Like many of the Riskies, I attended RWA2013 last week, and am still tired–but enthused. As in years past, I roomed with fellow Risky Carolyn Jewel, who remains one of the savviest and sharpest writers I know; she’s been blogging her post-conference thoughts at her own site. Plus she was able to outlast me on the dancefloor on the last night of conference! That never happens!
I got to dance A LOT with Amanda McCabe (as well as trade snark texts during the RITA ceremony; all we want to say is, “that lipstick shade is not your friend!”), and I hugged Janet Mullany and Diane Gaston, and waved at Susanna Fraser. It never gets tired to hang out with smart women who understand what I love and like to do.
Anyhoo, while out there, I discussed various projects I might be working on, and now I actually have to work on them. So there’s that. And that’s good. More news as I have it.
Meanwhile, I am tormenting my Critique Partner, Myretta Robens, with plotting my next historical, leading to the burning question–why WOULDN’T my heroine want to marry the handsome, snarky, charming Duke? I mean, what is WRONG with her? Myretta and I came up with a few ideas, including that she is a private person who values her anonymity, and Duchesses were not anonymous, as well as that she is desperately frightened that she will lose her own identity if she marries, as well as lose her independence. Of course, the handsome, snarky, charming Duke (HSCD) will get her to change her mind–eventually–but it’ll be a struggle.
It’s fun, but hard. Like most rewarding art, right?
So if anyone has examples of that type of heroine in novels, and care to share their motives (and the titles) in comments, that’d be great. I need to gather as much fuel as I can for her being reluctant to wed the Regency Billionaire, because DUH.
And she has a contest!
One of the highlights at RWA for me was spending some time with historical romance author Maggie Robinson, one of the funniest ladies I know. And here she is at the Riskies, so I’ll just let Maggie take over now…
It’s delightful to be back with the Riskies, particularly since I am highjacking their blog and changing it to Risky Edwardians! I’ve gone from carriages to cars, hand-written missives to marconigrams, talking face-to-face to telephoning, LOL.
The first book in my new Edwardian Ladies Unlaced series, In the Arms of the Heiress, is set in 1903. My heroine Louisa Stratton has been crashing around the Continent on a year-long motor trip with her loyal maid Kathleen. Louisa’s left her awful, interfering family behind in the dust, and to keep her independence has invented a husband—the perfect man, Maximillian Norwich. When she’s forced to come home, she has to hire an imperfect man, Charles Cooper, to pretend to be the fictional urbane art connoisseur she “married” in Paris.
For the price she’s willing to pay for his services, Charles thinks he can do anything for thirty days. He’s been drinking, is depressed and desperate after serving as a captain in the Second Boer War and administering a concentration camp for Boer women and children. Even with only one good eye, he’s seen things he wishes he could unsee. After witnessing horrific collateral damage on civilians, he assumes Louisa is just another spoiled little rich girl without a thought in her head. To both their surprise, the jaded Charles and flighty Louisa turn out to be perfectly imperfect together, especially when mischief and mayhem move in with them at Rosemont, the family estate.
It’s been such fun researching a different era, but love is love, no matter the time frame. Library Journal gave ITAOTH a coveted starred review, and the book has been called “a must-read” (Tessa Dare), “a marvelous read” (RT Book Reviews with 4 ½ stars and a K.I.S.S. for Charles!), “full of witty dialog and scorching romance” (Elizabeth Essex) and “fun, light and very sexy.” (Semxybooks) [Comment from Janet: I had a sneak peak at this book and it’s terrific. It deserves all this praise and more]
I have a copy to give away for one commenter. Here’s a photograph of my very own Edwardian heiresses, my grandmother and her sisters. Are you lucky enough to have family pictures through the ages? What is your favorite family photograph?
Like other Riskies, I’m recently returned from the RWA conference. I stayed a few days extra for a family reunion, so I haven’t had much time yet to digest what I learned. The second leg of the trip turned unexpectedly adventurous, too–on Sunday while on the way to the Six Flags amusement park with some of the family, including my 9-year-old daughter and 10-year-old grand-niece, we had an abrupt flat tire in our rental car. While on I-20. Fortunately we were able to make it over to the shoulder safely, and we had enough fuel in the car to keep the AC running while we waited for AAA to come to the rescue. And that rescue was worth every penny of AAA membership fees we’ve paid for the last DECADE, as far as I’m concerned.
Once we finally got to Six Flags, we only had two hours or so to enjoy the rides before this happened:
We knew it was going to storm, just not quite so…vehemently. That trash can with what looks like waves breaking against it had already drifted five or six feet from its original spot, and within a minute floated out of sight entirely. Once the rain let up even a tiny bit, we sloshed back to our car and drove to my nephew’s house through an hour of rain that alternated between driving and merely heavy. Not the best amusement park excursion ever, but at least the barbecue we stopped for during a heavy rain phase was delicious.
Then when we finally got back to Seattle on Tuesday and started up my car, which we’d left parked at the airport, to our dismay its low tire pressure indicator came on! Since we could see one of the front tires was visibly flatter than its mate, rather than risk a repeat of Sunday’s experience, only on I-5 during rush hour, we located the nearest tire center, five minutes’ drive from the airport, and went straight there. Which was smart, as it turned out. There was a tack in the tire, and a good chance it would’ve gone entirely flat before we could’ve made it home and taken it to the dealership for a check the next day. So, props to Les Schwab Tire Center for patching the tire for free and to Google Maps for finding the closest one. I love my 21st century technology!
But I also love writing about the lower-tech world of 200 years ago. My latest release, A Dream Defiant, hits virtual shelves this coming Monday.
It’s a risky book on several levels. It’s my first-ever novella, so the shorter length was a learning curve for me–less than 30,000 words while my previous books have averaged around 90,000. So I had to ruthlessly cut the plot down to cover a shorter time range and resist the urge to go haring off chasing subplots or elaborating upon backstory. And I ended up enjoying it. While I don’t plan to give up full-length novels by any means, I have at least one more novella in the pipeline, a holiday romance whose title and release date remain TBD, but will be coming from Carina in late 2014.
But the biggest risk I took was writing a black hero. I was inspired by everything from a brief reference to Sudanese soldiers in Napoleon’s army in John Elting’s encyclopedic history Swords Around a Throne to the black soldier visible in the 1822 painting Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog posts about black soldiers in the Civil War.
Still, I hesitated for a long time before starting this story. Who did I think I was to create such a hero, when I’m not just a white woman but one with Southern roots and a Confederate soldier for a great-great-grandfather? And maybe I took too great a risk–though now it’s in the hands of you, the readers, to judge. But I ended up deciding it was an important, little-known aspect of history that was well worth exploring–and also that who my great-great-grandfather was shouldn’t determine what I can and can’t write about 150 years later.
I’m giving away a copy of A Dream Defiant in the electronic format of your choice to one randomly selected commenter between now and Sunday at 9 PM Pacific Time. So tell me about your own travel adventures, wonderful or otherwise, or let me know what risks you think Regency authors should and shouldn’t take.
I am not yet completely back from RWA (went to the beach to decompress and write for a few days before heading home!), will share pics and news next week! In the meantime, I think I have a contest winner–on my Baby Fever post a few days ago, I offered a signed copy of one of my books to the first winner to guess Baby Cambridge’s gender. The winner, of course, is Hellion, who was the first to guess a boy!! (outguessing me–I was so sure it was a princess….)
You can go to my website here, and then email me to claim the title you like! See you all next week….
