Word Wenches

Shattered Rainbows: Audio & Interview!

by Mary Jo

The Sound of Shattered Rainbows

I don't spend enough time driving to be much of an audiobook listener, but I know a lot of romance fans love them, so ideally I'd like to have all my classic backlist titles available in audio for those who prefer the format.

However, producing them myself is very expensive and after doing audio of The Bargain, Thunder and Roses, and Dancing on the Wind, I gave up doing them for a while.

However, the market and the economics are continually changing, so I decided to give it another try, starting with Shattered Rainbows, Fallen Angel #5, which is a particular favorite of mine. A RITA finalist and 4 1/2 star GOLD rating from Romantic Times, it's a complicated story of complicated people and enduring love. Here's the blurb:

 

A Season for Marriage

Nicola here, continuing our Sunday excerpts from The Last Chance Christmas Ball, (the e-book is on special sale right now for only $.99!) Here's the setting: Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year… My story is A Season for Marriage... Lady Caroline  Camden is unhappily married to a brilliant MP whose work is his life. In love with her husband and resigned to the fact that he will never love her, Caroline runs back home to Holbourne Abbey, hoping that her old family home will work its magic on her marriage and that against the odds, she and Piers may find happiness...

Regency Slang Quiz #4

Anne here, with a little bit of fun for the holiday season — my fourth Regency Slang Quiz. As usual with my quizzes, you'll need a pen and paper to note down your answers, then click on the link at the bottom to check your results, and come back and tell us how you went.

1) To be a trifle disguised means:—
    a) you’re wearing a mask, not a full costume
    b) to be slightly drunk
    c) to be short of money
    d) to be acting shiftily

2) If you make a cake of yourself, you are:—
    a) overdressed, with too many jewels
    b) overdoing things
    c) pretending to act sweet (but you’re not sweet at all)
    d) making a fool of yourself

Shorthand

Susanna here. Last week, on November 29, this Tweet from Jonny Geller of Curtis Brown (my UK agency) crossed my timeline and caught my attention:

C.S. Lewis was born 120 years ago today. His writing tips in this letter to a fan are as spot on now as they were when sent.
“Instead of telling us a thing is terrible, describe it so we’ll be terrified”.

Encapsulated in the Tweet was an image of a page on which were written five of Lewis's writing tips. For the benefit of people who might not be able to read them in the image, here's what C.S. Lewis wrote to his fan:

Anyone for 300 year old ketchup?

Nicola here. There’s something about this time of year that makes me think about food even more than I usually do. Perhaps it’s the run up to the festive season when I’m not only thinking of the dishes I’d like to cook, or more accurately, I’d like the DH to cook for me as he’s a much better chef than I am, but somehow the dark evenings, short days and cold weather make me long to turn to food for both comfort and warmth.

I’m reasonably okay about trying new dishes but when I came across a recipe that mentioned elderberry ketchup I did wince a little. My memories of ketchup, which I haven’t tried in decades, mainly consist of eating fish fingers with tomato ketchup as a child. Anyway, the dictionary definition of ketchup I found is “a spicy sauce made chiefly from tomatoes and vinegar, used as relish.” Historically, ketchup recipes began to appear in British and American cookbooks in the 18^th century. In the UK it was in fact mushrooms rather than tomatoes that first became a staple ingredient, along with shallots and sometimes walnuts. The tomato version only came along 100 years later.

Old Flames Dance . . .

Andrea/Cara here, continuing our Sunday excerpts from The Last Chance Christmas Ball, (the e-book is on special sale right now for only $.99!) Here's the setting: Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year… My story is Old Flames Dance . . . Lily Tremaine has accepted that girlish dreams don't always come true. A widow, she's returned to England from ten years in India, intent on living a quiet life alone in a cottage by the sea. But first she's accepted her godmother's invitation to a festive holiday ball—even though the dowager's grandson was the man who broke her heart. She's told herself that the flames of youthful love have long since burned to cold coals. However, on seeing Edward again—who have never married—a spark seems to kindle again. However, word is, he's about to announce his engagement . . . and so if there's to be a second chance at love, Lily will have to trust her heart . . .

What We Are Reading!

This month, as always, the Wenches have been indulging in an eclectic mix of books—many of them perfect for light-hearted holiday reads.

Joanna: I think I’ve mentioned Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series before. The first, Midnight Riot, introduces us to London cop Peter Grant. Grant is not just a canny policeman with an encyclopedic knowledge of the odd corners of the city, but a man who can sense the weird creatures who live in its shadows. Ghosts and monsters. Magical creatures.

This month I read Whispers Underground, Book Three in the series. Grant continues his training under Master Wizard Nightingale. The signature humor continues. The cynicism is firmly in place. The cast of quirky characters still delights.

Heyer Society: Insights About an Icon

by Mary Jo

Few authors can be credited with inventing a genre, but Georgette Heyer is one of them. Her witty and insightful novels set in early 19th century British society created an irresistible world that has been drawing in readers and writers for decades.

I am one of them. My first novel, The Diabolical Baron, had a few hints of the writer I've developed into, but overall, it's so influenced by Georgette Heyer that I should probably pay royalties to the Heyer estate. <G> I cherish the discussions I've had with other Regency writers on Our First Heyer Novel.

Heyer's work and world are continuing sources of fascination, and now writer Rachel Hyland has just published a delicious collection of essays about that work and world. Heyer Society: Essays on the Literary Genius of Georgette Heyer.

Just reading the titles of the essays is mouthwatering, but even better, today we're lucky enough to have as a Word Wench guest Jennifer Kloester, who is probably the world's leading authority on Georgette Heyer. Author of the definitive Georgette Heyer biography, Jen is a novelist in her own right, and a contributor to Heyer Society.

Snow, Ice — and magic

Anne here, just back from a writers’ retreat, nursing a cold picked up on the plane, and thinking about my fellow wenches and friends who are battling with snow and ice and bitter cold. It made me reflect on some of my own few experiences of snow, and how they opened up another world for me.

Coming from a mediterranean type of climate, I don’t have a lot of experience with serious cold — it almost never snows in my part of the world —  but when I was a little girl we lived inland, and on some winter nights the temperature dropped right down below freezing point. Killer frosts. 

I grew up knowing Jack Frost was real, because after those bitter nights I’d see the magical ice paintings he’d leave etched on the windows. I’d stare into the swirls and ripples of ice and “see” all kinds of strange and wondrous images. To me, they were a little like Arthur Rackham paintings —the more you looked, the more you’d see.

I’d also play with the frost. On chilly nights, I made little “frozen gardens” by putting a saucer of water on the back step, filling it with flowers and little snippets of greenery and leave it to freeze overnight. Then in the morning, I’d bring it inside and put the saucer with its little frozen arrangement on the breakfast table. 

A Scottish Carol

Our Sunday excerpt series continues!
Susan here, with an excerpt from my story, "A Scottish Carol," from our Word Wenches anthology, The Last Chance Christmas Ball . . . 

On the way to Lady Holly's Christmas Ball at Holbourne Abbey, Dr. Henry Seton, Laird of Cranshaw, and Clarinda Douglas, Lady Hay, the widowed daughter of Henry's old mentor – meet again at Cranshaw's home in Scotland, awaiting others to travel to the ball. But a blizzard strands them alone together--and while Clary yearns to go to the grand ball, Henry is secretly relieved to miss it. As the snow flies and hearth flames crackle, both must face a shared past of passionate first love, heartbreak never forgotten, and the fear of starting over . . . . 

December 1815
Scotland 

         “Sir.”
    Firelight glowed and snow fell, and Dr. Henry Seton, Lord Cranshaw, dozed in the chair. The remnant of a dream stirred yearning, loneliness. He frowned.
         "Sir.” A whisper.
        Henry opened his eyes. A vision stood in the dim light of the doorway, an angel or a ghost clothed in frost and mist. A tall guardian hound stood by her side. The exquisite spirit watched him gently. Henry went still, wrapped in her spell. 
        “Lord Cranshaw. Pardon me. It is Yule Eve, and I am expected.” Slowly the figure came toward him. She limped, the dog buttressing her carefully. His dog. And—Clary? Could it be? He had not seen her for years—well, not like this. Actually he had seen her recently; she had been disguised as one of his medical students. Best not mention that, he thought.
           He sat up, cleared his throat. “Pardon me,” he said gruffly.
           “My fault,” Clarinda Douglas protested. “I did not mean to startle you.”
            He got hastily to his feet. “I was just…reading.”
            “I apologize. You looked quite as if you saw a ghost.”
            Henry tipped his head. “In a way I have,” he murmured, “Miss Douglas. Greetings. I believe it is Lady Hay now?” 
            “Yes. Though I am widowed.” She moved, a tap of the cane, a slow step. 
           “I had heard. My condolences.” He took her hand, cool and slim in its soft little glove.
           “Thank you.” She watched him. With those gray-blue eyes and flaxen hair, that pale coat and bonnet, she looked a fragile ice princess. No wonder he had thought her a ghost.
            How strange to stand so close to her in the intimate warmth of his study, neither of them knowing what to say. He released her hand. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
          “I expected to meet your sister here.” She smiled—tremulously, he saw. He knew the spectrum of her smiles, anxious, sweet, mischievous…seductive. “Mrs. Seton-Graham and I are going to Lady Holbourne’s ball down in England.” 
         “You are my sister’s traveling companion?” He blinked, surprised. “She never said.” 
         “We are good friends,” she explained. Henry nodded, aware, though Fiona rarely mentioned Clary. “I was also invited to the Christmas ball at Holbourne Abbey, and Mrs. Seton-Graham kindly offered to share her coach. She said you…”
         “Would not be here?” he supplied quietly. 
         Her fingers flexed on the cane’s ivory handle. A gift from her father when she turned sixteen, he remembered. “When your sister arrives we will leave, and be no bother to you.” 
        “You have not heard? Have a seat, Lady Hay. Here, Maximilian, out of there.” He moved the dog away from a low, scroll-end settee beside the fire. 
        She sat tentatively, primly, gloved hands clasped. “Heard what, Lord Cranshaw?”