen would alwaysbe helpful.

And it's a pretty tight seat for two, measuring only about38-40" across. Very cozy for a ride through Hyde Park,don't you think?

Home Sweet Home

2011-10-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

As I write this, the exterior of my house is being power-washed. Streams of water are flushing down the cobwebs from under the eves, washing away insect trails, swooshing away ten years’ accumulation of dust that muddies the pristine blue paint. Yesterday, my housekeeper scrubbed the sinks, vacuumed the carpets, dusted the bookshelves, and generally blew a cleansing air through the place. She does this once a month, and inbetween times I am careful not to stain the kitchen sink with blueberry juice or let grease accumulate around my gas stove burners.

I have an easy life. My mother, however, and my grandmother and my great-grandmother worked like slaves to keep their houses clean. This wasn’t easy on ranches and farms, and even in town there was always cleaning to be done. Each year in the Fall, the cleaning got serious.

Mrs. Caroline Dunwoody was the cleaning expert of the 19th century, and this is what she recommends for Fall Cleaning:

1. Clean and clear out cellar and attic.
2. Wash all blankets and sun the heavy quilts.
3. Clean, mend, and put by furs, thick clothes, winter hats, and

winter bedding.
4. Remove, clean, and store summer slipcovers.
5. Wax the furniture.
6. Clean lamps and shades.
7. Hang carpets outside for a good beating and sun them for a day.
8. Sun and air mattresses and pillows.
9. Turn mattresses.

Fall was also the time for whitewashing the kitchen. Here is one recipe for whitewash: dissolve a pound of potash in a gallon of water, then add a pound of alum. When that dissolves, make a paste by stirring in a little flour until 10 pounds of flour are added. Slake [crumble] a bushel of lime. When cold, incorporate it with the first preparation. (The lime prevents fermentation.)

A cheaper “whitewash” combines 2 quarts of skimmed milk with 2 ounces of fresh lime which you stir until it resembles cream. Then you sprinkle 5 pounds of whiting [calcium carbonate] over the top, mix well, and apply with a paintbrush.

Washing blankets and woolens in the 1800s was real work. First, you put 2 heaping tablespoons of borax and 1 pint of soft soap [probably made at home from lye, lard, and wood ashes] into a large tub of cold water. Let the blankets soak for about 9 hours. Then rub and rinse, but do not wring out – that will ruin them. Hang in the sunshine to dry.

For mildew, rub the article with white vinegar and lemon juice; saturate the stain, then sprinkle salt on the area and scrub. Place in the sun to dry. Mrs. Dunwoody advises that “this may need a few treatments, but it does work; eventually the mildew will come out, but you must be patient.”

You know, I think I’ll buy some stock in corporations that manufacture washing machines . . .

Source: Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping.

Hollywood and Shakespeare

2011-10-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else been watching the edgy trailer for a new movie about Shakespeare? But this time, Hollywood isn't thinking about his private life and romances. Oh no. The movie, Anonymous worries about his qualifications as An Author.

"Was Shakespeare A Fraud?"

Hmm. As an author myself, this topic makes me nervous. As a historian and a reader, I'm totally fascinated. What if William Shakespeare didn't write all the plays that still grip millions of people? What if he was only the front man for a far better writer? Why would that more talented man choose never to claim ownership of such brilliant work?

This movie suggests one answer, based on the era's politics. (Vanessa Redgrave as Elizabeth I? Wow!) Plus, the sets and costumes look awesome, something I'm always a sucker for. I'll definitely be in line to see this movie.

You can watch the trailer here.

Readers, is there an author whose life you'd like to see made into a movie? Authors, can you think of a "story behind the book" that might make a good movie?

Names (the never ending dilemma)

2011-10-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

There’s been lots of talk about names on one of my historical discussion boards. Some writers are strongly in favor of using only the most popular and common names. Some take their stand behind unusual, but still historically appropriate names. A tiny faction doesn’t care if the name is period, so long as it’s memorable and evocative.

From what I’ve seen just reading period journals and books over the years, a writer is “safe” choosing any of the common names (John, George, William, Thomas, James, Charles; Margaret, Jane, Alice, Ann), Biblical names (Samuel, David, Emanuel, Gideon; Sarah, Ruth, Judith), and almost anything classical (Alexander, Sampson, Hector, Daniel; Octavia, Helen, Dionysia) or historical (Henry, Richard, Stephen; Eleanor, Elizabeth, Catherine).

I went through the first thousand records on ancestry.uk for people born in 1780 and what follows is the list of names I compiled (* next to names that appeared only once):

MEN

Abraham
Adam
Augustus*
Alexander
Alley*
Anthony
Benjamin
Bernard*
Charles
Christopher
Clem
Dane*
Daniel
David
Edward
Emanuel
Evan*
Francis
Frederick
George
Gideon
Grosvenor*
Hector
Henry
Herbert
Isaac
Jacob
James
Jeremiah
Jonathan
John
Joseph
Joshua
Langley*
Lewis*
Magnus*
Mark
Matthew
Michael
Miles
Miller*
Nathaniel
Nicholas
Osbourn*
Peter
Ralph
Richard
Robert
Sampson
Samuel
Stephen
Thomas
Timothy
Valentine
William

WOMEN

Alice
Amelia
Anne/Ann
Barbara
Betty
Bridget*
Caroline
Catherine
Charlotte
Christina
Deborah
Dinah*
Dionysia*
Dorothy
Edith
Eleanor
Elizabeth
Ellen
Emma*
Esther
Eve*
Fanny
Frances
Grace
Hannah
Harriet
Helen
Henrietta
Hester
Innocent*
Isabella
Jane
Johanna
Judith
Julia
Leah*
Louisa
Lydia
Margaret
Margery*
Maria
Martha
Mary
Millicent*
Molly
Nancy*
Octavia*
Phillis/Phyllis
Phoebe
Priscilla
Rachel
Rebecca
Rose*
Ruth
Sarah
Sophia
Susan/Susanna/Susannah
Theresa
Thomasina*
Zenobia*

What do you as readers or writers think? Do you prefer your romances between a George and a Harriet, or a Magnus and a Zenobia (or a George and a Zenobia)? Or do you not care if authors all use the same ten names over and over and over (I think my Georgianna and Elizabeth Hoyt’s Georgiana are both memorable and discernable).

Imperial Scandal Preview

2011-09-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I received a wonderful gift in the form of an envelope filled with coverflats for my next Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch book release Imperial Scandal (April 2011 ). This week I'm buried in deadlines. So it seemed a good time for post a preview of Imperial Scandal. Here's an excerpt that takes place at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the iconic entertainment at which Wellington received confirmation that Napoleon was on the march. The ball was on 15 June, 1815. The battle of Waterloo followed on 18 June. This except picks up on Suzanne at the ball with Aline Blackwell, her husband's cousin, and the Duchess of Richmond’s daughter Georgiana Lennox.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Swags of crimson, gold, and black, the Royal colors of the Netherlands, veiled the rose trellis wallpaper in the Duchess of Richmond’s ballroom. Ribbons and flowers garlanded the pillars. The younger Lennoxes had thrown open the windows that ran along one side of the room, letting in a welcome breeze to stir the hot, heavy air. Cool moonlight blended on the parquet floor with warmer light from the brilliant chandeliers. The flames of dozens of branches of candles shimmered in the dark glass of the French windows and the brightly polished gilt-edged mirrors. The strains of a waltz rose above the clink of glasses and buzz of brittle talk. But Suzanne had the oddest sense the delicate atmosphere could shatter as easily as one could break a champagne glass with a silver spoon.
“There are so many dignitaries present, from so many countries,” Georgiana Lennox said. “It’s quite a chore keeping precedence straight.”
“Just like Vienna,” Aline murmured.
Indeed the profusion of medals, braid, and gold and silver lace glittering in the candlelight called to mind scenes at the Congress, as did the perfume, beeswax, and sweat vying with the sweet of aroma from the banks of roses and lilies that decorated the room. But the two hundred some guests crowding Georgiana’s mother’s ballroom were a small crowd compared to the thousand and more Prince and Princess Metternich had entertained at their villa.
“It looks splendid,” Suzanne said.
Georgiana gave a smile slightly strained about the edges. “You’d never guess my sisters use this room as a schoolroom, would you? Or that we’ve been known to play battledore and shuttlecock in here.” She scanned the crowd. “I do wish Wellington would come.”
“He may have ordered the army ready to march,” Aline said, “but he obviously isn’t in a panic. Half his officers are here.”
“But there’s a distinct dearth of Dutch-Belgians.” Georgiana tugged at a loose thread in her sleeve. “None of General Perponcher’s officers has put in an appearance.”
“Lord Hill is saying everything that is reassuring.” Suzanne scanned the soldiers thronging the floor with ladies in gauzy, ribbon-trimmed gowns in a hothouse of colors—lilac, rose, Pomona green, jonquil, cerulean blue. Her gaze settled on a man in Belgian uniform. Good God. Surely that handsome face with the slanting cheekbones belonged to General de la Bédoyère, who had taken his regiment over to Napoleon and was now one of his aides-de-camp. La Bédoyère met her gaze for the briefest moment, a reckless glint in his eyes, then continued to glance round the room.
Aline pulled her lace shawl closer about her shoulders despite the heat in the room. “Georgy’s right, Perponcher’s officers not being here is worrying.”
Georgiana shot a surprised look at her. “You’re always so calm, Allie.”
“Calm?” Aline’s voice turned unwontedly sharp. “My insides are roiling about, and for once I don’t think it’s anything to do with the baby.”
“But–”
“My husband’s military doctor, Georgy. That means he’ll be near the front. Which does rather strain one’s savoir-faire.”
Suzanne put an arm round Aline and squeezed her shoulders. With everything else going on these past days, she’d quite failed to think about what her young cousin was going through. “Geoff’s been through countless battles.”
“And he’ll be in much less danger than the soldiers. I know.” Aline’s shoulders were taut beneath Suzanne’s arm. “But somehow it doesn’t help.”
Georgiana flicked her fan open and then closed. “The Prince of Orange gave it to me,” she said, fingering the amber sticks. “So odd to think of him commanding troops. I can’t help–“
“If one ignores the smell of nervousness in the air and half the conversation, it could almost be a normal evening.” Cordelia emerged from the crowd to stand beside them. Though Suzanne knew just how little time her friend had had to tend to her toilette, she was as dramatic as always in jet-beaded gossamer net over cream-colored silk.
“Define normal,” Aline said.
“There’s the rub. If–” Cordelia broke off as a tall, sandy-haired man in a colonel’s uniform came toward them. Colonel Peregrine Waterford. Suzanne had met him in the Peninsula and seen him once or twice in Brussels.
Waterford greeted all the women, but his gaze lingered on Cordelia, warm with memories. “I was hoping I could persuade you to dance.” His voice was a bit slurred, as though he’d been dipping too deep into the Richmonds’ excellent champagne.
Cordelia’s answering smile was as distant as it was polite. “Thank you, Colonel, but I won’t dance tonight. My sister died only two days ago.”
Embarrassment shot through the colonel’s eyes. He murmured an apology and his condolences on her loss, then quickly took himself off.
“How ill-mannered,” Georgiana said. “I’m sorry, Cordelia.”
“I’m the one who should apologize, Georgy. Your mother wouldn’t thank me for letting you so close to one of my scandals.”
“Oh, stuff.” Georgiana gave a quick flick of her fan. A great deal had changed in her attitude toward Cordelia since Stuart’s ball two days ago. “Scandal seems quite irrelevant now.”
“Scandal is sadly never irrelevant. And the past seems to be always with us. Oh, good, here’s someone who should know something. Lord Uxbridge.” Cordelia held out her hand to the cavalry commander, who was walking toward them. “Do tell us you have news.”
“I’m afraid not.” Uxbridge bowed over her hand. “But surely you don’t think all the officers would have leave to be here were the situation really dire?”
“Yes,” Cordelia said, “if Wellington wanted people to believe the situation less dire than it is.”
Uxbridge threw back his head and laughed. “Touché. It’s a pity you couldn’t have joined the cavalry, Cordy. I could have made something of you.”
“It’s just so hard not knowing,” Georgiana said. “Three of my brothers are in the army, as is Mrs. Blackwell’s husband.”
“And my husband,” Cordelia said.
Georgiana cast a quick glance at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think–”
“Quite understandable. But Harry is my husband and the father of my daughter, and as it happens his fate is a matter of some concern to me.”
Uxbridge looked at her, brows drawing together. “Cordelia-”
“Lord Uxbridge.” Cordelia put her hands on his shoulders with the familiarity of an old friend. “Tell us the truth.”
Uxbridge smiled down at her. “The truth, my dear Cordelia, is that I know little more than you.”
“But you rather think Wellington should have told you more as second in command.”
“You never heard me say so, Cordy.”
Cordelia laughed.
Georgiana shivered. “How can you laugh at a time like this?”
Cordelia smiled at the younger woman and put an arm round her. “My dear Georgy. It’s difficult to see what else we can do.”
“Spoken like a soldier’s wife,” Uxbridge said. He smiled as he spoke, but Suzanne caught a flicker in his gaze. She suspected he was thinking of his own wife, home in England with their children, and the chances that she’d find herself a widow.
The waltz on the dance floor had come to an end. A wail cut the air that took Suzanne back to the previous summer. Dunmykel, Malcolm’s family estate in Perthshire. Granite cliffs, the tang of salt water, clean pine-scented air. and the unmistakable sound of bagpipes. Kilted sergeants and privates from the 92nd Foot and the 42nd Royal Highlanders marched into the room. The candlelight gleamed off their white sporrans and the brilliant tartans that trailed over their shoulders.
The crowd drew back and broke into applause. “Mama wanted to show off Highland dances,” Georgiana murmured. Her mother was a daughter of the Duke of Gordon. “She did so want the evening to be memorable.” Georgiana bit her lip, for the evening was almost bound to be memorable for reasons that had nothing to do with the entertainment.
Yet when crossed swords glinted on the parquet floor and the Highlanders danced over them to the wail of the pipes, it was almost enough to drive out thoughts of the coming battle. Except that those swords looked all too lethal.
Suzanne felt a light touch at her waist as the sword dance gave way to a strathspey. “I could almost imagine I’m home,” Malcolm murmured.
She twisted her head round to glimpse an ache of longing in her husband’s eyes. She’d seen last summer how much Dunmykel meant to him. Even after their visit she didn’t understand the reasons for his self-imposed exile from his home and family. A homesickness he would never admit to was sharp in his gaze now. With a chill, she realized he was wondering if he’d ever see Dunmykel again.
She caught his hand in her own and squeezed it hard. He smiled at her. “You’re missing the show.”
She turned back to the dancers. Their legs, clad in red-checkered stockings, seemed to move ever faster. The sound of the pipes swirled through the candle-warmed air and bounced off the ballroom ceiling. Incredible to think that these musicians and dancers would soon be marching off to battle. On her husband’s side. And against her own.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Any favorite real historical balls or parties in fiction? What makes them come to life for you? Writers, do you find it nerve-wracking to take on an iconic historical event? I'll give away a signed coverflat for Imperial Scandal to one commenter on today's post.

The VICTORIAN game of croquet

2011-09-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite sure why croquet feels like it belongs at a Regency House party, but it clearly does. Maybe it's the sweet, stuffy nature of it? Or the historical and English feel of it (white linen and vast lawns). Whatever the reason, people can easily picture Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters playing the game on a sunny afternoon and many an author has stumbled into this trap. Sadly, croquet is solidly Victorian.

According to English Costume for Sports and Outdoor Recreation it was introduced to England in the 1850s, most likely by Lord Lonsdale, who was one of the first to lay out a court at his country estate.

The OED also dates “croquet” to 1858: “Field 10 July 33/3 There is no game which has made such rapid strides in this county [Co. Meath] within a few years as croquet.”

Manuals for the game support such a date as well, Routledge's Handbook on Croquet dating to 1864 and Croquet, a new Game of Skill dates to 1867.We also have quotes such as this one from The Book of Croquet (1873):

"Some twelve years back...Pretty ladies were soon thumping those bright balls about with tiny mallets; and this game became quite popular...Does it not almost seem as if the process of croqueting and the fact that young ladies have pretty ankles, were discovered at one and same moment of time?" [skirts had risen several inches in the 1860s from their former ground-skimming length]

But wait, you say. Wasn't it just a tamed down version of Pall Mall? This theory is often advanced in defense of Regency croquet, but history does not support this development (unless you rely on Wikipedia). Pall Mall was a wild sport that required a loooooooong court (the mall) of crushed oyster shell (see Sin City: London in Pursuit of Pleasure for more on this). Pall Mall also died out in at the beginning of the 18th century, so there's no logical growth of the game from a wild and somewhat dangerous men's sport to a staid and ladylike game.

So let them play cricket, or tennis, or shuttlecock. Let them compete at archery, race their horses, or even steel their brothers' phaetons and go for a wild jaunt. Let them angle for fish in the lake, punt romantically across its surface, or skate if it's a winter-set book. But please, no croquet.

Re-igniting the fire in the belly

2011-09-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

In January 2012, my novella - Gauchos & Gumption: My Argentine Honeymoon – will be published by Turquoise Morning Press. This is a fictionalized memoir by my grandmother, Leora Maria Banning (see photo at left), about her trip to South America in 1910. Accompanying the journal are actual photographs she took on the Argentine plains with a simple box camera.

Writing this work has been something of a struggle. All writers struggle, I know. We go through periods of “ohmigod how do I do this?” And we wish for hope to sustain us - a sort of church for writers. For me, that “church” is other writers’ work. While working on Gauchos I have been buoyed up by four novels in my genre – western historicals – which I found inspiring. Naturally, I can’t resist talking about them.

Settler’s Law, by Doris H. Eraldi (Berkley, 2010). This isn’t a romance, exactly, but it does portray one of those really special unspoken-bond relationships that I find moving and believable. The hero (Settler, or “Sett”) is a man working to overcome an unsavory past and he has scars to prove it.

The setting, the Montana mountains of 1886, is so beautifully presented I never tired of the descriptions of woods and canyons, trees and rivers, the weather (!), even rough-and-ready towns. What drew me in and what sticks with me is the authenticity of the people, the place, and the story--not high drama in the “Indian war” tradition, but the quiet, wrenching drive for one human being to connect with another.

The sequel, Settler’s Chase, which deals with a woman’s desperate yearning for a child, is proving to be equally moving. As with Settler’s Law, I’m finding it hard to stop reading and this isn’t because of a “hook” at the end of each chapter; it’s because the story is compelling and has meaning beyond the world of “entertaining fiction.”

Hot Biscuits, Eighteen Stories by Women and Men of the Ranching West, edited by Max Evans and Candy Moulton (University of New Mexico Press, 2002), is an eclectic collection of wonderful tales that have that typical “cowboy” humor and a good deal of human sensitivity to the land and to the human condition.

These are stories of heartbreak, of surprises, and of struggle in the Old West that speak to us – or at least to me – today. There is a tenacity and verve to the characters depicted that I find heartening, even uplifting. Such stories make me laugh and wonder at the strength and grace of human beings under pressure.

Mama Grace, an Oklahoma Centennial Book, by Dana Bagshaw ( Evans Publications, Inc. 2006), is a novel based on an original (unpublished) work by Letha Crossman, the author’s grandmother. Mama Grace is the author’s great-grandmother. The story is told in diary format; the chapters are presented in order of occurrence as the title character, Grace Barnet, a pioneer woman, brings her five children in a covered wagon to Waynoka, in western Oklahoma, to farm. She made the trip alone, with the ammunition for her rifle stashed in her bosom and her baby son on her lap.

Neither the trip nor the life they found in Oklahoma were easy; the adventures and trials Mama Grace weathered brought my eyebrows up and tears to my eyes. This woman had real spunk, real fears, real heartbreak, and real triumphs in a land where water was scarce, prairie fires raged, renegade Indians and outlaws (“Three-Finger Jack”) rode free, and houses had no heat but for a wood-burning cook stove.

My Name Is Mary Sutter, by Robin Oliveira (Penguin, 2010), a first novel, is fiction of the highest caliber about a young Albany, New York, woman who becomes a nurse during the Civil War. I was riveted by this story, amazed at the depth of insight into Mary Sutter’s thinking and emotions and pop-eyed at the unvarnished picture of the War, which included not only Mary’s personal trials but the impressively researched events that occurred in makeshift hospitals (the author is a nurse), in President Lincoln’s office, in Dorothea Dix’s parlor, and on the bloody fields of battle.

Reading such a work gives me pause: what struggles and anguish human beings are subjected to and survive, not without scars but with courage and nobility.

Are any of you inspired by or drawing on family diaries or autobiographies for your work?

History in Living Color

2011-09-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much to the History Hoydens for hosting me today as I celebrate the recent release of my new Victorian historical, ROMANCING THE COUNTESS!

I’m the type of writer who enjoys a good challenge. Actually, the measure of the challenge’s difficulty depends on how 1) how much sleep I’ve had recently and 2) how much screaming my daughters have subjected me to that day. =)

For the story of ROMANCING THE COUNTESS, I wanted to focus on the developing relationship between the hero and heroine more than any exotic or unusual setting. With this in mind, I chose to write a large portion of the story with a country house party as the background. Although a country house party isn’t extraordinary for historical romances, I’d never written one before so it was exciting for me. Yet I also wanted to write of activities that could have occurred at a country house party that weren’t typical from my experience as a romance reader.

Therefore, I conducted a little research and found something which intrigued me: tableaux vivants. Or, in translation: living pictures.

We’ve probably all read romances featuring plays or dramatic readings. Well, tableaux vivants are still performances. Participants chose scenes from paintings or even scenes in history, costumed themselves appropriately, then stood before the audience as a scene or painting come to life. They did not speak and they did not move; they simply kept still.

In ROMANCING THE COUNTESS, our heroine—who is the hostess of the house party—sets up such a tableaux vivants activity for her guests. I’m sure the audience’s interpretation of various tableaux vivants would be thrilling indeed when the still portrayals were performed. However, instead of writing the scene of the actual tableaux vivants, I chose instead to write a scene which shows what I imagined to truly be the most exciting aspect—the choosing of which painting or historical scene to imitate and the decisions on how to costume the participants.

It’s one of my favorite scenes where the hero interacts with the other guests (let’s just say he was chosen to be the murdered Julius Caesar in someone else’s tableau vivant), and I hope you enjoy it, too. =)

Have you ever heard of or seen a tableau vivant before? What are some of your favorite activities at a house party to read about in historical romances?

One random commenter will be chosen to win a copy of my newest book, ROMANCING THE COUNTESS (open internationally)! Also, find out how to win the ROMANCING THE COUNTESS Book Tour Grand Prize of 50+ romance novels by visiting www.AshleyMarch.com!

Welcome, Rose Lerner!

2011-09-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Rose Lerner. Some of you may remember her from her critically acclaimed first book, In for a Penny. Her long-awaited second book, A Lily Among Thorns (doesn't she have the best titles?) is now in stores. Just to make things more interesting, she has a hero with a rather unusual profession-- and she's here to talk to us about him today. She has also very generously agreed to give away a copy of A Lily Among Thorns to someone who comments on this post.

Welcome, Rose!

The hero of my new book, A Lily Among Thorns, Solomon Hathaway, is a chemist who manufactures dyes for the family tailoring shop. My memories of high school chemistry mostly involve being extremely afraid I would spill acid or cyanide on myself--I'm neurotic and a klutz, bad combination--and the little I did know didn't help me much with writing a Regency scientist.

Even after all my research, the occasional elementary mistake had to be corrected by scientific friends. Everyone's seen liquid nitrogen at some point, right? Wrong. A biochemist friend informed that no one had ever turned nitrogen liquid yet in 1815. I could mention liquid sulfur, but even that was a fairly recent discovery. (Wikipedia informs me that, "In the late 18th century, furniture makers used molten sulfur to produce decorative inlays in their craft. Because of the sulfur dioxide produced during the process of melting sulfur, the craft of sulfur inlays was soon abandoned.")

So I went to the library and checked out The Philosophy of Experimental Chemistry, Vol. 2 by James Cutbush, published in Philadelphia in 1813. It discusses common elements and compounds and their use, and suggests many practical experiments for the student or hobbyist.

While not much of what I read actually made it into the book, it really helped me understand what sorts of things a Regency chemist might have in their laboratory and the type of language they'd use to talk about their work. Some things sounded surprisingly modern, but among that were scattered terms like "sweet spirit of vitriol," "algorath's powder," and "Ethiop's mineral." That last one made it into the book: Solomon uses it to describe the heroine's dark hair. It's really an old term for a hydrosulphuret of mercury.

Here are a couple other bits from the book that originated in Cutbush's Philosophy. In the first one, Serena's estranged father has just shown up, throwing around some really awful threats. It's still early in the book, so Solomon makes a good faith effort to stay out of it, for about five seconds:

"Solomon clenched his fist. It wasn’t his business. He turned to Lady Serena, waiting for her to put her father in his place. But she didn’t. She just stood there. Her eyes reminded Solomon of an experiment he’d done with frozen mercury. He’d put a tiny chip in a glass of water, and in an instant had been left with a block of ice, and at the center a living drop of quicksilver. He was abruptly and blindly angry."

Cutbush says: "Experiment 4. If a lump of frozen mercury be dropped into a cup of warm water, it will become fluid, and the fluid water in the same instant will become solid.
Rationale. The temperature of the water is reduced by the solid mercury to 32 or below 32°, which therefore freezes, whilst the frozen mercury absorbs the caloric of the water, and becomes fluid."

In another, Solomon's talked Serena into wearing a dress made with fabric from his uncle's shop to a high-profile event as an advertisement for his dyes. She's got a pretty scandalous past and tends to stick to conservative fashion choices to compensate, so she's a little nervous, but Solomon has come through: "The severe cut of the thin wool gave her height, and the deep apricot color made her hair and skin glow; yet neither the cloth nor the color seemed too rich for a hard-working woman of business. The long, full sleeves were gathered in three places by white ribbon covered with delicate gilt flourishes."

Cutbush says: "Experiment 26. If a white sattin [sic] ribbon be moistened with a diluted solution of gold in nitro-muriatic acid, and then exposed, while moist, to a current of hydrogen gas, the gold will be reduced and the ribbon become gilt with the metal.
Remark. If the silk be dry no effect takes place. By means of a camel hair pencil the gold may be so applied as to exhibit regular ornaments, or figures, when reduced."

Early on in Lily, I use the phrase "the bluish-white sheen of arsenic." According to Cutbush, pure arsenic is bluish-white. When sublimed in contact with air it becomes the "white arsenic of the shops," which I thought sounded extremely glamorous. I don't know why I find it so hard to imagine being able to go out and buy arsenic at the shops when there are plenty of poisonous things readily available for purchase today, but there it is.

If you're interested in checking out Cutbush yourself, he's been scanned into Google books. Here are a few bonus experiments I copied out that have absolutely nothing to do with my book, but that are fascinating:

"Experiment 15. If a solution of nitrate of silver be applied to any animal or vegetable substance, it will be stained of a black colour.
Experiment 16. If half an ounce of nitrate of silver be dissolved in 16 ounces of distilled water, the solution for blacking hair will be formed.
Remark. This is applied to the hair once or twice a-day, and when it has been used for a few days, the hair will become of a durable black colour."

I really don't think I want that in my hair. I'm curious what sort of color it creates, though.

"On the principle of silver combining with sulphur, Mr Hatchett informs us, is practised a deception in England by diminishing the current silver coin. It is done, says he, in the following manner: They expose the coin to the fumes of burning sulphur, by which a black crust of sulphuretted silver is soon formed, which by a slight but quick blow, comes off like a scale, leaving the coin so little affected, that the operation may sometimes be repeated twice or thrice, without much hazard of detection." Sneaky!

"Experiment 14. Draw a landscape with Indian ink, and paint the foliage of the vegetables with muriate of cobalt, the same as that used in Experiment 12, and some of the flowers with acetate of cobalt, and others with muriate of copper. While this picture is cold it will appear to be merely an outline of a landscape or winter scene, but on holding it near the fire it will be transformed to a beautiful summer landscape: this again will appear gradually to lose its verdure, and resume its winter dress, on being removed to a cold situation." I love everything about this.

Any particularly vivid memories of chemistry class? Tell me! I'll be giving away a trade paperback copy of A Lily Among Thorns to a commenter chosen at random!

To learn more about Rose and her books, you can visit her on her website here.

Blog Talk Radio Interview with Isobel Carr

2011-09-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Instead of a blog tour to celebrate the release of RIPE FOR SCANDAL, my editor, Alex Logan, and I did a half-hour interview about my background as a historical re-enactor. We delved into why I’ve done just about every type of re-enacting except Civ-War, how clothing was held closed (during which I totally forgot about pins *sigh* which were probably the most common method for holding a gown closed during the 18th century), and just want kind of skivvies my hero might (or might not) be wearing! Give it a listen, it’s fun (and you can hear my “Burning Man laryngitis” as this was done the day after I got home from everyone’s favorite fire and art festival in the Nevada desert).

Blog Talk Radio Interview with Isobel Carr

Maps, Glorious Maps

2011-09-16T02:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it: I get confused easily in strange places and historical places are the worst for befuddling me. Some people can figure out what’s where from a list of directions (turn left here, take two steps forward, slide sideways, etc.) but not yours truly.

I need the visuals. Give me a map. Big, bold and preferably in color. A few angels and dragons don’t hurt, either.

I love Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – but the map describing the Fellowship’s quest thrills me to the bone.

Libraries of maps are wonderful places. The Beau Monde website offers many maps of London, which allow me to plot a walking tour through centuries-old streets.

The United States Geological Service (USGS) has been mapping the United States for the past 125 years. It’s now making all of those glorious maps available online. (Yes!) They can be searched by state and location, plus date.

Studying a map can tell so much. Battlefield maps talk about the land’s shape (e.g., mountains, valleys, rivers, etc.) and people’s movements at different moments. Both Waterloo and Gettysburg look very big and exciting through their maps. Yet it’s still possible to see the difference Gettysburg’s mountains made, as compared to Waterloo’s wheat fields. I needed a map to figure out how my hero escaped from Napoleon’s France in "Caught by the Tides," my Regency novella.

Of course, then there are the author questions to answer, like where on earth should the hero and heroine live. Looking at maps of cities can help figure that out. For example, ancient Rome looks totally different from pre-Civil War Texas. Figuring out how settlement boundaries fluctuated over time gave me fits when I was writing my Texas vampire books! Maps were a godsend.

Some books raise even more specific questions, like how to move characters through backrooms. Marie Antoinette’s Versailles had many more rooms for shuffling underlings through, while Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace had fewer, bigger rooms for entertaining. But compare both of those to China’s Forbidden City with its 9,999 rooms in one massive complex? Well, the options there were infinite!

Reader, have you ever enjoyed a map in a book? Authors, has a map ever helped you write a book?

New Release: THE ROYALS: THE LIVES AND LOVES OF THE BRITISH MONARCHS

2011-09-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the release, on September 22, of my second nonfiction title this year:

THE ROYALS: THE LIVES AND LOVES OF THE BRITISH MONARCHS.

This gorgeous illustrated hardcover book is a Barnes and Noble exclusive (so you will only be able to find it at their brick and mortar stores and at their web site). It covers over a thousand years of history, from William the Conqueror to Prince William of Wales. In fact, Prince William's wedding this past April was probably the primary reason that an editor from beckerandmayer! (the third party publisher who produced the book on B&N's behalf) contacted me just before Christmas last year and commissioned me to write the book. And while I know perfectly well that dear William is not yet a monarch (and there are other royals I profile in the volume who also never sat on the throne), B&N chose the title and was most emphatic about sticking to it.

THE ROYALS has a unique feature, which makes me feel like "history hoyden Barbie" when I peruse it: interspersed throughout the book are big opaque envelopes. Inside them are facsimiles of historical memorabilia, including (among other items) letters from Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard, an invitation to Queen Victoria's Jubilee, Edward VIII's infamous abdication speech, and an invitation (in case yours went missing in the mail last spring) to the wedding of William Wales and Miss Catherine Middleton.

The book also includes historical sidebars about notable events during various reigns.

The turnaround time for this book was insane. I delivered the first draft in 28 days, and I was working on two other books simultaneously. The research was staggering, but in some cases, I was thankfully able to rely on information I already had and research I had already done for my previous nonfiction titles.

Despite my angst, I am extremely pleased with the result. It's a very pretty book and (because I genuinely do love research and royalty), I learned about several figures whose lives I hadn't delved into before, including some of the recent and current crop of Windsors (George VI -- he of the stammer; and the Queen Mum, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon; and QE II and Prince Philip). And of course, there's a good deal of material on William and Kate, in addition to some wonderful photos from the royal wedding.

Writers: have you ever felt like you were playing "beat the clock?" What's the fastest turnaround time you've ever had to deliver a manuscript, or revisions? Do you often find yourself juggling multiple manuscripts? How do you cope?

Colonial Beauty Recipes

2011-09-11T19:14:00.001-07:00

I've been pondering if a Colonial American romance might work---editors have in the past said no, but as I reader and a writer, I am looking for a fresh setting and fresh story. And there was such a thing as an American beauty (a must for a romance heroine). So I researched a little about what colonials thought was attractive--not much different than today---signs of good health: good teeth, nice skin, nice hair. I looked into what it what it might require cosmetically. Here are a couple of recipes I thought were interesting, including one on how to freshen up your room:

Rose Balm- For hands, feet, elbows, and general dry skin

1/2 pound hogs lard (can be purchased in grocery stores labeled "lard")
1/4 pound or less of white wax (candle stubs or canning wax work well)
Rose water*

Alkanet root or cochineal pigment (if desired)
Place lard in a good size bowl. Pour a couple tablespoons full of rose water over the lard and mix well with your hands. Let it set for a day. Most lard purchased in stores has preservatives in it, so no worries about spoilage.

After a day, place lard in a double boiler. Slowly melt down the lard. If using pigment, add your pigment at this time. Once the lard is melted, add your wax. This is where you decide how hard you want your balm to be. More wax equals a harder balm. Err on the side of caution and add less the first time around, and if it isn't hard enough for you once it has cooled, melt it down again and add more wax. If it isn't soft enough, melt it down and add more lard. Once you have figured out the right consistency, If desired or needed, add more rose water while the concoction is still liquid. Pour liquid into small containers to cool (votive holders work well) and enjoy!

*You can substitute any scent you wish, just make sure it is strong enough.

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For Cleaning and freshening of rooms

Medium bottle apple cider vinegar
Dried or fresh:
Sage
Rosemary
Thyme
Lavender
Glass container with cork
Loosely layer your herbs in your glass container until just over half full. Fill with your apple cider vinegar and cork off. Store in a cool, dry, dark place for 6Â months. Resist the urge to sniff, the results will be more impressive if you don't. At the end of six months, pour off the vinegar and use for cleaning. The origin of this vinegar's story is in France, where a great plague was in full force. Four young men decided to take advantage of the situation, and broke in to the home of the sick. Amazingly, they themselves never got ill. They were finally caught and brought before the judge. The judge knew of their reputations, and made a deal with them. If they divulged their secret (how they themselves never came down with the plague, even after being in the homes of the sick), he would let them go free. Supposedly, this vinegar was their secret. This receipt is old even by the 18th century.

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Cleaning of the skin

White wine
Rosemary (fresh or dried)
Boil the rosemary with the white wine for about 15 min. Let set to cool and strain out the rosemary. Dip a fine napkin in the liquid, and rub face vigorously.

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Scented powder for body or hair

Glass jar with cork
Dried lavender flowers
Starch (corn starch is used late in the 18th century, wheat starch is more common during the period. If you can find dried, powdered laundry starch, this is perfect!)
Gently bruise lavender flowers to release the scent. Bottle the starch up with your crushed lavender flowers, shaking it to mix it well and cork it tight. More flowers equals more scent. Let set for at least two months, so the starch will absorb all the scent. Sift the flowers out before use.
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As a historical reader, the use of sage, thyme, lavender and rose water comes as no surprise. From the middle ages to colonial America, those scents persist. Particularly in historical romance.

I am always looking for ways to enhance the senses in my historical writing. As a reader, what other scents and smells have that "historical feel??, exluding the one of course, that probably dominated! The great unwashed!

Love & Protectiveness

2011-09-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

I recently posted an excerpt from my next Malcolm & Suzanne book, Imperial Scandal, on my website. One of the commenters, Jeanne Pickering, had come great observations about the protectiveness (or lack of it) of one of the characters, Raoul, toward the heroine, Suzanne/Mélanie.

It’s his ruthlessness that gives Melanie her independence and her freedom to be “feral”, “fierce” and “reckless.” He never tries to protect her by restraining her actions. He uses her for those qualities seemingly without hesitation.

But the common trope in a romance is that, if a good man loves a woman, then he wants to keep her from endangering herself. He may not act on those feelings, he may even recognize the inconsistency between loving her for her strength and wanting to protect her from harm but those protective instincts always seem to arise. So when we are seeing from the good man’s POV, we will eventually hear those thoughts.

Which made me ponder the question, is protective behavior a sign of love? Or is it a sign of love to accept a beloved's need to run risks? Jeanne blogged about this question, and I blogged about it myself on my website. I've been mulling over the question some more since.

It's a question that one of my favorite literary couples, Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, struggle with. As Jeanne said, I can think of one other male “romance” character who understood that love doesn’t give a man the right to restrain a woman’s actions in order to protect her. It’s Lord Peter Wimsey in Gaudy Night. Here's an excerpt where Peter and Harriet confront the issue:

[Peter]"But if it's only my own risk, I can afford to let it blow. When it comes to other people--"

[Harriet]"Your instinct is to clap the women and children under hatches."
"Well," he admitted, deprecatingly, "one can't suppress one's natural instincts altogether; even if one's reason and self-interest are all the other way."

"Peter, it's a shame. Let me introduce you to some nice little woman who adores being protected."

"I should be wasted on her. Besides, she would always be deceiving me, in the kindest manner, for my own good; and that I could not stand. I object to being tactfully managed by somebody who ought to be my equal."

Later in the book, Peter understands Harriet's need to run risks in the course of solving the mystery, despite the fact that her life has been threatened. Which in turn helps redress an imbalance that has been one of the issues in their relationship. Harriet has always felt indebted to Peter because when they met she was on trial for murder, and Peter proved her innocence and saved her life.

[Harriet] "I owe you my life--"

"Ah!" said he, smiling. "But I have given you that back by letting you risk it. That was the last kick that sent my vanity out of doors."

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes struggle with similar issues in Laurie King's wonderful series. They have an extraordinarily egalitarian relationship. Yet the scene that ends with them becoming betrothed begins with Holmes hitting Russell over the head and knocking her out so she can’t go with him after the villain. Granted Russell is still recovering from being abducted and exposed to heroin at the time. But it becomes part of their marriage negotiations (“I'll not marry a man I can’t trust at my back.”).

Malcolm/Charles, Suzanne's husband, is a bit more protective than Raoul. Not that he’s overprotective–-she runs a lot of risks at his side from even before they get married. But he slides into what she calls his “Brutus/Hotspur” moments where he tries to protect her or feels guilty because she’s been hurt or put in danger. As she says to him in Vienna Waltz, “Darling, I knew what you did when I married you. I knew I’d never be able to bear being your wife if it meant sitting on the sidelines or waiting like Penelope to see if you came back alive. If you wanted that sort of wife you shouldn’t have married me, however strong your chivalrous impulses.”

Two of my other favorite historical detective couples also confront this issue, Tasha Alexander's Emily Ashton and Colin Hargreaves and Deanna Raybourn's Julia Grey and Nicholas Brisbane. In both series, the heroes can accept their wives as partners in adventure but have moments, when Emily and Julia are in danger, where they find themselves rethinking the partnership. Needless to say, neither Emily nor Julia sees the situation the same way.

Of course, sometimes protectiveness is an issue of one partner having greater experience than the other. As Holmes says to Russell,

"I give you my solemn vow, Russell, to try to control my chivalrous impulses. If, that is, you agree that there may come times when--due entirely to my greater experience, I hasten to say--I am forced to give you a direct order."

"If it is given as to an assistant, and not as to a female of the species, I shall obey."

In one of my favorite TV series, Castle, Beckett frequently tells Castle to stay out of danger. After all, she's a police detective, and he's a novelist. Similarly, Colin and Brisbane are trained agents, while Emily and Julia begin the series as amateurs (unlike Suzanne who is a trained agent herself, which I think influences the way both Raoul and Malcolm see her).

Do you equate protectiveness with love? Or are you more inclined to equate love with stepping back while a beloved runs risks? What are other literary couples you can think of who struggle with this issue?

2011-09-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Good Guys
Frontier justice in the old West grew out of the slow realization that dealing with horse thieves or bad characters by vigilante groups was not “the American way.”

However, improvised justice was the way of the West for a good long period and it gave way to law and order only gradually. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, for instance, the head of a vigilante group charmed the governor of Wyoming Territory into appointing him county sheriff by taking a sheet of paper and writing out the appointment. This was in 1869, when Wyoming had four counties the chief law enforcer was responsible for 16,800 square miles of territory.

When frontier towns grew large enough to acquire a town charter, the first order of business was appointing peace officers. In one town, they appointed a marshal to enforce the laws, then realized they hadn’t put any laws on the books!

Keeping order on the frontier demanded courage and firearms skill. A lawman lived in a world where firearms were available to all, and his success often depended on who was the most skilled at slinging bullet - the good guy or the bad guy.. Consequently, gunslingers and gamblers often became peace officers.

Wild Bill Hickok, for example, a belligerent nonconformist and professional gambler, outshot a fellow cardsharp in Springfield, Missouri and thus earned a reputation which he embroidered at will and a position as a lawman. Some of Hickok’s deeds were real; as an Army scout in 1868 he rescued 34 men from an Indian siege by riding through the attackers to get help. He subsequently kept the peace in Kansas, often killing men in the line of duty. But when he overstepped in Abilene in 1871, killing both a drunk and a police officer, the city council fired him.

Other town marshals often misbehaved: one, a saloonkeeper, was discovered to be drugging and robbing his customers.

County sheriffs were a cut above town marshals in the hierarchy, and while sheriffs themselves were often found to be horse thieves and worse, when the town council sized up a new lawman, built a jail, and hired a man to keep law and order, often it was a fair exchange. The marshal had a small force he could call on for help in emergencies and this in itself kept the “chief” under control.

The third and highest level of lawman was the corps of federal officers operating in a state or territory; these were U.S. marshals, charged with enforcing federal laws and pursuing criminals such as mail robbers and Army deserters, and they also lent a hand to the local sheriff or marshal. U.S. marshals were appointed by the President, with consent of the Senate, and they had the power to select their own deputies. Such positions were highly coveted.

When a citizen of the West had a complaint, he would sometimes have to contact a law official hundreds of miles away: either the town marshal or the county sheriff. Between them, these two positions served to uphold frontier law.

The local sheriff had the edge in power and prestige, and many personally tracked down the lawless. Sheriffs were elected and thus had to campaign for favor. Sheriffs maintained the jail, served court orders, and sold tax-delinquent property. In Wyoming, sheriffs inspected owners’ brands on all horses driven out of the state; Utah’s sheriffs also maintained the county dog pounds. In Colorado sheriffs fought forest fires; in Texas they fought prairie dogs; and in New Mexico they searched for straying livestock.

Town marshals served as health inspectors, fire inspectors, and sanitation commissioners. Sometimes they collected taxes and license fees for saloons, houses of prostitution, and dog owners. They also served subpoenas, presided over the jail, kept official records of arrests, gave evidence at trials, and maintained order in the court. All this sounds fairly prosaic until you realize these men were also charged with making arrests.

To me it is most significant that, in the unruly, untamed settlements of the West, the need for law and order was perceived as a high priority and that, while there were notorious abuses on the part of law enforcers, for the most part such men were honest, conscientious, law-abiding citizens who believed in justice and the rule of law.

Guest Hoyden-- Katharine Ashe!

2011-08-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Katharine Ashe, who manages to juggle teaching history to undergrads with writing critically acclaimed historical romances. Her latest is In the Arms of a Marquess, hailed as "a unique adventure romance" by Romantic Times. In the Arms of a Marquess is part of Avon's new KISS and Teal campaign. For every copy sold, Avon will donate 25 cents to raise awareness and $50,000 for Ovarian Cancer research.

Even better, Katharine is here today to talk to us about one of my favorite topics: India.

Without further ado, Katharine Ashe!

A Taste for the Exotic

I have a confession to make. My first beloved romance novel was not written by Jane Austen. Or by Georgette Heyer. Or Kathleen Woodiwiss. Or any other of the great ladies of English and American romance. The novel that made me a devotee of romance fiction doesn’t even take place on the shores of the Atlantic.

I fell in love with romance when at the tender, impressionable age of fourteen, I read THE FAR PAVILIONS by M. M. Kaye. That book engendered in me a taste for the exotic, for an epic realm of adventure that embraced romance, passion, pain, tragedy, violence, joy, and especially the triumphant power of love.

But perhaps my devotion to British India did not form so late in my youth. For — while I enjoyed Pooh and Tigger, Alice in Wonderland and Anne of Green Gables, the Velveteen Rabbit and Peter Rabbit, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and the Twelve Dancing Princesses — it was a clever, courageous mongoose who stole my young heart. Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was my childhood hero. In facing a pair of cobras, Rikki battled darkness. He was not afraid to do violence for right, and in the end he saved the family he loved because he believed it to be his duty.

That defined heroism to me then. It still does. My notions of epic adventure, of romance and passion and truth were formed intimately in the fantastical tales of an exotic nineteenth-century east. It is entirely possible that my pen name came to be Ashe because my romance-loving spirit was forged with the reading Ms. Kaye’s story, whose hero’s English name is Ash. Likewise, it recently struck me that I nicknamed Octavia Pierce, the heroine of IN THE ARMS OF A MARQUESS, “Tavy”. (The subconscious is an awesome thing.)

But not all my interest in the Indian subcontinent under British rule got subsumed in the depths of my psyche. As a girl I took to the study of Indian history like a young monkey takes to trees. This passionate preoccupation followed me into college and then graduate school. Eventually I learned, of course, that tales like Kaye’s are fraught with romanticisms that misrepresent the reality of British imperial rule. I learned about the subaltern and theories that built upon Subaltern Studies in order to understand the diverse peoples of India even more profoundly. But despite this intellectual dashing of my girlish fantasies, the magic never disappeared.

Then one day while I was supposedly working very hard on my dissertation research amongst the dusty fourteenth-century Papal Registers of the Vatican Archives, a story idea came to me. I’d written a Regency romance in which the heroine’s younger sister was a girl on the verge of sixteen. A hoyden of a young miss with coltishly long legs and freckles across her nose, Octavia didn’t give a fig about what she looked like as long as she could read about the East Indies and dream of someday traveling there.

And then there was Ben — Lord Ben Doreé — a half-Indian, half-Anglo son of a disastrous second marriage, barely twenty, tall, dark and gorgeous, and looking over my shoulder as I wrote. And he said that Octavia would be his. He told me this in no uncertain terms.

Well we had some words (strong words; she was fifteen for heaven’s sake!). He said (with contained impatience), yes, he understood this, but perhaps we could come to an agreement. Finally I relented, but I told him he would have to wait a few years for her to become a lady, then after that he would lose her… for a time. He glowered at that last bit. I cowered a little (he’s the dangerous and mysterious type), but I stood fast.

Then I ran for my books. And for my friends. Scholars of India, they cheerfully answered my questions and pointed me toward more resources, never knowing that the rich, tormented history of British India was to be the bed onto which I laid down a pair of lovers — a young gentleman and lady destined to love, to lose, and to love again quite scandalously, and quite happily ever after.

What tales of foreign lands ignited your young imagination?

You can learn more about Katharine and her books on her website: www.katharineashe.com.

Thanks for joining us, Katharine!

Celebrate the Civil War Historians

2011-08-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what was happening on this day in history? Ever wanted to be living someplace other than here, maybe someplace where issues could be openly fought against?

A few months ago, I wandered into my neighborhood Starbucks, desperate for an escape from the usual economic and political news. Much to my surprise, the Washington Post offered a new feature on its front page: “A House Divided” is a daily blog offering news and views about the American Civil War. Interviews with re-enactors soldiering through Fort Sumter’s fall despite the Federal government’s near-shutdown on the same day, thoughtful essays and funny videos, legal decisions by tribal courts – this blog brings an era’s passions and their impact to life.

It’s also a wonderful refuge from today's storms. I promptly hunted for more places like it.

The New York Times offers a similar blog, Disunion. “One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, Americans went to war with themselves. Disunion revisits and reconsiders America’s most perilous period — using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded.” In addition to the newspaper page and website, it has a Facebook page.

Not surprisingly, the History Channel has put together a fantastic website on the Civil War. There’s an overview, plus links to related articles including study guides. Short videos are offered, as well as more in-depth videos. It also has a “On this day in history…” feature, which truly brings the hurry-and-wait nature of that war, like all wars, to life.

The History Channel translated their expertise into a Civil War iPad app. It includes maps, excerpts from the major diaries – and a game! Me, the major non-gamer in the house, finds myself checking in daily, just so I can get the latest news and grab a few more points. It’s insane: you’d think I actually lived back then, the way I’m desperate to learn what happened to each diarist.

The National Park Service also gathered together a fabulous store of Civil War information, comparing then and now for each day. Plus they sponsor a fictional Civil War reporter on Twitter, whose tweets offer both gossip and facts.

Many – most, all? – of the states which participated in the war have also put together their own commemorative sites. All of them focus on their own land and ancestors’ involvement, of course. Virginia and Ohio, for example, have strengthened their Civil War remembrance sites for the sesquicentennial. Virginia’s coverage includes a calendar of events, a "then and now" feature, and the Encyclopedia Virginiana (which emphasizes Virginia during the Civil War). Ohio’s site offers articles, forums, and teaching pages, plus a timeline.

It’s an absolute den of delights out there. It promises to improve too, as the store of Victorian and wartime details builds.

Dare I imagine what other bonbons will appear in three years when the bicentennial – and reenactment – of Waterloo arrives? Or the centennial of World War One begins in Europe?

My deepest thanks to all the historians who created these websites and gave us so many hours of pleasure!

What websites or research books have made you totally forget today’s world? What event do you wish somebody would thoroughly explore?

Twirling it About at The Tuileries: Oh, no he didnt!

2011-08-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

This will have to be one of my briefest posts ever because I'm scrambling to meet a deadline for my next nonfiction book -- to be titled ROYAL ROMANCES: TITILLATING TALES OF PASSION AND POWER IN THE PALACES OF EUROPE. This volume will have about 17 chapters, and at present (though anything can change), the table of contents takes us from Edward III and Alice Perrers all the way to William and Kate, with a bonus chapter about my experiences in London for their royal wedding earlier this year.

Portrait of Louis XIV from 1670

At the moment I am researching the fascinating liaison between the Sun King, Louis XIV and Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, better known as the glittering, and wickedly witty marquise de Montespan. Nicknamed "The real queen of France," she bore the king seven illegitimate children, 3 of whom died before the age of 11; the rest he legitimized and they went on to found some of the great aristocratic houses of France.

Athénaïs utterly fascinates me. Although nothing was ever concretely proven, she was implicated in a plot to poison the king, which effectively put the kibosh on her tenure as his maîtresse en titre or official mistress (leave it to the French to create that position at court!)

But that's not even the subject of this post. It's this: this stop-you-in-your-tracks sentence that I came across during my research. Historian Lisa Hilton wrote the definitive biography of this alluring royal mistress, [The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress Athénaïs, The Real Queen of France] which was published in 2002. Her writing sparkles as much as her subject does. This is narrative nonfiction at its best.

And referring to Louis Quatorze's court, here's the sentence that I could build an entire book (alas, not the one I'm currently writing) around:

Even among the upper classes, male behavior was often shockingly uncivilized. In an etiquette manual of 1671, Antoine de Courtins found it necessary to advise aspiring courtiers not only against belching, farting, spitting and scratching, but against exposing of the penis in company."

Have you ever come across a tidbit of information that was so juicy, or suprising, that it changed, informed, or re-informed your perception of the world you were researching, writing, or reading about? What was it? Please share!

Meet RIPE FOR SCANDAL's dog: Gulliver

2011-08-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the release of RIPE FOR SCANDAL today, I'm returning to a post from last year about Newfoundlands. I feature one in SCANDAL, the stray, shipwrecked Gulliver. Like Pen in PLEASURE, he's a hero in his own right, but he's not quite as ready to be the family pet as she was. I based his personality on my godmother's wonderful Newfie, Ashley (she came with the name) who we often called Mrs. Pedecaris (as in "you are a great deal of trouble"), with a little of the beloved Newfie of my childhood, Hanuman, thrown in (he liked to "answer the door" by jumping up on it and opening his mouth over the small window so the new arrival was greeted by gullet and teeth), and with the "must save all swimmers" instincts of another Newf (my godmother's mother's dog) Gladstone.

***

All the wonderful who-ha that has been generated for cats in the past week has me thinking about dogs getting short shrift. I’ve posted about Mastiffs previously, but today I’m going to talk about another giant breed that’s close to my heart, the Newfoundland. I grew up with Newfies. My family and a lot of friends had them, and they still hold a VERY special place in my heart. They are also among the breeds that my characters might have owned (hmmm, no dog has walked into my WIP so far . . . maybe we need a Newf to balance out the Mastiff in book one?).

The oldest picture in England can be found on the Landseer website (portrait of Sir Humphrey Style by Robert Walker, 1625). The breed was named by George Cartwright, who appropriately applied the name of the dog's native island to his dog in 1775. During the Georgian era, they tended to be lighter boned than those of today, though the one depicted with the Duchess of York in 1807 appears quite large and sturdy (top pic on the right, Princess Frederica Charlotte, Duchess of York, 1807, by Peter Edward). Like the one in that painting, all the images I’ve ever seen from the era show the black and white variety that came to be called “Landseer” in the late Victorian age (after the painter who popularized the breed; first image on the left, Lion by Edwin Landseer, 1824). You can find more images and more on the topic of coloration here.

The AKC site gives their history thusly (on the right is Newfoundland dog by George Stubbs, 1803)."

"There is much uncertainty about the origin of the Newfoundland. Some say that his ancestors are the white Great Pyrenees, dogs brought to the coast of Newfoundland by the Basque fishermen; others that he descended from a "French hound" (probably the Boarhound); but all agree that he originated in Newfoundland and that his ancestors were undoubtedly brought there by fishermen from the European continent. Many old prints of Newfoundlands show apparent evidence of a Husky ancestor, while other traits can be traced to other breeds. At any rate, a dog evolved which was particularly suited to the island of his origin."

Whatever their ancestry, they were indispensible to fisherman as helpmeets (they pulled in then nets0 and were famous then as now for their natural instinct to rescue humans from the water (my godmother’s Newf, Gladstone, had to be locked in a room with no widows when we wanted to swim, or he’d “rescue” us from the pool). They were also used as carting dogs (as most large breeds were) and as sled dogs (as in Call of the Wild).

One of the most famous Newfs in England was Lord Byron’s Boatswain (image next to the poem, Boatswain by Clifton Tomson, 1808). When he died, the poet had a monument built to him and wrote this inscription for it:

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
Of one
Who possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.

The Price, which would be unmeaning flattery
If inscribed over Human Ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
“Boatswain,” a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland,
May, 1803,
And died in Newstead Abbey,
Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown by glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And stories urns record that rests below.
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennoble but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.

Another very famous Newf was Lewis’s Newfoundland Seaman (on the left). Seaman accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition to the Pacific. He is first mentioned in Lewis’s journals on September 11, 1803: “I made my dog take as many [squirrels] each day as I had occasion for. They were fat and I thought them when fried a pleasant food. They swim very light on the water and make pretty good speed. My dog was of the Newfoundland breed, very active, strong and docile. He would take the squirrels in the water, kill them, and swimming bring them in his mouth to the boat.”

In literature we have Pilot, Rochester’s dog in Jane Eyre, and of course Nana in Peter Pan (curse you Disney for misrepresenting her as a St. Bernard!). Nan was inspired by Barrie’s own Newfoundland, Porthos.

So, any other breeds you’re dying to know about? Any particular dogs you’ve loved in books?

Busting Marie Antoinette Myths

2011-08-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Juliet Grey is over on The Huffington Post today busing myths about things the French queen never did or said. Check it out (I'm so proud!).

Duelling Women

2011-08-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been researching how women through history have settled quarrels, and interestingly, more than one source reports that women rarely dueled. But it doesn’t take much to surfing on the net to check that claim---and apparently, there are certainly plenty of historical records reporting dueling women. Woman fought, like their male counterparts, over lovers, insults (perceived and real), gossip, and ultimately, for their honor. They fought with all kinds of pistols and a variety of swords and knives. There is a long, long list of dueling women in history.
Check this out: http://www.fscclub.com/history/armed4-e.shtml

Here are a couple of the more notable duels between women:

Lady Almeria Braddock and Mrs. Elphinstone >(1792)A certain Mrs. Elphinstone expected no more than a cup of tea when she paid a social call to Lady Almeria Braddock’s London home in 1792. But the visit veered off into decidedly unladylike territory when the hostess, evidently enraged by a casual comment Mrs. Elphinstone made about her age, challenged her guest to a duel in Hyde Park. According to reports, Mrs. Elphinstone fired her pistol first, knocking Lady Braddock’s hat to the ground. The women then took up swords, and Lady Braddock got her revenge by wounding her opponent in the arm. The “Petticoat Duel,” as it came to be known, ended without further incident when Mrs. Elphinstone agreed to write a letter of apology.

Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de Pettinella (1552)Fabio de Zeresola may have been the most sought-after bachelor in 16th-century Naples. At a time when many duels were fought between men for a disputed lady’s favor, two young women—Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de Pettinella—competed for Zeresola’s affection in a public swordfight. Although the outcome is unknown, the sensational event kept gossips’ tongues wagging for decades to come. In 1636, the Spanish artist Jose de Riberta immortalized the story in his famous painting “Duelo de Mujeres” (“Duel of Women”).

And lastly, as I read on another blog, there is the account from The Illustrated Police News an 1886 Victorian tabloid which covered duels of all kinds: between men, animals, boys--- but they particularly liked fighting women. The illustrations depicted most of their lady duellists as fashion plate stunners. In this engraving Madame Astie de Valsayre is duelling with an American, Miss Shelby. They disagreed about the relative merits of French and American doctors. The American girl called the Frenchwomen an idiot. As if to give European doctors (at least) a chance to prove their merit, they agreed to meet and fight it out. The site of the duel was significant: on the field of Waterloo. At first glance, one duellist looks to have been run through, but in actuality Miss Shelby was wounded in the arm. At this point, Madame Valsayre accepted her apology, and then subsequently "warmly eulogised the conduct of the fair American", "and holds her up to the admiration and emulation of her sex".”

That said, I can’t think of a single historical romance where the heroine has dueled with a woman. But there must be some out there.

Has anybody read a historical romance that featured a duelling heroine (who fought another woman)?

Ghost Light & Bringing History to Life

2011-08-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a lovely few days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. Among the highlights were a superb Measure for Measure, a very fun, exuberant Pirates of Penzance, and a brilliant new play called Ghost Light. Ghost Light was conceived and developed by Jonathan Moscone (Artistic Director of the California Shakespeare Theater) and Tony Taccone (Artistic Director of Berkeley Rep), written by Taccone and directed by Moscone. It explores the 1978 assassinations of Moscone’s father, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk by Supervisor Dan White. But rather than being a docudrama that recreates historical events, Ghost Light focuses on Jonathan Moscone’s response to the loss of his father, both as a fourteen-year-old boy and as an adult man, struggling to direct a production of Hamlet.

The story that emerges is rooted in historical events (events that I remember vividly, as a twelve-year-old at the time of the assassinations) yet at its heart it is an intimate look at coming to terms with the loss of a parent. As such it is both specific to the characters involved and wonderfully universal. We all struggle to understand our parents as individuals. Loss of a parent is a wrenching fear, and losing a parent is never easy, at any age.

Ghost Light is a haunting play, beautifully acted and directed. It was the first play we saw on the trip, and I thought about it and talked about it a great deal afterward. Among other things, I found myself mulling over what it is to write historical fiction. Real events form the framework in my books (particularly my recent books), but within those events, the arc of the book focuses on the personal journey of the characters. Both the fictional characters and also the real historical characters, such as Wilhelmine of Sagan and Dorothée de Talleyrand-Périgord in Vienna Waltz and Hortense Bonaparte in The Mask of Night. Hopefully there’s something universal in those character arcs, at the same time the story is rooted in a specific time and place. It’s a tricky balancing act, that I struggle with constantly when I’m writing. Often in the first draft I’m focused on just having the historical narrative in place, and a lot of my work in subsequent drafts involves adding layers to the character arcs. My own struggles made me appreciate the brilliant writing in Ghost Light all the more.

What appeals to you most in historical fiction? The historical narrative or the personal stories of the characters? Both? Writers, if you write historical fiction how do you balance historical context and character development?

Racism, Stereotypes, & Minority Characters

2011-08-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

A recent discussion on Twitter about the depiction of the Jewish moneylender in Heyer’s THE GRAND SOPHY intersected with an authors’ loop discussion about minority villains in Romantic Suspense novels. In both cases the author was called racist, and I find it very troubling for multiple reasons to label an author racist merely because they have a non-white villain/antagonist in their book. However, as many pointed out on Twitter, if you only have one minority character and the depiction is stereotypical and offensive, then yes, you have opened yourself up to just such a charge. It’s a fine line thing and I think it’s worth discussing (hopefully without offending anyone too greatly).

In Heyer’s case, the charge itself may well be true (her biography certainly points to her having held anti-Semitic views), but the depiction of a nasty Jewish moneylender in the Regency period doesn’t strike me as any more “racist” than the modern depiction of a nasty, Italian mob boss on THE SOPRANOS (which, yes, many Italians protested and found offensive, regardless of truth or accuracy). It’s stereotypical for moneylenders to be Jewish during the Regency just as it’s stereotypical now for mobsters in New Jersey to be Italian. It’s a well-documented fact that moneylending was an industry dominated by Jews in the Regnecy (mostly because they were historically excluded from many other professions). Moneylenders, like modern loan sharks, tend to be not very nice people (if they were nice, who’d bother repaying them?). So Heyer’s use of such a character is, for me, allowable, because it’s historically accurate and works for the book (even if the character’s nastiness was informed by Heyer’s own anti-Semitism). Where Heyer runs into problems in my opinion is in her actual on-the-page stereotypical depiction of Goldhanger as a greedy, oily, and ultimately cowardly, Jew. Had he been an elegant, cool, hard-nosed businessman, I wouldnt have had the same negative reaction.

Heyer is not alone in the late 19th/early 20th century when it comes to unsavory representations of Jews, just look at Twain, Orczy, Dickens, and Sayers (all of whom I love reading). And it’s worth noting that other minorities fare no better in literature from that era.

In the case of the Romantic Suspense author, she’d been accused of racism for having a black villain. One reader had stated that they felt she should have included another GOOD black character specifically to counterbalance the black villain (more on this below). Another author piped up to say she’d also been called racist for having black gang members in her book. Many authors wondered if their only choice was to whitewash the universe and only have white characters (and undesirable, unrealistic choice, and a very limiting one) or if only whites could be used as villains/antagonists/or even generally unsavory secondary characters? Is it racist to depict the very real street war between the Crips and the Bloods? What about the one between the Norteños and Sureños, or between the Tong and the Triads? Should we only show white supremacists, Italian mobsters, and Irish IRA terrorists (all stereotypes by the way, and ones that the relevant ethnic groups tend to dislike)?

Sometimes the key IS going to be counterbalance, as the reader suggested (note that most police procedural shows on television have multi-ethinc casts both in and out of the squad room). But sometimes, esp in historicals, I don’t think the counterbalance can be woven in without it looking like a major Mary Sue Maneuver (the heroine whose maid is her BFF, or who secretly works for the underground railroad even though her family owns slaves, etc.). So the key there is going to be making sure that your depiction of the minority character doesn’t tip over into being stereotypically offensive (as Heyer’s did).

I hope I’m making sense, rather than simply digging myself into a giant hole. *sigh* I feel like I’m touching the third rail here, but I think it’s an important discussion to have and that it’s an issue that authors really DO need to be aware of and think about.

Recent History

2011-08-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, I exhumed an old file from my archives, a satire I wrote during my 3L year of law school in the winter of 2005/6. The novel, which I called Two L, was based on the plot of Measure for Measure, transposed to current day Harvard Law.

As I was readying the files for publication, I realized that there was just one problem. (Okay, two problems if you count the fact that reformatting the old files was completely kicking the tenderer parts of my anatomy.) The problem was that current day was no longer current day.

As I read through the novel, I was struck by just how much had changed since 2006, both at the law school and in the world. My main character, the eponymous 2L, makes a comment about her grades, a royal flush of A’s and A-‘s. HLS no longer has grades. They’re on a pass/high pass system now. There’s a great big new student center that wasn’t there when I was there five years ago. And I’m sure there have been other changes, if only I knew where to look for them.

Since I wrote Two L, the world has undergone dramatic financial upheavals. One of my favorite bits, while writing the book, was a scene in which the characters are engaged in the 2L job hunt, a minutely choreographed mating ritual between the second year law students and the top tier of America’s law firms. In 2006, the legal market was booming; law firms were courting students, wooing them into practice. Anyone reading this and making choking noises? Yep, that’s a world that’s been turned on its head.

Then there are all those little mundane life details. Yes, my characters have cell phones, but there’s a comment, at one point, about the bill of a boy’s baseball cap brushing against the silver-tinted plastic of his phone. Remember those phones? The plastic ones designed to look like metal? When my heroine slides her laptop into her tote bag, it clunks against her palm pilot. I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone use one of those.

I have the same problems in writing the modern segments of my Pink Carnation series, in which my heroine has very slowly moved from autumn of 2003 to summer of 2004. Someone recently asked me whether Eloise and Colin, the hero and heroine of those modern segments, had announced their relationship on Facebook yet. They don’t have Facebook. And if Eloise were to go back to the States and leave Colin in England, they wouldn’t have Skype. Was this blog around in 2004? I can’t remember. But I’m willing to bet not.

It fascinates me how quickly a novel written as a contemporary can become a historical artifact, a snapshot of a lost world. In 1814, did Jane Austen look back at Northanger Abbey, written in the late 1790s, and marvel how dated it felt? Or is it just that our world moves faster now?

Book Cover Pins: A How To

2011-08-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

For RWA and RomCon I made small bookcover pins for friends and people I was on panels with. Lots of people asked me how I did it, and I promised to share directions. I figured sooner was better than later, so here we go!

Print your cover onto heavy stock matte paper. I like to make the covers 1.5” tall and surrounded them with a border.

Cut them out.

Lay out on a sheet of hard, slick plastic (I like to use page protectors).

With a small paint bush, put one coat of Elmer’s White glue on the back and two on the front, allowing each coat to dry separately. This seals the paper. Once dry, trim off any excess glue. Don’t worry about it being too thick, the glue will dry clear.

Press them flat for a few hours or overnight, as the glue sometimes makes them curl a bit.

For the next step, the future pins need to be suspended in such a way that the liquid 2-part epoxy resin can be poured over them and drip off without the pin becoming one with the surface it’s resting on. I made a support out of a small sheet of Styrofoam and toothpicks (see pic).

Balance the covers on the support you’ve built so that they don’t touch.

Mix up the epoxy resin according to the directions on the package (you can get this at any good craft store). Drizzle it carefully over the images (I just use the wooden coffee stir stick I mixed the epoxy resin with), making sure to coat all of the surface. Do not worry about air bubbles, they will work their way out as it dries.

Let them dry for at LEAST 3 days. A week is better.

Edges can be sanded with an emery board if necessary.

Superglue a pin back to them and you’re done.

NOTE: You can make your pins and shape or size, and you can decorate the paper with glitter, jewels, etc. before coating in epoxy resin. Have fun with it!

Going Back in Time - with A Pen

2011-08-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

Writing a historical novel is like time travel. The lucky reader gets to vicariously live in another era, through the story told in the book’s pages.

But after the author has done all the research, how can he make the reader believe the story actually lives in that period? All of the words on the page must somehow sound right, whether they’re dialogue, exposition, or quotations. The reader must believe she’s living the characters’ story with them – even though it takes place worlds away from her.

But how on earth can an author pull it off? The vocabulary from that era may be so different that it’s hard to express what happened. Blackmail and homosexuality, for example, are fairly recent terms. To make life even more fun, sentences may no longer be put together quite the same way. Modern grammar discourages adverbs and encourages informality, habits that could mark social status centuries ago.

Even harder is making the reader believe he’s listening to dialogue spoken centuries ago. Even if the author can pull off the words and rhythm, she still has to inform it with the thought process of times gone by.

Here’s Robert Louis Stevenson providing some backstory in Treasure Island:

But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. “Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes – what do the doctor know of lands like that? – and I lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I’m not to have my rum now I’m a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood’ll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab.”

I particularly admire Georgette Heyer’s ability to suck me into any time period, strictly through dialogue. Here’s her description of the heroine’s family home, from The Grand Sophy.

‘Everything seems to be in shocking disorder!’ she observed. ‘I must tell Sir Horace that it will not do! He should not neglect the house in this way. There is work here for an army of gardeners! He never liked the place, you know. I have sometimes wondered if it was because my mother died here.’ Lord Charlbury made a sympathetic sound in his throat, but Sophy continued cheerfully: ‘But I daresay it is only because he is shockingly indolent! Ring the bell again, Charlbury!’

After a prolonged interval, they heard the sound of footsteps within the house, to be followed immediately by the scrape of bolts being drawn back, and the clank of a chain removed from the door.

‘I am reconciled, Sophy!’ announced Charlbury. ‘Never did I hope to find myself existing within the covers of a library novel! Will there be cobweb, and a skeleton under the stairs?’

‘I fear not, but only think how delightful if there should be!’ she retorted.

Or this bit of fighting from Beauvallet, set more than a century earlier:

The footsteps came nearer; the door was opened a few inches, and Luis, the valet, looked out. ‘Who knocks? What do you want?’

Joshua’s arm slid lovingly around his neck; the point of his dagger pricked the man’s throat. ‘Nay then, my cosset, no sound out of you, or you are sped,’ he said softly.

The man’s eyes stared at him, his lips moved soundlessly.

‘Truss him up,’ said Sir Nicholas, and passed into the lodge.

How does an author research the words to use? I’m personally very fond of letters and business reports, whenever I can find them. I love reading military action reports, since those aren’t written for literary effect yet they can still convey powerful emotion. (Ever read an account of a great victory? Or a defeat told by one of the few survivors? Wow, just wow. There’s an alpha male who’s hurting.)

Okay, and I also read poetry from the era, because it tells me what rhythm that era’s people found pleasurable.

Of course, then I personally start worrying whether today’s readers will understand – or enjoy – an accurate rendition of words from another age. Should I want my story to sound just like a sister of Jane Austen or Lord Byron told it? Or should it be a first cousin to Stephen King and Nora Roberts? (There are some weird hybrids floating around there…)

At the end of the day, the words are the path through time when a reader dives into a historical novel. But they also keep both the characters – and the reader – alive and well.

Readers, what authors do you think use words uncommonly well to pull you into past worlds? Authors, what do you research to help find the right language for a historical novel?

Announcing the Release of BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE!

2011-08-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

The actual release date for this first novel in the Marie Antoinette trilogy isn't until next week on August 9, but since this is my week to post, I thought I answer some of the FAQs I seem to be getting from the blogosphere.

This has been a dream job; writing a trilogy is affording me the scope and the space to fully address many aspects of Marie Antoinette's life that would otherwise have to be skimmed or crammed in, had I been allotted only 400 pages or so to tell the entire story of her life. I had always envisioned telling Marie Antoinette's story as a trilogy -- Sandra Gulland's brilliant Josephine B. trilogy was my touchstone -- and I was fortunate enough to find an editor whose vision matched my own from the outset. Another dream came true when Ms. Gulland blurbed the book, joining some of my all-time favorite historical fiction authors -- Michelle Moran, Diane Haeger, and the Hoydens' own inimitable Lauren Willig -- and I am extremely grateful to those authors for taking the time from their own busy writing schedules to read a 450-page novel.

[Briefly hopping onto a soapbox, as an aside to all authors, I think we can never appreciate enough the time our colleagues take to blurb our books. I've known writers who will graciously drop everything to blurb a book because their own editor, or their editor's colleague passed it to them, so they feel it's good karma -- and then no one even bothers to thank them for their time, or to send them a copy of the published novel with their blurb on it. ]

A Conversation with Juliet Grey,
Author of Becoming Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette is such a well known historical figure; and people either love her or hate her. What made you want to tell her story and what is different about BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE from other fictional depictions of her life?

Many people’s perceptions of Marie Antoinette are based on cinematic characterizations in which she is portrayed as going from heedless to headless, a clueless, insensitive, idiotic spendthrift. When I tell people I have written a novel about Marie Antoinette, they immediately invoke the infamous “Let them eat cake” line and I have to inform them that she never said it. In fact Marie Antoinette was extremely generous to the impoverished and starving people of France, but her good deeds got in the way of the propagandists’ agendas. The Marie Antoinette that people think they know is largely a creature of myth. She said “Let them eat cake” as much as Empress Catherine the Great died having sex with a horse.

I fell in love with Marie Antoinette (and Louis) while I was researching their marriage for a work of nonfiction; and the more I read about them, the more it became apparent that they have truly been misrepresented and misinterpreted by historians. They say history is written by the winners, and Marie Antoinette and Louis were the two greatest victims of the French Revolution.

What sparked BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE specifically is how little has been told about her childhood years and the incredible makeover she had to endure at the hands of a small army of experts before she was judged acceptable marriage material, while the clock was ticking and a vitally strategic international alliance hung in the balance. The preadolescent Marie Antoinette was worked over by a hairdresser who reconfigured her hairline so that her forehead would not appear to prominent; a dentist who realigned her teeth with orthodontia, a pair of actors who became her dialect coaches for her pronunciation of French; a notable dancing master who taught her the “Versailles Glide,” the walk that was unique to the women of the Bourbon court; and a gentle cleric who came to tutor her in academics. My novel also shows just how much the young Austrian archduchess Maria Antonia was a political pawn, moved about the European chessboard by her mother, the formidable Hapsburg empress Maria Theresa, and King Louis XV of France.

How accurate are the events you depict in the novel?

Not only is the book extensively researched, but I went so far as to find the names and backgrounds of the actual figures who aided in Marie Antoinette’s physical metamorphosis. Nearly every scene in the book has its roots in fact, and in some cases, the dialogue (and in particular the correspondence) reflects the actual words that were spoken or written. We are fortunate in that the Eighteenth Century was an age of great letter writers and memoirists. Nearly everyone kept a journal back then.

So where does the fiction come in?
Although we know that certain things happened historically, as a novelist I have the freedom to imagine what was really going on in the room at the time and in the characters’ heads. We don’t always know how a given thing occurred, just that it did. I have a golden rule of historical fiction writing, which is: that if an incident could have happened, then it’s fair game to include it in a novel. For my own taste, I prefer not to wildly re-imagine historical events in my books. For one thing, fans of historical fiction (and I’m one as well) tend to be versed in the history of their favorite time period and they get pulled out of the narrative when an author includes a scene that strains credulity or plays too fast and loose with the historical record.

How did you do your research for BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE?
I read well over a dozen biographies of Marie Antoinette, plus numerous other books related to her, about other figures in the novel or about the era as a whole, including books on her residences such as Schönbrunn and Versailles. I also read countless articles on the specifics of her life from the minutiae of the kind of orthodontia she was compelled to wear as an adolescent to the interior décor of her rooms and the clothing of the era. Looking at actual portraits of the characters also informed me about their appearance (although the painters might have flattered their subjects at the time). I am also fortunate to have colleagues with unique expertise in certain areas and I was able to pick their brains on such things as elements of costume and certain details related to the scenes where the characters’ practice of their Catholicism is important, like the correct habit a novitiate would have worn at the Carmelite of St. Denis. So I didn’t have to make it up or wing it; and it was exciting to be able to incorporate that level of historical accuracy into my novel.

In the opening line of BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, young Maria Antonia, who is narrating, states “My mother liked to boast that her numerous daughters were ‘sacrifices to politics.’ ” Can you expound on that a bit?

Marie Antoinette was the youngest daughter of the sixteen children born to Empress Maria Theresa and Francis of Lorraine. All royal marriages in those days were political; in essence, they were peace treaties. The concept of Love, or marrying for love, didn’t enter into the equation. In fact, for all classes of society marriage was viewed as an economic arrangement and it was exceedingly rare for the spouses to be in love with each other (ironically, Marie Antoinette’s parents’ union was more of a love match than a dynastic one). In most instances, the entire point of a royal alliance was to cement relations between two regions; and usually the bride and groom (first married by proxy in the bride’s native land with someone from the nobility standing in for the groom) had never even met until (or just before) their wedding day in the groom’s kingdom.

Maria Theresa’s chief ambition for her daughters was the same as any other monarch’s: to make brilliant marriages for her girls, alliances with various other royal houses that would ensure the peace and stability of the realm. Princesses and archduchesses had no say in who they would marry; they were raised to understand that their destiny was to become the wife of a foreign prince or king and that it was a near certainty that they would never see their homelands again after they departed to wed. So it’s hard to envy these young women, more or less bred in captivity to be the brood mares of men they didn’t know and might possibly not even grow to like, let alone love.

You have a lot of sympathy for Marie Antoinette in your novel, though you also don’t sugarcoat her less charming qualities. And your depiction of the dauphin, Louis Auguste, is also not what we usually see from other literary or cinematic portrayals. What informed your view of young Louis?

Louis has also gotten a bum rap from history. He is often depicted as an uneducated, lazy somnolent oaf, none of which is true. He read widely in several languages, and was an avid student of history (ironically, he knew everything there was to know about the reign and fall of England’s Charles I, and was keen, long before the seeds of revolution began to take root, not to end up like him). He was also a large youth, and myopic; and his nearsightedness caused people to think he was clumsy and shambling. The more I read about him the more I began to think of him as the “fat kid” in class who always gets picked on because of his size, when the bullies barely know anything about what he’s really like as a person. Louis suffered from low self esteem, a problem when you’re going to become the king. His older brother Louis Joseph, the proverbial “fair-haired boy” of the family died at the age of nine, and the title of dauphin passed to Louis Auguste. In BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, describing her husband’s passionate interest in masonry, cabinetry and locksmithing, Marie Antoinette says he “dreamt of becoming a tradesman the way a tradesman might dream of becoming king.” Louis did indeed lack the ambition to rule, but he had no choice. It was his destiny.

Louis is a complex figure. He was sexually inexperienced, yet grew to love Marie Antoinette, even as he was incapable of consummating their marriage for more than seven years (if readers don’t know why already, they’ll have to wait for the second book in the trilogy to find out!). He was humble, yet believed firmly in the divine right of kings. And he could be maddeningly indecisive, yet had a firm grasp of what was truly good for France. Unfortunately, some of his ministers, as well as the aristocratic and ecclesiastical strata of society, thwarted him at every turn because his reforms would deprive them of some of the perquisites they had long been accustomed to enjoying—like being exempt from paying taxes. But the revolutionary firebrands had no idea what was going on behind the scenes and blamed Louis (and Marie Antoinette, whom, they were—incorrectly—convinced, was the primary influence at court) for all the nation’s ills.

How do you feel about the various film adaptations of Marie Antoinette’s life?

Like I need a few aspirin and a stiff drink. The ones I have seen are excruciatingly painful to me because I’m one of those filmgoers who enjoys historical accuracy with her entertainment. I love a good costume drama (and sometimes the movies get the costuming fairly right), but the combination of rampant miscasting and the stereotypical (and wildly incorrect) one-note portrayals of Marie Antoinette as an insensitive, selfish, bubbleheaded fashionista, drive me crazy.

The best I can say about the movie adaptations is: please don’t consider them history in terms of assuming that the scenes in the movie accurately depict the truth or reality of the events; just accept the films as entertainment; and if they spur a viewer to learn more about the real Marie Antoinette and her marriage, her friends, and the events of her life, that’s all to the good.

What’s next for Juliet Grey?

BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE is the first novel in a trilogy, so I am working on the next two novels, DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW (which spans the years 1774-1789; from the time Marie Antoinette becomes queen of France to aftermath of the fall of the Bastille in July 1789. The final book in the series, (title TBA), picks up where book 2 leaves off and carries the reader through to Marie Antoinette’s execution on October 16, 1793. After that—well, Madame du Barry kept threatening to steal the show in BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, and I have read so much about her life (there’s quite a lot that people don’t know, beyond the fact that she was considered a rapacious royal mistress), that I am aching to tell her story. I think it would be great fun to show some of the same incidents I depict in BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, from the other woman’s perspective!

Which novels have been your "dream job" -- or, as actors say, when asked about their favorite role, is it "the one I'm working on"?