Word Wenches

Walking through Regency London

 

I've been trying to imagine what the streets of Paris and London looked like and felt like underfoot in the Georgian and Regency eras.

The fashionable streets of Mayfair are fairly easy to picture.  We have lovely paintings of these, for one thing. 

The wide, clean, quiet streets with expensive houses. The squares, with maybe a garden in the middle.  Yes.  I can see these.

I have some feeling of what the rookeries might have looked like too.  The grainy, mid-Victorian photos of the London slums give us an idea.  Hogarth illustrates the underbelly of London on one side of the era. Gustaf Dore on the other.

There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself.  H.P Lovecraft

But, what about the middling streets?  Not the privileged haunts of the nobility.  Not the stews.  The everyday streets and passageways of London and Paris.  My characters spend most of their time in this ordinary sort of place.  What did it look like?

We have pictures. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we can guess a lot about what the city looked and felt like from elements common to cities now.

Brick and stone and stucco work is still brick and stone and stucco.  The cobbles of then looked a lot like the cobbles of now.  They're still slippery to walk on.  I should imagine the horses hated them.  Streets still needed to drain.  In 1800 they were more apt to set the drain in the middle of the street with a central swale running down centrally.  See over there to the left and the first picture on top.  Sometimes the middle of the street was humped up a bit and water -- lots of other stuff too doubtless -- drained down both sides. 

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. Jerry Seinfeld

Curbs and raised sidewalks or pavements are not so much universally in evidence as you can see by the various pictures.  But lookit here at Bond Street in Gilray's satirical print of the Bond Street beaux forcing the young ladies off into the muck of the road.  There's your curb and your raised pavement right there.

The London and Paris in contemporary paintings is a city of narrower streets, more intimate spaces, darker corners, low passageways and alleys leading to random dead ends.  The crowds and bustle, that hasn't changed much . . . but everywhere there would have been horses and wagons, pushcarts and pack animals to add to the confusion.  And, somewhat off the beaten track, the occasional pig.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.  L.P. Hartley

Most of the physical city of London and Paris of 1800 is gone, fallen victim to . . . improvements.  You got your Victorian building like there on the left. A good bit of what escaped the Victorians fell prey to the Twentieth Century.  On the right we got . . .  Hmmm.  I think I do not properly appreciate modern either.

In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.  Frank Gehry

  

Paris, especially, has changed from the city my characters walked around in.  Great swathes were cleared out in two decades, between 1853 to 1870, by Baron Haussmann.  He gave us the splendid vistas, wide streets, and huge squares that are so typically 'Paris'.  He did it by plowing through the pre-existing buildings, destroying everything in his path, displacing 350,000 people.  Think Mothra and Godzilla on a particularly rambunctious day.  One of the advantages of working for a totalitarian government is never having to say you're sorry. 

When Haussmann was done, Paris was no longer a Medieval muddle of streets where disaffected citizens could throw up barriers and lob cobblestones at the militia.  Now it was an efficient highway for the deployment of government troops.  The armed uprising of Parisians against the central government in 1789, 1830, and 1848 had doubtless come to somebody's attention.

All this said, in quiet corners of London and Paris, there are still places we can follow our characters and walk the ordinary streets of 1800.

   



 
Pancras Station is cc talk2santosh. Pompidou Centre is cc positivenegative. Streets are cc Nigel cox, kaptainkobold, fredshu, 2is3.

 

O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.  Walt Whitman

 

So.  What places take you back to the past?  Where do you feel in touch with history?

Some lucky commenter will win a copy of Black Hawk and get to read about some of those Paris streets.

 

 

Snow for Sale!

Bring out your snow, bring out your snow!

Do you have snow where you are?
Anne here, wondering if anyone has snow for sale. Not just because it's particularly hot downunder where I am (it's summer here, remember) but because in the past people really did sell snow.

Snow for sale? 
That's right, in the past it was a business. Back in the 16th century, the snow trade in Europe was a very lucrative enterprise, so lucrative, in fact that people fought over snow rights. There were even bandits who tried to steal snow — and often succeeded. Sound crazy?

It's been going on for centuries
Before the advent of mechanical refrigeration, naturally forming ice and snow was the only source of cooling material. We tend to think iced drinks is a modern invention, but snow and ice has been gathered, transported and sold for the cooling of drinks and desserts for centuries.

The Chinese were harvesting and storing winter ice for the hot summer months more than a thousand years before Christ. The Ancient Greeks and Romance picked up the habit of using ice to cool their drinks from the Middle East and learned from them too the methods of  harvesting and storing ice and snow for long periods. According to Pericles, snow was routinely sold in the markets of Athens from the 5th century BC, and not only to the rich. (pic right: http://pictures.traveladventures.org/images/monte-rosa-skiing02)

Alexander the Great used to store great quantities of snow in pits. The kings of Egypt had snow shipped from the mountains of Lebanon to Cairo. That's a long way! Across Russia, throughout Europe and all around the Mediterranean people collected snow and ice from the mountains in winter and stored it underground, in caves, pits and specially constructed ice houses.

At first it took place on a small scale — people would collect ice from a frozen pond and store it in their ice cellar or ice pit, packed in straw and buried under the earth to maintain the cool temperature. In places like Rome, where ice rarely occurred, any brief snowfall was quickly gathered up and the snow carried to the ice houses.

Some of these ice houses were just large, deep pits, lined at the base with branches and twigs for drainage, then straw, and then the ice or snow. If snow was all that was available, they beat it down with paddles, making it as dense and hard as possible. That was then covered with more twigs and branches and straw, and finally earth. 

Snow compressed in this manner was colder and lasted longer than ice taken from ponds, but it wasn't as clean. This led to various inventions — the wine decanter with a separate compartment for snow or ice, a system where a slender container of clean water was immersed in snow or ice until the water froze and of course, the simplest of all, the ice bucket that is still in use today. Or if you were a Regency gentleman intending on a large quantity of iced wine, perhaps this large wooden zinc-lined wine cooler would be more your style.

As the use of snow grew and spread beyond the needs of just the wealthy, the collection and storage of snow became not just a winter harvest, but the basis for a substantial year round business. Businessmen in 16th century Italy jockeyed for the right to control the snow trade. Exclusive rights (the snow concession) to provide snow from certain areas and for certain cities were given (no doubt as a result of a handsome bribe) to particular men. 

Stealing Snow!
And so we have the rise not only of snow collectors but snow bandits!
Complaints flew, accusations and counter accusations of people illegally collecting snow, illegally selling snow, and even bandits who held up mule trains carrying loads of snow and made off with the snow (and the mules.)

The more snow and ice was used, the more profitable a business it was, and the more uses were found for it — the creation of ice cream and sorbets (from the Turkish sherbets) iced soups, iced desserts of all kinds, not to mention the increased preservation of perishable foodstuffs and the use of ice as an aid to health.

Ice houses became more sophisticated constructions made of brick and stone and scientific experiments were made into the most efficient method of storing snow and ice, and of making ice. The pic here is of the 18th century ice house at Norton Priory, near Runcorn, Cheshire, England.

I won't go into the making of ice creams — Wench Joanna did a wonderful post on that last year — but in the mid 1800s on they started using ice and even created ice pillars as an early form of air conditioning for hot summer ballrooms. This, of course, was pioneered in the USA, where they had ample supply of ice, and hot, hot summers but there are also reports of British ballrooms cooling hot guests with ice pillars. 

It's a fascinating subject and I've barely touched on it. For further information about the history of the use of snow and ice, I recommend Elizabeth David's wonderful book Harvest of the Cold Month. If you want a North American slant, here's this site which shows the ice harvest of historic Howell's farm.

So do you have snow? Masses of snow? Are you fed up with it? Wish you could gather it up and sell it?  (Some hot people on this side of the globe might even buy some.)  Or do you use it in some way already? I'd love to hear about your experience with snow.

And if you don't get snow, tell me what kind of weather you've been experiencing in recent weeks — there's been a lot of weird weather around, plus I just enjoy hearing about the world-wide-wenchly-web— and I'll send a copy of my new book to someone who leaves a comment.

Anne here again, adding a postscript: on the news last night I heard of an amazing modern-day parallel —police arrested thieves who had stolen 5 tonnes of ice that they hacked from a fast disappearing glacier. Apparently glacier ice is popular in Chile served in drinks on fancy bars and restaurants. Amazing, eh? It still goes on.

Mad Dogs and Englishwomen!

Nicola here. If mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, according to Noel Coward, then it’s surely a mad Englishwoman who thinks she can take on the training of a guide dog puppy and write books at the same time! At the start of this year we welcomed Rochester the guide dog puppy into our family for the first year of his training. Today he is 10 weeks old and this blog is about our first month with Rochester and what it is like to train a guide dog puppy whilst planning and starting a new series of books. First a bit of background...

History and the domestic dog

Man and dog have a long history. Elegant greyhounds are present in the hunting scenes in medieval tapestries and illuminated manuscripts. By the 18^th century portraits abounded of aristocrats out hunting with their dogs and their horses. Dogs were also often characterised in portraits as the most loyal and faithful companions of man (or woman). From the 16^th century there are records of them as pets as well as working dogs. Payments for Henry VIII’s spaniel Cutte are recorded in the royal accounts. Mary Queen of Scots and her granddaughter Elizabeth of Bohemia were both well known for their fondness for dogs and of course Elizabeth’s son, Prince Rupert, famously had a pet standard poodle called Boye.

Another famous dog of the era was Bungey, who belonged to Sir John Harington and was prodigiously clever, carrying letters from Bath to Greenwich on more than one occasion, transporting two flagons of sherry across country, hiding one when it became too heavy and returning to retrieve it later, and finding Sir John’s purse when he lost it. Now that is a clever dog.

The choice of a pet dog was limited up until the 19^th century by the fact that there were only sixteen breeds of dog recorded in England. These had originally been bred for different aspects of working and included spaniels, mastiffs, beagles, wolfhounds and deer hounds as well as greyhounds. Often the more exotic dogs owned by the nobility were imported with small French dogs being particularly popular!

The Labrador and the Golden Retriever

Rochester is a cross between a Labrador and a Golden Retriever, bred specially by Guide Dogs to combine the best qualities of both breeds. The Labrador originated from Canada, bred from the St John’s Water Dog. This picture is of Nell, a 12 year old St John’s Water Dog photographed in 1867. She looks recognisably like a Labrador.

There are records of Labradors in the UK from the early 19^th century – the first written record of the breed is in the 1814 book by Colonel Peter Hawker “Advice to young sportsmen” and a Labrador features in a painting by Edwin Landseer in 1823 as “Cora a Labrador bitch.” In contrast the Golden Retriever breed originated in 18^th century Scotland. Both dogs were working dogs, as Rochester will be but in a different way.

Having had a Labrador gundog as a pet we have been intrigued by the differences between the guide dog breed and the gundog breed. Monty, our pet Labrador, lived to plunge into water and fetch things. None of the guide dogs puppies we have trained have been particularly interested in water and all looked puzzled when they saw Monty swimming. This is excellent because a dive into the river whilst out with their owners is clearly something to be discouraged in a guide dog. Similarly Monty was a master of retrieving whereas the guide dog puppies are not but when it comes to learning obedience and walking on the lead they are superb from an early age. Rochester already trots along very neatly at only 10 weeks.

A Working Day

And so to living with Rochester. (Couldn't resist the photo of Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester there!) When Rochester is four months and older he will start to do lots of exciting and complicated things such as mastering stairs and elevators, visiting airports and travelling on the train. At the moment he is learning his basic commands such as “sit” – he’s got that one already - and “stay” and is starting to visit shops and other interesting places. An average day for Rochester and for me (and the cat) looks something like this:

Rochester: Wake up, play, sleep again, practise obedience for 5 minutes, eat breakfast, be very lively, try to eat furniture, sleep, go out for a trip in the car or walk for 10 minutes, sleep, wake up, eat, play, try to steal washing, go mad as puppies do… All repeated throughout the day.

Bob the cat: Sleep, eat, discourage puppy from chasing cats by slapping his face with paw.

Nicola: variations of: Feed Rochester, train Rochester, play with Rochester, prevent Rochester from chewing the furniture and grab 45 minutes writing during the times he is asleep! Writing in chunks like this is not the way I usually work but I have managed to get a surprising amount done. I admit to feeling exhausted. It won’t always be as full on as this but I hope it will always be as rewarding because Rochester is a super little dog who will one day, we hope, become a fully qualified guide dog. If you would like to follow Rochester’s progress, he has his own blog “Puppy with a Purpose.” The guide dog sites are here for the UK and here for the US.

Are you a dog person? Or perhaps a cat person?  Have you had experience of assistance dogs and the work they do?

Georgian surprises

Hi, here's Jo reporting that the Georgian English were a clean, orderly people of notably robust good health, who never walked any distance if of the decent sort.

That's the account of Karl Philipp Moritz, a 26-year-old German pastor and teacher, as given in the short book, Travels in England in 1782. It's available on line from Gutenberg, and also free on the Kindleand probably other e-readers, and I recommend it. Unlike many similar journals he doesn't go on at length about the wonders of God's works, though he certainly mentions them; his lively mind is focussed on England and the English, whom he's generally inclined to admire. Iwas sorry to find that he died young at 37.

The book presented many surprises to me. Inn signs, for example. In my mind they hung outside the inn, but according to Moritz, they hung in the middle, from beams.

"The amazing large signs which at the entrance of villages hang in the middle of the street, being fastened to large beams, which are extended across the street from one house to another opposite to it, particularly struck me;" No wonder they were considered dangerous.

Everyone of the time agrees that London was constantly in a smog, though Moritz doesn't have that word to use. "We first descried it enveloped in a thick smoke or fog."

One thing surprised him as much as it surprises me. "One thing, in particular, struck and surprised me not a little.  This was the number of people we met riding and walking with spectacles on, among whom were many who appeared stout, healthy, and young." 

Later he puts this down to the brightness of coal fires, which tempt one to look into them, but then must damage the eyes. I certainly don't people my Georgian world with spectacle wearers!

He notes how busy the main London streets are, and then records, "There are everywhere leading from the Strand to the Thames, some well-built, lesser, or subordinate streets... There reigns in those smaller streets towards the Thames so pleasing a calm, compared to the tumult and bustle of people, and carriages,and horses, that are constantly going up and down the Strand, that in going into one of them you can hardly help fancying yourself removed at a distance from the noise of the city, even whilst the noisiest part of it is still so near at hand."

I experienced the same when I recently traced the route Georgia and Dracy take in A Scandalous Countess. She arrives by river at the York Stairs, seen in the painting here, and then travels by sedan chair to her father's house.

The York Stairs are notable for a noble arch, the York Gate, as seen in the picture, but it's now some distance from the river because the banks were built up -- now called the Embankment. They go up Buckingham Street, shown on the left, one of those quiet streets.

Here's a snippet from the book. Lord Dracy's previous encounter with Georgia Maybury had been when she'd been in mourning, and when her father had offered her as payment of a debt.

"Dracy stood beneath the stone arch of the York Gate, watching Lady Maybury approach, aware of a heart that beat too fast for the situation. A few weeks in the sanity of the countryside hadn't restored his mind at all. She'd haunted his dreams, and even in the day he'd fallen into trying to imagine her as his wife, in his home. Ridiculous, but he'd repaired the roof with her in mind, and even had the window repaired in the drawing room. That could have waited, but a drawing room was the lady's domain.

And here she came, a different woman to the one in his memories, and even less fitting for his dreams.

Her broad straw hat was trimmed with pink ribbons and flowers and her hoop-spread gown was made of a pink-striped material. A bold choice with her loose copper hair. Moreover, she and her mother were not arriving in a common Thames wherry, but in a gilded barge rowed by six liveried men, two powdered footmen in attendance, and the Earl of Hernescroft's escutcheon on the side.

She inhabited a different world to his, and he'd best remember it.

He descended the stairs to meet the boat, but slowly, so that Lady Hernescroft had already takes a footman's hand to step out of the barge and he could offer his hand to Circe.

That open, sparkling smile hadn't been imagined. "Neatly done, Dracy. I see hope for you yet."

"Hope, Lady Maybury?"

"Of your social agility." She paused so her maid could fluff her skirts back into place. "I was surprised to find you were in Town."

"Suffering in the cause. Let's haste away from the stinking river to the slightly less stinking streets." He bowed to her mother. "Your chairs await, Lady Hernescroft."

Lady Hernescroft did not demand his escort, but swept ahead on the arm of the footman. Delightful to have a lady's mother as ally, but now it was even more puzzling.

The waiting sedan chairs were plain, but they too were not common ones, available for hire. They were Hernescroft ones, and the armed chairmen were in the earl's employ. Perhaps the family also had gilded, escutcheoned ones, but in the present climate with the people restless in hard times, the aristocracy did not draw attention to themselves on the London streets."

Moritz's visit took place 20 years later than the events in my book, but not much would have changed.

Here's another small surprise. I'm still puzzling over the exact meaning of his description of coffee. "I would always advise those who wish to drink coffee in England, to mention beforehand how many cups are to be made with half an ounce; or else the people will probably bring them a prodigious quantity of brown water."

Was the half ounce in a little packet, or weighed out at the time? From the above, I assume most English people liked their coffee weak. I have to admit that many English people still don't like strong coffee. In fact, many still prefer instant, which I find very odd.

And what about toast? I thought I knew what toast was then, but perhaps not. "But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good.  You take one slice after the other and hold it to the fire on a fork till the butter is melted, so that it penetrates a number of slices at once:  this is called toast."

So I'm assuming they buttered thin slices of bread, piled them all onto a toasting fork, and then heated the lot until it was all butter soaked?

And here's a bit I'm definitely not including in any of my books.  "In the morning it is usual to walk out in a sort of negligee or morning dress, your hair not dressed, but merely rolled up in rollers, and in a frock and boots. "

The "frock" is a frock coat, but even so, I don't see this for the hero of a Georgian romance. 

Eventually, Moritz sets out to explore England -- on foot. He's heading for the Peak District in Derbyshire, in the midlands.  He soon encounters a problem. Walkers are treated with deep suspicion. He's stared at, pointed at, and often refused lodging at inns. Even the kindest people only recommend that he travel by coach.

This attitude to walkers is worst near to London, but continues throughout his journey. He occasionally takes a coach, but dislikes being confined in a box, unable to appreciate the passing countryside as it goes by too fast. On one journey he rides outside -- ie on the top -- and finds it terrifying. He's previously described it from an objective point of view. "Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a rail.  By what means passengers thus fasten themselves securely on the roof of these vehicles, I know not; but you constantly see numbers seated there, apparently at their ease, and in perfect safety." He finds that he has a handle to hold onto, and that it isn't enough to make him feel safe.

As I said, a little book well worth reading. His description of his guided tour of the Derbyshire caves is both fascinating and hair-raising.

Does any of the above surprise you?

Do you have any other travel accounts from the 18th century to recommend?

Any other comments arising?

Because traveling is the theme, I'll give a copy of A Lady's Secret to a random selection from any substantial comments here.

A Scandalous Countess is getting great reviews, and will be out on February 7th. I'll be back to tell you more about it around then.

Cheers,

Jo

An Interview with Eloisa James: The Duke is MINE!

by Mary Jo

We Word Wenches are delighted to have Eloisa James as a guest today.  Possessor of one of the most original voices in historical romance, Eloisa has a background that enthralls journalists and readers alike.  Since she is always being asked about it, I shall briefly summarize so we can move onto more interesting questions.  <g>

Eloisa is the daughter of Robert Bly, the distinguished poet and National Book Award winning author of Iron John, a seminal influence on the men’s movement and an international bestseller.  The family roots are Norway and Minnesota (yes, like Garrison Keillor), and Eloisa has the tall, lean, blondness to prove it. <G>  She has degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, and is a professor of Shakespeare and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University.

Despite the fact that both her parents were distinguished literary writers, Eloisa was a born story lover and story teller.  She loved reading romance, which progressed to writing romances, and she is one of our genre’s most eloquent advocates.  As her website says, she has two jobs, two kids, two cats, and one husband, the Italian born Alessandro, who is not only gorgeous (I’ve met him and can verify this <g>), but also a hereditary Italian knight, a cavaliere.  Is that romantic or what?

I have a suspicion that Eloisa never sleeps, so I’m glad she has taken the time to visit us.  Her new January book, The Duke is Mine, immediately leaped onto the New York Times bestsellers list, and is third in her current series of fairy tale inspired books.  It features a heroine who is just too full of life to be the perfect duchess her parents raised her to be, and two men, both of them very unusual characters. (Excerpt)

Eloisa, The Duke is Mine is loosely inspired by the Princess and the Pea, and it is variously very funny and rather tragic.  Could you tell us about the story and how you came to write it?
 
EJ:  I jumped into the story as part of my fairy-tale retellings without thinking through the pea, in particular (which proved to be very difficult to transform).  What interested me right away, though, was the question of how we judge perfection.  In The Princess and the Pea, the girl who arrives in the middle of a rainstorm is tested by her future mother-in-law (including a trial involving the infamous pea and 100 mattresses), and eventually declared a “real” princess, perfect in every way.

So I started the novel thinking about our standards for perfection.  Every character reflects that preoccupation, in one way or another.  Olivia, my heroine is no perfect heroine; she’s impudent, bawdy, and plump. Her sister Georgiana, by contrast, approaches “perfection,” in that she’s mastered all societal rules.  Olivia is torn between a duke, Quin, with an Aspergers-like inability to express emotion, and her fiancé Rupert, who is all emotion with almost no logic.  Olivia, Georgie, Quin, and Rupert are all perfect and imperfect in different ways.  
 

MJP: How does your work with Shakespearean plays and language influence your romance novels?  
 
 EJ:  Most obviously, teaching Shakespeare for years has given me a rich poetic vocabulary to fall back on, though the poetry in The Duke is Mine is more Keatsian than Shakespearean (I had to make up a poem for Rupert).  I do think that it is extremely useful to be teaching plays.  I find dialogue an on-going challenge, and teaching a genre that’s pure dialogue is always helpful.
 
 
MJP: Do you have any comments about the abundance of dukes and duchesses in your books and in your titles?
 
EJ:  At some point it became clear to my publisher that my books sell better with dukes & duchess in my titles.  That speaks for itself.  But I would also say that I grew up the daughter of a poet on a farm in rural Minnesota.  My prom party was in a gravel pit, and poets do not make a lot of money.  I am completely uninterested in writing books about money problems.  For me, “duke” often acts as shorthand for person-with-mucho-land (and thereby, money).
 
 
MJP: I’ve noticed that several of your books have small dogs with, to put it delicately, incontinence issues. <G>  Are the fictional dogs inspired by real dogs in your life?  I was also told to ask about Lucy and Milo, real dogs with real stories. <G>

EJ: Lucy is indeed our dog!  She is a rescue dog who looks exactly like the rather battered, loving dachshund in The Duke is Mine.  When I was writing The Duke is Mine, she was still having a little anxious incontinence now and then.  I’m happy to say that barring an unfortunate incident after she snatched and ate a full half pound of blue cheese, she’s had no accidents in the last year.

Milo features largely in the memoir I have coming out in April, Paris in Love.  Milo used to be our Chihuahua, until a sad day one summer when Air France refused to let him get on the plane back home from Italy because he was too fat.  Literally over-weight.  So my mother-in-law happily adopted Milo and since then he’s just grown chubbier and chubbier.  And chubbier.  He’s a very funny character. 

What I’ve discovered about dogs—never having grown up with one—is that they have characters, much more so than cats.  I’m really enjoying putting them in books.  They weave into the plot beautifully, and they can echo whatever I’m thinking about.  In Lucy’s case, she is a lot like her owner, Rupert.  They both live completely in the present, full of love and bravery and energy. 

At the moment I’m finishing The Ugly Duchess, which publishes August 28 (I’m running very late!).  At any rate, my duchess has adopted a rescue dog who is very beautiful, but has been maltreated.  It’s an obvious point, but I think it works.
 
 MJP: In addition to having another of the fairy tale books scheduled for September, you have a non-fiction memoir called Paris in Love coming out in April.  The book is about how you and your family sold the house in New Jersey and packed up and moved to Paris for a year.  I assume you and your husband timed your sabbaticals so you could have such a marvelous adventure.  Wench Anne Gracie says she loved your tweets from Paris.  
 
So—tell us about Paris!  What new things did you discover and pursuits did you pursue?  How did your children take to a foreign country and language?  And do you want to live there again at some future time?
 
EJ:  My children split the difference, as they often do: my son fell in love with Paris and is now fluent in French; my daughter hated the city and refused to learn the language.  Overall, we had a wonderful year.

Looking back, the lesson I learned is how fast life spins by if we don’t record it.  I knew when we left the US that I wanted to remember the year. I was leaving post-treatment for a very early case of breast cancer, which had given me a chilling sense of mortality.  Plus, Luca was already fifteen, and I had the chilling fear that once he grew up I would forget all those funny teenage moments, the way I had forgotten most of the adorable things he did as a baby.  So I had a fit of wanting to record life rather than just live it (and forget it).  That record turned into Paris in Love.  I think it’s a quite funny look at our year: life in Paris with Anna, Luca, my husband, the plump dog I mention above, Milo.

I’d love to live in Paris again.  My hope is that the book will inspire more people to snatch up a dream and just do it—trust that it’s OK to sell the house, move into an apartment you find on the internet, live in a foreign country without speaking the language (because I don’t!).
  
MJP:  What have I missed that I should have asked you, or that you’d like to say?
 
EJ:  Well, let me put in a word for The Ugly Duchess, coming next September.  This has been a really tough book to write, but fun.  It’s my first pirate book!  If I was thinking about perfection with The Princess and the Pea, this one is about beauty.  Now I’m realizing that I’m making my books sound awfully moralistic.  I assure everyone that they are not.  I aim at funny escapist, with a thread of thoughtfulness behind it.  I should have an excerpt up on my website, www.eloisajames.com, pretty soon.
 
 MJP: Thanks so much for visiting us, Eloisa, and I wish you much success in your future careers. 

EJ: Thank you Word Wenches!  It’s always a pleasure.
 
MJP: Eloisa will be giving away two copies of her earlier fairy tale romance, When Beauty Tamed the Beast to readers who post comments between now and Tuesday midnight.  So—what would you like to ask Eloisa about her dual careers?  What are some of your favorite novels based on fairy tales?  And do you like pets in romances? <G>
 
 Mary Jo

Guest and Winners

ELOISA JAMES

Tomorrow is the Chinese New Year, and what better way to celebrate than to have a guest interview!  On Monday, January 23, Wench Mary Jo will interview returning Honorary Word Wench, Eloisa James, who combines the best of 3 worlds:  a writer, a professor, and a mother.

WINNERS

More winners!  Lots more winners! Janice Jacobson won a book from Cara/Andrea.  Maria Durst won a book from guest Christina Courtenay.  Susan awarded a book to Betty Hamilton and Joanna likewise awarded a book to Grace Burrowes.  Shelley Bagby and Ruth Berger both won books from Pat, and Susan Knight and Suzy won books from Anne.  Pearl won a book from Nicola.  Congratulations, winners!

A House In The Country . . .

Cara/Andrea here,

One of the many reasons I’m enjoying Downton Abbey and all the enthusiasm for British History it has engendered here in the States is the interest it’s stirred in the great country houses. Now, many of us are familiar with the famous estates, like Chatsworth and Blenheim. But there are so many lesser-known places with unique and fascinating histories, as Nicola often points out in her wonderful posts.

For those of us who don’t live in the UK, and only occasionally get a chance to travel to the Sceptered Isle, these stately houses are incredibly alluring. The grand gardens, the ornate rooms, the opulent furnishings, the memorabilia decorating the niches and walls—it all resonates with wonderful stories and gives us a glimpse into the richly textured past. Last summer I had a chance to visit one of these  marvelous estates, so in homage to the recent start of Season Two of Downton Abbey here in America,  I thought I’d share  a little about Stoke Park, which is located near London, just a few miles from Heathrow Airport.

The lands of Stoke Park and the village of Stoke Poges, where it is located, are mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and through the ensuing centuries the estate passed to various nobles of the realm. Queen Elizabeth graced two of her favorites with use of enclave, first allowing Sir Christopher Hatton  to reside there, and then giving the honors to Sir Edward Coke. Coke became one of the most prominent lawyers in England, and was involved in sending the Earl of Essex to the gallows, as well as prosecuting members of the Gunpowder Plot. Two years before the Queen’s death, he entertained her at Stoke Park.

Royalty made another visit, albeit a less pleasant one, to the estate when King Charles I was imprisoned for a short time there before his execution. And in 1688, the newly crowned King William III was traveling in the area and wished to see the manor house. However, he was refused entrance by the owner, who said “He has got possession of another man’s house and shall not enter mine.”

Stoke Park eventually passed to the Cobham family, who also owned Stowe, a well-known estate in Buckinghamshire. In 1749, the dowager Viscountess came from Stowe to live at Stoke park—and brough with her another fascinating figure in English history—the legendary landscape designer, Capability Brown.

Lancelot Brown—who earned the moniker “Capability” for often telling clients that their estates had great “capability” for landscape improvement—was born in Kirkharle, Northumberland in 1716. He started his career as a gardener’s boy at Kirkharle Hall, and then moved on to Stowe, where he studied under the famous landscape designer, William Kent.

Brown made a name for himself by breaking with tradition and creating a new “natural” approach to designing gardens and grounds, as opposed to the formal layouts of the past. He called them “grammatical” landscapes—in explaining himself to Hannah More in an encounter at Hampton Court, he said, “I make a comma, and there . . . where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where interruption is desirable to break the view, a parenthesis . . .” Now as a writer, I of course love this name for his style. And oh, can Brown punctuate!

His style is marked by long stretches of rolling grasslands, with bushes, trees  and lakes—manmade if necessary— artfully placed to create visual texture and interest. Many of the most famous estates in Britain feature his garden designs, including Croome Court, Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, and small traces at Kew Gardens. Stoke Park’s grounds—which today include a wonderful 18-hole golf course by the distinguished Harry Colt—showcase Brown’s genius for subtlely shaping the earth and creating pleasing vistas from every angle of the estate.

I was lucky enough to play golf through some of the grounds that he designed at Stoke Park, Now, Mark Twain called golf “a good walk spoiled” but nothing could diminish the pleasure of winding my way through the vistas of rolling grasslands, strategically placed clumps of bushes, and graceful stone bridges crossing scenic waters. It’s not often that I can combine my love of history with my love of sport, so this was truly a special experience.

Other notables who owned Stoke Park include Edward Gray, one of England’s premier poets. His most famous poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard” was written about St. Giles’s church in Stoke Poges. The Penn family, familiar to all us Yanks, was also a steward of the lands. In the early 1800’s John Penn, grandson of William, brought in the acclaimed architect James Wyatt to help design a manor house.

Now this brings us back to the Downton Abbey era, which also figures prominently in the history of Stoke Park. In 1908, sport-mad Nick Lane Jackson had the grand idea to “establish a country club somewhat along the lines of those which had proved so phenomenally successful in the United States.” He and a group of investors arranged to lease part of Stoke Park with an option to buy. The Stoke Park Club came into being, and today it still offers its members and hotel guests world-class golf and grass court tennis. (The famous golf match in the James Bond movie Goldfinger was filmed at the club.) The public can book a stay, which offers the opportunity  to enjoy tea and meals in the fabulous period rooms, or enjoy a quiet read in the library or various sitting rooms. It’s well worth a visit for it’s truly a special place, for everywhere you look, both inside and out, you get a breathtaking look at history.

What about you? Are you enjoying Downton Abbey? Would you like to have a stay at a grand English country house. Which one would you choose?

Bonesetting

Silly me, I thought bonesetting meant setting broken bones. Since I’ve just snapped one of mine and wondered how in the name of heaven anyone in past times could deal with the frustrating complications, I started researching—only to learn that bonesetters did far more than set bones. They were medieval chiropractors, acupuncturists, and more.

I can’t type well enough yet to sort through all the conflicting details. Samuel Homola claims one of the first written mentions of bonesetting was from Friar Moulton, of the order of St. Augustine. He wrote the Compleat Bonesetter, which was revised in 1656 by Robert Turner. Apparently Turner says the book was intended to be a guide for "the use of those Godly Ladies and Gentlewomen, who are industrious for their talent God has given them, in helping their poor sick neighbors." But the guide isn’t just about setting bones. It’s about “the use of manipulation as a method of setting fractures, reducing dislocations, and restoring mobility to an injured or diseased joint.” Homola concludes that bonesetting was a woman’s job, which doesn’t ring quite true to me, especially in the Middle Ages.

So I looked a little further and learned that in the European Middle Ages, there was an entire guild of bonesetters who worked closely with physicians. As I suspected, the guilds were all male. Perhaps Turner’s book was a kind of housewife’s manual for people too isolated or poor to call on a bona fide bonesetter. But the guild apprenticed only boys, keeping them for seven years. Training was “derived from the Roman and Greek ‘skeleton men,’ and the ancient Egyptian ‘men of the hands.’” They actually had university training four hundred years before medical practitioners. Again, this was as much massage and chiropractics as fixing broken bones. Need your spine popped? Call a bonesetter.

For many reasons, political and religious, Napoleon destroyed the bonesetter’s guilds. Today, only nine large volumes about the craft remain, most of them written in Greek, Latin, and Gaelic. Maybe the little emperor feared languages he couldn’t read—or people smart enough to read them. Or perhaps the guilds had become little more than superstitious cults that defied the growing interest in science.

In Eastern families and communities, bonesetting was also learned in conjunction with acupressure / acupuncture.

So naturally I had to check out Regency England, from which my prejudices evidently stem. Yes, they had women bonesetters in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. There was even one so skilled at reducing dislocations, setting fractures, and bandaging, that mobs would follow her to the theater. But she apparently specialized in fractures, as I assumed, and of course, true physicians—all male—disdained her abilities.

This is all fun to know but doesn’t tell me how people functioned with broken bones. (My cast is fiberglass and still seems to weigh a thousand pounds. My right hand is good for nothing except finger wiggling. Try buttering toast that way!)


I learned from Wikipedia that the earliest methods involved splints. The Ancient Egyptians used wooden splints made of bark wrapped in linen and stiff bandages that were probably derived from embalming techniques. A form of Plaster of Paris was available, but it wasn’t used for bandages. The ancient Greeks also used waxes and resins to create stiffened bandages and the Romans used starch. Arabian doctors used lime derived from sea shells and albumen from egg whites. “The Italian School of Salerno in the twelfth century recommended bandages hardened with a flour and egg mixture as did Medieval European bonesetters, who used casts made of egg white, flour, and animal fat.” But mostly, bed rest was the required treatment—months of bed rest, argghhh!


War, naturally, created the need for more mobile treatment. A surgeon in Napoleon’s army (here comes real science!) studied the effects of transportation on amputated limbs and concluded immobilizing the limb instead of the whole person was sufficient for healing. Yeah, science! Of course, he resorted to the tried and true camphorated alcohol, lead acetate and egg whites for immobilization.

Various surgeons operating at Waterloo and the continuing wars thereafter eventually developed a method that foreshadows modern Plaster of Paris casts. From Wikipedia: “The limb was initially wrapped in wool, especially over any bony prominences. Pasteboard was then cut into shape to provide a splint and dampened down in order that it could be molded to the limb. The limb was then wrapped in bandages before a starch coating was applied to the outer surface.” Better than total bed rest but that had to itch like the devil after a few weeks. And it still doesn’t tell me how women and children with their weaker limbs endured the weight. My bet is on bed rest, for the wealthy at least.

Unfortunately or not, I don’t have the luxury of lounging about while my cook prepares the meals, my maid cuts them into bite size pieces, and my man of business pays the bills. I’m on a 30-day blog tour for LURE OF SONG AND MAGIC and I’m typing revisions to my urban fantasy with one hand. Oh, and let’s not forget that I’m supposed to be promoting my new reissue of SMALL TOWN GIRL and putting together the final touches on next month’s reissue of SWEET HOME CAROLINA.  If I mention any more of my current projects, my head will ache as well as my hand. I think I shall hie me to the fainting couch. (That's my new svelte black cast--goes past the elbow. The Mexican original was hot pink and twice the size. I should have taken a picture!)

What experiences have you had with broken bones? Mine was set in a Mexican hospital, another blog all of its own. (which reminds me—I had to start a new Facebook Page. Stop by and Like me, please, and admire photos of my Mexican adventure!)

Wench Ergonomics

--Susan here, presenting some thoughts on the Wenchly approach to ergonomics. I've tweaked with some additional Wench comments since this morning's posting. Read and enjoy!

Writing can be a demanding physical activity – especially when it goes on for days on end. Authors spend LOTS of time at computer keyboards and with pen and paper too, endless hours of repetitive movement with perhaps not the greatest posture, factors that can take a toll on various body parts. But writers have plots to resolve, characters to develop and deadlines to meet, so we push through and get the job done. And we deal with discomforts best we can.

The physical nature of writing mostly involves sitting –- as fingers fly over the keys, wrists may be angled; shoulders may be tight and hunched, necks forward, eyes straining to see what’s on the screen; and backs, hips, legs and feet must support those all-important writing muscles in the hands, fingers and eyes. Not to mention the physiological needs of the brain (that would be another blog entirely)!

Yet do we take breaks often, walk around, stretch our legs and backs, shake our hands and arms? Not regularly, if the creative urge is in force and the deadline is near. Are the chair and desk a proper fit, with the back well supported, spine balanced, arms relaxed, feet on the floor? Not always. Even in the best ergonomic circumstances, writers could be leaning and slumping while typing at lightning speed. We put in long hours in the same chair, go without sleep, and fuel ourselves with caffeine, further tightening stressed systems and muscles.

Recently the Wenches were chatting about this and discussing what helps us. It all started when Wench Anne’s doctor put her into wrist braces after the havoc wrought by a recent deadline blitz. “I gave myself tendonitis/carpal tunnel, so have been staying off the computer for the most part,” she told us one day.

Most of the Wenches—Anne, Mary Jo, Susan, Nicola, Pat, Andrea, Joanna and Wench Whipster Sherrie-- have developed physical glitches from long writing hours. Mary Jo recommends the liberal use of wrist braces. “With all the deadlines I've faced in the last year or two, my wrists are doing some serious complaining," she says. "Some days I wear a brace on each wrist and another on each elbow. Susan's son, Dr. Josh, made a good suggestion when I hit him up for free advice—wear a wrist brace to bed because at night the wrist can get bent in ways that exacerbate the nerve damage. I gave it a try, and saw an immediate improvement. Still a ways to go, but haven't had any bad episodes since then. Now wrist braces are going into my travel kit as well as a pair on my bedside table!” Wrist support at night is a first line therapy—if wrists are still weak and troubled, more help may be necessary.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the bane of writers -- an inflammation in the sheath that carries nerves from the wrist into the hand, it can result in pain and even long term damage. It can occur in people who perform prolonged repetitive motion, resulting in repetitive stress injury, or RSI. Other diseases and conditions can bring on carpal issues too, but keyboard use is a frequent cause in writers.

Symptoms “most often occur in the thumb, index finger, middle finger, and half of the ring finger. If you have problems with your other fingers but your little finger is fine, this may be a sign that you have carpal tunnel syndrome. A different nerve gives feeling to the little finger. You may first notice symptoms at night. You may be able to get relief by shaking your hand,” reports WebMD’s page on carpal tunnel.  “Tendon inflammation resulting from repetitive work, such as uninterrupted typing, can also cause carpal tunnel symptoms,” states medicine.net. 

Wench Nicola says she sometimes has RSI issues from keyboard use, and is getting treatment for it. Mary Jo is trying contrast therapy, recommended to her by a writer who has found relief this way for wrist and hand problems. A physical therapy technique, contrast therapy involves alternating hot and cold water immersion for hands and wrists (and is used for other injuries). The changing temperatures can reduce swelling and improve circulation and therefore healing.

Of working on her laptop with her wrists at awkward angles, Wench Joanna says: "Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Harrison Ford points to a spot on his elbow and says, 'This doesn't hurt?' I'm like that, except I don't have a spot on the elbow. The other aches go away, but the wrists keep at this ouching thing and I feel very stupid. Is there a Carpal-Tunnel-Stupid Syndrome?  That's what I have...so now I wear a wrist brace when I sit down to work for a long time. Everyone who sees this thinks I have injured myself in some accident, so I try to look like I ride horses or ski or engage in other enterprises more interesting than staring at a computer screen." 

My own experience with carpal-tunnel-like symptoms -- numbness in the hands and fingers, pain in wrist as well as elbow and shoulder -- originated in a pinched nerve in the cervical vertebrae, affecting nerves feeding into the shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers. Allergies prevented me from taking anti-inflammatory meds, so I went to a chiropractor, whose treatments released the pressure in my neck. Years ago I learned wrist and hand exercises that help the overworked wrist and hands, and I try to do them fairly regularly. They gently stretch and align the wrists to keep the nerve sheaths in good shape. Yoga has also helped me, along with other stretching movements.

Anne also finds that exercises help; some very good routines can be found in this YouTube video.

“Just now I’m in wrist bands and splints galore after seeing a hand rehab specialist," Anne says, "little thumb splints to wear day and night for a few weeks and hand/wrist splints for sleeping in and spending time in during the day. Look silly, feel like a martial arts person, but it's remarkably comfortable.” 

Our Blog Whipster Sherrie also gives thumbs up (as it were) to wrist braces night and day when needed. She prefers rigid wrist braces to wear at night. “Another suggestion is to make sure your keyboard is flat,” she says. “Raising the back of the keyboard forces you to cock your wrists instead of keeping them straight, which is very straining.”

Mary Jo and myself, among other Wenches, are devoted users of ergonomic style keyboards. Mary Jo’s keyboard is a nifty little thing that is split in two without the number keypad, and adjusts to hand span. I use a curved keyboard that helps keep my hands and wrists at a good angle. And Mary Jo and Pat use trackball mouses (mice?), further taking strain off the hands. I notice that using my laptop, with its plain straight keyboard, can trigger wrist issues, while my curved keyboard at the desk relieves my wrist discomfort.

Jo Beverley has taken keyboard and typing comfort a further step by using the Dvorak key system.”The Dvorak keyboard layout has the keys in different places,” she explains. “The QWERTY one was designed for early typewriters, and while it does put
least used keys in out-of-the-way places and common ones and patterns in the middle, it also had to deal with the type on the long arms sweeping up to hit the paper. Keystrokes that frequently happen next to each other need to be separated on the arms or they tend to clash. But Dvorak simply arranges the keys for least hand movement when typing common language such as English.Once one's learned it, it makes using an ordinary  keyboard very fiddly!” Jo says. Just about any computer can now be switched to Dvorak.

In the midst of our email discussion about wrists and such, Wench Pat Rice broke her wrist and is now dealing with that while writing. “Not sure what I can add to the ergonomic discussion aside from don't break your wrist!” she says. “I find a trackball is my best friend, but one geared for the right hand doesn't work so hot on the left. I've also learned that a Dvorak key system is built into MS operating systems, even a left-handed one. Keys can be popped off the board and moved around to work with Dvorak -– the key system makes soooo much more sense than stretching our fingers to reach keys.”

In terms of the larger ergonomic issues a writer faces, Sherrie claims “I am the queen of comfort!” She converted a huge recliner into a desk chair by attaching wheels. Now she reclines at the desk with her keyboard in her lap—and it’s handy for watching movies on her large monitor as well, so Sherrie’s all set for desk comfort! 

Mary Jo, Jo Beverley and myself have all invested in Herman Miller Aeron chairs.  Wench Andrea adds "I write too slowly to have wrist problems, but I'm saving my pennies for an Aeron chair because my back does occasionally flare up, and I've heard such wonderful things about it."  

The Aeron is not only ergonomically aligned and comfortable –- it’s also a beautifully designed object that is part of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. I love my Aeron, which I got in the smallest of three sizes. This chair fits me, and I'm under five feet tall. For many short people, most furniture is too big, causing back strain from the feet hanging down, and so on. Aeron comes in sizes A, B and C; size "A" has a shorter, narrower seat depth and lower arm height. I also had the legs of my desk shortened (thanks, dh!). Now the physical stress of writing is much improved. 

The Wenches have each managed to create a good level of physical comfort and support as we write. We've had to do that. Ergonomics can save writing careers. Wrist braces, exercises, Dvorak keyboards, Aeron chairs, customized desks and other measures are heaven sent for career authors -- and for anyone else who spends long hours at the computer.

Do you spend lots of time in front of a computer or laptop too? What have you found that helps you? We'd love to know your experience with wrist strain and other writer-related hazards. 

Susan

 

 (<-- one of the books that challenged my wrists and back!)

Nuts for a bleak winter

Anne here, in a pensive mood. Every now and then I come across a story — real life, not fiction — that moves me in some way, and I store it up, like a squirrel with nuts against a bleak winter. 

Because if you were to believe our world is like the world-as-seen-on-the-TV-screen, you'd think it's a pretty bleak place. The news, focusing on death and disaster, violence and despair, the entertainment shows focusing on murder, corruption and violence, balanced only by bubblegum sit-coms and earnest talk shows. I don't know about you, but I've almost stopped watching TV. Because that view of humanity is just so skewed. And it's depressing.

Sure, there's poverty and violence and despair — but there's also a lot of goodness, and kindness and everyday bravery around. It just doesn't show up much on TV. I suspect that's why romance is such a popular genre – it's life-affirming, positive and can give people hope.

Anyway, this is not going to turn into a rant about why romance novels make the world a happier place — it's my birthday and so I want to share with you a few of those little nuts of goodness I referred to at the beginning of this post. Three examples of ordinary people shining a little beacon into the dark.

The first is just a small one — a very sweet story I came across at the Melbourne launch of the Georgette Heyer biography by Jennifer Kloester. She told this story of a young Australian girl, Ro Marriot, who, during WW2 became terribly worried that, with food shortages in Britain, her favorite author, Georgette Heyer, might be going hungry.

Ro and her mother wrote to Georgette Heyer to ask if she would like them to send her food parcels. She sent back a very kind letter saying she was perfectly all right and Ro and her mother were not to worry.

But Ro knew about the famed British Stiff Upper Lip and felt sure that Georgette Heyer was exhibiting it. So she and her mother sent Georgette regular food parcels anyway, until well after WW2 was over.

This is Ro now. She was in the audience at the book launch and I grabbed this not-very-good photo of her after the launch. 

My second story is about a man called Luis Soriano. He's a primary teacher in the isolated areas of Colombia, and he has a passionate belief in the power or reading to transform lives.


For the last ten years or so, Luis Soriano has been working in poor, remote communities where children were more familiar with violence, conflict and the drug trade than books and reading. Luis began visiting communities, traveling from village to village, taking books with him, teaching reading and leaving books with the children (and their families.) On his next visit, he'd collect those books and leave some more. His first portable library started with a collection of 70 books, which he carried on a burro — a small donkey.

It became known as the biblioburro or the book burro. Word has slowly spread and now the program is famous. And Luis Soriano has brought books and knowledge to hundreds of children and their families.

The third story is about a cellist called Vedran Smailović. Never heard of him? I'm not surprised. I first heard about him as a side story in a documentary on Joan Baez. Vedran Smailović was a fairly ordinary guy until he responded in an extraordinary way to an act of terrorism. And no he didn't turn vigilante like a hero in the movies. He did something much more wonderful.

It was 1992, and Yugoslavia was falling apart — bombs, shells, unspeakable acts of violence, neighbor against neighbor and the beautiful, highly cultured city of Sarajevo had become a war zone. 
At 4pm on 27 May, a mortar shell landed in the middle of a long line of people waiting to buy bread— most of the bakeries in the city had been destroyed. In a flash, twenty-two people were dead, and many more injured, lying among the rubble created in the explosion.

Vedran Smailović, who lived opposite, was as horrified as you might imagine. He was appalled by the event, and enraged by what had become of his beloved city. He ached to do something, anything, to show his profound opposition to what was happening. 

But he was just a musician, a cellist who played in a string quartet and orchestras. What hope did he have of making a difference when madness had taken over his world? 

The morning after the mortar attack, at 4pm, Vedran Smailović took his cello into the street where the attack had taken place. Dressed in a formal suit, as if for an orchestral performance, he set up a camp stool in the middle of the destruction, took out his cello and began to play. Countering violence with music. 

A small beacon of hope in a sea of dark misery.

For the next twenty-two days — one day for each person killed— at 4pm he played his cello. He played Albinoni's Adagio in G minor. You can hear it here, and see some photos taken of his city before, during and after the siege. 

At first people thought he was crazy — the siege of Sarajevo went on regardless, but as each day passed, his determination, his music and his quiet courage  became a symbol of hope to a beleaguered city.
He played every day for more than a year — until December 1993. He played on, despite further shelling, bombs and mortar attacks. He played in the rubble of formerly beautiful buildings, ruined homes and churches. 

A magnificent response, isn't it? There's a superb article telling his story here — I've given you just the bare bones. 

So there you are — three very different stories, ranging from the small and sweet to the magnificent, but each telling the story of how a single individual acted, following their heart, to make something better. I hope they've given you a smile.

There are hundreds more of these inspiring stories, of individuals making a difference, sometimes on a large scale, sometimes on a very small scale. Feel free to share them. Or tell us what your antidote is to the doom and gloom so often found on the TV.

The Gilded Age - Dauntsey Park, an Edwardian historical romance

Nicola here! Last week saw the UK reissue of my 2008 Edwardian historical romance The Last Rake in London with a new title, Dauntsey Park, and a gorgeous new cover. I was tickled pink when a UK magazine described the book as "perfect for fans of Downton Abbey," The Oxford Times said that it was "everything a historical romance should be and more", and another review described is as "a particularly fine Edwardian romance."

Over on my website I’ve been blogging about the inspiration for the story and various aspects of my research. I found writing an Edwardian-set book absolutely fascinating and the parallels between the period and my more accustomed era of the Regency to be intriguing. There were similarities – both were gilded ages, at least for the top of society – and both saw immense social, political and technological upheaval.

Today I thought I would blog about a few favourite and random facts I discovered when I was researching the Edwardian age. I hope you enjoy them!

The Buccaneers and Dollar Princesses

First up, those fabulous American heiresses! One influence on Edwardian high society that has always fascinated me was the arrival of the “dollar princesses” into the British aristocracy. The later Victorian and Edwardian period was a time when high society was becoming more open; rich industrialists, self-made men, heiresses, even foreigners (gasp!) were able to enter the ranks, enriching the coffers of the old nobility.

Mary Jo has written a wonderful blog post about the buccaneers here: http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2011/05/another-wedding-of-the-century.html

We also see the influence of the American heiress very strongly in the smash hit TV programme Downton Abbey. Cora, Countess of Grantham, was a dollar princess or “buccaneer”, the daughter of a self-made man, whose money saved the Grantham family from financial ruin.  The American heiresses influenced society a great deal from fashion – their preferred couturier was the House of Worth in Paris – to interior design. Cora’s character was apparently based on that of Mary Leiter whose social success was assured when she went to a ball during the London Season as “a statuesque beauty in a stupendous Worth gown” and danced with the Prince of Wales. She married George Curzon of whom she most romantically said when he came through the door she felt “that the band was playing the Star Spangled Banner and that the room is glowing with pink lights and rills are running up and down my back with joy.”

Ashdown House, where I work, also had its own Buccaneer, Cornelia Martin, whose fortune saved the Craven family. She was fabulously rich, extremely stylish and became very admired. I have blogged about Cornelia here.

Food

Ah, those tables groaning under the weight of eight courses! By the Edwardian age many affluent families would aspire to a French-trained chef who would be paid the princely sum of £100 or more per year. The food served at the Edwardian dinner table not only had to taste fabulous, it also had to look wonderful too. There was no holding back: glazed boar’s head was a favourite dish, as was roast lobster decorated with seaweed. Sweet dishes were enormous too - hills of bonbons, huge bowls full of exotic fruit and tiny cakes. Flowers would be preserved in gelatine and filled with cream and fruit. It’s amazing the ladies could fit in those Worth gowns but then your corset would restrain the worst excesses.

 The Franco-British Exhibition of 1908

 I had never heard of the Franco-British Exhibition before I researched Dauntsey Park, but I discovered that it was a huge exhibition that aimed to display and promote the industrial achievements of both countries. Alongside the displays of machinery and products there was a wide range of fairground attractions and sideshows. My favourite was the Flip-Flap, which was like a swinging boat with two carriages. It carried 50 people in each carriage and went up 200 feet, giving a panoramic view of the exhibition and of London beyond. There was also a huge helter skelter, a Canadian toboggan ride, a recreation of “old London” before the 1666 Great Fire and, curiously, a recreation of the 1889 Johnstown Flood. There was even an Irish Village, based on Ballymaclinton, which contained part of President McKinley’s grandfather’s cottage.

The Franco-British Exhibition was a fashionable event and visitors were expected to wear their best clothes for the outing. I was amazed to read that there was a type of “uniform” expected of the visitors. The style of the day, as outlined in Donald Knight’s ‘The Exhibitions’, was, for women, either grey or green costume, with braid and button trimming, white collar and cuffs, lace blouse, fawn felt hat with brown ostrich feathers, brown handbag, fawn gloves; or poplin skirt, bolero jacket, white lace blouse, straw hat decorated with ribbons/flowers, gloves and parasol. For gents the fashion was lounge suits of worsted or tweed (herringbone, plain or striped) in brown, grey or navy, single or double-breasted jacket and waistcoat; shoes were starting to come in but most men wore boots, and bowler hats or straw boaters. Young girls dressed entirely in white, with black lace-up shoes, boys in kneebreeches, blouses with lace collar and cuffs or a jersey, and sailor suits. For the working class, it was Sunday best, white blouse and short jacket for women; black suit, flannel shirt and cap for men; knickerbockers, shirt and cap for blouses with lace collar and cuffs or a jersey, and sailor suits. Even on a day out the different ranks of society could be recognized by their clothes.

The Night Clubs

In Dauntsey Park my heroine, Sally Bowes, owns a London nightclub called the Blue Parrot. The nightclub in the book is modelled on the Moulin Rouge in Paris because I wanted it to be fairly racy and the Moulin Rouge was certainly that! The Blue Parrot was a little ahead of its time – the first Edwardian nightclub in London was said to be The Cave of the Golden Calf, which opened in 1912. The Cave was legendary for its drinking and dancing, but it lost money rapidly and closed after only two years.

In my story the Blue Parrot is a very fashionable but exclusive venue, a favourite haunt of King Edward himself. It is not rowdy or too overtly sexy. It offers musical cabaret, drinking, good food and gambling for high stakes, all in the most tasteful and opulent of surroundings, destined to appeal to both the aristocrats and the self made members of Edwardian society.

I’m giving away a copy of Dauntsey Park to one commenter between now and midnight Thursday. All you have to tell me is whether you enjoy books set in the Edwardian period and if so what you like best about them. And if you don’t enjoy historical romance set in that era it would be interesting to know that too. One reader once told me that knowing that World War I was on the way ruined her pleasure in the Edwardian period. What do you think?

Hugeous stones and rutts very deep

Here's Jo, visiting my sister's place in Spain and appreciating the ease of flying and buses and all modern conveniences. This blog has no images because I forgot to bring any and can't find any on line I can legally use.

Travel in fiction.

I find travel times one of the trickiest parts of the past to write about because I struggle to really be there. I've lived in houses with few mod cons and experienced power cuts that remind us of what that's like. I've ridden and walked, but only for amusement so that experience hasn't sunk in. When my characters need to be somewhere I really have to work at being there with them, which always involves slowing them waaaaaaaay down.

Usually it means dealing with what goes on during the journey, when my storytelling mind wants them at their destination. In A Scandalous Countess I do skip over a long journey from Worcestershire to the London area because my heroine is traveling with her mother and thinks gratefully that they've survived, mostly by not talking at all.

Coach travel wasn't smooth, either. Passengers regularly had to get down when the horses had to climb a steep hill and often chose to if the horses had to go down one as the braking systems weren't very reliable.

Travel in the 18th century.

In the mid 18th century, when my Malloren books are set, travel could be really slow because the roads were often atrocious, even the toll roads or turnpikes. The idea behind a toll road was that travelers paid to use it so it could be kept in good condition, but apparently that wasn't always so. I thought I'd share some first hand knowledge from Thomas Young's A six weeks tour, through the southern counties of England and Wales, 1768

"But my dear sir, what am I to say of the roads in this country! The turnpikes! as they have the assurance to call them; and the hardiness to make one pay for. From Chepstow to the half-way house between Newport and Cardiff, they continue mere rocky lanes, full of hugeous stones as big as one's horse, and abominable holes. 

The first six miles from Newport, they were so detestable, and without either direction posts or milestones that I could not well persuade myself I was on the turnpike."

Now that is Wales, notoriously wild! However, consider this.

"The country from Tetford to Oxford is extremely disagreeable, barren, wild, and almost uninhabited. The road called by a vile prostitution of language, a turnpike, but christened, I apprehend, by people who know not what a road is. It is all of chalk stone, of which loose ones are everywhere rolling about to lame horses. It is full of holes, and the rutts very deep; and withal so narrow that I with great difficulty got my chair out of the way of the Witney waggons, and various machines which are perpetually passing." (A chair is what they called a light vehicle, similar to a gig.)

Of course I had to know more about Witney waggons, and discovered that they carried the famous woven wool products of Witney. There's more here.

"Witney is very famous for its woollen manufactory, which consists of what they call kersey pieces, coarse bear skins, and blankets. The two first they make for the North American market, vast quantities being sent up the river St. Lawrence and likewise to New York." (Soon to be affected by those rebellious colonists!)

I don't know what "bear skin" means in the woolen trade. Anyone?

Here's some interesting info about wages in Witney.

"There are above 500 weavers in this town... Journeymen in general, on an average, earn from 10s to 12s a week, all year round, both summer and winter; but they work from four to eight, and in winter by candlelight; the work is of that nature that a boy of fourteen earns as much as a man. One of seven or eight earns by quilling and cornering 1s 6d and 1s 8d a week, and girls the same.

Old women of 60 and 70 earn 6d a day in picking and sorting the wool. A good stout woman can earn from 10d to 1s a day by spinning; and a girl of 14 four or five pence." (I highlighted the ages because again it shows that life expectancy was not short. Even today we might consider 60 and 70 as "old", though those of us in the group could disagree. Clearly such women weren't a wonder to Young.)

"they work from four to eight," Does that mean that they regularly worked from four in the morning till eight at night???? Of course they were working in their homes rather than by the clock, but that's extraordinary. I think Young's "but" indicates that he thought the same.

For reference, he gives these prices for food in that area. I assume they are per pound.

Mutton, 4d

Beef  5d

Veal, 3 1/2

Bacon 8d

butter 6d

Another window into the past, and as usual it throws up interesting details. If you have time I recommend browsing Young's book for life in the 18th century.

Do you find that people in historical fiction travel too easily and too quickly? Or do you prefer a little fudging there rather than have to share their slow journeys and many hazards?

Do you think you'd enjoy a day of coach travel, even on reasonable roads? I doubt I would.

Jo

 

Twelfth Night: An interview with Anne Gracie

by Mary Jo 
 
I always love Anne Gracie’s books, but I especially love this new one, Bride by Mistake, so an interview with Anne about the book is a perfect ending to the Word Wench Christmastide posts about favorite things.
 
Not only did I hunt Anne down and beg to read it, but here’s a quote I forced on her after I read the manuscript:
 
"The always terrific Anne Gracie outdoes herself with Bride By Mistake. When a protective young English officer rescues a Spanish girl and marries her to save her from an abusive suitor, he never expects to live long enough for it to matter. Now the war is over, the annulment is denied, and Luke Ripton has a wife he'd almost forgotten. But at least since Isabella has been living quietly in a convent, she must be modest and obedient….

She isn't! I loved Bride By Mistake. Gracie created two great characters, a high tension relationship, and a wonderfully satisfying ending. Not to be missed!"
 
The Story

Now that I have the gushing out of the way….<G>  Anne, your Devil Rider books have been quite varied in tone and setting.  (I also particularly like To Catch a Bride, with a good bit taking place in Egypt.  Library Journal listed it among the best romances of 2009.  This is just one among Anne’s many awards and honors.)  What led you to Spain, the setting of most of Bride by Mistake?
 
AG: Thank you for the very kind words, Mary Jo, and for the interview. The Devil Riders books are about four friends home from the war, trying to find a way to live again in peacetime. Luke, the hero of Bride By Mistake, is the last of them. All the way through the writing of the other books, he's been there, and I knew something had happened to him in the war, something that still haunted him, but it only became clear as I wrote this book.
 
The war was against Napoleon, but much of it took place in Portugal and Spain — and Egypt— and Bride By Mistake was sparked by an incident in Luke's early days at war, when, as a 19 year old Lieutenant he comes across a young girl — my heroine, Isabella — being attacked. He saves her, then, finding she's fleeing from an unwanted, forced marriage, he marries her for her own protection, and leaves her with her aunt in a convent. As you explained above, he planned on an annulment, but as my story opens, eight years later, Luke's confronted with the unwelcome realization that the marriage is binding and he must go to Spain to collect his bride.

I'm told a lot of readers don't like books set in foreign locations, that Regencies should take place primarily in London or Bath, but there was a great deal of travel in that era, and with the war in Europe and the growth of the British Empire, I simply can't resist the occasional foray into other countries, especially when they connect with everyday Regency people.

The Anne Gracie Heroine

MJP:  Your first Regency romance was called Gallant Waif (I could list more awards and honors here <G>), but as I think back over your books, I realized they could be entitled Gallant Waif 1, Gallant Waif 2,GF  3, 4….etc.  Tell us about the archetypal Anne Gracie heroine, and about Bella, the heroine of Bride by Mistake, in particular.  
 
AG: You know, I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose you're right. I tend to choose heroines who are more or less on their own and in a difficult position when the story starts. I like them to be smart, resourceful, loyal and courageous in an everyday sense, as well as vulnerable, with a heart secretly aching for love. They're often ugly ducklings, with the heart of a mother lioness.

Bella, my heroine, is all of these. As heiress to her late mother's fortune, an only child who lacks beauty, Bella was raised by her widowed father to be "almost as good as a son" — his highest accolade.

When the story starts, Bella's been in the convent for eight years. Of course, having been so romantically rescued at the age of thirteen, she's had a huge crush on handsome, Luke Ripton— tall, dark and as beautiful as an angel, a warrior angel — but as the years have passed, the crush has waned. Her school friends think she made him up, and they tease her about her imaginary husband.
 
MJP:  Excerpt, please!
 
AG: There's an excerpt on my website showing Bella being teased at the convent. 
     Below is the moment Luke and Bella meet again, after eight years.

     This, then was her husband. Isabella tried not to stare. 
     He was even more beautiful than she remembered. Eight years ago she'd seen him with a child's eye, and he was her savior and, she had to admit, she'd confused him in her mind a little with the angel of the statue. She had after all, only known him two days, not even that.
    But she was a child no longer and he was... he was breathtaking. Tall, dark, his skin burnished with the sun, a rich dark-gold flush along his cheekbones and such fine cheekbones they were. His nose was a strong, straight blade, his mouth, severe and beautiful. And his eyes, dark, so dark they looked black, but she knew from before they were the darkest blue she had ever seen. There was no sign of blue now.
     She swallowed and held her head higher, knowing what he would see, knowing they were ill-matched. The girls had done their best to make her look as beautiful as they could. It wasn't their fault she looked as she did. She knew she'd never make a beauty. She desperately wished she looked pretty for him. 
     But she could see in his eyes she didn't.
     Dear God but it was Mama and Papa again, Papa the handsome eagle soaring high and Mama the plain, dowdy little pigeon, bleeding with love for a husband who never looked twice at her.
     Mama's words rose unbidden to her mind. Guard your heart, my little one, for love is pain. Love is nothing but pain.
 
MJP:  I understand that besides the American edition of BBM from Berkley, you’ll also have a simultaneous Australian edition, which I gather is unusual for single title historical romances from American publishers.  Can you tell us more about that?

AG: Yes, it's very exciting. Up to now, they've always imported my US editions and put them on sale 6 months after they came out in the US. But a wonderful person at Penguin Australia read some of my books and passed them around the office. They told me they then realized two things: 1) that my books had been selling well in Australia with virtually no publisher support and 2) I was a local author, so they decided to publish me simultaneously, in trade paperback with this beautiful cover. So I'm feeling very lucky.
 
MJP:  What’s next for you?  
 
AG:  I had planned to write Marcus's story, an offshoot of the Devil Riders series, and had started on it, with my editor's approval, but then my publisher saw my proposal for a new series and they wanted me to go ahead with that immediately and put Marcus aside. So now I'm working on a new series, about 4 girls in London. That's all I can say at the moment.
 
MJP:  A big Awwww! about Marcus, but I’m sure the new series will also be terrific!  Anne, thanks so much for letting me interview you, because that way I got to read the book early!  I understand you’re going to give away a copy to one lucky persoln who comments between now and midnight Saturday.
 
 AG:  Mary Jo, thank YOU for your support and enthusiasm and for the interview and the fabulous quote. Your words of praise mean a great deal to me.

MJP: It's easy to be enthusiastic about your books.  <G>  For you readers--who is your favorite gallant waif heroine?  You can choose one of Anne's waifs, or others that you like.  Smart, resourceful, brave heroines are such a pleasure to read!

Gifts That Last A Lifetime

Cara/Andrea here,

We're coming to the end of our 12 Days of Christmas musings, and as we all pack up the decorations and resolve to lose the weight we’ve gained from all the scrumptious holiday goodies, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on some of the gifts—both past and present—that will last far longer than a a few weeks.

I finally moved into the 21st century of book technology—one of my presents this season was a Kindle. Now, I had held off getting one for the longest time, as I love the tactile feel of ink and paper. I still do, but for travel I think it’s going to be very cool. I’ve already downloaded a lot of classics from Amazon that I’ve been meaning to read over the years, and now I have them at my fingertips! I have to go into NYC on the train tomorrow, and instead of lugging one or two heavy books in my purse, I can now slip the featherlight e-reader into it and have lots of space left over. So change is good! (And hey, anything that encourages people to read is a winner in my book.)

So, I’m very thankful that I got a gift that enriches my life. But it also got me to thinking about what was my favorite gift of all time. Hmmm. A hard question, but the more I mulled it over, the more I came to the conclusion that it was the cowboy outfit I got when I was 4 years old.

Now, you are probably asking why. Well, it’s because it started me making up stories and taught me the magic of make-believe. I would dress up in that outfit and be lost for hours in my own little world . . . it even inspired me to write my first book—a story on horses in the Wild West.

That gift has lasted a lifetime, and made me appreciate the power of the imagination. No high tech gizmos, no flashy touch screens or streaming video . . . just a few pieces of cotton and a pair of leather boots got my mind off and running.

What about you? Do you have a memorable holiday gift from the past? Or did you get a gift this season that made your heart sing?

A special gift

Anne here, hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. 
I've been thinking about presents. When you're a child, the fact of the present is usually enough, but sometimes it's the meaning of the present that's important. Looking back at the presents of my childhood, only a few really stand out. Most of them I don't remember at all, and as for where they are now, that's anyone's guess.
  But I still have the pair of marble horse-head bookends that my dad gave me one year, that combined my two eleven-year-old passions — reading and horses. (I actually wanted a real horse, but sadly that never arrived.) But this set of bookends was my first grown-up kind of present, and I was so proud to get them.

In several of my books I've had a young girl yearning for a doll. I'm not quite sure where this comes from — I was never a doll kind of child — I preferred living animals, and my teddy. But I suppose a doll stands for someone of your own to love, and I think we can all understand the kind of yearning a young, lonely girl might have for a doll. Dolls are symbolic in so many ways.
 
In my book, BRIDE BY MISTAKE — which hit the shelves on Tuesday  —  my heroine's father, having no son, worked his motherless young daughter her hard, training her to run the estate, and treating her as a boy. But one day he returns from a trip and Isabella spies a present in his bag...

Papa's bags were right there. The flap of one was open. Bella was tempted to peek.

What she saw took her breath away — a golden-haired china doll, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life, dressed in a pink velvet dress, with real lace, so beautiful it almost made her cry. 

Last time Papa had brought her a riding crop, beautifully tooled, and of course, Bella had been delighted, even if it was the kind of thing you gave a son. And she did love riding.

But this gloriously beautiful doll was for a daughter, a most beloved daughter. She didn't know what thrilled her most — the beauty of the doll, or that Papa had thought to bring her something so lovely, so special. It made all her hard work worthwhile.

Every detail of the doll was perfect, even down to tiny oval pink fingernails on her dimpled china hands. Her shoes were of palest pink leather, fastened with tiny pearl buttons, and she wore white stockings made of silk. The doll's eyes were bright blue, with long lashes made of real hair and they seemed to smile at Bella, like a friend, like a sister. 

She hugged the doll to her. She'd always wanted a sister. She would call her Gloriana. She lifted the dress to see what the doll wore underneath — and heard a sound at the door. Someone was coming. Quickly she thrust the doll back into Papa's bag and hurried away.

She would have all the time in the world to play with her doll.  

She changed into her prettiest dress and waited until dinner time with barely suppressed excitement.

"Have you been a good girl, Isabella?"

"Yes, Papa." She felt almost sick with anticipation.

"I've brought you something from the city. Do you want to know what it is?"

Her hands were shaking. "Yes, please Papa."

He handed her a parcel, square and heavy, too small to be the doll.  "Well, go on, open it."

She unwrapped it. It was a book; Equus, on the care and treatment of horses. Puzzled, she glanced at her father, thinking perhaps he'd played a trick on her and would produce the doll in a minute. "Is that all, Papa?"

He laughed. "No, of course it isn't all, now where did I put it?" And he started patting his pockets.

And Bella laughed with him, laughing too loudly in relief and delight that Papa had joked with her, when normally he was so serious.

"Ah, here it is." He pulled from his pocket a small twist of paper. 

Bella's laughter died. She eyed the brown paper twist. She knew what it contained and it wasn't a doll.

"Thought I'd forgotten your sweet tooth, did you?" He gave her the little packet of boiled sweets." Now, come and give your father a kiss and then run along upstairs with your treasures."

Were you a doll kind of child or were animals more your thing? Were you ever disappointed in a present, as Isabella was? Do you still love getting presents? On wordwenches we give our guests the most stupendous cyber gifts, no expense spared. If you could give yourself a stupendous gift, no expense spared, what would it be? I'll give a copy of my January book, BRIDE BY MISTAKE, to someone who leaves a comment.

In The Picture

Nicola here, sitting looking out on a wet and windy January morning and envying Wench Anne the warmth and sunshine of a Southern Hemisphere summer! We’re continuing our “12 Days of Christmas” series of posts on our favourite things.

One of my favourite things in the New Year is to get out and walk off the extra pounds I have put on with Christmas over-indulgence in food and drink. I’m very lucky that I live in such a beautiful part of the UK and have so many places on my doorstep where I can go walking.

A few years ago I discovered an artist who painted the countryside around where I live. He is Eric Ravilious and he was born in 1903. He began his career painting murals and also designed for Wedgwood china. The countryside of the chalk down land inspired some of his most famous paintings. He was the official War Artist in World War II and a Captain in the Royal Marines. Sadly he was killed on a RAF air sea rescue mission in 1942 aged only 39.

I can’t afford original Ravilious paintings, which sell for tens of thousands of pounds, but I am collecting his prints, so it was a huge pleasure to receive this picture as a Christmas present. It is a painting of the Uffington White Horse, a Bronze Age carving on the hillside above my house. I also have a miniature picture by Ravilious of Buscot Park, a Georgian mansion a few miles away. I hope to collect many more of his prints and at the same time enjoy one of my favourite things – walking on the hills that also inspired such a wonderful artist.

Do you have a favourite place that you visit at the start of the year, or a favourite picture that inspires you?

Very best wishes for 2012 and a happy and inspiring year!

Blatant Blather

Pat Rice here:

Happy, happy New Year! I’m just back from visiting family in gorgeous California and Mexico and not ready to accept winter, but the year is still bright and shiny and anything can happen...

First, I’m supposed to tell you that THE LURE OF SONG AND MAGIC comes out tomorrow. Which means, of course I’m blathering about it in hopes some of you might be curious enough to actually buy it. Surely you have a few gift certificates kicking around burning a hole in your pocket? Or maybe someone gave you a new e-reader and you want to try it out? It would make a lovely new year’s present for me if the book shot up the charts! 

Those of you familiar with my historical MAGIC series will know what I mean when I say LURE is about the descendants of the magical Malcolms and the logical Ives. Those of you who are not familiar with the series can pick up MERELY MAGIC in print or digital and find MUST BE MAGIC this spring from Sourcebooks Casablanca, but they’re not at all necessary to read this story. It’s just fun knowing that those Georgians who didn’t even know the word psychic have many great-grandchildren running around today’s world with odd gifts as my Malcolms called them.

My Malcolm in LURE is Philippa Syrene Malcolm James, Syrene being the stage name she used as a child singing sensation. The book is set ten years after she crashed and burned at the age of seventeen, convinced her voice kills. Since Pippa, as she’s called now, was abandoned by the side of the road at the age of four, she knows nothing of her Malcolm ancestors or the magical gifts they possess. She just knows her voice is dangerous, and she has spent the last ten years hiding from her past, learning to control her passions and her brilliant soprano. She’s built a rigidly controlled life in a small town in the hills above L.A. where she has friends who like her as she is and know nothing about who she was.

(Photo is from southern California and not the hills above L.A.  I've never learned to organize my photo albums!)


And then along comes my Ives—Dylan Ives Oswin, known as Oz for short, because he’s a wizard in the Hollywood production industry for never taking no for an answer. Unfortunately, he’s a failure at family life. His wife died in a tragic car accident and his son was kidnapped by the nanny. Can you blame the man for being desperate when he receives a clue that the former child singing sensation Syrene might be able to help him find his son? Being a logical Ives, he’s not going to believe her voice can kill.

Being a soft-hearted Malcolm, Pippa can’t let a child be abandoned as she once was. But she can’t go back to being Syrene, so how is she supposed to help anyone? It’s a mystery, all right. Before they solve it, they have an entire town dancing to their tunes and behaving like clowns while Oz tracks down Pippa’s past. This isn’t suspense but pure romance.

I had an amazing amount of fun writing LURE. It’s one of those books that make the long hard hours of writing worth every minute. I really hope the magic comes through to my readers as well. If you’re interested in hearing more, there’s a sample on my website at http://patriciarice.com/and my blog schedule is on my Musing On Writing blog.

Do you believe some people are magically gifted? Do psychics simply use parts of their brains that the rest of us don’t recognize? Or do you think psychics are a hoax and brilliant singers like Charlotte Church have just been granted an extra dollop of DNA to enhance their abilities?

Sourcebooks will send two commenters a copy of LURE, so don’t be shy about expressing your opinion!

New Year's Greetings!

Here's Jo, offering best wishes to you all from the Wenches.

A new year is highly symbolic, isn't it, and yet it's so arbitrary. The cycle of the year turns on the winter solstice, and up until 1751, the legal year in England began on March 25th, which can confuse us when deciding when things happened in the past.

So this particular day is a human construct, but still a useful one in evaluating our lives. I don't go for New Year's Resolutions, but I do like New Year's Wishes.

If the New Year Fairy granted you one wish for 2012 -- for yourself so be selfish -- what would it be?

I think I'd wish that I'll come to grips with my garden this year. I only had half a year with it in 2011 and it presented some challenges. The picture is of it round about this time last year. It's terraced, because the house and lot is on a hill side, and the soil is quite acid. No wonder the previous owner grew lots of heather!

Click on the picture if you want to see it full size.

 

 

 

So now, your selfish wish for 2012?

May it come true!

Jo