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After I busy work-week, I finally wrestled the TV away from my 6 year old and insisted it was my turn---I invited her to watch "my show". Reluctantly, she settled on the couch next to me, but much to my amazement, she never peeped for the next two hours---watching "Emma" on PBS. Now this is child who can quote song and verse from High School Musical One, Two and Three, a child who will find the latest version of I Carly, or the Wizards of Waverly Place, and yes, sometimes even Hannah Montana, before she can find her shoes. I was shocked. But sat she did, all the way through, seemingly fascinated. Now the latest version of Jane Austen's Emma has been advertised as "more approachable"---as if it wasn't. And it was widely hoped that the lovely young actress and actor who play the leads were "more relatable" than those of the past. I guess if a 6 year old found something particularly view-worthy about this show, then PBS has far exceeded anyo...

My book, Vienna Waltz, is due February 1st. So since I'm currently in the throes of going through the book through for the last time, layering in more texture, double-checking research facts, making sure my timeline is consistent, and a zillion other things that always seem to be part of the last week of working on a book, I went through old posts on my own blog to see if I could find something to post today. I came across a post I wrote last May on series and characters that fascinate. Which seems particularly apropos, because one of the series I talk about is Lost . When I first wrote this post, the season finale had just aired. Now, the final season is about to premiere (Tuesday, February 2nd, a treat for me after I turn my book in :-). My musing on series started when my friend Penny Williamson and I spent the afternoon of my birthday last May at a matinee of the Star Trek movie. We both loved it. It manages to simultaneously be fresh and innovative and yet true to the origi...

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet. I spent 17+ hours over the weekend digging a malware program out of my computer and it pretty much exhausted me (I did get rid of it though; $70 and four new antivirus programs later *sigh*). I troll various auction and retail sites for new and interesting examples of period clothing. Recently I found a pair of stays that were different than any I’d ever seen before. They’re from the Regency era and appear to be rather like a pair of jumps (the unboned, but supportive lounging stays of the 18th century). I’ve never seen a nything like them. The best part is, authors are always clamoring for something their heroine could get in and out of herself, and these fit the bill. They’re made of simple canvas, with a short lace at the top and a wrapping closure at the waist that pinned shut. Easy in; easy out. I’m guessing these are a homemade garment, and probably not the cutting edge of fashion, but they’re perfect for a country miss who needs to be...

Jane Digby was known in her later years as “Engleysi,” the Madwoman. Unbelievable as it may seem, this is the true story of a Regency-era woman, born into nobility in 1807 in Norfolk, England. She grew up in comfort, in a serene pastoral countryside before the Industrial Revolution, and she gave her governess heart failure: Jane loved life; she had perfect health, a reckless and ardent temperament; and (in her later years) she thrived on scandal. Throughout her life a “scarlet thread of exoticism” pulled her into a yen for adventurous travel (not surprising since her father was a buccaneering admiral). A child of the Regency, she was enamored of romantic curiosities–Turkish slippers, Arab daggers, Moorish-style gazebos, onion-shaped domes. Jane was married (though not consulted) at age 17 to Lord Ellenborough, a man twice her age who neglected her. In 1821 she had a fling with her cousin, Captain George Anson, conceived a child, whom Lord Ellenborough accepted as his heir. Jan...

I moved to the East C oast from California several Decembers ago. Lucky me, it happened to be a winte r filled with mi nus-twenty degree wind chills. By February, I was so frozen stiff that I dem anded a vacation. I he aded to c elebrate Washington’s Birthday where my historian’s heart had always drea med of visiting – Williamsburg , home of George Washington, Thomas Jeff erson, and Patrick Henry. Land of impeccably restored eighteenth century architecture, peo pled by historical interp reters, and dotted with fine restaurants and good shops. Eve n better, surely it was far enough south to feel balmy, right? Well, we did st ep out of the car to fi nd mid-twenties temperatures during the day, swept across our faces by f orty mile-per-hour winds. We r eminded ourselves this was warmer than where we h ad left and s allied forth. In th e summer, Williamsburg’s stree ts swarm with tourists and historical interpreters shout at them like bark ers to catch their att...

My latest book, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily , is set in Hyderabad in 1804. I hadn’t intended, originally, to set it in Hyderabad. The original plan was for my book to take place in Calcutta and points north. In the autumn of 1804, luck—or something else—had turned against the British in India. After the victory won at Assaye the previous year, they were experiencing unprecedented military losses in the north, at the hands of a Maratha leader named Holcar. It seemed to make sense to set the book where the action was, near the military maneuvering of Lord Lake. Then I stumbled upon Hyderabad, via William Dalrymple’s White Moghuls , and the planned plot of my book changed, dramatically and permanently. A large province towards the center of the subcontinent, Hyderabad was a princely state presided over by a hereditary ruler called the Nizam. It was a young dynasty; it was only in 1724 that the Nizum ul-Mulk had carved it out as a semi-independent fiefdom out of the Moghul Empire...

Fred Astaire didn't like to do romantic clinch scenes on screen. Partly, he thought he didn't have the requisite romantic leading man looks. So the kiss that follows this still from Swing Time is blocked from audience view by a door in the foreground that opens just in time. And anyway, Astaire would add, the lovemaking was in the dance routines he choreographed. Which assertion could certainly stand as support for any romance writer's choice to leave the explicit erotic details out of her romance writing. And indeed (though I've always written erotic romance , not to speak of some down and dirty erotica) some of my favorite romance reading depends upon little besides a hero and heroine, perhaps a text, glove, or stocking in contention, and lots of good banter. While for my own writing, it's always been a different matter. Explicit sex is an important part of my books. A mysteriously important part of it, especially for mild-mannered, shy moi -- I'm always try...

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to guest author Beverley Kendall , whose debut novel, Sinful Surrender , hit the shelves last week. Millicent “Missy” Armstrong is entering her fourth London Season, but not for lack of suitors. Since her debut three years ago, Missy has received twenty marriage proposals. But she is interested in only one man—her brother’s best friend, James Rutherford. As a child, Missy looked up to James. As a grown up, her admiration has blossomed into the longings o f a beautiful, sensuous woman—and she won’t rest until James admits his love—and desire—for her… James Rutherford rues the day he let his physical weaknesses get the better of him by kissing Missy. His best friend has made it clear that Missy is off limits, and though he’s avoided her for three years, he hasn’t forgotten the feel of her soft lips pressed against his—and it seems neither has she. For no matter how much James tries to discourage Missy, he keeps winding up in her arms, sharing...

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...

I can't believe that my thirteenth book releases today! NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire is my second foray into the world of historical nonfiction (my debut was back in June 2008 with ROYAL AFFAIRS, A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy .) Here's a sneak preview ... from the book's forward: Everyone loves a royal wedding. Except, perhaps, the bride and groom. Throughout history, most royal marriages were arranged affairs, brokered for diplomatic and dynastic reasons, and often when the prospective spouses were mere children. The perfect royal marriage brought territorial gains to the ruling dynasty's side (usually the groom's) and cemented alliances between families and regions. It was of little consequence that the spouses often didn't meet until their wedding day. Or that they had been in love with someone else and were now compelled to abandon all ho...

When I’m writing, I find I can’t really read fiction. It sucks me in too far and disrupts my process. But I also find that I really need to take small breaks to sack out on the couch and read. So I turn to my staggering ToBeRead pile of non-fiction. I’m a packrat when it comes to books. I can’t pass over anything that looks like it might be good, and I can’t get rid of anything I haven’t read. I like my heroines a bit outside the box: wicked widows, fallen women, etc. So when I stumbled across Hallie Rubenhold’s The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal, and Divorce , I gladly plunked down my money. It’s the tale of Seymour Dorothy Fleming, a great heiress (supposedly she had something in the neighborhood of seventy-thousand pounds). She married well, though not spectacularly. Her husband was a cad, and it is clear by his actions that he had very little interest, sexually, in his wife (though he delighted in displaying her to his friends, even going to far as t...

What makes a book set in 9th century England interesting - even riveting - to a 21st century female peacenik reader? The work is full of ship lore and men gutting each other with swords and axes, brutality, treachery, and an ailing King Alfred who is presented as a pitiful figure. The protagonist, Uhtred, is a raging Viking warlord with a grudge against Christians. Uhtred is full of pride and bombast; he treats women as chattels, unless he loves them; and he utterly enchants me! Cornwell takes the bleak setting of English marshes and bald hills and sloggy winter rains and creates a motion picture in words of the land the reader can “see”: rude villages with thatched huts, cowering peasants, often caught between two warring armies, magnificent armor, larger-than-life men. Life in the 9th century and the setting itself is part of the story. Cornwell is a meticulous researcher, and when he describes a scene I revel in every detail: Morning, and I was young, and the sea was a shimmer of si...