Listen While You Bake

It’s the time of year around here when folks start thinking about cooking, especially baking. Pumpkin pies, spice cake, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter fudge, raspberry crisp, you name it. So, in case you’re one of those so inclined, here’s a throwback to a great historic recipe from beloved author Louise M. Gouge, as well as some reading and listening to go along with it. 

While you’re waiting for the pie to bake or the fudge to set, try It Started With a Duke: Fortune’s Brides, the Beginning, with two full novels and a novella, now available as both ebook and audiobook!

The mysterious Meredith Thorn and her cat, Fortune, opened an employment agency to help gentlewomen down on their luck. Her first assignment? Finding a governess for the young daughters of the Duke of Wey. Enjoy three warm, witty Regencies that begin the Fortune’s Brides series: Never Doubt a Duke, Never Borrow a Baronet, and Always Kiss at Christmas, Meredith’s origin story.

“I am seriously LOVING this series. Regina is hooking me from the first page, and I don’t want to set the book down until I finish the story!” – For the Love of Christian Fiction

“I highly recommend the entire series - to anyone who enjoys well written Regency romance.” – Audible listener Lil Miss Molly (used with permission)

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Amazon (affiliate link)

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Kobo

Audible 

Apple audio  

Scrumptious!

It’s a Celebration!

Cue the music and the confetti cannons! We are celebrating here at Nineteen Teen. 

Why?

First, we have surpassed 1 million views! That is pretty amazing for a lil ole blog devoted to the nineteenth century and books. Thank you all for your support!

Second, this month marks our 14th anniversary for blogging and the beginning of our 15^th year. We didn’t know what to expect when we started, but we’ve had the privilege to guest host or interview wonderful authors like Julie Klassen, Nancy Sanders, Charlotte Henry and her alter ego Shelley Adina, YS Lee, and Patrice Kindl; try a book club and movie watch parties; and dig into everything from fashion to fitness in early Georgian into Victorian times. What a ride!

As we usually do at our blog birthday, we are asking for you input. 

What do you want more of? 

What else shall we try?

Finally, on a personal note, I’m delighted to report two recent developments in the publication side. Always Kiss at Christmas, the prequel novella to my Fortune’s Brides series, is now available as an audio book, once again voiced by the marvelous Jannie Meisberger. Mary Rose has one goal for her mother’s Christmas Eve party: convince her friend Julian Mayes to marry her. Julian is ready to make his mark in London. As the danger to Mary’s future becomes clear, will one kiss prove to him how far he will go to protect her? You can find it at fine online retailers such as Amazon, Audible, and Apple.

And I cannot wait for the publication in October of the finale of my American Wonders Collection, A View Most Glorious. To celebrate, my publisher has put the first two ebooks in the series on sale for September. A Distance Too Grand is only 99cents, and Nothing Short of Wondrous is only $1.99. Grab them while you can!

If you are eager for the third book, you can preorder now. Headstrong beauty Coraline Baxter must rely on rough mountain guide Nathan Hardee to help her reach the top of Mt. Rainier so she can bring attention to a woman’s right to vote and avoid marrying the man her mother has chosen for her. But her mountain man has hidden potential—and so, she discovers, does their future together. 

Baker Book House (40% off preorder, 30% off release and free shipping) 

Baker Publishing Group 

Amazon 

Apple Books 

Barnes and Noble 

Books-A-Million 

Christian Book 

Indie Bound (an independent bookstore near you) 

Kobo 

The Book Depository, free shipping worldwide 

Stay tuned for more tidbits about the mountain and the fun I had writing this book in coming weeks.

Hearing Grace-by-the-Sea

It’s not surprising that authors hear their characters in their heads. Sometimes they start talking before a story is plotted. Sometimes they start talking during the plotting. Sometimes they’re particularly stubborn and don’t make themselves truly known until the book is fairly far along. What’s really surprising, at least to me, is when someone else hears those voices too.

Such is the case with my new audiobook, The Matchmaker’s Rogue. My wonderful narrator, Jannie Meisberger, had done such a good job with the Fortune’s Brides set that I asked her to try her hand at making the characters in Grace-by-the-Sea come alive. She did a fantastic job, as always, with my hero and heroine, and even managed to sing in Lord Featherstone and Mr. Crabapple’s voices when called for.

But Maudie, ah Maudie. She was difficult.

That shouldn’t surprise me. Those of you who have read the series know that Maudlyn “Maudie” Tully, the elderly aunt of my heroine, Jesslyn Chance, is her own person. Having been widowed young, she retreated into a fantasy world and never came out. Maudie has tea with fairies, picnics with mermaids, and an ongoing battle of civility with trolls. I hear her dear, droll, prophetic voice so clearly.

Funny that others don’t.

“Close,” I said to Jannie. “But a bit more mysterious.”

“Closer, but perhaps a little higher?”

“Nice, but too slow. Try it faster.”

I’m so glad Jannie has the patience of a saint.

In the end, she did Maudie and the others justice. Here’s a little listen:

Voice by Jannie · The Matchmaker's Rogue

The Matchmaker’s Rogue is now available at Audible and Amazon, and soon iTunes.

More Than Hot Air: A Viscount Speaks

A reader recently reviewed Never Vie for a Viscount, book 4 in my Fortune’s Brides series, beginning with the line, “This book is full of hot air.” I was ready to take umbrage, until I recalled this particular book has a hero trying to improve the science of ballooning. Then I had to smile at her cleverness.

Now the book is full of more than hot air. My wonderful narrator, Jannie Meisberger, has done it again! The audio book for Never Vie for a Viscount launched earlier this month and has already garnered a 5-star review. Bubbly Lydia Villers isn’t your typical Regency miss, but Jannie voiced her to perfection. And I love what she did with Matthew “Beast” Bateman, who is the hero of the sequel to this book.

And we’re working on that now. 😊

Lydia Villers wants to leave behind her life as a social butterfly and pursue a career in natural philosophy. A shame the only scientist available to assist her is the man she had once hoped to wed. Viscount Worthington has been betrayed once too often, including by the bubbly beauty who now wants to work at his side. How can he believe Lydia’s intentions are true this time? With the help of Miss Thorn and her beloved cat Fortune, an enthusiastic young lady and a wary lord might just discover that only together do they make the perfect chemistry.

Audible 

Amazon 

Apple 

Enjoy!

Earls Can Talk Too

I received lovely news this week. With all that has been going on, it took a bit to finish, but the audiobook for Never Envy an Earl is now available. Yvette de Maupassant, my heroine, was always a sassy lass, so I was absolutely tickled when the ever-talented Jannie Meisberger voiced her with such a delightful French accent. She truly brought the story to life.

The saucy Yvette de Maupassant is used to danger. She’s spent the last 10 years spying for England in Napoleon’s court. Now that her work has been discovered, she must hide, and what better place than the remote wooded estate of the Earl of Carrolton? Her friend Miss Thorn and that delightful cat Fortune place her in a position where she can pretend to be companion to the earl’s sickly mother. Yet one look at the earl has Yvette rethinking why she wants to stay.

Gregory, Earl of Carrolton, is used to power. So why does one moment in the company of his mother and spinster sister leave him feeling powerless? And why does the look in a certain Frenchwoman’s eyes leave him weak at the knees? As danger draws closer, Gregory and Yvette must work together to protect her, his family, and the future of England, as they discover the greatest danger and delight is falling in love.

Amazon 

Audible 

iTunes 

And, to celebrate the upcoming release of The Heiress’s Convenient Husband (Monday, April 20), I’ve made The Unflappable Miss Fairchild, the first in my Uncommon Courtships series, 99 cents.

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Whether you decide to listen to an earl, read about an unflappable miss, both, or neither, stay safe and healthy! We’ve got this!

Of Audio Books and Print Giveaways

I learned this week that the audio book for Never Borrow a Baronet, the second book in my Fortune’s Brides series, is now live and available for purchase. Huzzah! It is narrated by the talented Jannie Meisberger. An audio book reviewer recently said Jannie’s voice reminded her of the wonderful Dame Julie Andrews. Such praise! If you missed my interview with Jannie, you can find it here. 

Not an audio book fan? You might want to enter the giveaway I’m hosting to celebrate the launch of my Grace-by-the-Sea series and The Matchmaker’s Rogue. One winner (U.S. only) will receive an autographed print copy of all six of the Fortune’s Brides books. The giveaway is open until January 29, 2020.

Enjoy!

Never Doubt a Duke, Out Loud

Audio books are an exciting frontier for literature these days. In an industry where flat is the new up when it comes to sales, audio books continue to see double digit increases. I admit I was not much of a connoisseur. The few I listened to never seemed to capture the story for me. And then Jannie Meisberger approached me about producing an audio book of Never Doubt a Duke, and I fell in love.

Jannie was born in England. She attended a British boarding school, where she studied elocution. She has university degrees are in Modern Languages (French and German) and Communication & Theatre Arts. How perfect for a narrator! I was just as delighted to discover that she now lives across Puget Sound from me. I thought you’d enjoy learning more about her and the audio book process.

What made you decide to become a narrator? I had studied music and acting in school in England and worked for an international organization in Europe before moving to America and raising a family. I inherited my mother’s ability to pick up accents and dialects and had great fun ‘performing’ bedtime stories to my children as they were growing up! 

After a career in international education, I decided to get back in acting, this time voice acting. I completed a number of projects, including children’s concert narration and recording public domain poems and short stories for LibriVox, before deciding that my passion was audiobook narration. I recorded my first audiobook in 2014 and have now recorded 36 audiobooks with number 37 in production.

What do you love best about being an audiobook narrator?  I get to travel through time, journey into different worlds, real and imagined, voice a myriad of characters, and bring all these wonderful stories to the world of audiobook listeners. It is also a joy to collaborate with a group of creative authors that I am honored to call friends.

What drew you to Never Doubt a Duke and the Fortune’s Brides series? As a schoolgirl in Bath, England, I fell in love with Regency period novels, notably Georgette Heyer, as well as the classic Regency authors including Jane Austen. I have narrated a number of Pride and Prejudice variations, so you can imagine how delighted I was to come upon Never Doubt a Duke and the Fortune’s Brides series and discover that they had not yet been made into audiobooks. I was even happier to discover that Regina lived not far from me, so I had the opportunity to meet and chat with her about her writing career in general and Never Doubt a Duke in particular.

What’s your secret for creating an audiobook that captures the characters and the story?  Lots of careful preparation! The average time a narrator spends per finished hour of the audiobook is between 4-8 hours preparation, sometimes more. This includes requesting character descriptions and pronunciations of names from the author, as well as reading the manuscript several times through, listing all the characters and voices for each. I make short recordings of each voice for reference and check various online resources for pronunciations of certain words. Being English, this means checking both the English and American pronunciations of many common words, to ensure whichever pronunciation I choose remains consistent throughout the book!

What was the most challenging about recording Never Doubt a Duke? I always keep in mind that the author has spent many months, even years crafting each book, and it takes a leap of faith to trust a narrator to give just the right voice to the story. I truly believe we are a team. The author’s words are the stars, and I hope my voice allows the listeners to be enthralled by the story. When Regina and I met, she shared her concerns about an audiobook version of her book, and I am so happy she trusted me to record this first book in the Fortune’s Brides series. It has been a true pleasure to narrate, and I’m looking forward to narrating the continuing journey of Miss Thorn and dear Fortune through the peerage!

So, stay tuned! Jannie is currently recording Never Borrow a Baronet too!

You can learn more about Jannie at https://www.voicebyjannie.com.

And you can find her marvelous recording of Never Doubt a Duke at

Audible 

Amazon 

iTunes 

Better Than the Sound of Silence

Two people dear to me are beginning to lose their hearing, and both are too proud to wear hearing aids. I find myself raising my voice a lot and attempting to enunciate more clearly than usual. Had they been born in the upper class in the early nineteenth century, however, they might have used an ear trumpet.

You may have seen the horn-shaped things in old movies or read about them in books. Basically, the cone collected sounds and funneled them to the ear. Made from silver, horn, or wood, some were custom designed for a particular client. In 1800, Frederick Rein opened the first commercial shop in London.

Most had to be hand-held or placed on a stand on the table, and thus were quite visible. Some were collapsible for easy transport, but still evident in use. Like my two darlings, not everyone wanted to advertise their loss of hearing. So, Rein also developed less noticeable types, such as twin flower-shaped horns worn over the top of the head like today’s headphones. He also developed an acoustic urn that sat in the center of a table, collected sounds from around the room, and funneled them down a long tube to the listener. For the King of Portugal, he designed a special chair, where open-mouthed lion heads on the arm rests channeled sounds to the top of the chair, near the king’s ears. Talk about stealth hearing devices!

Other famous people besides the king said to have used ear trumpets during the early nineteenth century include the painter Joshua Reynolds and Beethoven.

Now, allow me to trumpet a little. I’m delighted to report that I have an audio book for the first time! “An Engagement of Convenience” has been recorded as part of the Summer House Party audiobook by Brilliance Audio. I can’t describe my delight when I heard my words being read aloud for the first time by someone other than me! 

And I hope Daisy and Lynn Lovegreen will be equally delighted. Lynn won the $25 Amazon gift certificate from last week, and Daisy won a copy of one of my books (e-book for Edwards and Williams’ titles, print copy from my stash for my Love Inspired titles). Contact me at reginascott at owt dot com with your physical address, and I’ll send those right out. Thanks for being part of Nineteen Teen as we head into our next 10 years!