Word Wenches

Musing on Writing Part 1

Pat here—I’m bogged down in a book that won’t end, so I’m spewing whatever comes into my head today. If you’re looking for educational research, you may stop reading now. If you want to see inside an author’s empty head, this one’s for you.

Once upon a time, in a place faraway. . . I itched to write the stories in my head when I couldn’t find anything new to read (which was often; we had no library). Once I was old enough to write whole sentences, I had ink pens with lovely turquoise ink and notebook pages meant for homework, and I scribbled my heart out. My fifth grade teacher was pretty useless at teaching grammar—I rudely corrected hers. But my sixth grade teacher encouraged creativity and politely corrected my ignorant outpourings. I even had a university professor to correct my letter to the editor—which taught me I’d better learn grammar if I wanted to write for anyone but myself. I stuck to writing for myself. 

What We're Reading in May 2023

Anne here, and before we jump into talking about the books we've read in the last month, some of you have noticed that the comments on some posts seem to have disappeared. We don't know why, we have reported it to #Typepad (the blog host) but be assured your comments ARE making it through to the site, and we hope they'll be restored soon. So feel free to comment — we'll still respond.

Now, on to the books we've been reading.
We start with Pat who is recommending T. L. Huchu, THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD

This is a dystopian young adult set in an Edinburgh after some disaster that’s laid waste to. . .well, whatever the author needs out of his way. Apparently some people still have modern housing and normal lives, but the protagonist is a fourteen-year-old girl who can enter the spirit world and lives in a camper with her grandmother and little sister after her middle class  life was destroyed by something or other. Despite my quibbles, this is a brilliantly written book. The protagonist is bold, probably a genius, and intent on taking care of her small family. When forced by guilt to forget making money to help someone for free, she’s dragged into a nightmare that she almost doesn’t escape. But in the process, she learns about an underground magical library, meets a snarly magician who helps her out, and finds a wheelchair-bound best friend. I loved the spirit parts and skimmed the violent ones, but I’ll be ordering the next book as soon as the ebook becomes a reasonable price.

Next is THE HEART PRINCIPLE, by Helen Hoang

In ways, this book is almost painful to read. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a brilliant book, the characterization and conflict are spot on. I just finished, and I’m thinking of reading it again. But it’s intense. I could feel the tension from the very first page, recognized the character’s autism before she does, and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying it’s obvious the author knows what she’s writing about.

The themes are universal—know and accept yourself, caregiving is tough on everyone, and forgiveness is love. The story is beautifully romantic. The sex is graphic. The dry humor is very low level compared to earlier books THE KISS QUOTIENT and THE BRIDE TEST. But it’s well worth reading. Highly recommended.

Mary Jo here, and I have two bride stories here for June!

First is The Bride Wore White by Amanda Quick, which is the historical pseudonym of Jayne Ann Krentz. 

As the blurb says:   "Being Madame Ariadne, Psychic Dream Consultant, wasn’t Prudence Ryland’s ideal gig, but it paid well which was reason enough to do the work—until she realizes that her latest client intends to kill her. But Prudence, a master at reinvention, finds a new job and home as far away as possible and is finally able to relax—which turns out to be a big mistake. Letting her guard down means being kidnapped and drugged and waking up in a bloodstained wedding dress in the honeymoon suite next to a dead man. With the press outside the hotel, waiting with their cameras and police sirens in the distance, it’s obvious she’s being framed for the man’s murder. Prudence knows who is responsible, but will anyone believe her?"

The Joy of the Letter

Nicola here, talking about letters and cards, letter-writing and research. Last week, a friend who lives a few doors down, put a hand written card through my door to fix up a get-together. She could have texted or used any one of a half dozen other ways of getting in touch but the card really thrilled me because it feels so unusual to receive hand-written cards and letters these days. Despite this, cards and other beautiful stationery are very popular and I’m always tempted to buy some when I visit historic houses or other lovely places that sell smart stationery. As a result, I have an ever-increasing pile of cards in my desk and seldom seem to have the chance to send them to anyone, though I do my best to find those occasions when I can.

At the same time, I’ve been researching the book I’m writing about the history of Ashdown House, and have been reminded of how important letters and letter-writing was to our forbears as a way of sharing news (and gossip!) and consequently how useful letters are to historians. In fact, my new fiction timeslip book also underlines this, as the heroine and her sister are both illiterate, never having been taught to read or write as children because they were poor (and girls). Learning to read is one of my heroine’s ambitions.

We have a Winner!

 

Christina here, just popping in to say that following the interview last week, the winner of a copy of An Italian Island Summer by Sue Moorcroft is Pat Dupuy - congratulations Pat!

The Marriage Spell!

The Marriage Spell

by Mary Jo

Finally The Marriage Spell is available as an ebook!  Because the story has fantasy elements, it's listed as by "Mary Jo Putney writing as M. J. Putney."  I intended for the book to be first of a new series, but Ballantine didn't want that or me, so The Marriage Spell ended up being a standalone Regency historical with magic. and I went to a different publisher, Kensington, where I've been ever since. That's life in the book business!

I've been independently releasing my backlist books since 2011.  Production and cover development take time, which is why my backlist project has been going on so long. Now the cupboard is bare except for novellas and short stories.  (I intend to release those as well over time.)

An Interview with Sue Moorcroft

Christina here and today I'm delighted to have Sue Moorcroft as my guest.

Welcome back to the Word Wenches, Sue, it’s such a pleasure to have you here again!

Thank you very much for inviting me. I always enjoy the Word Wenches’ wonderful blog.

You have a new book out tomorrow, An Italian Island Summer, which I absolutely loved! Tell us a little bit about it, please.

Thank you! It’s set in Sicily, mainly on Ortigia, the old city of Siracusa, joined to the main city by two bridges. It’s a gorgeous place, with ruins such as Apollo’s Temple alongside the daily market. Ursula needs a fresh start, and via the mischievous meddling of her bonkers uncle Gerry, secures a morning job in a family-owned hotel to leave her afternoons free to study ceramic art. It’s quite a change from being a tattoo artist in Brighton, but after a drug assault in a nightclub that left her with trust issues, she’s keen to leave behind that life – and her ex-husband Stephan. She settles in at Residenza dei Tringali with Agata, Nanda and baby Marilù, until the son of the household, Alfio, returns home to help his family – only to find Ursula filling the role he’d seen for himself and even ensconced in the room he’d assumed he’d occupy.

Distrust soon turns to desire, but just when their affair is at its height … secrets of the past burst out to threaten their future.

💖 Happy 17th Anniversary to the Word Wenches! 💖

We're celebrating our 17th anniversary! 

Welcome to our virtual Regency tea party!

A little over 17 years ago, Mary Jo Putney, Susan King, and author and web-guru Eileen Buckholtz met in a restaurant to catch up and toss around some ideas. Eileen suggested a group blog--not something we'd thought much about. We took the idea to Patricia Rice, and it grew quickly from there. Soon we were joined by a few good friends, including the (late and wonderful) Jo Beverley and Edith Layton, and on May 22, 2006, we launched the Word Wenches blog. Since then, our roster has changed now and again. Eventually we were joined by Andrea Penrose, Anne Gracie, Nicola Cornick, and Christina Courtenay. Today, we're still delivering blogs about our favorite subjects--books, writing, history, romance, and whatever else comes to mind--to our favorite people: you, our readers. 

We want to thank YOU for following the blog, commenting, reading our books, and enjoying what we do. We wouldn't be here as bloggers or as authors without our readers! 

Today we've organized a Regency tea party -- and you're invited! Come with us to the home of newlyweds Arabella and Richard (conjured just for the occasion). We're all bringing goodies and housewarming gifts -- what would you bring? Join the party!  And be sure to leave a comment below for a chance to win a book -- we'll choose a few readers at random from among the comments!

In Praise of Librarians

Anne here, and today I'm talking about my love of libraries and librarians. So many old-fashioned movies and novels used to portray librarians as wispy, dowdy repressed creatures. That or grumpy people who go about shushing people endlessly. Such silly clichés. I always preferred the ones where the librarian revealed themselves to have brains and pizzaz and spines of steel. To me librarians have always been slightly magical.

Books and reading open our minds to a variety of new worlds, whether fiction, fantasy or fact. I often say that libraries kept me 'fed' when I was a child. My parents owned plenty of books, but because we moved so often, they often remained in boxes and were inaccessible to me. Though I was an outdoors active kid during the day, in the evenings I was a total book worm. I pretty much read everything I could get my hands on, and a huge part of that process was thanks to the librarians who worked in the various libraries in the many towns I lived in through my childhood.

Usually, when we moved to a new town — mostly smallish country towns — the first thing I did was walk or ride my bike all around town to learn what was there, and high on my list was the local public library. And in each of those the attitude of the librarians was what made the difference in whether it was a friendly space or not. I'm glad to say most of them were very friendly spaces.

I owe so much to librarians. Once they realized what a voracious reader I was, they often introduced me to new authors and a wider range of books. "Have you tried this?" was often the start of what I would now call a "glom" of this author or that.

When Minor Characters Come to Life . . .

Andrea here, juggling a multitude of pressing deadlines, and so invoking the Wenchly privilege of posting an oldie but goodie blog from the past. It seemed worthy of repeat, given all the controversy concerning the current Duke of Sussex. So without further ado . . .

I'm musing today on minor characters in a story, and how they can surprise you. Take, for example, my Wrexford & Sloane mystery, Murder at Kensington Palace. In doing research for the book, I had come across a paragraph or two that mentioned scientific soirees were occasionally held at Kensington Palace during the Regency because King George III’s sixth son (and ninth child), Prince Augustus Frederick, lived in one of the state apartments and was very interested in science.

Andrea here, juggling a multitude of pressing deadlines, and so invoking the Wenchly privilege of posting an oldie but goodie blog from the past. It seemed worthy of repeat, given all the controversy concerning the current Duke of Sussex. So without further ado . . .

I'm musing today on minor characters in a story, and how they can surprise you. Take, for example, my Wrexford & Sloane mystery, Murder at Kensington Palace. In doing research for the book, I had come across a paragraph or two that mentioned scientific soirees were occasionally held at Kensington Palace during the Regency because King George III’s sixth son (and ninth child), Prince Augustus Frederick, lived in one of the state apartments and was very interested in science.

AAW: Favorite Furnishings!

by Mary Jo

This Ask A Wench blog was inspired when we started talking about furniture in our private Word Wenches email loop, and we found out that we all had stories about favorite things!

Here is the question I asked: "Do you have a particular piece of furniture that you cherish? Tell us its story!"

And here are the replies:

From Pat Rice:

I HAD wonderful pieces that I cherished—the Victorian sofa my stepfather reupholstered in lovely wine and cream to match my Tudor-style dark oak living room; the dark oak dining table that was our very first piece of “bought” furniture, the one with scars in it from little hands pressing too hard with writing instruments while doing homework; the beautiful Bentwood rocker from my mother that I rocked my babies in… and the magnificent handmade mahogany Queen Anne bedroom suite I bought with my first big royalty check. ( the pic shows the table and the antique sideboard I picked up at a yard sale!)

They’re all gone now, left behind when we moved across the country to a modern cottage on the Pacific coast. These days, we live with thrift store bargains—because new, they probably cost more than all the above furniture did when we bought them. I no longer feel guilt at dumping a designer leather couch when we move to a house where it doesn’t fit. I can buy an even better one in a design that matches. Throw away furniture—it’s a Thing.

Nicola contributes a "Slightly macabre piece!"

 When I was a child my grandparents, who lived with us, bought an 18th century grandfather clock that stood in the hall, its loud tick filling the air and somehow giving a sense of reassurance and permanence. I loved that clock! I loved its painted face and the fact that it was much taller than I was, and that it had been made in the North of England and was so old.

Fast forward fifty years, and when we were clearing my parents’ house I really wanted to take that clock home to live with me. But there was a problem. It was too tall. Or our ceilings were too low. Whichever way you looked at it, it didn’t fit. We thought about taking several inches off the bottom of it, which wasn’t really feasible. We even thought about lowering a small part of the floor but that was even less practical. In the end I had to accept that it just wasn’t going to happen. My step-brother has it now and as he loves it too, that’s good enough for me.