cacakerbamakhlukpolitik

Recently, I did a very fun interview on Word Wenches with the wonderful Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose about the release of The Paris Affair . Cara asked some wonderful questions, in particular about the themes of loyalty and betrayal that run through my books and why I chose the Napoleonic Wars as a setting for those stories. As often happens, those interview questions caused me to mull over things in my books. I've been thinking about it a lot in and around promoting The Paris Affair , finishing my WIP, and getting ready for the Merola Opera Program's annual Benefit (where I am with Mélanie above). I first gravitated to the Regency/Napoleonic era through my love of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. But I also love spy stories, both James Bond adventure and the sort of intricate chess games and moral dilemmas John le Carré dramatizes so brilliantly. The Napoleonic Wars offers are a wonderfully rich setting for both types of story. So many different sides, so many different f...

Paris is a city for lovers. When Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch move to the British embassy in Paris after the Battle of Waterloo, in my recently released The Paris Affair , one would think they might have time to indulge in a romantic interlude. Napoleon is exiled again, and the mystery Malcolm and Suzanne investigated at the time of Waterloo has been resolved. But as those who have followed Malcolm and Suzanne's adventures know, conventional romance is hardly in their line. Their marriage began as one of convenience, with deception on both sides. Their feelings for each other are deep, but are more likely to be expressed through Shakespeare quotes than their own romantic utterances. Their gazes are more apt to meet in understanding over a mutually discovered clue than on a moonlit balcony (unless that balcony contain s a dead body or they have just climbed it to evade pursuit). Besides, the city to which they have removed is hardly a scene of idyllic tranquility. Wat...

The battle of Waterloo may have ended the major fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, but it was far from bringing an end to the simmering tensions of the past quarter century. When Napoleon escaped from the field at Waterloo, Louis XVIII was still in exile in Ghent. Much of the negotiating for France in the immediate aftermath of the battle was done by two men whose careers had been closely intertwined with that of Napoleon Bonaparte and with the Revolution - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and Joseph Fouché. Prince Talleyrand, Napoleon's former foreign minister (though he had left office well before Napoleon's exile)  had survived in the first Bourbon restoration to represent France at the Congress of Vienna and had not rejoined Napoleon when Bonaparte escaped from Elba. Fouché, Napoleon's minister of police for much of his rule, had worked with the Allies against Napoleon in 1814 but then rejoined Napoleon after his escape from Elba and served as his minister of police...

I’ve been doing research for my third Malcolm & Suzanne Rannoch book, which is set in Paris after Waterloo (the second book takes place before and during the battle). The setting offers me the chance to revisit many of the real historical characters I wrote about in Vienna Waltz (there I am to the left celebrating Vienna Waltz's release with my editor Audrey LaFehr and my agent Nancy Yost). The characters I'm revisiting in the new book include the fascinating Wilhelmine, Duchess of Sagan, and her younger sister Dorothée de Talleyrand-Périgord. Both sisters were in Paris in that tumultuous summer, and both were involved in tangled love affairs. Wilhelmine, after a brief affair with Caroline Lamb’s brother Frederick, had become involved with Lord Stewart, the hot-tempered half-brother of British foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh, while Alfred von Windischgrätz (her lover in Vienna Waltz ) was still pursuing her. And of course, Prince Metternich was in Paris as we...

Happy New Year! As I recently reported on my own website , I'm very happy to be seeing 2010 in with a new two-book contract with Kensington Books. That’s my wonderful new editor Audrey LaFehr in the picture to the left, with me and my fabulous agent Nancy Yost on my November trip to New York at a Merola Opera Program party. I’m in the midst of writing the first book on the contract, which has the working title The Dark Waltz . (People who follow my status updates on Twitter and Facebook have been seeing updates about the progress of this book for some time.) The Dark Waltz is set in 1814 at the Congress of Vienna. I think I first heard of the Congress of Vienna in Georgette Heyer books (I know there are mentions of Sophy and her father being there in The Grand Sophy ). I remember being fascinated by a lecture about it my freshman year at Stanford. I've referenced the Congress as part of the back story in several books, and I’ve wanted to set a book at it for ages. It offers s...