Celebrating with Susanna Kearsley & Pamela Hartshorne

Anne here, with Susanna Kearsley and Pamela Hartshorne dropping by to celebrate our 10th anniversary with us. Both Susanna and Pam are  'dual timeline/time slip' authors and Honorary Word Wenches (HWW). They're also representative of international wenchdom, as Pam is from the UK and Susanna from Canada. Welcome, Susanna and Pam!

Susanna here, happy to be here to share in the Word Wenches’ tenth anniversary!

I am, as it happens, an Honorary Word Wench—a  noble and cherished designation that not only comes with the perk of being able to add the letters “H.W.W.” to my signature (always much appreciated by someone like me, who never finished university), but also stands as a sometimes much-needed reminder that I’m never really writing on my own.

It’s a thing about writing: so much of it needs to be done on your own in a room by yourself, shut away from distractions, that it would be easy to feel disconnected…if we didn’t have this amazing community.

The first time I took my elder son to FanExpo here in in Toronto, he looked across the lines of people standing in their cosplay costumes waiting to get in, and said, “My people!” And I knew exactly how he felt.

I feel it, too, whenever I’m with other writers and readers who treasure historical romance. When I don’t have to explain why I’d rather shut myself away with a pile of 18th-century newspapers and a big pot of coffee than go to the mall. When I can say I’ve just surfaced from being in another time, and people understand. It’s a wonderful feeling, to be understood.

It’s in places like this one, with hosts like the Word Wenches, that we’re all able to find one another. We cheer each other, teach each other, share our craft and learn in equal measure; and, as evidenced by this past week, we give each other comfort.

Back when I was gifted with my Honorary Word Wench title, on September 23 of 2009, this group was a mere three years old, and I only knew Nicola. Since then I’ve met nearly all of the Wenches, and from sharing an event with Joanna to sharing drinks and laughter with Anne, to having her and Mary Jo come and stand at my shoulder when I won my RITA, the Word Wenches really and truly are “My people”. (Susanna's first interview with the wenches is here.)

May they continue another ten years, and beyond that.
And I’ll keep on adding “H.W.W.” after my name, with great pride.

Susanna Kearsley  

Susanna's most recent publication is A Desperate Fortune 
Her website is here.

And now, here's  Pamela Hartshorne:

It is a great honour to be an Honorary Word Wench, especially when I spent so many years writing strictly contemporary romances for Mills & Boon as Jessica Hart. But I have always been fascinated by the relationship between the past and the present, and in fact started writing to fund a PhD in medieval history (although I ended up as an early modernist) so my historical leanings have always been there.

Throughout the (very) many years it took me to complete that PhD, the question I was asked most often - after ‘Have you ever thought about writing a real book?’, of course - was whether I was going to use my research to write a historical romance. My answer was always ‘no’: I fretted about authenticity and how I could possibly get modern readers to identify with characters who thought and spoke and acted so differently in the past.

But after writing 50 romances, it felt like time for a new challenge and I decided to get over myself and have a go at writing not a romance but a ‘time slip’, part historical novel, part ghost stories, part psychological thrillers – and, in my case, part romance too, because romances are about emotions, and emotions are what connect us to the past, whether that past is our own, or a more distant one. I let go of the authenticity issue; the truth is that no amount of academic research will tell us what it was ‘really like’ in the past. The only way we can know that would be to somehow go back and re-experience life as somebody who lived then (ooh, precisely the premise of a time slip!)

For me, the real appeal of historical novels, romances or otherwise, lies in the tension between everything that is different and intriguing about the past, and everything that is the same – and what never change are the human emotions that lie at the heart of every great story - love, hate, fear - and that we can all identify with, wherever and whenever we live.

The temptation for all those of us fascinated by the past is to get bogged down in details, and squeeze in every interesting piece of our research (I can’t tell you how much about dung heaps and cleaning gutters I had to force myself to jettison from my first drafts of Time’s Echo) but this is where historical romance comes into its own: focusing on the emotional relationship between the characters gives it the perfect structure to draw readers into the story while keeping them interested and intrigued with a dazzling backdrop of historical detail. (Pam's first interview with the Wenches is here.)

So let’s hear it for historical romance – and let’s hear it for the fabulous Word Wenches, and a blog that has been invariably interesting, entertaining and inspiring for an incredible ten years. Many congratulations to you all!

Pamela Hartshorne 

Pam’s latest book, House of Shadows (not to be confused with Nicola Cornick’s House of Shadows!) is out now.
Pamela's website is here.

Anne again — thank you so much, Susanna and Pam for coming to celebrating this exciting milestone with us! And dear readers, to quote Pat Rice, "we would love to shower all of you with champagne and cake. But instead, at the end of the week, we'll be handing out gifts to random commenters."
And here's a question for readers: — what historical period or geographical location would you love to see explored in a time slip or historical romance? 

Comments

[Quantum]

I liked Susanna Kearsley's 'Shadowy Horses' with the sinister ghosts from the Roman Legions but haven't tried Pamela Hartshorne's books as yet. I do like to support home grown (English) authors so am considering the audio of 'The Edge of Darkness'.

As a physicist I have always been fascinated by time and love to imagine slipping through time to historically interesting periods. For me the meeting of James Clerk Maxwell with Michael Faraday in London, when electromagnetism was being intensely studied, is definitely worth a time slip adventure!

[Anne Gracie]

Hi Quantum, I'm a big fan of both Susanna and Pamela's books and would happily recommend them both. I don't know much about James Clerk Maxwell or Michael Faraday -- but that Victorian era time of burgeoning scientific experimentation -- where science and quackery formed a venn diagram, is certainly an interesting one. Thanks for the suggestion. I shall look up these gentlemen.

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Hi Quantum. Am intrigued by the idea of using science as a backdrop to a time slip - I just wish that I understood more about physics. I've always stuck to the Elizabethan period in my own novels as that is the time I know best, but I would like to branch out into different times at some point, if only to learn more about them. I confess to knowing very little about the Victorians but I do have access to some family letters from the 1870s and have often wondered if I should use them as a springboard for a story ...

[Mary T]

My personal favorite time period in the past is pre World War I - starting at about 1890. Not exactly sure why I find that time so appealing. Could be the fashions - love them from that era. It just seems like a time that had enough conveniences to make life a little more comfortable, but a time that had not yet become a rat race. With WWI looming in the future, it seems like a sweet innocent time.

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Yes, there does seem something very poignant about those years before the First World War, doesn't there? For me, knowing the terrible events that were to come always makes me feel sad when I read about that period, though. It's recent enough for there still to be a personal connection: I remember my great aunt telling me that she went to a ball in Edinburgh just before the war, and that not a single one of the young men she danced with survived. Writing about the more distance past makes it easier to have some distance - but I agree with you about the fashions!

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Oh, and I forgot to say in my post that I am offering a copy of HOUSE OF SHADOWS to the Word Wenches' heap of prizes that they'll be handing out, so if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning a copy, do keep commenting throughout the week!

[Mary Jo Putney]

Susanna and Pamela, it's SO lovely to have you here to round out our 10th anniversary celebration!I love that historical romance can go in so many different directions, as you've both proved. So write long and prosper!

[Anne Gracie]

Mary, I also love the fashions of that period -- and especiallythosefrom the designer Poiret -- so elegant. And that pre-WW1 time involved quite a bit of social change, as well, which IMO makes things interesting. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks for this, Pam -- House of Shadows is a wonderful book. I always enjoyed your short contemporary romances, but your time-slips have gone from strength to strength -- and I see the readers on amazon.co.uk agree with me.

[Anne Gracie]

Yes, WW1 is always a shadow hanging over that period, and adds a layer of looming tragedy to the innocence of the time. So many young men slaughtered -- so seemingly no good reason.

[bn100]

1200s

[Ann Stephens]

Susanna, I know exactly what you mean by finding one's people. While writing for most of us is a lone endeavor, the company of other like-minded people fills up our creative wells, so to speak.

And Pamela's post reminds us that in a world where so many people want to drive wedges 'them' and 'us', humans have far more in common with each other than we do differences.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Ann, I think this is partly why I like romance —and the people who write it (in its many different forms.) Its such a positive and hopeful genre.

[Sue McCormick]

I have a few periods I dislike — the Jacobean revolts (sorry Susanna!), the French Revolution, the U. S. Civil War but not favorite periods.

Susanna is one of my favorite authors — and SHE made the Jacobean period tolerable to me. I haven't read Pamela as yet. I'm looking forward to finding her books.

[Anne Gracie]

Sue, I sympathize. When I was a kid, and we went to live in Scotland, I gobbled up all the Scottish stories of that era, and loved what I thought the romance of it and the brave wearing of the white cockade (a sprig of white heather that signalled your alleigance to the Jacobite cause) and Bonnie Prince Charlie. Now I feel sick at the waste and the destruction and the futile loyalty of good-hearted people that was betrayed so often.

[Patricia Franzino]

I would like to see an historical romance set in fifteenth-century France at the time of the invasion of Henry V and the rise and death of Joan of Arc. This would be a spectacular backdrop to a relationship explored at a time of such upheaval.

I read the non-fiction book, "Blood Royal" in which this time was described siting the first documented detective in history who was a sort of soldier/investigator who was appointed to the task of finding the man who assassinated a prince of the French Court.

I think the bloodthirsty era would give enormous conflict to a romantic entanglement.

[Annacbowling]

I've always been happiest, both in reading and writing, anywhere from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the end of the American Revolution, with a side dish of Edwardian. If I absolutely had to pick only one, right now, I would say the golden age of piracy. All the seafaring and swashbuckling, Spanish, English and Dutch battling for control of the seas, lots of tropical islands for romantic rendezvous and evading pirate hunters make for lots of story possibilities.

[Laura Boon]

If I had the possibility of travelling back in time AND coming forward to the present again, I would be more daring and try the Medieval period. It was chaotic but perhaps the 10 years of the reign of Richard the Lionheart. If the possiblity of coming back to the present was dodgy, I would not want to go back any further than the Regency period when society was starting to consider the fact that women might deserve to have some choice in whom they married. The Victorian era would be exciting with the impact of the industrial revolution and developing social and civil rights.

[Jana]

I have always loved the Victorians. It was the big, kind of ridiculous, totally impractical, glorioiusly elaborate dresses that snagged me as a little girl. I had a pretty steady diet of Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery and Francis Hodgeson Burnett through the my girlhood, punctuated by Little House and other prairie settlement stories. Later, in my angst-y teens I discovered the Bronte's and fell in love with their quiet but mighty heroines. I suppose quiet, buttoned up respectability isn't exactly the stuff of steamy romances but it's still the era that makes me feel like my soul is at home ( I thought for many years in my childhood that God had made a dreadful mistake and I'd been born 100 too late!). So when those brilliant physicists finally build their time machine, you'll find me visiting the Victorians!

[Jeanette]

I am a reader and I love my history wrapped around and through an interesting romance. While I like to read about many different periods, I'm with Laura and would not want to be trapped in a period further back than the Regency and even that would be testing my patience. Although I am aware women have and use indirect methods to get at least some of what they want, I prefer to be very straight forward in my relationships and to be respected for my thoughts more than my body and appearance. At seventy, that's a good thing since both body and looks are not what they used to be. I was a tomboy growing up, the equal of any of the boys I knew and my father, even more than my mother, treated my sisters and brothers as equals, expecting the same from us all in contributing to the well being of a farm family. So I was never the flirty type with boys. Probably would not do very well going back in time where those were the methods I would have to use. Most likely I would be one of the women disguising myself as a man in order to do what I wanted to do. Anyone following the pre-election nonsense in the U.S. knows it's getting to be one of the ugliest and most bizarre in our recent history although our earliest history was also very partisan and violent. Earlier, Ann spoke of people trying to drive wedges between us when really we are more alike than different. I just today watched a film that I will post here, which I think has so many possibilities for historical romance. Enjoy. I about wept. https://www.facebook.com/momondo/videos/1741100669466167/?pnref=story

[Kaetrin]

I've always been fascinated by medieval times but I also love Georgian so either of those is always a year in a time slip story for me.

Happy 10th anniversary Word Wenches!

[Kareni]

It's the fairly recent past, but I'd enjoy reading a time slip romance set during the 1960s and the space race.

[Kaetrin]

A year? Thank you autocorrect! A *WIN*. Ahem.

[Pamela Hartshorne]

I'm fascinated by this period too, bn100. When I go out of my front door and look left, I can see York Minster at the end of the street, and I often wonder about the people who had the vision to create such a magnificent building at that time.

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Thank you, Mary Jo. It's a real honour to have been invited to share your celebrations!

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Oh yes, Anna - just the word 'swashbuckling' conjures up a hero!

[Pamela Hartshorne]

There are so many periods that I would love to experience as a fly on the wall but like you, Laura, I wouldn't want to live in any time but the present. My main problem with the past is the food: I have a number of Elizabethan recipe books and most of them sound disgusting - a blancmange made with crushed capon brains, anyone? Am not that keen on some of the medical procedures in the past either. In fact, I think I'll stick to time travelling through historical novels ....

[Pamela Hartshorne]

How interesting that you feel such a connection with the Victorians, Jana. I never got those clothes - although Loretta Chase writes about them brilliantly! - but I can definitely see the steamy potential of buttoned up respectabiity!

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Ah, the joys of autocorrect!

It's interesting how many readers are interested in the medieval period. My publishers tell me that the only periods that sell in the UK are Tudor and Victorian (Regency romances are a separate category altogether) - although Susanna Kearsley's fabulous books have shown that is just not true!

[Anne Gracie]

Pam, I think that often the periods that become popular with readers are the ones they've become familiar with through TV shows and movies and other books. Once they feel they know an era -- and most importantly come to enjoy it -- they like to revisit it. If the image they get of a period is grim and violent and depressing, they don't want to return there.

[Teresa Broderick]

I have a couple of Pamela's books but just haven't got round to them. I LOVE Susanna's books. The first one I ever read was Sophia's Secret and I was hooked. It was a fabulous story.
I love Regency time/slip novels and there doesn't seem to be that many around or maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. I also love Medieval time/slips. In fact I just love history and it's fantastic when it comes within a historical romance. My sons best friend is mad into science and inventing things. He has promised me a time machine one day so I can achieve my hearts desire lol!! It's a standing joke.

[Vicki L.]

For some reason I find it easier to deal with time slip in Sci Fi books than I do in romances. Why I don't know.

As to my favorite period...Anything from Regency to now, though I do like some Georgian. I don't know why but before that not so much. Most medieval I can't stand. Though one of my very favorite books that I reread each year is a medieval. For whatever reason....it hits the spot for me.

Fantasy, magic, paranormal in my romances is fine and I really enjoy it...but time slip.... There is no explaining reader tastes is there!

[Glenda]

I honestly don't have a favorite time period, because I find all of them to be so interesting in so many ways. One of the things that is so fascinating about the Industrial Revolution is the rapid advances in technology - at the same time we live in a time of even more rapid hi-tech innovation.

[Michelle H]

I am new to Pamela Hartshorne, and I've put House of Shadows on my wish list.

I was not a W.W. follower yet back in 2009, so Susanna's interview was all new to me and completely fascinating! So glad for that link. When I read the part of the interview where Susanna was asked to describe her books in general, and then stating publishers had a difficult time categorizing her, I really had to smile. Because IMO, she has become 'A Category' herself. There are some kind-of copies out there, but none as well done as hers. The Shadowy Horses was my first and I was hooked. I'm bookmarking that interview. Thank you so much W.W.

[Anne Gracie]

Vicki, Im probably doing both Susanna and Pam a disservice by calling their books time-slip. Some are, others are stories where the past somehow calls to a person in the present, whether through dreams or documents or a place, or whatever. Theyre not the simple and accidental fall back in time stories a lot of romantic time-slips are.

[Anne Gracie]

Thats very true, Glenda, but somehow the rapid tech advances seem more normal to us whereas to the Victorians each new invention seemed miraculous.

[Anne Gracie]

Michelle, for most of the wenches, that was our introduction to Susanna, too -- thank you Nicola. I, too have all her books and shes now an auto-buy author for most of the wenches. Youll see her name cropping up again and again in our what were reading monthly column.

[Karin]

Has anyone ever written a romance set in medieval Spain, when it was under Moorish rule-or perhaps when it was in the process of being reconquered by Ferdinard & Isabella? So much potential for drama and cross-cultural romance!

[Anne Gracie]

Its a fascinating period, I agree, Karin. Would make for a wonderful story.

[Jay Hicks]

Hi Wenches, and bowing at the knee to the HWW in you all. Loving my hometown city of Melbourne, I've been delighted to visit and follow the State Library of Victoria and to feast on their old maps, photos, books, curiosities and snippets remnant from our rather young history. I could really imagine doing a time-slip here. With such a short look back in time since the establishment of our fair (wet/wild) city in 1835, it makes it easier to relate, to picture myself walking out in the costumes of the day. Perhaps meeting a distant relative, and going to their digs to sit down for a q and a session worth writing about! Thanks for the inspiration, I love this.

[Anne Gracie]

Jay, I love the Victorian State Library - its a beautiful building with some excellent collections, and I also love that it was established in the 1850s as a free library -- free for all -- at a time when the poorer folk were rarely considered and where only the rich could afford books. I blogged about it here:http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2011/02/of-libraries-and-love-poems.html

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Jay, I'd love to do a novel set in 19th-century Australia based on the life of my great grandmother ... and the main draw would be having to be in Australia to do all the research -although Adelaide rather than Melbourne, and a key scene in Broome. I LOVE Australia - my second home.

[AAAndrew]

I hesitate to reply as a brand new member and not a normal reader of this literature (though I have picked up one here and there, especially at beach rentals with bookshelves of them waiting to while away a rainy day, so at least I know of what you speak), but I am a history geek. Forgive if these are too geeky.

Three eras with potential. If I were to set something in a medieval time, I'd choose the period after the black death was basically finished wiping out a huge chunk of Europe. It was a time of hope, (relative) freedom, and great social change. Nobles didn't have quite the power they once had as there weren't enough people around to work the land, so it was a seller's market, so to speak. Social barriers also became quite fluid in places and an emphasis on both romantic stories as well as bawdy ones was coming to the fore. (read Barbara Tuchman's "Distant Mirror")

Perhaps a harder one to write or get into well, without getting too colonial, is the 19th-century Great Game. Russia was dashing into Central Asia, Britain was sending intrepid explorers and spies to try and determine if it was possible for Russia to invade India. Intrigue, exotic locals, danger, risk and great reward. Could be told from the East India Company side and you have Persia, the Ottoman Empire, India, Samarkand, Koshkand, the Silk Road as possible backdrops. The British wives led lives both cloistered and full of "adventure." (duels involving married men coming back from long trips was quite common)

Or, as others have suggested, 1880-1914 US. It was a time of tremendous change, economically and socially. It was a time of "muscular" vitality, and a lot of incongruities. In my research on steel pen manufacturing at the time, I have run across a mysterious reference I've not been able to explore further. In Chicago around the turn of the century, there was a pen manufacturer called M. Jacobs who made the "London Incandescent Pen." In lists of manufacturers Jacobs is listed as "Mrs. M. Jacobs." A woman owner of a manufacturing company was quite unusual, if not unprecedented. What's also interesting is that the floor of a steel pen manufactury was traditionally mostly staffed by women. Only the forges and rolling plant, the dirty, hot jobs, were run by men. Women did the pressing, shaping, grinding, etc... Who was Mrs. M. Jacobs? How did she end up with her own factory and company? Was there ever a Mr. Jacobs?

Anyway, that's probably why I'm not writing these books and you all are. No one would read mine. :)