Fashions in Re-Covering

I don’t know about you, but I love Marissa’s fashion posts. It’s fun to see how things changed over the course of the nineteenth century. But clothing isn’t the only thing that changes with time. What’s popular in book covers also changes over the years. That’s one of the reasons I decided to update the covers on my Lady Emily Capers. So, join me on a walk down memory lane. 😊

Secrets and Sensibilities was originally published by Kensington as a traditional Regency romance. I’ve edited and rewritten parts since. Here was the first cover (and title--A Dangerous Dalliance).

Art and Artifice began life as La Petite Four (actually, it began life as Diary of a Duke’s Daughter, but my publisher Penguin Razor Bill didn’t care for that title). I heavily rewrote it after the rights were reverted. Here was the first cover (before the addition of a necklace on the young lady):

When I finished the series on my own, I had silhouette covers created for all five books. To me, they caught the campy fun of the stories and hinted of both mystery and romance. But it was terribly hard to find full silhouettes of ladies in Regency garb, so the looks vary from Georgian to Victorian and even beyond. And they didn’t really shout “If you’re a teen, you might enjoy these too!”

 So, I give you the new and improved covers for the Lady Emily Capers:

Secrets and Sensibilities was challenging for me, because, as I’ve mentioned, the character of Hannah Alexander was based on a dear friend who has since passed away. This model has Nancy’s sleek chocolate-colored hair, pale complexion, and big brown eyes.

Almost as challenging was finding the right Lady Emily for Art and Artifice. Emily describes her nose as pointy and her hair as occasionally frizzy. Difficult to find frizzy-haired models. 😊 But I liked the nose on this young lady.

Priscilla Tate in Ballrooms and Blackmail was easier—just look for the most gorgeous blonde I could find. I think she’d approve of the girly colors as well. (Much more so than Emily, who had apoplexy about her original pink cover.)

Ariadne Courdebas in Eloquence and Espionage took a bit of work. She is the plumpest of the young ladies, and the most well-read. I liked the intelligence in this young lady’s face as well as the smoky background my cover artist used.

Ah, her sister Daphne! How to portray our Amazon in Love and Larceny? This model had a nice “girl next door” look that worked for the most athletic of the group.

So, what do you think? Did my cover artist, the talented Kim Killion, capture the characters the way you imagined them?

Must be the Season

We have a lot of seasons these days. There are the four seasons—winter, spring, summer, and fall. Then there’s the television season, which seems to fall in many different periods depending on the network, fill-in-your-favorite-sports seasons, and the holiday season, which is fast approaching. In early nineteenth century England, of course, there was only one Season. Or was there?

We’ve talked about the Season, that time between Easter and the beginning of hunting season (another season!), when the aristocracy flocked to London. Young ladies made their debuts. Marriages were contracted. Almack’s held its famous balls. And Parliament sat.

That, more than anything else, drove the Season. Your dear papa or older brother must take his seat in the Lords, and you came along to see and be seen. But you see, Parliament didn’t always sit just in the spring and summer months.

Older Regency romance novels talk of the Little Season, but many of us authors have looked in vain at period sources to discover what and when that might be. My theory is that the Little Season happened in the fall, when Parliament happened to sit later or arrive earlier than usual.

For example, in 1812, Parliament adjourned on July 30, but a general election was held in October. The newly elected in the House of Commons took their seats on November 24 and continued sitting with the House of Lords until July 22, 1813. Likewise, Parliament began sessions on November 4, 1813, and adjourned July 30, 1814. I cannot imagine every gentleman left family behind the entire time or huddled together over a pint without a ball or two to liven things up. This fall/winter time in London may have been what has been deemed the Little Season.

But at the moment, we seem to be in another type of season entirely. A sale season. Marissa mentioned Tuesday that her award-winning story, Skin Deep, is on sale through today. My publisher has put 500 of its books, including my A Convenient Christmas Wedding on sale for $1.99 from October 7 through 10.

It also so happens that my Art and Artifice, the second book in my Lady Emily Capers, parts of which were published as La Petite Four, is on sale for 99 cents through October 14.

Lady Emily dreams of joining the famous artists of the Royal Society for the Beaux Arts until her longtime betrothed Lord Robert declares his intent to marry her, immediately. What can the fellow be thinking! And why is handsome Bow Street Runner Jamie Cropper dogging Lord Robert’s steps, and Emily’s?  It’s up to Emily to use her art to uncover artifice and discover whether Lord Robert has something up his sleeve besides a nicely muscled arm. Along the way, a duke’s daughter might just form a perilous passion for a most unlikely suitor.

You know, it's always the season to read.

Retro Blast: Happy Graduation, Blue Coats and All

Congratulations to those graduating this week and next! What a milestone in your lives! To celebrate, I’m reposting something from 2010 and letting you know that Art and Artifice is currently on sale for 99 cents for a limited time. Find the links to purchase here. 

This time of year marks graduation for many—from high school, from trade school, from college.  Some will wear gowns in their school colors; others will wear somber black.  In the nineteenth century, students attending school at Christ’s Hospital wore blue.

The London Bluecoat School, as it was called, opened for both boys and girls in 1552.  It was designed to educate and house London’s poor children, but students came from all England and Wales, and a few came from Ireland and Scotland.  An average of 1,500 students were enrolled each year.  It must have been a frugal operation:  in 1815, it cost about 22 pounds per year per child to house, feed, clothe, and educate the students.

So let’s say you’re a child of a poor family, and your mother would like to see you have a chance to do something better in life by attending the Bluecoat School.  First, she had to petition a member of the board of governors (who were generally officials with the City of London) or some wealthy person with influence at the school (a benefactor) for help.  She had to gather birth and baptismal records, a sworn statement from your parish minister, and statements from witnesses that proved you were the right age and in a “destitute condition.”  The board member or benefactor brought the proof to the board, who reviewed and approved these presentation papers, at which point your family was notified.

On a set day, Mother brought you down to the school and turned you over to the registrar.  I imagine there must have been some teary-eyed farewells at that point.  Much as if you were entering prison, the registrar recorded your name in a book and gave you a new set of clothes that consisted of a long blue coat close to the body, a yellow underskirt, yellow stockings, and a flat, round worsted cap.  That’s what you wore the remainder of your time in the school, up to age sixteen.

At first, boys and girls were educated in the same school, but just before the beginning of the nineteenth century, the girls were moved out of London to Hertfordshire, and some of the youngest boys (under age 10) joined them shortly afterward.  It appears the girls were taught to go into service or trade, but the boys in London were educated in the classics, including learning Latin.  The buildings also housed the Royal Mathematical School to train mathematicians and teach naval officers navigation.  Sir Isaac Newton, John Flamsteed the first Astronomer Royal, and Edmund Halley (who first computed the orbit of Halley’s comet) helped build the study materials.

The Bluecoat School was much patronized by the aristocracy and nobility.  It operated under Royal Charter, and noted architects Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor (I so want to steal his name for a hero!), designed the buildings after many of the originals were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.  The wealthy even left money to the school in their wills.  Famous students in London include critic and writer James Leigh Hunt, essayist Charles Lamb, and the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Bluecoat schools eventually sprung up in a number of other English cities as well.

So, if you are graduating or have graduated, congratulations!  Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to do it in a blue coat and yellow stockings?

Stories That Won't Let Us Go

It seems an odd thing to say, but some stories simply won't let go of an author, even after those books have been published.  Authors are some of the only people who are generally not deemed mad for listening to the voices in their heads.  Books haunt us, calling, beckoning, until we give in and dive in.  It's the same for passionate readers.  And then we're never sure how the book, and our very selves, will turn out in the end.

Such was the case for my 2008 young adult novel, La Petite Four.  I know some of you were first introduced to my writing through that book, and I've received a number of lovely e-mails from readers about it.  But the thing was, I was never entirely satisfied with it.  No, that's not quite true.  I was glad to see it published.  Lady Emily wasn't entirely satisfied with it.

Lady Emily, the youngest daughter of the Duke of Emerson and the heroine of La Petite Four, remains the loudest character I have ever written, even after finishing more than 25 manuscripts for publication.  It isn't that she runs about shouting.  She tends to have a great deal more class than that.  But she speaks in my mind so clearly that I could swear she was standing right next to me.

Here's the first thing she ever said to me:  "I despise pink.  It neither makes the bold statement of red nor whispers the purity of white, yet I am convinced that I would make my father the happiest of all men should I dress in nothing but that color.  Pink, he thinks, is singularly feminine.  It is simply not me."

Opinionated much?

She wasn't content to recite narrative or dialogue.  During the process of completing La Petite Four, she argued quite strenuously with me over certain parts of the story my editors felt were very important.  For instance, the editors wanted a more exciting first chapter.  Sounds reasonable enough; good advice, actually.  I was on my third revision, struggling, fighting with Lady Emily every step of the way, when she said, purely out of spite, I might add, "I want to run away."  So, in the version of La Petite Four that saw publication, I had Lady Emily run away from her boarding school to reach her father before her betrothed so she can change the duke's mind about her having to marry.

Lady Emily was not amused.

When the rights to the story were returned to me, I decided to revise the story to her liking and reissue it along with its prequel, the former A Dangerous Dalliance and now Secrets and Sensibilities, where Lady Emily first learns her sleuthing skills.  Here was her chance, her opportunity to tell her story, her way.  Did she cooperate?

"I am tired of being rewritten," she complained, pointed nose in the air.

I promised her this was the last time.  And so, in hopes of finally doing Lady Emily's story justice, this week I published the ebook, Art and Artifice, a retelling of La Petite Four that I am happy to say Lady Emily endorses heartily.  Perhaps that's because this time I let Bow Street Runner Jamie Cropper say a few words as well.  He's a gentleman, for all he's been raised in poverty.  He wasn't nearly so strident about how he was portrayed, but then, he likes to have a little fun.

Have I finally silenced Lady Emily?  No.  Now she won't let me be until I finish the sequel, Ballrooms and Bribery.  That will have to wait until next spring. 

This time I get to listen to my own voice for a change.   

Amazon http://amzn.to/1fCJzAE

Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/1aqxGvA

Smashwords http://bit.ly/1bvGfGD

Covers Galore!

I have covers!  Three, to be exact.  The first two were designed by the Killion Group, and I couldn't be more pleased.  I have for a long time fussed over the title for A Dangerous Dalliance, the book that introduces my young sleuth Lady Emily Southwell and her penchant for solving dark mysteries in clever ways, and finding a little romance along the path.  Either a title comes to me, or it doesn't.  It finally came.  I give you:  Secrets and Sensibilities.

When art instructor Hannah Alexander agrees to accompany four of her students on a country house visit before Easter, she never dreams of entering into a dalliance with the owner David Tenant, the handsome new Earl of Brentfield. But one moment in his company and she's in danger of losing her heart. There are secrets aplenty at Brentfield, enough to challenge any lady's sensibilities, even those of Hannah's protégé, Lady Emily Southwell. As events unfold at Brentfield, Hannah quickly learns that loving David comes at a price, to her future plans of being a portrait painter, to her position as a teacher, and to her very life.

Lady Emily originally came into her own in my 2008 young adult novel, La Petite Four.  But I was never entirely happy with that book.  (Terrible thing for an author to admit!)  So, I have been working on rewriting it.  I am happy to report that it is currently in copyediting and should be out later this month as Art and Artifice.

Finally, I offer you a sneak peek of the cover for my December release from Love Inspired Historical, The Wife Campaign.  The second book in my Master Matchmaker series is set at a fishing lodge, and the river plays a big part in the story, so I was glad to see the artists capture both the mood and the setting. 

Whitfield Calder, Earl of Danning, would much rather spend a fortnight fishing than entertaining three eligible young ladies.  But when his valet insists that marriage is an earl's duty, Whit agrees to a house party.  He has no intention of actually proposing to anyone . . . until flame-haired Ruby Hollingsford declares she'd never accept him anyway.  Ruby might have been tricked into attending this charade, but she certainly won't compete for the earl's affections.  Yet Whit isn't the selfish aristocrat she envisioned.  And with a little trust, two weeks might be ample time for an unlikely couple to fall headlong in love.

Those of you who have been following the blog for some time know that I usually pick an actress/actor or model to help me visualize my hero and heroine, and I share this information with the talented artists at Love Inspired.  The young lady this time got an easy A for her acting abilities, even when she hung out with a squad of gangsters.  Once upon a time, the gentleman played a charming TV character who is more likely to be found wielding a sword than the fishing rod my hero favors. 

Anyone want to guess who I had in mind for my heroine and hero, Ruby Hollingsford and Whitfield Calder, Earl of Danning?