~General Updates~ Regency Wednesday, RNC, InD'Tale, Cover Reveal

Regency Wednesday...

Before I get into the big updates I have to confess that I am deeply sorry but Regency Wednesday will be postponed for the next several weeks. I have eleventy-billion things to do before the Romance Novel Convention in August (Vegas, baby!!) and I'd rather choose to temporarily suspend my weekly Regency-themed posts than continue to feel guilty for forgetting to do them. 

Romance Novel Convention...

Click the image to find out more about the
Romance Novel Convention!

I had a recent issue and seriously considered asking for a refund for the Romance Novel Convention. Things have been [adequately] resolved now, though, so I will hold my tongue and plan, plan, plan to have the BEST time there. Perhaps I'll even get to meet some of my fabulous readers! ♥

The First Annual 

Romance Novel Convention 

presented by international cover model 

Jimmy Thomas 

Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino 

Las Vegas, Nevada 

August 7-11, 2013 (Wednesday-Sunday) 

All-Inclusive 

(registration, 5 days/4 nights hotel, all classes, events, and meals) 

In other RNConvention news, the first annual RONÉ Awards will be held Friday, August 9 at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino. InD'Tale Magazine is hosting this event. The voting is open now so click on over to www.indtale.com to cast your votes for your favorite indie romances.* ♥♥

InD'Tale Magazine...

The 10th and FINAL installment of The 11th Commandment has officially been published! That means I can now compile the entire collection into one convenient volume and offer it up for reader consumption. This edition will be released June 1 with the help of TreasureLine Publishing.

That also means there's a new serial Regency just around the corner. I came up with something that really plays on my dark, slightly morbid tendencies, and I hope it turns out as entertaining for you to read as it does for me to write! The announcement of my new story was done with a...

...in the May issue. Without further ado, here's the lovely threads for my next serial project:  

This new story is about a resurrectionist or body-snatcher—someone who steals bodies from graves and sells them to the various medical schools for the purpose of dissection. The really cool thing about this story is that the body-snatcher is female. And there's a doctor. And he's hot, of course. ♥

I think that's it for now. If you have any thoughts on my new cover, my new serial, the Romance Novel Convention, InD'Tale Magazine, or love and life in general, please leave a comment.

*Voting requires website registration (free). If you'd like to vote without registering, the site has instructions on how to do that. Romance Novel Convention ad, RONÉ ad, The 11th Commandment cover, and Death Becomes Her cover/ad were designed by Laura J Miller of An Author's Art (me, lol).

As always...

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ FFXIII-2 ~ Parallel Worlds

~Regency Wednesday~ None-Such

I missed the boat yesterday. Too much happening and no time. I think that's a common complaint amongst authors, especially indie ones. All whining aside, here's the post that should have went up yesterday. It's just a simple definition post again, from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Enjoy! 

NONE-SUCH. 

One that is unequalled: frequently applied ironically. 

*Taken verbatim from the Kindle edition. Get your copy HERE.

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Sam Palladio and Clare Bowen (Nashville Cast) ~ Fade Into You

Redemption is FREE April 13-17

Have you been hoping Redemption would be free so you can add it to your e-library? Now's your chance and it will be your ONLY chance to get the revamped version FREE. I'm not enrolling this one in KDP Select so getting it from Amazon will cost $2.99. If you stop by Smashwords between April 13-17 and use code TY54M in your cart, however, you can grab the format of your choice absolutely free. Take advantage while you can! Click HERE to go to the site. 

*To take advantage of this offer, click HERE, add the book to your cart, enter code TY54M in the space provided in the cart, click apply, then checkout. Make sure it lists your cart total as $0.00 before you click checkout, or you will be charged the regular price of $2.99. ♥

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing
♫♪ Staind ~ Safe Place

~Regency Wednesday~ Hobby-Horse

I've never mentioned a hobby-horse in any of my books and I'm not sure I ever will. I'm not even sure I can recall the mention of such a contraption in the 1000+ Regency romances I've read over the years. Still, this gave me a chuckle when I stumbled across it in the 1819 edition of Ackermann's Repository. 

I'm not going to type out the description for this plate, but the clipping below should be readable. Interesting stuff. 

*To see this article in its natural setting, check out Ackermann's Repository, February 1819, p. 109. 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Matchbox 20 ~ 3AM

~Cover Reveal~ Redemption Gets New Threads

Many of you know my older Regency romances have been picked up by TreasureLine Publishing, so I've been working on giving them new coats, as well as better formatted interiors. Heartless was the first to get that, though it took me over a year to accomplish it. I haven't taken nearly so long with Redemption, though the cover is something I've been working on for quite a while. 

Before I get to the point, let me refresh your memory....

◄This was the very first cover I made for Redemption, way back in 2008, when  CreateSpace's self-published books department was still pretty new and the number of Kindle books was about 40,000. My graphics program was one of the earlier versions of Microsoft's now defunct Picture It! program. The photo was one I took myself.

This is the remade cover it got a year or so later. Not much difference, though an improvement, if only a slight one. I believe at that time I was still using Picture It! for my graphic design needs and it's the same photo I used in the first version of this cover. ►

And this is the new cover, one that I hope will be the last cover for this book. I've come a long way in cover design, haven't I? LOL This one was made using Corel's Paint Shop Pro and some stock photos I acquired from Dreamstime. ▼

If you'd like to read more about this book, you can visit my Redemption page on my website. 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Joelle (FFXIII-2) ~ Plains of Eternity

~Regency Wednesday~ Half-Mourning

Half-mourning was about halfway through the mourning period, the point when the one in mourning stopped wearing black and switched to gray or lavender with black trim or accents. Half-mourning was considered a transition to wearing colors again.

Again, this affected ladies more than gentlemen, simply because the gentlemen wore black much of the time anyway.

For details on wills, funerals, or mourning, you can check out two of my previous Regency Wednesday posts: Funerals and Wills; Mourning. Both include links to other sites for more details on these subjects.

For detailed descriptions of the fashions shown here, see the matching Google Books clipping below.

↓

*Images and description clipped from Ackermann's Repository, Jan 1819, p. 52. 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Daughtry ~ Breakdown

~Regency Wednesday~ 1819 Window Draperies

How's this for a special treat? While perusing Ackermann's Repository (Dec 1819) I stumbled across this charming plate for Regency window draperies.

FASHIONABLE FURNITURE.

PLATE 35.—THREE DESIGNS FOR WINDOW-CURTAINS.

  AN ingenious artist will communicate to the commonest theme an inexhaustible variety of design: in doing this he must, however, give liberty to his ideas, which, if well instructed in the first instance, will never take their flight beyond the limits prescribed by fitness and true taste. The imagination so controuled is properly distinguished from fancy, which wantonly oversteps all limitations, and trespasses alike on the most sacred and on the profanest grounds of theory and practice; and hence the distinction between the works of an artist and of an amateur, as well in the higher departments of art, as in that of mere upholstery.

  The annexed subject presents features of perfect novelty, without a departure from its guiding principles. The centre draperies, in two colours, are composed for a Venetian or Palladian window: they are supported by a bow-like ornament, and by pilasters, to which the curtains are connected; the sub-curtains are also festooned by the bow, and guarded by a lateral transom, that passes from pilaster to pilaster. 

  The designs on the right and left are light and elegant: they should be composed of silk, and the sub-curtains of transparent materials richly embroidered: so executed, the delicacy of their combinations makes them suitable to a cabinet or boudoir. 

  For these designs we are indebted to Mr. Stafford of Bath.

*Image and description clipped from Ackermann's Repository, Dec 1819, p. 365. Typed description is taken verbatim from the above magazine clipping. 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing
♫♪ FFXIII-2 ~ Endless Paradox

~Regency Wednesday~ Mourning

To go along with last week's post on funerals and wills, this week's post is about mourning customs and mourning attire. 

The mourning period differed depending on which relative died. The longest period of mourning was reserved for a spouse, 12 months. Half that time (6 months) was spent mourning a parent or a parent-in-law. Half again (3 months) for a brother or sister, uncle or aunt. Six weeks of mourning was for a sister-in-law (brother-in-law too, I assume), aunt or uncle (I wonder if this was for an aunt or uncle by marriage, rather than blood; one source suggests closeness to the aunt or uncle as a possible reason for the repetition). For three weeks one would mourn the loss of an uncle or aunt (now I'm just confused), an aunt who remarried, or a first cousin. Two weeks was considered the proper length of time to mourn a first cousin (not sure on the redundancy here), and one week of mourning was acceptable for a first and second cousin, and husband or stepmother's sister.

It sounds as though the mourning periods were a bit flexible when it came to more distant relatives.

During this period of mourning, black was worn and the one grieving wouldn't attend entertainments. According to several sources, crêpe or silk bombazine were the materials of choice for their matte finish. Jet or black amber jewelry could be worn, also acceptable due to their matte finish. Dying gowns black or trimming clothing with black were common practices for mourning, especially if one couldn't afford to purchase new mourning clothes. Ladies went about in black until a period of half-mourning, or second mourning, was reached. Then grays and lavenders were acceptable.

Gentlemen typically wore black anyway so they weren't held to such strict rules when it came to mourning attire. Black gloves, cravat, shirt, or an armband were the norm.

In my Regency serial, My Lady Coward, Maria must don mourning. (She hates jet.) She would have had to mourn for six months, though her grief went much deeper than simply observing proper etiquette.

In The 11th Commandment, the serial Regency I'm writing for InD'tale Magazine, the story opens just after the death of the Duke of Jarvis. His widow returns to England for the reading of the will and she was so rushed to arrive and get the visit over with that she didn't have time to have mourning clothes made. She settled for the darkest colors in her wardrobe, though, out of respect.

My fictional character, the Duke of Derringer, wears all black all the time. More than one of his acquaintances commented on him going about in constant mourning.

*Images clipped from the December 1817 edition (starting on p311) of Ackermann's Repository. Further reading can be found at Jane Austen's World: Regency Mourning; Regency Reader: Reader Questions: Funeral Rites; Donna Hatch: Regency Mourning Customs; Victoriana Magazine: Regency Mourning Fashions; Austen Authors: Mourning and Burial Practices in the Regency.

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Hinder ~ I Don't Wanna Know

In the Editing Cave

Martin Hlauka (Pescan) [Attribution],
 via Wikimedia Commons

I spent the weekend in the editing cave. It wasn't until I crawled out that I remembered just how bright the real world can be. ☺

What was I editing, you wonder? I was working on Intrigue, another of my full-length Regencies. It is connected to the others, #5 according to the list on my website. 

So now you are probably wondering why I publish my books out of order. It's been a source of annoyance for some of my fans, I know. 

The answer to that is simple, really. I don't write them in order. I never have. I write them as I'm inspired to and that doesn't always happen in a chronological fashion. 

That said, I'm hoping Retribution will be the next one I complete (#10 according to my list), though I also want to get Temptation out there soon (#4 on the list). I have a ton of work ahead of me so I better get back to it. 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ Chicago ~ Will You Still Love Me

~Regency Wednesday~ Funerals and Wills

Most of you know I've been writing a serial Regency romance for InD'tale Magazine called The 11th Commandment. The story focuses on a woman, Katherine, who committed adultery, was caught, and sent to Scotland to live alone. The first part features her return to London after her husband's death for the reading of his will. (If you didn't know about this serial and want the story, click on over to InD'tale's site and subscribe. You only get messages when the issue is delivered and subscriptions are FREE. You can find past issues in the site's archive, after you've registered and logged in.)

OK, let me get to the point of mentioning this. For this story I had to delve a bit into the death angle of the Regency world, a topic that isn't written about very often. I found some great info in regard to wills on Courtney Milan's site and a bit about funerals at Regency Reader. 

Later research revealed that things I'd only guessed at, such as Katherine being present at her husband's burial and whether or not she'd have made it back to London in time to see him before he was buried, I've since been able to confirm. (There are times that you just gotta wing it 'cause the deadline's looming.)

Just a few things I've learned and links to where I found the info: 

• Katherine would not have been at the burial, as women rarely attended the burial. See the post at Regency Reader titled Regency Reader Questions: Funeral Rites.
• Katherine would not have made it back from Scotland in time to see his body before the burial. They didn't embalm bodies then and I believe my particular characters would have wanted him in the ground fairly quickly to avoid the overpowering smell. The bit on embalming can be found in an article titled Regency Death and Burial at Historical Hussies.
• For Katherine to become engaged within a year of her husband's death would be a huge scandal, especially since her husband was a duke. OK, I already knew that. That's kind of a "duh" when mourning for a husband was typically 12 months. 

As for the reading of the will, I assume that took place after the burial. I have not been able to confirm this but it makes sense to me that they would want to lay the deceased to rest before reading the will. I could be wrong on this bit and would love it if someone who knows better can either confirm or deny my assumption.

That's it for now. Next week's post will be about mourning attire. Such cheery subjects I've picked! 

♥Happy reading, writing, and blogging!!♥

There's a jukebox in my head. It's currently playing

♫♪ FFXIII-2 ~ Countless Partings