Call Me Duchess by Maggie Dove

Hi Everyone,

I just received the cover for my forthcoming novel, Call Me Duchess. I wanted to share it with you and tell you a little bit about my book:

Grippingly suspenseful and romantic, CALL ME DUCHESS, is a stunning, young woman’s journey to find love in 1870 London while a dashingly handsome chaperone, a heinous villain, and her own lofty aspirations stand in her way. Left penniless by their father, Marguerite Wiggins and her sisters must find husbands during the London season or work as governesses by season’s end.
Determined to become the next Duchess of Wallingford, Marguerite is a woman in love who must make the difficult decision between following her heart or attaining her lifetime dreams and ambitions as a depraved rapist seeks to make her his next victim.

Historical Romance/Romantic Suspense, CALL ME DUCHESS is the second novel of the Windword Trilogy.
To be released by Eternal Press - January, 2011

So Just When Do We Become "Historical"? Thoughts from Regan Taylor

I started to think about this the other day when, after my muse hiding for a bit over a month, I returned to writing. I'd open up a file and feel nothing. I'd bring up a blank page to start a new book thinking it would help and it didn't. And finally, digging into revising The Photograph to prepare it for submission, my muse peaed around the corner. And instead of creating, she brought to my attention some things I needed to consider, such as when does a book actually become a historical.

To me "historicals" were stories that took place from any time in the past through the American Civil War. There were stories where clothing was quite different from what we wear today, food not quite as varied, travel a bit harder and entertainment not as readily available. Heroes were brave and cunning and always in charge. They could also be jerks such as Vikings pillaging a Saxon village before taking the beautiful princess captive and winning her heart. And the heroines would fight as best they could but were always overpowered by wide shouldered, broad chested heroes with flowing hair, narrow hips and big you-know-whats. They took place in ancient Egypt or Greece or Rome. They were adventures set during the Norman-Saxon wars or during the birth of America. For the most part, looking back now, war or some sort of dispute laid at the center of the tale. Or which side of the tracks the couple was born on caused the couples to initially believe they didn't suit.

When I first saw a call for submissions for historicals set in WWI through Viet Nam I had to stop and think about it. Historical? Viet Nam? Hard to believe it happened forty odd years ago. And how our world has changed since then. But it still doesn't feel like it is historical to me. Yet some forty years later, it is, isn't it?  The calls for submissions setting the criteria focused on beginnings and endings with war. Not Victorian innovations (except for Steam Punk), or the Roaring 20's or travel into space -- and those first Sputnik and Mercury launches would fit in that historical criteria given the years involved.

Stories set in the 20th century open the door for more intriguing stories in terms of cross-culturalism. Read many of the earlier romances, ones written in the 70s-90s and the only multi-racial mariages you find are either white women falling in love with Indian captors or a rare hispanic/white marriage. Rosemary Rogers was, in many ways, ahead of her time with Steve Morgan being half Mexican and Lucas Cord being half white, half Apache or half Mexican depending on what he believed at a given point in THE WILDEST HEART. But with the opening of the east, or rather re-opening because after all, Marco Polo did open up the east so long ago, the opportunities to explore cross-cultural marriage abound.

When I first conceived of The Photograph it was early on in my writing career and while DVDs were around, they weren't quite as popular as they are today. I'd toyed with the idea of the story but didn't write it till the past couple of years. It was one of those things I kept meaning to do and finally planted my fanny down and did. But back when I was considering it, video stores were in every town and city and who heard of Netflix? I certainly hadn't. From the time I started writing it till today we moved not only from video cassetts to DVDs, now we have Blue Rays and can download movies right on to our computers or TV sets. I've had to give thought as to whether and why my heroine would go to a video store instead of just downloading the movie of her choice on to her TV.

In the past few years I had the opportunity to read all of Tess Gerritsen's books, starting with her first from 1987. Back then smoking was common, cell phones were around but they certainly weren't common or as convenient in size as they are today. In the short span of 23 years so much technology has changed. That led me to wonder if perhaps the late 80's might fall into the purview of historical given how much our world has changed.

It seems to me writing a time travel a few years ago would have been much simpler because while our technology changed and developed, it didn't happen quite as fast as it has today. My heroine in The Photograph is an avid reader. She has thousands of books. But when I first conceived the story ebooks were a small elite community of readers. The advent of better and more affordable devices has changed our reading paradigm. The question I ask now is if I need to change her home library which features floor to ceiling book shelves needs to become a jam packed ereader. But if I did that, my hero wouldn't have the opportunity to see and aprpeciate so many books. There's something romantic (as a reader) to pull a book off a shelf and cuddle with my guy to read a particularly juicy scene and then ... discuss it. Holding a book between the two of us is a connection, a shared moment. I haven't tried it yet with a reader. At what point will having a book, a tangible book, in a story make it a historical? Given our leaps in technology, when will we set the bar to what is considered historical?

For me, I still love stories set before the American Civil war. For some reason they hold more romance, more of a connection between the heroes and heroines.

The difference of historicals

I'd like to point out a few ways in which historicals are - well, different. I love reading historical novels of all genres and I love to write them, so are my five 'star' points that I look out for in the stories that I really enjoy.
　
1. Realistic reactions. In the past, the roles and pressures on people were different to now and a good historical reveals this. Women's liberation as a movement did not emerge until the late 1960s. Women (and working class men) did not acquire the vote in Britain until the early 20th century. Before then, the role of women was determined by family and peer pressure, by the church, by society's expectations, by class and above all by biology. (My great-grandmother had 14 pregnancies, 12 births, 2 miscarriages. In the days before reliable birth-control, women often spent their child-bearing years doing just that.)

In earlier warrior societies, where brute strength was prized as a means of winning booty, only a very unusual woman would be big enough and strong enough to fight as an equal warrior. Remember, food would often be in short supply and the sons and men ate first, not simply because of their higher status but because of survival. Men are generally more physically strong in pushing heavy ploughs, and so on. They needed to be well-fed.

2. Realistic dress. Fashion and past fashions is a fascinating business to me, but in a good historical dress also reveals class and tactile elements. A heroine who is changing her gowns every chapter may not be realistic. Clothes were costly and time-consuming to make. Fashions in the country would be less cutting edge than those of the city. Even cloth and colours would vary - the rich would have access to silks and more expensive dyes.

3. Realistic settings. How people lived in the past is very different from modern-day life (at least in the developed parts of the world) and that is worth showing in a historical. The daily trudge for water would be part of someone's life, as were the anxious waiting on crops and the hunger experienced while the harvest slowly ripened. In an unscientific age the fear of the unknown affected everyone - was the hail storm the sign of an angry god? Was a sudden illness in the village the result of witchcraft? If illness is not understood, then the evil eye becomes as good a reason as anything else. If 'everybody knows' that disease comes from the stench of the gutter, it becomes understandable to protect your cottage from pestilence by growing fragrant roses around the door.

4. Realistic plotting. In the past, communications were a major problem. In a world without the internet, battles could be lost because the flanks of an army literally could not talk to each other. A messenger could take days to ride or run from one part of any country to another. There were no policemen in ancient Greece, where the family was expected to take revenge and seek redress if any one of their people was murdered or injured. A good historical is aware of these difficulties and exploits them.
　
5. Realistic names. Sorry, but - unless the story is fantasy or timeslip - in a story set in 10th century AD somewhere in western Europe, or in China or India, 'Brad' or 'Chantelle', although pretty names, simply don't fit the places or the period and pull me out of the story.

Those are my 5 key points. What are yours?

Lindsay
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net

History can be a matter of perspective

I recently hosted a chat on Coffee Time Romance, and one of the threads was about how to use a character’s POV, pet peeves and every day activities to add historical depth to manuscripts without using descriptive passages that stop the story.

We historical authors walk a tight rope. Too much historical detail and we bore our readers. Too little, and the period becomes nothing more than wallpaper—nice to look at but useless for adding depth to the story. One technique I use to create a three-dimensional historical world without drowning readers in minutia is to show characters doing something—or wanting something—that is not only in character, but also compares and contrasts to our world.

I have a good academic grounding in the medieval world, and a good sense of everyday life in the 12^th century. But the fact is, I’ve never been there. I’ve never lived in a one-room croft with five other people, several geese and a cow. I’ve never gone weeks without a bath, and even though I grew up on a farm, I’ve never been responsible for growing, grinding and baking my own bread.

So to get a better sense of their world, I always invite my characters into my home. What they notice (or don’t) gives me a better understanding of how they interact with their world. Do they find the changes between the 12^th century and now exciting or frightening? Do they admire our ingenuity or abhor our lack of community? Do the convenience of packaged food and a microwave outweigh the tastelessness of our meals?

Once I know what they love/hate about my world, I know which historical details I can use to anchor the story in time and place and which ones I can ignore. For instance, if they are willing to put up with microwave meals despite the lack of taste, then showing their frustration at the laborious process of food preparation could be a good way to show character and historical detail.

Tess, the heroine of my current book, TIES THAT BIND, was fascinated by three things from my world: Running water, central heating and the fact that I had so much space to myself.

Being able to turn a faucet and fill a sink—or even better, throw clothes in a metal drum and have them come out clean—literally blew her mind. In her wildest dreams, she never considered such things, and she’s used to hanging with Druids.

She also walked around my apartment wearing only a chemise while a snowstorm raged outside, and then marveled at the idea that if she didn’t want to see or talk to someone, she didn’t have to. Of course, I didn't take her to the local Jewel-Osco. Trips to the supermarket always end badly.

In the end, I didn’t include details on toting water or doing laundry because those activities weren’t relevant to the story.  I did use Tess’ desire to be alone with her thoughts (something we’ve all wanted at some point) and the impossibility of finding that in a castle on a cold day in March. This allowed me to show a slice of everyday life and frustration for at least one person without ever saying castles were crowded places and privacy a foreign concept.

What techniques do you use to bring history alive in your book? Or if you’re a reader, can you think of an author or a book in which it’s done very well?

The past is another country...

...They do things differently there.' (L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between)

Setting any story in the distant past brings its own delights and perils. For me it allows my heroines to be engaging and ingenious, sometimes accepting historical society's conventions and restrictions, sometimes going against them, but always provoking inner or outward conflict. Heroes can be shown off to great advantage, really doing something - protecting, rescuing, struggling with great war-horses, battling the elements or the bad guys.

However, the backdrop against which all this high-stakes, high-adventure romance takes place needs to be carefully drawn and considered. Fashions are different, right down to underwear (or lack of it). Transport, law, weapons, animals, trees, climate, customs - these can all be very different from the present.

My oldest book, in both creative genesis and the date at which it is set, is Bronze Lightning. This is set in the Bronze Age, before the eruption of Thera (the modern Greek island of Santorini), the island shown below in a Bronze age fresco. Some structures, such as the pyramids and Stonehenge, were already old when the story opens in 1562 BC, although these also looked different. The pyramids I have imagined with their wonderful limestone covering, which would have made them gleam a brilliant white in the landscape. Stonehenge was also complete and not yet fallen into the decay already familiar when Constable created his painting of it.

Ritual places are not the only things that were different in the distant past. Some activities, such as the smelting of metals, farming, brewing, the making of clothes, were all different from what came later and very different from our own time.

Beliefs and religion were also very different and, given the few written sources we have from Bronze Age Europe, must be inferred from archaeology and other means. Fearn the hero believes in a Sky God who has some characters that are similar to the later Viking God Thor: all later religions tend to have 'clues' of past faiths in them. He also undergoes a trance state where he sees symbols that modern shamans have also reported seeing in trances and which have been painted by cave painters.

In Bronze Lightning I bring the heroine Sarmatia right to my own doorstep. The winter house she lives in is set where my parents' house is now, and the wild apple and cherry trees she sees in blossom are ones I have known since childhood. Lots of other details are changed, however, because the distant past truly is another country.

In the Bronze Age, the climate in England was warmer and drier than today. There was much more woodland, and animals such as beavers, bears, wolves and wild boar in the woods. We have lost all these creatures excerpt for the boar, which has escaped from farms in southern England and is making its home in woodland again. Lime trees flourished, and orchids and other flowers that are rare or extinct today. The sheep Sarmatia care for were more like Soay sheep, that do not flock and whose fleece is not at all like the thick fleeces of modern breeds. The cattle were smaller or completely wild. Even the stars she followed were different. Even the polar star hung in a different place in the Bronze Age.

I exploit these differences to show the past in my story, to remind my readers that they are in another time, another place... where magic and romance do truly go hand in hand.

Why Write?

Someone once asked me why I became a writer. The answer is complicated, and I'll try not to stray too often. Growing up in the small community of Woodville, Tennessee, our television set received only three channels, and you had to walk outside and manually position the pole antenna to get two of them. I've always been a night owl, and most nights there wasn't much to do, so naturally reading became an outlet for relieving my boredom. For me, getting lost in a good book was better than eating homemade ice cream.

Eventually I grew up, married a handsome sailor, and moved away. The first time my husband's squadron went to sea, I discovered the city library. Soon Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney were my new best friends. Until that fateful afternoon I picked up a book by Jill Tattersall. With characters who left me breathless, her romances captivated me. I became addicted. Obsessed.

Today the trend is to bombard readers with page after page of explicit sex. The romance, if there is one, is secondary. Let's face it...sex is easier to write and sell. Don't get me wrong. I've no objection to the hero and heroine rolling around in the hay, but not each and every chapter. I'd like to glimpse an enduring love blossoming beneath all that heavy breathing. Two people choosing love in spite of their differences really gets my heart racing. It's the only reason I keep reading. Without that overpowering emotion, there is no story. Only porn. And I can get that, day or night, on the cable channels.

I write historical romance. The old fashioned kind. My main characters are strong, honorable, and loyal. Sexy? Absolutely! But back to the original question of why I write...putting stories down on paper is the only way to get them out of my head. I also get a sense of satisfaction, because I know when others read about my characters, they will live forever.