Word Wenches

Trials and Tribulations of Writing

Pat here: Unlike my psychic heroines, I have nothing insightful to tell you as we dive into the new year. I’m still trying to figure out what day of the week it is after the holidays, and almost missed my blog date because I haven’t updated my calendar yet. I have accounting worksheets piling up all over my desk for my personal taxes and those of an organization I work with. Who can write a book with all this new stuff spinning in the brain? Maybe I need that crystal ball!

Yet I continue to wade into the fray of writing mysteries. I’ve written characters for forty years now, savoring their romances and conflicts, and I still learn something new every day in how to depict their personalities. But mysteries. . . require actual plotting.

Perfume Unmasked

Pat here: As I may have said before, one of the fun parts of writing historical novels is the dive down research bunny holes. I’ve just spent a lovely few hours scrounging around in the insane details of British law, how magistrates were appointed and criminals brought to court, when there was essentially no police force in rural environs. And along with that, I followed a side trail into manorial law, an entire blog by itself. Suffice it to say, my hero, as heir to a manorial estate, is a law unto himself. He doesn’t like it much, though. (above photo is manor and accompanying village--not quite the one I imagine as I write but pretty anyway. See the manor way in the background?)

Celebrating Romantic Fiction

Christina here. You know that saying, “It’s not the winning but the taking part that counts”? That’s a hard lesson to learn when you’re little. How many times have we said it to ourselves, our children or our friends when someone lost at something or didn’t win some competition or sport? I know I repeated it to my daughters until I was blue in the face, but it didn’t stop the disappointment on their faces as they came away emptyhanded from yet another school sports day.

“Mummy, can’t we buy a medal?” my oldest asked once, obviously not having grasped the whole concept of such competitions at all. And clearly, she had already learned that a lot of things in life can be bought, which wasn’t a lesson I wanted her to absorb at such a young age. Thankfully, we eventually begin to understand the saying as we grow up and it makes perfect sense.

Lady of Fortune!

Lady of Fortune:

Anne Gracie interviews Mary Jo Putney

Anne: Mary Jo, I've just finished reading Lady of Fortune, and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I'm not the only one. Here's a snippet of a current review: "A story which captivated me from the first page and I devoured in no time, eager to see how everything will come to its end."

Here's the set-up for Lady Of Fortune: Christa, the young half-French half-English Comtesse D'Estelle, narrowly escapes execution in the French revolution, but during her escape her English half-brother, Charles, Lord Radcliffe and her mother are attacked and presumed dead. Orphaned and grieving, Christa lives in the country with her step-uncle and guardian, the new Lord Radcliffe, but when she reaches the end of her year of mourning, to her shock, her guardian informs her that she is, in fact penniless. He proposes a solution to her situation that prompts Christa to run away to London, where she seeks work.

 

A Home Fit for a Hero

Penthouse XO3D LTD Wikimedia Commons

Christina here. Recently I’ve been reading a lot of contemporary stories where the heroes are wealthy and successful, and I have noticed that they all seem to have very similar tastes when it comes to their homes. They usually live either in a penthouse apartment, with floor to ceiling windows and incredible views, or in a converted warehouse apartment, where so called “industrial chic” rules. Bare brick walls, huge spaces and cavernous ceilings, all tastefully furnished to suit a man of course.

Is this how we want or expect our heroes to live? Or is it how we believe the super-rich live and this is our impression of success in building form?

Heirs and Spares

Nicola here, talking slightly tongue-in-cheek about a certain trope in fiction, that of birth order. The concept of the “heir and the spare” is something that has been discussed quite a lot lately and it’s a theme that those of us who read historical romance are very familiar with. The noble family is desperate to have an heir (usually male, since women can’t inherit the majority of British titles) and that person will be expected to carry on the traditions of the family, inherit the title and any entailed fortune that goes with it. They will be in line to take the responsibility for the crumbling stately pile and if it really is crumbling, find an heiress whose inheritance fortunately comes from trade or some other source, to prop it up. It feels like a heavy weight for the heir to carry. The emphasis here is on responsibility and continuity. However, there’s a snag. What if something happens to the heir? Then you will need a spare – two boys at least – to ensure the continuation of the family line. So, to be on the safe side, most families try not to stop at one.

Ask A Wench – Wenches on Writing

The Wenches were asked to answer some questions about writing and the publishing industry, and today we’re replying to the first one – How do you decide on a title? Is it the editor or you or what?

Mary Jo:  Titles wars, all authors know them well! Ideally, authors and editors work together to come up with titles that in just a few words will convey the genre, the essence of the story, and also have a marketing punch. Not surprisingly, this is difficult! 

In my first book, my heroine was a gifted musician so my working title was the rather uninspired THE MUSICAL LADY. Later, my brother-in-law, an amateur musician, suggested LADY OF NOTE, which was better since it conveyed both music and being notable.

The book sold quickly on a partial manuscript, but coming up with a good title was another matter. My first editor always insisted that her writers come up with good titles. We would produce pages of possibilities, which she would dismiss with a few heartless chuckles. When I'd say in exasperation that she should come up with a title, she had a whole prepared speech about HOW MANY BOOKS she'd edited over the years, how could she possible do any more???  Cowed, I'd slink off and produce more lists, which were all shot down posthaste.

Legitimate or not?

Anne here, writing with a sense of frustration — and no doubt preaching to the converted. The frustration is caused by the number of times I've come across books where an unmarried prince (or a king or a duke or any nobleman, actually) discovers he has a son, because some years ago he slept with a woman and unknowingly got her pregnant. Fast forward several years and he comes across this child and his mother, and decides to marry her and make the child his heir. 

Noooooooo!  I want to shriek. Actually I'm probably likely to stop reading at that point because it shows what I think is unforgivable ignorance of the laws of inheritance — historical laws particularly, but the law remains pretty much the same for contemporary titles of nobility.

These days for most people illegitimacy is no longer even an issue; nevertheless, especially in the past, it was a huge issue. An illegitimate son born to a noble father could not inherit his father's title, regardless of the child and father's wishes.

An illegitimate son born to a king might be given a title—for instance on reaching adulthood, the illegitimate sons of Charles II were given dukedoms, along with estates and wealth, and their own sons, if legitimate, could inherit their title, but they could never aspire to be King.

Because that would create chaos. Until recent years there was no way of proving paternity, so the closest men could come to ensuring they had true heirs of their body was through marriage. Of course, marriage was no guarantee of fidelity, which was why women were frequently 'cabin'd, cribbed, confin'd.'

Taking Description to Task

Pat here:

In response to reader requests that the Wenches occasionally talk about how we do what we do—I am taking a broad interpretation to include craft as well as how I come up with my stories and characters. Because, truth to tell, I haven’t a clue what crossed wires create insane scenarios in my brain, and craft is a lot easier to explain.

If there are writers reading this, please feel free to jump in, because—as we all know—THERE ARE NO RULES in writing. It’s a creative process requiring we pry the stories from our heads in whatever manner works for us.

Support Your Local Drug Dealer

I’m pretty sure I’ve started writing a Regency soap opera. I’m not at all sure if this is a marketable direction, but my Muse is temperamental. After the pandemic isolation, she became a ghost of herself—which may be why I ended up writing about ghosts. But I wanted to go back and try my hand at writing straight Regency historicals again—and soap opera is what happened. I’m calling it a mystery, but that was only after I went back in and added clues and eventually came up with a dead body.

Interview on The Winter Garden!

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot …”

Christina here and tomorrow is Guy Fawkes’ Day here in the UK so what better time to interview Wench Nicola about her new book THE WINTER GARDEN? It was published last week and is based on the infamous Gunpowder Plot that Mr Fawkes was involved with in 1605. He was part of a group of Catholics who had decided to kill the King by blowing up Parliament, but they were betrayed and ultimately their plot failed. I was lucky enough to read an ARC of this story and it is absolutely fabulous! I seriously couldn’t put it down – if you’d like to read my review you can find it here, but I’d recommend you read it for yourself!

Here’s a short summary:-

1605: Anne Catesby fears for her family. Her son, the charismatic Robert, is secretly plotting to kill the king, placing his family in grave danger. Anne must make a terrible choice: betray her only child or risk her family’s future.

Present Day: When her dreams of becoming a musician are shattered, Lucy Brown takes refuge in her family’s ancestral home in Oxfordshire, once home to Robert Catesby, the gunpowder plotter. There she starts to have strange visions of a woman in Tudor dress, a woman whose story runs parallel to and then converges with her own. Lucy is determined to find out more about this apparition and in doing so uncovers a chain of secrets that have been hidden for centuries…

The Aura Answer: Psychic Solutions Mystery #5

Because I goofed off and took a long vacation, I’ve come home to play catch up, which means I have two blogs this week (should Typepad continue working) and you get to listen to twice as much rattling on because I haven’t had time to plan anything better. I’m buried deep in attempting to wrangle this new historical mystery into order and the characters are being such pains, I haven’t even had time to research much more than gas lighting—which I have yet to use, mind you.

So let’s address a happier topic—my magical mystery series. Book #5 of the Psychic Solutions Mysteries, THE AURA ANSWER, will be out Tuesday, November 8^th (it’s on pre-order now). This is a Christmas book with ghosts—and no, they’re not Christmas Past or Future. Call them the Ghosts of Confused and Cynical.

Regency Speak

I have spent the last couple of years writing contemporary mysteries and before that, Victorian romances. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve attempted Regency cant. I have an entire thesaurus of words, but my head simply isn't picking up the speech patterns that allow boxing cant or catty insults the way it used to do. Worse yet, the hero is American, and now I have to wonder how much of Regency-speak an American might use. Or a spinster who spends more time in books than society. Oh, and then there are the Frenchmen and the country folk. . .

Country Living and Natural Colours

Christina here. With life in the 21^st century increasingly hectic, there are quite a few people who decide they want to escape from the rat race and live a simpler way. Buying a smallholding or croft can be the start of a new way of life, and that is exactly what the heroine in my recent novel HIDDEN IN THE MISTS did. She wanted to live in tune with nature, be healthier and happier by spending more time outdoors, and growing/producing as much of her own food as possible. It’s something I think a lot of us dream about and after being cooped up in cities during the pandemic, many people went on to follow that dream.

Clearly it is not for the faint-hearted though – there is no doubt it is hard work. Keeping chickens for eggs, having a cow or two for milk (and/or goats), a flock of sheep for wool, and perhaps other animals for slaughter is probably a must. (Not to mention having to learn how to look after them and doing things like milking.) As is growing copious amounts of vegetables and having fruit trees and berry bushes, as well as foraging in any nearby forests. My heroine is lucky in that she lives on the west coast of Scotland so she is also able to go fishing, which is an added bonus.

Islands in the North

Christina here and I have once again been travelling in search of inspiration for my stories – this time to the Orkney Islands! These are situated in the far north of the UK, in between the Scottish mainland and Shetland, and the journey involved a 12-hour road trip by car with another hour and a half by ferry. It was worth every second!

As always, I was on the trail of the Vikings and they settled in the Orkney Islands during the 8^th and 9^th centuries (possibly before that). If you sail in a straight westerly direction from the southern part of Norway you end up either in Orkney or Shetland, and it was an easy journey in a Viking longship, only a couple of days’ sailing. Therefore, it made sense that it was one of the first places the Vikings went to when they set off on their adventures.

Lost and Found

Nicola here. I was woken in the night by the sound of a downpour of rain, which was very welcome as the UK has been enduring a summer of drought. One of the consequences of this is that river and lake levels have fallen dramatically over the past few months and fields and gardens have dried out. This has led to ancient buildings and structures being revealed that have been lost for centuries, giving us a glimpse into the past that we wouldn’t usually have. It's not the way you would choose to discover more about history but it is an opportunity to learn more about what lies beneath our feet - or in some cases, rivers and reservoirs.

At Lydiard Park where I am a trustee of the Friends charity, we arranged for some drone photography to see if we could see any detail of the seventeenth century gardens that we knew had been swept away when the grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown in the Georgian era. (Photo credit Phil Jefferies and copyright Friends of Lydiard Park). The results were even more exciting than we had imagined! We knew from early maps that the previous Elizabethan-style manor house had had extensive gardens leading down to a canal and lake. From the air these were clearly visible in a grid pattern that would originally have contained a gravel forecourt, formal flowerbeds, topiary, paths and terraces. It’s been a fascinating insight. A similar thing happened at Chatsworth where the drought revealed the outline of the Great Parterre which was designed in 1699.

Winner - Hidden in the Mists

Christina here with the name of the person who has won a copy of my new release, HIDDEN IN THE MISTS. Congratulations to Shirley E! (I have emailed her privately)

Apologies for the delay in announcing the winner as I’ve been travelling, and thank you to everyone else who commented!

Hidden in the Mists

Anne here, and today I'm interviewing Christina Courtenay about her new book, HIDDEN IN THE MISTS (released yesterday 18^th August). As expected, this is a Viking story — and just as an aside, Christina's Viking stories have brought me happily back to this genre, after I'd thought I'd given up on Viking stories. Hers are fresh, original and really well researched. But this time Christina has departed from the time-slip plot and written a dual timeline story, one set in Viking times and the other in modern times.

Here’s a short summary: Skye Logan has been struggling to run her remote farm on Scotland’s west coast alone ever since her marriage fell apart. When a handsome stranger turns up looking for work, it seems that her wish for help has been granted. But echoes of the distant past won’t leave them alone, and it seems that the ghosts of the past have secrets … and they have something that they want Skye and Rafe to know.

Anne:  Christina, what inspired this story?

Christina:  HIDDEN IN THE MISTS was written during the Covid pandemic when we were in lockdown here in the UK. Usually I like to travel to the places where my stories are set, but as we weren’t allowed to go anywhere I decided I had to use a location I’d already visited. Scotland is one of my favourite places and it seemed ideal as I wanted to write a dual time narrative that was partly about Vikings. They raided and settled along the west coast of Scotland and the islands there quite early on. It helped that I happen to have a very good friend who lives there and she was able to assist me whenever I needed any precise details. As I mentioned in last week’s blog post, the spark for this book also came from the Galloway Hoard, the fabulous Viking treasure found in 2014. The plot grew from there and the various elements came together in my imagination.

All that glitters ...

… isn’t gold – but sometimes it IS!

Christina here. Next week my latest book will be released and the idea for this story was sparked by the Galloway Hoard, a magnificent treasure found in Scotland in 2014. As soon as I heard about it, I was fascinated. I could only imagine how amazing it must feel to discover something like that. Despite having bought myself a metal detector a few years ago, I’ve never found anything other than a few rusty nails and a piece of iron pipe, so I decided I would have to fulfil this dream in my imagination instead. Add to this the fact that the hoard was of Viking origin and it seemed like serendipity! That’s when Hidden in the Mists started to take shape in my mind.

The hoard was probably buried around 900 AD and consists of various gold and silver items, as well as other more ordinary things. It’s one of the most incredible treasures ever found in Scotland and the richest one from the Viking age. I read all the articles about it when it was first revealed and couldn’t wait for it to go on display. That took a while as obviously the items had to be conserved and assessed first. Eventually, I was fortunate enough to see it in person, and I was enthralled by the many precious objects. My absolute favourite was a little gold pin in the shape of a bird which I had already used in another story, Whispers of the Runes. The hero of that book is a silversmith/jeweller and I had him make a pin just like this. I saw it as a bird of prey or a raven judging by its curved beak, but archaeologists felt it more resembled a flamingo. Most probably it’s a fantasy bird but either way, I just love how intricate it is, despite being so small!

A Kiss of Fate!

by Mary Jo

A Kiss of Fate, Guardian Trilogy #1

I'm delighted to finally be re-releasing my Guardian paranormal historical trilogy, the last of my backlist trilogies that were still in the closet The stories are set in the 18th century Georgian era and the main characters are Guardians, people who have magical abilities and are sworn to use them to help others.  But being sure of when that's the case can be a challenge!

The heroes and heroines are strong, the romances are intense, and the stories are woven around real, powerful history.  All three show what happened behind the scenes to make history turn out the way we know it.

If you enjoy the intelligent, honorable characters who star in my traditional historical romances, I think you'll love these stories as much as I do. (I use M. J. Putney for all my stories with fantasy elements so readers can tell which are straight historical and which have some magic.)

Celebrating Friendships!

Nicola here. Today I’m celebrating the power of friendship as yesterday was International Friendship Day. The value of friendship has been recognised since people first walked the earth – and it’s pretty strong between some animals too and between humans and animals. Greek philosopher Herodotus wrote “Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.” More recently, the lyrics of the song is the Toy Story movie say “We stick together and can see it through, ‘Cause you've got a friend in me.”

What is friendship, really? A dictionary definition calls it “a state of mutual trust and support” but it’s so much more complicated than that sounds. Some of us are lucky enough to have friends we have known since childhood, others from school or college. I’m part of a group of college friends who first came together almost 40 years ago and we still meet up twice a year as a group. It's lovely to have such enduring relationships with people I know so well and feel I can pick up with so easily. Then there are the other friends we make at different stages of our lives. You don’t even have to see each other that much, though when you do, it’s special. The Wenches are an amazing group of friends scattered across three continents; we don’t get the chance to see each other much but we’re so supportive of each other through the thick and thin of writing and life. In fact, being an author is a wonderful way to meet friends across the world, through readers’ and writers’ groups.

A Very Brief History of Buttons

Pat here:

I’m still digging around in research for my current, very tentative, historical idea. I’m thinking the village I talked about last time has lost its inhabitants to industries which pay better than farming small plots. And I’m thinking whatever cottage industry once paid women has also died, so young people packed up and left, and there’s no one left.

Dogs in Books

Anne here. We were talking about dogs and cats in books the other day, and though I've had several cats in my books, and I'm very fond of all animals, when it comes down to it, I'm generally for dogs, especially in books.

When I was a kid, I used to love Lassie and RinTinTin movies, and I snapped up any dog stories I could find. There was Finn the Wolfhound,  Old Yeller, Jack London's The Call of the Wild, Nip (a story about a collie.)

But in the main, they were angsty stories about dogs enduring hard times, and surviving, but . . . as a friend of mine's teenage son once told her, "I'm not reading any more dog stories; they always die at the end."  I remember howling at the end of Old Yeller. 

And I recall reading Nip in the back yard, and fretting about the terrible things he was enduring, and calling my collie, Bessie, over every few minutes so I could cuddle her — and comfort me. I couldn't find a web reference for that story and the book is in a box somewhere, so I can't even find the author's name, sorry.

But it doesn't need to be that way. Dogs can fulfil other functions in books and it doesn't have to break your heart. Georgette Heyer was a dog lover — I would know this even if I didn't know anything else about her because of the way she portrays dogs in her books. But here are two photos of her with her dogs (with thanks to Jennifer Kloester for them.)

In The Grand Sophy, for instance, Charles —who was pretty autocratic and unsympathetic at the start, clicks his fingers, and Sophy's dog, who doesn't usually take to strangers, immediately comes to him. And thus we know that Charles isn't as bad as he seems.

Anne Gracie chats about The Rake's Daughter

Mary Jo here. As always, I'm delighted to interview sister Word Wench Anne Grace on her delicious new book.  The Rake's Daughter  is second in her Brides of Bellaire Gardens series.  Besides being a lovely romance, it's a moving story of friendship and sisterhood.

The book was released yesterday, July 26th. 

MJP: Anne, will you tell us about  the set-up and setting for this series?

AG: The series is based around a large private garden in Mayfair, with access only from the back of the houses that surround it. In some of these house live young women, young women who will one day become brides . . . 

MJP:  How did Leo, Lord Salcott, a sober and hard working young lord, find himself landed with the guardianship of a young woman he's never even heard of?

AG: It was a mistake. The father of the two young women, the Rake of the title, meant to leave the guardianship to Leo's father, naming him "Josiah Leonard Thorne, the sixth earl of Salcott." But Leo's father was the fifth earl, and seeing both Leo and his father had the same Christian names, and his father had predeceased the rake, the document was legal.

MJP: Tell us about the two half-sisters, Clarissa and Isobel.

AG: Clarissa is the legitimate daughter. She is plain, shy, a little plump, and an heiress. Isobel, her illegitimate half sister, is beautiful, outspoken, and penniless.

The two lonely, motherless little girls met by accident, just before their ninth birthdays, and defying their father, who planned to dump the newly bereaved Isobel in the nearest orphanage, decided to stay together. You can read part of this scene here. The two sisters grew up together in the country, and are very loyal to each other.

How Many Books Is Too Many Books?

Nicola here, and today I'm asking the provocative question "how many books is too many books"? And as a follow up to that: "What system do you use to categorise your bookshelves?" You see, I need help and advice. The time has finally come to sort out my “library.” This is rather a grand term for a muddled collection of books on shelves, in boxes and in stacks on the floor all over the house with only a notional system of what is where. For years I’ve been saying I need some sort of cataloguing system, yet each time I sit down with my books to try to categorise them, I either get distracted into reading something I had forgotten was there or I am so overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task that I retreat and close the door on the mess. There are obvious downsides to this, most annoyingly the fact that I can’t find half the books I know are there and when I need them for research – or to re-read a favourite novel – I’ll spend ages huffing around looking for them. Also, I have been known on more than one occasion to buy multiple copies of things just because I didn’t realise/remember they were already in my collection. So a neatly-ordered bookshelf is crucial.

Researching English Villages

I’m toying with an idea for a historical romance and haven’t quite decided on what era or area my characters and their situation might fit into. The idea requires a rather large manor house or even a sprawling aristocratic estate. I’m rather fond of houses, so the more house, the merrier for me. If it’s deteriorating, even better—so much story material there!

I’d like the house to be relatively isolated, but it’s not a self-supporting estate, so I need some sort of small village nearby. People need to get out of the house occasionally! So I started by digging around in English villages to see where such a place might have existed in the 18^th or 19^th centuries. I don’t want to go further back than that.

Wild Swimming

Christina here. There’s a lot of talk about wild swimming these days. It seems to be a recent concept, even though the practice is as old as time. The term just means swimming outside in a body of natural water – lakes, rivers, waterfalls or the sea. The main thing is that it isn’t man-made. The phenomenon is increasingly being romanticised (at least here in the UK) as it becomes more popular, with lots of people extolling the virtues of going back to natural bathing in this way. Perhaps because we were all shut in for so long during the pandemic, the freedom of swimming outdoors seems extra special. And I agree – it is!

I’ve long been a huge fan of freshwater bathing in particular – I much prefer it to the briny sea, although I’ll happily swim anywhere. Unlike the ocean, though, the water in lakes and rivers isn’t salty so you end up feeling really clean and refreshed. There is no need for a shower afterwards and even your hair will be extra soft.

Marriages of Convenience

Anne here, and today I'm musing once more on tropes in romance novels. I say "once more", because some years ago I blogged about tropes here, and some years before that the wenches answered a reader question about the "chick in pants" trope, and had so much to say we had to split the post into two. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.

But today I'm talking about the marriage of convenience (MoC) trope. The first convenient marriage story I ever read was Georgette Heyer's The Convenient Marriage, and I loved it to bits — and it started a lifetime fascination.

I've practically made a career out of it, though not all my book marriages were convenient: some were forced marriages, and others were . . . shall we say unexpected marriages. But what they almost all have in common is that the hero and heroine marry first as virtual strangers, and then get to know each other.

History of Detective Fiction

Pat here:

As we all know, my Malcolm/Ives families started out in historical romance, took a wicked right turn at the Victorian Age, and crossed over into the contemporary market. With my new Psychic Solutions  series, they took another zig-zag and ended up in mystery. I’ve done romantic suspense, so it isn’t a total departure. But romance is where my heart and soul have been for so long, that I can’t quite let it go. So, of course, romance wraps its way around the mystery because it makes me feel good.

And I miss my historical research. I probably should have missed it enough to dig into the roots of detective fiction so I had a clue of what genre I was actually writing, but my characters are gonna do what they’re gonna do. So I probably saved myself a step.

Unlikable Characters

Anne here, and today I'm responding to a question that Annette N. sent in — and for that she will receive a free book. Thanks, Annette.

Her question was: "Is it hard to write characters you don't like? Do you run into people in your stories who simply are not someone you want to know well? I can see enjoying writing characters who are fun and charming and simply nice people. But, how difficult is it to spend time with someone you dislike — a lot? And if they are supposed to be villainous, how evil do you make them?"

I like to have a variety of characters in my books — it makes for a more realistic setting — so invariably there are some unlikable characters. I think if everyone were nice in a book, it would get boring.

Unlikable characters, nasty or just difficult people, and outright villains are grist to a storyteller's mill. They can make a story more interesting or exciting, and when you have your hero or heroine come up against them, whether it's an imperious dowager, a waspish society shrew, or an evil villain lurking behind a smooth facade, confronting them brings out aspects of the hero or heroine's character that might not otherwise take place. (I'm not saying that Maggie Smith's dowager countess is unlikable — indeed most of us love her — but she is difficult, and doesn't that add to our enjoyment?)

To be honest, I generally enjoy writing the nasty ones — it's a nice break from writing characters I want readers to love. I can have fun with them. For instance I often include lovable and eccentric old ladies in my books, but in my Convenient Marriage series it was fun to have an old lady, Aunt Agatha, who was a right old tartar.

For instance when the soldier hero asks for her help with his orphaned young half-sisters she writes this:

 

Avian Friends

Christina here. I’ve been mulling over ideas for a new story, and one of the things I’d like to add is an unusual pet. In the past, I’ve always given my heroes and heroines faithful canine companions, but this time I want something a little bit different. I’m considering a pet raven.

As I write about Viking times, this seems appropriate, since the god Odin was said to have two ravens – Huginn (Old Norse for ‘thought’) and Muninn (Old Norse for ‘memory’). According to the sagas, this pair would fly across the world each day and then return to Odin to give him information about anything that might concern him. His personal spies, as it were. It is interesting that this particular type of bird was chosen by the god to be his informants – Vikings must have known how clever they are.