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19 December 2014

A Match of Hearts now available in Paperback

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series, Uncategorized 0 Comments

Can’t talk long, we’re getting ready to jet off to London for Christmas. Lots of last minute things to do, mostly ironing! But I just wanted to let my readers know that A Match of Hearts is out in paperback. I have a proof copy and it does look pretty. The cover is even better in ‘real life.’

Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays!

BookCoverPreview

 

Amazon.com: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance (Loving Hearts) (Volume 4)

Amazon.co.uk: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance: 4 (Loving Hearts)

Amazon.de: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance (Loving Hearts)

10 December 2014

A Match of Hearts is available now

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series Humour, Traditional Regency Romance 0 Comments

A Match of Hearts Regency Romance 5.5x8 copy.5inchThe latest in my Loving Hearts series is available now and I’m delighted with it. My editor and favourite reader says it’s my best yet. Bless him, he always says that. But I think this is the first time he’s actually remembered the name of one of the characters and remarked that he was glad her story ended happily. He cared. For someone who has books on his shelves with titles like Being and Time by Heidegger or From Ritual to Romance by Jessie L. Weston that’s a bit of a breakthrough.

I changed the title, Hearts Take the Trick was just a bit too Barbara Cartland, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. We shared a publisher in New York, Miss Cartland and I. The editors were all terrified of her.

Anyway, now the title is A Match of Hearts. Lee at Halo Studios has given me a lovely cover which caused a bit of a holdup in publication, the image company was slow to deliver, but I think the result was worth the wait.

I’m going to be bringing out the  paperback edition very shortly.

 

Amazon.com: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance

Amazon.co.uk: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance

Amazon.de: A Match of Hearts: A Regency Romance (English Edition)

18 November 2014

A New ‘Sweet’ Regency

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series Sweet_Regency, Traditional_Regency_Romance 0 Comments

Her Foolish Heart has been so popular that I ditched plans for Midsummer Masquerade and decided to bring out another in the Loving Hearts series instead. I haven’t quite decided on the title. Most of the good ‘Heart’ titles have been used over and over again. The working title is Hearts Take the Trick, and I may go with that.

walking dressZanthe, a lovely young widow, moves to Bath to escape her mother-in-law and  find an eligible husband. Instead she encounters Lord Launceston, the man who jilted her eight years before. This time, she isn’t going to let him get away.

But Zanthe is not just concerned with her own romance. She has her sister-in-law, Margery, to think of. A middle-aged spinster, plain and painfully shy, Margery busies herself with good works until the Reverend Mortimer Cholmondeley comes into her life and transforms it. 

Add to the mix an Italian Prima Donna with a past, an oily villain with pomaded side-whiskers, a dissolute younger brother and an antiquarian father and you have all the ingredients for a frothy souffle of a book.

I hope to publish this one at the beginning of December, it’s being edited as I write. As a taster, here is the first chapter.

One

The afternoon was well advanced and in the library, the candles had already been lit and a good fire was crackling in the hearth.  A tray laid with tea and little cakes was placed temptingly on a small table in front of a deep brocade-covered armchair.  However, the only occupant of the room, a drooping figure in black, ignored the warmth within and looked out instead across a dreary landscape of leaden skies, sodden meadows and bare trees.  The gloom without was mirrored in a face that was not intended for sorrow.  Despite the widow’s cap, the heavy crepe weepers and the large mourning brooch at her throat, her face was young and blooming, and the irrepressible curls that escaped confinement under the cap were of pure guinea-gold.

In fact, the lady was only five-and-twenty, having been married for six years and widowed for almost eighteen months.  Lord Brookenby, many years her senior, had been a doting husband but not an exciting one.  The widow had dared to hope that his death would prove a release but she had been dismayed to find her bondage had only deepened. Mama-in-Law had very decided views on the proper behavior for her son’s widow; views which excluded almost anything that was agreeable.

Lady Brookenby brightened a little when she saw a gentleman’s carriage approach the turn into the driveway, but returned to her pensive attitude when a few minutes more proved the visitor to be no one more interesting than Mama-in-Law’s doctor.  She sighed, picked up a book of improving sermons and attempted to read.

A few minutes later the door opened and another lady entered the room.  She began scolding fondly as soon as she saw the widow.  ‘My dear Zanthe, what are you thinking of to be sitting without even a shawl?  It is freezing cold in here, indeed everywhere, for if ever a house was a desolate pile of draughts this is it, but really you should know better by now.’

The widow looked up with a sweet smile.  ‘Don’t fuss me, Margery, there’s a love.  I’ve but now escaped from your Mama who was worrying and fretting me until I could have screamed.’

Margery shook her head in sympathy and sat down beside her sister-in-law. They made an entertaining contrast.  Margery was of her deceased brother’s generation and would never see forty again.  She was a tall woman with an imposing Roman nose and massive bosom.  Her face, never pretty even in youth, was high-coloured and her expression severe, but this was the misleading consequence of her extreme shyness.  Her heart was warm and her affection for her lovely young sister-in-law sincere.

‘Poor dear.  I know, believe me, I know.  But recollect that your year of mourning has passed and as the weather improves you will be able to go into Society a little.’

‘Yes, with your mother watching like a hawk every time a gentleman approaches me,’ said Zanthe pettishly.  ‘She pretends to believe my heart is buried in the grave although she must know that it is not.  I became sincerely attached to my lord but you and she both know perfectly well I was never in the least in love with him.  And now that we have had to remove to this horrid, draughty dower house she keeps glaring at me and I know very well that she is thinking that if I had produced an heir she would not have had to see William step into his uncle’s shoes.’  Zanthe stood up and began to pace restlessly as her grievances overtook her.  ‘It is so unfair for I was a dutiful wife and never once refused— well, never mind that. But considering that Brookenby’s first wife was childless as well, I don’t think I can be blamed.’

Margery had nothing to say to this.  She knew that her mother would never forgive Zanthe her childlessness, especially as the prospect of an heir was the only reason she had given her blessing to her son’s marriage to a young person she considered quite unworthy of the position she was called upon to occupy.

Zanthe was fast working herself into a passion.  ‘Well, I will not stay here to be worried and fretted and talked at forever.  I am five-and-twenty, I have as much money as anyone could possibly want and it is settled upon me so nothing Mama-in-Law may say or do can take it away from me.’

‘Not stay!’ said Margery, alarmed.  ‘But where shall you go?’

Zanthe glanced out of the window.  ‘I was thinking perhaps—Bath.’ She dimpled mischievously, ‘I might even drink the waters.’

‘Alone?’ asked Margery, a little wistfully.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course you are to come too.  I shall require a duenna.  You shall come along to play the dragon and I’ll make Paris accompany us!’

‘Much use he will be,’ snorted Margery.

‘Yes, but no one, not even your Mama can call it improper if I move to a watering place for the sake of my health accompanied by my sister-in-law and brother.’

‘As long as they don’t know your brother.’

In the event, Zanthe was proved to be overly optimistic regarding her mother-in-law’s reception of her proposal.  That lady found a great deal to say about the impropriety of the scheme.

The Dowager Lady Brookenby was not one of those matriarchs who hold sway over a family through fragile health and plaintive murmuring.   She was still, at seventy, a big woman, with a loud voice, unalterable opinions and a habit of quoting Holy Writ to serve her own purposes.  Having buried her husband, three sons and two daughters, she lived to terrorise the parish, bully her surviving daughter, and criticise her daughter-in-law.

When the scheme was first broached to her after dinner that evening, her response was to issue an immediate prohibition.

‘Nonsense, nonsense!  It is not to be thought of!’

Zanthe and Margery exchanged glances.  Margery plainly considered the matter closed but Zanthe was made of sterner stuff.  ‘Why is it not to be thought of, Ma’am?’

Her mother-in-law was majestically displeased by the question.  ‘It is enough that I have said so.  However, if you will have it, I cannot think it right that you, my dear son’s widow, should wish to go pleasuring, so soon after his demise.  I am seriously displeased that you should even contemplate it.’

‘It has been over a year, Mama,’ said Margery timidly.  Zanthe shot her a grateful glance.

‘When the sixth baronet departed this life I did not leave this house for three years—three years!  And then only to go to Harrogate to drink the waters.’

‘But Ma’am indeed I don’t wish to go pleasuring’ declared Zanthe.  ‘Only I feel so low in Lincolnshire and I think I need a change of scene.’

‘Do not tell me! I know very well that once you are where no one knows you, you will be going into Society, wearing colours, flirting, disgracing us all. Remember “the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet.”’

‘Mama, are you not being a little unjust?’ protested Margery.  ‘Zanthe is so young it is only natural that she should be moped after all these months of seeing no one but the family.’

‘Be quiet, Margery.  This is nothing to do with you!’

‘Well, yes it is for I hoped Margery would come with me, for propriety’s sake,’ said Zanthe with a courage that commanded her sister-in-law’s admiration.

‘Margery?’  The Dowager seemed thunderstruck. ‘Margery to leave Baguely?  I have never heard the like of it.’

Zanthe always believed, when in the privacy of her own room, that she would be able to stand up to her mother-in-law.  She would rehearse her arguments in her mind and sometimes even in front of the mirror. But when she was confronted by reality in the shape of a selfish, domineering old woman, her courage would ebb away and, like all their small circle, she retired defeated.

The truth was that her mother-in-law had not the slightest authority to prevent Zanthe doing whatever she chose, but like all tyrants, she depended upon her victim’s dread of the kind of noise and upset that she herself delighted in.  Her family submitted to her simply for the sake of peace and quiet.

Zanthe, however, had not lived under her mother-in-law’s thumb for over seven years without learning how to circumvent her.  The following day she enlisted the aid of her mother’s doctor, an old ally.

Doctor Miller, a crusty individual with beetling brows and no-nonsense manner, was the only person to whom the Dowager listened with anything like respect.  He had been acquainted with her since she had been a bride, delivered her children, tended their childhood complaints and even relieved the old Lord’s gout.

The doctor, called in to prescribe a tonic for the young widow, was easily brought to support the scheme.  ‘If you had not thought of it, I should have suggested it myself by-and-by,’ he said.  ‘Do both of you a world of good. Now do not be concerned about your mother-in-law, Ma’am, I’ll see to her.’

This he did immediately, representing to her that he could not be answerable for his young patient’s life if her decline were not arrested by an immediate change of scene.  She should be allowed to go where she chose and, if the Dowager were anxious about the proprieties, then Margery would act as her deputy.

Furthermore, he counselled his elderly patient not for a moment to think of accompanying the young people as this would be disastrous to her own health. Since, along with the decline of morality in modern society, her health was the lady’s principal preoccupation, this argument carried considerable weight with her. Reluctantly, she gave her consent.

Zanthe’s brother, Paris, when summoned to Baguely Hall for an audience, proved even harder to deal with.  ‘Damn it Zan,’ he said in an ill-used voice, ‘I’ve got a dozen engagements in Town already!’

‘Well you can just break them,’ answered Zanthe severely. ‘I know exactly the kind of thing you get up to in London, let me tell you, and who with.  It will do you much more good to come to Bath with me than to go racketing around getting foxed, gaming and making stupid wagers and—’

‘Hey, steady on, old girl.  It’s not that bad,’ protested Paris, weakly.

‘Yes it is,’ countered Zanthe ruthlessly.  ‘And what’s more, without me to bail you out of trouble you will be without a feather to fly with by quarter-day and very likely before!’

Paris looked pained.  ‘You mean you’d leave me without funds?  That’s not like you, Sis.’

Her eyes softened.  The Honourable Paris Sidney, only son of Lord Rothmere, a noted Grecophile, and his Byzantine-born wife, was Zanthe’s adored younger brother. He was a handsome boy of two-and-twenty, and very much like his sister in appearance, for all the Sidneys were remarkably good-looking.  Just now he looked so sulky and put her so much in mind of the scrubby schoolboy he had once been that she could not be cross with him.

‘Please Parry; won’t you do this for me?  I want to go so much and if you won’t come with me they are sure to saddle me with Great-Uncle Horace or some other snuffy, old bore, for Mama-in-Law insists we cannot go without a gentleman to accompany us.’

‘Aye, very likely,’ agreed her brother, gloomily.  ‘Oh, very well, I’ll do it.  How long do you mean to be in Bath?’

‘Oh, just until I catch another husband.’

Parry, who had just taken a mouthful of wine, swallowed the wrong way and went into a prolonged fit of coughing.  Zanthe helpfully slapped him on the back several times, laughing, while red wine streamed out of his nose and mouth down his immaculate shirt front.

‘What did you say?’ he demanded, when he could speak.

‘I said I am going to catch a husband.’  Her eyes narrowed.  ‘I married Brookenby to oblige the family.  You know why.’  She looked a question at him and he nodded gravely. ‘I hope I am not unfeeling, and I am very sorry he is dead but I simply cannot live with Mama-in-Law a moment longer.  She never liked me, nor I her.  I will not stay to be bullied and put upon like poor Margery has been for all these years.  So I must marry again, it is the only answer; but this time I’m going to marry to please myself and no one else. Pray do not try to stop me!’

Paris saw with dismay there were tears in his sister’s eyes.  He moved to the seat beside her and put an arm around her. ‘This isn’t like you, Zan.  Damme, I believe you’re right.  You need to get away. You’re moped to death.  Cheer up; after all it’s not so very terrible to be a wealthy widow is it?  I’ll wager you’ll have all manner of Lords and Dukes and whatnot after you.’

Zanthe wiped her eyes.  ‘Particularly whatnots,’ she said.

 

20 October 2014

Happy ever after? Not so fast Cinderella!

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Uncategorized Cinderella, Mrs Clooney 0 Comments

Or Why I feel sorry for Mrs Clooney: Part Two

I would have been willing to place a large bet that columnist Amanda Platell would have some negative comments to make  about the new Mrs Clooney. This is what she had to say in the Mail on Sunday; ‘Perhaps someone could explain to Mrs Clooney the difference between vacuous Hollywood platitudes and the harsh realities of international diplomacy.’

Perhaps someone should explain to Ms Platell that Mrs Clooney is an International Lawyer and therefore far more qualified than she is to talk about a complex issue of, you know, International Law. However, Ms Platell was not the only culprit. Both Sarah Vine and Rachel Johnson, columnists I usually find amusing and sensible, had to have a little dig.  I began to wonder how the most famous rags to riches girl, the blueprint for the Kate Middletons and Amal Alamuddins would fare in today’s press.

A Glass Slipper? Pull the Other One Cinders!

Princess Cinders, or the Duchess of Colney Hatch, as she will be known until her husband ascends the throne, reveals that, despite the fact that she grew up in a five million pound mansion in fashionable Chelsea, she did not enjoy a privileged upbringing. She claims she was forced to ‘do a lot of housework’ and denied new clothes. Oh dear! Perhaps someone should explain to the Princess that occasionally wielding a feather duster and having to wear last year’s jeans does not really constitute a deprived childhood.

The  Princess, who was home-schooled and has never had a job in the real world, has been forced to deny that she suffers from an eating disorder, claiming that her fashionable semi-starved ‘look’ is the result of semi-starvation. We can only conclude that the weekly Ocado deliveries were too full of caviar, smoked oysters and champagne to nourish a growing girl.

Sources close to the young couple have denied speculation that this whirlwind romance was facilitated by a relative of the Princess who dabbles in ‘white magic’ and is leader of a Home Counties wiccan community. ‘Her Godmother merely provided Cinders with a new outfit and transport to the function where the two met,’ claimed a family friend. But apparently, the future princess was less than impressed by the Prince as she left the party at an unusually early hour in a ‘tired and emotional condition.’

But she was not so ’emotional’ as to forget to leave behind one of her glass slippers (£575.00 Jimmy Choo Fall Collection). The Prince, who is rumoured to have a large collection of lady’s shoes in a locked room in the Palace, spared no expense to track down the owner of the attractive footwear.  A spokesperson for Jimmy Choo said that they were happy to give the Prince a list of purchasers of the exclusive model. ‘After that it was relatively easy to find her,’ revealed our source. ‘She left a lot of clues.’ As the old saying goes; he chased her until she caught him!

The rest is, of course, history. We can only hope our new Princess will grow into her role and, as a first step, I beg her to put on some weight so that she can to be a better role model for teenage girls battling eating disorders and so that I and my fellow columnists can comment intrusively on every pound gained or lost and thus earn our paycheck for the foreseeable future.

 

 

15 October 2014

Why I Feel Sorry for Mrs Clooney

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Uncategorized Amal Clooney, Elgin Marbles, Lawyers, the law 0 Comments

Okay, I know that sounds crazy, but really I do. Yes she’s married the most gorgeous man in the world who seems, as far as we can tell, a really nice man as well, but she is paying a price.

A few months ago she was a respected international lawyer whose beauty and fashion sense were strictly private and for the enjoyment of her own friends and family. Now, the whole world feels entitled to comment on why she married him, what she wore, whether the ceremony was over the top, and, bizarrely,  would she make a good First Lady?

In today’s Daily Mail columnist Robert Hardman (Hardman? Really?) objects to the fact that she is part of a team of lawyers who have arrived in Greece to advise the government on the fight to have the Elgin marbles returned to Greece, which is something people have been arguing about for two hundred years. Mr Hardman adopts a very nasty tone when discussing Mrs Clooney:

But, of course, everyone is here to see Mrs Clooney. Until now, the former Amal Alamuddin has been billed as a ‘human rights’ lawyer, like Mr Robertson. Among her better-known clients is creepy Wikileaks fugitive, Julian Assange. It’s hard to discern a human rights angle to several tons of marble but, no doubt, this cerebral quartet will come up with one.

Billed as a human rights lawyer? What does he mean to imply by that? Has she been fooling us, is she really a hairdresser? Like many journalists, and members of the public, he seems not to have the slightest idea what lawyers actually do. Lawyers in film and television are either crusaders, taking on the big guys on behalf of the oppressed, or sleazy ambulance chasers. Newsflash Mr Hardman  – lawyers are interested in the law in the same way doctors are interested in medicine. They approach each case objectively as a law problem. It is not up to them to decide on guilt or innocence, right or wrong. They simply do the best they can for their client because it is their duty to do so.

Did you know, Mr Hardman, that a barrister is not permitted to turn down a client for any other reason that conflict of interest? So a loving father of little girls may find himself defending a man who has raped and murdered a child. He will feel exactly as you or I would about the disgusting creep but he has to take the case, and having taken it, he has to do his best. Indeed if he does not, he provides the defendant with grounds for appeal. Moreover, if the client tells his lawyer he is innocent the lawyer must proceed on that assumption. Which is why victims must be cross-examined and accused of telling lies. Because if his client is innocent, the witness must be telling lies. It is up to the prosecution to convince the jury that the victim/witness is telling the truth. Whether Julian Assange is creepy or not is really nothing to do with his lawyer. All he or she needs to do is look into the law, make the case according to the law and pursue it according to the law. There is nothing dishonourable in this.

Now, for God’s sake leave the poor girl alone to get on with her job.

 

30 September 2014

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfullness

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog Autumn, Christmas, Cooking 0 Comments

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

Keats

1189058_senftenberg_kircheThe season is living up to its name today as the mist is so heavy we can’t even see our favourite beer keller which sits on top of a mountain and shines like a beacon of peace and comfort for miles around.  Well, to be fair, it’s actually the chapel (left) that shines like a beacon, the beer keller is tucked out of sight in the trees below. Once the morning mist has burned off the weather has been warm and balmy with just a crisp chill in the air in the evenings. And of course the lovely smell of wood smoke from all the wood-burning stoves (karkeloffen).

IMG_0282[1]As is traditional at this time of the year I’ve taken to making jam, chutney and cooking with game. This weekend I gladdened my husband’s heart with a traditional game pie, and a game terrine served with plum chutney and fresh caraway-seed rolls.

I can just remember my grandmother’s damson jam. Grandma could make sixpence go further than anyone I ever knew. She had an arrangement with the local greengrocer. He would save all the bruised and oozing fruit that he would normally throw away and sell it to her for pennies. She made wonderful jam with it, served with her own freshly baked bread. I don’t think she had ever heard the expression ‘if life hands you lemons, make lemonade,’ but it pretty much expresses how she lived. World War I, the Great Depression and World War II were really, really big lemons. But then, she had my Granddad, so she was a happy woman.

I’m going to miss the lovely warm summer evenings and eating out in cafes and kellers, but Franconia is beautiful in the winter. We can eat in cosy, oak-panelled, seventeenth-century inns, walk through enchanting parks along frozen rivers and, as December comes along, enjoy the famous Christmas Market at Nuremberg, and the smaller, cosier one in Bamberg.  Then, home for Christmas and my nephew’s wedding. Oh, and a new book, I hope, out for the holidays.

 

13 September 2014

Her Foolish Heart Paperback available from Amazon

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series Paperback, Sweet_Regency, Traditional_Regency_Romance 0 Comments

Her_Foolish_Heart_Regency_Romance_ebookJust published the paperback version of Her Foolish Heart. I have the proof copy in my hands and keep stroking it lovingly. E-books are a wonderful, wonderful thing and I never buy anything else these days; but for an author nothing quite beats the sight of the actual real-live book, on paper, with a cover and everything.

It’s so pretty, it would make a perfect present for any romance loving friends or family who don’t own a Kindle. I would say there is nothing in it to make your Grandmother blush except that most of today’s grandmothers were young in the 60s and 70s and are virtually unshockable. However, lots of romance lovers still like their Regency romance traditional, Jane Austenish and sweet. If your grandmother is one of these, I promise she’ll love Her Foolish Heart.

Amazon.com: Her Foolish Heart: A Regency Romance
Amazon.co.uk: Her Foolish Heart: A Regency Romance

 

7 September 2014

Her Foolish Heart – Live

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series, Uncategorized 4 Comments

Her_Foolish_Heart_Regency_Romance_ebookSo excited. Her Foolish Heart went live on Friday, about 12 hours before I expected. Amazon must have really speeded up the process. I published at 17:00 EU time and it was available to purchase in the US two hours later.  Thank you Amazon!  So far, sales and borrows are encouraging. Fingers and toes crossed!

Amazon.com: Her Foolish Heart: A Regency Romance

Amazon.co.uk: Her Foolish Heart: A Regency Romance

Amazon.de: Her Foolish Heart: A Regency Romance (English Edition)

 

4 September 2014

Publishing Her Foolish Heart this weekend

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series Cinderella, Sweet Regency, Traditional 0 Comments

Her_Foolish_Heart_Regency_Romance_ebookWell, I hope so anyway. My self imposed deadlines are always hopelessly optimistic, but my wonderful editor has been through it with a fine tooth-comb and I have been through his edits with an even finer one. Now I’m doing something really difficult. I’m leaving it to stew for a day when actually I’m dying to ‘publish and be damned.’ Tomorrow I’m giving it one last look and then, fingers crossed I shall publish and it should be available in the Amazon store by Saturday pm EST time.

So, if your taste is for gentle humour, sweet romance, a Cinderella heroine and an utterly charming hero, I’m pretty sure you will love Her Foolish Heart.

25 August 2014

Her Foolish Heart Cover

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series, Uncategorized Clean, Regency Romance, Traditional 0 Comments

Her_Foolish_Heart_Regency_Romance_ebookHere it is! I asked my designer Lee at Halo Studios for pretty and romantic and that is exactly what he gave me. Also, below is my first draft of the blurb. Unlike my Masquerade Series, this one definitely stops, as Barbara Cartland famously declared that a romance novel should, at the bedroom door.

~~~~~  ~~~~~

Her Foolish Heart is the story of a growing love between two delightful people who are made for each other, although only one of them knows it.

It has been seven long and empty years since Marianne’s dream of love was snuffed out by a French bullet at the siege of Badajoz. Her bloom has faded and now she is a mere drudge at the beck and call of her selfish stepmother and unfeeling sister. Then she meets Lord Marchmount, a man so like her dead lover in appearance that the heart she thought buried in the grave revives with new life and hope.

But Beau Laurier, Arbiter of Fashion and leader of the ton, wants Marianne for himself and is determined to thwart her blossoming romance.

19 August 2014

Middlemarch in My Life

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog Middlemarch 0 Comments

I have just devoured or rather inhaled in two deep gulps The Road to Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead. It is a book I wish I had written, or could have written or had thought of writing. Because this is not just a critical essay on the book. This is the book of a woman just as obsessed by Middlemarch as I have been throughout my life.

I am fond of urging my friends to read Middlemarch by assuring them ‘it’s the Bible, it’s the Talmud, the E-Ching, the answer to all life’s questions.’ And they smile and promise they will read it and almost never do. Probably for most people it is just a heavy Victorian novel and many who read it will be tempted to skip the author’s asides which are to me the most vitally important aspect of the book. Those witty, sympathetic, and ethical passages have provided me with a moral compass since I first read the book, coincidentally at the same age as did Ms Mead, at seventeen. It is my contention that no one who has completely understood and internalised (horrible word but I can’t think of a better one) Middlemarch can lead a dishonourable life.  Or at least cannot do so without self-knowledge and self-loathing.

What I find uncanny are the many points of similarity between Ms Mead and myself. Although I’m nearly twenty years older, our experience has been remarkably parallel. We both first read the book at seventeen; we both became writers; we both moved to New York as young women; we both married scholarly American men and we both became the mother of sons. I have to ask myself if there is some strange combination of characteristics that we share or is it all coincidence? Well, obviously the sex of our children is a 50/50 chance but is there some inherent trait that makes a love of Middlemarch in particular (Eliot’s other books leave me cold) an impetus to cross the Atlantic? Does a hearty dislike of Mr Casaubon make one more likely to marry a charming American academic? It’s all very puzzling.

Ms Mead identifies with the heroine of the book, Dorothea. I never have. I recognised myself as that ‘brown patch’ Mary Garth very early on. We can all find ourselves and our loved ones in Middlemarch. When I was exhorting my husband, a modernist, to read it, I used to tell him there was a character in the book who portrayed him exactly. He eventually read it and said yes indeed, he recognised himself as Fred Vincy. Except that I had meant Dr Lydgate. But then Fred eventually marries Mary, so perhaps our marriage was made, not in heaven, but in Middlemarch.

Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)

The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot

My Life in Middlemarch (US title)

 

6 August 2014

Her Foolish Heart, a little taste of my new Regency Romance

Hilary Cabbages and Kings - Hilary's Blog, Loving Hearts Series, Uncategorized Regency Romance, Traditional Regency Romance 0 Comments

bonnetsMy new traditional (clean) Regency is almost ready to roll out. My designer, Lee at Halo Studios, is working on the cover and I am about to  hand it over to my editor who will ensure I haven’t committed such unforgivable sins as  dangling modifiers or run-on sentences. Then one last polish and brush up and I think it should be ready in a couple of weeks.

 

So, as a taste of what is to come here is the first chapter of:

Her Foolish Heart

Heatherton Hall, in the county of Somerset, was the property of Sir Richard Dudley, a gentleman of limited income, many liabilities and optimistic disposition. He was the possessor of a handsome wife, his second, two unmarried daughters and a son just down from Oxford.

At the present time they were all together, for it was Christmas and Edward, the son and heir, had reluctantly consented to celebrate the season under the paternal roof. The young ladies were seated in the morning-room with their Mama, while the gentlemen had strolled out of doors to inspect the latest addition to Sir Richard’s stable.

‘Well my dear, I hope your brother may be tolerably amused,’ remarked Lady Dudley to Miss Aurelia Dudley in her usual plaintive tone. ‘I had thought of getting up a little dance for you all. What do you think?  Would it answer?’

‘Oh Mama, only think how tedious,’ answered Aurelia, petulantly. ‘I dare say we could not find more than five couples that we would care to stand up with and I think I may answer for it that my brother would be intolerably bored.’

The elder Miss Dudley, the child of Sir Richard’s first marriage and, at six-and-twenty, some seven years older than her half-sister, interposed, although she had not been asked her opinion. ‘You mean that you would be bored, Aurelia. How very cross you are. I think it would be charming, Mama.’

The sisters were not at all alike. Marianne was the image of the dark-haired, dainty mother who had died at Edward’s birth. Miss Aurelia, on the other hand, was tall, angelically fair and so very lovely that even her habitually discontented expression quite failed to destroy her beauty.

‘I’m sure you are in the right of it, Aurelia, my love,’ said Lady Dudley, ignoring Marianne. ‘It is a pity there are so few families in the County worthy of visiting.’

‘To be sure. But as Marianne is not so nice, I am sure Mrs. Carter would be delighted to take her to the next assembly.’  She turned on her sister. ‘You may be sure of seeing all your common friends there and we will be spared the trouble of entertaining them at the Hall.’

Her strict sense of propriety prevented Marianne from entering into arguments with her stepmother but she was perfectly capable of dealing with her sister. ‘I am sorry you find my friends common. You move in such very refined circles yourself, of course.’

Aurelia gave an angry titter. ‘I suppose you mean to taunt me with the fact that your grandpapa was an earl while mine was but a Bristol merchant. I daresay he could have bought and sold your precious earl!’

‘Oh, I am sure you are right. But, just a hint Aurelia dear, it’s rather vulgar to talk about it.’

‘Oh, I do not dwell on it except that since Grandpapa made me his heiress, I shall expect to make a much better match than you, who will have nothing but what Papa settles upon you. Although how you expect to receive an offer at all considering the appearance you present, I do not know. I should be ashamed to be seen in such a plain gown. No wonder you are unmarried and on the shelf.’ She glanced down at her own over-trimmed gown with satisfaction.

This attack left Marianne as unmoved as the other. She had never admired the style her stepmother and sister favoured. Her gown was of soft, leaf-green merino, made high at the neck with just a ruffle of starched, white linen to frame her face. The sleeves were long, with tight cuffs, each fastened with a row of buttons that reached to her elbow. She looked elegant and ladylike which was all that she cared for. She had long accepted that, as her sister had so kindly reminder her, she was on the shelf.

Aurelia picked up a book and flipped idly through the pages. After a few minutes she began to fidget and, glancing at the clock, she wondered irritably where her father and brother had got to. ‘For Edward promised to take me into Taunton this morning and if he does not come in soon there will not be time before luncheon. I am particularly anxious to go this morning because I wish to discover when the ball at the Castle is to be.’

‘Really, is it certain then?’ enquired Marianne, looking up from her embroidery with delicately raised brows.

‘Well, Susan had it from her sister who is under parlour-maid. However, one cannot be sure and so I want to talk to Mr Tully, for he is certain to know.’

Fairmile Castle was the property of the Earl of Reddish, the largest landowner in the area. He rarely visited Somerset for his principal seat was in Norfolk but he was to spend the festive season among them for the first time in many years. He was a middle-aged man, a recent widower and childless. The news of his arrival would have created little interest in the neighbourhood had it not been rumoured that he would bring a large party of guests with him. Guests must be entertained and the young ladies in the neighbourhood thought it highly probably that the Earl would give a ball for them. From thinking it likely, they were very soon thinking it a certainty and no one was more impatient than Miss Aurelia to discover when the great event was to take place.

Marianne agreed that Mr Tully, the grocer, was the person most likely to be acquainted with what was going forward at the Castle, but she deplored her sister’s curiosity. It offended her pride that her family should be so very interested in the doings of the Earl, while she was tolerably certain that his lordship took not the slightest interest in them.

Before Aurelia had jumped up to look out of the window more than a dozen times, the gentlemen returned to the house. They walked into the peaceful morning room arguing amicably over the new acquisition’s points, thus awakening Lady Dudley who had been snoring gently on the sofa. Edward, a well-made, handsome young man with his sister’s dark hair and wide-set, grey eyes, was immediately reminded of his promise by his younger sister, and as they had all fallen into the habit of doing what Aurelia demanded of them, he agreed to drive her into the village in his sporting curricle. She hurried off to put on her pelisse and bonnet, leaving Edward to seat himself beside Marianne.

‘How do you go on, Sis?  Pretty well I hope.’

She smiled at him and reached out a hand to straighten his neckcloth. ‘Quite well thank you, Ned’

He put an arm around her and gave her a quick hug. ‘I know. You do not have tell me. I can see Aurelia has been her usual sweet self. You should stand up to her.’

‘Oh, I am accustomed to it. And you can hardly talk. Look how she pestered you into taking her into Taunton when I know that you do not in the least want to.’

‘Well, you know how I hate a row. Anyway, I’m only here for a couple of weeks. You have to live with her.’

‘She is not always so tiresome. She is merely a little spoiled, and very bored.

Sir Richard strolled over to his wife’s side from the fireplace where he had been warming his hands. ‘Well, well, it is good to see the family gathered together like this. It is all too rare that I have you all under my roof.’

‘Indeed it is,’ agreed his wife, smiling amiably at her husband. ‘I am sure I have not seen Ned for a twelvemonth for he was to have come to us this summer but nothing came of it.’

Edward looked a little uncomfortable at this and murmured something about it being time to be off. When Aurelia returned she was agreeably surprised to find him not only ready but eager to be gone.

‘Do you care to come too, Marianne?’ asked Edward as they were on the point of departing.

‘Good Heavens, what are you thinking of?’ exclaimed Aurelia sharply. ‘We should be so crowded!’

‘Oh no, Marianne cannot go. I need her to sort my silks,’ interrupted Lady Dudley eagerly.

Marianne had half risen, as indeed she would have enjoyed a ride in an open carriage on this crisp, bright day. But in the face of such decided opposition she sat down again.

Sir Richard, who appeared at times to be willfully blind to the conduct of his wife and daughter, now spoke with some displeasure. ‘Your silks are not a matter of urgency I think, Lady Dudley, and you, Miss, will scarcely find yourself incommoded by your sister’s joining you. The jaunt will do her good, she looks pale.  Run and put on your bonnet, my dear.’

While Marianne went composedly to do as she was bid, Sir Richard maintained a disapproving silence which Aurelia did not dare to break. She was very much in awe of her father and usually took care not to tease or scold her sister while he was present. Edward, meanwhile, was enduring a comprehensive lamentation from Lady Dudley upon the state of her health, the inclemency of the weather and the lack of eligible society in the neighbourhood.

‘Here she is!’ Edward exclaimed, jumping up from the sofa, relieved to escape further grumblings from his stepmother. ‘That’s a very pretty bonnet, love.’

She smiled charmingly, revealing unexpected dimples. The compliment was all the more acceptable as she had, with her own hands, fashioned the high crowned bonnet of ruched, plum-coloured velvet, trimmed with dusky-pink, silk anemones. Miss Aurelia gave an exclamation of impatience. ‘Well, are we going or are we to stand here admiring Marianne’s hat?’

‘We are going, Miss,’ responded Edward, casting her look of dislike as they left the morning room. ‘And I’ll tell you what, if you do not sweeten that temper of yours, you’ll never get a husband.’

‘Well I am sure Marianne’s temper is meek enough and she has not found one.’

Edward frowned. ‘You know very well she would have been married years ago but that poor Deveril was killed.’

Marianne, who had been listening to this passage with composure intervened, ‘That will do, Ned. I know Aurelia does not mean to be unkind.’

Her sister had the grace to look a little ashamed and climbed with unusual meekness into the carriage.

5 August 2014

Kirchweih Season is Here

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DCP00259One of the reasons I love living in Franconia is the  Kirchweih festival.  We were first introduced to the concept when staying in a holiday apartment at the gorgeous Castle Egloffstein (left). Our hosts invited us to the Egloffstein Kirchweih which they defined as ‘the birthday of our church.’ We were pretty ignorant about Germany in those days and we thought this was a custom specific to that village. Now we know that almost every community celebrates the Kirchweih and all the festivals are the same, and all delightful.First of all, of course, there is beer; and there is sausage; and there is a brass band. The locals wear their traditional costume which, in this part of Franconia, is very attractive. The men wear embroidered leather knee-breeches instead of   leiderhosen, and rather elegant jackets. The women wear vaguely eighteenth century kirtles, heavily embroidered, in bright rich fabrics. The crowd is always good-humoured, welcoming, and charming however much beer is consumed.

Franconian costume

KirchweighbaumThe big event of the Kirchweih is the erection of the Baum.  In our part of the world this is always done by the local volunteer firefighters.  The Baum is a fir tree, about 30 metres tall. The lower branches are lopped off leaving a bush of branches at the top. These are decorated with ribbons and wreaths according to the tradition of the village. A large hole has already been prepared and  everyone gathers round with a stein of kellerbier to watch the base of the tree being manhandled into it. However, they have to do it the traditional way with long forked poles.  It looks incredibly dangerous and I try to keep well out of the way in case it slips. But it never does.  It used to be traditional for the village boys to shin up the tree and grab prizes from the top of the baum but it appears that even here Health and Safety hold sway and I believe it’s no longer allowed.

The history of the Baum goes back much further than Kirchweih of course. The early Christian church, as we know, was very canny about adapting existing customs and festivals to keep the new converts sweet. The raising of the Baum, like the Maypole in England is a very obvious fertility rite and has been practiced for thousands of years. But I can’t help thinking that if you had wandered over to some early Frank, swilling mead and watching the tree go up and you had said to him ‘You do know this is a fertility rite, right?’, he would probably have said ‘Don’t be daft, it’s just a bloody good excuse for a knees up!’  And it still is.

 

24 July 2014

David Graham Phillips, A Forgotten Genius?

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The writer David Graham Phillips was shot dead on January 24 1911 by a madman who believed Phillips had modeled one of his less admirable female characters on the man’s sister. He was only 44. He had been, as well as a novelist, a courageous investigative journalist, exposing corruption at the very top of the Washington establishment. In our more cynical times we might well wonder if the ‘madman’ was really motivated by concern for his sister’s honour.

This is an excerpt from the forward to Phillips’ posthumously published work The Fall and Rise of Susan Lenox: ‘In the presence of his last work, so overwhelming, so stupendous, we lesser men are left at a loss. Its magnitude demands the perspective that time only can lend it. Its dignity and austerity and its pitiless truth impose upon us that honest and intelligent silence which even the quickest minds concede is necessary before an honest verdict. Truth was his goddess; he wrought honestly and only for her. He is dead, but he is to have his day in court. And whatever the verdict, if it be a true one, were he living he would rest content.’

Unfortunately, there has been no ‘perspective of time’ because, as far as I can discover, Phillips has been forgotten, by the literary world, by academia and by the public. He is an author regarded in his own time to be as great as Theodore Dreiser or Upton Sinclair yet he has disappeared.

Of course no one is completely forgotten. I found his books on Project Gutenberg as I’m sure others have. There is a review of Susan Lenox on Goodreads and and I’ve noticed some enterprising person has packaged it as a self-published paperback available on Amazon. But I would like to see it republished by a university press with thoughtful essays by respected literary critics. He deserves that.

Susan Lenox is a great read. In the tradition of all innocent heroines she is seduced by a cad, left alone and in poverty, earns her bread the only way she can, but in the end rises above circumstances. It’s not an original story but it’s one that has been played out in reality by countless women throughout history. The real interest of the book is not so much in her story as the picture of  life in America’s teeming tenements at the turn of the last century.

There is a film version made in 1931 with Greta Garbo and Clark Gable. I admit I haven’t seen it but with Garbo and Gable, how bad can it be?

Susan Lenox (Her Fall And Rise)

 

 

7 July 2014

Mysterious Masquerade on Sale

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I’m loving the sales from my sales so now it’s the turn of  Mysterious Masquerade which will be priced at 99 cents until August 8th.

mysterious masq 5.5x8.5inch2This one was a slight departure for me as the plot is more than just something to hang the romance on, there’s an element of espionage and a hero, the Duke of Staynes, who is much more than a dandy. There are also more fight scenes, as you might expect. I do like to do my research so when I was getting ready to write the climactic fight I downloaded several famous film fights from YouTube and made notes. The most useful for my purposes was the one from the The Quiet Man between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen. You might recognise elements if you’re a film fan.

My heroine, Angel, doesn’t live up to her name either in the ballroom or the bedroom, but the Duke doesn’t seem to mind.

There’s a nice, romantic sub-plot, which one reviewer liked better than the main plot, and a few comic characters including a ditsy duchess, a soldier-of-fortune, and an Italian Macaroni.  All that for 99 cents – it’s a bargain!

 

4 July 2014

Delia Darling on the Office Romance

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I wrote this piece when Over Here Theater were trying to get in on the very lucrative Team Building entertainment business. You know the kind of thing. The whole department goes off to a country house hotel for a day of interminable presentations which is the price you have to pay for a lovely 5 course dinner and afterwards some entertainment and then a boozy free for all in which reputations and marriages are destroyed before everyone climbs drunkenly into, one hopes, their own bed.

We put together a business themed comedy show which would have been very funny if anyone had actually hired us to perform it.

Delia on the Office Romance

Good afternoon.  Let me introduce myself.  I am Delia Darling, romantic novelist, television celebrity and relationship counsellor.  I am here to talk to you today about something so important, so vital to happiness and productivity in the workplace that I am frankly astounded to find that no other training facility attempts it.  I refer of course to the office romance.

Delia 6Some heartless and insensitive employers, of course, frown on the office romance but this is a short-sighted view.  If they only understood what a marvellous tool the office romance can be in dealing with human resource issues.  Take for example the problem of tardiness.  What could be more of an inducement for a lovely young woman to arrive early at the office every day than the knowledge that she will find her handsome boss already at his desk and for a few brief moments before the rest of the department arrives he is hers alone.   Together they plan his day and if her hand brushes his oh so lightly as she hands him his coffee, will not their hearts be lighter as they go though the soul destroying routines of the business day and will not her perfume sweeten his mighty burden?

Absenteeism is a serious problem in the City.  Yet, what greater incentive could a young man possibly have to go to work every day than the glorious possibility of a brief encounter with the beloved by the jammed photocopier, as each of them bends to open Door A and their fingers oh so accidentally touch sending a shock of ecstasy through every fibre of his being.  How lovely she looks as she bends to turn Handle B and her slender hand disappears tantalisingly into the open orifice and emerges with the burned and crumpled paper.

Even in the board room how much more exciting a PowerPoint presentation can be when a nylon clad toe tentatively caresses a manly sock under the conference table and two hearts may still beat as one even if the quarter-end numbers are represented on the screen in a gracefully declining arc of red.

In conclusion, to the team leaders among you, I say this.  Your aim is to keep your team in the office for as many hours of the day as you can possibly get away with.  In this endeavour, the office romance is your greatest weapon.  Provide some cosy and private spaces where love can blossom, for example a walk-in stationery cupboard, or lockable photocopy room, and you will soon find that your team will be in no hurry to take the 17:30 back to the suburbs.  As you walk though the office and hear a dozen different employees calling their partners with “I’m sorry darling I have to work late” you know that they will be at their desks for a least another couple of hours in case their partner calls back and you can retire to your own personal stationery cupboard with the employee of your choice with a clear conscience.

 

 

 

 

 

27 June 2014

The quantifiable correlation between sunshine and writer’s block

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Oh Good Grief! I have two manuscripts almost finished, my mermaid sequel is just at the ’round everything up in a fantastic finale stage’ and my lovely, clean, traditional Regency is finished and just at the editing stage which is usually the most fun. Yet all I can do is stare out of the window like a schoolgirl studying for her GCSEs. Why are they always in June anyway? Is there a month less conducive to diligent study? Exams should be in March with Christmas well out of the way and nothing else to do but read.

I’ve promised myself I will take the whole of August as a holiday from writing but I’m not sure I’ll make it until then.

My new Regency has a very long history. Mistaken Marriage was originally written 34 years ago as the third in a three book deal with my first publisher. However, in the meantime, I had obtained a much more lucrative contract with a New York publisher. I have to admit I rushed Mistaken Marriage a bit in order to fulfill my obligations in the UK and get on with the new book. Not unnaturally, my publisher rejected it. However, every now and again I’d pull it out and have another look. Last year I decided it had some merit and began to seriously rework the whole thing. It has now metamorphosed into The Foolish Heart, the hero and heroine are significantly older, and a tedious subplot has been removed.

Any reader who has studied the Regency will instantly recognise that my hero is based on Beau Brummell. Brummell fascinates me. Here is a man who not only led Society by the nose in his day, but the rules he laid down for gentlemen’s fashion are still followed all over the world in the 21st century. Although men’s sports and leisure wear has descended into a kind of permanent toddlerhood , for business and formal occasions men, from New York to Hong Kong, still dress according to his rules: black, dark blue, charcoal grey jackets with either self coloured trousers (the suit) or pale coloured trousers (smart casual).  I am only too well aware that his ruling on a clean shirt every day is still in force because, before I rebelled, I was doing laundry for the three males in my household who would all rather be dead than seen in the same shirt two days running.

Brummell wasn’t just a clothes horse. He was a very great wit, an artist and a poet. My hero, unfortunately for him, only has me to write his witty epithets and so, in that respect, he falls far short of his progenitor. I apologise to him and to my readers, but I did my best.

My heroine, I don’t apologise for. I think she is delightful and deserves her eventual happiness.

Much of my information on Beau Brummell comes from Ian Kelly’s marvelous book Beau Brummell, the Ultimate Dandy (US title: The Ultimate Man of Style). I highly recommend it to lovers of history, fashion and the Regency in particular.

Amazon.com: Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style

Amazon.co.uk: Beau Brummell

Amazon.de: Beau Brummell

 

10 June 2014

The Tale of the Purple Velvet Hotpants

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Sensory memory is a very strange thing. A hot summer’s day, the scent of a unnamed flower and suddenly you are plunged back, not just to a time and place but to a very specific incident. In an instant you are somewhere else.  This happened to me today, and the somewhere else was a leafy square in Kensington. The year is 1970.

I was a drama student at one of London’s most famous drama schools. There were ten of us in my term, one of whom I was visiting that day in her bedsit (sorry, now called studio) flat. Patricia (not her real name) was only three years older than me but in experience, sophistication and worldly knowledge she was light-years ahead. She took me under her wing, for which I was not particularly grateful. Patrica was a Marianne Faithful type beauty. Waif-like, wistful, sensitive. She had cascades of auburn curls, like a girl in a pre-raphaelite painting. Patricia made no secret of the fact that she was bi-sexual, but there was never any romantic feeling between us. I was wildly in love with a succession of fellow, male, drama students throughout our friendship.

downloadThat hot, cloudless, still afternoon I arrived at her flat for tea to find her in the middle of an argument with her  ex-girlfriend. I’ll call her Jaime. Jaime was a tough-talking, wiry, boyish mixed-race girl, but even I, inexperienced though I was, could see that she was by far the more vulnerable of the two. It transpired that Patricia had demanded that Jaime return a certain pair of purple velvet hotpants that Patricia had lent to her. Jaime was holding them firmly to her chest and refusing to return them, insisting that they had been a gift. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, ‘I don’t want them but I’m not giving them back to you. I’m giving them to Hilary!’ She handed them to me. I reached out  to take them but not quickly enough because Patricia snatched them away from me. ‘No you’re not! I’m giving them to Hilary!’ she shouted. Once more the hotpants were proffered to me and once more they were snatched away. Patricia made another grab for them, Jaime clung on like a limpet. I could see my lovely hotpants in danger of being torn in two like the baby in the Old Testament wisdom of Solomon story. Brave as a lion (I really lusted after those hotpants) I nipped forward and grabbed them. After that it all  rather degenerated into a lot of slapping, hair-pulling and name calling. I remember shouting to Patricia, ‘shall I call the police?’ They both stopped fighting long enough to look at me with derision. ‘You don’t think the cops are going to come out to a fight between two lesbians do you?’ After that they didn’t seem to want to continue. Jaime slammed out of the room and Patricia put the kettle on. But I had my hotpants!

6 June 2014

Moonlight Masquerade on Sale!

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Well, I was very encouraged by the result of the sale on Merry Masquerade so I’m giving Moonlight Masquerade a shot. It will be on sale from today June 6 (my birthday by the way) until July 5.

moonlight masquerade 5.5x8.5inches2Moonlight Masquerade was quite well received when it came out although I have a reader in the US who was rather upset by my heroine’s behaviour. She thought that Merry treated Hawkwood most unkindly, punishing him “very badly” for his various transgressions. Well,  I think she is paying me an wonderful compliment by being involved enough in the story to actually care about Hawkwood’s feelings and to be angry with Merry on his behalf. But, you know, I think he deserved every bit of  it, the arrogant SOB. But then we Regency readers and writers like our hero to be an arrogant SOB, don’t we? Especially when he wears his dark hair in a fashionable Brutus, has an excellent leg for skin-tight yellow pantaloons, is a dab hand at fisticuffs and brings a lady to swooning point with his kisses.

Another reviewer in the UK called this a historical RomCom and  I think that’s an excellent description. I hope by putting it on sale Merry and Hawkwood’s story will reach even more readers.

Amazon.com: Moonlight Masquerade (Regency Masquerade Book 1)

Amazon.co.uk: Moonlight Masquerade (Regency Masquerade Book 1)

Amazon.de: Moonlight Masquerade (Regency Masquerade)

30 May 2014

My Glorious Career in Film

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To be honest, not so glorious. In my 40 plus years as an actress I appeared in just two films. Which, let’s face it, is two more than most people. The first, It Could Happen To You was made in 1977 . I got a part in it the old fashioned way, my best mate was playing the lead. We filmed my scenes in the director’s flashy penthouse in St John’s Wood, a real glimpse of high life. When I say my scenes, I mean me and about twenty other young actors as this was a party scene that was supposed to degenerate into an orgy. By today’s standards it was like an orgy organised by Blue Peter.  I think one girl flashed her boobs and that was it. I never saw the finished product but I strongly suspect I ended on the cutting room floor, which is probably what I deserved.

I am, however, very proud of my one other appearance on film. In 2009 I was approaching retirement and, although I didn’t know it at the time, in very bad health. But I was offered the part of Ethel in a short film, Taylor’s Trophy, and as I thought the script was very clever and it would be nice to be on a film set again, I was delighted to accept. My husband, also an actor was around that time flown to Croatia for  a week’s filming. I took the train to glamorous Streatham. As usual everyone was called for the crack of dawn and nothing happened for hours and hours. I was in make-up for a couple of hours being turned into a mad old bat and then spent the rest of the day sitting around eating junk food and gossiping with the cast and crew. My character, Ethel, was in a wheelchair, and since there was a shortage of chairs, and the wheelchair was quite comfortable, I sat in it all day. It is amazing the unconscious power of suggestion that wheelchair had. Although they had all seen me walk in briskly on my own two legs, the entire company began to treat me as though I were incapacitated. People wheeled me out of the way when the cameras had to be moved, brought me cups of coffee I could easily have got for myself and were deferential to my, entirely apocryphal, grey hairs (I was actually a blonde at the time.)

After I wrapped my scenes I got a round of applause from the crew, always heartwarming as they are the great unimpressionables.  And I had the great pleasure of attending the screening at BAFTA and seeing myself up there on the screen. The film went on to win awards at various film festivals around the world, which it deserves quite apart from my performance.  It’s funny, wicked, full of great performances and inventive direction. I recommend it, but then I would, wouldn’t I?

EthelEthel

 

 

 

Amazon.co.uk:  TAYLORS TROPHY

Amazon.com: Taylors Trophy

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