cacakerbamakhlukpolitik

I'm working on the second book in my Lively St. Lemeston series, Crimson Joy , and I just did something that I've done before, that I'll probably do again, and that I always feel conflicted about: I'm stealing a story. I'm taking something that happened to a real person, and giving it to my heroine. In this case, it's this anecdote, cited in a footnote of Electoral Behavior in Unreformed England , concerning “treating,” or the practice of patrons providing free food and drink for electors prior to a poll. I had a vague recollection of this anecdote... he ran out of ale, so he opened up his expensive French brandy?  I couldn't remember where I'd seen it, but I thought I might have posted it on my blog. After backreading for half an hour, I almost gave up. I don't need the real anecdote,  I thought. It's fiction. Maybe I can improve on it, make it even better than the real thing. Then I found the real thing. There is no improving on this. This is p...

I have exciting news this week! My agent (Kevan Lyon) and I sold my next book, Sweet Disorder , to Anne Scott at Samhain. I don't have a firm release date yet, but it looks like it's going to be early 2014. I'm so happy! I really love this story and I can't wait to share it with everyone. Phoebe Sparks, writer of Improving Tales for children, has vowed never to marry again unless she's sure it won't turn into a bickering, resentful mess like her first marriage. The Honorable Nick Dymond has vowed never to get involved in his family's politicking. But Nick's mother couldn't care less about their vows. Nick has moped long enough about his curtailed army career and new limp, and any local resident who marries Phoebe will be legally entitled to a vote in her small town's upcoming Parliamentary election. So Nick's mother packs him off to the country with strict instructions to marry Phoebe off to the first local supporter of their political party ...

Lively St. Lemeston, the small Sussex market town at the heart of my next two (at least) books, is the first town I've written about. In for a Penny takes place on a country estate, and A Lily Among Thorns is set in London. But towns were becoming more and more important in England during the Regency as the balance of the economy shifted, with more jobs being created in industries and jobs in agriculture being lost. Of course there were the great factory towns (most of them in the North of England) like Manchester, and London itself increased greatly in size in the period, but even small towns saw growth and change. One thing I learned was that "town" covered a huge range of sizes. ("City" had a pretty specific meaning in period: a town with a cathedral, that is, the center of a Church of England see, and didn't really denote anything in terms of size.) I imagine Lively St. Lemeston having a population of about 1500. But what I have to remember is that tha...

Rose here! My next book, Sweet Disorder,  is set during a Parliamentary election in a small town. The Regency political system is so different from the modern one that I wanted to do plenty of research to make sure I didn't mess it up (for example, one thing that consistently confused my beta readers was that each voter got two votes!). Luckily I'd already done a little research on Parliament for a book proposal that didn't go anywhere (although I haven't given up hope for the future). One book I read was The Great Palace , by Christopher Jones, about the Houses of Parliament themselves. It was published in 1985 so not up to date, but that didn't matter for my purposes! Some things I learned: "The Mace, the symbol of Royal authority, must always be present when the House is sitting. Without it, the House is totally powerless." "The Lord Speaker, accompanied by the mace and doorkeepers, makes her way to Sovereign’s Entrance to await the arrival of the...

I've been doing a lot of reading about early newspapers for the WIP (my heroine's first husband was a provincial newspaper editor and his little brother, who runs the paper now, is a major character), and in From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers,  by Bob Clarke, I came across something fascinating: an account of an eighteenth century conwoman!  She'd make a great heroine, I think, if you played it right.  The first part of her story (at least, Clarke believes it's the same woman, and it does seem likely but not 100% conclusive unless you see something I don't) appears in the January 10th, 1765 St. James Chronicle: "A few Weeks ago a genteel Woman, about 25 Years of Age, applied to a Farmer and Broom-Maker, near Hadleigh in Hants for a Lodging; telling him that she was the Daughter of a Nobleman, and forced from her Father's House by his ill Treatment. Her Manner of relating the Story so affected the Farmer, that he t...

Sweet Disorder , my current WIP, is set in Sussex. As part of my research I read A Glossary of the Provincialisms in Use in the County of Sussex by William Durrant Cooper, first published in 1834. I had it printed at Third Place Books on their espresso machine. The guy who worked there did a whole comedic bit: "Why don't we stock this all the time? We really didn't have this on the shelves?" The quote says "Juvat haec obsoleta servari, aliquando profutura. --WACHTER." Any Latin speakers out there want to translate?  Language is obviously one of my favorite things (as I suspect it is for a lot of you) so I was absolutely fascinated! (And incidentally I was able to understand some dialogue in the Cold Comfort Farm movie that previously eluded me.)   Many of them are very specific and have to do with farming, wildlife, and the Sussex landscape, like:  "BACKSTERS, s. Wide, flat pieces of wood, shaped to the feet, to walk over loose beach." ...