Books, self-centered musings, and chocolatinis!

Hottie Monday

2009-11-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

Another Miscellaneous Hottie Monday. Enjoy!

Book Giveaway!

2009-11-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

I'm over at the Unusual Historical blog today, talking about The Winter Queen and giving away a signed copy! Come and join me...

A Sunday Thump On The Head

2009-11-08T07:46:00.001-08:00

Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2009---No Girl Cooties Allowed!

The list from Publishers Weekly
Why Weren't Any Women Invited to Publishers Weekly Weenie Roast?
STLToday Book Blog
BookNinja
New York Times Arts Beat
The Guardian
Huffington Post
Book Blips
Courtney Milan's Blog

And this is just a small sampling of the reaction out there....

Heroine of the Weekend

2009-11-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the release of my Elizabethan-set book The Winter Queen this month, I've decided to spend November looking at some fascinating Tudor-era women! First up--Lettice Knollys, cousin of Elizabeth I, wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and mother of the Earl of Essex and Penelope Rich (and she outlived them all).

Lettice was born ca. November 1543 to Sir Francis Knollys and his wife Catherine Carey at their estate at Rotherfield Grays in Oxfordshire. (Catherine was the daughter of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, and thus Lettice was Elizabeth's first cousin once removed on the maternal side). Sir Francis was a Puritan in his convictions, and lived in Switzerland with his family during the reign of Queen Mary, only returning to England when Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558. Catherine was then made a senior Lady of the Bedchamber, Sir Francis a vice-chamberlain of the Household, and Lettice a Maid of the Privy Chamber. She was one of the prettiest, wittiest, and most sought-after ladies at Court.

She married Walter Devereux, Viscount Hereford (later Earl of Essex), in 1560, and the couple went to live at the estate of Chartley in Staffordshire, where their first 2 children were born, daughters Penelope and Dorothy (who would resemble their mother in their beauty and willfulness, as well as their penchant for scandal!). Lettice sometimes returned to Court, and it was on one of these trips she started a flirtation with Robert Dudley, the Queen's favorite. When Elizabeth found out, Lettice was sent back to Staffordshire, where she gave birth to her first son Robert Walter (1569), and his brother Francis (1572). Francis died in infancy, and soon after in 1573 the earl joined the first Ulster Project, a plantation of Englishmen in Ireland. While he was gone, Lettice got involved with Dudley again amid great scandal. The earl died in Ireland of dysentery in September of 1576, and 2 years later Lettice married Dudley in a tiny, secret ceremony at Wanstead, their home near London. When the Queen learned of this, the results were predictable--Lettice was banished permanently from Court, and the Queen publicly called her a "she-wolf" and her husband a traitor and a cuckold. Their only child, Robert, Baron Denbigh, was born in 1581. Though they doted on their "Noble Imp" he died in 1584.

Lettice didn't let banishment from Court crimp her style. She held a glittering social life at Wanstead and a house in London, and was much sought-after. She was also very close to her grown children. Dudley died soon after the defeat of the Armada in 1588, and 10 months later Lettice married Sir Christopher Blount, who was 12 years her junior (though she was still called the Dowager Countess of Leicester). He got involved with his stepson Essex's ill-considered rebellion in 1601 and both of them were executed. Lettice, however, went on, indominitable. She lived at her fine estate of Drayton Bassett, raising her grandchildren and doing good deeds for the poor of the neighborhood. James I restored the title Earl of Essex to her grandson in 1603.

Lettice lived to be 91 years old, dying on Christmas Day 1634, and was buried next to Dudley in the Beauchamp Chapel of the Church of St. Mary in Warwick, near their little son. She's said to be an ancestor of many modern famous people, such as Darwin, Churchill, the Queen Mother, and Princess Diana.

I have a very battered copy of Judith Saxton's Cousin to the Queen: The Story of Lettice Knollys (1972) which I picked up at a library booksale once. There's also a great deal of information about her in bios of her daughter Penelope (who we will look at next week!), and in Derek Wilson's Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. And I love the old Victoria Holt novel My Enemy the Queen!

Portrait Friday

2009-11-06T00:13:00.000-08:00

All this month, to celebrate the release of my Elizabethan-set book The Winter Queen, we'll look at Tudor-era portraits! This week--Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton

Things I Love Thursday

2009-11-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

What I love today--terrible high school musicals on YouTube! I guess it takes me back to my own terrible high school theater days. I waste far too much time on YouTube, I know, but sometimes it's hard to resist.

Like this gem from Les Mis....

And I'll be reading from my new book The Winter Queen on Blog Talk radio at noon CST today! Call in and listen!

What I'm Reading

2009-11-03T00:13:00.000-08:00

Because I love stories of intrepid Victorian lady travelers!

(And I'm over at Risky Regencies talking about characters taking over my life!)

Hottie Monday Shakespeare Edition

2009-11-02T00:13:00.000-08:00

I wasn't sure what to do for Hottie Monday this week, but I've been going through an Elizabethan phase lately with the release of my new book The Winter Queen, so I re-watched one of my favorite movies while I recovered from Halloween Sugar Sickness yesterday--Shakespeare in Love. (I did try to watch the new show Flash Forward, but after its bang-up pilot it went downhill fast! Plus I couldn't get rid of the feeling that Joseph Fiennes was a time-traveling Shakespeare disguised as an FBI agent...)

(BTW, who are some hotties you'd like to see on future Mondays?? I'm setting up a schedule for the next coupld or months!)

Happy first Monday of November!

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

Halloween was fabulous! Victoria the Turtle and Abigail the French Maid enjoyed it very much. :) Now we have to recover from the sugar shock...

Heroine of the Weekend Halloween Edition

2009-10-31T00:31:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm over at the Risky Regencies all weekend to launch my new book The Winter Queen! Comment on the posts there to win a signed copy...

And this week's heroine (in honor of my favorite holiday Halloween, bwahaha!) is Lucrezia Borgia. Now, the real Lucrezia might just be a victim of bad publicity (since not very much can actually be known about her historical story, and her complicity in her father's and brother's crimes are only rumored), but her name does evoke suitably shivery, Halloween-y vibes. :)

Lucrezia Borgia was born in April 1480 to Rodrigo Borgia, a Renaissance grandee who later became Pope Alexander VI, and his mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei, at Subiaco near Rome. Her brothers were the notorious Cesare, Giovanni, and Gioffre Borgia. By the time she was 13, she had been betrothed twice, only to have both engagements broken off by her father. After he became pope, he married her off to Giovanni Sforza in a very lavish ceremony to cement an alliance with that famous Milanese family. But before long the Borgias no longer needed the Sforzas; new, more advantageous political alliances were required, so the Pope is rumored to have ordered the murder of his superflous son-in-law. First he tried to persuade Giovanni to a divorce; he refused and accused Lucrezia of incest. Not a good move. The marriage was annulled on the basis of non-consumation (with Giovanni forced to sign papers confessing his impotence).

Rumors went around that during this long annulment process Lucrezia got to "consumating" with a lowly messenger (or maybe even with her brother!) and got pregnant. The child, Giovanni, was born secretly in 1498 before Lucrezia's second marriage to Alfonso of Aragon. (In 1501, two papal bulls were issued concerning the child Giovanni. One stated he was the son of Cesare from an affair before his marriage; one said he was the son of the Pope himself. Lucrezia isn't mentioned in either, and rumors of her motherhood have never been proven). Giovanni eventually became Duke of Camerino.

Things began promisingly with Alfonso. He was handsome and good-natured, and Lucrezia became fond of him, but Cesare (who was scarred after a bout of venereal disease, and had started wearing masks and always dressing in black) became jealous of his sister's regard for her husband. He had his men attack Alfonso one night; Alfonso's men then shot arrows at Cesare as he walked in a garden. Predictably this ended badly, when Alfonso ended up strangled to death. He and Lucrezia only had one child, Rodrigo, who died at age 13. (This second marriage probably ended not just because of jealousy, but because like marriage #1 it had become superflous and a new alliance was needed. But Lucrezia was said to be broken-hearted)

Her third marriage was to Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. They had a number of children together and Lucrezia eventually became a respectable Renaissance duchess, able to survive the fall of the Borgias after her father's death. Neither of them were faithful, of course; Lucrezia had a long relationship with her bisexual brother-in-law, the Marquis of Mantua (husband of the famous Isabella d'Este), as well as an affair with the poet Pietro Bembo.

She died in Ferrara on June 24, 1519 from complications of childbirth, and was buried in the convent of Corpus Domini. In 1816, Byron visited the Ambrosian Library of Milan and read the letters of Lucrezia and Bembo ("The prettiest love letters in the world," he declared) and claimed to have stolen a lock of her hair. All the stories of wild parties, poison rings, and incest are just that--very persistent stories!

Some good sources include:
Sarah Bradford, Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy
Maria Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia
And the Lucrezia Borgia research page

Happy Halloween everyone!

Portrait Friday

2009-10-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Things I Love Thursday

2009-10-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

What I love this Thursday---reviews! Good ones, anyway. :)

Like this one of The Winter Queen!
Fresh Fiction

Plus my old Christmas novella, Upon a Midnight Clear, got a mention! Yay!

Join me at the Riskies this weekend as I launch TWQ on its way and give away a signed copy...

More new covers!

2009-10-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

This just in! The cover for my December "Undone" short story, The Maid's Lover (connected to The Winter Queen, with yet more Elizabethan Christmas hijinks!) I love her purple velvet gown...

Bright Star

2009-10-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

I finally took a break from the deadline last week to see Bright Star! What a gorgeous movie. I may have to see it again (and I know I need some new Regency gowns...)

I long to believe in immortality. . . . If I am destined to be happy with you here--how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality--I wish to live with you forever.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.

Hottie Monday James McAvoy

2009-10-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

I decided after last week's Hotties With Accents that James McAvoy really needed his own Monday. I mean, have you seen the shirtless scene in the "Shakespeare Retold" Macbeth???

Enjoy!

Heroine of the Weekend

2009-10-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

Our heroine this weekend is Alexandra David-Neel, born on October 24, 1868. Her bio calls her "a Belgian-French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist, and writer," perhaps best known for her daring voyage into Tibet in 1924, when foreigners were forbidden to enter the country. She wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels.

She was born in Paris to rather strict parents, and found refuge in the books of Jules Verne, which made her dream of outdoing these heroes in adventures. (She also enjoyed running away from home on occasion, the first time being at the age of 5, right before a move to Brussels). At 15 she was a student of music, and secretly of occult books (especially an English journal published by the Society of the Supreme Gnosis). At 17 she left home again, traveling alone by train to Switzerland to hike over the Saint-Gotthard Pass through the Alps to the Italian lakes. (She was fetched home by her mother when she ran out of money at Lake Maggiore). The following year she entered the Royal Conservatory at Brussels, and 3 years later took first prize for her voice. In 1888 she went to study in London, staying at the Society of the Supreme Gnosis and meeting Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society and a great early influence on Alexandra. She then went to study at the Sorbonne and join radical societies. In 1891, disguised in men's clothes, she joined a Paris cult led by Sri Ananda Saraswati (which used hashish as a prime means of obtaining visions!). By this time she was all of 23.

That same year she received a small inheritance from her godmother, which gave her the means to travel for more than a year through Ceylon and India. She studied Sanskrit, Yoga, and heard Tibetan music for the first time. But then the money ran out, and she was forced to return to Brussels. But she wasn't idle there. She finished an anarchist treatise. Publishers wouldn't print it, so her friends printed and distributed it themselves and eventually it was translated into 5 languages. From 1894 to 1900 she lived as an aspiring singer and actress, and in 1900 she accepted a job with the opera in Tunis. There she met Philip Neel, a 39-year-old railway engineer. They married in 1904 and moved into a villa at La Goulette, near the Mediterranean.

Marriage didn't slow her down for long. In 1911 she went again to India to study Sanskrit and Buddhism (she met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912 and learned much from him--unprecedeneted for a European woman at the time). She also met the Gomchen (great hermit) of the monastery of Lachen. From 1914-16 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the border of Tibet, along with a young Sikkimese monk named Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion and later her adopted son. From their cave they snuck into Tibet (where they met the Panchen Lama), and were expelled from Sikkim. Unable to return to Europe because of World War I, they went to Japan and China. By traversing China from east to west, they were able to sneak into Tibet again and stayed there for 2 months.

She legally separated from her husband in 1928, but they corresponded and he supported her until his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Provence in her middle age and wrote books, but she went on to travek again to China and the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 40s. They ended up back in Tibet, where they circled the holy mountain Amnye Machen. They returned to France in 1946, when Neel was 78. Yongden died in 1955, and Alexandra continued to study and write until her own death in 1969 at 101. Her ashes were scattered in the Ganges.

Of Tibet, she wrote, "Truthfully, I am 'homesick' for a land that is not mine. I am haunted by the steppes, the solitude, the everlasting snow and the great blue sky 'up there'! The difficult hours, the hunger, the cold, the wind slashing at my face..."

As well as her own books, some good sources on her life are:
Barbara and Michael Foster, Forbidden Journey: The Life of Alexandra David-Neel
Ruth Middleton, Alexandra David-Neel
And there is a great website with all sorts of info here

Next month, to celebrate the release of my Elizabethan Christmas book The Winter Queen, we're going to look at some fascinating Tudor-era women! (Lettice Knollys, her daughter Penelope Rich, the Countess of Pembroke, and the Grey sisters)

Portrait Friday

2009-10-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

Judith Leyster (1609-1660), Self Portrait

Things I Love Thursday

2009-10-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

(First, I'm at the Pink Heart Society blog today, talking about old book favorites! Drop in and see me there...)

What I love today--getting new covers!!! There is something so exciting about seeing that file in my Inbox or that envelope on my porch. Will it be gorgeous? Or hideous? Will I love it??? yesterday I got this one, and it's a love!

Scandalous Brides is the second of my two-in-one reissues from Signet Regencies, and will be out in March 2010. It includes my first 2 Regencies, Scandal in Venice and The Spanish Bride, and I'm so thrilled they will be on the shelves again. Especially in such a pretty package!

And my first reissue, Spirited Brides, with my 2 "ghostly" Regencies, is still on the shelves, just in time for a Halloween read...

Software and Shakespeare

2009-10-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

Plagiarism Software Detects New Shakespeare Play

It's not just for desperate college students anymore...

Risky Tuesday

2009-10-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

Over at the Riskies (it is Tuesday, after all!) talking about Pauline Bonaparte on her birthday. Come share stories of your favorite bad girls in history!

Hottie Monday Miscellany 2

2009-10-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

Deadline--still moving ahead! Thus we have another Miscellaneous Hottie Monday. Today--Hotties with Accents (I know, almost every week is men with accents around here, but still...)

Happy New Week!

Damian Lewis

Dominic Cooper

Javier Bardem

James McAvoy

A Sunday Funny

2009-10-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

Heroine of the Weekend

2009-10-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

October 17, 1849 marks the date when Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree! I remember when I was a kid, there was a series of old books in our school library about "heroic women" when they were children (Dolley Madison, Elizabeth I, and Marie Antoinette were my favorites, but I learned about a lot of lesser-known historical women as well). Elizabeth Blackwell was the subject of one of those books, and I loved the story of her journey to becoming a doctor and pioneer in women's rights.

She was born February 3, 1821 in Bristol, England, the 3rd of 19 (8 of them died in childhood) children of prosperous Quaker sugar refiner Samuel Blackwell and his wife Hannah. Their religious beliefs taught them that men and women are equal in the eyes of God, so their daughters were educated as well as their sons (the sons went to school, the daughters had tutors at home, but Elizabeth was encouraged in her interest in science and medicine). When Elizabeth was 11, disaster struck when her father's business was destroyed by fire. The family emigrated to the United States and started a new refinery in New York. Eventually they moved to Cincinnati to open another refinery, but Samuel died barely 3 months after they arrived.

After his death, Elizabeth had to find work, and she took up teaching in Kentucky in order to save money for medical school. She hated teaching, but managed to find lodgings in a doctor's home where she could study in the medical library. As a Quaker, she was also active in the abolition movement (as was her brother Henry, who married suffragist Lucy Stone, and her brother Samuel Charles, who married Antoinette Brown). In 1845 she moved to Asheville, NC, where she read medicine in the home of Dr. John Dickson and that of his brother Dr. Samuel Henry Dickson in Charleston, SC.

She managed to get admitted to Geneva College in New York (the story, possibly apocryphal, says the faculty put it to a student vote, and the students thought her application was a hoax), and braved a great deal of prejudice and ridicule to complete her training. Her persistence and intelligence did eventually win her much respect among her fellow students, and it was said they treated her as an older sister. She graduated first in her class.

Despite this high achievement, she was banned from practice in most hospitals, and went to Paris to gain further training at La Maternite. While there, she caught an eye infection and had to have one eye removed and replaced with a glass eye. It didn't slow her down, and in 1857, along with her sister Emily and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, founded the Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in New York in 1857. During the Civil War, Blackwell trained nurses for the Union Army. In 1868 she established a Women's Medical College to train women as physicians and nurses. In 1869, leaving Emily in charge of the Infirmary, she returned to England to open, with Florence Nightingale, to open the Women's Medical College. She retired a year later, but kept working by writing lectures for the women's rights movement on the importance of education for women along with writing books about hygiene and disease.

She had no children of her own, but in 1856 adopted Katherine "Kitty" Barry, an Irish orphan who was her companion for the rest of her life. She died May 31, 1910 at her home in Sussex after a stroke and was buried in St. Mun's Churchyard on Holy Loch near Scotland.

Blackwell wrote many medical volumes, but also a sort of autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medicial Profession to Women (1895)

Portrait Friday

2009-10-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

Lucrezia de Medici

Things I Love Thursday

2009-10-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

What I love this Thursday--getting flowers! Especially when a deadline looms nigh and encouragement is needed...

Pink roses are my favorites. What are yours?