Dear Readers,
The wonderful Blair Bancroft is visiting the Blue Rose Writing Room today and talking about her twist on Regencies with a wonderful holiday release, Holly, which, by-the-way, is on of my sister’s names.
My Plunge to the Regency Darkside
And if I enjoyed writing my nine trad Regencies, I reveled in my Regency Warrior epics, four historicals filled with action and adventure, as well as romance. But I’m not one to repeat myself, at least not ad nauseum, so one day I said, “Hey, wait a minute, there’s got to be something more out there, something a little different.” And The Aphrodite Academy series was born—tales about young women, from ladies to tavern wenches, to whom life has been unkind. Since I’m definitely not a writer of erotica, I found myself creating stories that were frank but only occasionally graphic, and dealing with subjects only a few Regencies attempted—a father selling his daughter, physical abuse, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, possible sexual relations between London’s street children.
And, believe me, I’ve found it liberating. Anyone who has researched London in the early 19thcentury knows that this vast underbelly existed, that the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was not made up out of the heads of randy college students. Although I know there’s still a hard core readership who only want to see dukes, glittering balls, and glamorized tales of romance (hot or genteel), I have truly savored—and enjoyed the irony of—writing about the “other side” of Regency England.
But even that didn’t satisfy my need to try something new. In between the Regency Darkside novellas, Belle, Cecilia, and Holly, I used the Victorian Gothic novels of Victoria Holt and the Contemporary Gothics of Mary Stewart and Phyllis Whitney (from a generation ago) to inspire another “new” Regency sub-genre, which I call Regency Gothic. Brides of Falconfell, The Mists of Moorhead Manor, and my latest work-in-progress, The Demon of Fenley Marsh, are first-person tales of young women in jeopardy, often along with another vulnerable person, such as a child or an invalid. The major difference, I try to create my heroines in a more modern, heroic mold than the heroines of 19th and 20th c. Gothic novels (with the exception of the heroine in Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree, still my all-time favorite). And to my amazement, my Regency Gothics are outselling my other Regencies ten to one. Who said First Person was dead!
Am I thumbing my nose at “branding”? Undoubtedly. But I insist on loving what I’m writing, and variety is most definitely the spice of my life. So don’t be afraid to add a little frankness and spice to your post-Holiday reading. You might find you like it.
Holly Hammond, an independent, sharp-tongued former tavern wench, has reached the pinnacle of her ambition, flying high as a sparkling London courtesan—until she finds herself out on the street, pregnant with twins. Her choices are few: live the false life of a widow in some distant corner of the realm or give up her child. And then, an offer out of the blue. For what might be the highest price ever placed on a courtesan, she is bartered into marriage with a stranger.
Royce Kincade is a stalwart, upright Scottish sea captain who fixes his sight on the prize at the end of the rainbow, giving little thought to such pitfalls as his wife’s determined independence, her babies’ natural father, or the possible outrage of his relatives. Not surprisingly, both Holly and Royce are left to wonder if theirs is a marriage made in Heaven or in Hell.
