More Pics from Newcastle

PMS and the Writer

PMS + writer = minor catastrophe (because you don't simply go through the "noooobody loves me!!!" period, no, you also have to deal with "noooobody loves my books!!!")

PMS + writer + PhD thesis = major catastrophe (add "my theeeeeeesis sucks!!!" to "noooooobody loves me" and "nooooobody loves my books!!!")

By now, I've eaten a box of Australian Homemade chocolates (oh, which reminds me, add "I'm faaaaaat!!!" to the list), have successfully managed to ruin my nails, have let the milk boil over and produce mess in the kitchen (see? see? nobody loves me, not even the milk!), and have managed to convince myself that I'll never find another book I'll enjoy ever again (I'm going through a bit of a reading crisis right now). (Not to speak of "noooooobody loves me!!! nooooobody loves my books!!! my theeeesis sucks!!!", of course.)

PMS stinks. Where's the chocolate?

Bestest Chocolate and Old Bookshop Re-Opened

A few months ago, I wrote about my favourite bookstore in Frankfurt closing down. But!!! At the beginning of this month, they re-opened under a different name in a different location: you can now find the brandnew "Readers Corner" near the Eschenheimer Turm, right next to the English cinema. The inside looks very styly, with dark, wooden shelves. They've got good sections of genre literature: you can find a mystery shelf, a F/SF shelf, and, most importantly, a romance shelf (with American titles!!!) there in addition to the normal mainstream section.

So in the future my shopping trips to Frankfurt will first lead me to the Eschenheimer Turm and then to the Fressgass and Australian Homemade. They've got the most wonderful, decadent chocolates and simply the yummiest icecream imaginable! (Good thing the Readers Corner and Australian Homemade are so far apart: this way, I can already walk off some of the chocolate-induced calories when I go from one shop to the other *g*)

Teach Me Tonight Post

Yesterday I blogged about the chick lit panel at the Newcastle conference on Teach Me Tonight. Just in case anybody is interested in my very short summaries. :)

Argh! Rant Ahead!

I recently stumbled across a review -- I think it was posted both on amazon and on a blog -- in which the reader complains, among other things (CASTLE really didn't work for her), about the historical inaccuracies of the rotating Christmas tree stand and, oh my gosh, the blinking lights of the Christmas tree.

Does anybody think I actually meant electrical lights?

On a Christmas tree in a rotating stand???

Uh-hu. Probably not.

I didn't mean candles either, because, come on, candles are expensive and if the inhabitants of the Castle of Wolfenbach are forced to drink Prussian Coffee instead of real coffee, they certainly won't put expensive candles in their Christmas tree. No, they are wont to use nutshells filled with tallow. From what I read, it appears that tallow lights, and especially those itty-bitty nutshell-thingies, didn't produce a nice, steady flame, but a flame that was flickering. Add the effects of castle-draughts and -- voilà -- there you've got your blinking effect.

As to the rotating Christmas tree stand. Yes, that is probably historically inaccurate indeed: I modelled it on my family's stand, which dates from the late 19th century (and I really, really wanted to include it in this story; after all, when will I be able to put again a Christmas tree into one of my stories, normally all set in Regency Britain?). However, by 1830 musical boxes had already been around for several decades and the whole technique was really refined, so it's not inconceivable that somebody combined it with a Christmas tree stand even then.

*sigh*

I know, I know, one can't please everybody, but still ... Hmph.

More Dissing*

Finished reading my research material on THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS and will start writing the Alice chapter tomorrow.

Books ordered today:

• Spielmann: THE HISTORY OF PUNCH
• Hambourg: RICHARD DOYLE
• a commemorative book on the Eglinton Tournament

Books received today:

• Richard Doyle: RICHARD DOYLE'S JOURNAL, 1840 (luuuvely!!! contains many sketches, even two of the Eglinton Tournament)

Books I still haven't found:

• Richard Doyle, THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT (the British Library has two copies, though)
• William Archer Shee: MY CONTEMPORARIES 1830-1870.

Hm.

* Dissing as in "working on the dissertation" :)

Dissing :)

I'm hard at work on the PhD thingy. At the moment I'm researching Lewis Carroll's THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS as well as trying to put the finishing touches to my chapter about attacks of Victorian medievalism.

What I hate?

When I look for a book, and the only two copies I can find are those that belong to the British Library. Not fair! I wanna-a copy of my own!!!! Boohooo.

What I like?

When critics mention a research book I already own. Yessss! (In this case it was the autobiography of Harry Furniss.)

Once Upon a Time ...

... or rather, today Sandy posted her monthly blog on Unusual Historicals. It's about fairy tales; the Big, Bad Wolf; fragments of ancient poetry which aren't ancient at all; even more ancient poetry (this time from England); really strange theories; little old women; mountains and other areas far away from evil civilisation; and a mysterious, black-holish library. And sex. Did I mention sex?

Enjoy!

Blog Party!!!

This week I'm a guest on Vicki Batman's blog. (Yes, she's really Mrs. Batman! Cool, isn't it?) Vicki and I met at the 2004 RWA National Conference, shortly after the registration: we sat at an empty table and inspected the contents of our goody bags. We became Lunch Buddies at that conference and have been friends since then. She's great fun and one of the sweetest people I know.

Let Yourself be BEWITCHED!

I've just updated my website and now you can find all kinds of information about BEWITCHED there: read the cover blurb, an excerpt, and all about the drama of writing BEWITCHED. Enjoy!

Sandy's Website

Dorothy Dunnett: OPERATION NASSAU

It is no secret that I am a huge Dorothy Dunnett fan. CHECKMATE is the only book which has ever made my stomach hurt. And with the exception of Auguste Lechner's DIE NIEBELUNGEN, I've never cried as much as at the end of this book. Ahhh, Dorothy Dunnett, master-storyteller with a kind of meandering, yet somewhat brittle style; sharp, dry wit; and a seemingly endless knowledge of her settings. She challenges her reader: you have to be quick to keep up with the author and her characters.

At the moment I'm re-reading OPERATION NASSAU, one of her Johnson Johnson mysteries (or, if you prefer the original British titles, DOLLY & THE DOCTOR BIRD from the Dolly mysteries). Each of these starts with a sentence about bifocals (Johnson's) and is told by a female first person-narrator (different narrator for each story). I bought my copy of OPERATION NASSAU seven years ago in a UBS in Galway, Ireland, where I spent my rather wet year abroad. It was the first of the Johnson Johnson mysteries I managed to find, and it shared a shelf with the complete set of the Lymond Chronicles (I simply couldn't face spending eight months without Francis Crawford of Lymond) and my growing collection of the House of Niccolo. Now, after seven years, the contents of OPERATION NASSAU have become sufficiently hazy in my mind to make this a thoroughly enjoyable re-read as I've absolutely no clue who the villain might be. :)

The cover blurb for OPERATION reads as follows:

Asthma forces Dr. B. Douglas MacRannoch's father to leave Scotland and seek refuge in the Bahamas. Such is the loyalty of his daughter, that she follows him and takes up a post as a medical officer in Nassau -- only to find that, far from tussling with exotic bacteria, she is sucked into international espionage.

Enter Johnson Johnson on his elegant yacht Dolly ...

Dunnett has drawn wonderfully eccentric characters: her heroine is not only called Beltanno, but is also such a stickler to control and order that she is in many ways socially inept. The bane of her life is her father, The MacRannoch, and his fondness of the widow of some Indian Prince, his plans of organizing a MacRannoch clan gathering as well as his dream to built a bridge between MacRannoch castle and the shore:

It is not only that he is a martyr to an abysmal and incurable seacksickness. There is a family legend tha thte thirteenth MacRannoch of MacRannoch, on building the castle, did indeed achieve such a bridge, with the helpf of the fairies. and what the thirteenth MacRannoch could do, the forty-fifth is determined to surpass.

It has brought him nothing but trouble. The seabed is deep; the currents strong and irregular. Every bridge my father has built so far has been a failure; and indeed his personal involvment on the day the fifth bridge fell down resulted in tragedy. Two days later, the melancholy news was broken to my father in hospital that I, then a child at school, was and must remain for ever the sole heir of the MacRannochs.

His asthma dates from that day.

Wheee! Isn't this superbly done?

So, no-nonsense Beltanno has been sent on an assignment to New York, and is on her way back to Nassau, when she is called to treat a man, Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe, for suspected food-poisoning. Sir Bartholomew has been poisoned all right -- with arsenic. Beltanno misses her plane, spends the night at a hotel, where she receives a threatening phone call. The mysterious caller warns her off helping Sir Bartholomew in the future. Nevertheless, she does exactly that: the next day she accompanies the Edgecombes back to Nassau. Again, somebody attempts to poison her patient, who asks her to bring a letter to his friend Johnson Johnson before he is cartered off to hospital once more.

And thus, Beltanno's neat and ordered life is thrown off the track: soon she is chasing would-be murderers through night-darkened Nassau, is dragged along on a girly day with her father's woman friend, discovers the joys and dangers of different alcoholic beverages, bets on a dog in a dog race, is assaulted and gets her hair whacked off.

The story, it soon becomes clear, is not only about unmasking a murderer, but also about the narrator's growth as a human being. (Or rather about her becoming a normal human being. *g*)
OPERATION NASSAU is an utterly delightful book!

Trease #3

Finished my Trease article earlier today -- OH MY GOSH! Who would've thought that 200 itty-bitty words can give a girl such a headache! I had, like, 15.000 different versions until I finally managed to put a decent 200-word tribute together (and it's exactly 200 words - yay me!). I really, really liked this first sentence: "When George Trease, a wine merchant in Nottingham, brought home desk diaries for his son to fill in with stories in pretend writing, he could have hardly imagined that this son would one day revolutionize children's fiction." And I liked this one, too: "Geoffrey Trease's writing career started even before he had learnt his letters." In the end, I had to settle for: "Teacher, journalist, novelist, playwright: Geoffrey Trease had many jobs during his lifetime, but he found his greatest success in the field of children's fiction."

Now, with this article out of the way, it's PhD time next week and I'll continue my explorations of Victorian medievalism (and all those things Trease so abhorred: jingoism, class and colour prejudice, and a glorification of the past): let there be dragons!

Fun Stuff

I saw this on Camille's blog. It's just too good not to share! Enjoy! The title of the film is "A Gentlemen's Duel". Hehe.

Littlebird Blue on THE LILY BRAND

When I sent out ARCs for CASTLE, I also sent one to the Green Man Review and Camille Alexa picked it up. She didn't like the book. She read it twice, just to be sure, but she still didn't like it and she was very sorry about this, which becomes quite obvious when you read her review: even though it's a bad review, she still had a lot of nice things to say about the novel. (It becomes even more obvious when you read the blog post she wrote after said review went online. She's a real sweetheart!)

Anyways, I offered to send Camille THE LILY BRAND in the hope she would like this one better than CASTLE. And apparently she did! *biiig smile* She blogged about it today and had again lots of nice things to say about my writing style:

Sandra is an excellent writer. I love her sense of detail, her unusual settings, especially her use of dark, broody landscapes with their hint of fey and madness.

Now isn't that nice? She goes on to say that TLB "as a small but enthusiastic fan base." Cool. I didn't really know that. I mean, I knew that there are people who've enjoyed TLB -- and some of them quite a lot! --, but I didn't think of it in terms of a fan base. (But hey, I'm the girl who constantly worries her manuscripts might kill her poor editor!)

Okay, so Camille goes on to say: "[TLB]'s exciting in the ways of the best grand adventures: unapologetic." Hehe. (Have I already mentioned that some of my friends were quite shocked when they read TLB?)

~*~

More reviews: Deb from CA Reviews gave CASTLE an 8 and wrote:

This is a lovely spin on the classic “Beauty and the Beast” kind of tale. Lovers of myths and fairy tales will find many references here that add an extra dimension to the story. To say that Fenris is a tortured hero is understating things considerably. He has a decent reason, unlike many other heroes of this type. And Celia is a great character. She is innocent in many ways, but she is also intelligent and strong-willed. When life offers her a chance and a challenge, she does not back down from it. The story has a wonderfully gothic feel with a touch of the paranormal. I’m hoping to see many more books from this very talented author.

:)

In addition Carrie Lofty, who's the founder and one of the contributors to Unusual Historicals, blogged about CASTLE a few days ago: she didn't like it 100%, but overall, she seems to have enjoyed it as she ends her review with: ". . . Schwab does a marvelous job of setting the Black Forest scene. Loved it. We get quirks, holidays, and a peek at a culture generally ignored by romance writers."

Now I just need to find out how to stop speaking Chinese in class.

Corrections once more

Note to self: must stop speaking Chinese in class!!!

Trease #2

I've just finished the second volume of Trease's autobiography -- it has certainly been an interesting journey! This second book covered the time during and shortly after WWII. I learnt a number of ne w things about everyday life during the war and the British war effort (e.g., that due to the fear of a German invasion, the name-boards in the railway stations were removed), and I hope these will come in handy for my British history class next semester (once again I'll be rushing through British history from the ice age to Maggie Thatcher in nine weeks). And how utterly frustrating it must have been for an author to be told, "We'd love to publish your book -- if only we had enough paper!"

Charlotte Lamb, VAMPIRE LOVER

Every once in a while you stumble across a book that makes your jaw drop. Literally.

During my stay in England, I browsed several UBSs in search of old Mills&Boon novels. In Alnwick, an old novel by Charlotte Lamb caught my eye: not only is it called VAMPIRE LOVER, but the cover also depicts a woman suckling a man's throat -- sucking his blood? A paranormal romance from 1994??? By Mills&Boon??? Needless to say, I was intrigued. Besides, this novel was Charlotte Lamb's 100th romance (can you imagine? 100 books? Wow!), so of course I had to pick it up because I knew I had enjoyed Lamb's books in the past. (Funnily enough, when I just checked my M&B bookshelf, I couldn't find ANY novel written by her. *scratching my head* Now, this is strange.)

VAMPIRE LOVER turned out to be no paranormal romance after all, however, it still contains jaw-dropping elements. The title refers to the fact that the heroine, Clare, regards the hero, Denzil Black, as an emotional vampire, latching on to one woman after the other. When Clare's little sister seems to fall prey to Denzil's evil charms, Clare decides to take action. And boy, does she take action: she gives him a sleeping potion, then handcuffs him to his own bed, and proceeds to tie his feet up. When he wakes, they first have a big row (naturally, he's somewhat annoyed at finding himself "trussed up like a chicken for the oven"), before she starts having sex with him -- more or less against his will.

Clare, who detests the way Denzil seems to wield power over women, the whole experience is also about turning the tables on him and teaching him something about how women feel. Even though her whole plan of tying him to the bed and waiting until her little sister has safely left the country, is certainly over the top, one cannot help but feel that here she voices her author's frustation about the situation of women:

"It's an interesting experience, having a man entirely at my mercy. For most women it's usually the other way round. There's a lot of talk about equality, but men still have all the advantages -- they're bigger, tougher, and the social rules favour them. I can't walk down a street at night, alone, without being afraid; I'd be wary of going back to a man's flat after a date, or being alone with him anywhere unless I'd known him for years and trusted him."

On the following pages, Clare relishes the (sexual) power she has over Denzil: she seduces him even though at first he clearly doesn't want it to happen this way, with him all tied up and not being able to fully participate. She has sex with him, but as soon as she has reached orgasm, she stops and scrambles off him despite his having not yet finished. Orgasm seems to have robbed her of her sexual power, and she actually starts to behave as if she were ashamed -- not about tying the poor guy up, but about arousing him and actively taking her pleasure.

Interestingly, in order to justify her behaviour to herself, she again loses herself in her vampire lover / demon lover fantasies: she might be in love with him, but it's not a healthy love, instead she is "possessed" by him: "In the Middle Ages they had called it being possessed by the devil, and that description seemed apt for Denzil." At the same time, the reader is already aware that she might be overreacting (just a little), that she is actually running away from her emotions, her sensuality and sexuality. Clare describes herself as "cool and sensible: a good businesswoman, level-headed and down-to-earth." Being in love scares her half to death.

Thus during their next sexual encounter (and after she has learnt that A) he is not quite the heartless womanizer she thought him to be, and B) he's dragging around his own share of torment and heartache), it is Denzil who takes the active part: he handcuffs her to his wrist, he takes the top position during sex, but at the same time, she realizes their lovemaking leaves him quite as helpless as herself: "As she slowly returned to life she heard the sounds Denzil was making, as helpless and agonised as her own . . ." In the end, it is Denzil who is able to voice his feelings for her and tell her he loves her, and it is Denzil who understands the power play which is going on between the two of them much better than Clare: while she is still afraid of the power he has over her, he understands that it is a two-way thing and willingly admits: "You have power over me, Clare. I'm yours, all of me. If that isn't power, what is?"

In many ways this ending might be considered unusual, especially if you compare it with romances written today: you get the impression that a lot of the heroine's issues are not yet quite resolved, that she doesn't yet trust him fully, and that their relationship will require a lot more work and effort than is usually the case in modern romances.

VAMPIRE LOVER contains a lot of the elements which earned Lamb the reputation being a revolutionary in the field of romance. On the Harlequin website you can find the following about her:

Charlotte was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident—even dominant—heroines.

Charlotte Lamb wrote more than 160 novels under various pseudonyms. Apart from straight romances for Mills&Boon, she also wrote historical novels and romantic thrillers. She died in 2000.

Getting to Know Mr. Trease

Next week I have to hand in a short piece on Geoffrey Trease for the next issue of SOLANDER, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society. I had never read anything of Trease's before I got this mini-article, heck, I had never even heard of him before!

Shame on me! Because I should have: he was one of the authors who changed the nature of historical novels written for children. In his autobiography, A WHIFF OF BURNT BOATS, he writes,

. . . new new idea suddenly presented itself. Children's stories, but children's stories such as there had never been before . . . . Why were all our own children's books still rooted in the pre-1914 assumption which serious adult literature had abandoned? In the boys' adventure story especially there had been no development since my own childhood. Such stories still implied that war was glorious, that the British were superior to foreigners, that coloured "natives" were "loyal" if they sided with the invading white man and "treacherous" if they used their wits to counterbalance his overwhelming armaments. In historical tales the Cavaliers and the French aristocrats were always in the right, no matter what the teachers explained at school, and the lower orders, like the lesser breeds, figured only in one of two possible roles, as howling mobs or faithful retainers.

In his first children's novel, BOWS AGAINST THE BARONS (1934), he changed all that: in his rewriting of the Robin Hood story he did away with Merrie England and had his outlaws converse in modern English. This book and his next, COMRADES FOR THE CHARTER, were radical in their portrayal of poverty and social inequality, and reflected the young Trease's socialist tendencies. In retrospect, he wryly admits, "My characters, unfortunately, lapsed occasionally into the phraseology of a Communist meeting." Naturally, as he grew older, his writing, too, matured: "[By 1938] I had outgrown my initial desire to correct the old Henty bias with a partisan counterbalance on the Left, but I believed there were many things that could be said usefully in children's fiction and yet still acceptably to an open-minded publisher."

In John Rowe Townsend's WRITTEN FOR CHILDREN (my personal bible on children's lit -- I discovered the book early during my studies in Mainz, and have happily used it ever since whenever I needed to look up something about British children's fiction) you can find the following about Trease: "English historical novels of the inter-war years seem, in retrospect, unexciting. The one lively innovation was made by Geoffrey Trease, when, as a young man, he introduced the radical, 'committed' historical story."

For my little article, I'm currently reading his autobiography. I normally don't particular care for biographies of any kind, but his is certainly interesting and exciting. It easily takes the reader into a past era, when schoolboys visited their teachers at home and went hiking in Dartmoor during the holidays. And when Trease was in his twenties, Basil Blackwell was still running his publishing house, and Gollancz had just been founded. It is interesting to delve into Trease's life this way, to follow him on the road to publication and fame.

A Piece of the Black Forest in Dallas*

On Tuesday, the day before the RWA conference started, I dragged Kris Alice to a nearby mall (and a very lovely mall it was!) (even though most shops were somewhat above our budget). OF COURSE I had checked there was a bookstore in the mall or nearby, thus we ended up in a huge Barnes&Noble. And OF COURSE we had to march to the romance section and check whether they had CASTLE.

"Ooooh!" I wailed, standing in front of the shelf with the Ss. "They don't have it!" (Accompanied by sad-little-puppy face.)

Kris gave a grunt, reached up, and -- "Don't they?"

"Oh," I said. Then beamed at her, "Look! They've got TWO copies! TWO!!!"

A this point Kris started to do some reorganization on the shelf (which was easily do-able since the books weren't tightly packed at all), while I searched for my camera in my handbag.

"I need to take a picture!"

Sigh.

"And another one!"

"Sandy."

"And another one!"

"Sandy."

"And --"

"SANDY!"

And thus I was cruelly dragged away from the two copies of my book. Just imagine how much fun it would have been to spend the rest of the day in front of that shelf and be on the look-out for potential readers!! I'm sure the two books felt totally and horribly lonely when I was forced to leave. They probably even cried...

* This is a somewhat embellished account of the events of Tuesday, 10 July 2007.

The Funniest Dying Swan EVER

Sandy's RWA 2007 Adventures

Neck and shoulders are fine again, and yesterday I had my last class for this semester. The furry baby is still ill, but he's also still eating so we hope we will see some improvement soon. As things aren't too bad right now, I've finally, finally got time to share some of my RWA pics with you. Enjoy!

The hotel: BIIIIIIIIIG and shiny.

For some reason or other, all Dorchester books were sent to the goody room this year instead of to the Literacy for Life signing. Thus none of the Dorch authors had books to sign Wednesday evening. Ah well. You can enjoy yourself even without having books to sign. :)

The ballroom is filling up with authors.

It was a really nice surprise to find out how many blogger-reviewers had come to Dallas. Here I am with Jane from Dear Author and Sybil from The Good, the Bad, the Unread.

Here's a glimpse of Sammy, Sherrilyn Kenyon's (now infamous) swan hat. (And I still don't get the infamous part. I mean, from the brouhaha this caused in blogland the week after RWA, you could've thought Sherri had come to the signing stark naked!) (Hmmm, now here's a thought for the next RWA conference. Body paint anybody? Hehe.)

Shomi authors Eve Kenin, Marianne Mancusi and Liz Maverick (what you don't see on this pic are Marianne's and Liz's also infamous skirts. Together with Sammy the skirts apparently brought Civilization As We Know It to an end.) (That big, black thingie on the right side of the picture? That's the Crack of Doom. Already. Yes, I know. It's tragic.) (If I ever start worrying about what other people might wear or not wear at a conference and how their clothes might or might not reflect on me, will somebody please hit me over the head?)

And even more bloggers: Jane, Sarah from the Smart Bitches ...

.... Sybil, Wendy, the Superlibrarian ...

... and KristieJ.

Rumour had it, there was also a certain editor from a certain German romance magazine present at RWA National. However, she proved to be elusive, always slipping away quietly, cleverly avoiding the flashlight of the cameras. Sill, I managed to bring back this exclusive picture that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was indeed attending this year's conference. (I'll probably earn millions with this picture!) (Millions, I'm telling ya!) (Or she might kill me....)

And here's Ruth Kaufmann, whom I first met at the last conference in Dallas. (We frequented the same coffee shop in the mornings.)

People queuing for one of the publisher signings.

As a result of these signings, the piles of books in my room grew and grew and grew ...

And thus I brought home those 65 books:

Now all I need for the next RWA conference is a skirt that ends just above the knee and a bright pink tee-shirt that says, "I love swans".

Or ...

... body paint! :)