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Monthly Archives: January 2016

Gaming at Brooks's Club: 19th century Thomas Rowlandson c. 1810-1815

Gaming at Brooks’s Club: 19th century
Thomas Rowlandson
c. 1810-1815

I stumbled across a very entertaining book from 1828 while doing a bit of research about Gentleman’s Clubs in London: The Clubs of London; with anecdotes of their members, sketches of character and conversations. It’s exactly the kind of fodder I love for my books. There’s just something delicious about working a bit of real gossip or happenstance into a book, especially if it’s funny our outrageous!

 

The first anecdote is that of Sheridan (the actor) being inducted into Brookes’s [sic]. His friends has proposed him several times, but he had continually drawn one black ball during the voting. Determined, his friends marked all the black balls to discover who it was that was excluding him, and then they all arranged to distract that member during the next vote to prevent his being present. It absolutely worked and even the man himself came to find the trick they pulled amusing once it was over and done with.

The second story deals with the induction of a man that was actually blackballed by EVERY member and yet managed to bully his way into membership. He was a notorious duelist and when told that after several rounds of voting he had still received a blackball, he charged into the room and demanded of each individual if THEY had been the one to blackball him. No one was willing to say yes, lest they be challenged to a duel and killed by the manic, so they let him stay. He was never admitted again, but he freely boasted everywhere that he was a member.

I can easily see either of these anecdotes shanghaied and used in a book, especially in one of the popular series that stars the owner of a club or a group of men who belong to one. I haven’t written a balloting scene in my Legion of Second Sons series, but now I very much want to. I just have to find a way to make it germane to the story. I can easily see either story being a good way of setting up an enmity between a hero and an antagonist. And it could be a fun way of exploring “politics-lite” since I have been assured that many readers find the actual politics a bit dry, LOL!

What do you all think? I love the idea of the hero standing up to the duelist and saying that of course he blackballed him and I can think of all kinds of ways this could come back to haunt him …

new-years-countdown-clock I suspect that on New Year’s Day, you have better things to do than reading a blogpost at the Risky Regencies! All the same, I’m here, so whenever you are reading this, I want to say thank you for reading during this past year, and I wish you a new year filled with joy, health, luck and prosperity!

I hope you ate food on New Year’s Eve that might be thought to bring those in the coming year. My guests last night dined on:

Shrimp: symbolizing long life (Japan)

Cheeses: gold colored foods symbolize prosperity and good fortune (Asia & South America)Sweet potato-pumpkin bisque

Soup: sweet potato and pumpkin bisque (sweet and also gold colored, both considered “lucky” for New Year’s)

Pork Tenderloin: pork, and pigs, symbolize both prosperity and moving forward in the new year (Western World) pork tenderloin

Sliced carrots with waterchestnuts: foods that resemble money –coins for instance –are lucky

Parmesan potatoes: gold, again (we added a bit of food coloring), and besides, yummy!

Poppyseed muffins: poppyseeds are considered lucky in Poland.

Bread & butter pickles: coin-shaped, more or less!

For dessert we had plum pudding (with hard sauce) just because we hadn’t used all of it at Christmas, but that fits the tradition of “finishing up old matters” before the year ends. ChristmasPud4

We toasted the new year with champagne, of course. Then just after midnight we each had twelve grapes meant to signify how sweet or sour our 12 months of the year are going to be (Spain, and Spanish influenced countries). I don’t have a clock that strikes (you’re supposed to eat them on the strokes), and we figured we had a better chance of tasting a sweet year if we ate them after the tart champagne!

Mind you, these aren’t Regency customs and beliefs, just ones culled from all over the world. But the universality of some kind of traditions to bring in the new year is quite consistent. In Regency England, country people would be the most likely to observe quaint practices like opening the back door to let the old year pass out at the first strokes of midnight, and then opening the front door as the strokes ended to let the new year in. Or to make a big production over who the “first-footer” (first visitor to set foot in the house) after midnight on New Year’s Eve would be. Or to make certain nothing of substance should leave the house during New Year’s Day –in some locales, housekeepers even retained the dust sweepings and food scraps from the day until January 2!

How did you ring in the new year? Will you do anything special today? Are there old customs or traditions your family observes? However you celebrate, or even if you don’t, I wish you a year full of delightful reading and discovery of many new books and authors for your pleasure! Stay tuned here at the Riskies and we’ll try to help you with that.

New-Years-Eve-2016-Champagne-05

Happy New Year!

Two_women_are_arguing_in_the_street_watched_by_a_crowd._Etch_Wellcome_V0040755How better to start 2016 at Risky Regencies than with a cat fight? Not a real one, of course, but a literary one pitting Jane Austen against Charlotte Brontë.

I just read Why Charlotte Brontë Hated Jane Austen by Susan Ostrov Weisser (Daily Beast, 10/19/2013) and, intrigued, looked around and found The Austen vs Brontë Smackdown on the blog Austen Pride (5/16/2009). I also found a long discussion of Austen vs the Brontës on Goodreads, which I skimmed, but did not read.

Apparently Charlotte Brontë had never read Jane Austen until a critic suggested she do so after she’d written Jane Eyre. She studied Pride and Prejudice and, among other things had this to say:

She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him with nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her: she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood…

Austen Pride makes the point that Austen, who had passed away a year after Charlotte Brontë was born, could not rebut this accusation. In Northanger Abbey, Austen did, however, parody the emotional excesses of gothic tales, of which the Brontës’ books could be included.

Of course, those of us who love Austen would also argue that there is plenty of passion in Austen’s work, although it is brimming beneath the surface. How could you not think so of Persuasion?

Austen Pride concluded that the two authors were writing from different perspectives. Austen was writing about her keen observations of the world in which she lived; Charlotte and her sisters, on the other hand, wrote what was in their imagination.

Me, I was never a huge fan of Jane Eyre. I loved the beginning when she was in the orphanage, but I never believed in the romance between Jane and Rochester. And the coincidences of falling in a ditch and being found by her long-lost cousin didn’t work for me. I also hated how Rochester treated Jane. And don’t get me started on Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Cathy have to die to be together? And who would want Heathcliff anyway? I preferred Edgar to Heathcliff.

I think I hold my fictional heroes to very high standards, ones that the Rochester and Heathcliff don’t quite meet. I understand the forces driving the Brontë heroes, but I much prefer heroes I can admire and even fall in love with. Heroes like Austen creates.

I also love all the finely drawn characters in Austen’s books. Their actions and feelings are much more believable to me and that gives me the sense that I’m in a real place, among real people.

But that is me, thinking on the surface of the stories, which is mostly how I read books.

What about you? Do you prefer Austen or the Brontës? Or do you like both for different reasons?

51X1LLJ4vaL._SX373_BO1,204,203,200_On Friday, January 29, our guest will be Lavinia Kent, talking about her new book, Ravishing Ruby, out now from Loveswept.

My friend Lavinia’s forte is writing sensual love scenes. Like the first two books in her Bound and Determined series, Ravishing Ruby, Ravishing Rubyis centered around a very special brothel.

If that doesn’t bring you here Friday, then maybe this will. Lavinia will be giving away one free ebook of Ravishing Ruby!

bio_pic I am delighted to welcome back to Risky Regencies my good friend and wonderful author, Lavinia Kent. Ravishing Ruby is Lavinia’s latest book out from the fabulous Loveswept line, the latest in her Bound and Determined series.

Here what some Amazon reviewers have to say about Ravishing Ruby:
Lavinia Kent is one of the best authors I’ve ever read. Ravishing Ruby does not disappoint, and was worth every penny! You HAVE to read this book! And every one in this series, especially if you love historical romances! Seriously, Lavinia is one of the best.”

Lavinia Kent is amazing with those sex scene, she’s my queen. They are hot, they are unique and not one is like the other. This time Kent plays with fantasies. And oh … those fantasies …
Read it! It’s amazing!

Lavinia will give away one ebook copy (your choice of formats) of Ravishing Ruby to one commenter, chosen at random.

Here’s Lavinia!

51X1LLJ4vaL._SX373_BO1,204,203,200_Tell us about Ravishing Ruby.

Ravishing Ruby is the continuing story of Ruby, Madame Rouge, the proprietor of a London brothel. It follows the novella, Revealing Ruby, in which we first get a glimpse inside Ruby’s world and come to understand what motivates her. Ravishing Ruby takes us deeper into that world and into her relationship with Captain Derek Price, an American ship’s captain. Because of Ruby’s unique standing in society it seems that any real relationship between them should be impossible – but things are not always as they seem.

Tell us about your Bound and Determined series. How do the books fit together?

My Bound and Determined series is a collection of extremely sensuous regency stories all bound together by Madame Rouge’s Club for Gentlemen of Taste. All the books have at least a couple of scenes that take place there, and none of the relationships would have developed without Madame Rouge’s. When I first started writing the series, I had no idea that Ruby would be ever be a heroine, but every time she stepped onto the page she started to take over, and so I was compelled to write her story.

You are known for your sensual and long love scenes. What’s unique or special about a love scene in Ravishing Ruby?

In writing the love scenes for Ravishing Ruby, I really let my imagination fly. Ruby has very “vanilla” tastes; she’s seen it all, tried most of it, and knows what she doesn’t like. What she does like is fantasy. I had a wonderful time trying to imagine what fantasies a woman of her time might have had. Sir Walter Scott had just published Ivanhoe, and I had great fun having both Ruby and Derek read the book and then act out parts of it at a masquerade.

What is “risky” about Ravishing Ruby?

I think the very idea of a true Madame as a heroine is risky. Ruby has no pretense about what she does and why she does it. She does try to create the best house possible for her girls, but she also knows that it is a business and that her livelihood depends on it. I have always been intrigued by how different the choices that women had were in past centuries. Is there any way that Ruby cannot lie about who she is and still have a chance at happiness?

Did you come across any interesting pieces of research while writing Ravishing Ruby?

I read books and poetry to think about Ruby’s fantasies: Ivanhoe, Byron’s Corsair, Arabian Nights (now, One Thousand and One Nights). It was some of the most enjoyable research I’ve ever done and really helped get me into Ruby’s mindset.

What is next for you?

12615291_10208646717069638_8915591322798400798_oI’ve just finished writing Angel in Scarlet, my mid-summer release. It features Angela, the best friend of my heroine in Bound by Bliss, and also has several important scenes at Madame Rouge’s.

I’m just starting a Christmas story about Ruby that will take her story with Derek a little further and set up my next series. The story keeps getting longer and longer in my mind as all of my old characters come to visit.

Which brings me to my question. Do you like seeing past heroes and heroines in a later story and getting another glimpse into their lives, or do you prefer that each story be new and fresh?

Thank you for having me. I always love visiting Risky Regencies.

Diane here, again.
We love having you, Lavinia! Remember readers, Lavinia will give away one ebook of Ravishing Ruby to one lucky commenter. I’ll pick the winner at random on Monday, Feb 1.

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