Maria Yrsa Rönneus's Blog, page 8
July 9, 2021
A New Day
Stress does funny things to our minds. It lurks about in obscure corners and ambushes when you least expect it. I find rain soothing, healing, in its lulling sounds, its scents. There is nothing quite like opening a window first thing when you wake to let in air fresh with rain and roses.
I wish you a lovely Saturday, Dear Reader, where ever you are.
__ATA.cmd.push(function() { __ATA.initDynamicSlot({ id: 'atatags-26942-60e942454f30b', location: 120, formFactor: '001', label: { text: 'Advertisements', }, creative: { reportAd: { text: 'Report this ad', }, privacySettings: { text: 'Privacy', onClick: function() { window.__tcfapi && window.__tcfapi( 'showUi' ); }, } } }); });
July 6, 2021
Covering up
When making a book cover on a zero budget there can be quite a few things to conceal. Such as inferior quality of the elements you’ve used, or the fact that you just had to make do with what you could find. It is often a time consuming task to scour through various sites for free content. And boooooring, Dear Reader, phenomenally boring.
For ‘House of Rose’ I found an image that sparked an idea. As we all know, not all ideas look as good on paper as they do in our heads. As it turned out, my idea didn’t translate well to reality or perhaps I just couldn’t make it the way I wanted it to look. Either way, my first draught for a cover plain sucked. It took some time to identify exactly what was wrong.
Pretty much everything. That insight sparked a long journey meandering through every possible image source trying to find another image that could fit my character Rose. 
Dear Reader, in my desperation, I even looked at expensive stock images. *gasp* But I couldn’t find anything I liked there either. Perhaps luckily, as I couldn’t afford it anyway.
Above is a progression of the cover, an exposé of my near hits and misses. Adding a grunge texture felt cool at first but clearly doesn’t work. It’s not that kind of novel either. But the Liverpol skyline brought the cover from 1930 into 2021 and moving the police tape forward gave a whole new depth. The photo shows the tidal flats off the Merseyside coast, which has significance to the story. But then suddenly the fonts were awkward.
Not only is Rose named for a flower, she owns a flower shop, and so I originally wanted to incorporate roses somewhere. But then, less is often more so I decided against it. Until a friend voiced the same idea. I managed to find a small rose that could be worked with the letters, looking almost like a logo, which works as ‘House of Rose’ is the name of the shop.
A few days always have to pass before I can tell how happy I am with something, a text or an image alike. Dear Reader, I don’t know. What do you think?
To rose, or does a cover without a rose smell as sweet?
With that mental somersault, I wish you a a lovely Tuesday night!
July 3, 2021
All that jazz
Dear Reader, my new series of police romance novellas are set our present, they all have a jazz-age theme one way or other. Since, I began writing them, I have been listening more to 1930’s swing to set the mood and that inspired me to this little verse today.
With that I wish you a swell Saturday night whereever you are!
July 1, 2021
Scouse romance
July brought with it cooler weather and rain! Bliss! The lower temps has brought my brain back to its normal (mal-)function and ideas and projects got a fresh start.
Writing my Regency series, I spend easily four times as much time and energy researching than actually composing text. It is tiresome and sometimes, hitting a dead end, quite disheartening. This happened last month when I tried finding information about voting practises for ‘Offer of Atonement’.
Ideas that have been nagging me for attention for some time, took the opportunity. And now I’m finding myself writing a novella length, contemporary police romance set in Liverpool. It still requires research, but nowhere near the effort that historical accuracy requires.
But fear not, Dear Reader, I have only abandoned ‘Offer of Atonement’ temporarily.
Why Liverpool, you might ask? Well, because I feel attracted to the city, its history, and also I love the accent.
Unknowingly, terrorists play Cupid when Tom, a tactical firearms unit inspector, and Rose, a gardener and jazz singer, impact for the first time.
Here is a sneak peek at the first cover draught:
There are still several things I’m not happy with, and if I can’t tweak it the way I want it, I might just chuck it all and start over.
With that, in a horribly bad attempt as Scouse (yeah, don’t worry, I haven’t written the dialogue in accent):
A’rright, ‘ave a grete dae!
June 10, 2021
Heatwave
‘It is too hot to write’, I complain. I’m flat on my back, fanning myself like the ladies used to. Mine is made out of cheap lace and plastic. Nothing elegant about that.
Lady Marigold sends me an annoyed sideeye. She is pregnant again, yet unfazed by the heat. She snorts.
‘You should have been at Madras in July in the year nineteen.’ No thanks, I think to myself with a prick of compunction. The shit I have made her go through!
Number 5 of Regency Tales will be called ‘Offers of Atonement’, it is intended to be novella lenght and I hope to finish it this fall. No promises mind. It might have been done sooner, but I really don’t fare well with heat and as we’re facing July and August I am not expecting to get a lot done.
On the 28th of June 1819, The Heroine left Kolkata under the command of a Captain Garrick. He also owned the 561 ton vessel which was built at Kolkata in 1817. It only took a few days to sail to Chennai (Madras) but it was a full month before they left for England. I can only assume that it was to await favourable winds and/or currents. As far as I have gathered, the Northern and the Southern Indian monsoon systems sometimes counter-acted.
I have not been able to find out anything more about Captain Garrick, but I have taken the liberty of letting Captain Garrick be an acquaintance of Major Hastings. He and Lady Marigold, their two sons and, of course, Nelson have passage on The Heroine to England. A letter has called them home. But I’m not going to tell you why, that would be giving away too much.
They are not the main characters of ‘Offers of Atonement’, instead it centres around Captain Hartcourt. Lady Marigold is not happy about that, she finds him sleazy and immoral. And perhaps he is, or perhaps sometimes things are not quite what they seem.
Meanwhile, Dear Reader, I’d like to remind you that I just released the fourth novel, ‘Orbits of Attraction’. Lord Giles and Juliet’s relationship is certainly steamy enough to match this summer weather.
With that, Dear Reader, I wish you a happy Thursday!
June 6, 2021
June 3, 2021
The “ton’s” most eligible bachelor
It is a regrettable but inevitable circumstance of historical writing that whenever one inserts fictional characters into a real historical setting, one obliterates or, at least, infringes upon real people and their property.
Should the author for example put in a fictional country estate, whomever owned that land in reality is erased from the story. Should the author instead make use of existing estates, the real owners of it must magically vanish. If my hero is a hussar major, he must steal a real person’s place. It is a fine balance however, not to accidentally roam into alternative or fantasy history-land, which by definition is the opposite of historical accuracy.
Whilst I have few qualms about robbing long since deceased people of their property, it pains me to obliterate the names and honour of those who fought for their countries. Particularly if that name is Major The Hon. Frederick Howard. He was a gallant, young officer of the 10th Hussars who led his men with bravado and skill; during the campaign he wrote lovely letters to his wife and was generally well-liked and respected. But on the dreadful day of 18th June 1815, his, like so many others’, life was cut short on that Belgian field. Lord Byron wrote of him in his ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimages’, and Major Howard deserves to be remembered.
There can only be so many majors in one regiment though; therefore, in ‘Orbits of Attraction’, I am forced to leave his name out. Major Lord Giles Whysleigh, is like Howard a Yorkshire man, but unlike him he survives.
I have tried to reach Lord Whysleigh for an interview, but he is an elusive sort of fellow with little time for the press.
Clever but proud, sincere but too serious, kind to animals but suspicious of people’s motives, he cuts a fine figure for a Regency story hero. He has a strapping constitution and eyes pale like moonbeams. He returns from war having conducted himself with as much dashing courage as ever an Howard and, being the wealthy, second son of a duke, he is immediately a prime target on London’s marriage mart. But Lord Giles Whysleigh is a romantic, and refuses to marry for anything but love.
I hope Major Howard would have approved of him.
With that, Dear Reader, I wish you a happy Thursday!
(images: ‘Rosa x Alba ‘Semiplena’, Wikimedia Commons; Hussar officers, National Army Museum)
June 2, 2021
Wednesday
Skies are overcast and the very first raindrops taps the window as I type. I am a busy bee this morning, toiling by my keyboard.
Happy mid-week, Dear Reader!
(Pictured above is the common brimstone; an indeed common and yellow butterfly in the northern parts of Eurasia and Africa. In Sweden it is the first butterfly to appear every year and a sure sign of spring. Image: pixabay.com)
May 31, 2021
Back to work…
Happy beginning of the week, Dear Reader!
(image: pixabay.com)
May 30, 2021
Summery Sunday
Last day of the Givaway Weekend, Dear Reader. If you haven’t already, make sure to get your free Kindle edition of ‘Oaths of Affection’.
The weather is perfect for lazyily reclining in the shade with a book!
I am sharing my day between the studio and the garden; battling adversarial ants in one and antsy adverbials in the other. Yes, Dear Reader, I have already begun writing on the 5th volume in the Regency Tales series. It is planned to be novella length, but I have not set a deadline for it yet.
With that I wish you a gloriously sunny Sunday whatever you do, whereever you are!
