Word Wenches

What We Are Reading

Christina here with this month’s round-up of Wenchly book recommendations! The recent beautiful spring weather, and the fact that lockdown has been easing in many places, has meant that the Wenches have been able to go out and about a bit more, but we have still been doing quite a lot of reading. Below we have another eclectic selection for you – from fantasy to romcom to Shakespeare (well, sort of) and more – and we hope that you will join in as always with your own recommendations!

Anne:  Two very different books have hit the spot for me this month. The first is An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris, the first in her "Gunny Rose" series. Set in an alternative "America" where a combination of the 'flu plague of the early 20th century, the assassination of the US president, the escape from Imperial Russia by the Tsar and all his court, fleeing The Red Army, and general "wild west" style lawlessness in some parts of the country have resulted in the break up of the former USA and the formation of "new" countries or territories.

Lizbeth Rose is a 19 year old "gunny" – a brilliant sharp-shooter whose job it is to guard people and shipments from outlaws, would-be-slavers and thieves, and there are plenty of them. Add in a paranormal thread, where some of the Russian refugees (now running a territory called the Holy Russian Empire – California to the Canadian border) can perform magic, and you have a cracking good yarn.

There's quite a lot of shooting and killing, but isn't the kind of graphic violence I shrink from. Only baddies are killed. And Gunny Rose is a very appealing character – loyal, principled, and she's never failed a client – yet. And of course there's a handsome Russian wizard on a secret mission who keeps getting in her way. The first book in the series is called An Easy Death, which is what people traditionally wish gunnies when they head off on a mission. I've since read the other two in the series and can't wait for #4.

Ireland Revisited

The Emerald Isle: Another classic travel blog

 by Mary Jo

Ironically, yesterday the Mayhem Consultant and I returned from our first vacation in a year and a half: a cruise of the Chesapeake Bay.  But I didn't have the time to write a proper blog, so I'm recycling an older blog about a week we spent in Ireland, because who doesn't want to visit Ireland???

The Mayhem Consultant and I sailed from New York to Southampton on the Queen Mary 2 purely to enjoy the leisure and romance of a transatlantic crossing.  But once we reached England, we certainly weren’t going to waste being in Europe! 

We’d vaguely planned to go to Ireland some day.  I’d spent a week there many, many years ago when I was living in England, and the MC had never visited Ireland at all.  Clearly, it was time. <G> 

Neither the MC nor I have any known Irish blood, but no matter.  We loved Ireland for its beauty, wonderful friendly people, and deep sense of history. Rather than ramble on indefinitely, here’s a few bits and pieces, with a modest selection of pictures.  (Ireland is a very photogenic country!):

Travel the easy way:

We decided to try something new: instead of hiring a car ourselves, we’d hire a car with a driver/guide to take us around.  No stress, and a driver who not only knew the fun, off the beaten track places, but could tell us the history.  We worked through an agency recommended by a friend of a friend, and the Ireland Chauffeur Travel company turned out to be a good pick.  We worked out an itinerary, rooms were booked, and it worked as smoothly as silk. 

We were particularly lucky with our guide, John Daly, Besides being capable, welcoming, and knowledgeable, he’was a certified tour guide with a special expertise in Irish history.  Hog heaven for a historical novelist! 

 by Mary Jo

Ironically, yesterday the Mayhem Consultant and I returned from our first vacation in a year and a half: a cruise of the Chesapeake Bay.  But I didn't have the time to write a proper blog, so I'm recycling an older blog about a week we spent in Ireland, because who doesn't want to visit Ireland???

The Mayhem Consultant and I sailed from New York to Southampton on the Queen Mary 2 purely to enjoy the leisure and romance of a transatlantic crossing.  But once we reached England, we certainly weren’t going to waste being in Europe! 

We’d vaguely planned to go to Ireland some day.  I’d spent a week there many, many years ago when I was living in England, and the MC had never visited Ireland at all.  Clearly, it was time. <G> 

Neither the MC nor I have any known Irish blood, but no matter.  We loved Ireland for its beauty, wonderful friendly people, and deep sense of history. Rather than ramble on indefinitely, here’s a few bits and pieces, with a modest selection of pictures.  (Ireland is a very photogenic country!):

Travel the easy way:

We decided to try something new: instead of hiring a car ourselves, we’d hire a car with a driver/guide to take us around.  No stress, and a driver who not only knew the fun, off the beaten track places, but could tell us the history.  We worked through an agency recommended by a friend of a friend, and the Ireland Chauffeur Travel company turned out to be a good pick.  We worked out an itinerary, rooms were booked, and it worked as smoothly as silk. 

We were particularly lucky with our guide, John Daly, Besides being capable, welcoming, and knowledgeable, he’was a certified tour guide with a special expertise in Irish history.  Hog heaven for a historical novelist! 

Sea Fever!

Nicola here. After long winter months of bad weather and lock down, the idea of going to the beach for some fresh sea air to blow away the cobwebs was irresistible and so last week we took a trip to Norfolk (UK) and to a little seaside village called Sea Palling on the East coast.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always lived a long way away from the sea that I often have a longing to see the ocean. A lot of us love it, I know; there’s something so soothing about the surge and fall of the waves and so refreshing about the sea breeze and the big open skies. It feels as though it’s doing you good.

Good St George's Day

"May I come in, St. George?" said the Boy politely, as he paused at the door. "I want to talk to you about this little matter of the dragon, if you're not too tired of it by this time." -- Kenneth Grahame, The Reluctant Dragon

Happy Saint George's Day! April 23 is Saint George’s Day in England, where he has long been regarded as England’s chivalric patron, synonymous not only with dragon-slaying but chivalry too.

Susan here - with another look at this fascinating warrior-saint and his iconograpy, a prototype of the dragon-slaying, rescuing, protective warrior-hero. Every Saint George's Day, I'm all into it. Why? I did my art history doctoral dissertation years back on the iconography of the hero in medieval art as personified by St. George. How did an ancient martyr of the Church (who never saw a dragon in his life) become the most recognized symbol of chivalry and knighthood in England and practically everywhere? I tracked that question by studying the images and iconography of the hero in medieval art — St. George being the best known of an interesting collection of military saints and dragon-slayers. Images and mementoes of knights and dragons still decorate my home and office, and the research for that project taught me a lot about the nature of the hero ... which came in very handy when I started writing novels.

The original George was a 4th century Christian martyr in central Turkey, most likely a soldier who served under Emperor Diocletian. George defended his religion and suffered the consequences, for he was arrested, dragged by horses and beheaded (among other gruesome tortures); documents in the Vatican apparently referring to his death are dated 23 April, 303; that became his feast day. There were other military saints, like Julian and Mercurius (and the Archangel Michael, in a class by himself), but St. George rose to fame after he supposedly appeared in the sky over a crusading French army and saved the day.

The story spread and grew, and before long his legend was conflated with other myths, such as Perseus and Andromeda, and other slayers of monsters/rescuers of damsels. In England his feats became connected with pagan rites of the cycle of birth, growth and resurrection—and the dragon-slayer so venerated in medieval England was born.

His image is well known to us today, and he is depicted in countless examples of medieval art. His cult grew by leaps and bounds as chivalry gained deep footing in medieval society. He was declared patron saint of the famed Order of the Garter in 1348, and his red cross on a white ground was included in countless heraldic emblems; later it was incorporated into the British Union Jack. By the time St. George appeared in the wildly popular Golden Legend, a collection of saints’ tales, his fame was assured.

As knighthood and chivalry flourished, George—being  a saint, after all—served as the pinnacle of those ideals. He exhibited all the best qualities of chivalric behavior, especially toward women -- he was polite, considerate, and romantic yet chaste. Partnered with the Virgin Mary or with the princess saved from the dragon in art and literature, George was the perfect medieval knight, revered, prayed to, emulated.

“St. George the English knight/Over your ffomen geve you myghte” went a popular English prayer, and “St. George!” was a common war cry for English soldiers and knights.

The French response to the English rallying cry, particularly during the Hundred Years War, translates to “It would stick in my throat if I cried ‘St. George,’ because I’m a good Frenchman.” 

As for dragon-slaying and chivalric behaviors, George was not the first, but he was the best known—the mythic type of the dragon-slayer so familiar to us today owes a great deal to the storytellers who embellished his story over the years. In parts of England every April 23, while the holiday isn’t a big deal anymore, there are mock dragon-fights by reenactors and kids line up to take a whack at paper dragons with a lance to rescue the princess.

Chivalry isn’t dead by a long shot, and the values he represented centuries ago still endure. St. George and his myth helped foster and keep that alive for a very long time – and today romance writers and other fiction authors (sci fi and fantasy, for instance) find ways to carry on the tradition of great romantic, chivalric heroes, dragon-slayers in so many guises, in countless stories. 

Here's a quick few of my favorite dragon-slayers or dragon-keepers (let's be equitable!) in books and movies: 

Saint George and the Dragon, Margaret Hodges

The Dragon and the George (great series!), Gordon R. Dickson

Anne McCaffery, The Dragonriders of Pern series

Christopher Paolini, Eragon (series)

Mary Brown, The Unexpected Dragon

Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin (Daenerys Targaryen is an incredible character and mother of dragons) 

Dragonslayer, fabulous movie

There are so many others ... 

Who are your favorite dragon-slaying or dragon-keeping heroes and heroines in myths, books, movies?

Arsenic and old wallpaper

Anne here. There I was, blithely writing a scene of my hero standing in his newly refurbished bedroom, and briefly describing what it looked like to set the scene. I'd already fallen down a general wallpaper rabbit hole — there are so many gorgeous wallpapers from that period. (Here's a National Trust site that has some beauties.)

But my hero is rather a plain man, and the gorgeous Chinese wallpapers I fancied were not the kind of thing he'd want in his bedchamber — perhaps in more public rooms in the house, but not where he slept.

So I gave him a nicely masculine room, with a green bamboo patterned wallpaper, and I had him pulling back his curtains — plain dark green with a kind of watermark pattern (which is male-speak for damask) — and looking down into the garden below. . . but as I continued writing, getting to the actual meat of the scene, a little voice started nagging at my brain.

Something about the color green and arsenic. So naturally I hit google . . . and fell down another research rabbit hole.

You see in the 18th and 19th century all kinds of experiments with chemicals and dyes were going on, and in 1771 a Swedish chemist called Carl Sheele used copper arsenite (which contains arsenic) to create a bright green dye. In 1814, Wilhelm Sattler, a German industrialist, improved on it by using arsenic and verdigris for a better green. The pigment could also be mixed to create bright yellows and rich blues.

The Nitty-Gritty on Dukes

Andrea here, musing today about . . . dukes. It’s hard not to think about them, as these days, every Regency romance novel seems to have “duke” in the title. Which would logically lead one to imagine that in Britain, dukes are a farthing a dozen.

But not so! A cursory glance at Debrett’s, the bible of the British peerage, quickly corrects that fantasy. So I thought it would very fun—and very educational—to take quick look at the reality of dukes and dukedoms in order to have a more accurate idea picture of the past and the present. (Above: the 18th Duke of Norfolk at his estate.)

Window Dressing!

Nicola here and today I’m talking about curtains. I think the topic popped into my mind when I was lying awake early this morning reflecting on the fact that now it’s lighter in the mornings, I’m going to need to get some thicker curtains to ensure I get my required eight hours sleep!  Either that or I could resort to what our ancestors did and have a curtained bed instead of curtains at the window (or both.) It fascinates me to think that we are still using a way of keeping light out and warmth in that was invented hundreds of years ago.

Windows have perhaps entered our consciousness more because of lockdown. We’ve been spending more time looking out of them at the world outside than we might normally do. Often this view is framed by a blind or a curtain or a shutter, some sort of covering that offers privacy and keeps light and draughts out.

Why Pseudonyms?

By Mary Jo

Today's Ask A Wench was inspired by a question from regular reader Pamela DG, who wanted to know why authors use pseudonyms.  I said the answer was complicated and worthy of a blog. For asking the question, Pamela will get a book from me. 

Writing with a pseudonym, a name not one's own, can occur for any number or reasons.  The Wenches explain why:

From Nicola

I’ve never written under a pseudonym. This was not a conscious decision. I was literally so naïve when I was first published that it did not cross my mind to consider it. This seems remarkable to me now but I had had no experience of the publishing world other than a godmother who wrote religious books under her own name. I quickly came to regret my naivety. For a number of years I wrote historical romance for Mills & Boon alongside working as an academic registrar in a university. One day a mischievous colleague read out a passage from one of my books in a meeting, which was quite embarrassing. I wasn’t ashamed of the books or that I had written them but I didn’t want my writing and my other work life to cross over.

Once I started to write full time it didn’t matter at all and it’s never really given me any problems since. There has only been one odd occasion when a publisher kept referring to Nicola Cornick as my pseudonym and refused to accept that it wasn’t!  That said, if I was starting over again knowing what I do now, I’d probably use a pseudonym. I don’t dislike my name but it does give you the opportunity to call yourself something you’ve always wanted to be! One of the reasons I like my Czech editions is that I love being called Cornickova!  

Mythical Beasts and Imagination

(Paul Hermans Wikimedia Commons)

Christina here. Do you believe in cryptids? According to the dictionary they are “an animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti”. There seem to be rather a lot of them, and although the degree of likelihood of them really existing varies hugely, they all have one thing in common – many people want to believe in them and enormous efforts go into finding them every year. I have to admit I follow these expeditions with great interest.

By definition, being an author means having a rather vivid imagination, and for me part of that is believing in unexplained phenomena and things like mythical beasts. My daughter makes fun of me for being convinced that the Nessie monster is real. She scoffs when I avidly watch every single programme on TV about people trying to find this creature by any means possible – divers, sonar scans, underwater cameras and endlessly chugging up and down Loch Ness hoping for a sighting. So many people claim to have seen it. Surely the law of averages means that at least a fraction of them must be true? I really, really want that to be the case.

Noble Scots and Other Eccentricities

Pat here:

I really ought to dig into my research files more often to see what I’ve looked up while I’m plotting a book, but by the time the book is ready for release, that material is a couple of years old, and I’ve forgotten about it. So out of curiosity, I dug into my files for ENTRANCING THE EARL, my May release, to see what I toyed with before I began writing. I can’t see any related blogs, other than my coloring between the lines complaint for the last book in my School of Magic series. But if I’m repeating myself, sorry!

ENTRANCING THE EARL required research into 19^th century beekeeping, architecture and construction of Scots brochs and the history behind them, and Scots peerages—which aren’t the same as English.

Just because authors get the most complaints about aristocratic titles, and I don’t want to hear anyone complaining about my female, unmarried countess, I’ll give you a fast lesson in Scots peerages—it’s complicated.

 

Zooming along

Anne here, and this morning I did an interview on Zoom for the French Romance Novel Festival — le Festival du Roman Féminin

It will surprise nobody that this year the festival is going virtual, rather than in person, as most festivals and conferences of this sort have had to since CoVid hit. We're all fairly used to Zoom meetings and on-line interviews now, and yet I'd be willing to bet most of us had never used Zoom before 2020.

And though these on-line meetings started as a second-best necessity, I think it's really opened us up to the benefits and innovations are happening that I think will stay when the Covid danger has passed and we're more or less back to normal.

For instance the lovely people who organize le Festival du Roman Féminin have several times invited me to come to their conference, and I would love to go, but traveling from Australia to France is a big time and money commitment — and a very long flight — between 21 and 24 hours sitting on a plane. Thus for various reasons I haven't been able to attend. Yet.

So when they asked me to do a Zoom interview with US Historical romance writers Darlene Marshall and Minerva Spencer (who also writes historical mysteries as S.M. Goodwin) I jumped at it. It was scheduled for 10.30 a.m. my time, and the US writers had their times and the valiant French interviewer was staying up until 1 am to do the interview.

However for me, this morning ended up more of a scramble than a zoom. <g> I'd just stepped out of my shower when an anxious email came through, saying Anne, we've started the interview. It was 8.30 am! Two hours earlier than planned. Yikes!

We had forgotten about the effect of daylight saving — a double effect, in fact, because just as Australia had "fallen back" an hour, people in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere had "sprung forward" and there was now a two hour difference.

I flung on a dress, didn't even brush my hair (which was still damp), had no time to gather up my French translation editions for 'show and tell' and, in dire need of a large mug of industrial strength coffee, I jumped belatedly into the interview. 

Here we are; Darlene (top left);  me (top right); Minerva (bottom right), and Agnès, our interviewer. (My dog Milly did attempt to photo-bomb us, but she didn't make it into this pic.)

Spring Flings!

Andrea here, and very happy that here where I live, I’m beginning to see signs of Spring finally starting to push aside the chill of Winter. Leaves are budding and flowers are starting to unfurl, adding tantalizing touches of color to the muted shades of the landscape. The air is warming, allowing hats, scarves and parkas to be hung in the storage . . .

February and March always feel endless here, and I am SO looking forward to spending more time outdoors—in shorts and T-shirts!—as the days grow delightfully longer. After all the isolation of the past year, the coming warm weather feels even sweeter as we (carefully) begin to tiptoe back to some semblance of normal activities.

So, in celebration of all fun seasonal activities ahead, I thought I’d compose a list—admittedly a silly one—of all the things I love about getting outside in warm weather . . . with a Regency twist!

Cruising the Danube

by Mary Jo

I'm still playing catch-up on my writing, so here's another armchair tour from blogs gone by!  The picture of me on the left is taken in the courtyard of Melk Abbey, a grand abbey on the Danube.

Riverboat Cruising

Years ago, I read an article about riverboat cruises in Europe, and the idea immediately appealed to me.   As a friend says, rivers were the interstates of the past, and so much of European civilization developed along the waterways.  How better to explore than in a boat holding maybe 150 friendly, intelligent passengers and serving lots of really good ?