Word Wenches

Word Witches, Halloween 2013

Anne here, bubble bubbling, toil and troubling, as we wenches turn a little witchly at Halloween. Actually the wenchly calendar has a sense of humor, placing me to blog on Halloween — the one wench who lives in a place where Halloween is barely celebrated, and then only in recent years by kids who learned from US TV shows that trick or treat is legalized larceny.

Even so, they usually only go to their friends' houses, because the rest of us won't have any lollies (ie candy or sweets) handy and are more likely to stare in bewilderment and say, "Trick or what?" Or read them a lecture about watching too much TV. Most years when little kids have knocked at my door, I've had to apologize and admit there wasn't a thing in the house for them.

The one year I remembered it was Halloween it was because as I was heading off to the supermarket, I saw flocks of little kids all dressed up in ghoulish and ghastly costumes, looking terribly cute, though of course I'd never tell them that. They were intent on Being Fearsome. That year I triumphantly bought a stack of lollies and chocolate and waited. And, you guessed it — nobpdy knocked. So guess who had to eat her way through the piles of chocolate I'd bought to give away? It was terrible!  

So here are some stories from word witches who know how Halloween is supposed to be done. (The gorgeous pic above right is © Marilyn Scott -Waters, The Toymaker and you can see more of her wonderful designs here)

Mary Jo says . . .   Halloween is really a rather odd sort of holiday.  When I was a kid, it was all about dressing up in rather amateur costumes and stomping along the state highway in the farm country were I lived.  (Since the end of October was pretty darned cold in Upstate New York, we were always wearing coats, so the costumes were covered up anyhow.)   

The point of the exercise was to get enough candy to last us until Easter.  <G>  Certainly we didn't understand the deep historical roots of All Hallows Eve--both Christian, and beyond that, pagan.  I suspect that late autumn falling into the long night of winter seemed an appropriate time to remember the dead.  In Mexico and other Spanish speaking the countries, the Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) is an occasion for families and friends to gather and celebrate the lives of the dear departed, with visits to cemeteries and even picnics there, I understand.  

What bemuses me is how what was a kids' holiday when I was a kid has morphed into an adult celebration with costumes and parties and much whooping.  I suspect that this is another sign that baby boomers don't want to grow up, and any excuse for a party will do. <G>   

What bemused me even more was when I moved to England, I found that Halloween wasn't much of a holiday, though the Jack o'Lantern was known.  This site explains the origins of Jack of the Lantern, and how the original European jack o'lanterns were carved from turnips, parsnips, or other root vegetables.  That had to be a lot of work!  No wonder when settlers arrived in North American and discovered the pumpkin, they realized how much easier to was to carve one!  

Nicola knows there are ghosts . . .   
My mother-in-law claims I am fey. Certainly I seem to have had more than my fair share of supernatural experiences, whether I want them or not. Living in a haunted cottage tested both my nerves and my husband's ability to explain everything through science! There are some things that connot be explained.

Ashdown House, where I work as a guide for the National Trust, has always had a number of stories of ghosts and hauntings. There are tales that the stables are haunted by the ghost of a groom whose footsteps can be heard on the cobbles of the yard and whose cheerful whistling belies the fact that there is no one there. There is also a ghostly child who cries in the woods. I've heard that one and it really does chill the blood. One summer evening a group of us were doing a wildlife walk in the grounds of the house and we all saw a ghostly white figure looking out of one of the first floor windows of the house. This was particularly spooky as the house was empty and locked and the shutters had been closed yet we all saw it looking out at us.  (The pic on the left, eclipse over Ashdown House, was taken by Nicola's husband.)

Since the conservation project on the house took place last year there has been an increase in the supernatural disturbances there. Experts think it is because the roof was taken off the house and the walls repaired; it is as though the changes to the fabric of the house has upset someone or something. One of my colleagues experienced a lady dressed in a seventeenth century clothes approaching her in the grounds and even felt her skirts brush against her. "I'm so glad you are here," the ghost said to her, and then it vanished. On a couple of occasions I have been welcoming groups of visitors and when I say "Let's go inside the house now" the door has swung open of its own accord as though to invite us in. That really impresses the visitors! But on one occasion it was as though there was a poltergeist in the house, with doors slamming and blowing open and the crash of objects falling and the noise of footsteps echoing all around. I would love to know which of the Craven family or their visitors is haunting Ashdown and what we can do to help them feel more peaceful. And as I am guiding the Halloween tour parties I am wondering what will happen...

Jo Beverly recalls. . . When we arrived in Canada in 1976 we found Halloween rather scary. There were marauding hordes shouting, "Trick or treat!" in a very menacing manner, all seeming to be high on something. They were, on pure excitement!

Once we had children we got into it, and it was a lovely neighborhood event. Our Cabbage Patch Kids got into the act, of course. Here's Charlie and Billy ready to play!

By the way, I have a Halloween story out in e-book. Lord Samhain's Night is a Regency ghost story I wrote many years ago.  A .99cent treat.   

Pat Rice says. . . While I have no reason not to believe in ectoplasmic critters that go bump in the night, I have no good reason to believe either. Yes, I feel the spiritual pain and horror on the  Gettysburg battlefield, but I have a vivid imagination. Sure, I’ve felt the odd sensations in an old hotel like the Monteleone in New Orleans, but no ghost physically tugged my hair. And yes, I once had an unseen hand nearly tip me over in the basement of our old Kentucky home, but why a spirit would materialize just that once to do something so silly is harder for me to understand than it is to believe in ghosts.

So to me, Halloween is simply an entertaining holiday that allows children--and maybe a few adults— to run around and pretend they’re someone else for an evening. I’m in favor of any opportunity to encourage creativity and make-believe!

Susan Fraser King had a Haunted Garage.
For years, Halloween in our house was the biggest, busiest, noisiest, craziest day of all — the day my three sons looked forward to more than any other, including Christmas, as they got ready for their annual "Haunted Garage." 

From the time the three were in elementary school, middle school and then through high school, when ghosts, ghouls, vampires, zombies, aliens and anything scary and creep-crawly had huge appeal (and still does for them, what can I say) — they'd get their friends together and begin planning. They'd start in the summer with a theme, wish lists, drawings, costume designs, and jobs for all. Weeks went into making costumes and staging the garage (and the porch, the lawn and the driveway), and they did most of the work, with money earned from odd jobs (and parents). By Halloween night, these hardworking committees of very creative kids would have transformed the garage with big rolls of paper taped to the walls and painted like castle walls, sheets draped everywhere, fog machines, fake fireplaces and torches, spooky lighting, ghoulish music, cobwebs, plastic spiders, floating ghoul heads, vampire blood - you name it, it showed up in the Haunted Garage one year or the next. 

A popular feature was The Haunted Maze, constructed of sheets strung on lines -- you would follow the twists and turns —  a ghost might pop out, a lurking vampire would pounce, snakes would drop from above, lightning and thunder would flash — and at the end was the mad chemist holding a bowl filled with green glowing smoke, which would contain candy for your trick or treat bag. Before you could approach The Maze, you had to get through The Gauntlet— a double row of lawn chairs, in which sat newspaper-stuffed dummies dressed in old shirts, jeans, boots, gloves and hats — harmless scarecrow dummies — until one of them jumped up to scare the living crikey out of you. A lookout was posted, and if small trick-or-treaters walked the gauntlet, word would spread and none of the dummies would move. 

A favorite was The Roadkill display -- a plywood sheet with a hole in it topped a hollow table, through which lay one of the guys, lower body missing in bluidy tatters and spaghetti and sausage entrails (this was not Mom's favorite display). The giant demon was also a favorite — an enormous, gruesome head and shoulders worn by the tallest kid dressed in furs, chain mail and leather (or whatever passed for that). He was a jolly demon, though, who gave out candy and treats.   

The Haunted Garage grew each year and more features were added, until we had lines of people waiting at the end of our driveway (and you can just imagine how many bags of candy we had to buy to reward everyone who visited). Every year, the kids had a blast . . . until clean up time, but they did that job well enough to be allowed to repeat the event the next year. Now they're in college and well beyond, and the Haunted Garage is a thing of the past. We still have boxes of ghoulish stuff in the basement, though all we need to do these days is hand out candy to the little fairies, princesses, superheroes and ghouls who come to the door. You'd think that would be preferable to fending off an invasion of vampires and zombies -- but I kinda miss them.  

For Andrea/Cara it's all about Art. . .  I've have to say, I've never been that entranced by halloween—yes, of course I loved dressing up as a kid and trick-or-treating with my friends. But only for the sweets, not because I was into ghouls or ghosts or goblins. The supernatural doesn't have that much allure for me—maybe that's why, unlike some of the Wenches, I can't claim any spooky happenings—otherworldly spirits find me boring!

BUT, I've always loved the ritual of carving pumpkins into jack 'o lanterns! (Must be my art background.) One of my fondest memories of Halloween was the time one of my grad school professors brought pumpkins into our design class and told us the assignment for the day was to come up with a unique face. Oh, how I wish I had a photo of the results! It was quite an amazing display when we turned out the lights and lit candles in our finished lanterns!

And last but far from least, we have Joanna, sharing a little history. . .

I'm fascinated by the origins of Halloween.  There are customs from many places, many cultures, but some of what we do on Halloween goes back to the ancient Celts.

Drop back a couple thousand years and that night at the end of October is full of revellers going from house to house.  There are ghosts involved.  And food treats.  And masks.  And skeleton costumes. 

Samhain — the Celtic fall festival — marks the beginning of winter, the beginning of the darker half of the year.  After this, every night is longer; every day is shorter.   Is it surprising this night opened the doors between the World of the Dead and the World of the Living?  Naturally, spirits would take the opportunity to come wandering through town.  Malignant spirits might show up at the door and need to be propitiated with food.  The souls of honored ancestors might come to visit and it was best to set a place for them at the table on Samhain night.

So you got yer rowdier elements out mumming and guising on Samhain, which is to say, dressing up -- maybe as spirits — and going from house to house, singing songs, making veiled threats of minor mayhem, and requesting food.   This sounds somehow familiar. 

I like to think, when I'm handing over tiny BabyRuths and Butterfingers to six-year-olds dressed as skeletons, that I'm part of an ancient tradition, just doing my bit to deal with the doors opening to the Otherworld.  Any ghosts that drop by can have a pack of Reese's Pieces. 

Anne again — so what will you be doing this Halloween? What are your favorite Halloween rituals or memories?

Seductive Villains

Nicola here! First of all, apologies for the fact that there are no photos on this blog post. All my power and communications have been knocked out by Storm St Jude so I am posting this up using my iPhone, with thanks to the patron saint of computer geeks!

Yesterday saw the publication of ONE NIGHT WITH THE LAIRD, book 2 in my Scottish Brides trilogy. ONE NIGHT WITH THE LAIRD is Mairi and Jack’s story. They have already met in the first book in the series and I think it is fair to say that they disliked one another thoroughly. Jack thought Mairi was rich, beautiful and spoiled. Mairi thought that Jack was a handsome charmer who was all talk and no
substance. Both were right in some ways but they had a lot to learn about themselves and about each other.

 ONE NIGHT WITH THE LAIRD is also a book that bristles with villains. There were three at the last count. It’s no secret that I enjoy writing a good villain and that evil in a story fascinates me almost as much as the development of the relationship between the hero and the heroine.

 I was thinking about villains particularly this week because with the “re-imagining” of Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope as part of the Austen Project there has been a lot of discussion about the character of John Willoughby. Willoughby, like Wickham in Pride and Prejudice and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park is a man whose moral compass has gone awry. He is a cad (which I know is slightly too modern a word for Jane Austen but it does sum him up rather well). And yet there is about him that tantalising hint that he is not all bad; under other circumstances there is the chance that he could have been a villain redeemed. It’s like that moment in Star Wars when Luke give Darth Vader the chance to turn his back on the dark side and Vader hesitates before giving himself up completely to evil.

This particularly interests me as I did a talk at a literary festival last week on the real life inspiration for John Willoughby, William, 7^th Baron Craven. There is a strong suggestion that Jane Austen, who was linked to the Craven family through ties of marriage and friendship, modelled Willoughby on the extravagant and rakish Lord Craven. This is not the only time that Jane Austen used a member of the Craven family as the inspiration for a wicked character; there is also the suggestion that she based Lady Susan Vernon on another Craven relative. However, Jane herself did say that all her characters were composites: “I am too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they are only Mr A or Colonel B.” I think that most writers take elements of people they have met and pick and choose which qualities to use.

All this led me to wonder, though – Is a villain a necessary part of a story? Probably not but I love the complexity that a villain can bring to a book. Honorary Word Wench Elizabeth Hawksley, a big fan of villains, commented:

“A strong villain needs to have his own aims and objectives. I find a villain really useful. He can be a catalyst for change: exposing the heroine’s weakest point, for example, thus giving her the opportunity to learn things or move on. He can also challenge the hero who can stand up to him and
come good. Villains bring danger. But beware: villains can seduce the author and infiltrate any emotional vacuum. They can be dangerously attractive.”

In ONE NIGHT WITH THE LAIRD all the villains in their different ways bring danger to the heroine and a challenge to the hero because Jack, the hero, simply does not see himself as a protector. Jack is pretty bad himself, rakish and ruthlessly unsentimental. He does not want to be cast in a protector’s role and seeing him struggle with it and change as he accepts it, was part of the fun of writing him.

As for seductive villains, well, I think they need that element of uncertainty about them, the chance that they might come good. Pure evil isn’t that fascinating. It’s too one-dimensional. But villains who are nuanced, who have depth and motivation for their behaviour, who can even be a little bit sympathetic or poignant, can be very compelling. Tom Bradshaw, who featured in a number of books in my Scandalous Ladies of the Ton Series, was the most nuanced villain I ever wrote. Tom was usually doing something illegal, immoral or just plain bad. Blackmail, attempted murder, nothing was too low for Tom to stoop to it. He was eventually redeemed not so much by the love of a good woman but by the need to make himself more worthy of that love and in Lady Emma’s Disgrace he finally got his own HEA.

Do you have a favourite seductive villain from a film or a book? Or a favourite scene where there is a face-off between the villain and the hero? I’m offering a copy of One Night with the Laird to a commenter between now and midnight Thursday.

What We Are Reading

Cara/Andrea here,
Despite the flurry of book deadlines recently—along with the usual stresses of Everyday Life—the Wenches have still had time to sneak in reading time. (I don’t know about you, but for me, curling up with a book is the best antidote for stress, so I try to make sure I sneak in some pages each day, regardless of the chaos swirling around me!) So we thought we would share some of the books that have tickled our fancy—and hope you will do the same!

Nicola:
I've read two really excellent books this month. The first was Capital by John Lanchester. It is set in London in 2008 and tells the intertwined story of the lives of the residents in one street. It's a brilliant evocation of the city of London as well as an incisive study of lots of different and fascinating characters, a real epic book. There's even a mystery to tie it all together. I loved it!
 
The other was 1356 by Bernard Cornwell. I love an action-packed, fast moving historical novel and I think Bernard Cornwell is a master storyteller. The Hundred Years War isn't a period of history I'm particularly familiar with so it was great to learn something about this conflict as I was reading. The hero, Thomas of Hookton, is pretty compelling, a mercenary soldier with a bad boy reputation but his own brand of honour. A really vividly written and exciting book.

Anne:
Like Nicola, I'm a huge fan of Bernard Cornwell's writing. I've never read any book of his I haven't loved -- even his series about sailing, a topic in which I have no interest, was compelling reading. Of course his Sharpe series was a favorite, but my most recent Bernard Cornwell reads were The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman, set in Viking/Saxon-era England. He has the gift of transporting you to different places and times, and even though you might know nothing of those times, you do when you've finished the book. Wonderful stories.

My reading this month has been sparser than usual. I've been traveling for work, and have spent the travel time writing, rather than reading, and the evenings have been more social than normal. When I have read, it's mostly been rereading old favorites - Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Lisa Kleypas and  our very own MJP. I've also been continuing my glom of Deborah Smith, with Blue Willow, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As far as new books are concerned. I'm currently in the middle of the latest in Jennifer Ashley's Mackenzie series — The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie, and loving it.

Pat:
I have apparently made very little progress reading this month. I just finished a Jayne Castle book, Deception Cove, a futuristic romantic suspense. I love Jayne's paranormals. It's so very hard to read and write  contemporary romance that I appreciate the differences she creates by giving us a different world, literally. The dust bunnies are always a hoot.

Then I amused myself by reading Georgette Heyer's They Found Him Dead. It starts out yawn-building slow and the head-hopping of the era is truly annoying, but once the mystery got going, Heyer's unique characterization was entertaining. I guessed whodunit before the characters did, but that's okay. I read it for the fun of spending a few days in a different time and place--which seems to establish my reading mood this month. I want out of the real world!

Mary Jo:
Since my book is done and I'm into the R&R period, I've been reading fun books, including a new-to-me author, Beth Kendrick. Her books fall between women's fiction and chicklit.  Though the plot premises aren't that unusual, I love her writing and the way she executes her stories.
 
Kendrick's Second Time Around starts with a group of female friends ten years out of college gathering for their annual Fourth of July vacation and complaining wryly that being English majors hadn't turned into much of a career path except for the one friend who went on to law school.  Then an unexpected legacy gives each of them a quarter million dollars to start a new life and pursue dreams--but how exactly does one go about that?  They find out as they share the old house they'd lived in during college, and find new dreams and directions.  It was a great fun read, and now I'm glomming more Beth Kendrick books.  Next of her books on my TBR pile: The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service. <G>
 
At the moment, I'm reading the fourth volume of Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series, The House of Hades, which just came out.  The books are young adult, but plenty of old adults read them!  Riordan's central characters are demigods, with one parent human, the other a Greek or Roman god.  The kids are all AHDH and many have special magical powers.  His first series, The Olympians, featured Percy (Perseus) Jackson, a son of Poseidon.
 
In this second series, Percy is still a major player but there are other equally important children of both Greek and Roman gods.  The groups have been traditional enemies, and now they must learn to work together to save the world from being destroyed.  I always loved Greek and Roman mythology as a kid, so I just eat these books up.  The action moves like lightning, the characters are likable, there is good teen romance, and Riordan is amazingly inventive.  Fantasy fun for all ages!

Joanna:
I've been doing a very interesting re-read of Julia Quinn’s Mr. Cavendish, I Presume.  I read this a few years back when it first came out.  It's an ambitious book, a little different from Julia Quinn's more light-hearted stuff.  I felt as if I'd stepped off into the deep end a bit, reading it.

At the end, I did what I do with books that move me and make me think and unsettle me with their writing.  I set it aside to read again, after a long cooling off period. This time through, I'm seeing a lot of the character details I missed before.  I'm enjoying it on a whole new level. In this story, a man who has everything -- title, respect, a beautiful fiance, endless wealth -- loses it all . . . and he finds himself.
"Cool," says I, and I settle down to look at how Quinn does this.

In nonfiction, I've taken down Karen Elizabeth Gordon's The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed and am sniggering my way through.

TWTS contains such gems as -- "A colon is used to separate the title and the subtitle of a book".  For example, "Om, Om on the Range: Cowboys and Meditation."

Susan:
This month I'm reading some seriously historical fiction and I also dug out some books I haven't read before and always meant to - among those is Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card's brilliant YA novel of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the natural military genius the world desperately needs in its ongoing alien war. But Ender is just a young boy . . . who does what must be done to help the world, and his sister, survive. My kids all read this in high school and enjoyed it (unusual in itself- they weren't very keen on most of the books assigned in school, though they loved--and love--reading). So after years of my sons prompting "You haven't read that yet? Seriously?" I finally did. It's beautifully done on all levels, and caught me from the first, a tale of challenge and ingenuity and facing the odds. Now I've got the second book, Bean's story, in my TBR pile.

For a good historical fix, I'm reading Jack Whyte's The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace. The Wars of Independence in Scotland is one of my favorite historical periods; I've studied it extensively and written more than one novel set there myself, so it's deep in my writer's blood and imagination, and it's a pleasure to read Whyte's masterful take on the larger story. Wallace was a fascinating and complex man, not necessarily the Scottish superhero he's sometimes made out to be, but a change-maker of huge proportions in Scotland. Whyte humanizes him and sets him firmly in a believable reality. I'm enjoying it immensely, and I've got the second book in this trilogy, Robert the Bruce, waiting on my bookshelf. Love the covers, too - those Scotsmen caught my attention in the bookstore!  

And like Nicola, I'm also reading Bernard Cornwell's 1356. It's another time period I find fascinating--I researched the Hundred Years' War in graduate school from an art history perspective while studying English and French illuminated manuscripts. I haven't gotten far in the novel yet, but Cornwell is already working his magic on me with his strong characters and vivid sense of time and place. I'd read quite a bit about Poitiers and other events for my grad projects and it's gratifying that those facts are still popping up in my brain. I missed Cornwell's Agincourt and must check that out soon.      

Cara/Andrea:
I have become a huge fan of Imogen Robertson and her late Georgian mystery series featuring a wealthy widow of a naval captain and an eccentric anatomist. She writes beautifully and creates such interesting, complex characters, as well as intricately crafted murder mysteries. So I hurried to grab the latest one—and Circle of Shadows did not disappoint. It’s set in one of the German principalities, so the description of court life is fascinating. I found it especially intriguing that she has automata (mechanical objects that do amazing things) as part of her plot, because as syncronosity would have it, one of the books in my new series, which come out in January-February-March, features a hero who makes automatons! The devilishly devious plot weaves in alchemy too, and those those who love historical detail, it’s a riveting read.

I usually go back and forth between fiction and non-fiction, so a conversation I had with an old friend who is a dean at the University of North Carolina med school prompted me to pick up a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, but somehow got buried in the TBR pile. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back, and it an astoundingly broad-reaching, thought-provoking analysis of why some societies dominate and other don’t. As one of the cover blurbs says, “ . . . a brilliantly written passionate whirlwind tour through 13,000 years of history.” Just my kind of book! The answers he gives are really interesting, and involve the domestication of plants and animals, and how that has affected the development of writing, technology—and even disease. I’m halfway through it, and am finding it mesmerizing.

So, now that we've shared our current favorites, it's your turn! What great books are you reading? Please share—we all love to learn about new and wonderful reads.

The Sparky Report #12

Good day, readers! I managed to catch Sparky Tabasco in a quiet moment with surrogate papa, Christopher. The above picture is proof that Sparky does have non-shenanigan moments. She has to. How else can she replenish her mischief tanks?  *g*

Much of the time, she delights in tormenting Shona, my Boxer, as shown in the below picture. Shona happened to be walking past my desk when Sparky decided to practice her ambush skills. As you can tell by the hilariously startled look on Shona's face, Sparky's ambush was a success!

Sparky has recently discovered the delights of the wastepaper basket under my desk, and it has become her favorite ambush hideout. With just her ears and eyes visible over the rim, she lies in wait for unsuspecting passers-by, then pops up like a jack-in-the-box to administer a series of pats.

Here she is, plotting to ambush Christopher, who's pretending to be asleep.

And here they are playing slap-slap. Even though Christopher is a senior citizen, he has to be the best-natured cat ever.

 

After a day of ambushes and other high-jinks, Sparky usually finds a place to flake out. In the below picture, she has settled into the vee of my legs on the recliner, front legs hanging down by her sides, and one hind leg sticking straight up in the air. She slept like that until I had to get a drink of water. Never a dull moment around this place!

Do your cats sleep in weird positions? Or weird places? If you have more than one cat, do they sleep together, or with the dog?

A Twin. Again.

By Mary Jo

Anyone who has read my books over the years has probably noticed that I have an indecent fondness for twin stories.  It’s right up there with amnesia as an ancient, creaky, and endearing, plot device.

When I thought about it, both twin stories and amnesia are questions of identity. For amnesia, who is this person really?  And what is he or she like when memory has stripped away the expectations of others so the unmodified essence of personality can shine through? 

With identical twins, the interest lies on how two people can look so much alike that they might appear interchangeable, but in reality they are distinct individuals.  There will be similarities, so it’s the differences that are so intriguing. 
 
When the marketing people at Kensington asked me if my new release, Sometimes a Rogue, was any kind of anniversary book, I realized "Fifth Twin Story!"  I seem to give myself permission to do one set of twins per series.  <G>

My first twin book was Dancing on the Wind, a RITA winner and one of my Fallen Angels series.  I did a lot of research on twins, both in books and more importantly, talking to identical twins. 

One thing all the twins said is do NOT have a good twin/evil twin dichotomy, which they really disliked.  I hadn't planned that, which is just as well.  <G>

My best research subjects were a pair of sisters who lived in Colorado.  Not only had they thought a lot about being twins and done their own research, but they were both highly intuitive.  (One could say psychic.)  As with most twin pairs, one was a little more outgoing, the other a little more reserved.  I'll call them A and B. 

They weren't telepathic, but they were so attuned to each other that one could enter a store and know that her sister had been there earlier in the same day.  They could lend energy to each other.  They both had families of their own, but they were a lot happier living in the same city. 

Talking with A and B was fascinating, and that research showed up in DOTW, when the more reserved Kit takes the place of her actress sister, Kiri, who has disappeared, and Kit needs to find out as much as possible about her sister's life to figure out what happened to her.  They are best friends and vital to each other's happiness.  Also, while the world tended to categorize them as the outgoing one and the quiet one, they were more alike than they let others see. 

An interesting thing I deduced from my research is that while female twins were often very close friends, male twins often went through a period of estrangement in adolescence as they began defining themselves as individuals.  Sometimes they become close again later, but I found cases where they were permanently estranged. 

Naturally, I had to write about that.  <G>  I needed a situation where one estranged twin must go to the other for help that only the twin can supply: in other words, trading places.  So in my Bride trilogy, the hero of The Wild Child, Dominic Renbourne, is the ten minutes younger son of an earl who yearns not for his father's title, but for the land itself.  He also resents his barely older brother's bossiness, though there is still an unwanted connection between them. 

The reason why Kyle asks Dominic to essentially court Kyle's fiancée had better be a doozy, and it is.  By the end of the book, they've become friends again, and Kyle takes off to find himself The China Bride.  In that book, being a twin isn't much of a factor, but I had to give Kyle a happy ending.  (These were twin books 2 and 3.)

In the first of my Lost Lords book, Loving a Lost Lord, the heroine, Mariah, lived an unpredictable life with her loving but impecunious gambler father.  Living on the edges of society, she learned to be charming and adaptable, easy to have around.  Very aware of her own shortcomings, she had an imaginary twin sister she called Sarah, who was always available, always loyal, and always a perfect young lady, unlike Mariah. 

Naturally, I was unable to resist giving her a real twin sister named Sarah.  <G>  Because they'd been separated as toddlers, Mariah didn't consciously remember her twin, but she held a distant memory of Sarah in her heart. 

I found Mariah and Sarah particularly interesting because, unlike my other twin pairs, they hadn't been raised together, so they were freer to be themselves rather than always being measured against their sister.  But living a more uncertain life, Mariah yearned for stability, a man who was utterly reliable.  She found him in Adam, despite the rather irregular shape of their courtship.

Sarah is quieter, but in most ways more confident.  Her mother became hostess to her widowed brother, so Sarah was raised by two loving adults and had a pack of four older male cousins who were like her brothers.  So her upbringing was very proper, though she had a tomboy streak.  And--she knew that somewhere out there was a missing twin sister, and that knowledge was a loss in her heart. 

When they come together again, they're free to be friends, without the competition of growing up together, but they want different things in a man.  While Mariah wanted stability, Sarah wanted adventure and a man with more dangerous edges.  She found him.  Be careful what you wish for!  And this is how Sometimes a Rogue became my fifth twin book.

Of course one can have a trading places dynamic without having the characters be twins. A classic of the genre is The Prisoner of Zenda, where an English gentleman who is a distant cousin of the heir to the throne of Ruritania must stand in at the heir's coronation when the real prince is drugged and kidnapped. 

George McDonald Fraser did a lovely riff on this in Royal Flash, part of his hilarious Flashman series.  A Robert Heinlein novel, Double Star, is basically a science fiction riff on Zenda, with a down and out actor being drafted to substitute for a kidnapped statesman to attend an utterly crucial ceremony on Mars. 

Another favorite of mine is Jane Aiken Hodge's Savannah Purchase, where the heroine is conned into taking the place of her identical cousin--and falls in love with her cousin's husband.  Being younger then, I had no idea how this could be resolved, but JAH came through brilliantly.

So at least I'm not alone in my fondness for the Twin Trope. <G>  Do you like such stories?  Do you have a favorite, either of twins or trading places? Tell me what you think!  A commenter between now and midnight Friday will receive a copy of one of my twin stories. 

 Mary Jo, who had identical twin first cousins

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Cara/Andrea here,
I love research. Learning about all the little everyday details that help create a scene from the Regency world—a ball, a prize fight, an art exhibition at the Royal Academy, a coaching stop at a country inn, a rural barnyard—is fascinating. I have shelves of books on esoteric subjects from the era in my writing room, and I’m constantly reading to get a picture of how things looked and felt. (above is a scene from an art exhibit—notice how the pictures are crowded on the wall and go nearly to the ceiling.)

But there is an old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words . . . and I couldn’t agree more! Written descriptions are all very well, but there’s something very wonderful about studying drawings and paintings from the time, where one can actually SEE what the clothes and the scenes look like. Some of my favorite resources are the watercolor sketches of Thomas Rowlandson, who had a very sharp—and sometimes cynical—eye. Best known for his satirical cartoons, he was also a very observant artist, who made numerous drawings and paintings of everyday life in the late Georgian and Regency era.

In keeping with the phrase above, I’m going to keep my commentary short and simply share a selection of his art that I find particularly fascinating. (all art courtesy of the Yale British Art Center)


A ball in Bath (notice the musicians and the chairs with the watchful chaperones)

A ball at Scarborough (Notice the gallery for the musicians and the architecture of the room)

A concert in Bath (Notice the arrangement of the chairs and the stage for the singer.)

Covent Garden Market (Notice all the details of clothing and the stalls)

A country barnyard (Notice the sprawling barns and sheds)


A country potter taking his wares to market. (Notice the cart and harness), and the house)


Gardening (Notice the dogs and the bare feet)



Loading a stage coach. (Notice the outside passengers and the design of the coach and driver's box.)


Traveling through the countryside (Notice the details of the whole scene, like how all the horses have docked tails)


A prize fight (Notice the whole set-up)


Horse sale in Hopkins's Repository, Barbican (Notice the auctioneer and the crowd)

The Annual Sculling Race for Doggett's Coat and Badge (Notice the shapes of the rowing boats and the spectator vessels)

So, I hope you enjoyed this little portrait portfolio of Regency life by an artist of the time. Did you see anything that surprised you? Delighted you? I was struck by how many sketches show dogs as pets. Seeing what a "mill" actually looked like was also wonderful—! hadn't envisioned the carriages crowded so close to the ring. And having read about the race for Dogget's Coat and Badge, I just loved seeing an eyewitness image of what the boats and racers looked like, as well as getting a great feel for the ambiance—one can just sense the ruacous excitement of the spectators. What about you? Please share your impressions!

 

 

 

 

THE SPARKY REPORT #11

FETCH, SPARKY!

I think Sparky Tabasco is hanging around the dog too much. She has become quite the ball chaser and fetcher. It began innocently enough. One day I wadded up a ball of paper and tossed it toward the wastepaper basket. I missed, and Sparky pounced on it, then batted it all over the house with great enthusiasm. The next time I wadded up another paper ball, she watched me eagerly, so I threw it toward her. She became a wild woman, batting and pouncing on the ball like a demented ferret. Then, surprisingly, she brought it to me and dropped it at my feet. I obligingly threw it for her again. She barreled after it and once more dropped it at my feet.

Now, whenever Sparky hears the crinkle of paper being wadded into a ball, she comes running, eager for a game of fetch. And just like a dog, when she sees me cock my arm to throw the ball, she's already racing across the floor to intercept it.

SPARKY'S STASH

Wadded up paper balls aren't the only thing Sparky plays with. I took a picture of all the Sparky toys I picked up off the floor today before vacuuming: bottle caps, pencils, saftey pins, Q-tips, pot scrubber, a Triscuit cracker, hair clips, binder clips, rubber bands, grocery store coupon, dental floss container . . . to name a few. They were spread throughout the house, and yes, some of her toys could be dangerous, like safety pins and screws. But these are items Sparky stole when my back was turned. I didn't give them to her.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR KITTIES?

If you're a cat owner, or a former cat owner, did your cat fetch? Did he/she have a special toy that was a favorite? An unusual toy? Did your cat steal items off your desk or kitchen counter?

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The Sparky Report #10

The Sparky Report #9

The Sparky Report #8

No Plethora of Pirates

Last year when I was researching Notorious Atherton, I blogged here about the plethora of princesses I discovered while creating my imaginary one. Even though I know I’m basically creating historical fantasy when I write romance, I like my history grounded in reality. I prefer to draw on actual events so that there is some possibility the characters could have experienced the trauma I put them through.

When I gave much-maligned Nick Atherton his notorious history, I knew that piracy in the Caribbean was well past its peak even when Nick was in his youth. If you look at this list of pirates  you can see Jean Lafitte and his crew were the last of a dying breed. Most of the ones operating in the late 1700s and early 1800s were little better than Billy the Kid and many of them infested rivers, not the high seas.

But just because Nick’s pirate adventures didn’t make the annals of history, there is certainly plenty of evidence that they could have happened. The British Navy had its fair share of cruel commanders and inhumane conditions, as witnessed by the mutiny on the Bounty, which occurred in 1789, right about the time Nick’s crew ditched ship. There were further mutinies in the ports of England in 1797.

The British Navy was certainly still a presence in the Caribbean during the 1790’s—they conquered the French colonies there in 1793. And by 1795, impressment had practically become an imperative to keep the Navy’s ships operational, so Nick’s fate was not exactly uncommon.

That seemed sufficient grounding for Nick’s notorious adventures. How much importance do you place on backstory that never really appears on the page? Do you like knowing that the author has done her research or do you prefer to just sink into the story and let the real world go away? I will admit, there are days when I'm grateful just to be taken away on a wild ride as long as reality doesn't wake me up!

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A Plethora of Princesses

Let's Cut to the Chase!

Ask a Wench

Jo here. This month's question for the Wenches is: Is there a story type or a genre you haven't written but would like to one day?  What attracts you to it, and what makes it difficult to do?

We all came at this in different ways, but there are constants, the main ones being time and practicality. Time -- we never have enough time to write all the ideas dancing in our heads. Practicality -- we all earn our livings from our writing, and not many readers support authors who bounce around different types of books. As readers we're all like that, aren't we? Growling and grouching when our favorite author does something different.

True, or not true? 'Fess up.

So I'll go first.

There isn't a story type or genre I'd like to write but haven't, but that's because I've dabbled a lot. I did mystery in The Stanforth Secrets, which taught me that I didn't like that sort of plotting. I have always played among the imaginative freedom of fantasy and science fiction, and I've brought those elements into many of my works, especially novellas. Probably my most out-there one, in all senses, is the SF romance, The Trouble With Heroes. If you're in the mood for an unlikely hero having to save a world far, far away, follow the link.

Tucked away on my computer I have a couple of contemporary romances written way back when, and a fantasy romance that was too odd even for the speculative fiction world! I have to say I thought one rejection puzzling. "Magic doesn't work like that."

Here's what the other Wenches had to say.

Cara/Andrea
As a reader, I really enjoy a number of different genres. And as a writer I’m always curious to explore. So I suppose it’s only natural that I’m constantly thinking of things I’d like to try, even though they are out of my “comfort zone.” I loved stepping outside of historical romance and trying my hand at historical mystery, and I’ve got a few contemporary women’s fiction ideas that are percolating in my head for whenever I get the time to noodle out some exporatory pages (the day needs to have more than 24 hours!)

For a mysterious sip of cocoa, click here.

But what I would really love to tackle sometime is a non-fiction book in the spirit of “Seabiscuit” and “The Boys in the Boat.” I am passionate about history and how a specific era influences and intertwines with the lives of individuals. And of course I love a great, compelling story! Weaving both strands together would be a fascinating challenge.

Joanna
I guess maybe I always wanted to write Science Fiction. I read Sci Fi when I was a a kid. My first favorite books and authors were SF. I learned how to build a fictive world from the SF masters -- how they tack down reality by using small specific details. The hundred ways a character makes the fictive world plausible.

I delight in happy endings, so I'd want to stay Romance centered. So I guess if I were to go outside Historical Romance, I'd head me over into some paranormal. I'd tune my settings just a little bit further on the likelihood dial and let some mystical in. Really, talking about it, I almost convince myself to try this someday ...

Before you get excited, that's Joanna's imagination running wild. That luscious books DOES NOT EXIST! Alas.

Nicola. 
There are so many stories I would like to write! Years ago I wrote a contemporary women's fiction novel and I re-read some of it recently and really wanted to polish it up and do something with it. I also have ideas for historical fiction, time travel, paranormal and crime. Definitely crime. I love reading it and I would love to write it. I'm also planning a non-fiction history book. When I say planning, I've been researching it and intending to write it for about 10 years now.

As is the case with a lot of authors it's finding the time to branch out into other genres this is difficult. I'm not prolific these days which means I don't have the time to spare from writing historical romance. But it's fun to play with the other ideas in my head and one day soon I will take them out and do something with them.

Pat

Could I wish for non-genre, please? I’ve written in about all recognized genres, and they all have their limitations. I understand the need for a reader to know what she’s buying, but my Muse really would like to take wing and fly and gather up all the goodies she finds and knit them together into something unique. Yeah, yeah, I know, we can wear sweaters if she sticks to a pattern, and anything woven from stardust is pretty

I’d like to be able to write an unlikable heroine. I want to write about revolution. Maybe I could have a couple of heroes, one quiet and nerdy, the other loud and athletic. Or maybe the real heroine is a granny and a kid. Or a space alien! I love alien stories. That's one scary looking heroine! If you're up to the challenge of Damn Him To Hell, click here.

But it’s rather lonely writing a book that I know no one will ever read, so I resist.

Susan

If you've got a good store of the writer gene in your DNA, even reading another genre can make you itch to write it. The urge bubbles up often to try this, try that, oooh and that other thing too. I've got ideas for stories in lots of different genres and areas, and I've started researching,
outlining and writing some of them -- these are the books I play with now and then, and someday I'll bring some of them out into the sunlight.

I'd love to try my hand at historical mysteries -- I love reading mysteries, both historical and contemporary -- and I'd also like to try a multi-layered art history mystery-thriller-speculative
fiction thing. I'm developing some ideas along both these lines. I'd like to try YA sometime, and
books for small children too (I played with some ideas when my kids were small, but I was always so busy then - if I have grandchildren one day, I might try that for them). I love reading contemporary romantic thrillers, and I've got a few ideas there as well. And ghosts. I would love to write ghost stories.

I've always wanted to write historical romance, and I've been very lucky to be able to fulfill thatdream. And I've been lucky in another writing dream -- big, deeply researched mainstream historical novels, which I've done in Lady Macbeth and Queen Hereafter, and I'm continuing along that vein. These books are a huge challenge in the research and in building a bigger story than we generally can pull off in a historical romance. I'm also keen on writing nonfiction history - I'm working on something now, and I've had some opportunity to write articles for historical and clan history journals, which I really enjoy doing.

But for a quick, part-time, dream writer's job - I've always wanted to be the person who names the paint colors. Whisper of Dawn Pink, Eloquent Aqua, Fairy Grove Green, Purple Tango, Cinnamon Cream ... How do you get that gig? I'd love to give it a try!

Anne here:
My trouble is, I'd like to write everything. I have a sci/fi fantasy series that's been in my head for years. I also would love to write contemporary romantic comedy. I had a sequel planned for my contemporary rom/com sheriff story but the line  it was published in wasn't doing well, so I never wrote it. And before I discovered romance I was a big reader of crime fiction—I still am— and I'd love to write a crime novel.

The reason I haven't tried writing all of these different stories in different genres is that I'm a slow writer and I have to earn my own living, and swapping from genre to genre is a sure way to lose readers. I was advised early on to concentrate on my historicals, and I do love writing them. And readers keep asking for other characters' stories, and I do want to write them... But maybe one day I'll get to "play" in other genres.

Mary Jo

I read all genres, and particularly loved history, sf/f, romance, and happy endings. The great thing about writing romance is that just about all elements can be incorporated into a story as long as the romance is strong and the ending is happy.  I like adventure, so my characters get into trouble a lot. <G>

Occasionally I’ve written mystery, but more often suspense elements, since that’s easier. (Mystery requires an orderly mind and clues, while with suspense, you can get away with a maniac in the woodshed.) When the Muse began banging for more variety, I’ve mostly been able to indulge her. When I was bit by a contemporary idea, I wrote a trilogy of contemporary/women’s fiction romances. When I added fantasy to my historicals, I ended up with a Del Rey fantasy contract. I really wanted to write about Dunkirk, and that ended in a young adult paranormal/historical series. I’m not fast enough to successfully write in more than one genre, but these side trips have kept the Muse happy.

Another thing about the Brave New World of publishing is that it’s  possible to write short works to feed the Muse. Most of my creative energy goes into my historical romance, but I’ve done several short fantasy stories in the world of my Guardian magical series. Some of these stories are even contemporary, like “Toasted,” a contemporary fantasy set in New York city in Fiction River’s Christmas Ghosts anthology, published today. To be toasted,  Click here.

All in all, I’m pretty lucky writer. And I think I follow the old song: If I can’t be with the story I love, I’ll love the one I’m with!

So now you know the Wenches' wilder ways and secret desires.

Do any surprise you?

Which Wench's secret dream would you most like to see available to buy?

Have fun!

Jo

 

Taking Classes

Anne here, and today I'm talking about taking classes, both as a teacher and as a student.

Lately I've been doing both. Currently I'm in Brisbane, (state capital of Queensland) at a conference called GenreCon which celebrates all varieties of genre fiction. There were people writing crime, romance, urban fantasy, science fiction and all shades, subgenres and combinations of these —even fan fiction. There was a mixture of panels, speeches, workshops and discussions and it ended up with a very funny, not-exactly-serious debate on the topic "Genre just wants to have fun," in which I was a speaker—but I digress.

In one panel discussion the question arose as to whether classes in "how to write" were any use. There was a strong difference of opinion among the speakers and there was some good discussion of the topic afterward.

Since I do quite a lot of teaching—and I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe it helped— I was arguing on the side of taking classes to help your writing along. I firmly believe my pathway to publication would have been different and possibly faster if there'd been good classes available — or I'd known about RWA.

The discussion got me thinking about taking classes in general. I enjoy teaching — in fact on Friday, I'm going to be heading even further north to Far North Queensland (find Cairns on the east coast of Australia and head a little south to Innisfail) where I'll be teaching craft-of-writing the whole weekend.

But I particularly love being the student, where there's no responsibility except to work and enjoy and play and learn. Several of my friends are doing classes just for fun — two are learning Latin dancing -- the tango in particular. They live in different states and are at very different stages — one is a beginner and one very accomplished. The beginner isn't too impressed with her teacher and we were joking that the person she really wanted to teach her was Antonio Banderas.  If you want to see him in action, click here.

But we all agreed that taking classes and learning new, unfamiliar things was good for the soul. Five years ago, one of my friends took up violin for the first time — he wanted to learn to play Irish folk music. He was in his 50's and everyone said he was mad, too old, etc. But he persisted and now he plays in an Irish fiddle group and you'd think he'd been playing since he was a boy. He has a busy, stressful job and he told me once that coming home to play the fiddle at night is what's kept him sane.

One of the things I often do to celebrate finishing a book is to take some kind of a class — usually a craft class.

After several books I've taken a class in PMC (Precious Metal Clay) jewelry. PMC is a clay-like substance which molds like clay, but which, when fired, shrinks about 10% as the "clay" burns away and you're left with silver that's more pure than sterling silver. For firing small pieces you can use an ordinary kitchen brulé burner and the results are gorgeous. Those are some earrings I made.

Recently, after I'd turned in my latest book (The Winter Bride) I took a class called "Bijoux Porcelain" which was fun and easy and the results so pretty. It involved rolling out porcelain clay, then cutting out shapes and then applying Japanese tissue transfer designs, and then firing. The whole process was amazingly easy — very much like making cookies (or biscuits as we call them in Australia) except the baking was done by the teacher in a pottery kiln.

I haven't seen the fired pieces yet — there they are sitting on a firing sheet waiting to go into the kiln— I'll pick them up when I get home again — but we all took photos of our pieces before we left the class (so we didn't mix any up.) The gray color will be pure white when it's fired. My pieces are to become earrings, brooches and pendants. Some of the others were made by people who'd already done one class and brought their own Christmas cookie cutters to make ornaments for the Christmas tree. So pretty. Guess who's thinking of doing another class to make ornaments?

What about you? Do you like taking classes as an adult? What's the best class you've ever taken? Or what would be your ideal class and who would be your ideal teacher?
I'll send a book and one of my porcelain pieces to someone who leaves a comment.

Peat Fires and the English Regency

Joanna here, philosophising for a minute.

One of the ironies that strikes me from time to time is the realization that a somebody living in a simple suburban rambler or a condo in Cincinnati in 2013 is probably more physically comfortable than a duchess in 1780.  

Your Georgian dowager duchess warmed her tootsies at an open hearth.  She used a fire screen to shield her face from the direct heat of the fire.  She had a wing-back chair, maybe, to wrap the heat around her before it dissipated in the balmy 48 degrees of the rest of the room.  That chill whistle at the back of her neck was the cold air rushing in to run up the chimney, taking much of the heat of the fire with it.  That's why the 'drafty old manor house' in a Romance book is drafty.

What was the dowager burning on that hearth?  Into the Eighteenth Century, well-to-do Englishmen burned wood -- and didn't they have a lovely open hearth with logs and firedogs and pokers on the side that were handy for fighting off unwanted advances. 

By the Regency, most English city houses, and a goodly proportion of houses in the country, had refitted their chimneys to burn coal.  The firedogs on that open hearth were replaced with a cast iron basket for coal -- still on an open hearth.  Oddly, the 'efficient and pretty tiled stove in the parlor' concept remained the property of Germans and Russians and those Americans in their wild, snowy north.
 
That was the Dowager and the vulgar City merchant and the vicar's wife in Little Tweeting, Hamps.  The country poor weren't nearly as well off.  They burned what wood they could gather, what coal they could afford.  Where peat was available, the countryfolk burned peat. 

Today, we think of peat fires as Scottish and Irish.  Writers in the Regency period felt the same way.  Peat fires -- turf fires, they were called -- were treated as a Scots and Irish specialty.  They were deplored as a product of dire poverty by some writers and lauded as picturesque by others.  But to get to the Scots and Irish peat fires, those writers must have bowled right past any number of English cottages in Lincolnshire, Somerset, and Northamptonshire busily burning peat. 

There's not much said about these English peat fires.  A Regency couple fleeing villains might well have found the kindly old farm couple who took them in sitting by a thoroughly English peat fire. 

So we turn to the question -- What is peat and how come we can burn dirt?
 
In what may be the first description of European peat fires, Pliny says the natives of north Germany ". . . form mud with their hands, which, when dried in the wind rather than in the sun, is burned to cook their food, and warm their bodies chilled by the cold north wind."
     Pliny, Natural History

Despite Pliny, good peat is not 'mud'.  It's decayed vegetable matter, compreessed and concentrated over thousands of years. 

When a lowland is so waterlogged you can't farm it, so marshy it won't grow trees, so spongy you can't build a road across it, so mushy you can't graze animals on it -- you may have yourself a peat bog.

Here's a video about how you cut peat.  The guy makes it look easy.  I suspect it is not. 

The very general idea behind peat cutting is you slice yer waterlogged peat, which is sitting in its bog as it has been for millennia, and lift it out .  You get largish bricks which are 95% water and not, in this condition, inclined to burn.  Then:

"They cut it out in long pieces, they lay them in a regular order carefully, in rows upon the ground, to be dried by the sun and wind. ... As the peat dries, and is turned by persons appointed for that purpose, to dry it the better, it breaks into smaller lengths, and then it serves not only the poor but many other persons, for firing, and gives a good  heat."
      Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Volumes 50-51, 1758.

After a week or two, when the bricks have shed most of their water, you stack them up in piles and let them dry some more, because you do not generally want to be carting all that water home.

Along the right here are various interesting photos of Victorians cutting peat, pretty much the way their ancestors did it centuries ago, I should think.
Click on the photograph for a better view.

When your peat is well dried and hard, you bring it home.  You might pile it in a simple heap, or store it in an outbuilding, or maybe make a neat little stack and thatch it on top to keep the rain off. Folks also took it off and sold it in town.  It was a fuel for the urban poor in some places.

"It is sold for about ten shillings a waggonload, delivered at their houses in the town. The ashes also prove very good manure for both grass and arable land and the farmers give from four pence to fix pence a bushel for them, which renders this firing very cheap."
      Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Volumes 50-51, 1758.

There's a good bit written, now and in the Regency, about the particular pungent, intriguing, and characteristic odor of a peat fire.  My own experience is that peat fires just smell like fires.  There's also some mention made of 'roaring' or 'blazing' peat fires -- generally in advertising brochures.  I've found peat fires to be low and slow and pleasantly warm. 
I am ready to be persuaded by other folks' experiences.

Considering the antiquity of peat cutting, I can't find much on interesting folk customs associated with peat fires or cutting peat.  That does feel strange to me.  

I miss having peat-gathering songs and maybe maypole dances to open the 'turfing season'.

If you had to choose between a wood fire or a peat fire, which would you pick?  You don't have to cook on it or anything.  And you don't have to go out and dig the peat or cut the trees.  The fireplace fairy does all that.

Turf or wood . . . or maybe something else.  What would you want in your fireplace?

Some lucky commenter wins one of my books, her choice.

The Sparky Report #10

SPARKY CELEBRATES A BIRTHDAY

No, not Sparky's birthday--a Wench's birthday. Namely, Susan King, who recently celebrated her natal day. Sparky got wind of it, so naturally, she had to compose a special birthday greeting for Susan: 

Sparky the cross-eyed kitten says, “Goodness, did another birthday sneak up on you, Susan????”

 
“Well, in that case, I’d better print out a birthday card for you!”

 
“You don’t mind waiting a bit while it prints out, do you?
 
 

“Now, for the envelope. I know one’s in here somewhere.”

 

“Wake up, Shona! I want you to deliver a birthday gift for me!”
 
 

“Now, to wrap the present. Scissors? Check! Rubber band? Check!”
 
 

“I hope you don’t mind if Shona left a few tooth marks on your prezzy.”  :-)
 


And here, dear Susan, is your prezzy—a beautiful fall sunset. After all, no present can out-do Mother Nature! Happy birthday, Susan!”

P.S. Voting for All About Romance's Top 100 romances of all times is open for ten more days, in case you want to enter your vote. You can vote for up to 100 books (though most just list their top 5 or 10 favorite romances). If you'd like to enter your vote, go to the All About Romance Top 100 page. Voting ends October 20.

Sunset photo credit: source - Internet, photographer unknown

An Apple A Day...

A few weeks ago Wench Joanna celebrated oranges and lemons in a blog post. Today, as Apple Day approaches in the UK, I thought I would talk about apples. Apples are like reverse oranges and lemons; they aren’t rare, they aren’t generally exotic although these days some apples have been developed especially for their exotic look and taste, and they will grow just about anywhere in the UK. Yet until the 18^th century most eating apples were considered luxuries and sold mainly in London. It was the humble cooking apple that was a staple of the ordinary man and woman’s day-to-day diet, which was why it was particularly important to store apples correctly so that they would last over the winter. Chaucer, in The Cook’s Tale, laments the way that one rotten apple can turn the entire barrel and this was pretty important when the apple was a fundamental source of food.

Apples have a rich and varied mythology. Greek and Roman mythology refer to them as symbols of love and beauty but equally they have a bad side. Although the bible does not specify that it was an apple that Eve offered to Adam in the Garden of Eden, referring to it only as fruit, an apple has often been used to depict the forbidden fruit.  Apples also get a bad reputation in some fairy tales, most notably in Snow White. In Arthurian legend the Isle of Avalon, where Arthur is laid to rest, translates as the Isle of Apples. The Swiss National hero William Tell was said to have shot an apple off his son’s head with a crossbow in order to ransom both their lives. The symbolism and mythology of apples is everywhere, perhaps because of their satisfying shape, perhaps because they are everyday items yet beautiful.

The arrival of the apple

Apples arrived in Europe from the Tien-Shan Mountains of China, accompanying traders along the Silk Road. Homer’s Odyssey mentions apples and apple orchards. Whilst there is some evidence that apples actually grew wild in England during the Neolithic period it was the Romans who brought the cultivated varieties to England – (apples, rabbits, carrots, parsley, feet and inches…That’s what the Romans did for us!) The apple was particularly valued because all of it is edible, even the pips and core. However too many apple pips can be fatal as they contain a cyanide compound.

The Costermonger

Many Roman villas had their own orchards. These were abandoned after the Romans left England in AD 383 but the apple flourished in the wild and King Alfred the Great was the first to mention English apples in a document of 885 AD. The Normans brought with them new, improved flavours and the orchards of medieval monasteries grew apples of the variety Costard, from which the word costermonger, an apple seller, comes. Costard was a cooking apple. It’s counterpart as an eating apple was the variety Old English, which is recorded as far back as 1204.

Costermongers are first mentioned in the 17^th century and they developed their role from apple sellers to being all-purpose fruit sellers on the streets of Regency and Victorian cities. They would use a loud sing-song chant to attract attention and would generally sell their fruit from a hand cart or basket. (Hence the phrase “don’t upset the apple cart” which was first used in the late 18^th century). Costermongers gained a fairly unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language." 

The Queene Apple

You often hear about the great devastation caused by the plague the Black Death in 14^th century England; it’s a little known fact that it wiped out apples too because there were so few people left to cultivate the stock. A series of droughts in the Middle Ages put orchards under further strain and the Wars of the Roses finished them off. It was Henry VII who was the unlikely saviour of the English apple. He instructed his royal fruiterer, Richard Harris, to establish large-scale orchards in Kent. The most common apple in the Tudor period was called The Queene after Elizabeth of York, Henry’s wife.

The Gravity Tree

A couple of years ago I visited Woolsthorpe Hall in Lincolnshire where Isaac Newton is said to have formulated his law of gravity when an apple either fell on his head or he saw one falling from the tree. The orchard at Woolsthorpe still contains the variety of apple that supposedly fell on Newton from what is now know as the “tree of gravity.” It’s a pretty amazing thing to stand there and look at those apples and think about the role they played in scientific discovery!

The New World Apple

Meanwhile, over the other side of the Atlantic, the Pilgrim Fathers discovered that there weren’t many edible apples around. The Massachusetts Bay Colony requested seeds and cuttings from England and other settlers brought apple stock to Virginia and the South West. The first apple orchard in North America was planted in 1625 by Reverend William Blaxton but it is probably John Chapman, known as Johnny Appleseed, who was the most famous pioneer nurseryman for the apple, planting nurseries rather than orchards across a number of states.

Regency Pips 

The most famous pip of the English Georgian period was planted in 1809 when Mary Ann Brailsford grew an apple tree that was to become the mother of all Bramley apples. This was a very useful cooking apple as it worked well in pies, desserts, chutneys, jellies and cider making. By this period almost every farm from Northumberland to Cornwall had an orchard. Labourers were paid in cider right up until the end of the 19th century. 

Such was the reputation of Oxfordshire’s famous 1818 Kempster Pippin apple, which was developed into the Blenheim Orange variety (which is confusing!) that coaches would stop at Woodstock to allow people to glimpse the apple trees and thieves would shin over the orchard wall at night to steal some wood to graft! Here's a Blenheim Orange on the right.

Traditions

Unlike exotic fruits, which can only survive the British climate in a hothouse, apples flourish here, and apple trees still grow wild in the hedgerows. The number of customs and games that we have created around the apple echoes the importance it has had in our lives. Bobbing for apples used to be a traditional Halloween game when I was a child. I can't say I enjoyed putting my face in a bowl of water in an attempt to catch a fruit but it was a custom that went back centuries. 

And that brings us on to cider.  In England we have the Normans to thank once again for popularising cider drinking and the medieval monasteries enthusiastically applied themselves to cider production. To this day the UK is the largest cider-drinking nation in the world.

I'm a big fan of cider and when we lived in Somerset 20 years ago we enthusiastically took part in the old tradition of the cider wassail, first recorded in 1585. This was a ceremony of drinking a toast to the apple trees in the hope that they would give a good harvest the following year. I wrote my first traditional Regency, True Colours, when I was living in Somerset and I included a cider wassail in the story. In the Regency period as well as marching to the orchard and raising a glass of cider to toast the health of the harvest it was also the custom to loose off several rounds of ammunition in order to scare away any evil spirits that might be lurking around the trees to put a blight on the harvest. Needless to say, by the time we were taking part in the cider wassail ceremony that element had been banned for health and safety reasons. In True Colours and in my own experience the wassail was followed by a big barn dance with mulled cider for refreshment and plougman's cheese, bread and pickle to go with it. A fine feast.

Tonight I'll be celebrating the apple harvest with a dish of monkfish served with potatoes, pancetta and cider. I heard a celebrity chef say recently that fish and fruit should never be served together but in this case I definitely make an exception to that rule! it's delicious.

Are you a fan of apples? Do you cook with them or enjoy apple juice or cider? And are there any apple-related traditions where you are?

!8th century expenses

Genealogy web sites can be great sources of historical data. I came across The Account Book of Thomas Morgan of Carmarthen from the 18th century. This is an article on the book, and I wish the book itself were available on line as it would be a wonderful resource for daily cost of living. But there is quite a bit there for the curious, and here are some tid-bits.

Thomas Morgan seems to have a large Welsh parish, though there's no indication of his annual stipend. Over time, he becomes short of money and has to economise and then move. At times he tries to farm. So the following expenditures may be extravagance.

(I've added a bit about currency at the end.)
In 1755, he pays for his servant James Howell to have:
To trimming his coat 1s.6d
To pay for waistcoat 3s.0d
For velvet 3s.0d
For linnen 6s.0d
 For shoes 1s.6d

It's a bit surprising his manservant needs velvet, isn't it? Perhaps he wanted a fully turned-out footman. Evidence of aspiring beyond his means?

In 1761 he paid his maidservant Susan Hanmer £1.15s.0d per annum, had her shoes mended for a shilling and bought her a silk hat for 4s.4d. Other purchases included a cotton gown, handkerchiefs, whale bone and even a pair of garters. So the wage was truly on top of all expenses, but was Susan getting special perks? That silk hat is suspect. 

There are some clear lists, such as this.
Seven cane chairs £0.17s.6d
One Brass Pan £1.6s.7d
Five Pewter Dishes £0.8s.4d
Twelve Pewter Plates £0.11s.0d
Two brass candlesticks £0.3s.9d
Two Iron Pots £0.6s.0d
Two small casks £0.2s.0d

I wonder why a brass pan was so much more expensive that seven chairs. Any ideas? Weighing and balancing costs in the past is both fascinating and puzzling.

In 1750 he bought the following articles and paid eight shillings to have them transported to his home. That was, note, around a quarter of the annual wages for his maid. Again, chairs seem cheap. Why is a baking stone so expensive in comparison?
One Bedstead and Curtains £1.15s.0d.
Six leather bottom Chairs £0.9s.0d
One Press and one elbow Chair £0.18s.0d
 Fire shovel, tongs and grate £0.5s.0d
Baking Stone 2s.6d.
Saucepan 6d. £0.3s.0d
Bedcord 1s.4d.
flower box 4d.  (Flour, I assume.)
pepper box 2d.
One Decanter 18d.
Waterglas 3d.  
One bottle of mustard 7d. and Pot 3d.
Three Single Deal boards £0.6s.6d

Someone said I should have explained the currency so here's a stab at it. These days, of course, Britain has a metric currency, still with pounds, but with 100 pennies in a pound.

Before the 1970s it had pounds, shillings, and pence. (And shillings go back pre-Conquest.) There were 20 shillings in a pound, and 12 pennies in a shilling. The pennies have a "d" because that comes from the Roman denarius! Pennies were very large coins, sometimes called "cartwheels" so a pocket of them would be heavy. As a penny was still worth something, there were halfpennies, called "haypennies" and quarter pennies, which were farthings.

So the chairs at 17s 6d, were 17 shillings and 6 pence, a bit over 3/4 of a pound. That expensive brass bowl was nearly a pound and a half.

There was also the golden coin, the guinea, which varied in value but can be considered 21 shillings. Why such a confusing amount, I don't know. In 1817, the gold sovereign came into use, valued at 20s, or a pound.

Because the Napoleonic Wars led to a shortage of gold and silver, during that conflict coins were struck of base metal, and paper money began to be used, as on this website. (Leading to the slang term "a roll of flimsies" for a lot of money.)

I hope that helps. 

A glimpse into an 18th century life. Do you have any observations on the relative costs, or comparisons to various costs today? I'm working in the Regency world now, but this was all right in the time for Seduction in Silk.

Cheers,

Jo

Old wine in new bottles: Fiction River, Story Bundle, et al.

by Mary Jo

As I’m sure you know, it’s been a chaotic few years in publishing, and I feared there would be casualties, such as the delicious fantasy short story anthologies that DAW used to publish with great covers and amusing themes. (Constellation of Cats contained my first published short story, so I have a special fondness for the anthology.)

But there have been winners emerging from the chaos, including a revival of the traditional Regency, which had a real but widespread audience, so print books were killed by the distributors, who wanted higher profit items.  Now many of those great classic Regencies are available as ebooks at Regency Reads, and some authors have started writing new traditional Regencies. 

Plus, it turns out that short stories are alive and well on the internet.  Better yet, there are now new ways to deliver stories to readers.  Today I want to talk about some new story delivery systems, since networking and word of mouth are essential aspects of discoverability.  So I'm talking directly to two people who are producing new ways to buy stories.

First up is Fiction River, a new short story publication from the very experienced Kristine Kathryn Rusch and her husband, Dean Wesley Smith.  Both have written  a zillion books, more or less <G>, in multiple genres, and they both have a lot of editing and publishing experience as well.  Plus, Kris is a widely read blogger on aspects of the New Normal in publishing. 

I asked Kris to tell us a bit about a great new project she and Dean have launched: 

Fiction River 

Kris Rusch: Writers can go directly to readers now, which I’ve always preferred. I don’t have to work for anyone else in order to edit—and I didn’t have to find venture capitalists or take out huge loans to start a publishing company. When it became easy to go direct to readers, Dean and I got the editing bug all over again.

We wanted to do a new anthology/magazine series that would cover all genres. We wanted it to grow over time. So we called it Fiction River. And because we’ve made all kinds of business mistakes in the past (and learned from them!) we decided to see if we had a market for the anthology series before we started publishing.

We did a Kickstarter in August of 2012, and we funded within hours. We were so excited. (You can see our goofy video here.  Because this meant we could have the series we wanted.

The series I wanted had different voices as editors, with Dean and I as overall editors. We would also do our own projects. I picked two: Christmas Ghosts and the upcoming Crime volume.

I wanted Christmas Ghosts to be a romance anthology. I write romance under the names Kristine Grayson, Kris DeLake, and Kristine Dexter (and Rusch too), and I read a lot of romance. The sf field, when it was run by traditional publishers, looked down on romance, and I always thought that a mistake. I slipped romance into F&SF when I was editing, and into Pulphouse as well.

This time, though, I announced that I was doing romance, and I invited some of my favorite authors to participate. Everyone I asked writes in more than one genre, but they have one other thing in common: they write spectacular romances.

Everyone who has read the volume agrees. We sent the book out for review, and Publisher’s Weekly called it, “A sugary Christmas treat for those who love romance.”

RT Book Reviews was even more enthusiastic, saying:

“Cuddle up next to a crackling fire with some holiday music playing softly in the background, and lose yourself in eight amazing Christmas stories by a gang of super-talented, cross-genre authors. Not only are they heartwarming, but they incorporate mystery, science fiction, romance and ghosts!”

I am thrilled. I can finally share my love of multi-genre storytelling with other readers who love the same thing. Which, I personally believe, is most readers. Most of us never pay attention to genre. We look for good stories.

People can subscribe to Fiction River or buy individual issues everywhere books are sold. These volumes won’t go out of print.  Audible carries audio editions, available a few months after the initial publication.

There will be another romance-focused volume down the road. But every edition I edit will have at least one romantic story in it. Even Crime has a touch of romance.

I’m a romantic at heart. I hope it shows.

MJP:  Thanks, Kris!  Christmas Ghosts will be released on October 15th, and I had a lot of fun with my contribution, "Toasted," which is set in my Guardian world in New York City at Christmas.

In some ways, Jason Chen’s Storybundle concept is even more unusual, so I’ll let him explain it.  Jason, over to you!

Story Bundle:

Jason: StoryBundle is, in my slightly biased opinion, the best way to get quality reads at a low price. We work with authors to bundle together a collection of works in various genres--romance bundles, fantasy bundles, thriller bundles, etc.--and offer them at a price that the READER sets. Not only does the buyer (that's you) get to decide how much you want to pay for the books, they get to decide how much of their purchase goes to the author, how much goes to StoryBundle, and whether or not they want to donate to a charity as well.

Why's this great for readers? Not only do we and our curators hand-select all of the books we include in our bundle to make sure they're quality reads, we offer the books DRM free in multiple formats. This means that you can read our books on any ereader, smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer that you have, and you're not locked into one single store. So if you have a Nook now but want to get a Kindle later, you'll be able to take all your StoryBundle books with you without a hitch.

We're currently featuring a bundle with seven phenomenal romance novellas, but we have new bundles every few weeks with all kinds of genres to appeal to every type of reader. Because the reader sets the price, they decide how much these books are worth to them, meaning they never feel like they're paying more than they want to. But for those who pay a little more to support our authors and reach the bonus level, we always offer extra books as thanks!

MJP:  Thanks, Jason!  The romance novella storybundle is only available for ten days that will end October 10th, so if you’re interested in an unusual gathering of romance novellas, you’ll need to look sooner rather than later! 

My storybundle contribution is a favorite traditional Regency novella, “The Christmas Cuckoo,” which has a sensible young lady going down to the coaching inn, and accidentally bringing home the wrong Jack Howard. <G>  And once he sobers up, he doesn’t want to leave!

Jo Beverley’s “The Trouble with Heroes” is an award winning futuristic romance, while Stephanie Laurens has contributed a classic Regency novella. "Melting Ice.  Kris Rusch has a story under her Kristine Grayson name, along with Laura Leone, who has visited the Word Wenches under her real name of Laura Resnick.  There are also two high action two military romances a la Suzanne Brockmann from M. L. Buchman.

Other delivery systems include friends getting together to create a volume, as Susan, Pat and I did in Christmas Roses, which Susan blogged about last week, including a Scottish tale, a Regency, and a Victorian.

Of course traditional anthologies, like the Word Wenches' Mischief and Mistletoe  haven’t gone away, either.  But there are many more ways for stories to be available.  I think what doesn’t change is that word of mouth is still the best way to find good new reads.  That’s why book blogs like this exist! 

What next???

I imagine that there will be still more new ways for stories to appear, though I won’t try to predict what they’ll be!  How do you choose your books?  Do you stick mostly to long time favorites?  Try stories recommended by friends?  Try a new author from the library and buy if her writing is to your taste? 

Can you think of other ways you might like to find books?  In the New Normal, we’re all learning from each other!

Mary Jo

 

 

The Sparky Report #9

LOOK OUT, HOLLYWOOD!

Sparky's a star! Jo Beverley has put together a cute Animoto promo for Mischief and Mistletoe, and Sparky opens and closes the piece. Have a look-see here, and tell us what you think! As evidenced by the picture above, Sparky has given it a thumbs up!

SPARKY IS ELECTRIFYING

I'm having considerable work done on my 100-year-old house, and the carpenter/electrician who's doing all the work has taken a real shine to Sparky. In fact, he's nicknamed her "Polly" (because she's a polydactyl) and he allows her to climb all over him while he works. Thank goodness he's a good natured guy, because Sparky spent a lot of time in his lap recently, playing with scraps of wire and other electrical bits while the carpenter installed a new outlet by my desk. She's so used to carpentry noises (saws, drills, sanders) that she no longer runs and hides when she hears them fire up.

    

    

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM

After a hard day supervising the carpenter, Sparky needs a rest, and can usually be found sacked out in Shona's crate. It's so cute to see them snuggling together!

Any Port in a Storm!

Cara/Andrea here,
This past week, there was much revelry among the Wenches on our private e-mail loop, along with a jolly amount of liquid libations consumed—alas, all cyber! By some strange quirk of timing, four of us had book deadlines on Monday and we all scribbled—with much moaning and grumbling—to the finish line and turned them in on time . . so I think we heartily deserved a glass of bubbly!

Actually, as I began to think of it, since the manuscripts were all Regency-set stories, we probably deserved stronger spirits—and what could be more quintessentially Regency than port. (The fact that port was forbidden to proper ladies of course makes it even more alluring.) So, I thought it might be fun to take a small sip of the spirit’s history.

Though port comes from the region of Portugal near the city of Oporto, it’s traditionally thought of as a very British drink. And with good reason! The British taste for port dates back to the 14th century, and the development of the winemaking industry is inextricable intertwined with the Sceptered Isle. The Treaty of Windsor, signed in 1386, established close political economic ties between the two countries. Each permitted merchants from the other to take up residence and have the same trading rights as its own subjects. A number of Englishmen set up business in Portugal and trade began to flourish between the two counties. By the late 15th century, Portuguese wine was flowing into England in return for salt cod.

The wine trade grew even important in 1667, when Louis XIV’s finance minister imposed strict rules limiting the import of British goods into France. In retaliation, Charles II, clamped down on the import of French wine, forcing oenophiles to look elsewhere. To meet the growing need, wine merchants looked to expand their supply, but some of the Portuguese wine did not suit the English palate, which was accustomed to the richer French wines. So they began to look inland, and found the wines produced in the dry, mountainous Douro region produced a  full-bodies wine more to the English taste.

It required an arduous river journey to bring the wine down to the city of Oporto, where it could then be shipped to the British Isles—where it became know as Vinho do Porto. Or port. To keep the wine from spoiling during the shipping, it became customary to add a bit of brandy to fortify the wine, making it more potent (more on this in a moment!)

Now, the growing demand also gave rise to a problem in quality as a number of merchants added elderberry wine and other less desirable ingredients to make a cheap wine and sell it as port. Enter the Marquis of Pombol, the Portuguese prime Minister, who in 1756 established state control of the port wine trade. The Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro—sort of the East India Company for Portuguese wine—was given a monopoly on trade with Britain and Brazil. He also set up a strict delineation of the port wine region—335 stone pillars, known as marcos pombalinos, were erected to mark out its boundaries. Only vineyards within the area could call their wine “port.”

Now, up until this time, the wine was made by traditional methods, though as I mentioned,, brandy was occasionally added to stabilize it for shipping. But in the early 19th century, brandy began being added during the fermentation process, resulting in a fortified wine that was sweeter  and stronger than ordinary wine. The taste was very popular in Britain, and by the 1830s, the method had become pretty much universal for all the port producers.

Fortifying the wine allowed it to be aged much longer than ordinary wine. Vila Nova de Gaia, on the outskirts of Oporto became the home of quintos, or Lodges of the port merchants, and their massive warehouses began to spring up there, allowing them to age the various types of port. (Vintage port—wine from one specific year that is deemed to be a quality harvest—is aged in individual bottles. The other varieties of port—including ruby, tawny and white is aged in oak casks.) Most of the leading port Lodges were owned by British merchant families with deep roots in Portugal, and many still are today. Taylor Fladgate, Dows, Graham, Churchill—a trip to the local wine shop says it all.

The Peninsular War had a great impact on the wine trade, as Napoleon’s forces invaded the country and General Soult occupied the Douro region. There’s a fascinating history of the era on the Taylor Fladgate website (an American was instrumental in helping our Regency heroes keep well-fortified with port!) which you can read here.

I shall now put a cork in the bottle, before I intoxicate you with too many historical details. But before I do, just a few questions for you—have you ever tried port? Do you like it? (I do—a lot! Though I don’t drink it very often. I have a friend who really knows port, so have been lucky enough to taste some vintages from the 1920s and 1930s, which is quite fun. Like drinking history!)

And if you don’t like drinking it, port also is a great cooking ingredient. Here’s a recipe for a traditional Christmas pudding with port. Pip, pip, hooray!

Christmas in October

Susan here. 
So it's barely October, with the pumpkins newly orange and still growing on their vines, and the leaves more green than golden – summer warmth lingers in the air and Halloween is weeks away - and yet we’re talkin’ Christmas.

At least we are today, here at Word Wenches. We’ve got two newly released Christmas anthologies by some or all of the Wenches, and we’re pleased as holiday punch with sherbet rings to share them with you now!

Christmas Roses: Love Blooms in Winter - an anthology of novellas by Mary Jo Putney, Patricia Rice and Susan King, released in ebook by Millington House Publishing, with a gorgeous cover by Kim Killion.

Years ago, when I was a new author in perfect awe of Mary Jo Putney and Patricia Rice – who were especially nice to a nervous newbie – we were all writing historical romance for Penguin’s Topaz imprint, and we often crossed paths. Thanks to writers groups, luncheons, workshops and late nights in conference hotels, we became friends, lunch buddies, brainstorming buddies – and Wenches. Meanwhile, we were writing lots of novels and novellas.

Not long ago, we agreed it would be fun to e-publish some of our backlist novellas together. Mary Jo and I had breakfast with a local friend, Jim Lefter, who’s also an e-publisher, and we decided to give him a novella each, one from Pat as well: an anthology of friends.

Our stories were all holiday themed and each one had roses somewhere in the story – so this was one of the easiest titles we've ever had to think up ... Christmas Roses. We gave Kim a bit of cover art direction: uh, Christmas and, er, roses. She knew what we needed and came up with a gorgeous cover. 

Our three historical romance novellas are collected together here for the first time in this exclusive eBook. “The Snow Rose,” “The Black Beast of Belleterre,” and “The Kissing Bough” weave tales of the joys of unexpected love at a special time of year. Discovery in the midst of a clash of clans; the hidden desires of an unexpected suitor; and a love once lost and found combine for a journey through history - by turns adventurous, romantic, poignant and fun. We’ve included new introductions -- and scrumptious recipes. In fact, we want to share our intros with you today as a sneak peek.  . . .

PAT RICE, "The Kissing Bough"

"The Kissing Bough" first appeared in A Regency Christmas in 1989. At the time, I was mostly writing American westerns with my characters making an occasional sailing stop in London. Due to my fascination with English literature and my need to know more about the historical events in the books I was reading, I’d been studying English history for years. The thought of having one of my  stories appear in an anthology with Mary Balogh and the late, great Edith Layton inspired my imagination.

 I happily dug into obscure pamphlets on English Christmas traditions to research my story, but to my dismay, Christmas as we know it now was more Victorian than Regency. My soldier heroes wouldn’t be coming home to huge fir trees adorned with hand-made ornaments. But kissing boughs are steeped deep in medieval English tradition, when a small tree top was hung at the entrance as a symbol of the holy trinity. The practice became more elaborate over time—and thus Diana could decorate the drawing room with greenery to her heart’s content. And even with his one good arm, Jonathan could match her love and determination by hauling in the Yule log.

I hope my first Regency story inspires a lovely green Christmas of your own!

Lambs Wool Punch

This traditional Christmas punch has been served since the Middle Ages. The name probably refers to the fluffy white flesh revealed by the broken skin of the roasted apples which float on top of the bowl of ale.

4 eating apples
4 pints of ale or cider
6 cloves and 1 tablespoon of grated nutmeg. Half a teaspoon of ground ginger. Pinch of allspice. I cinnamon stick, 1 - 2 tablespoons dark soft brown sugar
Heat oven to 400. Place the apples in a baking dish with a little ale, cider or water and cook for 30 minutes until the apple flesh is "woolly" in texture.
Meanwhile, heat the ale or cider, spices and sugar to taste in a large pan over a low heat until very hot, but do not allow to boil. Strain into a large serving bowl. Scoop out the apple pulp with a spoon, discarding the core and the pips and pile on the hot ale. Serve hot with a scoop of apple flesh.

MARY JO PUTNEY, "The Black Beast of Belleterre"

“The Black Beast of Belleterre” was my miracle novella.  In an excess of enthusiasm for writing Christmas stories, which I love, I committed to doing them for two different holiday anthologies the same year.

As always, things take longer than they take, and all of sudden I was up against a drop dead delivery date: my editor needed the story delivered in less that two weeks.  In nine days I was booked for a conference in Savannah, and I hadn’t started the story.

So I did the only thing I could: sat down at my computer and started to work.  Then came the miracle.  Each day for the next eight days, I wrote ten pages.  At the end, I had eighty pages and the story was done.  I have never written with that kind of speed and regular pacing!

And the miracle didn’t end there.  “The Black Beast of Belleterre” is one of my very favorite novellas.  Well, it’s a beauty and the beast story, and that’s a surefire winner. Plus, it was a Victorian setting, which gave me fun elements to play with that wouldn’t fit into my usual Regency story.

But most of all, Ariel and Falconer were a gift.  I loved writing about them, and when I reread this story for inclusion in this anthology, I loved them still.  I hope you do also.

Potato Kale Soup

This is my own version of a traditional Portuguese peasant soup.  It’s robust and full of flavor. This makes a very large batch—at least 16 servings, and requires a very large pot.  You may prefer to halve ingredients. It helps to have a food processor for chopping the onions and garlic, and slicing the potatoes.  Saves a lot of time.

1 pound hot Italian sausage, either bulk or squeezed from casings, browned, and drained. (Chorizo sausage can be used if you prefer—it’s more authentic, but I like the bite of the Italian sausage. If you like sausage, you can use more.)

2 large onions, chopped
12 cloves of garlic, peeled and mashed
2 T. olive oil
3 to 4 quarts chicken stock
4 pounds of potatoes, sliced. (If you use young, thin-skinned potatoes like Yukon Gold, they don’t need to be peeled. If old and tough, peel them.)
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of kale, approximately, washed, cleaned, and shredded. (Collard or mustard greens can be used, I’m told.) Or—use a one lb. package of loose leaf frozen kale, or two 10 oz packages of frozen chopped kale. Thaw, drain, and mix in. Almost as good, and a lot less work.)
Salt and pepper to taste  (For this quantity, I use about a tablespoon of salt and a half teaspoon of freshly ground pepper).

Sautee onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Place all ingredients except the kale in a large soup pot, bring to a boil, then simmer until potatoes are tender and have started to break down.  If you’re using fresh kale, you can use the simmering time to wash the kale, strip out the tough stems, and send it through the slicer on the food processor. When potatoes are tender and crumbling a bit, stir the chopped kale in and simmer for about 5 minutes more.  Adjust seasoning and serve.  Tastes good with corn bread, which is the traditional Portuguese way.  Freezes well. 

SUSAN KING, "The Snow Rose"

Writing this little story is one of my happiest creative experiences, and I’m delighted to be able to share it with readers again. “The Snow Rose” was my first novella, a spinoff of my second novel, The Raven’s Wish, and it first appeared in A Stockingful of Joy. The related stories are both set within the ongoing feud between the Frasers and the MacDonalds in 16th century Scotland. I love clan legends, and I’m part Fraser, so now and again I write something about the historical Frasers to stir some fictional mischief for them.

“The Snow Rose” is the story of Kenneth Fraser, one of the many cousins of Elspeth Fraser in The Raven’s Wish (among eighty Fraser cousins all born within the same year, Elspeth is the only girl—it’s based on a legend of Clan Fraser). I loved Kenneth, with his dry wit, his long, braided dark hair and his sexy Highlander demeanor, and I wanted him to have a truly special romance of his own. His soulmate turned out to be Catriona MacDonald, who desperately needs help one snowy New Year’s Eve—or Hogmanay, as this is Scotland.

Kenneth is the “first foot” arriving at Catriona’s snowbound cottage one New Year’s Eve—that is, first to set foot on the threshold after midnight. A dark-haired handsome man is a good omen, and these two bring luck to each other in the midst of a clan feud—but their New Year’s beginning is a bit calamitous. A collapsed roof, a cow and a horse inside the cottage, a cat named Dog, a lost and valuable brooch, and, of course, the MacBaddies after our hero and heroine, who are getting to know each other even while the snow falls through a hole in the roof and a cow tumbles head over heels for the hero.

Here’s a lovely wee recipe for a whiskey brose that’s straight from the story, and just right for your own Hogmanay or New Year’s Eve. Best wishes of the New Year to you!

Oatmeal Brose (aka Atholl Brose):

Measure out about ½ cup of oatmeal and twice that in boiling water; soak the oats in the water until you can extract the liquid, or the brose (oat broth). In the hot brose, dissolve 1 tablespoon honey (preferably heather honey!), and add 4 tablespoons heavy cream and 6 tablespoons or so of your favorite Scottish whiskey. Blend together, chill, pour into glasses, sprinkle with some cinnamon and nutmeg, and enjoy!

MISCHIEF AND MISTLETOE
Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney, Patricia Rice, Joanna Bourne, Anne Gracie, Nicola Cornick, Cara Elliott and Susan King 

“Confections that charm and delight, like the holidays themselves!” – RT Book Reviews

You may remember that last year the Wenches got together to write new stories for a Christmas romance anthology published in trade paperback by Kensington Books – the first author blog to publish a collection together! This year, Kensington is bringing the anthology back, complete with a wonderful new cover, in mass market paperback. If you didn’t catch M&M by WW the first time, or if you’d like to give some copies as gifts this year, check out the new paperback (available in e-book too). Kensington just created a beautiful postcard for Mischief and Mistletoe - here it is! 

So there you go, a bit of Christmas in October. What do you think of our new covers?  

Do Christmas and holiday stories always seem to find their way to your TBR pile?
Do you have a shelf dedicated to them, as I do?  (Christmas children's books too - we've got boxes of them at our house!) And just how early do the holidays start for you - before or after Halloween?     

We've got a giveaway for you - a chance to win an ebook copy of Christmas Roses! - if you'll take a moment to leave a comment below. 

Susan