Word Wenches

What We're Reading in May

Pat here with May’s collection of favorite reads. Some of us are apparently hunkered down in this enforced isolation and have read entire libraries. And then there’s Jo Bourne:

Jo B:

What people think Romance Writers read: Love's Inventive Gymnastics.

What Romance Writers Actually Read: Essays in Social History, Volume I: The Preindustrial Millennia and The ZTE Cell Phone User's Guide.

We read this stuff because we are nerds and cannot safely be turned loose in a library. Preindustrial Millenia is an interesting look at the economics of Greek and Roman slavery versus peasantry. I come away renewed in my determination to avoid being the bottom rung of the social ladder in the Classical period.

Another ladder I would probably avoid any rung of is Revolutionary France, but it's still a joy to pick up Daily Life in the French Revolution by Jean Robiquet, which is full of pithy wisdom and quotes from original material. I am a sucker for "Daily Life in ..." books altogether. Just skip the politics and battlefields and tell me how they got the clothes washed. I'd recommend picking up Robiquet second hand since it hasn't been put in ebook or even paperback.

Marry in Scarlet! An Interview with Anne Gracie

Interviewed by Mary Jo

Marry in Scarlet, the long awaited final book in Anne Gracie's Marriage of Convenience Series, has arrived, and it's great.  As Publishers Weekly says in its review, "George is an admirable heroine and the chemistry between her and Hart is magnetic."

Lady Georgiana, the wild child niece of the Rutherford clan, has come to value the family she didn't know she had, but she still prefers to be called George and likes her giant wolfhound, Finn, and her magnificent stallion Sultan more than most humans.  She also has no desire to lose her independence by marrying, but the social pressure is building

Anne, you've included clever and appropriate quotes from Jane Austen as chapter headers (how do you find such perfect snippets?), and as I read Marry in Scarlet for the second time, I realized that it could easily be named Pride and Prejudice. What do you think?

AG: It hadn't occurred to me, but you're right; like Jane Austen's classic, both pride and prejudice play their role in the hero and heroine's attitudes. He doesn't trust women, she doesn't trust men. And they both have their fair share of stubborn pride. 

Not that the plot is in any way similar. Unlike Austen's heroines, Lady George has no need to marry — she will come into a handsome fortune when she turns twenty-five, so the only pressure on her to marry comes from society — and her elderly, interfering great-aunt.

As for the Austen snippets at the start of each chapter, over the years I've made a collection — pages and pages of possible quotes sorted under headings. I also have all of Austen's novels and a collection of her letters on .pdf, and so I can search them easily using keywords. It's quite a lot of fun, finding a snippet to go with the events of each chapter.

 

Summer Meditations

Andrea here . . . meditating on summer and what it means to me. In the United States, today marks the unofficial start of the summer season. With COVID -19, we don’t really know what the next few months will bring—though it’s pretty certain that Summer 2020 will very different from those in recent memory. We’re all feeling our way through the challenges, trying to inch here and there toward 'normal', as we wonder what 'normal' will be like going forward.

As someone who writes romance, I believe in resilience of the human spirit, and the power of love and friendship to help us triumph over adversity. So I do think we’ll find a way overcome all the terrible things so many of us are facing right now. But I think it’s also part of human nature to be a little nostalgic, and as summer is traditionally a time of long, lazy days in which to slow down and reflect, I got to thinking about some of the things I’ll miss this coming summer.

Word Wench Anniversary Ball

Compiled by Mary Jo

This year, we're holding a ball!  Each Wench will bring one of her favorite heroes. (Not the favorite, because how can one choose just one from among so many fabulous men?  <G>)  

I'm wearing the burgundy velvet gown I was married in, but I'm not the star of this occasion!  That would be Lord Ross Carlisle, hero of one of my earlier books, Silk and Secrets, second in my Silk Trilogy.  Though by nature he's rather reserved and scholarly, he's also deeply interested in all kinds of people and distant places.  Which is why he became one of those amazingly intrepid early Victorian explorers who crossed mountains and deserts and dared all kinds of dangers to explore the mysteries of the unknown. 

Ross was on his last expedition to Central Asia when he discovered his beloved, long estranged wife Juliet Cameron.  Together they risk the lethal journey to Bokhara in hopes of rescuing her brother--and in the process they discover each other again.  Ross and Juliet are generally inseparable, but she's starting the evening by joining a group of other wives in the library where they can sip brandy and claret and catch up on each other's news. 

I've now published Silk and Secrets as an e-book and later this year there will be an audio edition narrated by Siobhan Waring.  I chose this illustration from the NAL first edition because it's one of my all time favorite covers  and Ross and Juliet both look so gorgeous,  They are also dancing, though not anything you'd see in an English ballroom!  Ross, endlessly interested in all kinds of people, is looking forward to meeting the tribe of Wenches and our companions!

 

 

Archaeology and the Writing Process

Anne here. I've often said that for me, writing a book is a little bit like archaeology, though generally less muddy. When I start, I have a rough idea of what I think a book will be about, who my main characters are and so on, but really, at this point in the writing process, they're my best guesses.

Years ago, when I was in Greece, I was fascinated by some of the ancient murals that had been dug up — some were just fragments really, but people had made "best guesses" as to what the overall murals had looked like.

My characters often begin as a very sketchy collection of notes. Things like: he thinks he's a hard man; he believes to show vulnerability is fatal; He's a survivor; he's clever with machinery and calculations; he tries to control everything in his life; he's racked with guilt over what happened to his sisters; he has no idea how to handle them; deep down he's afraid to trust to love. (Sebastian from The Perfect Waltz)

But it's not until they hit the page and start interacting with other characters that they start to come to life, and often, they're not who I imagined they were going to be. And sometimes because of that, I have to rethink my plot.

Opening Lines

"That's torn it!" said Lord Peter Wimsey. 

Susan here, and that's a great start for a great book—a Dorothy Sayers mystery, but which one? The Nine Tailors.

The proverbial hook—the first sentence or two that pulls the reader in, catches attention, taps emotion, hints at something fascinating ahead, inviting the reader to find out more. If the first line doesn’t hit the mark, the reader may bow out quickly. Years ago, once I opened a book I would finish it, even if I had to slog through it, but I haven’t done that in a long while. If a book doesn’t catch me in the first few pages, even a chapter, I’m out and on to the next book. Often I’ll go back later and give it another try, for if you just push on, there's often a great read there. Sometimes the hook isn't a sentence--sometimes it's a subtle thing, more than a sentence, a slow build that grows on you. But sometimes the first line is intriguing, enticing, mysterious, magical--a portal to a story that you may never forget.

It was a dark and stormy night.
-- A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle 

A great book might have a deceptively simple opening line that hints at something about character, situation, setting, mood that draws you in. Sometimes it’s the power or beauty of the author’s voice. Sometimes it’s humor, or an emotion that catches you, or a situation that makes you curious. Simple or complex, hang on—there may be an amazing world within those pages.

In no particular order, well-known and less known, here are some of my favorite opening lines from some of my favorite books . . .

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

--The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein   

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. -- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater.

-- Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini

When the east wind blows up Helford River the shining waters become troubled and disturbed and the little waves beat angrily upon the sandy shores.

-- Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier

When the girl came rushing up the steps, I decided she was wearing far too many clothes. 

-- The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis

It was the egret, flying out of the lemon grove, that started it. 

-- The Moonspinners, Mary Stewart

The lad had the deep, burning eyes of a zealot.

-- The Prince of Midnight, Laura Kinsale

It’s still my favorite book in all the world.

--The Princess Bride, William Goldman

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

--Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Charles Howard had the feel of a gigantic onrushing machine: You had to either climb on or leap out of the way.

--Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand 

We had been wandering so long I had forgotten what it was like to live within walls or sleep through the night.

--The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman

 

So there you go, a few of my favorite story portals -- what's your favorite opening line in a novel? 

Susan 

Cut Like a Dog

 

This cutie is no bigger than a quill pen. From 1799

Joanna here, talking about dogs again, for which I hope everybody will pardon me.

 

I am not actually more partial to dogs than to cats, but I have decided to talk about the history of Extreme Grooming. About fur topiary — a subject doubtless of burning interest to the generality — and there doesn’t seem to be much history of humanity trying to do this to cats.

Cats, if asked, would explain to you why this is so. Or you could experiment.

Thus I am not speaking of mere dog washing or dog brushing or the ever-

Groomers clipping dogs on the bridges of Paris c 1900

popular “Take that thing out and don’t come back till he doesn’t stink to high heavens” which is doubtless the origin of dog grooming back in the days when a nice dry cave was the most des res available.
And I’m not looking at yer King Charles Spaniel or Papillon getting the most delicate and minimal of snip, snip, snips to become even more perfectly beautiful, worthy though that subject is.

 

I’m looking at Dog as the canvas of the fur butchers art.

Dog grooming as a profession has to date back to the earliest hierarchical societies. The same Sumerian or Babylonian noblemen who tossed the reins of their horse to Hobbins the groom with a “Rub her down good and give her extra mash.” doubtless had a dogsbody washing mud off the hunting dogs and checking their footpads for thorns.

Our earliest specific references to dog grooms date to the Middle Ages. We know kennel boys lived with the dogs, cared for them, brushed their teeth, washed and groomed and curried their fur.

Somewhere along the line,
things gets kookie.

Poodle 1795

AAW—In Which We Muse on Silver Linings

With the weeks turning into months as we navigate the uncertain road of coping with Covid 19, we thought we all use a little brightness, so in this month's Ask A Wench feature, the Wenches are are answering this question about silver linings within the dark clouds: “With the stresses of shelter-in-place, is there any silver lining you've found—time to do a craft you’ve always loved but hadn't had time for; rediscovered music or a genre of a book, found pleasure in cooking or baking, etc, or in taking walks in nature? Share the unexpected pleasures you have discovered.”

Anne: Lockdown hasn't made a huge difference in my daily life -- I work from home anyway, and I can still walk my dog. I have hermitish tendencies and I'm not really a social gadabout. Catching up with friends for dinner or a movie has been replaced by phone calls, and zoom get-togethers -- in fact I probably have more contact with friends than normal, as it's logistically easier to organize. We even had our first-ever wenchly zoom get together, though the time differences made it tricky.

My neighborhood has changed though. Apart from there being less traffic, something has happened that I hadn't realized was missing -- the kids are out, playing in the street. When I was a kid, all the kids in the street knew each other and played together. In all the years I've lived in this house, I never saw it happen here. Kids played in their own house, or watched TV or whatever — I don't know. I rarely saw them. But now, they're out every day, playing and laughing. They whizz past on roller skates or scooters, they boing around on pogo sticks, they race up and down. Kids who never played together -- they attend different schools -- now meet up every morning and play outside all day. Over the road two little girls set up their play area every day on the strip of grass in front of the house. There are "picnics" and dress ups, and all sorts, and we have a growing tent city that a patient dad packs up every night. 
These friendships are a lovely development that I hope continues long after lockdown is lifted.

All Things Japanese

Christina here and for today’s post I’m going Japanese! As you may have seen from Anne’s introduction of me (here), I was lucky enough to live in Japan for several years and I fell in love with everything about that country, including its beautiful traditional garments. So when the Victoria & Albert Museum in London put on an exhibition of kimono earlier this year, I just had to go and see it! It was glorious and as we’re now all stuck at home, I thought I’d give you a little taste of what was on display and tell you about these very special robes which featured in one of my very first novels, The Scarlet Kimono.

Covering Up!

Andrea here, musing about something that’s on all of our minds . . . well, actually, on all our faces! I don’t know about you, but I’m not someone who ever found a great allure in the idea of wearing masks. Unlike many of my friends, Halloween was . . meh—not a big deal. The idea of anonymity—which conjures a certain sense of dangerous freedom to misbehave and get away with it—wasn’t something that tickled my fancy.

And yet, when you look at the history of masks and masked celebrations, it’s clear that face coverings appeal to the naughty side of human nature. (There is a certain irony in today’s masks, which are quite the opposite in intent—we wear them not only to be personally safe, but also to be good citizens and help protect others.) Most every culture has a tradition of masks being used for ceremonial and religious practices—and also just for mischievous fun!

Masks used to ward off illness have of course existed throughout history—the most famous examples are the plague marks of medieval Europe. (That long beak was to hold a small sachet of burning herbs, whose smoke was thought to help protect one from whatever evil was causing sickness) But for the most part, masks have been used for more frivolous things.

Audio News: Dearly Beloved and More

by Mary Jo

Audiobooks, like so many elements of publishing (and the world in general) have changed greatly in recent years.  Once upon a time, only huge bestselling mainstream books had audio editions.  They were really expensive and libraries were the primary market. (In those days a lot of audiobooks were on cassettes!  Remember them? <G>)

But there was interest in audio, so gradually more genre books like romance began to be recorded.  My first audiobook was The Wild Child, which came out in 1999.  I was so excited--I felt that I had arrived! 

I don't know if at that time any authors were producing independent audio version of their books--probably not.  The norm was for the print publisher to subcontract audio rights to a specialist audio producer.  The production company chose the narrator and did the engineering and distribution.  (I never had any input on any of that, but I was happy that the audiobooks were available for those who wanted them.)

Do You Believe in the Supernatural?

Nicola here. Halloween and the long dark nights of winter may seem a more appropriate time to be talking about ghosts and the paranormal, in this part of the world at least, but in other places such a Japan the summer twilight is the time for sitting around a campfire and telling chilling tales. So today, whilst the sun shines and all seems quiet in my ancient village, I’m talking about the paranormal elements in my latest book, The Forgotten Sister, and asking “do you believe in the supernatural?”

The Forgotten Sister is probably my spookiest book yet. At the centre of this paranormal web is Lizzie Kingdom, a young woman who possesses the gift of psychometry, the ability to read objects and connect to their history or to the people who owned them. Lizzie has always kept this ability secret because she grew up as an outsider and didn’t want anything else to mark her out as different. Her gift for reading objects is a deeply personal thing that she uses to connect to the lost maternal side of her family. As she has never truly explored her gift, Lizzie doesn’t realise that it is greater than she imagines. Then she meets Arthur Robsart and is rather intrigued to discover that she can read him too. Arthur, unsurprisingly, finds this an invasion of privacy!