AAR Reader Poll

At All About Romance the annual reader poll is in full swing -- and I'm happy to say that Fenris is still listed among the Most Tortured Heroes! Wheee!

If you enjoy romance and you haven't yet taken part in the poll, please head over to AAR and vote now. It's always great fun, and the lovely ladies at AAR put so much time and effort into this and other polls, that they simply deserve it to become a resounding success!

If you wonder about my ballot: I haven't submitted it yet as I didn't read all that many romances last year and consequently need to think a bit longer about how to fill in the categories. Most Hanky Read is easy: Lucy Gordon's The Italian's Wife by Sunset. Wallbanger is easy, too: in that particular case I only needed to read the excerpt on the author's website to know that, contrary to what the reviews say, the novel in question is so full of historical and cultural inaccuracies that it would be sheer torture to read it. Another easy category to fill in is Author Most Glommed: Linda Howard -- thanks to the MacKenzie collection I bought from Fictionwise. :) But as to the rest of the ballot ... uhm ...

The LoveLetter is Back!!!!!

Guess what I found in the mail today! A copy of the brandnew issue of the relaunched LoveLetter, the only romance magazine in Germany! Doesn't it look gorgeous? I'm so excited -- the LoveLetter Team did an awesome job, and as a result the magazine is bigger and better than ever before. :)

Sniff, Snaff, Snuff

Yesterday was my blogging day on Unusual Historicals and I talked about snuff -- why it was so popular in the Regency; how it was taken; what kind of snuffs one could buy from the tobacconist; and all the lovely things that might be found on a snuff-box. The post contains an embarrassingly large number of typos -- I scribbled it down in the afternoon, after teaching, and even though I took a really long walk first (across the graveyard in Mainz ...) (must take a camera next time; there are some really unusual graves to be found there, and the dim, wintry afternoon light among the large trees creates a very special atmosphere), my brain was apparently still reduced to mush. Duh.

New Podcast Episode!

Yes, I've indeed managed to put together a new episode of Sandy's Podchatter! Yay! Unfortunately it does not contain a new chapter from BETRAYAL (because I still haven't finished writing that story), but instead it contains a long, long, looooooooong ramble on how to put the history into the historical, in this particular case, how to research historical London.

For what became obvious during that discussion on what does or doesn't constitute plagiarism and whether or not, and how and why authors should document their sources, was that a lot of people don't quite know how much research goes into, say, a historical and how this is ... uhm ... ought to be incorporated into the story. Which is perfectly understandable; I was pretty clueless myself before I started with my first historical. And then -- oooh, the shock! *g*

Here are links to and pictures of or from some of the research books and tools I mention in the podcast:

Greenwood's Map of London (1827)

Images of 19th-century London

A picture of Holland House from Princess Marie Liechtenstein's HOLLAND HOUSE

Pictures of Albany from the London Metropolitan Archives

And a picture of the so-called Rope Walk:

More info about Albany with many pictures (that's where I found the two above).

THE SILVER SQUIRE & Memories of My Year Abroad

When I went to the supermarket today and browsed the magazine shelves, the latest release in CORA's Lords & Ladies line caught my eye: DER SILBERBARON by Mary Brendan. It didn't attract my attention only because of its lovely cover (and the cover is lovely, isn't it?), but also because several years ago I read and hugely enjoyed the English original.

THE SILVER SQUIRE is one of the books I bought during my eight-months stay in Galway, where I got to know a completely new version of rain: one which renders umbrellas useless and has you soaked to the skin whenever you step in front of the door even if you wear a wax jacket that reaches to your mid-thigh. As I didn't fancy to go sightseeing in the rain (and getting wet all through), I spent a lot of time reading. Within three or four days of my arrival I had found out the locations of all UBS in Galway and from then on browsed them at least once a week (the frequency of my shopping sprees depended on the rain -- sometimes the rain was so bad that even a trip to the cornerstore to buy some food seemed excessive. Hey, it's perfectly possible to survive on cereals or toast for a day or two! *g*).

One of my new friends, Ann, got me hooked on Mills&Boon novels fairly early during my stay, and to my neverending delight I found that most UBS in Galway offered a good supply of M&B books. It was difficult, though, to snatch many Regency novels -- these seemed to be among the most popular romances in town. Nevertheless, I was able to get hold of quite a few, among them Margaret Moore's wonderful THE WASTREL as well as Mary Brendan's THE SILVER SQUIRE (which I bought on 18 January 2001, to be exact).

THE SILVER SQUIRE is part of a quartet of Regency novels. This is what the "Dear Reader" letter in the front of the book tells us about them:

"Bad Boys can be fascinating. With this in mind I decided to write about some, and the result is a quartet of Regencies that commenced with MR TRELAWNEY'S PROPOSAL. [Got that one, too! :-) ] The novels feature heroes, linked by family or friendship, who are definite rogues. Wickedly charming, wryly humorous, dangerously attractive ... good girls can't resist them. [...] Sir Richard Du Quesne is [...] predatoryy and disreputable in THE SILVE SQUIRE, and relentlessly pursues unassuming spinster Emma Worthington ... until she catches him and brings him very willingly to his knees."

*happy sigh* Doesn't this sound simply delicious? And the story is just as sweet and delicious as this letter to the reader suggests. And while I can't exactly remember the whole story, I still remember several charming scenes (I guess this is due to the fact that I almost never re-read a whole book, but do re-readings of my favourite scenes and passages instead). The "hooray-we've-finally-figured-out-that-we-love-each-other" scene in THE SILVER SQUIRE is certainly among my favourite in romancelandia. Look here. It all starts with:

"Why are you here?" she asked [...].

"You know why, Emma," he mildly reproved. "The first time we met in Bath you fled. You've not stopped running since and I've not stopped chasing you from place to place." He drew deeply on the cigar again then pitched it towards the grate. "But no more."

And then it's hunch time:

"You're my future. I love you. And I know you love me."

"How do you know?" whispered out of her.

"You could have run the other way," he said, with a quirk of a smile. "But you didn't. You ran at me because you trusted me ... because you loved me."

Their eyes locked timelessly, then, because she knew it was all truth, because he never lied, the tears finally spilled and her joy frothed into an explosive sob that squeezed tight her eyes.

Richard approached her slowly, stopped inches away. "Say you love me or I won't hold you," he threatened softly.

She leaned into him, crying.

"Say it!" erupted in a pleading growl.

"I love you ..." she wailed, and was lifted off the ground and crushed to a broad, muscular torso. Fair and tawny hair mingled as he bent close, soothing her, while spinning them around in sheer thankful happiness.

Ooooooh, lovely! :-)

There's also a heroine-bathing-the-hero scene, in which he lets her inspect all his various scars -- He continued teaching her about his body via the wounds he'd sustained over the years. -- and because the novel is part of a mini-series, we also meet some of the main characters of the other novels, most notably David and Victoria from A KIND AND DECENT MAN (yup, I've got that one, too!). One of their scenes contains some of the cutest lines I've ever found in romance:

Victoria smiled contentedly down at him. "He is so like you. And Emma is like me. All she wants is Richard. She'd take him as a pauper."

"I know. So does he. But it won't stop him wanting to give her the sun ... the moon ... the stars ..."

Victoria placed her hands on her husband's broad, naked shoulders. They slid over his cool, solid flesh, then she pushed him down onto the bed and flopped on top of him. "Oh, that's impossible, David!" she giggled as she enveloped him in silky, rose-scented skin and hair. "You already gave those to me ..."

See? Cute!

If you like Regencies, I can highly recommend Mary Brendan's novels.

Lewis Carroll's Dream Child

In one of the summer semesters past, I taught -- with questionable success -- Lewis Carroll's Alice books. And for my PhD project I looked again at THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE as it is full of explicit or not so explicit references to Victorian medievalism, daring or not so daring knights and heroes, and even a damsel in distress. As is often the case when you work on a project like this, the stars seem to align and make Fate throw all kind of things to do with your subject your way. Therefore it came as no surprise when I opened the January newsletter of Stella and Rose's Books this morning and found a link to a wonderful article on the various illustrators of Alice.

The picture is from edition illustrated by Mervyn Peake. On the Bloomsbury website you can find an article on the Alice edition with the illustrations by Peake, written by Will Self.

Oxford-Memories

Exactly ten years ago I spent three wonderful weeks in Oxford. I went to a language school, but I also had a lot of time to explore the town. From this trip, I've brought back so many lovely memories -- finding the Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, talking a walk through Oxford and through his old college with one of my teachers, the wonders and marvels of the Pitt Rivers Museum ... One of the books I bought during these three weeks was the first Inspector Morse omnibus by Colin Dexter. The Morse novels are all set in Oxford, so I thought this would be a great way to remind me of my holiday.

Unfortunately, I've never managed to finish any of them: I usually gave up reading after only a few pages because I simply don't like Dexter's style. Duh. Still, I've kept that book as a fond reminder of those days in Oxford.

When I eventually found out that Dexter's novels have been adapted for televison, I ordered the first series -- and watched all three films (which are based on the three novels in that omnibus edition I bought in Oxford!) last week. I can't say Morse has become my favourite crime series (can anything surpass the Poirot series with David Suchet?), but I enjoyed all three episodes a lot. Morse is certainly an interesting character -- he is a bachelor and something of a loner, even though he tries to form romantic attachments to several women (usually unsucessfully); his methods are often unorthodox and if it suits him he is not above bending the law; he loves classical music and beer (there are some suggestions that he actually drinks too much). But the best thing about the series is the setting: getting all these glimpses of Oxford in all her honeyed beauty is just wonderful. Indeed, I've started thinking about another visit to Oxford. To spend more hours in the Pitt Rivers Museum (an anthropological museum, that's dimly lit and crammed with display cases stuffed with all sorts of strange and fascinating objects*) alone would be sheer heaven!

* Some of the charms I describe in BEWITCHED are based on objects I saw in the Pitt Rivers Museum, e.g. a slug on a thorn to chase away warts, or a bullock's heart with nails and thorns stuck into it to bring evil to the house in which it was hidden.

Cheering Myself Up

Here are two clips from the MGM musical THE PIRATE with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.



And in the next she finds out that Kelly's character is not Mack the Black:



And now, good night and gute Nacht!

Duh-Day

Jago's condition has worsened once again. I feel extremely rotten and I'm so afraid the vet will have to put him to sleep after all.

New Furniture

Went furniture shopping yesterday and bought a kitchen trolley as well as some baskets to put on shelves of said kitchen trolley. The thing looks just great, but of course, I had to reorganize my cupboards a little -- why is it that the inside of kitchen cupboards looks sort of messy and disorganized in no time at all?

One of the things I loved about Galway was the rosemary and cranberry bread from Tesco. So today, I made rosemary and cranberry bread myself, using Jamie Oliver's basic recipe for bread and adding, well, lots of rosemary and cranberries (now that came as a surprise, didn't it? *g*). Unfortunately, the result does not taste like the Tesco variety. I guess I'll need to add more rosemary next time.

*Jago puts kitty butt on Sandy's hand* (Marvellous!)

As to books I've read this week:

• 20-something heroines who behave like bratty 16-year-olds don't necessarly endear themselves to readers. They certainly do not to this reader.
• After having read umpteen Agatha Christie novels by now, it's getting easier and easier to guess the identity of the murderer.
• Got an interesting book today: THE SELF-MADE MAN, written by a female journalist who spent one year living as a man. It certainly sounds intriguing!

Finished with the Galley!

Earlier this afternoon I sent off the galley corrections of BEWITCHED -- and as always after I had to read my own stuff, I'm utterly depressed and convinced that dinosaurs would have been by far the better authors. *sigh*

(picture from I Can Has a Cheezburger)

My RITA Books Have Arrived

This morning I got another FedEx package, and this time it contained the books I'm going to judge for RWA's RITA contest: one YA, one novel with strong romantic elements, and looooots of category romance! Yay! And one of them even is a book I've put on my potential TBR pile anyway. Now isn't that nice? :)

Now I just need to finish with those galleys (which is getting more and more depressing) and then I can dig in. Wheee!

The Plagiarism Thing

Just in case you've stumbled onto this blog after you've read my comments on Smart Bitches, Dear Author or Teach Me Tonight:

I'm not going to comment in length or detail on the latest plagiarism scandal because by now I seem to have put my foot in often enough as it is. I hope I have made it clear that I consider quoting from copyrighted sources without attribution wrong and that I do in no way condone how Cassie Edwards used her sources. However, I also think that in the course of the discussion (in the original blog posts as well as the comments) on Smart Bitches and Dear Author, a lot of statements have been made that didn't take into consideration how research is incorporated into fiction, how this differs from academic writing, and how fiction might quote or paraphrase or refer to other fiction in the form of intertextual references, which don't require attribution (except when your quoting directly from a copyrighted work -- in this case you have to get permission from the copyright holder first and then include a formal attribution in your novel).

Follow-up on Sunday Revelations

1. I still hate reading my own stuff. Hate it with a vengeance. In fact, I hate my own stuff. If I could still stop the publication of the novel, I would. Truly. Readers will probably drop dead when they read it. Or at the very least weep with (in?) agony.
2. Healing with urine works! Immediately after I had made a grab for the hot pan handle, I cooled my poor pinkie with icy-cold water and then proceeded to put urine on it. As a result, there isn't a real blister any longer, just a red-rimmed whitish spot, and it no longer hurts either. It might sound icky, but your own urine is a great treatment for all kinds of skin problems, ranging rom simple cuts and burns, to acne, neurodermatitis, or even zoster! I think I have mentioned that when my mom suffered from zoster in spring 2007, we thought at first the tiny blisters on one side of her face were the result of some sort of allergic reaction and because it was the weekend and she couldn't go to our doctor, I told her to treat it with urine. On Monday, when she did see the doctor, the blisters were finally diagnosed as zoster. Naturally, she got some conventional medicine, but also continued the urine treatment. By Thursday, the rash was more or less gone. According to Wikipedia, this would have normally taken three to five weeks!!!
3. Sticking syringes into my poor cat seems to work: No kitty diarrhoea today! Yay! *knocking on wood*

Regency Sweets!

I've just stumbled across this lovely book:


About this book Read this bookThe Complete Confectioner: Or, The Whole Art of Confectionary Made Easy ... By Frederick Nutt

Neat, isn't it?

Sunday Revelations

1. I truly hate reading my own stuff. Hate. Hate. Hate. (I'm proofreading the galleys at the moment.)
2. When you put a pan into the oven and take it out, it's not a good idea to grab the handle with your bare hands. (See blister on my pinkie.)
3. Sticking syringes into other creatures is almost as uncomfortable as being poked with a syringe yourself. (Jago has taken another turn for the worse, and now I have to inject antibiotics under his skin.)

moar funny pictures

Whee!!!

At the moment, the good folks at AAR are running their Annual Reader Poll, in which you can vote for your favourite romance novel published in 2007, most hanky read published in 2007, author most glommed in 2007, worst wallbanger of 2007, and other nice things. So if you love romance novels, please head over to All About Romance and join in the fun!

I'm very happy to report that CASTLE OF THE WOLF made the list of interim results: it's listed under "Most Tortured Hero" (teehee!).

Betthupferl

I've just found a new review of THE LILY BRAND on I Just Finished Reading -- wow! JenniferB really, really liked the book:

Schwab is brutally honest with emotion and circumstances throughout. She does not stoop to using passion as salve or titled arrogance as protection against evil. Troy and Lillian do not “find” each other through a mutual passion and both remain highly vulnerable—regardless of position or societal rank. In this sense, The Lily Brand was as far from a typical historical romance as you can get.

Schwab’s prose is as compelling as her characterization skills. Without stumbling, she immerses the reader in the story, enveloping us in rich detail, palpable emotion and stark fear. So despite the discomfort, we remain committed. I like a book that can command my attention like that. An author that can compel me to keep reading.

And isn't that a lovely quotation with which to call an end to this day and totter off to bed? :)

Too Sweet for Words

moar funny pictures

Brian Sewell's Grand Tour (with naughty bits)

Brian Sewell's Grand Tour is one of the DVDs over which I stumbled while browsing play.com. From the cover blurb:

In this acclaimed 10 part series, Brian Sewell follows in the footsteps of young 18th century English aristocrats, whose education was incomplete without a Grand Tour of Italy. His epic journey takes him, by various means, to Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, Pompeii, Turin, Milan, Cremona, Siena, Bologna, Vicenza, Paestum, Urbino and Tivoli, via Michelangelo, Raphael, Vesuvius and much else besides.

The first ten minutes of the first episode I spent helplessly giggling, for Sewell speaks the most exaggerated Oxford English imaginable. Indeed, he has been described as having "the poshest voice in Britain" (hee), and the Welsh journalist Desmond John Humphrys wrote about him, "[he is] the only man I have ever met who makes the Queen sound common." He has been an art critic for the London Evening Standard since 1984 and has won several journalistic prizes for his weekly columns.

Not surprisingly, art plays an important role in his Grand Tour as the appreciation of Italian art formed also an important part of the young English aristocrat's journey more than 200 years ago. Yet the viewer does not only get to admire the mighty domes of Italian cathedrals, but also learns about the discussions of 18th-century tourists in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence,

namely whether one would prefer to have sex with Tizian's Venus of Urbino

or with the Medici Venus.

The latter usually won. Because of her fine butt. *G*

As you can see, Brian Sewell's Grand Tour is highly informative, saucy, and witty, and all in all great fun. I can highly recommend it!

To give you an idea about Sewell in action, here's a snippet from episode 3; Sewell is in Florence, in the Palazzo Pitti, to be exact, and talks about the last Medici. Enjoy!!!

How to Write an Academic Paper

1. Document your frigging sources! ALL of them!!! No matter whether you use direct or indirect quotations. (If you don't document your sources, your teacher will be p.o. and you will fail the class.)
2. Prove your statements by referring either to the primary text(s) or to secondary sources.
3. It helps if you stick to the facts that are mentioned in the primary text: if the hero's childhood is never mentioned anywhere in the text, analysing the hero's childhood is ... not such a good idea.
4. Fictional characters are not real people.
5. Making sweeping statements about the historical background of a literary text is usually not a very good idea either: because if you do, you have not only failed to stick to Rule #2, but in most cases you are also spectacularly wrong.
6. Logic is a fine thing. Apply it freely and apply it often.
7. All primary and secondary sources you use in your paper should be listed in the bibliography.
8. The bibliography is supposed to consist of more than one secondary source.
9. To get the form and formatting right, it helps to have a look at the style sheet. Really, it does. And style sheets generally don't bite.
10. In English, third-person singular present tense verbs in the indicative end with an s: he/she/it runs, weeps, cries, laughs, hits, etc. Just saying.

Yup. I'm back to correcting seminar papers. "Earnest is the life, funny is the art." Indeed.

Très cool

Some days ago the lovely Ja(y)nes from Dear Author posted my first review of the Cybook, which in turn was taken up by David Rothman from TeleRead, and today Gigi from eBooks about Everything mentioned both of my reviews. I love those people! :)


Myspace Thank You Graphics

Scratching my Head

The world of e-books is a strange one (to put it mildly!). For example, why is the e-version of C.S. Harris WHEN GODS DIE $23.95 (!!! for an e-book!!!!), when the paperback version ($6.99) is already available? This is ridiculous in the extreme! Argh!

Prost Neujahr!

Happy new year, everybody! I hope 2008 will be a wonderful year for you! May it be filled with love, laughter, and great books and may all your wishes come true! :)

After those lovely, lovely past few days I'm slowly switching back to work mode. Well ... Or at least I'm thinking about switching back to work mode. *g* I looked at another student paper yesterday (I'm so good!), finally put together most of my Christmas mail (hey, in Spain Santa Claus doesn't come until 6 January, so there's still ple-e-e-e-enty of time!) (so, of course, in Spain it's not Santa Claus, who brings the presents but the three Magi) (I think it's in Spain that presents are exchanged on 6 January *scratching my head*).

Today I spent the whole afternoon working on a paper proposal for a collection on fairy tale film, only to come to the conclusion -- sometime around six o'clock -- that I don't really have time to write an article of 5000 to 9000 words right now. So in the end, the paper proposal ended in the recycle bin. Poor paper proposal -- the title might have been crap, but the rest wasn't too bad.

I'm also pondering on what to write after I've finished expanding BETRAYAL. Actually, I'm not quite sure whether that book will really sell: it's not that I don't like the story (I do!), but the whole structure is rather unusual for a romance and besides, about a third of the story is set in Germany again. Hmmm. Anyways, what's going to come after BETRAYAL? I've already got some ideas: I have, in fact, already written a synopsis (which my agent liked) for something called BLOOD AND STONE. It uses some characters from a much older book project of mine, CHILDREN OF THE DAWN, of which I only ever wrote the beginning and the ending (but it's a great beginning and a great ending!) (naturally! *lol*), and a synopsis (at least I hope there's still a synopsis somewhere!). I've always wanted to finish it, but always thought it might be too ambitious a project and that I didn't yet have the skill to make the story sparkle. Perhaps this would be a great opportunity to finally tackle CHILDREN, especially since it would make more sense to write this book before B&S (because the ending of B&S sort of gives away the ending of CHILDREN). Hmmm. I need to think about this some more ....