The Lady Novelist

Where Did 2011 Go?

2012-01-09T07:45:00.013-05:00

I'd intended to write this post on the first of the year, figuring at least it would become an "annual tradition" to write a blog post -- which was never my original intention when I began blogging. But I got so busy! On January 1, 2012, I was deep into revisions of my upcoming nonfiction opus, ROYAL ROMANCES: TITILLATING TALES OF PASSION AND POWER IN THE PALACES OF EUROPE (a November 2012 release from NAL), and didn't have a moment to lose, because I expect to see the copyedits of my upcoming novel, DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW, the second book in the Marie Antoinette historical fiction trilogy.

So where did 2011 go? Here's why, despite my best intentions, I never got back to the blog site all last year to update my readers on anything of note (though, in my defense, I did post a bit on my other blog, http://www.royalaffairs.blogspot.com/), including a post about being at the royal wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton.

Speaking of which ... Happy 30th Birthday, Kate! (her big 3-0 is today, so at least I did something on time!)

2011 began with a commission from Barnes & Noble, through a specialty publisher in Seattle that produces novelty books. They wanted a book on 1000 years of the British monarchy, poking behing the palace doors (mostly bedroom doors), along the lines of the books I've been writing for NAL these past few years. But this would be a heavily illustrated 172-page hardcover that would also contain facsimiles (tucked into large opaque envelopes inserted within the book) of historical memorabilia. The kicker was that I had about a month to write the first draft of the text because the book had to go into production well before the royal wedding so that the photos of William and Kate, and any additional tweaks I would make to the chapter on their lives, would go in at the end of the process, and the book could be available for purchase well before the Christmas holiday season.

The result, after an intense gestation period, is THE ROYALS: THE LIVES AND LOVES OF THE BRITISH MONARCHS, a title chosen by Barnes & Noble. I had hoped for some sort of subtitle along the lines of "From William the Conqueror to William of Wales" to give readers a sense of the scope of the volume. It's a gorgeous (and very affordable!) product and for all the hard work, I am tremendously satisfied with it.

THE ROYALS was released on September 22, 2011 and because it is a B&N exclusive, is available only at their brick and mortar stores or through their website at http://www.bn.com/.

While I was working on THE ROYALS, I was also doing promotional appearances (in-store, guest blogs, and interviews) for ROYAL PAINS: A ROGUES' GALLERY OF BRATS, BRUTES, AND BAD SEEDS, my first book release of 2011, the third book on scandalous royals and royal scandals for NAL.

Oh, and I was also writing the second novel in the Marie Antoinette trilogy. Meanwhile, during the winter and early spring of 2011 through a web site I discovered through the Publishers Weekly daily blast I answered the call for an expert on the upcoming royal wedding.

Blam! Suddenly I was coast to coast (literally -- from St. Thomas, V.I. to Hawaii!), and everywhere in between, I was giving radio interviews, sometimes twice a day. The Australian and Canadian Broadcasting Companies came knocking. So did MSNBC.com and the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps most exciting of all: the CBS Nightly News with Katie Couric wanted to interview me, which we did at The Players in New York City, which stood in for a London location. And they were excited that I planned to actually be in London for the week of the royal wedding, because they could use me for an additional interview.

So ... I bought the hats and took my pastel colored silk suit to the drycleaners (as it turned out, Carole Middleton wore almost the same color!). And then, as often happens in TV-land, where schedules change on a dime, CBS ran my interview at the top of the week of the royal wedding, while I was still in NYC.

Sigh.

So I was a bit disappointed that they didn't do a second interview from the Tower of London, but I still had an amazing time in the capital, soaking up the mood and granting other interviews by phone to major media outlets internationally. And two days before the wedding while my husband and I were strolling past Buckingham Palace, perhaps because I was all dressed up I was stopped by an Italian broadcast journalist and did an on-camera interview for her!

But just two weeks before the wedding, I spent a week in the O.C., recording the audio book of BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE in "Beautiful Downtown Burbank." Actually, the studio is in Woodland Hills, but I couldn't resist the old Laugh-In line. It was my first audio book, as an author, and as a narrator-actress, and was a fantastic experience. At Random House Audio/Books on Tape, the directors really direct the narrators. They don't just stop and restart the machine when you goof. They work with you on the nuances of performance and it was great to work as a true voice actor. There were so many characters to voice in the audio book of BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE that as an actress I wished the writer sometimes hadn't put so many people in a scene at the same time!

The rest of the spring and summer was spent on Marie Antoinette. The first novel in the trilogy, BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE, was released on August 9, the same day as the audio book.

I completed and submitted the manuscript of the second novel, DAYS OF SPLENDOR, DAYS OF SORROW, followed by the synopsis of the final novel, THE LAST OCTOBER SKY. DAYS OF SPLENDOR will be released in the spring of 2012 ... stay tuned for cover art!

Then it was time to turn back to nonfiction and the ROYAL ROMANCES manuscript, which I submitted during late fall in time to tackle the revisions to DAYS OF SPLENDOR ... and no sooner did I submit those to my fiction editor than the edited manuscript of ROYAL ROMANCES showed up in my inbox, which took me all the way through the holidays. So I watched the ball drop from Times Square with Lola Montez and Ludwig I and George VI and Elizabeth Bowes Lyon.

I nearly forgot to mention the week I spent in early November recording the audio book for Carrie Bebris's Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery THE DECEPTION AT LYME. Carrie really captures Jane Austen's wit and tone while making her stories quniquely her own. The book is delicious fun, as was narrating it, and required me to stay in character with an English accent for the duration of the novel, as well as voicing many of Austen's beloved characters. The audio book of THE DECEPTION AT LYME is scheduled for release later this month.

So -- that was where 2011 went for me! An unprecedented (for me) three books released in a single year, as well as three heavily researched (two nonfiction and one novel) written and submitted. Did I sleep? Barely? And I didn't take a vacation unless you count a road trip to Michigan for back-to-back book signings.

And that's why I wasn't blogging here, though you can catch a number of guest posts on Historical Fiction blogs that I did on behalf of BECOMING MARIE ANTOINETTE.

I've made a New Years resolution to try to post more often here ... but a deadline looms. It seems a deadline always looms. In the meantime, you can find me on Facebook, and occasionally, when I remember, on Twitter!

Happy 2012! How did you spend 2011 and did you make any resolutions for 2012?

Christmas in New England

2011-01-01T15:32:00.011-05:00

So ... it was our first holiday season in snowy New England, a far cry from the magical windows of the Fifth Avenue Department stores, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and the ball drop in Times Square.

Instead, we were snowbound, with more than enough to eat and drink, a visit from my parents, a cozy fire, and a 500-page manuscript to review before January 5!

Herewith ... a photo essay of how I spent my Christmas vacation ...

Happy 2011 to everyone, and may the new year bring you tidings of comfort and joy, and abundant health and happiness!

What are your wishes for the new year? Did you make any resolutions this time?

Novelist Christine Trent Returns With A ROYAL LIKENESS

2010-12-27T01:00:00.000-05:00

I am deighted to welcome back to The Lady Novelist my fellow lady novelist Christine Trent.

Last winter, Christine made her historical fiction debut with THE QUEEN'S DOLLMAKER [you can read her interview about it here http://leslie-carroll.blogspot.com/2009/12/guest-interview-christine-trent-and.html], introducing a fascinating heroine, Claudette Laurent, with an unusual profession. Readers, myself included, wanted more. And Christine listened, penning a sort-of sequel, in her second novel, A ROYAL LIKENESS.

As heiress to the famous Laurent Fashion Dolls business, Marguerite Ashby’s future seems secure. But France still seethes with violence in the wake of the Revolution. And when Marguerite’s husband is killed during a riot, the young widow travels to Edinburgh and becomes apprentice to her old friend, Marie Tussaud, who has established a wax exhibition. When Prime Minister William Pitt commissions a wax figure of Admiral Nelson, Marguerite becomes immersed in a dangerous adventure—and earns the admiration of two very different men. And as Britain battles to overthrow Napoleon, Marguerite will find her loyalties under fire from all sides.

A ROYAL LIKENESS is both a love story and a war story. Did you get any flak from your editor about all the battle scenes that would necessarily be involved? If so, was she afraid that readers might not want to read a fairly gritty account of the Battle of Trafalgar, and prefer more bonnets and fewer bullets? Did you ever have those misgivings yourself; and if so, how did you decide to overcome them?

I’m fortunate in my editor at Kensington, Audrey LaFehr, in that she lets me write the book I want to write, and she trusts my judgment. However, I was personally a little challenged by the idea of a scene that was, as you say, gritty in nature. Knowing that I typically don’t read war-type novels myself, I tried to write a major historical naval battle in a way that would be appealing to the average female reader. It’s a little bit feisty heroine, a little bit romance-on-the-high-seas, and just a smidge of stark wartime terror.

One of the many historical figures you incorporate into A ROYAL LIKENESS is Admiral Nelson, the greatest hero of the era, who of course was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar. How much research did you do to create his character?

I tried to use as many of Nelson’s own words as possible in describing his death. My primary source for Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar was Roy Adkins’ NELSON’S TRAFALGAR. In fact, I ended up having to buy this book twice.

Here’s a little known story: I was carrying this book around with me everywhere, and it was filled with post-it notes marking bits of information I wanted to use in my manuscript. I’d left the book on my nightstand on Christmas Eve last year while entertaining guests. I also left the lamp on. After all of my guests left, my husband and I watched television for a couple of hours to unwind, then went to bed. Lo and behold, one of my cats had managed to knock my lamp over, sending it and my book to the floor, with the shade flying off and the bare bulb landing on the book’s cover. It was smoking when I found it, and the book was charred almost halfway through. I was lucky the house didn’t burn down!

I kept the burnt book as a strange sort of souvenir of writing A ROYAL LIKENESS, and bought another copy for finishing my research. I consider it my most dangerous research!

You also bring Nelson’s notorious mistress Lady Emma Hamilton into your story. Offhand, I can think of only one other novelist who wrote a novel about Emma and Nelson—oh, wait—that that was me. :) What was behind your decision to include Emma as a character and how does Emma influence Marguerite in A ROYAL LIKENESS?

Honestly, part of what brought me to using Emma was having read your TOO GREAT A LADY. I thoroughly enjoyed your portrayal of Emma, and adopted your engaging form of her verbal slang. It was easy to slip Emma in, since she once witnessed waxwork monuments made to celebrate Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile, and waxworks play such a large part in the novel.

Sensual, expressive, dependent Emma is a difficult character for independent, feisty Marguerite to understand. I think the two make for interesting opposites.

What major research did you have to do for this book? Did you stumble across anything really interesting that you didn’t already know?

Other than the vastly fascinating Battle of Trafalgar, the other very interesting area my research led me into was early 19th century entertainment. The typical Regency novel is full of card parties, meetings at gentlemen’s clubs, and dances at the local assembly rooms for the well-to-do, but I discovered that there were many entertainments on par with today’s carnivals, theatres, and stage shows.

Most obvious to the novel were the waxworks shows that were sometimes in permanent locations, or, in the case of Madame Tussaud, traveling exhibits. Waxworks exhibits were popular with aristocrats and commoners alike, and shrewd entrepreneurs like Tussaud would set up separate opening times – and admission fees – to service both classes of society.

I also learned about Phantasmagorias, which were wonderful projections of light and shadows using something called a “magic lantern” in order to resemble spirits, ghosts, and other figures. The Phantasmagoria show was the pre-cursor to today’s modern moving pictures.

Another fascinating entertainment that surfaced in my research was the geggy performance. These were traveling theater performances under big tents. Sort of like Shakespeare in the Park meets the Ringling Brothers Circus. They were very popular in Scotland.

A ROYAL LIKENESS is more or less a sequel to THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER, but was there anything else that sparked this book? Was it a character? An historical event? A scene you just couldn’t get out of your head?

When my editor said she wanted a sequel to THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER, I knew Marguerite’s story was the one that needed to be told. I also knew there were some delicious characters, including famed waxworker Madame Tussaud and everyone’s favorite loathsome aristocrat, Nathaniel Ashby, who deserved more stage space than they received in THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER.

Many readers are interested in the writer’s process. Each of us has her own roadmap and toolkit that leads us to the finished manuscript. I happen to know that you are the Queen of the Spreadsheet. Can you explain how you use the technique to outline your novel?

This is a crown I proudly wear. :) I tend to plot my books out in heavy detail prior to sitting down and writing the first chapter. Once I know exactly what the story will look like I open my infamous writing spreadsheet. I calculate roughly how many words I think the manuscript will be (about 3,000 words for every page of synopsis). Then I figure out how long it will take to write my book if I write 5,000 words per week consistently. For each day of writing, I drop in the number of words written, and the spreadsheet tracks what I’ve written by day and by week, and how many words I have left to complete the manuscript. It also gives me good stats on what my best writing day tends to be (Sunday), and what my worst day is (Wednesday). It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to see my total number of words going up as I march towards my goal. It also keeps me from falling too far behind.

I know there are writers out there grinding their teeth to read about my obsessive-compulsive process. I know how to take all the fun out of things!

What are you currently reading? On balance, how much would you say you read for pleasure and how much for research—or is there a constant overlap? Do you (like I) actually find research pleasurable, depending on the subject?

Actually, I keep my research books completely separated from my pleasure reading books. Pleasure reading books stay upstairs, all research remains downstairs. As my deadlines begin to run closer and closer together, I find that I have less time for pleasure reading. After a day of staring at the computer screen and poring through maps, papers, and research books, it’s hard to have the energy to pleasure read.

That said, I’m just now starting Ken Follett’s latest, FALL OF GIANTS. I’ve also kept up with the latest from Alison Weir (CAPTIVE QUEEN) and Philippa Gregory (THE WHITE QUEEN, THE RED QUEEN), and I continue to order books that pile up on my nightstand!

What are you working on now and what can we expect to see from you next?

I’ve just wrapped up my next novel, tentatively titled THE PRINCE’S PAVILION, about a cloth merchant named Annabelle Stirling. Thanks to her patron and great architect, John Nash, Belle Stirling is a rising star in the homes of London’s fashionable elite. Even the Prince Regent wants her elegant, high quality fabrics used in the decoration of his new palace, Brighton Pavilion. But when those closest to her conspire against Parliament, she risks losing her reputation, her business. . .and even her life.

This story will be a look at the Regency England you’ve never known: the exploding cloth manufacturing industry, the deadly Luddite riots, and the radical Cato Street Conspiracy all play parts in the novel.

Next up, I’m working on a novel that will take place in Victorian England. You can expect a heroine with an unusual profession….and an unusual hobby. Stay tuned!

Please visit http://www.christinetrent.com/ for more information about Christine’s books.

And the winner is...

2010-10-16T08:13:00.001-04:00

Heather!

Congratulations! You're going to MISS ABIGAIL'S GUIDE TO DATING, MATING, AND MARRIAGE!

MISS ABIGAIL'S GUIDE TO DATING, MATING, AND MARRIAGE

2010-09-26T01:00:00.001-04:00

It's the story

Of a babe named Abby

Who is hooking up nice boys

With lovely girls.

She has blonde hair,

Like the old TV show;

(She's not the one with curls).

It's the story

of a chick named Leslie

Who was once a single actress in New York;

But in her novel,

TEMPORARY INSANITY,

the boyfriend was a dork.

So, it all began when the lovely Jennifer of Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating & Marriage contacted me out of the blue and told me that she and her sister are huge fans of my novel TEMPORARY INSANITY. Who knew? Then she made me an offer I couldn't refuse...

ANNOUNCING A CONTEST!

Win a pair of tickets to an Off-Broadway show and an autographed copy of one of my novels!

The clever folks who have brought MISS ABIGAIL to Off-Broadway and I have teamed up; and one of my blog readers will win a voucher for a free pair of tickets to the show!

Not only that, the lucky winner will also receive an autographed copy of one of my novels about dating, mating, and marriage ... titled HERSELF.

The MISS ABIGAIL voucher is valid for Thursday and Friday performances at 8pm; Wed. matinees at 2pm; Saturday performances at 2pm and 5pm; and Sunday performances at 3pm and 7:30pm. The voucher expires on November 28, 2010.

MISS ABIGAIL'S GUIDE... is performed at Sofia's Downstairs Theater, 221 West 46th St. , NYC., right in the heart of the theater district.

The contest is open until October 15, 2010 at midnight, in order to give the winner ample time to redeem his or her voucher. Yes, you are responsible for getting yourself to NYC!

To enter: please submit your name and an email address where I can contact you. I will be contacting the winner to get your snail mail address to send you the ticket voucher and your autographed. book. To add to the fun, when you post your entry, tell me who you'd bring as your guest to MISS ABIGAIL'S GUIDE TO DATING, MATING, & MARRIAGE -- and why! :)

If you become a follower of this blog, or already are a follower, you get an additional chance. If you tweet about the contest, you get an additional entry, and if you post about it on Facebook, you get an additional chance as well!

Good luck to all!!

Leslie Carroll's interview on NPR's TRAVEL WITH RICK STEVES

2010-08-18T11:15:00.006-04:00

The marvelous and engaging Rick Steves, travel guru extraordinare, interviewed me in March 2010 about traveling in the footsteps of famous royals. It was a marvelous opportunity to discuss my 2010 nonfiction release, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, and thanks to the broadcast, my book sales have skyrocketed.

The interview aired in mid-August 2010.

Here's the link to the interview. Please note that via the magic of Mr. Steves' editing, my segment is preceded, quite serendipitously, by an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE, which was adapted into a major (and just released) motion picture, starring Julia Roberts.

Leslie Carroll's interview on Rick Steves' travel program on NPR:
http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/streaming/program216.asx with the extras, including a discussion of Princess Diana, at http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/archive.htm#216.

Enjoy -- and may you be tempted to hop on the next plane for your favorite palace!

BY A LADY the subject of academic discourse? What Would Jane Say?

2010-05-02T11:24:00.011-04:00

Every author I know can't resist the temptation to Google herself from time to time. And if she says she doesn't, chances are she's either shading the truth or has a core of steel.

As Oscar Wilde famously said, "the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. I can resist anything but temptation." But this reaction often exacts a price. Sometimes, we're not so thrilled with what we find online when we search our names or book titles. Other times we're delighted -- for example, when we find terrific reviews posted by book bloggers we had heretofore not known about.

And sometimes we're confused, bemused, and amused, or some mash-up of all three emotions.

An old friend recently emailed me to ask if I knew that my novel BY A LADY: Being the Adventures of an Enlightened American in Jane Austen's England (written under the pen name Amanda Elyot), was mentioned in the new nonfiction book by Claire Harman, JANE'S FAME. Harman's title says it all. And my book merits a mention from Ms. Harman among the crop of novels inspired by Austen's writing, or her very existence.

A subsequent Google search of my book title revealed that it is also the subject of discussion in a Spring 2010 article by Juliette Wells included in Persuasions online, the web version of the academic house organ published by the venerable Jane Austen Society of North America. The topic is Jane as a fictional character.

Few people know the lengthy and often fraught trajectory my manuscript took from conception to publication, so it feels rather odd (a) that the novel, or even I as an author, carries the sort of weight that makes it worthy for academic discussion; and (b) that a scholar can dissect what I had intended as a literary romp, absent deliberate social commentary on the life and works of my favorite author and attribute to it concepts or intentions that, well, had not occured to the author herself.

http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/wells.html

This author, I mean. Not Jane. Yet all I could think when I read Ms. Wells's essay (did she choose to include BY A LADY because my heroine's surname is Welles?) is What Would Jane Think? Because this sort of scholarly analysis is precisely what we do with Austen's own work. Or Shakespeare's for that matter. Or any number of famous (and, often, mostly dead) writers.

Please don't imagine that I think for even a nanosecond, that I deserve to be in the hallowed pantheon inhabited by the likes of Austen and Shakespeare. Or that I am in any way knocking Ms. Wells's intriguing essay. I was just gobsmacked to find my novel discussed as part of an academic topic in such a rarefied forum as the JASNA world stage. Ditto for the mention in Ms. Harman's well reviewed study of Jane's evergreen allure.

BY A LADY was born from an experience I had performing the role of Jane Austen in a beautiful two-character drama written by Howard Fast, a prolific novelist himself. I was so inspired by Fast's script, and the set and costume design of our production that I could not help thinking "what if" I were to be transported back in time to Jane's era. The photograph that forms this blog's banner is of me, playing Jane.

The very notion of writing a time-travel (and I began to write the manuscript way ahead of the Jane-Austen-as-a-meta-character-curve in late 1998, finishing it in the early months of 1999) in itself (so I believe, anyway) telegraphs to the reader that because we are in an alternate universe, that universe is intended to be a fairly fun place to inhabit as a reader, even if it is not exactly a walk in the park for my heroine).

I had researched the era, manners, mores, fashions, etc., but the tip of my tongue (though not all of it) was in my cheek. My original title, SENSE AND SENSUALITY, supported that premise. I was having a lark and hoped that readers would enjoy the novel in a spirit of fun. This is precisely why I'm sort of tickled to find BY A LADY analyzed for the author's motivations and intentions as though it was MANSFIELD PARK.

Nowadays, I could throw in a few zombies, sea monsters, and werewolves and probably waltz all the way to the bank (or at least the bookstores) with it. But because my manuscript was mining new literary territory at the time, it took half a dozen years for BY A LADY to reach the shelves. My stellar agent Irene Goodman submitted it to numerous editors, all of whom rejected it for various reasons, most of which had to do with the fact that they didn't know where a major bookstore chain would shelve it, and therefore, how the publishing house should market it.

The process began a dozen years ago; we were way ahead of the Jane as a fictional (though supporting) character/time travel curve. Editors would ask: Is this a romance? Is this historical fiction? Is this a paranormal? Before they would consider publication, a few editors requested rewrites from me, the better to fit it into a more specific niche. The manuscript went through myriad incarnations as I twisted myself into a pretzel to give them what they'd asked for.

My favorite rejection letter came from one of the business's top romance editors, someone I admired (and still admire and adore). Ironically, a few years later we ended up working together in a different fictional genre. But her rejection letter contained the sort of sentence that authors always remember: she wrote something along the lines of "this has the most sensuous love scene I have ever read..." Then she wrote that they nonetheless had to reject the manuscript because they didn't know what to do with it.

My response? The little voice that remained inside my head replied, "Publish it!"

In any case, what ultimately became BY A LADY was a romance and a paranormal (time-travel) and a work of historical fiction. And the road to publication widened several years later when the meta-Austen curve that I had been traversing began to resemble a straightaway, with other referential novels pouring over publishers' transoms.

So I just thought I'd share the backstory of BY A LADY, in case people are curious, after reading any of the recent references to the novel online or in print. It still feels truly weird to me to find my little literary volume a subject of scholarly analysis. I have to say, I'm strangely flattered to have been invited to the party even if the hostess may not be entirely sure what I'm wearing.

Has anyone else been the subject of an academic discussion? I'd love to hear your reaction to it.

P.S. Amanda is available for interviews.

The Land of Misfit Toys

2010-02-24T08:08:00.008-05:00

I've always rooted for the underdog. My heart melts into a puddle at the sight (or even the mention) of something someone else derides. If it's a team, I'm inclined to support it. If it's a toy, I'll surely want to hug it. If it's a book, I'll likely want to read it.

And I can never get through an annual viewing of the yuletide television perennial "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" without wanting to adopt every single one of the playthings that have been deemed (by society? Santa Claus?) "misfits."

So, as the calendar says we're closer to Valentines Day or St. Paddy's than Christmas, why do I have Rudolph's plastic and furry pals on the brain?

Spring Cleaning (and that phrase always makes me think of another classic -- James Barrie's Peter Pan) is coming early to my house. We're doing a major de-clutterfying and I am discovering things I haven't used, or even seen, for years, and forgot I owned. That qualification would seem to make the item destined for either the scrap heap or the thrift shop.

I have no problem consigning my husband's area rugs to that category, but when I come across an old and beloved childhood toy -- the long-since-bald doll, the one with now-wonky legs, or the stuffed animal that has so many patches it's hard for a civilian to tell what species it once represented, a current interpretation of a "misfit toy," I can't imagine doing anything but wanting to love it.

So, as we're about to stare down another blizzard here in NYC, I raise my iced coffee glass to Spring Cleaning and the re-discovery of Misfit Toys. You gotta love 'em.

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS: A Mottley Crew of Vibrant Characters

2010-01-11T13:02:00.020-05:00

My own book research offers me scant opportunities for pleasure reading these days, but I knew that THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS was a novel that wouldn't wait for my schedule. My hunch was correct. It's a triple whammy in my wheelhouse: historical fiction, the 18th century, and the Theatre; and I can't remember the last time I could not bear to put a novel down.

Innocence is lost; retribution won. Worlds collide with noisy bursts of energy in the late Peter Mottley's novel, THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, the first in a trilogy loosely based on the series of paintings titled "A Harlot's Progress," painted by William Hogarth in 1731.

Hogarth's Moll Hackabout is transformed into "Yorkshire Molly" Huckerby, who arrives in London intending to meet her cousin, a magistrate, with the hope of marrying him. But when the York Wagon dumps her outside The Bell, what she is led to believe is a coaching inn for weary wayfarers, she is seduced by The Bell's bawd, Mrs. Wickham, and subsequently ravished by the evil Colonel Charnell. With her stolen maidenhead went her reputation. Thrust into the life of a destitute, demoralized and debauched harlot, Molly embarks on a series of unexpected adventures belied by Mottley's classic set-up of country lass thrust into a life of vice upon her first visit to the big city.

Mottley is a master at world building, with an uncanny ear for period dialogue. His pages teem with sensuality, from the odors of ordure and vomit to the perfumed periwigs of playgoers. Sweat mingles with saliva in the haze of candlelight. His London is a place of heavy velvets, cheap cottons, gossamer thin lace and linen, the topography of a heavily embroidered cuff.

His heroes and heroines are the disenfranchised -- those who society does not permit to speak up, for whom justice is denied, those who the "quality" gentry has either forgotten or despised (or both): harlots, blacks, children, Jews.

His villains are society's sacred cows -- the military, the clergy, and the judiciary. But in THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, we are shown the underbellies of the beasts; their dark side: corruption; vice; hypocrisy.

Peter Mottley was a playwright, actor, and director and employs his theatrical experiences and background to great advantage here. He doesn't miss the chance to incorporate specific play titles and glimpses at life backstage (including a running gag involving a pair of actors desperate to finish fornicating before their cue). In one scene the rutting leading man complains at having to play Macheath in John Gay's "The Beggars Opera" because he thinks it will ruin his reputation. It's another allusion of Mottley's, an inside joke in our theatre world: "Satire is what closes on Saturday night."

Other aficionados of classical theatre, particularly the plays of Shakespeare, Vanbrugh, and Gay, may see certain scenes coming a mile away; I'm thinking of one in particular. I'd correctly surmised what was about to happen, and yet Mottley sufficiently builds the tension, as well as our sympathy for the right characters, that you find yourself drawn in, fingers shielding your eyes as you peep through them at the scene you knew would take place, but dread watching.

Yes, there are a few implausible elements within the novel: for an early 18th century Yorkshire farm girl Molly is awfully well educated (she's familiar with the story of Leda and the Swan -- yet [as might be expected] has never heard of Tarquin and Lucrece). Colonel Charnell's wife was an heiress when she married him (for love), admitting that he had only been a captain at the time. Yet seventeenth- and eighteenth-century marriages were financial arrangements, and unless she'd managed to get pregnant out of wedlock, her father would never have allowed such a marriage to take place. Lavish gowns are stitched up in less than a day. In truth, the turnaround time at best might have been a few days, with the modiste's entire staff hard at work on the creations.

But these are quibbles. And most readers wouldn't even know that Mottley had cut a few corners. Better to focus on the quirks he gives his characters: a hunchbacked Jewish moneylender has more humanity than most people in London; a childlike harlot who routinely adopts the names of Shakespearean heroines, dreams of a stage career (astute readers would grasp the unexpressed irony here: actors were considered no better than harlots in that era!)

If only Mottley had lived to see THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS published. But his daughter, Jocelyn Pulley, to whom the novel is dedicated, has recorded a book trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSF5bsCCDJg with such tremendous expressiveness and gusto that you'll be panting for your copy to arrive in the mail!

This is not your candy-colored Georgian novel. THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS: Yorkshire Molly is properly bawdy and sordid, gritty, grimy, violent and vibrant -- yet ultimately, incandescently, hopeful.

Guest Interview: Christine Trent and THE QUEEN'S DOLLMAKER

2009-12-29T01:00:00.000-05:00

I’m so happy to welcome historical fiction author Christine Trent, whose debut novel THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER, is being released today, December 29. What a wonderful way to start the new year!

On the brink of revolution, with a tide of hate turned against the decadent royal court, France is in turmoil - as is the life of one young woman forced to leave her beloved Paris. After a fire destroys her home and family, Claudette Laurent is struggling to survive in London. But one precious gift remains: her talent for creating exquisite dolls that Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France herself, cherishes. When the Queen requests a meeting, Claudette seizes the opportunity to promote her business, and to return home. Amid the violence and unrest, Claudette befriends the Queen, who bears no resemblance to the figurehead rapidly becoming the scapegoat of the Revolution. But when Claudette herself is lured into a web of deadly political intrigue, it becomes clear that friendship with France’s most despised woman has grim consequences. Now, overshadowed by the spectre of Madame Guillotine, the Queen's dollmaker will face the ultimate test.

THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER is set during the era of the French Revolution. How did you become interested in this time period? What you love about it?

I’ve always been interested in French and English history, but the period of the French Revolution is just so full of political upheaval and the destruction of centuries of royal rule that it’s easy to become totally absorbed in the era. I can’t imagine the turmoil the average citizen must have experienced. Also, as much as Marie Antoinette has been vilified over time, I think it’s difficult to do a thorough study of her life and not begin to feel a bit of sympathy – if not outright respect – for her. Given her spoiled and pampered upbringing, she really demonstrated nerves of steel when her world began falling apart. I find the period simply fascinating.

What do you like least about this period? Anything that constrained you or that you had to plot carefully around?

The mass killings were simply appalling, particularly because they were so indiscriminate. If your neighbor was jealous of you, he might report you as harboring royalist feelings, and that pretty much ensured prison time, if not a visit to the guillotine. Robespierre thought that everyone would support his idea of “purification through bloodshed,” when in reality, people just wanted food because they were hungry. In terms of careful plotting, I tried to ensure that Claudette’s adventures with Marie Antoinette very closely tracked to the day-to-day historical record in the days surrounding the queen’s imprisonment and subsequent execution.

Did you have to do any major research for this book? Did you stumble across anything really interesting that you didn’t already know?

I’d love to be able to say that I traveled to Paris and Versailles for research, but, alas, instead I was forced to rely on my memory of a trip I took many years ago. I also surrounded myself with lots of biographies on Marie Antoinette, and they exist aplenty. Prior to researching, I had no idea that Count Axel Fersen made a trip to England, and he quite took the country by storm. Fortunately for my storyline, I really needed Fersen in England to meet my dollmaker, so it was one of those “Aha!” moments where fact met fiction in a very neat intersection.

What sparked this book? Was it a character? An historical event? A scene you just couldn’t get out of your head?

In 2003, I had just finished reading Antonia Fraser’s MARIE ANTOINETTE: THE JOURNEY, and was also in the process of weeding through my doll collection (and somehow I never parted with a single doll). Turning the book over in my mind as I was handling all of my precious babies, I remembered that Marie Antoinette enjoyed dolls and frequently sent them to her mother and sister. It occurred to me that there was a nugget of an original story in the queen’s dolls, one that had never been explored before. I finished the manuscript in 2006 and sold it in 2008. So thoughts of the late French queen have literally been swirling around in my head for years.

Please share a bit about your writing process. Are you a pantser or a plotter? Do you write multiple drafts or clean up as you go?

I am a 100% plotter. I greatly admire novelists who can sit down and write, “It was a dark and stormy night,” and let the story go where it will. I typically develop a ten-page synopsis detailing the entire storyline and work from there. Sometimes I’ll make some plot changes once the story is underway, but I usually stick pretty close to that synopsis. As a result, I tend to type up a first draft without cleaning as I go, then doing multiple reads to make corrections.

Please tell us about your background, and what led you to become a novelist.

My husband says it was a “no-brainer” for me to write books, because I’ve been collecting them for so long. The poor man spends most of his spare time building me bookshelves. I started out writing as a bit of lark (“Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to write a book?”). It only got serious when page followed page and all of a sudden three years later I had a finished book. That’s when I realized the next step was to try and sell it. I was fortunate to be picked up by Audrey LaFehr at Kensington Publishing.

What/Who do you like to read? And are you one of those authors who tends to avoid reading the same genre you’re currently writing in during the in-progress stages of your own novel?

No way. I love historical fiction and I can’t read enough of it. Writing full-time makes it tougher to get as much reading done as I’d like, but I’ve always got a big pile of historical novels on my nightstand. Waiting for me right now are Michelle Moran’s CLEOPATRA’S DAUGHTER, Lauren Willig’s MASQUE OF THE BLACK TULIP (I’m way behind on Lauren), C.S. Harris’ WHAT REMAINS OF HEAVEN, and Hilary Mantel’s WOLF HALL. I just finished up Harris’ four previous St. Cyr mysteries, as well as Philippa Gregory’s THE WHITE QUEEN. All excellent books. There’s more in my to-be-read pile (including, of course, Leslie Carroll’s NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES as research for future novels), but we probably don’t have enough space to list them all.

What are you planning to work on next?

I just wrapped up a sequel, tentatively titled THE WAX APPRENTICE. It follows the adventures of Marguerite Ashby under her apprenticeship to the great waxworker Madame Tussaud. It’s a swashbuckling tale brimming with historical figures, political intrigues, and a heroine determined to live life on her own terms. THE WAX APPRENTICE should be at your local bookstore in early 2011.

I hope your readers will visit http://www.christinetrent.com/ for more information about my books.

THE QUEEN’S DOLLMAKER is available at the following online locations, as well as your local bookstore:

Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Queens-Dollmaker-Christine-Trent/dp/0758238576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248305592&sr=8-1
Barnes and Noble.com http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Queens-Dollmaker/Christine-Trent/e/9780758238573/?itm=1&USRI=the+queen%27s+dollmaker
Borders.com http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0758238576#complete_contributors
Books-a-Million.com
http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780758238573?id=4266846562070

Indiebound.org http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780758238573

Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

2009-12-16T00:01:00.003-05:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that we can never get enough of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen turns 234 today. I wonder if she ever imagined how famous she would become posthumously. It sounds oxymoronic, but if she'd lived to enjoy her celebrity I think she would be absolutely tickled. Yes, she was a quiet country girl at heart, but she was also someone who tut-tutted when people read her books via a library subscription rather than buying a copy.

A romantic pragmatist (or pragmatic romantic) in every way, she certainly sought an income for her efforts. And the dynamics of the literary world have changed little since 1811 when her first novel Sense and Sensibility was published. Authors love to write, but we also want to be well compensated for our work; publishers want to keep their purse strings as tight as possible; and readers may be eager to read our next book, but they don't necessarily want to have to pay for the privilege.

Jane came of age in the Georgian era, a somewhat licentious age where women were as sexually charged as men, but it was also in many ways a misogynistic age where the laws were concerned. A wife was her husband's property. He was liable for her actions--and could be sued for libel if she was perceived as having offended someone through her written or spoken words.

Consequently, it was the rare man who would "permit" his wife to abase herself by becoming a "scribbler," because he didn't want the potentially costly legal responsibility for her literary efforts. Although Jane came from modest means (and her stories reflect the continual search by women of her class to marry for love and money to a man who would understand them and be their equal in every way) she was well aware that there was a vast difference between the world she envisioned in her fiction and the harsh fiscal realities facing genteel young women of the minor gentry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

As much as Jane recognized that marriage to a good provider would end her need to constantly scrimp and worry about how she might make it through the next year, she refused to commit herself to a loveless match or a man who might deny her the ability to write and to send her work out into the world. Even if she hadn't written a half-dozen stellar novels, and left some delightful unfinished fragments and myriad works of juvenilia, she would be laudable for practicing in her life what she preached in her writing.

However, despite the lack of a husband who might have "forbidden" her to "scribble," for propriety's sake Jane's name was not even printed on the frontispieces or spines of her novels during her lifetime. The books were written "By A Lady," and later, after the success of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, by "the author of" those bestsellers.

For the past several years I have felt a deeply personal connection to Jane Austen. Some time ago I had the pleasure and privilege to play the role of Jane in a two-character romantic drama titled The Novelist by Howard Fast--a most prolific novelist himself, with more than sixty titles to his credit, as well as plays and screenplays. The Novelist begins during the last year of Jane's life as she sits down to write the book that will become Persuasion. Enter a charming sea captain stage left, who intends to sweep Jane off her feet and propose marriage--and he won't take "no" for an answer.

Fast's drama is touching, humorous, and ultimately elegiac. And the audience never knows whether the sea captain is intended to be real, or whether Jane is imagining him, the better to craft her character of Captain Wentworth. Mr. Fast saw me perform the role of Jane but I never had the opportunity before he died to ask him about this.

My experience in The Novelist prompted me to become one myself. And every night when I stepped out on the stage into the room that was supposed to represent Jane's little parlor at Chawton I had the sense of stepping back in time. What if, I wondered, I were to be transported to England through some strange sort of time warp?

Thus was born my time travel novel, BY A LADY: Being the Adventures of an Enlightened American in Jane Austen's England, a romantic romp about a 21st century actress who is thrust back in time to Bath, England in 1801, the year Jane Austen and her family retrenched there. My heroine, C.J. Welles, meets and is befriended by her idol as well as by Jane's fictional cousin, Lord Darlington, the man who becomes C.J.'s love interest, unaware that a gulf of two centuries separates them.

Imagine how stunned I was when I later came across a late eighteen-century map of Bath and saw that the street that mirrors Sydney Place, where the Austens lived soon after their arrival, was called Darlington Place! I got chills!

In fact, this blog is titled "The Lady Novelist" all because of those experiences. And the photograph in the banner is of me playing Jane in the show. Of all the plays I've acted in so far, that production remains my favorite. The director Laurie Beth Petersen and the production designer (who also took the photo of me) Raffaele Castaldo, made it all the more special because they were so passionate about the material. Even the theatre was like a gorgeous little jewel box.

So I owe much to Jane Austen, as a literary inspiration and as a personal one. Her humor, wit, and integrity are as much to be admired as her novels, and I do believe that's another reason why she remains so beloved today.

After all, why else would people buy tee shirts and coffee mugs with the query "What Would Jane Say?"

How has Jane Austen impacted your life?

HERSELF in Italian: Che Bella Fortuna!

2009-11-25T12:57:00.009-05:00

I have a confession to make: Italy and I have been having a love affair for some time, now. Forgive me Paris, Bath, Carmel-by-the Sea, CA, Dorset, VT, and my beloved hometown of New York City -- but I adore Venice more than any other place in the world.

And pasta.

And Armani

And Botticelli

and the gutsy and gorgeous cortigiana onesta, Veronica Franco.

Italy has been molto bene to me, too. So far, three of my novels have been translated into Italian: PLAY DATES (Matrimoni, bugie e appuntamenti)

SPIN DOCTOR (Amori e centrifughe)

and THE MEMOIRS OF HELEN OF TROY (Il diario segreto di Elena Di Troia).

And I've just learned that the same publisher bought the rights to an Italian translation of HERSELF. I can't wait to see how they title it, since "Herself" is an Irish expression indicating that a woman thinks she's all that (and my book title has multiple meanings in the context of the story).

So I have something else to be thankful for this season. Perhaps I should skip the turkey and enjoy some Osso Buco instead!

Viva Italia!

Where were you on November 22, 1963?

2009-11-22T08:57:00.001-05:00

RIP JFK

Belated thanks for another award!

2009-11-16T13:32:00.010-05:00

I don't know how I missed it, but way back in the middle of September, Lizzy J. over at Historically Obsessed (www.historicallyobsessed.blogspot.com) honored me with the "Butterfly Award For the coolest blog I ever know".

I just noticed ... so belated thanks, hugs, and smooches to the uber-talented Lizzy for her admiration of "The Lady Novelist."

Writers' Night Out: A "Busman's Holiday"

2009-11-15T10:09:00.007-05:00

This photo was taken at Bookmarks Bar at The Library Hotel last Tuesday evening by fellow history hoyden (http://www.historyhoydens.blogspot.com/) Tracy Grant, who blogged http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8678838153767744099 about her recent visit to NYC, her grand time at the grand opera, and the equally grand hours she spent with another history hoyden (pictured to my right), Lauren Willig (http://www.laurenwillig.com/). [Sorry, I'm still such a Luddite, I don't know how to type a person's name and have that be the link to their site.]

Over drinks and lively conversation, we wondered if our readers think we live the glamorous life of parties and soirees nearly very evening. Of course if real life were a 21st-century version of The Thin Man, minus the murder mystery, we'd all be hard pressed to get any actual writing done. And both Tracy (http://tracygrant.wordpress.com/) and Lauren are exceptionally prolific, not to mention talented.

As for me, sitting there in the bright pink sweater, my 13th book, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire, is about to be published (release date is 1/5/10, which I've been referring to as "the eleventh day of Christmas"). I'm neck deep in research and writing for my 3rd nonfiction title (ROYAL PAINS: A Rogues' Gallery of Brats, Bastards, and Bad Seeds) to be published in the spring of 2011) and just received an offer from Random House to write a historical fiction trilogy on the life of Marie Antoinette.

So much for glamorous parties, soirees, and fancy cocktails. I've often wondered how some of the more famous literary alcoholics (Eugene O'Neill, Dashiell Hammett, Earnest Hemingway, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams), managed to create such masterpieces on the sauce. I have one drink and my brain cells are no longer zinging with creative alacrity.

But, when in Rome ... and at the Bookmarks bar where some of the drinks are named for famous authors, I had to splurge for one such specialty cocktail in an evening given over to spirited shop talk with two dear friends and immensely gifted authors. Now that you're all dying to know what I imbibed the other night, it was called the "Dickens" and consisted of aged rum, muddled figs, and pumpkin Agave nectar. Why do I think Charles probably never tasted Agave-anything in his life? A good strong Port would probably have been Dickens' beverage of choice, but the Bookmarks concoction was quite delicious, even if it didn't give me the rabid urge to serialize my novels in popular periodicals.

Because I love what I do, and often hate to refer to it as my "job" (career, metier, calling, all being more suitable words for the way I personally view my profession), I often get so caught up in my research and writing that I forget how solitary the author's life can be. Consequently, it becomes such a treat to share the experiences of writing -- both the joys and sorrows of the craft itself, as well as "shop talk" about the process with those who are enduring (or enjoying) the same kind of life.

So, on a fairly balmy autumnal Sunday morning, drinking nothing more potent than a really strong cup of black coffee from a blend that Fresh Direct calls "Sinful Delight" (which in itself sounds like a romance title), I raise my Buckingham Palace mug (a purchase in person from their gift shop ... it has a gilt rim and a pretty black and white 19th c. engraving on it) to writers everywhere and especially to Tracy and Lauren for sharing such a delightful diversion last week.

Write on, my friends!

The Queen is Dead! Long Live the Queen!

2009-11-04T21:11:00.007-05:00

Undoubtedly there will be more news as I get the details, but I am DELIGHTED to announce that I have just accepted a terrific three-book offer from Random House for a historical fiction trilogy on the life of Marie Antoinette.

Although I got my exercise at the gym already today, I have been doing the proverbial "happy dance" since I heard the news, and shared a bottle of Prosecco with my agent this afternoon because I just had to give myself a couple of hours off from researching my nonfiction wip ROYAL PAINS, to digest the incredible news!

The first book, tentatively titled BECOMING, is about Antoinette's early years, from the day she learns, as a ten-year-old girl, that her mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, has opened negotiations to marry her to Louis-Auguste the dauphin of France -- heir to his grandfather Louis XV's throne. The first novel will end on the day she becomes queen of France.

I know exactly what time period each of the other two novels in the trilogy will span but I prefer to keep that to myself for the moment.

The only other information I have about this marvelous Random House contract is that this fresh start will necessitate a new pen name for my historical fiction (I will continue to write my nonfiction ROYAL series for NAL under my own name).

So, Amanda Elyot, who wrote 4 historical novels, and who was described by Publishers Weekly as "the queen of historical romance" [though she really wrote historical fiction, and there is a difference] has been officially declared dead. I loved her very much and I will miss her. For closure, I wrote an epitaph at the Northshire Bookstore's Halloween party last Saturday night up in Manchester, VT.

She lived to write another day ... but under another name.

"What's in a name?" asked the greatest writer in the English language. We'll find out. Right now my choice of surname is "Grey" -- it has royal overtones and "Leslie" is Celtic for "from the grey fortress, so it's my little personal inside joke.

As for potential first names, I'm becoming fond of (alphabetically) Annabel, Diana, Emily, Juliet, Olivia, and Vivien.

Feel free to weigh in! I welcome your suggestions.

Second Acts: Leanna Renee Hieber’s “Strangely Beautiful” Success Story

2009-10-13T01:00:00.000-04:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that many actresses feel the tug of the pen as well, turning to writing during, or instead of, their careers on stage or celluloid. Margaret Drabble forsook the boards of the Royal Shakespeare Company to become a novelist and memoirist of renown. Yours truly made the leap to novels after adapting 19th-century literature for the stage. And although he wasn’t an actress, of course, Henry Irving’s stage manager Bram Stoker took a stab at scribbling with Dracula.

And now, enter stage left with a flourish, Leanna Renee Hieber, with her long awaited debut novel The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, a blend of paranormal fantasy and gothic romance with a voice all its own.

It was Leanna’s writer’s voice that grabbed me from the start. That, and a strangely eerie set of coincidences: not only does it turn out that we have mutual friends, but we’ve had similar career trajectories: from striving actress with survival jobs in law firm temp hell to adapting 19th-century works from the page to the stage to ultimately joining the ranks of published authors in the ever-morphing sub-genres of Romance. So, this interview will be a bit different from some of the others Leanna has given, as it will focus on her journey to publication.

USA Today Bestselling author Kathryn Smith described The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker as “An ethereal, lyrical story that combines myth, spiritualism, and the gothic in lush prose and sweeping passion.”

What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Hidden in the dark heart of Victorian London, the Romanesque school was dreadfully imposing, a veritable fortress, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met its powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadows, of the Ripper, and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She saw simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gift. This arched stone doorway was a portal to a new life, to an education far from what could be at a convent—and it was an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death. . . .

First of all, congratulations on a stellar debut!

Leanna: Thanks so much, Leslie! I’m very grateful for the opportunity; it’s been quite a wondrous ride!

Leanna, according to the bio at the back of the novel you’re a native of rural Ohio. How has that background shaped your career and your imagination?

Out in the middle of nowhere, there are gorgeous dark skies, intense colors, rich sounds of night, the shadows are long and deep, and there’s a keen and overwhelming sense of magic. And there are ghosts. I’ve always believed in spirits. This is how I think of my seminal surroundings. I was born with a wild imagination. Add that to an early and odd fixation with the 19th century, and these aspects remain inextricably tied. I’ve always been a night owl so midnight in the country means a great deal to me and remains my prime time to write, no matter where I am. My imagination thrives as much in nature as it does in a gothic cathedral.

My trajectory has been to find a place where that wildness meets the yearning sense of a city home I felt when I first went to London. I’m country and city mouse in one. I would immerse myself in Gothic novels set in brooding cityscapes or ancient castles and walk the woods to make sense of it, creating my own spin on 19th century tales. As for how this all shaped a career; I’ve more than a little bit of restlessness. I’ve a madcap energy that’s better suited in many ways for a city (cities are, after all, homes of theatre and publishing too), and so while I knew wouldn’t always live in the country, and while love New York, I always look forward to returning to Ohio as it means reconnecting to an old, primal, grounded magic- the place where my muses first took shape.

Although your novel is not exactly realism, did you bring any life experiences to the writing of it, particularly in terms of the characters you created? Is it a coincidence that the eponymous heroine, Percy Parker, has your pale, blonde beauty?

*blush* While I’d not flatter myself quite like that—and—Percy’s absolutely ghost-white skin is far paler than mine even—there is so much of ‘me’ in the book; in every character. I had to remove myself enough so that the characters make the choices they would make, distinctly, but I do feel an incredible kinship with them. I can’t say I’ve ever had the kind of connection to characters like I have with Percy and The Guard. It’s why I knew Percy’s story had to be the one to truly launch my fiction career. There are things in the book that Percy has an absolute, geeky, childishly pure passion about. She and I share those passions, and maintain that wondrous joy about them. There’s a drama about Percy and her situation that comes from being theatre-saturated in my youth and as a professional actress. It’s a very ‘me’ book, from my love-affair with the 19th century, Gothic and fantasy to my life-long love of ghost stories and Greek Mythology. It’s everything I love in one cross-genre series.

You say you began writing as soon as you were old enough to hold a pen: so what trajectory led you first to a career as a professional actress?

I had too much energy for one art, just about every type of art has had its hooks in me at one time or another. All that energy exploding into a mainly solitary form like writing just wasn’t working for the social creature that I am. For much of my life, my writing was absolutely private, a closely guarded secret, I thought people would think I was crazy for the obsessive, love-struck discipline I took to my early novels. I wrote easily for classes, but those were assignments- those were different. I wrote stories that were mine, my escape and favorite hobby, I didn’t dream of making a career of it, it was just something I did, something I’d always done. The theatre was public rather than private and I could let directors and teachers mess around with my theatre craft, it didn’t mean quite as much to me on a spiritual level, it was all fun and drama and took up most of my neon-bright energy, while my books were my secret, more intense passion that took up my daydreams and nightmares. But in the end, as the Bard would say “the truth will out”.

I feel like writing is my ‘long haul’ love and will be my most sustainable passion, though I’ll never entirely hang up my actress hat for good- besides, speaking actress to actress here, training and flair comes in extra handy for doing staged readings of your writing, doesn’t it?

Like many striving artists you worked more than few “survival jobs” along the way. Tell us a bit about them. Did any of your bosses or coworkers inspire some of your characters or otherwise influence your writing?

I’ve been a tour-guide, receptionist, paralegal, barista, teacher, errand runner, stage manager, office assistant, dunked repeatedly in a pond at a Renaissance Faire, a museum guide, a play-screener, a showcaser of all sorts of promotional items I myself couldn’t afford, etc.

My first piece of published writing was recounting my harrowing (and humourous) day inside a Pillsbury Dough Boy suit, trying hard to make rent while living as an actress in the Twin Cities (Dramatics Magazine, 2004). Ask any actor and they’ll give you tons of random jobs just like mine for a good laugh.

My connection to Dramatics Magazine came from a director of mine in the Twin Cities, where I’d gotten a theatre job and liked the city so much I decided to stay for a while. He noticed that every day after rehearsal I’d go bury myself in my novel (at this time the first drafts of Miss Percy Parker). He wasn’t connected on the book front but as he appreciated my diligence as a writer, he connected me to the magazine and then suggested venues to publish some short plays. Becoming a published writer in these smaller venues gave me a huge boost of confidence to continue. It didn’t, of course, open New York publishing doors for fiction, but it was the start of me taking myself seriously, because my director, my “boss” did. And I’m really grateful for the people who have helped and encouraged me along the way. As for the setting of Miss Parker and how that was influenced by my working environment, I’ll answer that next.

How and when did you begin to write The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and what was the journey you took from premise to published?

I began the Strangely Beautiful series while working as a performance intern for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company my first year out of college, having graduated a BFA performance major with a focus in the Victorian Era. I worked very long hours at CSC, six days a week, several productions at once (all the Shakespeare references in the book were inevitable and fun). It was a wonderful backdrop, having the Bard in my head all day as I stole moments away from rehearsal or performance to flesh out this Victorian Gothic. Although Miss Parker couldn’t have had worse timing to breeze into my mind in some ghost-white vision, I was overworked to say the least – the energy of falling in love with the characters kept me going as if they were coffee mainlining my bloodstream.

The journey. Oy. Juggling the professional regional theatre circuit, I bounced around the country while working on many drafts of the manuscript. Because I was focusing on theatre foremost, the novel took slightly second place throughout the next several years, but once I got a lot of accolades on my short plays, I began to think of myself as much as a writer as an actress, and that felt right. I had been, after all, a writer before I ‘was’ anything else. While Strangely Beautiful was sitting places awaiting judgement I published a novella with a small-press, Crescent Moon Press, titled Dark Nest, which won the 2009 Prism Award for excellence in Fantasy/Futuristic/Paranormal Romance. This further shifted my career sense as I kept waiting to see what would happen with Strangely Beautiful, fingers crossed, anxious as could be.

The difficulty with the Strangely Beautiful series is that it’s a cross-genre series. It could sit on several different genre shelves and not be entirely wrong. It has been described in various places as any combination of the following: a Historical (Victorian) Gothic Fantasy Paranormal Romance with Suspense, light Horror and YA cross-over appeal. So while I received compliments from editors and agents on the ideas, style or characters, marketing departments had no idea what to do with it. But I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, make the series into any one of those genres alone. I just needed to have a tight, good book and the right house. And so it took me many rewrites and a publishing house like Dorchester, no stranger to cross-genre initiatives, to give me a chance. But I appreciate it all the more for the nearly nine year long haul from idea to the shelf.

Are you still acting? Have you discovered that you prefer writing to acting (and if so why)? Or have you found that practicing one artistic discipline feeds the other one?

I’m still active in the industry as much as I can be, especially to make ends meet, though I’ve taken myself off the audition circuit for the time being as it just isn’t where my heart is. I was at a Broadway call-back a few years back and all I could think about was my book, so that was a clarion call to my priorities. I remain a proud member of Actors Equity, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. I work often as a background extra for film and television and that’s a great, flexible job that’s perfect for a writer with downtime in which to do edits, write, etc (it feels so weird to call the entertainment industry my ‘day job’).

Everything I trained in theatrically, everything I used in putting on a show, utterly feeds into how I write. I put on the hats of Cinematographer, Director and Actor every time I sit down to write. I’ve begun teaching a workshop on using theatre techniques to further your book and it’s a great joy to knit my passions together.

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker has been compared (and quite favorably!) to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and it’s easy to see why: your novel includes an unusual school whose teachers possess special powers, and you make generous use of unique symbolism and supernatural elements—although you have a very distinctive writer’s voice that is nothing at all like Rowling’s. Was . . . Percy Parker in any way influenced by the Harry Potter books?

Absolutely, I’m obsessed with Harry Potter. But like all of my obsessions, I take them into my heart and they inspire me to make something entirely of my own. But I credit Harry Potter to cracking open my imagination and transporting it to that same wild and furious place as when I started my first book so many years before. I was tossed anew into a fresh whirlwind of creativity, but this time, I had a long love of 19th century fiction to fall back on and fall into as my baseline, a better sense of craft, and added my love of fantasy and Myth on top. I suppose you could say HP is sort of a glaze, or frosting on all my cross-genre influences. J

Many authors, especially those who are also actresses, love to fantasize about their “dream cast” if their novel were to be made into a movie. Do you have such a dream cast? I have a feeling I know who you’d love to see play Alexi Rychman, but I want to hear you say it.

*giggle* I didn’t hide my dream hero in the least, did I? All right, I’ll say it again, Alan Rickman. (He’s hardly ever been given a lead hero, I felt it was my duty). The entire cadre of fine British actors and actresses have paraded around in my head as the Guard. But alas, by the time they were to make a movie the Guard would have to be younger than Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, etc. Alexi needs to be an intense stage/screen presence. So my vote currently goes to Richard Armitage. He’s got the right brood-factor to tenderness-capability ratio. If you don’t know who he is go out and buy the BBC’s North and South. Do it now! I’ve been a bit stuck on who could play Percy but then Emma Watson could do nicely, couldn’t she? Dakota Fanning? Someone who can do timid and awkward yet powerful when need be. But the chemistry has to be right between Percy and Alexi otherwise it’s all moot.

Did you have a specific location in mind for the Athens Academy? As I was reading the book I kept thinking of the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury.

Indeed, the Bloomsbury area just felt right. Since I wasn’t basing Athens on a specific institution, I gave myself some liberty and had to imagine the area in Victorian times, and also give Athens a bit of mystery around its locale. (I do love the Russell Hotel and it factored into my consciousness—good call!) Every city I’ve ever lived in has had some sort of mansion or theatre in the Richardson Romanesque style (those beautiful, red-brick or red-sandstone, dramatic buildings—much like the Russell) that just takes my breath away and so that just had to be the setting—not to mention it fits with the neo-classical themes of the book. As much as I love Gothic architecture, the Richardson Romanesque style is very distinct and also distinguishes Athens from the clearly Gothic setting of Rowling’s Hogwarts.

What’s next, and when will it be published?

The Strangely Beautiful series continues with The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker (end of April 2010). It picks up exactly where the first book leaves off, with Percy and Alexi remaining in the focus and greater insight to the rest of The Guard. Prophecy was just the beginning; next it’s all-out spectral war. And the series continues again in October 2010—see below!

What are you writing now?

A Strangely Beautiful novella to be included in a Dorchester Fantasy Christmas anthology, October 2010, starring Headmistress Rebecca Thompson and Vicar Michael Carroll (the Guard make their inevitable appearances, of course). Miss Percy and resident spirits get a bit Dickensian with the unrequited couple. J I adore working on it.

Thank you, Leslie, for the opportunity to share my story with you, I very much appreciate your time and your thoughtful questions. I had such fun answering them. We can’t wait to have you as our guest at Lady Jane’s Salon in February!

* Lady Jane’s Salon was founded in late 2008 by the aforementioned founding authors and launched Feb. 2009 as NYC’s only reading series devoted to romance fiction.

Coming on Tuesday ... a "Strangely Beautiful" Interview

2009-10-10T10:41:00.002-04:00

Please stop by on Tuesday, October 13, as I welcome Leanna Renee Hieber, author of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Percy Parker as she discusses her remarkable literary debut and the path to publication.

Hilary Mantel Wins Man Booker Prize

2009-10-06T09:46:00.006-04:00

Hooray for Hilary! Congratulations are in order to Hilary Mantel, author of WOLF HALL, for snagging Britain's most prestigious literary honor, the Man Booker prize, beating out the other nominees, the none-too-shabby A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer, and Sarah Waters.

The winner was announced today. In addition to the honor of winning the award, Mantel will receive £50,000 ($83,500).

I was honored to receive a review copy of WOLF HALL last week, and although I've been juggling numerous literary deadlines of my own, I will say this much ... this sweeping novel of the Tudor court, featuring at its center the manipulative, and frankly unlikeable, Thomas Cromwell, whose star rose and fell at the whim of Henry VIII, is very difficult to put down.

A full discussion of WOLF HALL will follow in a subsequent post (at the moment I'm only 275 pages into the 532-page novel). So far I can state unevoquivically that it is to Mantel's credit that she has managed to create a terrific page-turner (though a dense read, to be sure) and a positively compelling story (even when you know the inevitable outcome) from the point of view of an utterly objectionable human being.

NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES -- the cover!

2009-09-17T14:09:00.006-04:00

In my book, thirteen is a lucky number. So, without further ado (though feel free to imagine a fanfare or a drum roll, or both) ... here is the cover for my thirteenth book:

NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES:

A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire

Release date is January 5, 2010. You can preorder at
http://www.amazon.com/Notorious-Royal-Marriages-Journey-Centuries/dp/0451229010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253211149&sr=1-1

Because I love it...

2009-09-16T19:10:00.006-04:00

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus

in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

c. 1482-1486

An "enchanting" contest

2009-09-16T14:49:00.006-04:00

Ms. Lucy, over at the marvelously informative Enchanted by Josephine blog (http://enchantedbyjosephine.blogspot.com/), is holding a cyber raffle today for Carolly Erickson's nonfiction title, Royal Panoply.

Yeah, I write that stuff, too -- but one can never have enough research books; plus it's always interesting to learn the perspectives of other authors on some of the same ground I cover, but if there wasn't so much interest in these enduring (and occasionally endearing) royals, there wouldn't be so many books on them!

So I say, keep it coming, readers! Once you've read the fictional versions of some of the lives of the royals, and of their friends and lovers, take a nip over to the nonfiction aisle of your local (or cyber) bookstore and pick up a book like Ms. Erickson's -- or mine -- I particularly recommend ROYAL AFFAIRS, A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures that Rocked the British Monarchy.

My second nonfiction title, NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES: A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny, and Desire (NAL, January 5, 2010) is available for pre-order, just a click or two away at all major online bookstores.

Or, if you've first familiarized yourself with the facts, I encourage you to saunter over to the historical fiction section for the highly imagined (and frequently imaginative) versions.

Compare and contrast.

I promise there won't be a quiz at the end of the period. ;)

The Versailles Glide

2009-08-25T20:31:00.013-04:00

I've been researching the life of Marie Antoinette for my work in progress, a novel about her early years. As Archduchess Antonia of Austria, she underwent a radical makeover during the years 1768-1770 to prepare her for her role as the future dauphine of France. Her mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had been negotiating since 1766 to marry Antonia to Louis-Auguste, the dauphin of France and grandson of Louis XV of France.

To read all about Marie Antoinette's makeover, visit http://www.historyhoydens.blogspot.com/ and click on my post titled, unsurprisingly, "Marie Antoinette's Makover."

In order for Antonia to more seamlessly assimilate into the rarified and sophisticated atmosphere at Versailles, Maria Theresa imported the celebrated choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre from the Duke of Württemburg's court of Stuttgart. Noverre was a world traveler who had been the choreographer at London's Drury Lane Theatre under the management of David Garrick. Both men had very progressive views about Theatre and Dance and each was known for his introduction of "naturalism" (that term being relative, given the "method acting" styles of the 20th century) into his art. Noverre was the first proponent of the "story ballet" and strongly believed that the elements of dance within a theatrical or operatic performance be organically integrated into the whole.

Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810)

Among Noverre's responsibilities at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna was the instruction of the prepubescent (ages 12-13) Antonia in the flawless performance of the court dances popular at Versailles, as well as a specific form of movement that was unique to the French court, known as the Versailles Glide.

Noverre is long dead. But long live Maria Zannieri, a dance teacher, choreographer, and period dance expert located right the heart of New York City, a mere stone's throw from Macy*s. Maria and her husband John DeBlass run (and teach at) the West Side Dance Project at 260 W. 36th Street, on the 3rd floor. I have known both of them for years. When my nonprofit theatre company produced plays from the 19th century and earlier, John directed several of the productions and Maria served as the choreographer.

The incomparable Maria Zannieri and John DeBlass

So, when I decided to learn how to execute the Versailles Glide, as a "method novelist," I turned to Maria for a lesson -- and I would cheerfully suggest that other historical writers consider the same route in order to learn how their characters moved, on or off a dance floor.

There are scant clues as to how the walk was achieved. Historian Antonia Fraser describes the Versailles Glide as a "mincing step" in her acclaimed biography of Marie Antoinette. But to many people, including Maria and me, "mincing" implies lifting the feet and taking tiny steps. And we have also read that the movement was performed without lifting the feet from the floor.

Maria was convinced that the Versailles Glide is the same step performed by the Angels at the top of Act II of Balanchine's Nutcracker ballet. After visiting the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and viewing a tape of the Angels' dance, I was sure she was right.

In a properly executed Versailles Glide (which was only performed by women at the French court), the lady appears to be rolling. Her feet never seem to touch the floor and yet the illusion is created by never removing the feet from the floor. The wide cages called the Grand Panniers (or big baskets) worn under yards and yards of skirts constructed with heavily embellished brocades and silks, also helped to create and maintain that illusion -- that the wearer is sailing across the floor. The body never changes levels or bounces, and the era's long corsets with their stiff busks down the center keep the torso rigid.

The shoes had a "French" or "Louis" heel, approximately 2 inches high. For actors who have worn "character" shoes, that's a good approximation of the right heel.

For my lesson, lacking the requisite grand pannier, I donned a wide petticoat, the kind one would wear under a contemporary ballgown. Maria tied a velvet skirt over it to add some weight. Then I wore a jacket with a similar sleeve and a tight armhole, which would further restrict the movement of my torso, in the absence of the appropriate corset.

Having researched the Versailles Glide prior to our lesson, Maria then demonstrated the step to me. She was wearing soft-soled jazz shoes, but showed me how to execute the step by going up to demi-pointe, on the balls of her feet, with her heels lifted slightly off the floor (even harder to do when you're wearing the 2" Louis heel. She kept her torso rigid and pitched it slightly forward, to mimic the effect of the proper corset. Keeping her thighs quiet and uninvolved in the movement she bent her knees very slightly and with her feet close together, if not touching, she began to perform the Versailles Glide, by taking tiny, rapid steps forward and then in looping swirls about the dance studio. The movement is entirely performed from the knee down.

Then I tried it. It's tricky to keep the knees soft and to put so much weight on the balls of your feet as you shuffle forward (in the most delicate way imaginable), keeping those 2" heels hovering just above the floor so they are not heard.

The main rule to remember is that the balls of the feet never leave the floor; the heels never touch it. Posture is ramrod stiff. Imagine yourself as a pull-toy on wheels and someone has a ribbon tied around your waist and is pulling you forward.

It's simple, but it's not terribly easy. And after a while you really feel the strain in your calves and your arches. It's hard to imagine how the female nobility at Versailles managed to sustain the movement for several minutes at a time as they glided along lengthy corridors and hallways.

After about an hour, I remembered what it felt like to suffer for my art.

But frankly, something as arcane or obscure as the Versailles Glide doesn't really come alive until you learn the movement and get in your muscles. And I think it can only help to feed my appreciation of what my characters were expected to endure on a daily basis. It will certainly enable me to better describe the movement now that I have lived and performed it.

Making history come alive . . . and making it fun. That's what I do. Thanks to Maria Zannieri. If you want to reach Maria and John to help you add some additional verisimiltude to your manuscript, you can phone West Side Dance Project in Manhattan or email info@joriaproductions.com.

Happy Dancing ... and Happy Writing!

Any questions?!

Leslie's new web site is live!

2009-08-13T15:03:00.002-04:00

After several months in gestation, my new web site was born today, a healthy url with all its links alive and kicking.

Please visit me at http://www.lesliecarroll.com/

I look forward to your comments. And if you belong to a book club, don't forget to check out the link on the home page.

I made my agent cry!

2009-08-04T07:48:00.003-04:00

In a good way. I submitted a 40-page proposal for a novel about the early years of Marie Antoinette titled BECOMING. And she loved it so much she cried.

As I researched Marie Antoinette for my second nonfiction title NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES, it made me hungry to learn more about her. And the more I read, the more I revised my opinion of her.

The Marie Antoinette I came to love and pity after reading a dozen biographies of her presents such delicious contradictions in terms that she is a novelist’s dream.

Possessed of a proud temperament, she was nonetheless desperate to please, and in doing so was often too eager to place her trust in the hands of those who were not in fact her confidantes, but who wished her harm instead. She would brook no contradiction, yet was vulnerable to criticism; a frivolous creature who was also the most generous member of the French royal family when it came to helping the poor. She was stubborn and willful, yet playful and adorably charming; regal, yet empathetic; loyal, yet confounded by the dual roles she was often expected to play. She was a natural beauty who according to her own mother was in dire need of painful physical improvements in order to enhance her looks; born to rule, yet shockingly unprepared to do so when the time came to fulfill her ultimate destiny.

Do you know a lot about Marie Antoinette? A little? What's your opinion of her?

Hope for the Dream

2009-01-20T08:08:00.000-05:00

President Obama. How wonderful it feels to write those two words, savoring them as I wait for the inauguration events to be televised today.

Me, in the white jacket, meeting Rabbi Capers Funnye, Jr. Beside him is his wife, Mary.

Last night I attended a utterly transformational event at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was a dual celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday and the inaugural of Barack Obama, featuring Michelle Obama's cousin, Chicago Rabbi Capers C. Funnye, Jr., and the spiritual, soulful, and roof-splitting music of the "Prince of Kosher Gospel," Joshua Nelson, and double Grammy-winner Cissy Houston -- mother of Whitney, aunt of Dionne Warwick, and a powerhouse in her own right.

Miss Cissy Houston

Gospel, Dixieland, and Soul shook the rafters, much of it sung in Hebrew. Members of Stephen Wise and their guests, who included clergy of other faiths, African-American Jews from several local and not-so-local congregations, and people of all colors and every generation were on their feet for much of the concert, encouraged to keep the beat with their hands and feel the music. I was profoundly moved by the sight of Joshua Nelson's nonagenerian grandmother, seated in a wheelchair near the stage; while beside her, a baby girl, all pink and white, was bouncing on her mother's lap.

Rabbi Funnye with Haim Handwerker

When the musicians took a break, journalist Haim Handwerker interviewed Rabbi Funnye, whose responses to Mr. Handwerker's questions were thoughtful, moving, insightful, provocative, and humorous. Handwerker marveled that during the election, Mr. Obama had his wife's cousin as a "secret weapon" in his arsenal, and yet Rabbi Funnye was not tapped to speak to some of the American Jews who were wary about voting for him, unsure they could trust Mr. Obama to be a friend to Israel and support Jewish interests.

"Well, they know I'm here," the rabbi jested, indicating that he would always be eager to enter into a dialogue with people. "If you don't talk, you don't communicate, how can you understand what the other person is saying? I've been in the room when both sides were saying essentially the same thing, but they were saying it so loudly, they couldn't listen to each other. "

I, for one, cannot wait to visit Rabbi Funnye's shul the next time I'm in Chicago.

Joshua Nelson

In the Stephen Wise sanctuary the feelings of hope were palpable. The excitement in the room over the impending inauguration of Barack Obama, and the fact that with his historic election we have moved closer to Dr. King's dream of equality and justice for all people, moved an SRO audience to repeated bursts of applause. I can't remember the last time I've been in a room full of people -- mostly strangers to each other -- that was so full of love and hope and possibility, brought together with the universal language of music.

The evening ended with hundreds of people joining hands and singing "We Shall Overcome," although Mr. Nelson first suggested that we "update the lyric a little bit."

"We Have Overcome," Miss Houston sang, her voice warm and mellifluous. We're not there yet, the evening's headliners acknowledged; but with Mr. Obama's election as our nation's 44th president, we've taken a giant step in the right direction.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

As we wind down 2008 and pray and hope and strive for a brighter, rosier, and more prosperous 2009, allow me to wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday, full of warmth and merriment.

And may this season of wintry darkness be illuminated with the glow of inspiration, creativity, joy, and inner peace.

Blessings,

Leslie

In Praise . . . Postscript R. I. P. Mrs. Dunham

2008-11-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

Just hours before Election Day, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama announced that his 86-year-old grandmother died Monday after a battle with cancer. The news comes a week after he visited Madelyn Payne Dunham in Hawaii after she fell seriously ill following a hip fracture.

Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement was made with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, who referred to Mrs. Dunham as "the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances."

In Praise of Older Women...

2008-10-21T09:55:00.000-04:00

I've never gotten political on this blog, although my family and friends have no doubt as to my personal beliefs. But I was tremendously moved this morning to read that Senator Barack Obama is taking time off from his presidential campaign at this momentous time, in the eleventh hour before the election (in fact in many states the polls are already open), to visit his gravely ill granny, Madelyn Payne Dunham.

Now, there's a real reason for a candidate to suspend his campaign for a while.

The senator has never shied away from highlighting the importance of his maternal grandmother in his life. In a campaign ad he described her as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who "taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland" -- things like "accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated.

"She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. "

Barack Obama with his grandparents in an undated photo taken --right in my neighborhood -- outside of Central Park, when Obama was a student at Columbia University.

Those words could just as well describe my own grandmothers. Not a day goes by that I do not miss them. I have never met Mrs. Dunham of course, but my eyes mist over when I read about the extraordinary bond she shared with her grandson and the values she passed on to him, because they are so eminently relatable.

My grandmothers encouraged and indulged me as they taught me the ideals of social responsibility, instilled and nurtured the virtues of endless curiosity and creativity, and inspired me to dream. No goal was too lofty or unattainable if I strived for it.

I am who I am -- as a woman, as an artist, and as a citizen -- because of two magnificent older women, each different in her own way from the other, but each of whom shared Mrs. Dunham's Golden Rule creed. All my life I have aspired to "treat [my] neighbor as I would like to be treated." I hope that most times I have succeeded.

And I'd also like to think that a U.S. President who pays such homage to the values instilled in him by his smart, pragmatic, and loving grandmother will be an asset to our country in a time where the culture of "me" -- not "we" -- has contributed to the sorry state of the economy.

Don't forget to give her a good long hug, Senator.

What about you? Did one or both of your grandmothers play a special role in your life? What do you remember most about your relationship with her?

Royal Affairs is now on sale!

2008-06-04T22:11:00.000-04:00

Jane Austen, who never married, nor had kids, famously said "My books are my children." I just gave birth to my twelfth book yesterday, and feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment mingled with extreme relief.

ROYAL AFFAIRS: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures That Rocked the British Monarchy is also my nonfiction debut. It was the most difficult project I'd ever tackled because of the sheer scope of it , because I had less than half a year to research and write about over 900 years of history, and because (coming to nonfiction from novel writing) it was the first time I couldn't make stuff up! So I'm mighty proud of this new baby, all rosy and red-cheeked and ripe for reading.

I do hope you'll do more than peek between the covers and cuddle up with ROYAL AFFAIRS this summer. Dive into it at the beach, hang with the royals in your hammock, or go trysting the night away.

And do stop by to let me know who your favorite couples are!

Crystal Vision: Billy Crystal a Baseball Minor Leaguer?

2008-03-12T13:58:00.000-04:00

According to the Associated Press wire, Billy Crystal will get to fulfill a lifelong dream by playing for his beloved New York Yankees -- albeit their minor league franchise. The comedian has , with the permission of Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, signed a contract with the Yanks, which allows him to work out with the team today and suit up for tomorrow's exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. A nice 60th birthday present! (Crystal hits the big six-oh this Friday, and will sport the number 60 on his pinstriped jersey).

What would Venus deMarley, the heroine of my recent contemporary release, CHOOSING SOPHIE, have made of such a celeb in her clubhouse?

She might suppose that he couldn't possibly be worse than some of the players she'd inherited when she took over her late father's cellar-dwelling minor league team, the Bronx Cheers.

Actually, Crystal might be better. Evidently, he had a batting average of .348 (better than a pre-juiced Barry Bonds, in fact) and was captain during his senior year at Long Beach High School on Long Island.

PLAY BALL, BILLY! This Mets fan will be rooting for you anyway!

Here's to You, Mary Robinson!

2008-02-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

Overnight she became a star. Over many nights she became a legend.The amorous adventures of a celebrated English courtesan come to life in a novel rich with the pageantry of history—and with the notorious desires of the men and women who helped to define it.

Today marks the release of my fourth historical fiction title, ALL FOR LOVE: The Scandalous Life and Times of Royal Mistress Mary Robinson.

Narrated in Mary’s voice, the novel charts the steep rise and descent of one of the great celebrities of the 18th century, and yet Mary Robinson is little known to Americans. Yet she hobnobbed with so many luminaries of the Georgian era, which are “household names” to us: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, David Garrick, Thomas Gainsborough, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Mary Wollstonecraft, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and of course, her first lover, the teenage Prince of Wales, later George IV.

All of these august personages figure as characters in ALL FOR LOVE.Mary’s writings, so well known in her time, are scarcely taught in our high schools and universities, although I was delighted to meet a University of Pennsylvania English professor who not only teaches Mary’s work but has written about it himself from the academic’s perspective.

At only fifteen, Mary Robinson was married off to an unfaithful wastrel. During the next seven years, her spellbinding talent, beauty, and drive would lead her from the denigration of debtors’ prison to the London stages, where a star was born. With the heart of a poet and face of an angel she was sold as society’s darling. Though dubbed “the priestess of taste” for her dashing style, her unabashed exploits made her the queen of scandal, envied by women worldwide, and desired by every man within reach.

The future George IV

From Mary Robinson’s shocking affair with the Prince of Wales and the fortuitous liaisons that titillated the country, to heartbreaking betrayals and a restless pursuit of true romance, this breathtaking novel paints a vivid portrait of a woman who changed history by doing as she pleased—for money, for fame, for pleasure, and above all, for love.

John Dryden (1631-1700)

The title of my novel is taken from the 1677 drama about Antony and Cleopatra by John Dryden, the full title of which is ALL FOR LOVE—OR THE WORLD WELL LOST. Not only did Mary Robinson perform in that play during her career as the brightest light on the London stage in the 1770s, but the full title has such beautiful resonance to the story of her life. Although Mary played many of Shakespeare's heroines, numerous other classical roles and several leading parts written by contemporary playwrights, she was best known for the role in which she attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales--Perdita, the lost princess disguised as a shepherdess in The Winter's Tale, or more accurately, in Garrick's reworking of the play, retitled Florizel and Perdita. "Perdita" literally means lost girl, which also describes Mary in many ways. Signing himself "Florizel," the prince wrote copious love letters to his Perdita.

Born between 1756 and 1758 (I settled on 1757) Mary’s early childhood was spent in an affluent merchant’s home in Bristol. But her father, Nicholas Darby, an adventurer as well as a dreadful businessman, turned out to be an adulterer as well, and abandoned his wife and their three children (one of Mary’s brothers died of smallpox a few years later) He returned from a failed venture in the North American fur trade, and took up residence in London with his mistress, expecting his wife Hester to fend for herself and her children. But when Hester, needing an income, opened a school, her estranged husband was scandalized. How dare she bring shame upon his name by working?!

Mary was one of the rare girls to have some formal schooling during the era. She attended the academy run by the More sisters in Bristol, and Hannah More, in her pre-evangelical years was one of Mary’s tutors. Mary displayed an early aptitude for acting and eventually won an audition for David Garrick, artistic director of the Drury Lane theatre.

David Garrick (1717-79)

But her theatrical debut was postponed by two events: a bout of smallpox, and her mother’s insistence that she marry well instead of pinning her hopes on a stage career. What happened next set the wheels in motion for the rest of her life, and I won’t give away all the dips and turns on its wild ride. Suffice it to say that every time Mary hit rock bottom, she courageously managed to reinvent herself and in each profession she tried, from acting to courtesanry, to writing (poetry, bestselling novels, plays, operas, and essays) to radical feminism. Off the bat, I can’t think of any women of our era who have managed to attain a zenith in so many careers, all while raising her only child, Maria Elizabeth, as a devoted single mother.Mary died of illness in 1800 at the age of forty-three, having accomplished an extraordinary number of things, including a vast body of writing, during her short life. Sure, she had flaws—she was, after all, a real person. But she also impresses the heck out of me, I must admit. And I can’t help thinking what else she might have been able to achieve, had she spent more time on earth.

Had you ever heard of Mary Robinson before?

CHOOSING SOPHIE contest winners

2008-02-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

There were two winners, so rather than toss a coin, each lady has won an autographed copy of CHOOSING SOPHIE. Congratulations to Kim and Dixie, and thanks to all who entered the contest!

From Bath to Baden!

2008-02-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

HAPPY FEBRUARY, everyone! Here we go again. The annual carousel has spun back around to the month of groundhogs and overpriced roses, chocolates, and mushy greeting cards.
But I'm no cynic--not really. I firmly believe in True Love in all its glory. In fact, few things give me greater pleasure than to write about it.

I've even written about it auf Deutsch!

My 2006 time-travel romantic comedy, BY A LADY: Being the Adventures of an Enlightened American in Jane Austen's England has just been released as EINE LADY IN BATH, a German translation (by Christine Heinzius). Notice their more economical title. And they didn't waste time with the cover image, either (it's actually Madame Recamier, in a rather famous portrait currently at the Musée de Carnavalet in Paris). The art department zoomed right in on the cleavage.

I do love the German cover, actually, although I think the publisher might have found a better place to stick their imprint. Our heroine looks like she has a mouche made of electrical tape.

The way I wrote it, it's a romp -- a funny, sexy novel of romance, mystery, and time travel…and the perfect treat for all Jane Austen fans.

BY A LADY is still in print, in case German isn't your first language. Here's the premise : C.J. Welles, a New York actress, is on the verge of landing her dream role: portraying Jane Austen in a Broadway play. But during her final audition—garbed in full nineteenth-century dress—she exits stage left and emerges onto the stage of quite another theatre in an altogether different time, having been mysteriously transported to the English city of Bath in the year 1801.

I would really love to see how the steamy sex scenes were translated. My husband speaks German, so when I get a copy, I'll have to ask him to read them aloud to me. Will it send me into paroxysms of ecstasy, like Jamie Lee Curtis in "A Fish Called Wanda" every time she heard sweet (or not) nothings murmured in a foreign tongue?

Have you ever read an American novel in a foreign translation? How did it compare to the source material in terms of tone? Did you take the translation as a novel on its own terms and merits or did you find yourself comparing it to the English-language original?

WELCOME, GEORGIE LEE!

2008-01-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

And welcome to the inaugural guest blog on this site! I'm so happy to welcome Georgie Lee, whose historical romance, LADY'S WAGER, was just released this month.

Lady's Wager
A Traditional Regency Romanceby Georgie Lee. Now Available from Cerridwen Press http://www.cerridwenpress.com/

Charlotte Stuart is a head-strong heiress dedicated to charitable causes who publicly disdains marriage while secretly pining for love. Edward Woodcliff is a stubborn Viscount who feigns poverty in an effort to find a woman who loves him and not his inheritance.Sparks fly when these two intractable people meet but can they let down their guards long enough to admit their love for one another? All seems hopeless until Edward challenges Charlotte to a wager. If he wins, he wins her hand in marriage. If he loses, then Charlotte is free of him. Charlotte accepts the wager only to lose her hand and her heart to Edward. Now she must put aside her doubts about his intentions long enough to let Edward in to her life and admit that he is the man of her dreams.

LADY'S WAGER is set in 1803 Regency London. How did you become interested in this time period? What you love about it?

I’ve always been a British history buff and I enjoy the books of Jane Austen and the various film adaptations. So it seemed natural to write something set in historic London. The Regency is one of my favorite time periods because of the elegance and manners, not to mention the titles and wealth. I know those manners covered up what could be a very harsh society but the delight of romantic fiction is the ability to enjoy a time period without the ugly reality.

What sparked this book? Was it a character? An historical event? A scene you just couldn’t get out of your head?

The opening scene where Charlotte rejects her Aunt’s suggestion to marry was the first scene to come to me and it set the tone for the rest of the story. I pictured the heroine, Charlotte Stuart, as an exuberant woman who doesn’t let life get her down and who doesn’t conform to all of society’s expectations. However, not conforming also causes her problems, especially when she meets Edward, the hero. By learning to make the compromises necessary to maintain a successful relationship, Charlotte grows and changes but she never loses her independent spirit.

Please share a bit about your writing process. Are you a pantser or a plotter? Do you write multiple drafts or clean up as you go?

I wish I could do more plotting but I’m afraid I’m a pantser. I quickly write the first draft and then go over it numerous times adding detail, plot elements, and characterization. I enjoy the editing process because that’s when I really get to know my characters and sometimes they take me in new directions. However, not knowing the full story before I start can be frustrating, especially when my characters stop talking to me. In those situations, I’ve learned to keep writing and to keep researching. One or the other will eventually spark a new idea and allow me to continue.

What do you like least about this period? Anything that constrained you or that you had to plot carefully around?

The two biggest constraints I ran into were chaperones and proper etiquette between the different classes and genders. I wanted Charlotte to maintain her spunk and chafe against convention but she still had to follow the Regency rules of etiquette. As a result, I had to add chaperones and change some scenes to bring the story more closely in line with Regency rules. The scene where Charlotte and her friend meet Beau Brummell and the Prince Regent in Bond Street best illustrates this. It was a challenge to write the scene in an era-appropriate way but in the end, I think I did a good job of combining Charlotte’s outward adherence to convention while portraying her interior irritation.

Did you have to do any major research for this book? Did you stumble across anything really interesting that you didn’t already know?

I wanted Charlotte to have an interest in something young Regency ladies normally eschewed. I’ve always enjoyed reading about medical history so I decided to give her an interest in medicine and hospitals. I had to do a great deal of research regarding 1803 medicine and the research helped me craft a number of scenes in the story.

One surprising fact I ran across in my research was the prevalence of maternity hospitals. They existed much earlier than most people realize. The General Lying-in Hospital in London was founded in 1739 and was later renamed Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in 1809 in honor of her generous patronage. I was also surprised to discover that nitrous oxide had been around since the 1770s and was originally used as a kind of snake oil cure-all or as a recreational drug. Although some physicians recognized its anesthetic properties, it wasn’t used as an anesthesia until the 1840s.

Please tell us a bit about your background, and what led you to become a novelist.

I’ve been a professional writer for over ten years and started out writing marketing videos, public service announcements and promotional spots for a cable TV station in San Diego. I hold an MA in Screenwriting and I’m also a published poet. I’d read a lot of romance novels in college but I’d gotten away from them after graduation. When I started reading them again, I quickly remembered how much I enjoyed the mix of history and fiction. Without knowing very much about novel writing, I launched into my first book, a story set in ancient Egypt and quickly ran into a number of problems. Novel writing turned out to be very new territory for me and coming from a screenwriting background, I wasn’t used to writing description and interior monologue. I ended up abandoning the Egypt story and that’s when the idea for Lady’s Wager came to me. I learned a great deal writing the numerous drafts of Lady’s Wager and now the writing process goes much more smoothly.

What/Who do you like to read? And are you one of those authors who tends to avoid reading the same genre you’re currently writing in during the in-progress stages of your own novel?

I enjoy reading historical non-fiction and fiction, especially books about England and the ancient world. I tend to lean towards strange topics and often find myself reading about the plague or royal mistresses. It’s fun to experience all aspects of history, not just the more scholarly ones.

I will read other authors in my genre while I’m writing. Amanda Quick is one of my favorite Regency writers and it’s helpful for me to see how she and other writers handle certain situations. Also, reading good books inspires me to keep writing and helps me stay in the spirit of the era.

What are you planning to work on next?

I’m working on two projects at the moment. One is a historical set in 1721 Colonial Williamsburg and the other is a contemporary set in Los Angeles. The contemporary is fun because I can write without having to stop and research. The Colonial Williamsburg novel is presenting me with a whole new research challenge.

Play Ball! CHOOSING SOPHIE Now On Sale

2008-01-22T10:59:00.000-05:00

We have liftoff! The countdown to the release of CHOOSING SOPHIE, my fifth women's fiction novel for Avon Trade and my seventh work of contemporary fiction since my 2002 debut with MISS MATCH -- is over!

Apparently, people across the nation, readers like you, have enjoyed this novel about family and baseball and embraced it in a big way. I'll let some of those lucky people who got an advance reading copy of the novel, tell you about it in their own words. Even guys like it! By the way, there are several male characters of all shapes and sizes in this novel, .

ISBN: 9780060871376; ISBN10: 0060871377; Imprint: Avon A ; On Sale: 1/22/2008; Pages: 272; $13.95; Ages: 18 and Up.

Reader Reviews from FirstLook

This really tugs at the heartstrings! The characters were endearing in their own way and they reached out to me with hope, missteps and cute situations that had to be overcome. Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining!
— Joel (Albuquerque, NM)

Leslie Carroll did her research regarding birth mothers and adoptive children, and the birth mother/adoptee part of the book wove well into the baseball story. I can totally relate to the story as it conains many similarities with what happened in my own family with my adopted sister. I enjoyed it!
— Joleen (Council Bluffs, IA)

Choosing Sophie is a great novel which gives hope to all those who have suffered any type of family breakup. I thoroughly enjoyed Carroll's novel and would recommend it to anyone wanting to while away a cold winter afternoon lost in a fantasy they can only dream or read about!
— Vicki (Moore, ID)

This was a page turner! The personal relationships of all the characters were woven into an intricate story revolving around the bonds of a mother and her daughter whom she had given up for adoption. Also gives great insight into the minor baseball world as the story involves Bronx Cheers team. The ending provides hope for the happiness of all. Well-written story that I thoroughly enjoyed.
— Barbara (Mount Wolf, PA)

This is a very refreshing book with an instantly likable main character. The fact that the author brings adoption and sports into one novel is also impressive!
— Shawn (York, PA)

Target Stores has chosen CHOOSING SOPHIE as one of its "Breakout Books" of 2008. Visit a "La Tarjée" location near you to find copies of the novel at point-of-purchase, or order your copy from any major online retailer of books, or, even better, stop by your own local bookstore.

A helpful note to my readers: Avon Trade novels have a "value added" section titled "Author Insights ... and more" at the back of the bound book. The novel's narrative ends in this additional section, which I have titled "Extra Innings."

I look forward to your comments after you have read the book!

P.S. She doesn't know me from Eve, and I'd never heard of her when I was writing Choosing Sophie, but huge congratulations to Diablo Cody, the former stripper who just became an Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay for Juno!

GEORGIA ON MY MIND

2008-01-19T13:02:00.000-05:00

Let's raise a glass to the glamorous and controversial Georgia Frontiere, the former nightclub singer and chorus-line dancer who in April 1979 became the owner of the L.A. Rams football franchise after the death (by accidental drowning) of her sixth husband, Carroll Rosenbloom. A native of St. Louis, in 1995 Frontiere moved the team, which by then was playing south of Los Angeles in Anaheim (just a mouse-ear away from Disneyland) to her home town.

http://sports.aol.com/nfl/story/_a/rams-owner-frontiere-dies/20080118195409990001

Georgia's life was claimed by breast cancer. She was 80 years old.

The colorful Frontiere had been Rosenbloom's mistress and bore him two children before he divorced his wife Velma to marry her in 1966. Rosenbloom and Frontiere had met in 1957 at a party hosted by Joseph P Kennedy in Palm Beach. With the Rams, Georgia demonstrated her own management style, standing on the sidelines and often smooching the guys who had just made a great play.

Georgia is on my mind now because Olivia "Venus" deMarley, the protagonist of CHOOSING SOPHIE (which hits the bookstores this coming Tuesday, January 22), was also a former showgirl who inherited a ball club. In the fictional case, the team was a basement-dwelling minor league baseball club, the Bronx Cheers, not a legendary football franchise.

According to today's New York Times obituary, Rosenbloom had groomed his son from a previous marriage, Steve, as his successor, but he left 70 percent of the Rams’ ownership to his wife, evidently to minimize estate taxes. She quickly asserted control, firing Steve Rosenbloom and replacing him as the team’s top executive with Don Klosterman, the general manager.

She bristled at what she apparently perceived to be snickering from the news media and the football world at a woman running an N.F.L. team.

“There are some who feel there are two different kinds of people — human beings and women,” she said at her first news conference.

This woman-in-a-man's world element is most certainly a key one in CHOOSING SOPHIE as well. But Georgia was not on my mind when I wrote the novel, nor did I research her life or her press clippings. The fish-out-of-water premise of a woman who'd spent a life in show business suddenly landing in the middle of a highly unfamiliar sphere, one ruled by men and fueled by testosterone, appealed to me. So I put that ball in play and then added a few twists: the double loss of a romantic relationship and a familial one; the sudden, surprise appearance of another familial one, and the testing the waters of a new romance. Cycles of birth (of a sort) and death mirror the cycle of a sports season: up one day and down the next, ending with the usual "Wait'll next year!" war whoop.

We respectively bid ciao to Georgia and welcome Olivia, who, in my imagination, always looked a bit like Marcia Cross.

Eulogy for the Euphronios krater

2008-01-13T20:48:00.000-05:00

We'd grown accustomed to its vase.

This afternoon I said good-bye to a friend of over 30 years' acquaintance. He was 2500 years old--but still. After residing since 1972 as the crown jewel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Greek and Roman Art galleries, the calyx-krater (a vessel used for mixing water with wine) known as the "Euphronios krater" after the name of its painter, will be repatriated to Italy as part of a deal made in 2006 between the museum's director, Philippe de Montebello, and the Italian government.

Terracotta calyx-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water), Calyx-krater, ca. 515 B.C.; ArchaicSigned by Euxitheos, as potter; Signed by Euphronios, as painter Greek, Attic Terracotta; H. 18 in. (45.7 cm), Diam. 21 11/16 in. (55.1 cm)Lent by the Republic of Italy (L.2006.10)

According to The New York Times, the Italians have long contended that the artifact was illegally excavated from a tomb in Cerveteri, near Rome. The Met bought the krater in 1972 for $1 million from Robert Hecht, an antiquities dealer who is now on trial in Rome on charges of conspiring to traffic in looted artifacts. (Mr. Hecht denies the charges.)

Under the terms of the pact, the Met is returning 21 objects that Italy said were looted, and the Italian government is lending the Met a series of rare ceramic antiquities. The first arrived in late 2006, and three more are to be installed by Wednesday in the Met’s Greek and Roman galleries.

The dodgy provenance (history) of the Euphronios krater and several other works of art made the news a couple of years ago when it was revealed that a number of American museums, including the Met, and the Getty, in Los Angeles, might have acquired a handful of treasures in their permanent collections via something of a gray market. Not quite a farmer with a pickup truck nudge-nudging the elegant and erudite curators with the suggestive "Hey, I've got an Etruscan vase for sale," but not that far off the mark, either.

Good thing I picked up Friday's Times, which alerted readers to the Euphronios krater's last weekend in NYC. So I had to make a special trip to say farewell to a vase that played a seminal role in my life.

Soon after the vase came to the Met, my high school freshman Ancient History class, (itself ancient history, by now) took a class trip down to the museum to study it. A couple of years later, my Art History class made a repeat pilgrimage.

Although the Met has a few vessels of similar size dating from the same era, the Euphronios calyx-krater has several unique credentials that place it above the others in the museum's comprehensive collection of red- and black- figured Attic vases. For one thing, it's, to use a lay term -- better. Why? Because of the details, and the skill employed in the actual rendering of the figures. The subject matter, too, makes it unique. It is a Greek vase by Greek artists, that honors a fallen hero who had fought on the Trojan side of the conflict. The vase tells a story--two stories, in fact, because there's a narrative on each side of the vase, separate, yet connected to the other one.

The scene that Euphronios painted depicts an episode from the Trojan War. The Lycian king, Sarpedon, son of the chief god Zeus and the mortal Laodamia, and a leader of the Trojans' allies, has just been slain in battle. Blood still flows from his wounds. The messenger-god Hermes stands at the center with his hand raised. He is giving directions to two winged figures, the twin brothers Sleep (Hypnos) and Death (Thanatos), who will carry the fallen hero back to his homeland in Lycia for burial. Lycia was at the time a region in Asia Minor, which is also where the ancient city of Troy was geographically located.

In the story of the Trojan War, even though Zeus was aware that it had been pre-ordained that Sarpedon would die by the hand of Patroclus (the Greek comrade-in-arms, and probable lover of the great Achilles), he hoped to prevent the inevitable.

However, his wife Hera (who wasn't crazy about all the bastard kids Zeus had begotten on mortal women) reminded him that other gods' sons were fighting and dying and other gods' sons were fated to die as well, if Zeus should spare his son of his fate another god may do the same. Reluctantly accepting this rationale, the heartbroken Zeus permitted Sarpedon to die while fighting Patroclus, but not before killing the only mortal horse of Achilles. During their fight Zeus sent a shower of bloody raindrops over the Trojans' heads expressing the grief for the impending death of his son.

This is the narrative depicted on the obverse side of the vase. On the reverse side (the object is round, so I left it to the curators to tell viewers which side is considered which), are a group of Athenian youths arming for battle, dressed as they might have appeared in the late 6th century when the vase was created . Two of the men carry round shields, also called "targets." On one shield is the image of a scorpion; on the other, a crab. I'm still waiting for someone to discourse on whether there is any particular astrological resonance there.

My late grandmother, Norma Carroll shared with me from my earliest childhood (I kid you not!) her passion for ancient Greek art and antiquities. This was the woman who brought me to see the nude statue of Zeus (or do they think it's Poseidon these days?) in the lobby of the United Nations. I was all of three years old and he was the first naked man I'd ever seen. For an oversize statue, he's not exactly anatomically proportionate--which might have really screwed me up later in life--but I digress.

So much did "Mama" adore the culture of ancient Greece that she named my mother Leda. So, it stands to reason that I might feel a deeper-than-average affinity with the character of Helen of Troy, Leda's demimortal daughter, sired by Zeus himself who was disguised a a swan at the time.

I bifurcated my writing career in 2005, adding historical fiction to my resume with the publication of THE MEMOIRS OF HELEN OF TROY, told from the first person point of view in Helen's voice. The novel is dedicated "to my mother, Leda," an inside joke that happens to be the truth.

So, because my emotional connection to the history and culture of ancient Greece runs rather deep, I had to pay my last respects to the Euphronios krater.

Today, on its last day in New York before it heads to Italy, it was easy to find the Euphronios krater in the galleries of Greek vases. There was no special signage directing traffic -- no "Step right up ladeeees and gentleman! Last chance to see the famous vase before the krater gets crated!" but it was the one surrounded by a mob of people grabbing one final peek at this treasure, savoring the memories with their cellphones and digital cameras.

Tacky, maybe, but I later discovered that the Met doesn't sell a postcard of it. One man joked that the Italians had pre-empted him from turning it into an umbrella stand. One woman, bundled up in a pale pink shearling coat, matching scarf, and fetching fur hat, was silently sobbing. (Okay, that was me).

I'm a sentimental softie anyway, so it takes very little before I tear up. But the Euphronios krater took me back to my teen-hood, to high school history courses and flirting with the cutest guy in the class by sneaking him candy-corn while we were ogling the Met's latest star acquisition and committing to memory why it was so special. This will be on the final, kids. And it took me back even further than that--to my maternal grandmother and her passion for all things Attic, even though (as far as I know) we have no Greek blood flowing through the branches of our family tree. And then I closed the circle by writing my Helen of Troy novel.

Regardless of the politics, of the "rights" and "wrongs" of repatriation of some of the world's greatest works of art, acknowledging how much I'll miss this vase is just another reminder of how much I miss my grandmother.

How about you? Are there any works of art that you "grew up with" that have special resonance for you?

Of Books and Baseball...

2008-01-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

First let me state, for the record, that although I am a daughter of the Bronx, I am a lifelong NY Mets fan.

So, naturally, I'm disinclined to believe a word of Roger Clemens' disingenuous denials of steroid use. This is the brute who beaned Mets' catcher Mike Piazza a few years ago and then claimed the ball got away from him. Yeah--right. And I've got a bridge in Brooklyn with "For Sale" signs threaded through its cables. Umm...don't you get to be a multiple Cy Young winner by being a whiz at locating the strike zone?

Mike Piazza

So, in this pre-season climate of Bad News bears, allow me to offer you an anecdotal antidote to the palaver propagated by a handful of overgrown, overpaid, and overmedicated grownups who have polluted America's Pastime with their butt-loaded syringes.

We've got just two weeks before CHOOSING SOPHIE arrives in bookstores; it's a heartwarming novel about love and baseball (and love of baseball).

CHOOSING SOPHIE is my seventh women’s fiction title since 2002. Olivia (“Venus”) deMarley, a former burlesque dancer, stands to inherit her late father’s scrappy (and colorful) minor league baseball team, the Bronx Cheers, if she and Sophie, the twenty-year-old daughter she gave up for adoption right after her birth, can reunite.

Stephanie Rollins at Reviewyourbook.com calls CHOOSING SOPHIE “a breath of fresh air,” and “a Lifetime Movie waiting to happen. If you liked Nora Roberts’ “Montana Sky”, you will like Choosing Sophie” Go ahead and indulge yourself, and experience the importance of family.”

And Target Stores has selected CHOOSING SOPHIE as a breakout book of the new year, and I hope your book club will do so, too!

I can state unequivocally, on the record, on pain of polygraph that this book is entirely steroid free. Not only that there are no calories in it. So you've got nothing to lose but the wait till Spring Training begins!

Days of Auld Lang Syne

2007-12-31T12:40:00.000-05:00

Although more than one Scots poet wrote of the days of "auld lang syne" (roughly translated as "long, long ago" or the "olden days"), it is Robert Burns (1759-96) whose poem, set to music is the one we all sing at the chimes strike midnight, or the Times Square ball drops on New Year's Eve.

Robert Burns

2007 had its ups and downs for me. Professionally, I received my first nonfiction contract. Royal Affairs: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Adventures that Rocked the British Monarchy, which will be published by NAL in original trade paper on June 3, 2008, tested my ability to research, write, and deliver in record time (about 5 months) over 400 pages that covered more than 900 years of English history, in a breezy, accessible style.

It was a very exciting, albeit grueling, project, and as the bright January days of the new year dawn, I expect the copyedited manuscript to show up on my doorstep.

Nonetheless, 2007 will remain in my heart as one of those that might as well be enshrined within the schmaltzy lyrics of "It was a very good year." I got married on May 19, to a wonderful, kind man with a wry sense of humor, and after years of writing happily-ever-afters for my fictional characters, I've got one of those for myself.

Although I resolve every year not to make any new year's resolutions, I've made a few of them anyway. Along with those personal perennials like exercising more and losing weight, I'm resolving to reach out even more to my readers. If you belong to a book group, I'd love to set up interactive chats about my titles just for your group on one of my blogs. And if you're in the NY-Metropolitan area and are up for hosting an in-person author visit to your readers group, let's chat about how we can turn it into a fun special event.

Wishing each of you a healthy and prosperous new year! And happy reading!

Have you made any new year's resolutions for 2008 that you'd like to share here? Let's resolve to help each other stick to them!

...GONE! Magna Carta sells for Magnum Moolah

2007-12-19T10:56:00.000-05:00

The gavel has descended. Ross Perot's copy of the Magna Carta, signed in 1297 by King Edward I, and recently on temporary display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., has been sold. I wrote a recent post about the document going on the block, and promised to add a follow-up post after yesterday's auction.

Some of us, this author among them, consider the Magna Carta and everything it represents to be priceless. Lucky for Sotheby's and the Perot Foundation, which purchased this copy of the Magna Carta in 1994, someone thought it worth $21.3 million. When it announced the auction in September, Sotheby's said the document was valued at up to $30 million. The Perot Foundation, which was created by billionaire former presidential candidate Ross Perot to make philanthropic grants, will use the money for its charities.

The Magna Carta curbed the power of the king and established the rights of the English people. And the U.S. Constitution includes ideas and phrases taken almost directly from the charter, which rebellious barons forced their oppressive King John to sign in 1215.

Edward I

However, the Magna Carta was ratified and reissued with each monarch who succeeded John. It was enacted as law in 1297 by the British parliament when it was reissued by King Edward I, nicknamed by his subjects, "The lawgiver." The 1297 document is considered the most definitive (and therefore valuable) version because that was the text that made it into the English statute books.

The medieval vellum manuscript was bought at auction by the founder of a private equity firm, David Rubenstein. We applaud him, because he plans to keep it where it has been on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C.

David Rubenstein

Now that's what I call equity.

Napoleon: Symbols of Power; Symbols of Hypocrisy

2007-12-15T13:49:00.000-05:00

In what was an absolute labor of love, my husband drove us up to Boston yesterday so that I could drink my fill of the Museum of Fine Arts's breathtaking temporary exhibit: "Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style 1800-1815."http://www.mfa.org/napoleon/

At 11am, the galleries were empty, save for the occasional security guard. There were no signs forbidding photography, but I figured there would be too much of a glare coming off the vitrines, so I kept the camera in my purse. Unfortunately there were no postcards for sale in the gift shop (I am an utter museum gift shop junkie...almost as bad sometimes as "No, I missed that exhibit--but I visited the gift shop.")

Just kidding. No one who is not a museum/18th and early 19th c. history addict would rise at dawn with her husband to schlep up to Boston from NYC braving wall to wall traffic on every highway in both directions, just to buy a refrigerator magnet featuring Ingres's full-size portrait of a scowling Napoleon.

I'm one of those people who gets chills and goes all weak at the knees when I see things that were used and worn by the very people who lent their name to a historical era. I was wowed by the decorative aspects of the furniture and other applied arts

(such as the numerous examples of the Sèvres porcelain services, "kettles" to keep water warm, and the Empress Josephine's nef--which, if you've never seen a nef, is a highly embellished ship-shaped carryall for the ruler's salt and pepper and spice containers, placed in front of him or her at the table)

Sèvres ice cream cooler. Everyone should have one!

I could have taken Josephine's letter box (a graceful burled wood chest crafted in the shape of an Amazon's shield) home with me. Ditto for a couple of the flowing, and elaborately embroidered, gowns of whitest cotton.

And if I had a spare $2500 around I could have commissioned a museum copy of a uniquely shaped drinking goblet made of gilded bronze and vermeil around 1810, and said to have been modeled from the breast of Napoleon's flamboyant sister, Paulina Borghese--nipple included. You could never get too drunk from one draught--I'd say she was somewhere between an A and a B cup. The handle was a delicate butterfly, yet another symbol of the Empire, representing the goddess Psyche (Psyche is not only the Greek word for "soul," it's the word for "butterfly"), the most beautiful mortal in the world, who became the obsession of Venus's son, Cupid, and who was sent to perform a number of difficult labors before her future mother-in-law would permit her to marry Cupid. The iconic image of the butterfly captures a fleeting instant frozen in time and the fragile nature of femininity.

You'll have to visit the exhibit's website for a photo of the cup. I truly wish I could post images of more of these gloriously wrought artifacts; even the details had details. And every one of them (though no press release was issued at the time explaining the metaphors) was emblematic of a previous imperial insignia. Thanks to Roman Imperial design, the laurel wreath denoted victory, oak leaves represented Jupiter's strength, as did the eagle. The bee, which prominently figures on all things Napoleonic, was intended to invoke one of the earliest Frankish kings, Childéric, who adopted that symbol as his own. The pictorial language was meant to inform the French that their new Emperor was a descendant (at least in his own mind) from the great Roman Emperors and the earliest of the Holy Roman Emperors--a logical progression from the Caesars to the Franks to the Little Corporal.

Carpet from the Throne Room (detail). Manufacture de la Savonnerie,designed by François Debret and Jacques Barraband1807–09WoolMusée National des Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, Rueil-Malmaison

I couldn't help remarking to my DH that the laurel wreath and the eagle clutching a brace of arrows in his claws seemed somewhat familiar. Of course the French Revolution and ours did take place within the same window of time, and perhaps there are only so many available iconographic representations of military (nay, godlike) superiority over one's enemies floating around.

What has always chilled my blood about the French Revolution and the resulting Directoire, Consulate, and Empire, is that everything that was sold to the citoyens de France--Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité--was a très grande crock of merde. The architects of the French Revolution were more brutal, and became more dictatorial than the Ancien Régime of the French nobility ever was. Robespierre was a despot, and his inner circle responsible for the Terror, or Reign of Terror, were known as "terroristes". Sound familiar? The revolutionary leaders--and most obviously Napoleon--became everything they sought to destroy. For that, the streets of Paris had to run with blood and so many families were decimated?

By the time Napoleon had Frenchified half of western Europe, and proclaimed himself Emperor, his luxe life rivaled, and eventually surpassed that of his royal predecessors. I found myself looking at the teacups lined with gold, the royal (yes) purple cape encrusted with gold and silver embroidery that dozens of little novitiates must have bled their fingers and ruined their eyesight to create (okay, perhaps I exaggerate and the official garments were created by the forerunners of Worth and St. Laurent), and shook my head in disbelief and dismay.

Turning to my husband, I posed a question about the "trickle down" effect. Maybe Napoleon thought that's what he was doing by employing every silk mill, cabinet maker, and embroiderer in France to generate the opulence that marked his imperial residences and personage, that touched his lips and graced his dinner tables.

I admit a serious bias against Napoleon, as overwhelmed and impressed as I was by seeing the stunning creations he literally lived with. Having written a novel from Lady Hamilton's perspective, I am firmly in the Lord Nelson camp. I took one look at the magnificent set of firearms Napoleon had purportedly given to the second in command of the combined French and Spanish fleet in 1805 (the first in command was Nelson's nemesis, Admiral Villeneuve) and thought "You killed him, you SOBs."

So, what's your take on Napoleon? Hero--or hypocrite?

Magna Carta ... Going once... going twice...

2007-12-06T16:57:00.000-05:00

It's not a royal affair per se, but it is a royal shame: the mother-document of English Common Law is going up for auction.

The only privately-owned copy of the Magna Carta in the United States is on the block. My husband and I had the privilege of seeing it last June on display in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. -- which is where it belongs -- just steps away from the original manuscripts of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Who knew the Magna Carta only had a temporary visa?

Billionaire pie-chart magnate Ross Perot, who owns it, has decided he doesn't have enough money already and the law is for sale. Come to think of it, many people think that's business as usual in the U.S. Capital. So, on behalf of the Ross Perot Foundation, which bought it in 1983 for $1.5 million, Sotheby's is holding an auction on December 18, 2007.

The Magna Carta was the birth of the concept that nobody - including the king - was above the law, and that a fair trial was a right of all. The document was first written in 1215. King John (the wicked king of Robin Hood legend) was on the throne, and yes, he was quite the bully. His barons didn't appreciate such autocracy, however, and at the risk of losing his throne in a civil uprising, King John signed the document in a convocation held at Runnymeade in 1215.

King John (b. 1166. Ruled England 1199-1216)

Magna Carta was originally written because of disagreements among Pope Innocent III, King John and the English barons about the rights of the King. Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights, respect certain legal procedures and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the king's subjects, whether free or fettered — most notably the right of Habeas Corpus, meaning that they had rights against unlawful imprisonment.

The document was revised throughout the 13th century. It wasn't confirmed as English law until 1297, when it was signed by King Edward I (the wicked king of William Wallace ["Braveheart"] legend). Of 17 copies of the Magna Carta that still exist, all but this one are publicly owned. The only other copy outside England is on show in Australia's Parliament.

Edward I (b. 1239. Ruled England 1272-1307)

With only two small holes in the animal skin it was written on, what is now being referred to as "Sotheby's Magna Carta" is considered in great condition. The Perot/Sotheby's copy, 2500 Latin words long, was written in 1297. This copy is signed by Edward I, known as "Edward the Lawgiver," the reigning king at the time.

Sotheby's expects the Perot Magna Carta to fetch at least $30 million. So you CAN put a price on the law!

Welcome to Leslie Carroll's new blog address!

2007-11-29T11:06:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been a wild ride this fall! I've been juggling so many projects and deadlines that I feel like one of those circus performers who keeps a dozen plates spinning in the air. But would I trade it all to end up back in day-job hell? Hell, no!

So, what have I been doing with myself? Putting the finishing touches on my January 2008 release from Avon "A" -- CHOOSING SOPHIE, a contemporary story about Olivia ("Venus") deMarley, a former burlesque dancer who stands to inherit her late father's scrappy (and colorful) minor league baseball team, the Bronx Cheers, if she and Sophie, the twenty-year-old daughter she gave up for adoption right after her birth, can reunite .

Doffing my baseball cap to don another hat, this time a tricorn, I've also spent this fall getting my next work of historical fiction ready for publication in February, 2008.

ALL FOR LOVE: The Scandalous Life and Times of Royal Mistress Mary Robinson is my fourth title under the pen name Amanda Elyot. Amanda writes historical fiction. Leslie writes the contemporary stories. They're both me. It's an open secret.

Mary Robinson was a fascinating woman who kept company with some of the greatest luminaries of the Georgian era: the actor David Garrick, the playwright and theatre manager Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the firebrand politician Charles James Fox, and the glittering Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the crusading feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, and the opium-addicted romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As a teenager, Mary was London's most celebrated actress. In 1780, she caught the eye of the Prince of Wales and became his first lover. I won't give away too much of the plot, but as the years went on, she became a poetess, novelist, and feminist herself and carried on a passionate 15-year affair with the dashing war hero Banastre Tarleton.

I've also been scrambling to meet the revision deadline for my first work of historical nonfiction. ROYAL AFFAIRS: A Lusty Romp Through the Extramarital Affairs that Shocked the British Monarchy will be released by NAL next June, just in time for your summer vacation. Sexy and sizzling and full of real-life dangerous liaisons, it's the perfect beach read, or the perfect companion to pass the time with during the airline flight to your destination of choice. Just don't leave it in the seat pocket in front of you!