Happify December
If you’ve subscribed to my newsletter, Corsets and Kisses, you know I have a fascination with historical idioms and ideals and delight in sharing my discoveries with my readers. In December’s issue I explore the phrase Happily Ever After.
Sometimes my curiosity leads me down twisting paths and it was on one of these paths that I encountered an archaic word that, long ago in a bygone era, was considered perfectly proper English.
Sometime around 1620 the word Happify meant just what it ought to: to make happy.
So, let’s Happify December with all sorts of fun events and fabulous giveaways in celebration of the coming release of Once Upon a Regency: Timeless Tales and Fables!
Once upon a time nine historical romance authors created a fairy tale inspired Regency world…
We hope you’ll join us on a Regency adventure of love and romance in our limited edition box set Once Upon A Regency: Timeless Tales And Fables! Read on to learn more about the authors involved and for your chance to win all kinds of prizes.
We’d love for you to join us for the Once Upon a Regency Release Party on February 5th. Pre-Release festivities begin December 7th and run through February 4th so join the party now chat with the authors and win all sorts of amazing prizes.
Speaking of prizes, we have a Pre-Order Giveaway running now with the chance to the box set and signed paperbacks from all nine authors as well as a Kindle Fire.
Our fabulous of timeless tales and fables and their talented authors:
Resisting Romeo by Samantha Grace
Enchanted By The Earl by Amanda Mariel
Wish Upon A Kiss by Meara Platt
A Duke Worth His Salt by Allison Merritt
Masquerading as a Miss by Ari Thatcher
Searching for my Rogue by Dawn Brower
The Enchanted Cave by Sue London
Taming Beauty by Lynne Barron
Stealing a Lady’s Heart by Tammy Andresen
To read a short blurb of each story, please visit my page
And if that weren’t enough to Happify December, I’ll be joining nearly 200 authors to count down the days at the Holiday Book Hop on Facebook beginning December 12th. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to discover new authors and enter for a chance to win free books for life!
If you missed December’s Issue of Corsets and Kisses, and would like to remedy the situation, please click here.
Once Upon a Regency
If you’ve subscribed to my newsletter, Corsets and Kisses, you know I have a fascination with historical idioms and ideals and delight in sharing my discoveries with my readers. In December’s issue I will explore the phrase Happily Ever After.
Sometimes my curiosity leads me down twisting paths and it was on one of these paths that I encountered an archaic word that, long ago in a bygone era, was considered perfectly proper English.
Sometime around 1620 the word Happify meant just what it ought to: to make happy.
So, let’s Happify December with all sorts of fun events and fabulous giveaways in celebration of the coming release of Once Upon a Regency: Timeless Tales and Fables!
Once upon a time nine historical romance authors created a fairy tale inspired Regency world…
We hope you’ll join us on a Regency adventure of love and romance in our limited edition box set Once Upon A Regency: Timeless Tales And Fables! Read on to learn more about the authors involved and for your chance to win all kinds of prizes.
We’d love for you to join us for the Once Upon a Regency Release Party on February 5th. Pre-Release festivities begin December 7th and run through February 4th so join the party now chat with the authors and win all sorts of amazing prizes.
Speaking of prizes, we have a Pre-Order Giveaway running now with the chance to the box set and signed paperbacks from all nine authors as well as a Kindle Fire.
Our fabulous of timeless tales and fables and their talented authors:
Resisting Romeo by Samantha Grace
Enchanted By The Earl by Amanda Mariel
Wish Upon A Kiss by Meara Platt
A Duke Worth His Salt by Allison Merritt
Masquerading as a Miss by Ari Thatcher
Searching for my Rogue by Dawn Brower
The Enchanted Cave by Sue London
Taming Beauty by Lynne Barron
Stealing a Lady’s Heart by Tammy Andresen
To read a short blurb of each story, please visit my page,
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Black Friday Bonanza
One of the things I enjoy most about reading and writing Historical Romance is getting lost in a bygone era, be it Georgian, Regency or Victorian.
Falling in love was a complicated affair, conducted face to face while chaperons looked on, or perhaps through letters painstakingly written with quill and ink and delivered days or weeks later by mail coach or pony express. A rendezvous with one’s sweetheart required forethought, ingenuity and plenty of patience, rather than good phone reception, nimble texting fingers an email address.
So while I like to imagine falling in love in the nineteenth century, I cannot imagine having to shop for my loved ones. The carriage rides hither and yon in search of just the right gift, carrying packages from one shop to another. And can you imagine how heavy a lady’s reticule must have been with all those coins jangling around?
Ah, the wonders of online shopping.
Better still, winning books and book swag from your favorite and perhaps future favorite authors!
Enter for a chance to win my Black Friday Bonanza Giveaway.
Once you’re done entering to win my Black Friday giveaway, don’t forget to click the icon below to visit other pages with great prizes for you to enter to win!
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A Fascination with Feminine Fripperies
As we all know, I’ve developed something of an obsession with corsets. My fascination began innocently enough the first time I wrote a love scene featuring a heroine laced into a silk and whalebone gilded cage. As I was choreographing a love scene (author speak for placing hands here, lips there and various other body parts elsewhere) I realized I hadn’t the faintest notion how my hero might divest the lady of her corset.
Writers of Historical Romance are nothing if not expert researchers, and while google is oftentimes my best friend in the world, sometimes only hands on experience will do. So I ordered a corset and enlisted my husband’s assistance lacing me into the convoluted contraption. If you missed my blog post about hooks, laces, sadistic lady’s maids and over-protective husbands, please feel free to read it here.
I liked the first corset so well, I ordered two more, then another and another. If you’ve read my earlier post, you know I discovered that wandering through life wearing a corset can be something of a challenge, not to mention downright dangerous at times.
Still, there is just something exquisitely decadent and luxurious and wonderfully feminine about the frilly, lacy, elegant undergarments from a bygone era. So I ordered a curvaceous wire mannequin to display my growing collection of corsets. Next came the fans and the antique perfume atomizers, the fragile glass vases and bottles, the velvet and satin pillows, the damask drapes and spindly furniture. Before I quite knew how it happened I’d turned my office into a pretty nineteenth century boudoir.
And when I’m lounging on the pillow-strewn daybed, writing, reading, or simply daydreaming, I am inspired by all the feminine fripperies surrounding me. Inspired to write stories of women who would have lived amid such adornments on a daily basis. Women as complicated and contrary as a corset, as fragile and strong as spun glass, as elegant and endearing as silk and velvet and lace.
Women like all of us…writers, readers, and daydreamers.
Speaking of writers, readers and daydreamers, thank you all for the wonderful suggestions of books and authors. My kindle library has grown by leaps and bounds. Now if I could just find time to read them!
Congratulations to Darlene, October’s Corset winner…your Floral Denim Corset is on its way!
And congratulations to LilRed1268, winner of my Halloween Book Hop Giveaway…A signed Copy of Pretty Poison, Two Wine Bottle Corsets and Two Corset Bookmarks will be shipping soon!
I love to hear from my readers so please Subscribe to my Newsletter above if you haven’t already done so, and then simply post a comment below and you’ll be entered to win November’s Vintage Black and White Floral Corset. Share what inspires you, a book recommendation, a bit of news, a notion of any sort, an idiom that’s always struck you as amusing, a regency ideal you’ve found ludicrous, or just a random thought. I’ll draw one winner on December 1st.
November Events Not To Be Missed:
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Desperately Searching For A Complicated Heroine
Congratulations to October’s Corset winner, Darlene…and thank you all for the wonderful suggestions of books and authors. My kindle library has grown by leaps and bounds with all the samples I’ve added. Now if I could just find time to read them!
I’ll be posting November’s Corset in the next few days but in the meantime, please feel free to add further recommendations. I greatly appreciate them all!
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I wouldn’t be an author of Historical Romance Novels if I didn’t absolutely love to read Historical Romance Novels.
I adore it all. Westerns with an outlaw wounded in body and soul. Regencies with spunky heroines and devilish rakes. Gilded tales of American heiresses and fortune hunting English aristocrats. Steampunk stories with vampires. Victorian era fairy tales. Medieval knights saving damsels in distress. Or damsels in distress saving Medieval knights, for that matter. If it’s well-written, the characters multi-dimensional and the story nicely paced, I’ll read it. Sometimes over and over again.
But like any fan of the Historical Romance genre, my mood determines the type of story I crave at any given time. And my moods can be fickle, stubborn and downright impossible to please.
Sometimes I want pure romance, sweet and light and humorous, perhaps even a bit chaste. Other times I look for a story riddled with angst, something dark and seedy and wicked. Most often I find myself looking for something betwixt the two ends of the spectrum.
Lately I’ve found myself desperately searching for a story with a complicated, multi-faceted heroine possessed of a slightly tarnished reputation, a lover or two in her past and a faintly cynical outlook on life. Oh, and a hero who is enchanted, if a bit befuddled, by this woman rather than determined to reform her character, find a distant connection to a baron which would make her marriageable, or set her up as his mistress.
So, dear readers I am asking for your assistance, for suggestions and recommendations. Have you read a particular author who writes complex, nuanced heroines and the heroes who adore them just as they are? Is there a particular book you’ve enjoyed which might satisfy my sudden, insistent craving for more than a feisty virgin and the rake who stole her heart with little or no effort?
As always I love to hear from my readers so please feel free to post a comment below. Share your your suggestions for my next great read, a bit of news, a notion of any sort, an idiom that’s always struck you as amusing, a regency ideal you’ve found ludicrous, or just a random thought. You’ll be entered to win October’s Floral Denim Corset.
Crystal Young left me a comment in September and won a corset of her own. I’ll be randomly choosing a winner for October’s lovely corset on November 1st.
Between now and then, specifically between October 19th and 31st, be sure to head over the The Halloween Book Hop on Facebook where more than 130 Authors, Book Bloggers and Publishers representing all different genres will be offering up all sorts of Tricks and Treats.
I’m also running a Goodreads Giveaway through October 26th with a chance to win a Signed Copy of Pretty Poison and a Wine Bottle Corset.
As a writer of Historical Romance novels, I depend upon readers to share their thoughts about my books on those same sites. For a limited time, I’m offering a free ebook copy of Pretty Poison in exchange for an honest review. Simply fill out the Review Form agreeing to post an honest review on Amazon, and other sites where readers will appreciate your reviews and recommendations.
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Tickle My Fancy
Have you ever experienced one of those moments when you say something in conversation which makes you laugh hysterically while whoever you are speaking with looks at you as if you’ve lost your mind?
Call me crazy, but I love sharing an inside joke, even if it is just with myself.
Now and again I write a few lines which, when I go back and read them after weeks or months, tickle my fancy or tug on my heartstrings. I thought I might share one such scene on the off chance it might tickle, tug or otherwise touch you, too.
I finished the manuscript of my Novella for the Super-Secret Box Set last week and went back to reread the story from start to finish for the first time in months. When I came to this scene in the first chapter I experienced one of those shared moments with myself and laughed like a loon.
“It isn’t fair.”
“Life rarely is.”
As Sissy continue her litany in four alternating languages, Lilith dropped her gaze back to the slim book in her hands.
My Darling,
I miss you so dreadfully I am tempted to toss pebbles at your window in hopes you will join me in the gardens for a midnight stroll among the roses and hydrangea. In my absence (are you as monstrously miserable as I?) I hope you will enjoy this little token of my adoration and affection and think of me as you peruse the pages.
All my love,
Your Dearest Heart
The penmanship was typical of her mother, elegantly slanted loops and swirls spanning one edge of the yellowing parchment to the next, like ivy left to run rampant, clinging to smooth stone by sheer force of will.
That her father had held onto the book of poorly rendered and poorer rhymed erotic poetry came as something of a surprise. Lilith doubted the words were lewd enough to hold his attention for more than a minute, and if he had a streak of sentimentality in him he’d buried it deep, in deed.
As evidenced when the carriage finally pulled into the inn yard of a little village somewhere west of Wiltshire where Lord Dunaway waited in the parlor between his chamber and that the ladies would share for the night.
“Have I told you lately you are a sorry excuse for a father?” Lilith punctuated the question by tossing the book at his lordship, hitting him square in the chest where, by all accounts, his heart ought to reside.
Lord Dunaway picked up the slender volume from the table, turned it over and flipped open the cover. When he’d read the inscription he lifted his gaze, peering at her from vivid green eyes one debutant had proclaimed – aloud and in the hearing of a gaggle of gossips – made her think of wicked things like rolling about in warm grass entirely unclothed. “Are you someone’s darling, Lil?”
“I pilfered it from your library.”
“Hmm, I suppose that means I am someone’s darling.”
“You are everyone’s darling,” she replied. “Rather like a communal privy.”
As always I love to hear from my readers so please feel free to post a comment below. Share your thoughts about this little excerpt which you may or may not find funny, or share a bit of news, a notion of any sort, an idiom that’s always struck you as amusing, a regency ideal you’ve found ludicrous, or just a random thought. You’ll be entered to win October’s Floral Corset.
Crystal Young left me a comment in September and won a pretty pink corset of her own. I’ll be randomly choosing a winner for October’s lovely floral corset at the end of the month.
As a writer of Historical Romance novels, I depend upon readers to share their thoughts about my books on those same sites. For a limited time, I’m offering a free ebook copy of Pretty Poison in exchange for an honest review. Simply fill out the Review Form agreeing to post an honest review on Amazon, and other sites where readers will appreciate your reviews and recommendations.
