Word Wenches

Of Beaches and Castles

Nicola here and today I’m talking about beaches – and history. You may already have noticed that the Wenches love a good trip to the sea, whether it’s a Caribbean island or the Antarctic or the Northern shores of Scotland. There’s something about the water and a stretch of golden sand that is refreshing and inspiring, even if you’re wearing several layers of thermals to appreciate it, as I was last week!

My beach odyssey started in Bamburgh in Northumberland, on the North East coast of England. It’s a favourite spot of mine and the setting for a story I’ll be writing a little way down the line. The whole area is chock full of history from pre-Roman times through the centuries, plus it has castles by the score and at Bamburgh there is the big mama of them all.

What We're Reading in March

 ... and what a medley it is.

Joanna here, with some lovely book suggestions from all of us.

I’m rereading one of Lois MlcMaster Bujold’s books. The Curse of Chalion. I picked it up at the library because the librarian had it out on the Recommended Shelf and I was reminded of it. 

When we reread books we sometimes come at them a little differently or, at least, I do. This time, when I approached Bujold’s broken, exhausted, emotionally and psychically destroyed protagonist I was better able to see the honorable man beneath. It’s a new way for me to look at heroism and I’m hoping to learn from it.

This is not a Romance, but it’s a satisfying portrayal of a complex protagonist and — yes — a bit of a love story.

 

Andrea writes:

I’m a big fan of Charles Finch’s historical mysteries—I find his Charles Lenox series, set in early Victorian England, an absolute delight. So it’s always a treat when a new one comes out.

Now, Finch has done something really interesting with the series. In the first book, A Beautiful Blue Death, which came out 12 years ago, we meet Lenox as an established amateur detective. He’s a cultured, erudite, clever younger son, so his slightly “black sheep” profession is tolerated by family and friends (it helps that he’s such a lovely, sensitive fellow) And throughout the next nine books, we see him develop, take on new challenges, dabble in politics, get married, have a child . . . all while unraveling some very intriguing mysteries.

Then lo and behold, like the clever mystery writer he is, Finch suddenly surprised his readers with a unexpected plot twist. In his previous book, The Woman in the Water, the 11th in the series, he started writing a “prequel to the series—we meed Charles as a green cub, just down from Oxford, trying to decide what he wants to do in life. He loves solving conundrums, but everyone thinks he’s a fool to consider it as a possible career. Nonetheless, he keeps reading the papers about crime, and finds he has an idea he thinks may help solve one. The police, of course, dismiss him as fop and

The Enduring Appeal of Romantic Comedy

Nicola here, talking about the popularity of romantic comedy, both in contemporary and historical stories. A couple of weeks ago I was at the London Book and Screen Week, interviewing Sarah Morgan about romantic comedies and why they are so appealing and so enduring. Not only did we have the chance for a great chat, we also had a private screening of Sarah’s favourite rom com movie, In Her Shoes, just for us and the audience in a very cool little cinema!

I love a good romantic comedy. The best and most enduring ones are funny, witty, charming and moving, whether they are books or on the screen.  I think
they are also thoughtful and complex and tell us about ourselves as humans – about emotions such as desire and love, about relationships and our longings and wishes. They often reflect the attitudes, assumptions and prejudices that prevailed when the films were made and from the very start in the 1930s they had intelligent roles with great dialogue for women. They often show heroines and heroes as well struggling to push back the boundaries that confine their lives. There’s a lot of good things in a package that has so often been underrated.

Nicola Cornick — the Woman in the Lake

Anne here, interviewing Nicola Cornick about her new book, THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE, which came out in the USA last week and comes out in the UK next week. That's the US cover on the right.

The publisher's blurb:
From the bestselling author of House of Shadows and The Phantom Tree  comes a spellbinding tale of jealousy, greed, plotting and revenge—part  history, part mystery—for fans of Kate Morton, Susanna Kearsley and  Barbara Erskine

London, 1765
Lady  Isabella Gerard, a respectable member of Georgian society, orders her  maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it, its shimmering beauty  tainted by the actions of her brutal husband the night before.

Three  months later, Lord Gerard stands at the shoreline of the lake, looking  down at a woman wearing the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over  to reveal her face, it’s clear this was not his intended victim…

250 Years Later…
When  a gown she stole from a historic home as a child is mysteriously  returned to Fenella Brightwell, it begins to possess her in exactly the  same way that it did as a girl. Soon the fragile new life Fen has  created for herself away from her abusive ex-husband is threatened at  its foundations by the gown’s power over her until she can't tell what  is real and what is imaginary.

As Fen uncovers more about the  gown and Isabella’s story, she begins to see the parallels with her own  life. When each piece of history is revealed, the gown—and its  past—seems to possess her more and more, culminating in a dramatic  revelation set to destroy her sanity.

The Reviews:
Publishers Weekly said: "The tentative romance between Fenella and Hamish effectively balances the sinister mood of the 18th-century story. Romance fans will be most satisfied."  Steph's Fiction said: "If you love historical fiction, then I highly recommend you pick up a copy!" The New York Journal of Books said: "As the story unfolds, the reader understands why, piece by piece. It’s fascinating to look back at life centuries ago, to imagine the people and their circumstance, and this novel fleshes them out with an assured storytelling style."

The Interview:
Anne:  Nicola, congratulations on the release of THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE, your 3rd dual timeline novel. I was intrigued by the contrast in your two covers, the American one focusing on the historical story, the British cover on the more modern story.

Which of the two periods did you enjoy writing the most — and why?

Nicola: Thank you, Anne! I’m really excited that THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE is making its debut at last

What We're Reading in February

Nicola here, introducing the Wenchly reading recommendations in the month of February. As ever we have a big mix of books for you and look forward to hearing what you've been reading too! the picture on the left is the rather gorgeous old bookshop in Marlborough, a town just down the road from me, where I love to browse. Sometimes you might even meet the resident bookshop ghost, which seems appropriate for Pat's first recommendation today!

Pat writes:

SEANCES ARE FOR SUCKERS by Tamara Berry

Ellie Wilde is a cynic, for good reason. As the youngest of triplets, she’s paying to keep her comatose sister in the best nursing home available by using her limited skill set—tricking people. To be fair, she also gives them comfort—by ridding their homes of ghosts she doesn’t believe in. People might call her a psychic medium, but in reality, she’s a great problem-solver and people reader. She has to be, or her sister will be out on the street. Her brother is a gym teacher and can’t possibly afford the cost of nursing care, so it’s up to Ellie. When she’s offered a small fortune and the opportunity to fly to England and live in a mansion while she rids the house of its resident ghost, she happily takes the job.

The Woman In The Lake

Susanna here, inviting you to join me in wishing a very Happy Book Birthday to THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE by our own Nicola Cornick!

This is its American birthday, actually, which will be followed on March 7 by its British birthday, so we will be keeping the celebration going here at the Word Wenches (any excuse for cake, really).

It’s a dual-time novel, linking the lives of two women together over centuries through one lovely but ill-fated gown…

***

‘I see it all again: the silver moon swimming beneath the water and the golden gown billowing out about her…’

1765: Lady Isabella Gerard asks her maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it. Its shimmering beauty has been tainted by the actions of her husband the night before.

Three months later: Lord Eustace Gerard stands beside the lake looking down at the woman in the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it’s clear this is not his intended victim…

1996: Fenella Brightwell steals a stunning gown from a stately home. Twenty years later and reeling from the end of an abusive marriage, she wonders if it has cursed her all this time. Now she’s determined to discover the history behind the beautiful golden dress…

***

I always find covers so interesting. For the American edition of THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE, the cover artists have focused on the historical part of the dual-time story…

…while for the British edition of THE WOMAN IN THE LAKE, the cover focuses on the modern-day thread of the story...

Which cover do you like best?

And when you’re reading a twin-stranded story, with modern day parts and historical ones, do you like one part better?

AAW — Films and TV shows

Anne here for this month's Ask A Wench, and the question of the moment is, "What movies or TV shows have you enjoyed lately?"

We start with Pat.  I record TV and never know how long the shows have been in the DVR. Looking at the list of unwatched programs, I’d say I have apparently stopped watching most regular TV. I used to love Modern Family until it got stale. Elementary has good and bad years, depending on the writers. The Good Place is still watchable, but they’re pushing their limits.

So lately we’ve been streaming a few shows. Dietland is marvelously well-written and acted but occasionally violent. At the moment, I think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel  is my very favorite.  Set in the early 60s, when Lenny Bruce kept getting thrown in jail for using obscenities in public (yes, kiddies, saying the F word would get you sent to jail), it’s about a young housewife with a gift for comedy. This was not a time when it was easy for a young mother to balance home and career, but the fact that her career is in sleazy nightclubs and makes little money stretches credulity a bit. The show is produced by the gifted people who created Gilmore Girls, so expect laughter, a little societal satire, and not total realism. But looking at the early 60s from our current perspective is entertaining, and the witty dialogue is laugh worthy. 

Nicola here. With the new series of Endeavour, the Inspector Morse prequel, starting tonight, my Sunday night viewing is sorted for the next month and I’m very excited. I love this series with its flawed and fascinating characters, the period setting of 1960s Oxford and the clever plots. I’ve watched and re-watched the previous series so many times.

The Northern Lights!

Nicola here, just back from a cruise along the coast of Norway taking in some spectacular scenery and the stunning beauty of the Northern Lights. Standing on the deck on the ship at 2am in temperatures of -13, it did occur to me to wonder what our ancestors had made of the extraordinary phenomena of the aurora. It’s so beautiful and other-worldly that even in these days when it can all be explained by science, it’s still pretty mind-blowing.  How did people view the aurora in the past? Fortunately there was an excellent lecture on the ship that covered everything to do with the Northern Lights and it was so interesting that I thought I would blog about it here.

Fine Dining through the Ages!

Nicola here! When I was a small child we lived in an ultra-modern house in a town in the North of England. It was the 1960s and 70s and open plan was the height of fashion. Both sets of grandparents however lived in bungalows and my step-grandparents lived in a Victorian two-up tow-down house. All three of these buildings had one thing in common; they had a room that was “for best.” The door was almost always closed and when I was allowed in I didn’t like it. It was always cold (there was no heating on because it wasn’t used very often) and it smelled of that closed up mustiness that rooms sometimes have. In all cases there was a cactus or an aspidistra (or both!) on a wooden plant stand. It was the dining-room.

Dining-rooms are curious things. They go in and out of fashion. At some stages they are the ultimate in aspiration and at others ignored. The Ancient Greeks are usually given the credit for inventing the concept of the dining-room. There were very specific requirements for it: no more than 11 wood or stone benches around the walls. It was a place where men gathered to eat honey cakes and chestnuts, washed down with wine. Yes, it was men only! The Romans, refining the concept, created the triclinium where both men and women dined reclining on sofas, which can’t have been great for the digestion. The Roman triclinium was a very high status room built to have a view and to provide refreshing breezes as one ate. Many were outside and had murals on the wall and fountains in the tables, according to archaeology done at Pompeii.

Ask A Wench: What We're Doing

This month, the wenches are recovering from the holidays and chatting about what they’re doing now!

Pat here: Oh, I’m slowly going crazy—make that crazier. I’m trying to work with the cover designer for the next Crystal Magic book, AZURE SECRETS, while attempting to finish the draft on the book after that, tentatively called AMBER AFFAIR. And at the same time, I’m supposed to be packing for our trip to Costa Rica. I’ll be on the plane as you read this, knock wood. We’re going with what turns out to be a not very well organized group, which means I didn’t even know what luggage I could bring until just the other day. So I’m frantically rearranging my intended wardrobe and narrowing down to basics to fit into a carry-on. Try that some time. We just received the itinerary and we’re digging in to see what sights are accessible around the hotels we’ll be staying at, checking weather to see if we have all the necessities, looking for wi-fi in hopes we’ll not be too out of touch. . . My list keeps growing instead of getting shorter!

A Sense of Memory

Nicola here, musing about the atmosphere of particular places. Today I’m taking us back a long way in English history, beyond the Regency, beyond those ubiquitous Tudors, to a time before the Norman Conquest when England was split into the Anglo Saxon seven kingdoms. The village where I live has a recorded history that goes back to this distant time – there are actual documents from the era relating to events that happened in this very place over a thousand years ago and I find that mind-blowing. As I walk along the footpaths and over the hills I frequently imagine how it might have looked in that time and try to see all the way back through the mists of history to think myself back there.  I can be pretty successful at this; when it’s quiet and I’m standing on the Ravens’ Fort and all I can hear are the birds singing and I feel the breeze on my face I can persuade myself, for a split second anyway, that I have travelled in time. Then an aeroplane flies over and I think perhaps not after all.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas

Nicola here. It’s New Year’s Eve here in the UK, with fireworks, celebrations and all the traditions that go with the ending of one year and the start of the new. One of my favourite new year'e eve traditions was celebrated by my grandmother for many years - She would open the windows at the front and back of the house to invite good luck in and the front and let bad luck out at the back! However this might just have had the practical intention of airing the house after all the smells of Christmas cooking!

It may be the end of December, but in an older tradition it’s only the seventh day of the “twelvetide,” the 12 days of Christmas that started on 25^th December and end with Twelfth Night on 5^th January. In the medieval calendar there was still a lot of festive celebration to go!

In the carol, on the 7^th day of Christmas my true love sent to me seven swans a swimming. In the old Celtic tradition the seven swans were linked to the seven known planets, elegance and mystery personified. In the 17^th century, when the carol originated, swans were seen as good omens, tasty to eat and a source of warmth from the feathers and down. The Christian interpretation of the song was that the seven swans symbolise the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a rather nice idea here the binds the 12 days of Christmas to the idea of New Year’s resolutions. We all have different gifts and qualities. For example, some are good teachers, others can encourage and motivate people and some people are creative. In the New Year, whether or not we make specific resolutions, we can all plan to use and enjoy our own unique gifts.

A very happy New Year’s Eve! Do you have any special traditions you enjoy at this time of year or resolutions you are intent on making?

And finally Jo Beverley's story

 Anne here with our final Sunday snippet for the year from our Christmas anthology, The Last Chance Christmas Ball. Here's the start of Jo Beverley's story, Miss Finch and the Angel.

Four steaming horses swept the post chaise up the drive of Holbourne Abbey and were halted by their postilions, snorting and stamping, before the impressive pillared entrance. Liveried footmen hurried out, their own breath white in the crisp air, to open the carriage door and extract luggage from the boot.
First emerged a valet. Then followed a fashionable young gentleman in a many-caped buff greatcoat and a glossy beaver hat set at an exact angle on golden hair. He regarded the house, smiled slightly, and strode forward to climb the steps.

"A pleasure to see you, Munton," he said to the portly butler who stood waiting in the entrance hall to take his hat and gloves and pass them to a liveried footman. 

"And you, my lord. May I offer season's greetings?"

"I'm sure you may," the young gentleman said pleasantly. "All in order?"

"In general, my lord. Mr. Kimball still chooses a contemplative life."

"Even at Christmas?"

"Indeed, my lord, but the ball will take place as usual."

"Of course it will, especially as it's the fiftieth. Where is Lady Holly?"

"In her rooms, my lord."

Eight Writers Walk into a Regency-Era Ballroom...

Nicola here. Over the past few weeks we’ve been sharing excerpts from our Word Wench Christmas Anthology, The Last Chance Christmas Ball (which is currently still on special offer in the US and Canada in the run up to the festive season – you can find it here!) A number of commenters have asked about the process we went through writing the book as a group project (thank you!), so we’ve updated a post from 2015 when the anthology first came out explaining a bit about this and about the individual stories that we came up with. Today's blog title actually came from a review of the anthology that was in Publisher's Weekly: Eight Writers (collectively known as the Word Wenches) walk into a ballroom and wreak fabulous, shimmering holiday mischief all over the place."

Jo Beverley, who drew together the original post, described it as “fun: at times the sort of fun you get from a camping holiday with unpredictable weather and odd creatures invading the tent.*G*” Which is to say that it wasn’t without its challenges. Some of these were logistical. We’re based around the world. Even within the US there’s a considerable time difference between east coast and west coast, but then we add in England, which is five hours ahead of the east coast and eight hours ahead of California. Pat was getting up when Jo Beverley and I were thinking about dinner, and Anne, in Australia, was going to bed round about the time America woke up! Even in this modern age we often had to wait many hours for the answer to a continuity query.

In addition, of course, we are all strong-minded authors who enjoyed a good discussion over many, many plot points and other issues! But we did have fun, and as you'll see, we all love Christmas stories.

In the Bleak Midwinter: The Last Chance Christmas Ball

By Mary Jo

Eight authors collaborating on an anthology is not the simplest of projects, but we Wenches thought it would be fun to work together, and The Last Chance Christmas Ball (now on sale for a mere 99 cents!) was the result. Our Kensington editor, Alicia Condon, suggested we might do something like a holiday ball where our characters can meet and mingle. This sounded like a fine idea, so we agreed. We had no idea how much work it would be to integrate the stories into a larger framework!

Jo Beverley created a wiki for us so we could add information about the characters and setting so instead of constantly asking things like the name of the butler or the village, we could look it up. This was very convenient.

Then the negotiations began! We talked about our requirements. Susan King, for example, specializes in Scotland so we created a setting in Northumberland, which is next door to Scotland in far northeastern England. A certain kind of great house was required. A promising house was found and modified. I casually talked about how we could have a wounded soldier in the tower as an example of what we could do, and then realized I really did want to write a wounded soldier in the tower!

A Season for Marriage

Nicola here, continuing our Sunday excerpts from The Last Chance Christmas Ball, (the e-book is on special sale right now for only $.99!) Here's the setting: Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year… My story is A Season for Marriage... Lady Caroline  Camden is unhappily married to a brilliant MP whose work is his life. In love with her husband and resigned to the fact that he will never love her, Caroline runs back home to Holbourne Abbey, hoping that her old family home will work its magic on her marriage and that against the odds, she and Piers may find happiness...

Anyone for 300 year old ketchup?

Nicola here. There’s something about this time of year that makes me think about food even more than I usually do. Perhaps it’s the run up to the festive season when I’m not only thinking of the dishes I’d like to cook, or more accurately, I’d like the DH to cook for me as he’s a much better chef than I am, but somehow the dark evenings, short days and cold weather make me long to turn to food for both comfort and warmth.

I’m reasonably okay about trying new dishes but when I came across a recipe that mentioned elderberry ketchup I did wince a little. My memories of ketchup, which I haven’t tried in decades, mainly consist of eating fish fingers with tomato ketchup as a child. Anyway, the dictionary definition of ketchup I found is “a spicy sauce made chiefly from tomatoes and vinegar, used as relish.” Historically, ketchup recipes began to appear in British and American cookbooks in the 18^th century. In the UK it was in fact mushrooms rather than tomatoes that first became a staple ingredient, along with shallots and sometimes walnuts. The tomato version only came along 100 years later.

A Very Wenchly Winter Party

Susanna here, still trying to figure out what time zone I'm in, having only just got back from a two-week-long research-and-business-and-more-research trip to the UK, the second week of which took me to London, where I had the very great pleasure of spending time with old friends and meeting new ones.

Wednesday, November 14 was the date of the annual Winter Party held by the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association (of which I've proudly been a member for the past decade) and just before the party my American publishers, Sourcebooks, very generously hosted a special afternoon tea event where not only was I introduced by fellow Word Wench Nicola and interviewed by Honorary Word Wench Christina Courtenay (who took the photo of the table, above), but the icing on the doughnuts provided afterwards even matched the pink of my jacket!

Treasure in the Attic

Last week I was in London for the RNA Winter Party and Industry Awards, and had the pleasure of meeting up with fellow Word Wench Susanna Kearsley who had come to talk to the RNA’s members about her latest book, Bellewether. It was a fabulous occasion and as an added bonus, the following day I had a ticket for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Gallery in Westminster Abbey. I’ve wanted to visit the gallery ever since I read of how they had found so many treasures up in the roof space at Westminster Abbey and that they were restoring and displaying some of them.

To get to the Queen’s Gallery you have to climb up a spiral staircase (or take the lift) up a newly-constructed tower on the exterior of Westminster Abbey. This proved to be one of the most exciting parts of the tour because the walls are made of glass and as you ascend you can look at all the external architecture of the cathedral; the huge flying buttresses and the glorious stained glass windows. It was awe-inspiring! Unfortunately there is no photography allowed anywhere in the cathedral but I've done my best to illustrate the blog anyway!

The Christmas Ball: Excert Two: My True Love Hath My Heart

  Joanna here --

As you remember from Anne's posting last week, all the Wenches will be posting an excerpt from our stories from the anthology the Last Chance Christmas Ball, one each Sunday in the lead-up to Christmas.

Here's Anne's excerpt from the story Mistletoe Kisses. 

I'll just repeat what she said last week:

"We wenches had written a Christmas anthology before with a linking theme, but for this one we decided all the stories would be linked to an event, based around an annual Christmas ball, held by Lady Holbourne known as Lady Holly to her friends."

Here's the blurb for the collection:  Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year…

My story is titled My True Love Hath My Heart. In it, we meet a legendary jewel, a heroine seeking revenge, a handsome scoundrel, housemaids gossiping, a bit about jewelry design, young love, and somewhat older love which is more complicated, this being the second time round.
And . . . well . . . Christmas.

The title of my short story comes from the eponymous Sir Phllip Sidney poem. (I have been waiting to use the word eponymous for a long time.)

My true-love hath my heart and I have his,

By just exchange one for the other given:

 

So. My excerpt opens in Holbourne Abbey in the insufferable Mr. Gower's bedroom. Our heroine Claire, dressed in a maid's uniform, is rifling through Mr. Gower's jewel boxes.

. . .

“I always wondered what housemaids did in their leisure time.” The voice came from the doorway. “Theft, apparently.”

There was an instant like lightning, filled with a flash of recognition in the midst of blank surprise. She recognized him at once. How could she not? Nobody else spoke like silk over steel. Like honey and granite rock. Shouting in panic, sarcastic over the card table, whispered across a pillow, that was not a voice one could forget. She turned slowly to face him.

Nick Lafford stood in the doorway, a man not taking his dismissal seriously. She was furious with him. She was impatient and unforgiving. And everything inside her—heart, mind, and spirit was glad to see him.

He strolled into the room. Time flowed sluggishly around him, giving her a long opportunity to feel five or six emotions in a row, all of them complicated and contradictory.

“Picture of a maid dusting the jewelry,” he said. “How thorough of you.”

“Searching it, actually.”

“We rise above the banal, then. I always enjoy rising about the banal with you.” He came to look past her into the box on the wardrobe shelf. “We have the very likeness of plunder. I feel quite piratical. Is the loot immensely valuable?”

“Not so far.” She closed the leather case with the rubies and put it firmly back in the tray. “If they were vegetables, this would be a pile of potatoes.”

“Not counting the Coeur de Flamme.” Nick wore one of his deceptively open expressions. 

“Not counting the Coeur, which I haven’t found yet. What in the name of sanity are you doing here?”

“I appear to have joined you in ransacking with intent. Embarrassing if I’m caught at it.” He leaned to look into the jewel box and they touched, just a little. A brush of his jacket on her shoulder. A feeling of warmth at her side. Nothing really.

He said, “I’ll bet these dainty little leather boxes contain the good stuff.”

“Almost certainly. Go away, Nick.”

“I don’t think so. You may, eventually, be glad I’m here.” He stirred a finger into the jewels, inquisitive. “Or, of course, you may not. But I’m here anyway.”

This was so typical of him. Ready to filch jewels at her side or lead her onto the dance floor in Vienna in front of the assembled nobility of Europe. Once, he’d helped her relocate an inconvenient body. Once he—

Blast him for being Nicholas. For being sneaky and single-minded and never giving up. For being clever enough to move her like a chess piece to this time and this place. For saying he loved her.

Blast her for being happy to see him again, even for a minute.

She squashed down the anticipation and gladness that was springing up inside her like so many bubbles rising to the top of beer. She concentrated on being stern. He’d taken her by surprise. That was all. Nothing had changed.

He hooked up entangled necklaces and bracelets and let them dangle. “What a hoard for a man to lug about the north country. They almost beg to be stolen, don’t they?”

“No.”

“I hear their siren call. ‘Pick me up and carry me away,’ they say. Surely he won’t miss a few.”

“I’m busy, Nick. I don’t have time for this.”

“And we’re not thieves, like the regrettable Mr. Gower,” When she didn’t comment he said, “The money doesn’t matter, does it? He didn't just cheat you out of money. He stole your work. He tried to steal your good name.”

Nick understood. That was what made him so insidious. He’d always understood her.

She batted his hand out of the way and picked up the next leather case. “You contrived this. Both of us in the same house. It’s not some cosmic mischance.”

“Humbly, I admit it. I arranged for a guest list to the House party to land in the papers. You saw it. You’re here.”

“I should have been suspicious.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. I’m also glad you’re here,” he gestured a circle, taking in the rest of the room, Holbourne Abbey, and Northumberland, “with me, instead of breaking into Gower’s townhouse. He keeps guards. With guns.”

“Guns in his garden and the unbreakable safe he brags about. I hope someone robs it one fine evening, but it won’t be me. Damn you for interfering.”

“I can’t help myself, you know. Indulged from childhood. No self-discipline.”

He hadn’t changed a whit in the months since she’d sent him away. Still the perfect English aristocrat, casually confident, wrapped in the armor of first-class tailoring. Still the long, intelligent, handsome face that didn't show a tenth of what he was thinking. Brown hair in fashionable disorder. Brown eyes, carefully controlled in what they revealed.

He reached past her and selected a leather jewel case, flicked it open, and found emeralds. “This is nice.”

Very nice. Trust Nick to see that. “It’s famous—both the bracelet and the central stone. Spanish work, from stones plundered out of the New World. It’s been owned by most of the royal families of Europe at one time or another.”

“It must cringe at the company it keeps. May I confiscate it for you in my capacity as representative of the British government?”

“You may put it away.”

“You’re almost impossible to give jewelry to, my sweet.”

“Well, you can’t steal it for me.”

“I can’t buy it for you either, alas. I’ve tried.” He set the emeralds aside. His next leather case held a necklace of citrine and gold.

Her choice held a diamond broach, the stones cut at least a generation ago. She said, “This came to the daughter from her mother's family. The girl's name escapes me--“

“Mary.”

“That’s right. I expected to find it yesterday when I searched her room. He must hand her trinkets out to her, one by one, and take them back at night.”

“One of several petty punishments. They disagree over her choice of marriage partner.”

The English nobility were particular about who they let marry into the family. Wasn’t that the root of her own unhappy problem? “Who would be the daughter of a Gower? I’d rather scrub and dust for a living.”

She opened the next case. Opals. Then the next . . . and held her breath.

Nick whispered, “Well, well, well.”

Here was the Coeur de Flamme, the Heart of Fire.

Christmas snippets

Anne here, starting something a little bit different. We're putting up Sunday posts containing an excerpt from our stories in the Last Chance Christmas Ball — one each Sunday in the lead-up to Christmas.

The anthology was such a fun—and sometimes tricky— thing to do. We wenches had written a Christmas anthology before with a linking theme, but for this one we decided all the stories would be linked to an event, based around an annual Christmas ball, held by Lady Holbourne known as Lady Holly to her friends.

The emails flew back and forth as we tossed around ideas, made plans and thrashed out the details of the setting. Some of us wrote interweaving stories, some of us made our stories linked, but separate, several of us had our people not actually make it to the ball. But we all had such fun doing it, we wanted to share it again.

Here's the blurb for the collection:  Christmas 1815. Upstairs and downstairs, Holbourne Abbey is abuzz with preparations for a grand ball to celebrate the year’s most festive—and romantic—holiday. For at the top of each guest’s wish list is a last chance to find true love before the New Year…

My story is called Mistletoe Kisses, and it's about Allie Fenton, a young woman who, for various reasons, has never been able to attend a ball. Now orphaned and on the shelf, she's planning to become a teacher at a girl's seminary in Bath. But first there's her last Christmas at home and then, Lady Holly's famous annual Christmas ball. 

Here's a short excerpt:

"You'll come to my Christmas ball, then," Lady Holly told her. "Don't bother trying to think up any excuses — you're coming and that's that. Your year of mourning will be up, and you have no reason to stay here moldering away when I've gathered an excellent range of eligible gentlemen for your perusal."

Allie laughed. "For my perusal? As if I'm going shopping?"

"That's exactly what you'll be doing."

"Don't the gentlemen have any say in it?"

The old lady sniffed. "Women have been making men believe they have a choice for generations. Now don't be frivolous, Allie — I am determined to give you one last chance to find a husband before you go off and bury yourself in this, this school of yours." She pronounced 'school' as if she really meant 'zoo.'

Allie smiled. For all her caustic tone, Lady Holly had a very kind heart. "I would love to attend your ball, Lady Holly. . . "

The old lady frowned. "I hear a 'but' coming."

A Road Trip to the Far North

Nicola here. I’ve always loved a road trip, whether real or fictional. In my time I’ve been lucky enough to circumnavigate Iceland, drive across a fair bit of Southern Africa and enjoy a fabulous journey on the iconic Route 66. Last month, though, we took to the road closer to home and travelled the North Coast 500. This amazing route around the Highlands of Scotland is becoming one of the most popular driving routes in the world and I can totally see why. It has stunning views and even more amazing history to take in on the way and I thought I would share a little of that here today.

What We're Reading—October

Anne here, hosting this month's What We're Reading post. As always there's a lovely range of books for all tastes. And just a reminder -- these are not promo posts; they're genuinely what we've read and enjoyed in the last month. 

We'll start with Pat, who says: I'm on a hunt for light-hearted, humorous, feel-good books these days, so I'm over the moon when I find one.

180 SECONDS by Jessica Park qualifies, even though I suspect it's probably called a New Adult romance since the protagonists are in college. But this isn’t about the normal trials and tribulations of overworked, under-loved students. The protagonist Allison has been in foster care all her life, until she was adopted by a gay dad when she was sixteen. She’s closed off, shut down, prepared to peel out of the life of anyone who gets close. She does her best to avoid people entirely. She wants to love her adopted dad, who is a real gem, but she can’t even open his care packages. And then in one freakish moment when she’s forced herself to go into town, she’s caught up in an internet video where she has to stare at a boy for 180 seconds. That scene alone is worth reading the book. Esben, the hero of this story, is almost too good to be true, but he has his major hidden flaws as well. The romance is a rollicking ride of self-discovery and interconnectedness of the internet and how it drives the lives of these kids. So, it’s almost fantasy, but it’s fun fantasy. For a feel good read, try this one. 

Mary Jo read and recommends  David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter Series & Dogtripping

The Two Elizabeths of Ashdown House

Nicola here. Today it is my great pleasure to welcome to the blog Julia Gasper, a historian and author whom I met through a shared interest in Craven family history. Today Julia is talking about one of the Georgian Lady Cravens, Elizabeth Berkeley, whom she intriguingly describes as a "writer, feminist and European." Julia also draws some interesting parallels between Elizabeth Stuart, for whom Ashdown was built, and her namesake Elizabeth Berkeley.

"I greatly enjoyed reading Nicola Cornick’s novel, House of Shadows. However, one thing I found worrying was being told that, in this fictional world, Ashdown House had been burnt down in the early nineteenth century. This really bothered me. (And a lot of other people - Ed!) Every time it was referred to, I felt uneasy in case I might go over there and find that this exquisitely beautiful seventeenth-century mansion in Oxfordshire really had vanished!

I am happy to assure you all that Ashdown House, near Lambourn, is still there and owned by the National Trust. I visited it when I was writing my biography of Elizabeth Craven, the Georgian writer, who lived there in the 1760s, when she was a young bride. It was her first marital home, and she shared it with her husband, William, 6^th Baron Craven, heir to the considerable estates and wealth of the Craven family. His mother and his two sisters lived there with them.

Elizabeth Craven was born Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, younger daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and she was married in 1767 at the tender age of sixteen to Lord Craven. She had little choice in the matter. She had seven children before parting from her husband rather traumatically in 1782 and going to live in France, to escape the scandal and gossip that always in this period accompanied aristocratic divorces. She did not disappear into obscurity by any means, but travelled around the whole of Europe, to Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, the Crimea, Turkey, Greece and Romania, writing about everything she saw and everyone she met, from galley slaves in Genoa to the Empress Catherine the Great. She was a passionate person whose life included many love-affairs, and she had to be strong to stand up to the social disapproval this often attracted.

Elizabeth Craven always loved reading and acting. She wrote plays, poems, novels and travelogues, as well as a remarkable early feminist work called Letters to Her Son, in which she condemned the laws that made a wife obey her husband and gave him so many unjust powers over her. She advised her son  - another William Craven  - to treat his wife with respect and sensitivity, as an equal companion, and never to remind her that he was, in the eyes of the law, her master. If he did that, they would both be very much happier. It is pleasant to record that he followed her advice, with total success.

House of Shadows tells the story of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James I, and her secret love for an English cavalier. Elizabeth married Frederick, Elector of the Palatinate and became for a brief time Queen of Bohemia. But she and Frederick lost their throne after only one year and were driven out of their kingdom, and so she acquired the rather melancholy title of the Winter Queen. One of Frederick’s most loyal supporters was the gallant soldier William, 1^st Lord Craven, who put his sword and his fortune at the service of the exiled monarchs. William fell in love with the Winter Queen and she returned his passion, but their difference in rank was a serious barrier. It is said that they married in secret, after many years of concealment and yearning.

Did any lady in the annals of courtly love ever set her faithful admirer a more gruesome task than that of retrieving a lost treasure from the coffin of her dead husband? That is what Elizabeth of Bohemia demanded from William, Lord Craven, and of course he did not refuse. He was hers to command, and the scene of the novel in which he performs the deed is dark and splendidly macabre.

Ashdown House was one of William’s gifts to his princess, who had lost her own home, and loved hunting. It was built in the 1660s and the first thing that strikes you when you approach is its extreme elegance and air of romantic aloofness, surrounded as it is by miles of green parkland and farmland. This was once a mediaeval deer park and it is close to the Berkshire Downs. When it was built it was actually in Berkshire, but by dint of a boundary change Oxfordshire managed to acquire it.

Ashdown was not the only house that Lord Craven built to receive his royal beloved. He also built her a far larger house, a veritable palace, at Hampstead Marshall, another one of his Berkshire estates, but that has not survived. In the century between the first Lord Craven and the sixth, Ashdown House was used as a minor residence, a convenient hunting-estate, not too far from London, where deer, pheasants, hares and other wild game could be shot and either eaten on the spot or taken up to London for a dinner-party at the Cravens’ house in Mayfair.

In her Memoirs, Elizabeth Craven says that she was very interested in the history of the Craven family. She looked at documents in the family archives, and she was sure the Queen of Bohemia had married the first Lord Craven. When I was writing my biography of her, I had a strong feeling that she was fascinated by this earlier Elizabeth, her namesake who also married a William Craven. 

There are many other things they had in common. They were related, because Elizabeth Craven was actually descended, via the Berkeley and Richmond lines, from King Charles I of England, brother of the Queen of Bohemia. So Elizabeth of Bohemia was her great-great-great-great-aunt. Both women married at sixteen, both had large families of children. Both were women of considerable intelligence and strength of character, a strength they needed as both suffered great upheavals and reversals in their life. The Winter Queen had to endure her husband’s defeats in he Thirty Years War and the loss of his hereditary domains in the Palatinate. Elizabeth Craven had to suffer cruel persecution from the prigs and the gossips when her husband decided to part from her, and most painful of all, she was forcibly separated from six of her seven children. All of her four daughters were kept in the care of their father, and forbidden to write to her, a wound that was as humiliating as it was distressing.

Both Elizabeths, curiously enough, married minor German princes. After many outrageous love-affairs, including one with William Beckford, the author and art collector, Elizabeth Craven found herself a second husband, the Margrave of Anspach, who made over his little principality to Prussia and retired to England. She married him in 1792 and until his death in 1806 they lived at Hammersmith near London. They made their home a hub for artists, musicians, actors, unconventional people and French emigrées fleeing from the Revolution. Elizabeth had a private theatre where the performances became celebrated. After the Margrave’s death she retired to Naples to spend her last years in quiet seclusion.

When we compare their portraits, it is not too fanciful to see some resemblance between these two Elizabeths, who were both admired for their brains as well as their beauty.

My intuition that Elizabeth Craven was fascinated by the Queen of Bohemia, whose destiny in so many ways resembled her own, was finally confirmed in a surprising way. After I had finished writing the biography, and published it, I discovered a lost novel by Elizabeth Craven, called The Witch and the Maid of Honour. It is set mainly at Coombe Abbey, one of the Craven properties, and the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, features in it as one of the characters. A tournament at court to celebrate her wedding to the Elector Frederick is one of the high points of the book. The Princess Elizabeth is shown at exactly the age Elizabeth Craven was when she arrived at Ashdown House in 1767, and learned about the history of the Craven family. I am now in the process of editing this book, which may be the very first historical novel ever written in the English language, to bring it out in a more accessible form so that it finally gets some of the attention it deserves.

The Winter Queen bequeathed to Lord Craven many wonderful portraits of the Stuart royal family, and many of them can be seen still at Ashdown House. To Elizabeth Craven the writer, these were her distant relatives too. 

Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European by Julia Gasper is published by Vernon Press 2017 - ISBN 9781622732753 is now out in paperback and E-book formats.

Some of Elizabeth Craven’s more unusual works are available here:

The Modern Philosopher, Letters to Her Son and Verses on the Siege of Gibraltar, by Elizabeth Craven, edited by Julia Gasper.

Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017.

You can find out more about Elizabeth Craven and the eighteenth-century world she lived in on Julia's blog ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

Thank you very much to Julia for a fascinating blog piece and for sharing her knowledge about the two Elizabeths with us today! 

Wenches and the Wild

 Joanna here, bringing you tales of Wenchly encounters with wild things.  We Wenches had been chatting by email about chickens and copperheads, as one does.

Mary Jo, first up, brings us her stories from further to the the Wild Side:

I love animals and grew up on a farm, but I have no tales of devil red hens, mega-roosters, or sinuous copperheads.  There have been plenty of cats and dogs in my life, and my woodsy suburban neighborhood has lots of squirrels and chipmunks and deer and foxes and bunnies.  (I hope those last two don't meet up often!) 

But for real drama, I'll have to turn to Botswana.  Two years ago, we did a safari there after I spoke at a conference in Johannesburg, and it was great.  We traveled several vast nature preserves in open sided safari trucks.  The wildlife there is not tame, but many of the animals have become accustomed to the trucks and pretty much ignore their human visitors as long as we behave.  So a leopard ambled by a few feet away and lionesses lounged in the dirt roads, supremely confident.  

But my most dramatic encounter was our last night in one of the three safari camps we stayed in.  This particular camp housed guests in glamorous tents.  (Hence, "glamping.")  The camps were completely dark when we returned to our quarters after dinner, and we were told to always have a guide escort us back.  On that last night, I was walking ahead of the Mayhem Consultant and our guide, only a single flashlight to guide our path through the African night. 

As I neared our tent, I heard something rustling in the underbrush.  It didn’t sound large  but it could have been a hyena or some other critter I didn't want to startle.  I returned to our guide and said there's something up there, it didn't sound like a big beast like an elephant, but he might want to check it out.  He did and came back and said calmly, "It's an elephant."

Sure enough, standing smack dab in front of the entrance to our tent, maybe four feet from the canvas, an elephant was chomping on some greenery.  I thought we'd retreat to the headquarters until the elephant moved on, but our guide just said that we could get in through the end entrance of the tent. Oooh-kay, if he thought it was safe… 

I unzipped the end door entry and we went inside.  (I peeked out the front entrance and saw the vast curved back of the elephant silhouetted against the stars, and felt the presence of that great bulk just a few feet away.)

For the next half hour or so we could hear the elephant brushing around the canvas sides as it continued to foraged.  I wasn't frightened but I was wary.  The Mayhem Consultant wanted his shower so he took it.  ("brush, brush, brush, a crunch of a branch, brush, brush, brush…)  I didn't want to be caught starkers if the elephant absented-mindedly took down part of our tent, but that didn't happen.  Eventually the elephant wandered off and all was calm.

But I didn't forget that encounter with a Wild Thing!

The Power of Numbers

Nicola here. A short and hopefully sweet blog from me today as I’m heading off on holiday to Scotland soon and am surrounded by dog and human packing and am trying to work out how much food we will all need for 2 weeks in remote locations!

Anyway, back to the blog, and a writing friend mentioned to me a week or so ago that she thought numbers in book titles were becoming a trend. Just as there had been “girl” titles, so there are now number titles, and a glance at the UK charts seems to support this: Joanna Cannon’s new book is called “Three Things about Elsie” and Jonas Johannsen has written “The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred Year Old Man” to name but two.

Ask A Wench - Deadline Fever!

Nicola here, introducing this month’s Ask A Wench question which is: "What comfort foods and other strange rituals do the Wenches turn to when under deadline?" This is a subject which elicited many sighs, groans and hollow laughter when it was raised amongst us. We've all been in deadline territory and we have the scars to prove it. How do we handle it? What rituals do we indulge in to tempt the Muse? How much extra chocolate does it take to see us through to the end of the book? These are all questions that we will be tackling. And because deadlines are pretty much universal in working and other aspects of life we know readers will have lots of tips and suggestions to share, so bring on the deadlines!

Back to School

Here in the UK it’s the first day of the new school year today. I can vividly remember the pleasure of the school summer holidays – six weeks off! – lasting from the end of July to the beginning of September, including my birthday and usually a holiday by the seaside. Summer was such a treat in that respect! Then the days would start to shorten and the nights would turn cooler and even if it felt as though it was still summer we knew that autumn and a return to school was on the way. The shops would all go on about “back to school” uniforms and stationery, and my grandfather in particular would tease me about going back to school knowing how much I wanted the holidays never to end. It wasn’t that I disliked school. I enjoyed it most of the time but there was something special about those summer holidays of childhood. Of course I never really thought about how fortunate I was to have an education until I started to study history and realised that girls in particular hadn’t always had those opportunities.

Twenty Years Ago

Nicola here, inviting everyone to join me in a small celebration! Twenty years ago this year my first book for Harlequin Mills & Boon was published. True Colours was named in homage to Georgette Heyer; the writing style probably owed a fair amount to her as well for she, along with Alice Chetwynd Ley, Clare Darcy and others had been strong influences on my developing love of the Regency romance.

Even now I can remember the sense of disbelief to see a book I had written actually in print. For years I had written in my spare time – 12 years to be exact. True Colours was begun when I was at college and was a long time in the writing and re-writing. Life went on around it – marriage, moving jobs, moving house… And then suddenly there it was in my hand and on the shelves. It was an extraordinary and almost unreal feeling. I also remember being a tad disappointed by the cover which looked rather vampirish to me (the US version that came later was much prettier!) I also remember spending my first royalty cheque on a new bicycle! Later that same year (August, in fact) my second Regency romance, The Virtuous Cyprian, was also published. I wrote two books a year in those days even though I was working full time in an office as well. Her I am in a bookshop looking very excited to be on the shelves with Penny Jordan and Sidney Sheldon! This is a photo of an old photo so apologies that it isn't that good!)

RNA: A Gathering of the Clans

by Mary Jo

I love writers' conferences, and I've been to my share of them. The sight of so many introverts blossoming into temporary extroversion is delightful. Creativity and connections and chocolate are all much in evidence.

I've met many of my best writer friends (and most of the Wenches) at writers' conferences. Which is why when Wench Nicola, currently president of the British professional romance writers' group, Romantic Novelists' Association, invited all interested Word Wenches to come to this year's annual RNA conference in Leeds, I jumped on it. (No, of course this had nothing to do with the chance to take a deductible trip to the UK! Why would you even think that? <G>)