Word Wenches

The WordWenches Have Moved

Hi everyone, Anne here, and this is the last Wench blog on the typepad platform.

We’re now using WordPress, which means the blog has a different internet address.  This is the new one.

https://wordwenches.com/
While you’re at it, bookmark the new address so you‘ll find us every time.

If you want the blog emailed to you, you need to go to the new site, and in the right hand column you will see this form. Pop in your email address, and the blog will come to you.  

(The image on your right is just a photo, you need to go to the new site to fill in the form and get our posts by email.)

We won't share your address with anyone.

Thanks so much.

See you on the new blog.

Anne Gracie (on behalf of the Word Wenches)

 

The Wenches Are Moving

Hi everyone, Anne here, and today I’m posting the last Wench blog on the typepad platform.

As well as shifting the blog (which means changing the URL address) we’ve redesigned it. Have a look. We think it’s lovely.

https://wordwenches.com/ 

But it’s also using a different system, so please be patient with any glitches while we each learn how the new system works.

You get to it by clicking here  https://wordwenches.com/  and while you’re at it, bookmark the new address so you‘ll find us every time.

We're still working on the system to get the blogs emailed to you (for those who prefer that) so stay tuned and we'll update you.

The first new post will happen on Monday, so please read it and let us know what you think. And don't worry — we've managed to keep all the old posts.

See you at the new wench blog site. Celebrate with us, and watch for news and giveaways!

💗 Thank you for being a Word Wenches reader! 💗

 

What We're Reading in October

Nicola here, introducing the ever-popular Wenches monthly round up of what we've been reading. As always, our virtual shelves are groaning beneath the weight of recommendations and we hope you will share your reads with us - and add to the TBR pile! - as well as enjoy some of the books we're talking about. October is the perfect time to curl up with a good book, so without further ado, let's dive in!

Anne here. The standout read for me in October was Some of it Was Real, by Nan Fischer. It’s a contemporary, and though there’s a relationship, it’s not really a romance. Sylvie Young is a psychic-medium, a rising star on the verge of having her own TV show. Thomas Holmes is a journalist looking to resurrect his failing career by writing a story exposing her as a fraud. Thomas doesn’t believe in Sylvie’s “powers” and calls people like her “grief vampires” who prey on people’s distress.

Mysteries surround Sylvie’s early childhood. Adopted at the age of six, she has no memories of the time before that — and what little she does remember is fractured, comes in dreams, or sparks panic attacks. Sylvie decides to take Thomas on a journey with her to discover what they can about her past. She hopes he will learn to accept and believe in her powers — even though she’s not entirely confident of them, and augments them with research about her audience — which she calls “forming bridges”. It’s a complicated situation. And Thomas is determined to prove her a fraud.

In My Garden

The spring is fresh and fearless  
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew …

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

That’s from a poem called May Night by Sara Teasdale, but though it’s October, here in Australia, where it's spring, the sentiments are just as apt.

Anne here, in a contemplative mood. It’s a gorgeous time of year — spring and autumn are my two favorite seasons. Here, after several days of rain, the sun has come out and a gentle breeze is wafting the most gorgeous fragrances through my open window.

One of my favorites is lily of the valley with its gorgeous scent. My former neighbor had a huge spreading patch in her otherwise regimented garden, and each spring she'd bring me a bunch that would fill my home with fragrance. 

Another favorite is lilac, and I loved the way that every spring the bare branches would bud first with soft green leaves and then vibrant, deliciously scented spikes of flowers. The photo above is of the lilac on my old garden. now sadly gone, but not forgotten.

Tulips

Anne here, and today I’m talking about tulips.

It being spring in my corner of the word, last week I went with friends to a tulip festival up in the Dandenong Mountains, on the outskirts of Melbourne. They’re not very high mountains, but they're beautiful, with many wonderful gardens, as well as lots of gorgeous natural bushland, with tall gum trees and graceful tree ferns. They are also, it seems, the perfect place for growing tulips and other bulbs. 

Many of the tulip growers are of Dutch origin. In fact a good friend of mine came out to Australia when he was a small child, along with his tulip growing parents and many older siblings. And what did they do? They started a tulip farm in the Dandenongs. As did many other Dutch migrants. So what is it with the Dutch and tulips?

Tulips originally grew wild in Central Asia, and were first cultivated in Iran (Persia) as early as the 10th century. They became incredibly popular in Turkey in the 16th century, at the time of the Ottoman Empire, when the Sultan demanded cultivation of particular blooms for his pleasure. The name 'tulip' came from the Turkish word for turban. Tulips were treasured, and became a symbol of Ottoman power. You can see tulip images in paintings, ceramics and tiles of the time.

The Accidental Wedding is &1.99

Anne, here, popping in to tell you that the e-book of THE ACCIDENTAL WEDDING is currently $1.99 until September 29, 2023.

All About Romance gave it a Desert Island Keeper rating.  
Season For Romance — Rating: 10 Top Pick
Night Owl Reviews — Top Pick

To read some of the reviews it received, click here:

To buy it, here’s a universal link that will take you to your preferred e-book retailer:  

 

What's wrong with happy endings?

Anne here, having a bit of a rant. There's a strange thing about happy endings — a lot of people think they're rubbish. Not serious. Not real. Unrealistic. Not worth reading. Or watching.

Me, I love happy endings in books and movies. And I get grumpy when I think books or movies are needlessly miserable at the end. Most of my comments below should be preceded by Spoiler Alerts. I'll highlight the book or film titles in bold so you can be warned.

The belief seems to be that tragic or unhappy endings are “real” and therefore “worthy” while happy endings are an easy cop-out. As I writer I can say that it’s a LOT easier to write a story where you make people care about a character, and then kill them off for dramatic effect, leaving the reader gutted. It’s much harder (in my view) to craft a believable happy ending. Nevertheless, the attitude that tragic is better, nobler, cleverer persists.

I remember when I was a kid reading Henry Treece's The Children's Crusade. Boy, was that ever a sad ending. It was a story about the religious crusade made by children in 1212,  where hundreds of children left their homes to join a crusade, believing they were sent by Jesus, and that their innocence and righteousness would convert the Muslims. It ended very badly. Many of the children starved and died along the way, some (the lucky ones) returned home, and others were sold into slavery, believing the ships they sailed in were taking them to the Holy Land, instead of which they went straight to the slave markets.

I could cope with that kind of a tragic ending — it was history, after all — and there were important lessons to be learned, though for years I fretted about those children.

But there's a lot of fiction where people die and bad things happen for effect, and a book or a film ends badly simply because the writer thinks it will make for a better, more dramatic ending. Or they think it's "more realistic" — as if happy endings are unrealistic. I say, who needs gloomy so-called "realism"? There's plenty of that in the world we live in, but there's also a lot of happy stuff, and I want us to celebrate that, not push it under the carpet and call it mindless fluff. As people so often do.

Hundred Days of Story Telling

Pat here, deep in writing mode and frantically trying to finish a draft before taking off for the jungles of South America.

Finishing a book would be much simpler if I could just plan ahead—especially if I could plan six books ahead. But I can’t plot even one book in advance. And so here I am at Book #4 of the Gravesyde Priory Regency mystery series and oddly enough, history is messing with me.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve written enough Regencies to know when events take place, but there’s that planning thing that doesn’t happen. When I started the series, I knew how the first book needed to begin. I wasn’t thinking timelines. I just needed to have my heroine raising her  orphaned nephew six years after a riot in Egypt. So I simply checked when Napoleon’s troops left and dropped the story into 1815.

As my heroine reads the letter about her strange inheritance, Napoleon is escaping Elba. When she sets out for rural Staffordshire in March, she’s unaware that Louis XVIII has fled Paris. I knew it, but it didn’t matter to the story.

Just as we worry about putting gas in our cars, food in our pantries, and buying school clothes while we’re possibly on the brink of World War III, my heroine was worrying about her nephew, not Napoleon. We can’t do anything about it, so we stick to what we can control.

Ask A Wench —about storytelling

Anne here, and today the wenches are responding to the question: Where did your love of books/storytelling/reading/writing/etc. come from?

Pat said:  In my case, I must accept that I was simply born with a love of books and writing. I can’t even say it’s in the genes because from what little I know of my family, my Great-Aunt Norma was the only one who wrote. She was a librarian and vanity-published a book of poems. She might possibly be the reason I love books, although that’s hard to say. For birthdays and holidays, she would sometimes send books the library didn’t want, even though they were inevitably much too old for a toddler who couldn’t read. So I’d pore over the wonderful pictures of lands far away and attempt to puzzle out what the words might say. To this day, I remember being appalled at a news announcer talking about an i-land when it was so obvious that he was talking about land surrounded by a body of water which. . . is land.

I can also remember a really old book of children’s poetry that I marked up with crayons as I sounded out the words. I don’t know how old I was at that point, but I apparently knew my letters and sounds but didn’t know better than to draw on books.

I have no memory of anyone ever reading to me, although I do remember the stories in the Little Golden Books (remember Pokey Little Puppy and the Little Engine That Could?   and kicking up a fuss until a book got tossed into the cart. Someone must have read the books to me at some point so I could follow the story later, when I tried to read it on my own.

All I really know was that I devoured every book in the house, reading and re-reading since my selection was limited. We had no library. By the time I was in fourth grade, I was buying classical English literature from the Scholastic bookfair with my tiny allowance. And since I never had enough to read, I wrote my own, filling notebooks full of stories.

When the power goes

Anne here pondering about weather and power and light...

Recently it seems like people all over the world are having extreme weather, often accompanied by power blackouts. Whether it's blizzards and ice-storms, record heat waves, lightning strikes, wildfires, hurricanes, cyclones or floods, generally they have one think in common — no power.  (Image by eyasu-etsub on Unplash.)

We're so dependent on electricity that we take it completely for granted — until it goes.

And then, suddenly, you realize how very dependent we've become on it for all sorts of things and I don't just mean for serious things, though one friend of mine was without power in below freezing conditions, another lost several weeks worth of food that thawed and spoiled, and another was flooded and couldn't phone for help as her cordless phone battery had gone flat and there was no way to recharge it. The power failures caused really serious problems for many, many people.

But not for me. I’m luck and I haven’t been in any danger or even seriously inconvenienced. The worst I had was to be hot. Several years ago, it was our third day of 45º heat (that's 113º F) and the house, the dog and I were hot. In the city people were stuck in lifts for hours in the heat, and stuck in packed trains, unable to get the electricity operated doors open. For them it was truly dreadful. 

But not for me. My only problem—and it wasn't really a problem—was that I was bored. It was too hot to do housework or anything physically active. I couldn't listen to music, work on the computer, do the washing, or do anything useful (I told myself.) So I did what comes naturally — I started reading a book.

Heyer and a Quiz

Anne here, announcing that Jennifer Kloester's new book,The Novels of Georgette Heyer is out as an e-book.
I'm not sure whether or when it will be published as a paper book, but when I know, you'll know.

In the meantime, I'm entertaining you (I hope) with a quiz about some of Georgette Heyer's books. The usual rules apply — note down your answers with a pen and paper and at the end, there's a link to the answers.

1) Who called his uncle a "platter-faced old fidget”?

a) Sir Tristram Shield

b) Viscount Sheringham

c) Ferdy Fakenham

d) Pelham Winwood

 

2) Who removed the gold tassels from some very elegant boots?

a) Ulysses the dog

b) Oswald Denny

c) Edmund Rayne

d) Phillip Jettan

3) Who was predicted to be eaten by frogs and his offspring “delivered to the caterpillar?”

a) Lord Damerel

b) The Earl of Rule

c) The Marquis of 

d) Dominic, Marquis of Vidal

The RWAustralia Conference

Anne here, and last week I went to the first in-person conference I’ve been to since Covid hit in 2020 — the Romance Writers of Australia conference, which this year was held in Sydney. I even had a sliver of a view of the Sydney Harbour bridge from my hotel room.

It felt quite odd, meeting and mingling with so many people after such a long time in relative isolation, but it was also very stimulating. I caught up with so many friends I hadn’t seen in several years, and met some new ones, which was lovely.

I arrived in Sydney a few days before the conference opened, and over dinner, caught up with a writing friend on the first night. She wasn’t going to the conference — she was jetting off to New Zealand the next day so I felt very lucky to catch up with her.

On the Thursday evening I attended the Harlequin cocktail party, which was packed. When I first started going to these events there were perhaps twenty Harlequin authors. Not any more. It was a bit too packed for me, and the venue played music, which meant we were all shouting at each other trying to hear. Honestly, when a bunch of romance writers get together there is quite enough noise without putting music on!

Then on Friday, my friend, historical author Isolde Martyn took me to lunch at The Little Snail, where I had a delicious 3 course lunch. We had the choice of five entrées, eight mains and four desserts. (Here an entrée is the starter course. I was quite confused when I first ate out in the USA and found that entrée was what people called the main course.)

So given the name of the place, and the fact that there was only one snail dish on the menu, I decided to be brave — I eat all kinds of shellfish, after all, so why not snails? — and ordered snails for my entrée. They came in the shell, had been simmered in bouillion and were served in a delicious herby, buttery garlicky sauce. I have to say, they were tender and delicious and, having got over the squick factor,  I would happily order them again.

Puppets

Anne here.

Today’s topic was inspired by my friend Jenny who is a photographer. She recently donated a collection of her photos to the Victorian Arts Archive. (The photo on the right is not Jenny's — it's by Robert Zunikoff from Unsplash)  Jenny's collection covered twelve years of performances of a children's theatre called “Polyglot Puppet Theatre", which was established to produce plays for children. Designed to have multilingual and experiential approaches to engage children in creative play, it still tours schools today. 

The company also created some enormous puppets for international plays such as  "King Kong”, "Walking with Dinosaurs” and “Narnia”.  As it happens, well-used puppets don’t last all that long, but her photos, having captured them at their newest and best, were welcomed. However when I asked Jenny whether I could use her photos in this blog, she told me she’d also given the copyright away, and so I couldn’t use them. But the inspiration to talk about puppets remained. 

Some people find some sorts of puppets creepy. I think the image above right is an example — maybe it's the hinged jaw. Or is it the expression in those eyes? I don't know.

What We're Reading

by Mary Jo

Our Word Wench WWR posts are always popular, and our July reads start with Nicola Cornick:

Nicola here. My favourite read this month was Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson, which is set in London in the 1920s in the glittering and criminal world of the Soho clubs. I picked it up because the story, about the Croker family and their entertainment empire was inspired by that of the infamous nightclub owner Kate Meyrick, several of whose daughters married into the aristocracy, including the Craven family. The book perfectly captures the complicated and glamorous world of 1920s society. The character of Nellie Coker, the matriarch, is compelling, as is the plot in which the police on one side and Nellie’s enemies in the criminal fraternity on the other, are all aiming to bring her down. Her eldest son, Niven, is a great romantic hero. My major grumble was that the romance strand was left hanging, which was very frustrating for those of us who like happy endings! I’ve enjoyed some Kate Atkinson books more than others but this was one of my favourites.

US link here: UK line here.

I also picked up The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware and thoroughly enjoyed that too. Harriet Westaway, struggling to make ends meet and even to survive in Brighton after her mother’s death, receives a letter that seems to answer all her prayers. The Cornish grandmother she never knew has left her a fortune. But Harriet’s grandparents died 20 years before… didn’t they? Desperate for the money, she decides to chance it and see if she can get away with the fraud, which brings her into the Westaway family circle and a whole host of secrets waiting to be revealed. This is a gothic thriller with all the trappings – a creepy old house, an equally creepy old family retainer and various weird relatives hiding all sorts of secrets. I found it a page-turner and went on to read another of Ruth Ware’s books, The It Girl, straight after.

US link.  UK link

 

 

Down the Rabbit-hole

Anne here. I sent the wenches down a rabbit-hole last week. It was for something quite small, really, but I thought it might give you an idea of the kind of rabbit-holes we wenches regularly dive down in the quest for historical accuracy.

I was writing a scene where the heroine, who’s hot and tired is alone and on foot in the countryside. She is cooling her aching feet in a little stream, when she meets a handsome itinerant, who comes to fill a bucket and a small pot in the stream.

The water in the bucket is for his horse, and he mentions that the small pot is for making a cup of tea. She’s just thinking that she’d kill for a cup of tea, when he offers her one.

That’s it. Barely worth a mention, you think. Only at first I called the small pot a billy-can, or a billy, which is what we use in Australia. Throughout my childhood, every barbecue we had in the bush, Dad would “boil the billy” which means he’d make tea for him and Mum and any other adults. Not coffee, and tea wasn’t for the kids — we drank pure, clear creek water. Pretty much any Australian would know what “boil the billy” meant. It  looked like this (though many billies have a lid and some are even fancy and enamelled.)

There are even old-fashioned tins of tea called Billy Tea. They're now collectors' items. And in the song Waltzing Matilda the swagman was waiting 'till his billy boiled. You rarely see swagmen these days — they were lone itinerants and they carried their "swag" — their possessions— on their back, but the billy always hung free, ready to make a cuppa. 

So I happiy continued with the scene. . . and then started to have second thoughts. Would it be called a billy at that time in that place?  Such things we historical writers have to consider. Hmm... So I looked up the OED (Oxford Englsih Dictionary) which tells when and where a word first appears in print. And sure enough, “billy” in the sense I was using it was an Australian/NZ term first seen in print in 1849. Curses!

So, what to call it? I asked the brains trust — ie the wenches. And they jumped right in. Here are just some of their responses — I'm sparing you the whole discussion.

Newsletter Winner

Anne here.

As you may know, every month one of the Wenches gives away a book to someone who subscribes to our monthly newsletter.

This month the giveaway book is The Laird's Bride. It's a Scottish novella, set in the early Regency era, with a convenient marriage. (You can click on the cover image to see some of the reviews.)

A hot-headed vow to marry the first woman he sees, a meeting in a muddy bog, a hasty marriage between strangers, and a bride who demands to be courted — after the wedding.

And the winner is Julie H. 

She has been notified by email.

If you haven't yet subscribed to our monthly newsletter, please do, and if you have friends who might be interested in receiving it, why not suggest it to them?

Thanks to all of you who do subscribe.

anne

x

Ask A Wench - Who's Grumpy?

“Why, Grumpy… You do care.” Snow White discovers Grumpy’s compassionate side.

Nicola here, introducing this month’s Ask A Wench and a topic that has caused much discussion among the Wenches lately. (Photograph: Wikimedia Commons: Alex Patel).

“Adjectives to describe heroes have changed over the years.  "Grumpy" seems to be popular these days.  What does this mean to you? Are there other such adjectives you've liked or hated for heroes?”

Christina here and I don’t actually mind grumpy heroes, if they have a reason for being that way. Recently, I’ve read quite a few contemporary stories and the grumpy heroes usually tend to be billionaires, which seems a bit odd. I mean, if you have enough money to buy anything you could possibly want, what’s there to be grumpy about? Mostly they’re tired of being pursued for their money, rather than their personality, which is fair enough. But if they’re just grouchy in general, they need a good kick up the backside so hopefully the story has a heroine who can administer that. Or they have been working too hard and the heroine injects some much-needed fun into their lives. If anyone has to be grumpy, I’d prefer it to be Grumpy Cat! (Photograph: Wikimedia Commons: Gage Skidmore).

I’ve seen “loner” and “damaged” a lot to describe either a historical hero who’s scarred from a recent war, for example, or a present-day hero who might be some sort of modern war veteran. This, to me, implies psychological scars, which can be difficult to sort out, but a kind and caring heroine is all they need.

“Brooding” is another adjective used to describe heroes, and this one I don’t like. It just conjures up images of a scowling man who is taciturn and stand-offish. Those are not attractive traits. Reminds me of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, a hero I could never take to or understand.

If an author wants to hook me with their blurb, all they need to do is tell me their hero is a “bad boy” and I’m there. (OK, that's two words, but still ...) Now that is something that will draw me in every time!

Mary Jo:

Writing book blurbs is challenging because one wants to capture the essence of the plot, the characters, and the feel of the story.  Words must be chosen very carefully.  Characters can be brave, kind, resourceful, tormented, reserved, warm-hearted, witty, charming, fierce, stubborn, and many other possible describers.

But I have to say that describing a hero as "grumpy" is at the absolute bottom of my list of adjectives.  To me "grumpy" is someone who is bad-tempered for no good reason.  Probably immature, irredeemable, and certainly not good company. 

 To me, this picture of a warthog pretty much defines, "Grumpy."  Not at all romantic except perhaps to another warthog!

(Picture: Wolfgang-Hasselmann, unsplash.com) 

Anne: I don't mind the term 'grumpy' for heroes. To me it's shorthand for a hero who's 'hard to crack' and that signals a fun journey to romance. I generally assume a grumpy hero has been pursued for his money or position or used in some way, and as a result has become cynical and maybe even a little embittered about women. Whatever the reason, he doesn't believe in love. And isn't that a challenge we all enjoy?

But 'cynical' or 'embittered' or 'damaged' are not attractive-sounding adjectives to put in a book blurb, whereas grumpy sounds temporary enough that the hero can change, which is what we want. Perhaps he was even a romantic in his youth, but something happened to change him into the man he is now. So as a reader, I want the heroine to chip away at his hard, protective shell, and make him believe in love again. 

It's a description often used in contemporary romances, but there are plenty of historical romance heroes of the 'grumpy' sort. Quite a few of Amanda Quick's heroes could fit in this category — Seduction, Scandal, to name a couple. And maybe Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels. Possibly Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. Julie Garwood's Saving Grace?  Mary Balogh has a few. Even my hero in Gallant Waif was listed as a "hot grumpy hero" in this list on Goodreads. 

So, I take the 'grumpy' description with a pinch of salt and expect a 'hard to crack' hero and a fun romance. It doesn't always happen, but I'm certainly not turned off by the term.

(Picture: Charlesdeluvio, unsplash.com) 

Andrea: We Wenches had an hilarious ”pre-game” discussion on this question as we composed our answers, so I hope you are all having as much fun with this as we did! 

“Grumpy” is not a word that would leap to my mind when thinking of adjectives for a hero. However, I don’t see it as an irredeemable flaw. I'm thinking of Roy Kent in Ted Lasso, who came across as a total grump, snapping and snarling at everyone. But viewers were given backstory hints that his demeanor was a protection for his inner vulnerabilities. And I found it delightful to watch several of the people around him—including his 8-year-old niece—slowly wear down his defenses. That he ultimately learned to laugh at himself and not to be afraid of expressing his feelings made for a very feel-good story of friendship and love.

Yes, there are some people who can’t be redeemed.  Self-absorbed, selfish men who have no empathy or sense of humor will never be heroes in my book. But men who have been hurt before, or are struggling with inner self-doubts make wonderfully complex characters and it’s fun to create a heroine who can stare dwon thie scowls and draw them out of their shell.

(Photo credit: Gerda DaRif)

Pat: I can’t top a grumpy warthog or cranky cat, so I went to the source—Merriam Webster, which says “grumpy” means “moodily cross: surly.” Synonyms are a bit harsher: choleric, cross, peevish, grouchy, cranky. . .” 

Right now, I’m reading a book where the heroine is “snarky,” which to me, is far worse than “grumpy.” One can be grumpy when getting up in the morning before coffee. Snarky takes work. But in this book, the heroine has very good reason to be “peevish and grouchy.” It’s a wonder she’s still alive and hasn’t killed anyone yet.

I will totally accept grumpy heroes or heroines—if they have good reason to be so. If they’re just perpetually irritable, I’ll probably quit the book. (actually, if they’re billionaires, I’ll probably quit the book because who cares about their problems? I never liked Prince Charming either) I want likable characters, even if they’re likable despite themselves.

So the hero who has been badly burned by those he loved or trusted has every right to snarl at a heroine who chirps about true love making the world go ‘round. If she keeps on chirping despite his attempts to put her off, he can even bark loudly. I’d sure the heck do so. Okay, maybe I like grumpy because I am grumpy!

(Image by TitusStaunton from Pixabay)

Susan: The word grumpy can be misleading and subjective. Grumpy can have different meanings for everyone (it kind of reminds me of Grumpy in Snow White, who turned out to have a heart of gold, aww!). This discussion of grumpy heroes touches on the basic question of what qualities make a story hero a heroic and appealing character. Is a "grumpy" hero a man who is reserved, cautious, protective--yet basically emotionally mature and emotionally attractive - or is he a guy who might be selfish, spoiled, petty, and irredeemable? Is the grumpy sort worth the heroine's time and energy (and worth the reader's time and energy as well)? This "grumpy" descriptor works two ways - he's either a negative or a positive character and influence in the story. This grouch is either heroic at his core, or he is further down the scale toward non-hero. 

A gruff hero has substance and heart, and can lead to transformation and great reward for hero and heroine in the story. But a grumpy guy who is just difficult and not all that fixable -- maybe he's better off as a villain.   

Years back, Mary Jo Putney and author Eileen Charbonneau and I did a few workshops on a hero type we called the Warrior Poet -- the WP. We also called him the M&M hero, the tough guy with the outer shell that's hard to crack, yet he's yummy and loving inside (we handed out M&Ms to our workshop attendees!). Today we might call this guy a little bit grumpy or gruff. Beneath that hardened outer emotional shell, the restrained emotion and invulnerable facade, the WP/M&M guy can be soft-hearted with a deep capacity to love. That has tremendous potential in a romance hero. And it’s up to the heroine (and the writer) to bring out the best in him and help him get past what makes him so cautious and protective to help him discover his innate capacity to love. The story variations on this theme are endless.

This is my favorite hero to write, and I've played with variations on the Warrior Poet/M&M/Oscar the Grouch type many times. Open up almost any of my books and you'll find a guy who's a bit grouchy, standoffish, wry -- but he deeply loves his family, his principles, he has tremendous integrity that he doesn't put on display. He's got a lot of secrets, with reason. But he's there in a flash for the heroine, and through her, he learns to crack that shell, open that door, and grow as a warrior, a poet, and a guy who loves M&Ms.  (Photo by @wings_in_light found here)  

Nicola: So there you have it - our thought on "grumpy" and other sorts of heroes and heroines. For me, like Susan, the first thing I think of when I hear the word "grumpy" is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I didn't like the original Grumpy, heart of gold or not! Gruff seems a much more acceptable term to me for that tough, taciturn exterior that hides a heroic heart. But it's all in the interpretation and that is always subjective.

What are your thoughts on "grumpy" and the other words that are used to describe heroes? 

Epilogues

Anne here. 
Recently several readers commented to me that they wished I had written an epilogue for my Scottish novella, The Laird’s Bride, and one asked me why I hadn’t, because I normally do. And you know what? I had no answer for her.

I think it was partly because I had expanded a short-ish story into a longer novella, and I don’t think I’ve ever written an epilogue for a novella. It certainly wasn’t because I don’t like epilogues — because I generally do. I suspect it simply never occurred to me—I wrote that story years ago. But now it has been suggested I keep wondering what kind of an epilogue would suit that book. I’m not going to write one, by the way, so don’t expect it. Once a book is published that’s it for me — it’s finished.

But I can see what those people were getting at. I reread a couple of Georgette Heyer novels recently, and oh, there are a few where she ends them so suddenly it’s almost like a bucket of cold water, shocking me out of her story world and leaving me wanting more. I know what’s going to happen, that the central couple are going to be happy etc, but I want to see it and feel it and enjoy it.

A lot of people — writers as well as readers — really don’t like epilogues in a romance novel. Some people (shock horror) don't even read them!  Me, I love ‘em. If I’ve loved the book, I want to spend just a little more time in that world with the characters. I love seeing the happy couple some time after the ‘I love you’ declaration. I want to be convinced that it will be happy ever after for them, that their love will last. And grow. A good epilogue is the icing on the cake.

Winner

Anne here, popping in with a quick post to say that the winner of my Scottish novella, THE LAIRD'S BRIDE,  is Teresa B.

She'll be notified directly.

Thanks to all of you who read the blog and left comments.

And thanks also to those of you who've bought and read the novella and left reviews and/or ratings. Much appreciated.

 

A Scottish Story

Anne here. As some of you already know, I’ve just put a Scottish novella up for sale on the various websites — The Laird’s Bride, in e-book and paperback.

It’s the only Scottish story I’ve written. I was contracted for a short story of 12,000 words back in 2010, for the Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance (now out of print), and I wrote it hoping that those who bought it for the sake of the more well-known authors in the anthology might read my story and would like it enough to read my other books.

And though a lot of readers said they enjoyed it, they also said it was too short — and they were right. But the story stayed with me, so a couple of years later I extended it, showing the courtship of the couple and how they fell in love. It’s almost three times as long now — and it's not padding, I promise. I designed a cover and wench Andrea did the lettering for me — she’s very good with fonts — and I was about to upload it on amazon when I got a new contract that restricted my self-publishing. So it sat, unread and un-uploaded for almost ten years. 

However when Berkley scheduled my next Bellaire Gardens book (which was finished in March) for publication in May 2024, the opportunity came to publish this story, otherwise I would have had no books out this year, which is not good for an author, especially now that self-publishing writers can finish a book and have it up for sale within a few weeks, and thus get a number of books out in a single year. So the Laird’s time had come. I had a new cover designed and lo, here it is.

You might wonder about an Australian writer setting a book in Scotland, but I lived in Scotland for a year or so as a child, and went to school there. When I pulled out this story and reread and reedited it, the cadences and rhythms of my childhood came back to me.

Ask A Wench

Pat here, with this month’s question from Karen:

I very much enjoy the monthly What We're Reading columns, and I began wondering about books that you, the Wenches, do not mention. I'd be happy to hear the answers to any or all of these questions: Do you abandon books with abandon or do you finish every book you begin? Do you read a significant number of books that you don't mention for any reason? Are you a slow or quick reader?

Nicola:

Do you abandon books with abandon or do you finish every book you begin?

 I’m quite a hasty reader in the sense that if a book doesn’t grab me reasonably quickly I will probably abandon it. I’m certainly not the sort of reader to battle on regardless on the “I’ve started so I’ll finish” premise.  I think I may miss out on some good books this way by not giving them the time to get going, so sometimes I will come back to them for a second attempt. Once I’m into a book it’s very unusual for me to give up on it but if something happens in the story that makes it a wall- banger then it’s all over! I recently read a top 10 bestseller that I was really enjoying until very near the end and then (to my mind) it took a completely wrong turning and I wanted to give it up. However I also wanted to know what happened at the end so that was a real dilemma for me!

Trouble With Heroes

I'm wrestling with a hero at the moment. "Half your luck," you say, and yes, he is tall, dark and gorgeous, but he's also fictional. But for a man who currently lives only in my imagination it's somewhat of an irony that he just will not behave. Characters — mainly heroes — nearly always give me a hard time.

Who is he? What's his problem?  

I can draw up a character outline — he's this kind of person, he's that, he has this backstory, he wants this but really he needs that, and his main problem is this, which is really causing him that. And it will all look fabulous —  in note form. And then I start writing and he shows up on the page and he's nothing like the man I planned, around whom the whole plot was supposed to revolve. So then I have to write on and find out who this irritating fellow is, and what his problem is! And he will only reveal things in his own good time. Which is one of the reasons pre-plotting rarely works for me.

But frustrating and inefficient as this might seem, I would rather wrestle with a difficult, slippery, recalcitrant hero than have an obedient chap who does exactly what I want him to. Why? Because the difficult ones are already three-dimensional, even if I can't see all those dimensions yet, and at some stage in the story they'll do something unexpected that will completely surprise me. And if a character surprises me, they'll certainly surprise the reader, and that's a good thing. 

An example of this was my hero for my first Berkley book (The Perfect Rake.) I'd planned the hero to be one of those classic alpha types, a dark and dangerous brooding rake. Instead onto the page strolled Gideon; flippant and funny, charming and completely out of my control. I wrestled with him for ages, trying to turn him back into the dark, angsty brooder. He utterly refused, so in the end I gave up and let him be who he was. He's still one of my most popular heroes. (And Berkley have just given him a new cover.)

What We're Reading in May 2023

Anne here, and before we jump into talking about the books we've read in the last month, some of you have noticed that the comments on some posts seem to have disappeared. We don't know why, we have reported it to #Typepad (the blog host) but be assured your comments ARE making it through to the site, and we hope they'll be restored soon. So feel free to comment — we'll still respond.

Now, on to the books we've been reading.
We start with Pat who is recommending T. L. Huchu, THE LIBRARY OF THE DEAD

This is a dystopian young adult set in an Edinburgh after some disaster that’s laid waste to. . .well, whatever the author needs out of his way. Apparently some people still have modern housing and normal lives, but the protagonist is a fourteen-year-old girl who can enter the spirit world and lives in a camper with her grandmother and little sister after her middle class  life was destroyed by something or other. Despite my quibbles, this is a brilliantly written book. The protagonist is bold, probably a genius, and intent on taking care of her small family. When forced by guilt to forget making money to help someone for free, she’s dragged into a nightmare that she almost doesn’t escape. But in the process, she learns about an underground magical library, meets a snarly magician who helps her out, and finds a wheelchair-bound best friend. I loved the spirit parts and skimmed the violent ones, but I’ll be ordering the next book as soon as the ebook becomes a reasonable price.

Next is THE HEART PRINCIPLE, by Helen Hoang

In ways, this book is almost painful to read. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a brilliant book, the characterization and conflict are spot on. I just finished, and I’m thinking of reading it again. But it’s intense. I could feel the tension from the very first page, recognized the character’s autism before she does, and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying it’s obvious the author knows what she’s writing about.

The themes are universal—know and accept yourself, caregiving is tough on everyone, and forgiveness is love. The story is beautifully romantic. The sex is graphic. The dry humor is very low level compared to earlier books THE KISS QUOTIENT and THE BRIDE TEST. But it’s well worth reading. Highly recommended.

Mary Jo here, and I have two bride stories here for June!

First is The Bride Wore White by Amanda Quick, which is the historical pseudonym of Jayne Ann Krentz. 

As the blurb says:   "Being Madame Ariadne, Psychic Dream Consultant, wasn’t Prudence Ryland’s ideal gig, but it paid well which was reason enough to do the work—until she realizes that her latest client intends to kill her. But Prudence, a master at reinvention, finds a new job and home as far away as possible and is finally able to relax—which turns out to be a big mistake. Letting her guard down means being kidnapped and drugged and waking up in a bloodstained wedding dress in the honeymoon suite next to a dead man. With the press outside the hotel, waiting with their cameras and police sirens in the distance, it’s obvious she’s being framed for the man’s murder. Prudence knows who is responsible, but will anyone believe her?"

In Praise of Librarians

Anne here, and today I'm talking about my love of libraries and librarians. So many old-fashioned movies and novels used to portray librarians as wispy, dowdy repressed creatures. That or grumpy people who go about shushing people endlessly. Such silly clichés. I always preferred the ones where the librarian revealed themselves to have brains and pizzaz and spines of steel. To me librarians have always been slightly magical.

Books and reading open our minds to a variety of new worlds, whether fiction, fantasy or fact. I often say that libraries kept me 'fed' when I was a child. My parents owned plenty of books, but because we moved so often, they often remained in boxes and were inaccessible to me. Though I was an outdoors active kid during the day, in the evenings I was a total book worm. I pretty much read everything I could get my hands on, and a huge part of that process was thanks to the librarians who worked in the various libraries in the many towns I lived in through my childhood.

Usually, when we moved to a new town — mostly smallish country towns — the first thing I did was walk or ride my bike all around town to learn what was there, and high on my list was the local public library. And in each of those the attitude of the librarians was what made the difference in whether it was a friendly space or not. I'm glad to say most of them were very friendly spaces.

I owe so much to librarians. Once they realized what a voracious reader I was, they often introduced me to new authors and a wider range of books. "Have you tried this?" was often the start of what I would now call a "glom" of this author or that.

AAW: Favorite Furnishings!

by Mary Jo

This Ask A Wench blog was inspired when we started talking about furniture in our private Word Wenches email loop, and we found out that we all had stories about favorite things!

Here is the question I asked: "Do you have a particular piece of furniture that you cherish? Tell us its story!"

And here are the replies:

From Pat Rice:

I HAD wonderful pieces that I cherished—the Victorian sofa my stepfather reupholstered in lovely wine and cream to match my Tudor-style dark oak living room; the dark oak dining table that was our very first piece of “bought” furniture, the one with scars in it from little hands pressing too hard with writing instruments while doing homework; the beautiful Bentwood rocker from my mother that I rocked my babies in… and the magnificent handmade mahogany Queen Anne bedroom suite I bought with my first big royalty check. ( the pic shows the table and the antique sideboard I picked up at a yard sale!)

They’re all gone now, left behind when we moved across the country to a modern cottage on the Pacific coast. These days, we live with thrift store bargains—because new, they probably cost more than all the above furniture did when we bought them. I no longer feel guilt at dumping a designer leather couch when we move to a house where it doesn’t fit. I can buy an even better one in a design that matches. Throw away furniture—it’s a Thing.

Nicola contributes a "Slightly macabre piece!"

 When I was a child my grandparents, who lived with us, bought an 18th century grandfather clock that stood in the hall, its loud tick filling the air and somehow giving a sense of reassurance and permanence. I loved that clock! I loved its painted face and the fact that it was much taller than I was, and that it had been made in the North of England and was so old.

Fast forward fifty years, and when we were clearing my parents’ house I really wanted to take that clock home to live with me. But there was a problem. It was too tall. Or our ceilings were too low. Whichever way you looked at it, it didn’t fit. We thought about taking several inches off the bottom of it, which wasn’t really feasible. We even thought about lowering a small part of the floor but that was even less practical. In the end I had to accept that it just wasn’t going to happen. My step-brother has it now and as he loves it too, that’s good enough for me.

 

Georgette Heyer and These Old Shades

Anne here, and today I'm bringing you another Georgette Heyer blog featuring some snippets from The Novels of Georgette Heyer, an upcoming book by Jennifer Kloester, Heyer's biographer. They are, of course, published with Jen's permission. (We'll let you know when the book goes on sale.)

Today we are dipping into These Old Shades, which was my first ever Georgette Heyer. You've probably heard me tell this story, so forgive me if you have and skip this paragraph. I was 11 and my friend Merryn and I, both prolific readers, were fed up with having to stick to the books in the children's library. But the rules said you had to be over 12, so . . . 

It was a dare. Merryn dared me to borrow a book from the adult section. I said, "All right, I will! Which book should I get?" She said her mother liked Georgette Heyer, so I grabbed the first one I saw, which happened to be These Old Shades. It was a weird title and I had no idea what it would be like, but I didn't care. And to our amazement, the librarian didn't bat an eye!

So These Old Shades became my first Heyer, and I not only devoured it, it will always hold a special place in my heart. (Coincidentally it was Jen Kloester's first as well.) Since then, on many different Heyer sites, people often ask, "What was your first Heyer?" I think we remember our first because it ushered us into a whole new reading world, a world to which many of us became, and remain, addicted. 

So, on to Heyer and These Old Shades. Georgette was very close to her beloved father, who was friend and mentor as well as father. On 15 June 1925 George Heyer had a heart attack and died in front of his 22-year-old daughter. 

After that Georgette struggled to write for months. But she had a contract to fulfil, and eventually, she returned to a story she'd begun three years earlier as a kind of sequel to her first book, The Black Moth.

At the time (1923, long before her father's death and in a burst of enthusiasm for the book) she wrote this to her agent:

The sequel is naturally a much better book than the Moth itself, and is designed to catch the public’s taste. I have also tried to arrange it so that anyone who reads it need not first read the Moth. It deals with my priceless villain, and ends awfully happily. Tracy becomes quite a decent person, and marries a girl about half his age! I’ve packed it full of incident and adventure, and have made my heroine masquerade as a boy for the first few chapters. This, I find, always attracts people! 
Georgette Heyer to L.P. Moore, letter, 23 January 1923. 

Interesting, isn't it, how clear-headed she was — and at such a young age — about what readers would respond to. And how determined she was to "catch the public's taste."

Culling Books

Anne here. My book cull is continuing at a very s l o w  pace. It's nearly a year since I moved, and the new bookshelves were finished by Christmas — I know, disgraceful that I'm still not finished. But I have plenty of space and the boxes of books that are piled up are in a spare room that I don't particularly need. I mostly read on an e-reader now so there's no urgency to get at the books. As well, I've been busy writing. And partly it's because I injured my shoulder and find it difficult to lift anything. I'm undergoing physical therapy for that, so things should improve.

It's not as if I have no room for books. I have a new built-in bookshelf that covers the entire wall of my office. (see pic)  The little sticky notes you can see are to roughly sort them into alphabetical order.

I also have a 5 x 3 ft bookshelf in the guest room that I've filled with a selection of books that a guest might like to browse through. I have a 6 x 3ft bookshelf that contains my history references and my writing books — they were the first books I unpacked. I have several low and wide bookshelves for my larger coffee-table sized books and sundry other items (Scabble, anyone?), and a tall empty bookshelf  sitting in the hall that I might paint and keep. Even so, I have too many books.

A while back, when we were answering an AAW on rereading books, Wench Nicola asked "I wonder when I look at my bookshelves: Why do I keep books I have no intention of re-reading…?" And that got me thinking. Because I have this battle with myself every single time I unpack a box of books and look at the contents and try to decide whether to keep each book or cull it. It's ridiculously difficult.

There are books I haven't touched in years, and can't imagine ever rereading. They're good books, worthy books. I'm sure if I pass them on to charity shop or a second-hand bookshop — or even to the little street library down the street in a neighbor's front yard — there will be people who will want them. And yet I hesitate. Why?

Books are part of my history

Falling in Love Again. . .

Anne here, and no I'm not talking about a new relationship. Nor am I talking about Marlene Dietrich, though since I wrote that heading, I've had that song playing over and over in my brain.

No, this post is about falling in love again with favorite old books.  Every now and then I take a day or two off writing, pull up the drawbridge and curl up with some favorite old romances. 

Remember them? The books that first made you fall in love with this genre, the authors who made you sigh dreamily at the end, whose stories and characters stayed with you long after you'd finished reading.

How long is it since you reread some of your old favorites? 

Some of mine haven't lived up to my re-reading of them. I find myself reading them more as a writer than a reader, and being more critical of them than I expected to be. But some of them. . . oh, some of them sweep me away just as thoroughly as they first did back when I first discovered the romance genre.

Why reread old favourites, you might ask. Some of these books are ten, twenty, even thirty years old. Hasn't the market has changed so much since they were first published? Aren't they out of date? Old fashioned?

Ask-A-Wench about. . . audio books

Anne here, with this month's ask-a-wench question, a thought-provoking question from Janice (and for which she'll receive a free book).  Thanks, Janice.

With the popularity of audiobooks and the increasing ease of obtaining them, I am seeing more comments and reviews from readers talking about books they listened to rather than read in print. Has this affected your writing process at all?   I know when I have to compose something I hear the words in my head and then I put them on the paper. I know some people put the words on the paper and then read them aloud or in their heads. The sound and the rhythm are very important - but I don't have to think about how they will sound if someone else says them. Is this a consideration for you?

Christina said:  I don’t listen to audiobooks myself – I’m a very visual person and don’t like having things read out to me as I need to see the words. I don’t usually read my work out loud to myself either, except occasionally a bit of dialogue. Therefore, I never used to take them into consideration at all when writing my own stories. They were just something my publisher had done, and I never even listened to the author copies they sent me when audiobooks used to be on CDs. I received two and kept one for my shelf, while sending the other to a second cousin of mine who was blind. A couple of times, I had to provide a pronunciation list for the narrator as some of my books contained Japanese words, but I had no direct contact with anyone and never checked whether they got it right.

Then I changed publisher, and to my surprise they asked for my opinion on the person who was to record my first book for them. I listened to a few different narrators and agreed one of them was the best. As far as I was concerned, my input was over, but that turned out not to be the case. Again, I was asked about pronunciations, since I had included a whole bunch of words and phrases in Old Norse. When adding those, it never occurred to me that some poor soul would have to read them out loud. In my head, I’d pronounced them the way I thought might be right, using Swedish as my guide. However, for the purposes of the audiobook, guessing wasn’t good enough. So I had to consult with the kind lady who had helped me find the right words in the first place – she has a PhD in Old Norse and speaks Icelandic too. Then I had to learn to pronounce the words myself, before teaching the narrator how to do it. We had a session via Skype, which was great fun, both of us tripping over the unfamiliar sounds and laughing. There’s a lot of guttural stuff in Old Norse, and sometimes you sound like you’re just clearing your throat <g>. For every book since, I’ve had those sessions with the narrator and we are both getting used to Norse words and phrases. I’m even tempted to use them in real life sometimes! Doesn’t þegi þú! (pronounced THEY-ghi THOO – the TH as in the word ‘three’ and then a throaty ‘g’ as in the Scottish word “loch”) ) sound much better than ‘shut up!’ for example? So yes, these days I do think a little bit about what I’m adding to my stories, but if the words need to be in there, my reader and I will simply have to learn how to pronounce them.

Travel Scarves

Travel Scarves

By Mary Jo

I'm not sure when I first fell in love with scarves and shawls, but I suspect it was related to long hours at a computer and not liking to have a cold neck.  Besides being warming, scarves add color and a bit of dash to someone like me who is a pretty casual dresser. 

I have a lot of scarves of different weights, sizes, and textures. On a cold day, I want something cozy and may even layer a couple of different scarves. In warmer weather, I wear something lighter.  And when I'm traveling, I regularly succumb to the lure of buying new scarves which are not only lovely and enticing, but have the advantage of being easy to pack.  Plus, when traveling you can add a bright scarf to basic black and have a new look every day. 

So here are some favorites I've acquired when traveling, and naturally, they all have stories.  The model is Snow Bear, who is the biggest fashionista among our stuffed companions, and she loves the chance to dress up!

1) Chinese silk from Melbourne. 

When I was speaking at a Romance Writers of Australia conference in Melbourne, which is Anne Gracie's home turf, she took me to a nearby neighborhood called The Lanes, which is also the setting for Kerry Greenwood's delicious Corinna Chapman books. It's full of lovely shops and shopping arcades, and in 'the silk shop,' I found this gorgeous shawl length scarf.  It's shimmery and purple and orange, and the biggest problem was choosing the scarf I liked best!

 

What We're Reading!

Here's a round up of what the wenches have been reading this month. In the comments, let us know what you've enjoyed. It's a great library builder!

Nicola:

The Girl and the Sword by Gerald Weaver (UK link) is a historical epic in the true sense of the word. It covers decades and looks a great span of ideas and history. It’s set in the 13^th century and tells the story of Pauline de Pamiers who is a young girl from the oppressed Christian sect, the Cathars, and how she refuses to accept subjugation but forms an alliance with one of the most famous crusaders of all, Simon de Montfort. There are big themes in this book – the role of women in medieval society, the establishment of parliamentary democracy, the dominance of religion.

Whilst the character of Pauline is fictitious, Simon de Montfort was, of course, very real and in his author’s note, Gerald Weaver talks about taking an “American” view of a man who has primarily been written about by English historians. It’s fascinating to see the different perspective that he brings to the character and actions of de Montfort, seeing someone who has often been dismissed as an ambitious opportunist as, in fact, a fundamentally good man who was responsible for sowing the seeds of democracy.  Whilst I might not have agreed with his interpretation of some of de Montfort’s actions, I did love the sheer swashbuckling scope of the story. This Simon is a real hero of integrity, courage and action. Pauline is an admirable woman and their relationship is a tender and true love story. My favourite aspect of the book was their dialogue which was funny and clever and very entertaining. So if you are a fan of epic historical novels with feminist heroines and knightly heroes, this could be the book for you.