Hi! I’m Bronwyn Stuart and I write Regency Romance. I first started writing about 7 years ago when I read a particularly unsatisfying historical romance one night when working the night shift at a security company. Like so many others, I thought, I can do this better! If they bought this romance and it’s crap, surely I can write one that will be ten times better and sell it. Boy was I wrong. But that’s a story for another time. Today I want to share with you why I write Regency romance when there are so many other time periods and genres out there in the big wide world of fiction.
I can’t remember the first book I read. There were so many. I do remember the first one that really made my brain tick. I’m not sure if it was the horror or the way the book was written and now I can’t even remember the title but it was the book that the movie The Village of the Damned was based on. You know the one with a younger Nicole Kidman? Where all the people in the town fall asleep and can’t recall whole hours. Then all the women get pregnant and have babies with crazy hair and eyes that can do strange things with strange powers. I loved that book! I’m not sure if I read it now what I would think but back when I was 14 I thought it was the bomb! The first historical author I fell in love with was Candace Camp. I loved Stephanie Laurens and Johanna Lindsey too but the author I went out of my way to find was Candace Camp (maybe it was because mum already had all the others). I really enjoyed her humour and her characters.
I got off track (big surprise there). What got me started with Regency wasn’t the world itself or any one book. It’s what you could do with that world. You have everything from chimney sweeps and mudlarks to princes, princesses and kings. And you can pretty much have any level of emotion. Eloisa James makes me laugh like no other author but it’s Anna Campbell who really draws me into her dark, emotional, meaty stories. So I decided to write that. They say ‘write what you know’. I didn’t live in the 1800’s. I don’t know what it’s like to wear three petticoats, a heavy gown, two coats, gloves, hats, and all the other accoutrements of the era but I’ve read enough to get a good idea. I have a good imagination and so I use it. That’s it. I’d like to say it’s simple but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and I have two kids) but I love it. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. I also dabble in the occasional contemporary but it’s always the Regency world I come back to. It’s like I’m drawn there over and over and over. Even my reading pile has more historical than any other genre. It’s hard to explain in words but there it is.
So what do you love? I don’t want to know the first book you read (most people lie about that anyway. Mine was probably The Little Engine Who Could.) I want to know the first author who really struck a chord in you. Do you write like them or in the genre they do? But the first prize winner is going to be the first one to give me the name and author of the village of the damned book (I don’t think it’s called that) and not a movie book but the original one and a link either to Kindle or Book depository so I can buy it =) The first one to go to all that effort gets a contest critique of 3 chapters up to 30 pages. If you don’t want the critique, just leave me a comment with your favourite chord striking author and I’ll pop your name in a hat and get one of my kids to draw a winner. You’ll get a copy of Candace Camp’s Scandalous.
I can’t remember the first book I read. There were so many. I do remember the first one that really made my brain tick. I’m not sure if it was the horror or the way the book was written and now I can’t even remember the title but it was the book that the movie The Village of the Damned was based on. You know the one with a younger Nicole Kidman? Where all the people in the town fall asleep and can’t recall whole hours. Then all the women get pregnant and have babies with crazy hair and eyes that can do strange things with strange powers. I loved that book! I’m not sure if I read it now what I would think but back when I was 14 I thought it was the bomb! The first historical author I fell in love with was Candace Camp. I loved Stephanie Laurens and Johanna Lindsey too but the author I went out of my way to find was Candace Camp (maybe it was because mum already had all the others). I really enjoyed her humour and her characters.
I got off track (big surprise there). What got me started with Regency wasn’t the world itself or any one book. It’s what you could do with that world. You have everything from chimney sweeps and mudlarks to princes, princesses and kings. And you can pretty much have any level of emotion. Eloisa James makes me laugh like no other author but it’s Anna Campbell who really draws me into her dark, emotional, meaty stories. So I decided to write that. They say ‘write what you know’. I didn’t live in the 1800’s. I don’t know what it’s like to wear three petticoats, a heavy gown, two coats, gloves, hats, and all the other accoutrements of the era but I’ve read enough to get a good idea. I have a good imagination and so I use it. That’s it. I’d like to say it’s simple but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and I have two kids) but I love it. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. I also dabble in the occasional contemporary but it’s always the Regency world I come back to. It’s like I’m drawn there over and over and over. Even my reading pile has more historical than any other genre. It’s hard to explain in words but there it is.
So what do you love? I don’t want to know the first book you read (most people lie about that anyway. Mine was probably The Little Engine Who Could.) I want to know the first author who really struck a chord in you. Do you write like them or in the genre they do? But the first prize winner is going to be the first one to give me the name and author of the village of the damned book (I don’t think it’s called that) and not a movie book but the original one and a link either to Kindle or Book depository so I can buy it =) The first one to go to all that effort gets a contest critique of 3 chapters up to 30 pages. If you don’t want the critique, just leave me a comment with your favourite chord striking author and I’ll pop your name in a hat and get one of my kids to draw a winner. You’ll get a copy of Candace Camp’s Scandalous.
Thanks for coming by today and stay tuned for more historical tid-bits that delight us, and we hope, you too.
Good Luck!
Bronwyn.
It's the last day of the Historical Hearts blog launch but the fun isn't over yet!
I'm Cheryl Leigh and I love all historical periods, especially the eighteenth century, which is where I set my as-yet-unpublished historical adventure romances. With a background in interior design, it's no wonder I'm drawn to the elegance of the Georgian era. Ah, the symmetry of Georgian buildings, exquisitely carved furniture, rich fabrics, gowns - oh, the gowns! - landscaped gardens, masked balls, music, art, literature, and, of course, men in breeches. *grin*
The Georgian period was not all beauty and glittering ballrooms. Crime, drunkenness and gambling abounded. Fewer strictures gave men and women the opportunity for liaisons with less censure from society. Though a decadent age, it was also a time of enlightenment as well as revolutions - agricultural, industrial and political. All great fodder for historical authors!
In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing snippets of history - Georgian and more - from my travels. To celebrate our blog launch, I'm giving one randomly picked commenter a box of note cards, embellished with fabulous shoes, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and stored in a cute shoebox, together with a small note pad to jot down story ideas ... or shopping lists. Just tell me what is your favorite historical period and why?
I'm Cheryl Leigh and I love all historical periods, especially the eighteenth century, which is where I set my as-yet-unpublished historical adventure romances. With a background in interior design, it's no wonder I'm drawn to the elegance of the Georgian era. Ah, the symmetry of Georgian buildings, exquisitely carved furniture, rich fabrics, gowns - oh, the gowns! - landscaped gardens, masked balls, music, art, literature, and, of course, men in breeches. *grin*
The Georgian period was not all beauty and glittering ballrooms. Crime, drunkenness and gambling abounded. Fewer strictures gave men and women the opportunity for liaisons with less censure from society. Though a decadent age, it was also a time of enlightenment as well as revolutions - agricultural, industrial and political. All great fodder for historical authors!
In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing snippets of history - Georgian and more - from my travels. To celebrate our blog launch, I'm giving one randomly picked commenter a box of note cards, embellished with fabulous shoes, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and stored in a cute shoebox, together with a small note pad to jot down story ideas ... or shopping lists. Just tell me what is your favorite historical period and why?
Good Luck!
Cheryl.
Hi all, I’m Sandie Hudson, and I write Regency and Australian Historical romance. My love of history start with the stories my Dad would tell me about my ancestors. I’ve done extensive research into the lives of my ancestors and hope to one day be able to use that information in one of my novels.
Why write Regency? I love Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. I love the beauty of the era, the sense of romance, but most of all I love the heroes and heroines I’ve on the pages of many of my now favourite authors, including our own Anna Campbell, Anne Gracie and Elizabeth Rolls.
You can visit my website to find out more about the novels I’m working on as well as my heroes and heroines.
To help celebrate the last day of Historical Hearts launch week I’m offering a copy of Deanna Raybourn’s ‘Dark Road to Darjeeling’ and a heart shape trinket box. My question:
What was the smash hit Showtime TV series, Anne Gracie, novelized?
Good Luck!
Sandie.
Hi, I'm Maggi Andersen. I write sensual historical romance where dark-haired heroes meet their match in feisty heroines. Add a dash of adventure, a murder or two, a mystery or an intrigue. What better time to set them than the Georgian period. It offers so much for a writer.
When I think of the Regency era, Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy come to mind. While it’s certainly nice to think of Darcy – emerging from the lake with his wet shirt plastered to his broad chest for instance – the Georgian era offered much. It was a fascinating period in history, in which the French Revolution changed the world.
The Regency was a time of both opulence and abject poverty. Of economic and social change: the Napoleonic wars, the power struggle for the Americas, and the Industrial revolution when people began to desert the country and crowd into the cities.
Lord Byron became a celebrity with his dark romantic poetry, and Beau Brummell defined and shaped fashion into a period of simplistic elegance. Men abandoned brocades and lace for linen trousers, overcoats with breeches and boots, and women abandoned corsets for high wasted, thin gauzy dresses.
A spend-thrift aesthete known for his scandalous affairs, George IV, the Prince of Wales was made Regent in 1811after his father was declared too mad to rein. Prinnie presided over the elegant society of the ton, the so called upper ten thousand, who defined themselves by an incredibly formal etiquette code which set them apart from the rising middle class.
I delight in finding ways my characters can break those rules and not only get away with it, but live happily ever after. Together of course.
I am offering a choice of two of my books, either e-book or print, for the first to visit my website and name the title of my book coming in October to New Concepts Publishing.
Good Luck!
Maggi.
Note: For your chance to win today's prizes, when answering the trivia questions or replying, please leave your name, email address and what draw you'd like to enter. Of course, you are more than welcome to enter all prize draws up for grabs. Good Luck!
