Maria Yrsa Rönneus's Blog, page 2

Cover Uncovered

Dear Reader, it’s here! A month before release date, I proudly present the cover for Offers of Atonement! Kindle pre-orders are now open. Offers of Atonement will be out on September 1st.

Yes, Dear Reader, it is a new style. While I still like the old designs and have had many compliments for them, it was time for a revamp. The wisdom of changing cover style in the middle of a series may be questioned but, let me assure you, Dear Reader, that matching covers for the rest of the series are in the works.

You can book your Kindle copy for the US here and for the UK here.

Anyone who enjoys an authentic sounding Georgian story, with the twists and turns of romantic and familial intrigue, will love this novel.
Justine Gilbert – author of Daisy Chain

Read the full review of Offers of Atonement by Justine Gilbert – author of Daisy Chain. Offers of Atonement is the fifth stand-alone novel in the Regency Tales, here is the blurb:

“We shall need a corpse.”

When Captain James Hartcourt’s best friends ask him for an unusual favour, he doesn’t hesitate. Losing fortunes at cards, London’s shady underworld, his mother’s schemes – few things faze him. Until he meets Lady May.

Destitute but determined to retrieve the family estate, Lady May arrives alone in London with a proposition he cannot refuse. She discovers that Captain Hartcourt is a cardsharp with emerald eyes and dangerous kisses, but soon she must wonder whether he is a murderer too.

Mixing the profound with the hilarious in a rare formula, Offers of Atonement, brings the early 19th century to life in vivid colours. This literary, romantic comedy has a gritty twist.

Pre-order your copy to find out if there’s a happy ever after in the cards for Captain Hartcourt after all: for the US here and for the UK here.

With that Dear Reader, I wish you a fab Tuesday!

Twist & Shake

Hello from a sunny Sweden, Dear Reader!

For several hundered years stood Furnival’s Inn opposite the church of Saint Andrew’s in Holborn. Though originating as an Inn of Chancery (offices for judicial clerks) it had, by 1818, been rebuilt and transformed into apartments.

Furnival’s Inn, 1828. T.H. Shepherd, courtesy of British Library.

Here Charles Dickens lived whilst writing his Pickwick Papers, perhaps looking out over the church yard, contemplating his next phrase. He moved away in early 1837, but when he wrote Oliver Twist, his old view stayed with him.

‘Now, young ‘un!’ said Sikes, looking up at the clock of St. Andrew’s Church, ‘hard upon seven! you must step out. Come, don’t lag behind already, Lazy-legs!

In 1820, Dickens’ fame was still a long way off, but when my own character’s travels through London took her to that same spot I couldn’t resist giving a nod to Old Chaz. In this excerpt, Lady May finds herself in a spot of bother.

At the stand near the junction of Red Lion Street and Holborn, the jarvey leered at her.
—‘I don’t take no tarts in me carriage, me.’
—‘How dare you! I am the Baroness Ta…’
—‘Don’t fink so, luv. Goin’ t’a public ‘ouse? Alone? Wif no luggage, like? Nah, yer a tart all right for all them black weeds. Yer ‘Ighness.’ He aimed a generous gob at the street in front of her. Spittle sprinkled the toes of her boots. Laughter from the choir of waiting hackney drivers wedged through the bright Mayday morning like a flock of honking geese. It was hard upon seven! She must hurry, soon the domestics were bound to discover her flight.
—‘Please…’ The pitiful squeak of her plea mortified her equally. Lady May found herself confined by a toothy rim of ugly grins edging closer.

[…]

Emerging from the yard, she recognised the church as St Andrew’s and ran the short distance into Holborn. Leaning on the corner to catch her breath, she glanced up at the church tower as the bell ding-donged the half hour.

© M Y Rönneus 2023

St Andrew’s Church, Holborn in 1804 by Frederick Christian Lewis

Offers of Atonement will be out on September 1st. Meanwhile, you can find the first four novels here.

With that, Dear Reader, I leave you to enjoy your Sunday, where ever you are!

 

Sunday Squash

Dear Reader, the fifth part of the Regency Tales series, Offers of Atonement, is a story of finding love certainly, but it’s also a story of challenging one’s prejudices, of letting go of past wounds, and of building new beginnings.

Lady May, the female lead of Offers of Atonement, has a habit of telling little anecdotes from her village in Herefordshire. In this excerpt, Captain Hartcourt has just apologised for behaving badly.

—‘It is forgot’, she interrupted. ‘A lapse of judgment might happen to anybody, even good men… or women. Why, take the Widow Greene for instance! For years, she and Isidor Bray grew vegetables in neighbourly rivalry. One year, he won first prize at the Michaelmas Fair for his giant turnip; the next, it was her turn to be awarded for her cucumbers. So it went, until last year when Farmer Bray had got his hands on seeds of an uncommon gourd, a new variety of vegetable marrow, as he called it. Oh, what fuss he made over that plant nursing it! Watering it constantly, feeding it only manure from his best bull, tucking straw beneath it so that it would not be soiled… But, although he bragged to all and sundry of its development, of how large and plump it was, he would not let anybody see it. In boasting that the year’s coveted prize was as good as his, he so taunted poor Iris Greene that she was quite driven to distraction. Now, the thing is that the good widow has a taste for gin…’ Blue-grey amusement glittered as she told the story. ‘Takes “a drop” for her sore tooth, as she puts it. At any rate, one night when her tooth must have been particularly painful, she made her way into Mr Bray’s patch, determined to have a look at the infamous vegetable. And what do you think? She stumbled on a rake, dropped her lantern, the straw was set ablaze and the marrow… was cooked!’ Her laugh was contagious and he found himself chuckling with her.
—‘I suppose you shall go on to tell me that the Great Marrow Cooking was the spark of a feud between families?’
—‘What? No! Not at all, they were married within three months.’

© M Y Rönneus 2023

 Offers of Atonement releases on September 1st. Meanwhile, watch the trailer and have a fabulous Sunday, where ever you are!

 

Sunday Stargazing

Dear Reader,

July has turned out to be very wet here in northern Europe, blissfully relieving the drought of June. By contrast, the summer of 1818 was very hot and, in Orbits of Attraction (Regency Tales 4), Juliet and her family spend it at their country seat in Worcestershire. Bredon Hill was made famous by A. E. Houseman’s lines in A Shropshire Lad.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The elegant and idle of the 19th century would often defer their exercise until the cooler evenings like here in Orbits of Attraction:

One of those balmy evenings, they undertook an excursion to the top of Bredon Hill. Juliet and Lord Giles brought a telescope on a tripod, and Lysander his easel. Lord Peter carried a basket of wine and light fare; the earl had brought blankets. In the wide, starry prospect, the hilly landscape stretched before them to the end of the world. At the edge of the rampart of an ancient fortification, a tower painted a black square on the light summer’s night sky. The earl scoffed at it.
—‘Old Parsons over at Kemerton Court had it built, there is another one over on Broadway Hill. Perhaps I ought to have erected a similar atrocity, but I daresay there aren’t hills enough for all of man’s folly.’
—‘I find it a good idea, it should make a splendid observatory.’ Juliet objected. ‘Shame that we should have not keys for it!’
—‘On a night like this, my dear, one cannot come closer to heaven.’ The earl drank greedily from the fragrant air of honeysuckle and newly mowed hay.
—‘Hear, hear!’ Lord Giles’s murmur caressed Juliet’s ear.

The evening was too warm and bright for a fire, but the earl wrapped himself in a thick, woollen blanket before sitting down on a small, folding stool. Elegantly resting on one elbow on the outspread blankets as he deliberately picked and devoured one juicy grape after another off a cluster, Lord Peter managed to look the flamboyant dandy. Lysander sketched and told them anecdotes, tales, and fibs in a curious mix to everybody’s amusement. Lord Giles and Juliet neglected the telescope in favour of not-so-secretly stolen kisses.

Tu-whit, tu-who, an owl loudly protested Lysander’s latest statement.
–‘A merry note!’, remarked Lysander, ‘Your health, good Owl!’ He raised his mug toward the sound and drank.
—‘This song is well sung, I make you a vow, and he is a knave that drinketh now…’ Juliet sang teasingly.
—‘Oh fie!’, cried Lysander, laughing and choking on his drink.
—‘Of all the birds that ever I see, the owl is the fairest in her degree…’ Lord Peter’s vibrant tenor began.
—‘…for all the day long she sits in a tree…’ Lord Giles’s baritone joined in.
—‘…and when the night comes, away flies she…’ Half laughter, half song, Juliet beamed at the two Whysleigh brothers.
—‘Te-whit, te-whow…’ The earl grinned. Good sport that he was, Lysander came to his feet, in chorus with the others:
—‘Te-whit, te-whow, this song is well sung, I make you a vow, and he is a knave that drinketh now…’ The other three young people rose to romp about, drinks in their hands, making cavorting silhouettes on the universe’s canvas.
—‘Nose, nose, nose, nose, who gave thee that jolly red nose? Cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and cloves, and that gave me my jolly red nose!’ Lord Giles caught Juliet about the waist and nuzzled her nose.
—‘Of all the birds that ever I see, the owl is the fairest in her degree…’ In unison, they all began anew.
—‘Te-whit, te-whow…’ The earl clapped his hands in time to the tune, accompanied by the crickets’ incessant chirring. Lord Peter bowed to Lysander, who curtsied with spurious demureness. Lord Peter grasped his old lieutenant and twirled him about.
—‘…and he is a knave that drinketh now…’
—‘Your health!’
—‘Santé!’
Peals of glee rang out from Bredon Hill as they drank each other’s toasts.

(Images: Wikimedia)

They’re singing an old folksong published in ‘Deuteromelia, Or, The Second Part of Musicks Melodie’, T. Ravenscroft (1609) called ‘Of all the birds’ also known as ‘The Owl’.

I hope you enjoyed this little excerpt and with that, Dear Reader, I hope the rest of your Sunday will be a hoot.

I’ll show myself out, shall I?

ARC review

Dear Reader,

I am proud to announce that Offers of Atonement will be released on September 1st. It’s the fifth stand-alone novel in my Regency Tales series and you’ll meet both new characters and reconnect with some old friends. Captain James Hartcourt is a cardsharp who has to juggle an unusal request from a friend, a scheming mother, crushing anxiety, and a woman who turns everything topsy-turvy.

The completed MS for Offers Of Atonement is currently doing ARC rounds and the first review is in. Justine Gilbert, author of ‘Daisy Chain’, gives it 5 stars!

5 stars. Maria Ronneus’ latest book, Offers of Atonement, is a great regency romp. I’m new to this author and found myself in a world that combined the epistolary sensibilities of Jane Austen and the steaminess of Bridgerton, with unexpected pockets of humour straight out of Bridget Jones. At the same time, this author knows her history. There was plenty of wonderful period detail – the descriptions of food and clothing, buildings and transport were superb; and the dialogue was full of zingy chatter complete with realistic dialects and curses. (I especially like the butler, Fitch, otherwise known as Filth, who was thankfully restored to more salubrious living by the feisty heroine.) Anyone who enjoys an authentic sounding Georgian story, with the twists and turns of romantic and familial intrigue, will love this novel.

Dear Reader, isn’t that just a smashing review? I am so thrilled!

And with that, Dear Reader, I say goodbye from a very rainy Sweden and leave you to learn more about the lovely Justine Gilbert and her wonderful book – ‘Daisy Chain’, which gives an inside look at the presidency of FDR.

Happy Wednesday where ever you are!

 

Lines

Dear Reader, we’ve been blessed with fantastic weather this past week. As cheesy as that may sound, this really is my favourite time of year. I don’t mean the Holidays as much as I mean winter. With freezing temps come blue skies, sunlight, and long, blue shadows on glistening snow. Taking daily walks has reenergized and inspired me and, better still, straightened out my story line.

Apropos lines, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the opening line should be a pithy and engaging one to hook a reader. Like a trap that snaps shut the instant eyeballs hit the page. With this, Dear Reader, I don’t have a quarrel, but there seems to be a rigorous set of “rules” concerning the opening paragraph, most of which I am blissfully unaware.

I skulk around various writer’s haunts (feeling at home in the annals of creative angst) and every so often people post opening lines for feedback. Starved for excuses to procrastinate (or perhaps that is just me projecting) the community flock to pick over the sentences down to the bare bone. It’s interesting, educational, and, sometimes, fun to read and partake.

But. I often think that there are too many rules. “Always do this, never do that.” “Avoid passive voice and adverbs. No prologues. Don’t use too many descriptors. Always start with an action, always name the main character in the first sentence” etc. The list is endless and I can’t even remember them all.

Structure is good but it often seems as though anything that doesn’t conform to the rather arbitrary template is branded wrong or bad writing. And that I do have a quarrel with. The notion that endlessly repeating what others have done before should somehow be better than creating an original text in one’s own voice is absurd. And horrifying. Because sacrificing the original for the formulaic equals the death of art.

Purporters of these rules will say that it’s because it makes texts more commercially viable, they’ll sell better. Well, they’re wrong.

Here’s a list of opening lines for a random selection of bestselling novels – some of our best beloved stories – from different eras, none of which would cut it according to all those rules.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. – The Great Gatsby



It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. – Pride & Prejudice

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. – Great Expectations


There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. – Jane Eyre

I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. – Wuthering Heights

“TOM!”
No answer.
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer. – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Mrs Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. – Anne of Green Gables

Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway. At 0627 hours on January 1 1975 Alfred Archibald Jones was dressed in cordroy and sat in a fume-filled Cavalier Musketeer Estate facedown on the steering wheel, hoping the judgment would not be to heavy upon him. – White Teeth

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone



Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. – No1 Ladies ‘ Detective Agency



We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. – A Handmaid’s Tale

I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall. – Behind the Scenes at the Museum



The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. – A Song of Fire and Ice, book 1



A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. –Of Mice and Men



In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part… –The Colour of Magic



Who am I? And how I wonder will this story end? The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. – The Notebook



There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire. And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it. – Stardust



Prologue: The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had bought. –The Alchemist


My mother did not tell me they were coming. Afterwards she said she did not want me to appear nervous. – Girl with a pearl earring

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. – The Kite Runner



Prologue: France was falling. Burned-out cars, once strapped high with treasured possessions, were nosed crazily into ditches. – A Woman Of No Importance

In addition, I can mention that The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic starts with a transcribed letter from the MC’s bank.
 Bridget Jones Diary starts with a list of the MC’s New Year resolutions.
 Carrie starts with a rather dry newspaper article.

If those aren’t commercially successful novels, I know not what. Dear Reader, those “rules” are mostly nonsense.

For my own work, four of five published novels have prologues. And I am sure that the opening lines break most, if not all, of these rules.

The sound wriggled and burnt its way through his veins. The laughter was so genuine; so completely uninhibited an expression of sheer, heartfelt joy. – Oaths of Affection (too wordy)

When Simmons entered the breakfast room carrying the first post, happy rays of April sun reflected in the silver tray. A thick and battered envelope stood out from the rest. – Orient of Adoration (don’t start by introducing a minor character or readers will get confused, too passive, too wordy)

Lady Haversham’s ball was, as always, to be the talk of the town: providing ample fodder for gossip columns and tattle over afternoon tea. – Odyssey of Attachment (don’t start by introducing a minor character or readers will get confused, too passive, too wordy)

Juliet cursed her face. Glaring at her reflection in the dressing-table’s looking-glass, she slapped her gloves onto the desk-top. – Orbits of Attraction (don’t begin with a character looking in the mirror, clichée)

Cars swooshed by but Rose hardly noticed the sirens. St Nicholas Hospital had hired her to plant seasonal flowers in the little park but what should have been an easy job was frustrated by a stubborn carpet of ground elder. – House of Rose (infodump, too wordy)

This is not to say that there couldn’t be improvements, but a writer’s first job is to tell a story whilst being true to their own voice. There is no one formula that will make all readers like your writing, there will always be those that think your text is shit.

“Call me Ishmael.” It’s one of the most famous and acclaimed opening lines. Yet, if I hadn’t been forced to read Moby Dick in school, I would never have made it past that sentence. My brain says ‘Why? Why should I call you anything? Just eff off!’

The point, Dear Reader, is that listening to advice from trusted betas or editors is healthy writing practice but trying to limit yourself and your expression by squeezing into somebody else’s box of preferences is not.

Write your story, your way, in your voice.

And with that, Dear Reader, I leave you to ponder your next opening line on this very fine Monday!

 

Of Fools and Pineapples

Dear Reader, I woke to a Monday dusted with snow and I huddle up with coffee and the lovely blanket that my friend Amy over at Crochet Hon made for me, whilst adding the finishing touches to a dystopian cover I’m making for a client.

Hubby is making scones and scents of orange marmalade on newly baked bread invade every nook and cranny. Good food is central to human well being, and it’s also something that I allow a great deal of space for in my novels. I scour through 18th and 19th century cook books, drooling at some of the recipes, being repulsed by others.

Here’s an original recipe from ‘The Accomplisht Cook’ , R. May (1660) for Norfolk fool that I served my characters in ‘Oaths of Affection’.

To make a Norfolk Fool.

Take a quart of good thick sweet cream, and set it a boiling in a clean scoured skillet, with some large mace and whole cinamon; then having boil’d a warm or two take the yolks of five or six eggs dissolved and put to it, being taken from the fire, then take out the cinamon and mace; the cream being pretty thick, slice a fine manchet into thin slices, as much as will cover the bottom of the dish, pour on the cream on them, and more bread, some two or three times till the dish be full, then trim the dish side with fine carved sippets, and stick it with slic’t dates, scrape on sugar, and cast on red and white biskets.

Personally, I much rather eat than cook, but maybe I can persuade hubby to make it. Maybe I can bribe him with a poem… or perhaps the promise of not writing one will be more effective.

Dear Reader, I am sure you can tell what an accomplished writer I am by the rhyme I made the other day: “Honey, honey, little fart, you are so dear to my heart…”

Hubby wasn’t impressed. What? It was cute!
No? Well, here’s a haiku instead then.

Have a wonderful start of the week where ever you are.

Go team pineapple!

Scraps

It’s the first really cold day this winter and the sun twinkles in the frost that has decorated our garden just in time for the festive season. My husband toils outside to bring in the last of the containers and to clear out the wilted tomato jungle from the greenhouse. Snug in my studio, armed with coffee and a backspace key, I am ceasing my 90K beast by the adverbs.

Yes, Dear Reader, it is editing time. Obviously, I’m procrastinating. So here’s a poem.

(Photo: pixabay)

Editing is the most boring task in the writing process in my opinion. Not only tedious, if feels counter-intuitive to delete all those lovely words that you laboured to write.

There are tons of rules that are claimed to apply to writing. “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” I don’t really pay much attention, I think that to much focus on rules might be the trees to stop you from seeing the forest.
And it’s not the massive word count that’s the main reason my novel needs pruning, it’s that scenes that balloon out of proportion do not carry the story forward. It’s time to ruthlessly kill off all unnecessary literary darlings!

With the Dear Reader, I wish you a Sunday when all your necessary darlings will thrive!

Saturday Snow

The first flakes of the season sink through the air as I try to convince myself of the fun in editing a 90K behemoth. Yes, Dear Reader, I am speaking of my upcoming novel ‘Offers of Atonement’, the fifth of my Regency Tales. Which is not to say that it’s done, far from in fact – hence the need of pruning. This story tends to go on and on and swell beyond all proportion but it doesn’t seem to ever get anywhere. I confess, Dear Reader, that I am heartily sick of it. That of course, is part of my normal process and I really hope I will be done with this soon as I have so many other ideas that itch to start on.

In other news, I am happy to now be able to offer ready-made ebook covers in addition to the commissioned ones. It is an easy way to get a unique cover for your book at a lower price. I will add your custom text to a fixed design and I will never sell your cover to anybody else.

These and others are available at € or US$39 each. To order, drop me a line at arsronnei@protonmail.com or on Facebook, stating which cover you’re interested in and what text you’d like. You will get a preview of what it will look like with your text on and when you approve it, you pay me through paypal.

It’s already stopped snowing and the lawn is just as green as it was. There goes my plan to use snow shovelling as an excuse to get out of editing.

With that, Dear Reader, I wish you a fantastic Saturday, where ever you are!

Monday Mood

Good morning, Dear Reader. Have you ever found yourself involved in too many projects at once? I bet that you have and that you know exactly how all these projects then niggle and tug at you for time and attention. Skipping between various projects, trying to do everything at once, often leads to none getting the considered focus it neeeds.

Now, I loathe haphazard, slipshod work so today, Dear Reader, I shall finish off something. I don’t know what yet, but at least one thing shall be checked off my list.

Here is a poem from this summer about resolve – fresh and fragrant.

With that Dear Reader, I wish you happy Monday and a brilliant start of the week!