Drinks With Friends

 (I just went last night to a favorite speakeasy-style bar here---Tonic, if you're ever in Santa Fe!--and remembered one of my favorite writing experiences ever, a collaboration between 4 friends who met every Friday for a cocktail and book talk.  I miss them soooo much since I moved away!  But here is a repeat of an old post about our books....

As my readers will know, I range among many different time periods in my writing–Regency, Elizabethan, Renaissance, etc.  One of my very favorite time periods (especially with the Downton mania of the last few years!) is the Edwardian/WWI/1920s era.  It’s very reminiscent of the Regency in many ways (warfare, fast-moving societal changes, not to mention amazing clothes…), but I’ve only been able to write one 1920s story in the past (Girl With the Beaded Mask), but all that changed a few months ago.

I have 3 great writer friends I get to see (almost) every Friday night, at 4:30 happy hour on the dot, at the Martini Lounge a few miles from my house.  This is an amazing place, said to have been a speakeasy in the 1920s (though when I was a kid, it was my grandfather’s favorite donut shop, where I could eat as many chocolate pastries as I wanted while he talked to his old-man friends about farming!).  Now it’s an elegant bar/steakhouse, with velvet booths, dim lighting, jazz music, and an astonishing array of cocktails.  Kathy L Wheeler, Alicia Dean, Krysta Scott, and I meet to talk over what we’re writing, and one eveing we had the brilliant idea–why didn’t we write something together!  Set at the Martini Lounge!  So 4 girls from the 1920s had their beginnings in 4 connected novellas that have now been launched out into the world.  Much like our 4 heroines left their English homes for new lives in NYC….

I wondered what those 4 heroines–Lady Jessica (an earl’s daughter who would rather be a journalist than dance at deb balls), Lady Meggie (her schoolfriend, who would rather sing in a jazz band and seek fame and fortune than dance at deb balls), Eliza (a maidservant who fled a lecherous employer–only to find herself in an even worse jam on the streets of NY), and Charlotte (Jess and Meggie’s shy friend, who finds the strength to flee an arranged marriage and follow her own dreams), would drink when they meet at the Martini Lounge’s 1920s counterpart Club 501?

Alicia Dean says Eliza’s drink choice is easy–a Fallen Angel!

1/12 oz gin

1/2 tsp white creme de menthe

1/2 lemon juice

a dash of bitters

a cherry

Shake all ingredients (except cherry) with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with the cherry and serve.

 

 

 

 

Kathy L Wheeler chose Meggie’s–a Virgin Mary (since Meggie is a singer, she doesn’t drink much on the job–but that doesn’t count for after hours!)

4 oz tomato juice, 1 dash lemon juice, 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 drops tabasco

Fill a large wine glass with ice. Add tomato juice, then the rest of the ingredients. Stir and garnish with a wedge of lime.

 

 

 

 

I found out that one of my favorite (modern day) drinks, a French 75, was also very popular in the 1920s!!!  (even with one of the models for Lady Jessica, Nancy Mitford), so I decided Jess could drink that…

1 oz. gin
½ oz. simple syrup
½ oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
Brut Champagne or a dry sparkling white wine
Lemon twist, to garnish

Combine gin, simple syrup, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until well chilled and strain into a glass. Top with Champagne and garnish with a lemon twist to serve.

 

 

And for Charli, who has dreams of opening her own bakery, a caramel apple martini!

2 parts Schnapps, butterscotch, 2 parts Sour Apple Pucker, 1 part vodka.  Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass

 

 

 

 

 

We are so excited to have these stories out in the world!!!  To one commenter today, we’ll give copies of the stories (either e-book or, in a few weeks, hard copies), plus a Martini Club 4 cocktail glass for mixing up your own favorite cocktails.  Do you have a favorite drink?  Any special happy-hour rituals with friends??

Buy Link For The Series

Weekend Links

 Happy almost March,  everyone!  I don't know about you, but I think I have never been soooo ready for winter to end and summer flowers to make their appearance.  It's been a long one, in so many ways.  (But watch for a post about how I try and "hygge" my way through winter!).  I'm keeping busy finishing two books and starting another, and trying to convince myself to get back to yoga class.

In the meantime, here's some reading....

Why winter is the best season for reading

American Girl's new "historical" doll is from the 1990s, and I now feel The Old

7 of Audrey Hepburn's best Givenchy moments on-screen

A restored 18th century Spitalfields townhouse

The history of Queen's Mary's crown (soon to be seen again!)

The most transformative period dramas to escape into

(I've started posting a few excerpts from A Manhattan Heiress in Paris, and here is a fun one!  Meeting Zelda Fitzgerald...)

Excerpt (at a swanky Paris Salon)

Chloe led them further into the room, nodding at Hemingway, who paused in boxing with a small, cringing man to wave at them. Eliza took a gulp of her cocktail to keep from laughing.

“The Murphys, American compatriots of yours, so delightful! Gerald and Sara. Quite the leaders of society now.” Chloe waved at a handsome couple who held court near the window, the golden-haired woman dressed in a draped white chiffon gown with long ropes of pearls around her neck. “ And with them is Madame Goncharova, but be careful, she will try to read your palm. And Ernest, I’m sure you’ve met him, everyone has.”

“Yes, at Shakespeare and Company.” Eliza watched Hem as he tried to box with a wide-eyed, cringing, skinny man.

Chloe frowned. “He had better not break that vase, it’s seventeenth century. Ah, and here is another belle Americaine! Ma chere madame, over here. This is Elizabeth Van Hoeven, madame, and Eliza this is Zelda Fitzgerald. You will quite like her, Eliza. Now, my handsome monsieur, do let me steal you away. I have another friend here who plays the trumpet…”

She took Jack firmly by the arm and led him away, as he tossed a pleading glance back at Eliza. But there was no resisting the comtesse. Eliza gave him a little wave and a grin before she turned to the petite, chocolate-box pretty blonde woman in a stunning, petal-pink tulle gown, the woman she had glimpsed at the Club d’Or.

“Hi, there!” Zelda said in a loamy, rich Southern accent. She left her empty glass on a footman’s tray and took a full one with a flirtatious grin. “I think I’ve seen you before, at the Club d’Or? So you’re American, too? How’d you wash up here?”

“I’m studying music at the Conservatoire,” Eliza answered, almost too dazzled by this vibrant vision of blonde waves and pink ruffles.

Zelda made a little moue of her rose-painted bow lips. “You lucky-ducky. I used to want to be a dancer. Or maybe a writer. Now I just keep a journal and drink. I’m good at that.” She held up the sparkling golden cocktail. “You need another, too! Been in Paris long, then?”

“A few weeks. I’m from New York.”

Zelda laughed, a ripple of silvery bells. “I lived in New York, too! Kicked out of all the best hotels, so we had to come here. That’s my fella over there.” She pointed at a man who was talking to Hem on the other side of the crowded salon, a tall, polished-gold man who seemed to match her perfectly. Eliza remembered him from the Club d’Or, staggering around drunkenly, but he seemed all right tonight, nodding and talking seriously. “I’m Zelda.”

Eliza suddenly remembered seeing her photo in the newspapers in New York, she and her husband the stars of a crowd Eliza’s mother would never let her meet. They had indeed been thrown out of hotels—and swam in fountains, rode atop taxis, spun for hours in revolving doors. Zelda looked prettier than those grainy black and white images, with a vitality and sparkle no still photo could capture. Eliza was very envious of such an adventurous life, even if it did sound exhausting. “Zelda Fitzgerald? Who lived at the Plaza?”

“That’s me! And my man is Scott. Watch out if he has another drink, he’s no fun at all after two. You here with a guy, too?”

“Yes, Jack Coleman. Over there with the comtesse.” Eliza pointed out Jack, suddenly unsure. Zelda was clearly Southern, after all.

But she just laughed. “Now that’s a fella who’s the cat’s meow! Look at those cheekbones. My daddy would just die right dead with an apoplexy if he saw that. He’s a judge, in Alabama. He didn’t want me marrying Scott just because he’s a Yankee.”

“I think my father would, too. He’s an attorney in Manhattan, but mostly his job is just being a Knickerbocker gentleman.”

“Well, who cares about our parents when a fella looks like that! Is he a writer?”

“Musician. He plays at the Club d’Or.”

Zelda sighed wistfully, and reached for another cocktail. “You are one lucky dame. Getting to do whatever you want. Come on, have another drinkie, let’s get Olga to read our palms!”

Weekend Links

 Happy almost Mardi Gras, everyone!  That means winter is creeping toward the finish line (I hope) and flowers and sunshine are ahead.  My day job ( I work part time at a botanical garden) will soon burst back into life again after being buried under snow, and I can get out my summer dresses and sandals.  In the meantime, here are a few reads to distract you...

Poets' dress code

National Trust showcases recycled fashion

February 16--birth of Princess (later Queen) Mary Tudor

Meet the oldest dog!  (a 30 year old Very Good Boy!)

Notre Dame restoration reveals lost medieval burials

Most transportive historical dramas to watch for Valentine's Day (a bit late, but still some great movies for anytime!)

A look back at Harlem Renaissance Fashions

On writing desire in the Regency years

42 best things to do in Paris

Shakespeare's best and worst couples (according to Folger Shakespeare Library)

Everything I know about sex I learned from Edna St. Vincent Millay

Why is Marie Antoinette everywhere again?

Airbnb offers "Phantom of the Opera" theme stay at the Palais Gardinier

Weekend Links

 A few things to add to your weekend reading!!

Charles Dickens' summer home is for sale

The mysterious viscountess/Victorian photographer

British Library extension gets green light

Celebrating the style of Princess Margaret on the anniversary of her death

15th century wine ship resurrection

Waterloo bodies found in attic

Time Traveling

 (another re-post from the Risky Regencies blog, this one from way back in 2017 but still so true!)

I’ve been very busy lately, having just finished a Regency Christmas story, working on a new 1920s mystery series, planning the next Elizabethan mystery, and plotting a new romance series set in Victorian Paris.  I feel like I need a Tardis to take me to every time period where I need to go right now!

I do enjoy getting to explore time periods, discovering how human nature hasn’t changed and never will, and the very different ways people in different times interpret and deal with that nature.  There’s always love, anger, greed, family, compassion, sacrifice, power, and it’s fascinating to think about how a person would wield those emotions in a world different from our own.  But I also see how all these time periods (Elizabethan, Regency, Victorian, and the 1920s) have something in common with the era we are living through right now—they were moments of vast and swift change in the way the world works and how people deal with those changes. 

The Elizabethans were exploring the globe in ways never seen before, as well as being ruled by a woman (!!), dealing with changes in religion and government, and seeing the explosion of the arts in a way never seen before or since.

The Regency was a bridge between the Enlightenment and revolution and the world of the Victorians, a moment of Whiggery and moral openess (at least among the upper classes!) and unpopular monarchies, while the Victorians saw the agrarian way of life that had gone on for centuries shift to cities and new jobs in industry (for better and also for much worse).  The railroads and telegraph systems opened the world to common people in a new way as well.  Oh, and there was also a woman on the throne again!  (A woman who projected a new image of domesticity and respectability, in contrast to her uncles, though she was not such a prude as all that in her real life…)

Right now, I am living in the 1920s, seeing the world through an artist of the period’s eyes.  Art was seeing major changes after the Armory Show, and women could now vote, drive cars, have jobs beyond nursing and teaching (or at least the possibility of such things, for the first time).  World War I had changed everything.

Of course, there are also fun parts of research, and one of those is finding silly slang to use.  For instance:

A silly person could be: “bacon-brained” (in the Regency) or “nerts” (in the 1920s)

Money could be: “blunt” (Regency) or “cake” (1920s)

A spirited woman could be: a “bearcat” (1920s), and “out and outer” (Regency), or “a filly” (Victorian)

Something pleasing is; “Berries!” (1920s), or (my favorite) “bang up to the elephant” (Victorian)

A wallflower could be “a cancelled stamp” (1920s), an engagement ring “handcuffs”

Nonsense could be: “Phonus balonus!” (1920s—I am using this one in real life now!) or “Fustian!” (Regency)

Of course, the best slang always has to do with being drunk.  Can you guess the time periods here”  “Half seas over,” “Ossified,” “Spiffilicated,” “A trifle disguised,” “Half-rats,” “In one’s cups”.  Being on a bender could be “On a toot,” “Top heavy,” or “Benjo.”

What are some of your favorite time periods???

Queen of the Regency Goth

 A re-post of an article I wrote for the Risky Regencies blog!

Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe died on February 7, 1823, and I always like to take another look at some of her tales….they would be perfect for a Halloween theme party!

Author Ann Radcliffe died on this date in 1823. She could be called “Queen of the Gothic novel,” as many of the standard elements of her plots can still be found in novels today, such as innocent heroines, dark, mysterious heroes, dramatic settings, and wicked villains. (And she was the most popular writer of her own day, influencing Keats and Scott among others, and forming the centerpiece of Catherine Morland’s literary obsessions in Northanger Abbey).

She was born in London in 1764, the only child of William and Anna Ward, and married William Radcliffe at age 22. (Radcliffe was a lawyer, and later editor and owner of The English Chronicle). Ann was said to be shy and reclusive, so not much was known about her private life, which gave rise to many rumors. (She had gone mad as a result of her terrible imagination and been sent to an asylum! She had been captured as a spy in Paris! She ate rare pork chops before bed to stimulate nightmares for her novels!)

J.M.S. Tompkins writes that in all Radcliffe’s novels “a beautiful and solitary girl is persecuted in picturesque surroundings, and, after many fluctuations of fortune, during which she seems again and again on the point of reaching safety, only to be thrust back again into the midst of perils, is restored to her friends and marries the man of her choice.” Sounds like the Victoria Holt stories I was addicted to as a teenager

Her best known works include A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Italian (1796), and of course The Mysteries of Udolpho. She also wrote a travelogue, A Journey Through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany (1795) and various poems, which were published by her husband after her death along with the historical romance Gaston de Blondville.

More information can be found (mostly on the books, since the details of her life are still obscure–though I doubt the pork thing) in Deborah Rogers’ Ann Radcliffe: A Biography-Bibliography(1996).  Have you ever read any of Radcliffe’s works? Have any favorite modern Gothic authors?? I’m thinking a Mysteries of Udolpho-theme Halloween party would be lots of fun…

Have you ever read any of Radcliffe’s books? Have any favorite modern Gothic authors? And what might you wear to my Halloween party???

Book sale!

 

Weekend Links

 

It's almost not the weekend any more, I know!  It's been a busy one here, with revisions to finish and dogs to root out from under the blankets so they can take their walks.  (Like their mom, they don't like the cold so much...)  But here are a few reads to keep us busy!

The dress diary of Mrs. Anne Sykes (circa 1830s)

A Brief Compendium of Preserved Pieces of Cake

Unpacking My Ambivalence Towards Joy (a beautiful essay)

Hildegarde of Bingen Composes the Cosmos

Henry VIII's necklace discovered by a metal detectorist!

The first "ordinary woman" in English literature

Princess Diana's Gown Sells for over $600,000

3 things to do if you wake up in the middle of the night (for insomniacs like myself)

How to learn to love winter