Robin Schone's Blog - Posts Tagged "time-travel"
Awaken, My Love: the beginning . . .
I thought it might be fun to write about my books in the order they were published, and to give you some facts you may not know.
Awaken, My Love was my very first romance. What a rocky road to publication it was! Twenty-eight agents rejected it. One agent wrote that I must study the romance market; a romance book simply could not start with the heroine masturbating! (Read the scandalous opening that evoked such a maelstrom of emotion in "Robin's Writing.")
Well, I persevered. The twenty-ninth agent read it, loved it, and sold it to Avon Books (1995) five days after submission. My Author's Edition was published in 2001 by Kensington Brava. Awaken, My Love is still in print today . . . fourteen years after its original publication (and being told I couldn't start a romance book with a masturbation scene!) . . . and has thus far been published in Germany, Poland, Spain and Taiwan.
Awaken, My Love is somewhat lighter in tone than my later works. It's about a thirty-nine-year-old modern woman who wakes up in the body of a twenty-one-year-old Victorian woman. Elaine doesn't know anything at all about the girl whose body she now possesses, nor does she know anything about the era. One of my favorite scenes is when Elaine starts her period:
“Oh, marm, ye’re hurt!”
Righting herself, Elaine turned a scowling face toward the maid. Fancy Katie noticing she was lame after all this time, she thought caustically. But the maid’s eyes, big as the spindle hole in a floppy disc, were fastened onto the back of Elaine’s gown, not her leg.
Elaine grasped the right side of her nightgown and pulled it forward until the back slid within visual range.
The white silk was smeared and speckled with blood.
Red blood.
Fresh blood.
But where had it come from?
She twisted the gown this way and that. It was stained only in the back. What . . . ?
Elaine’s cheeks flamed with sudden knowledge of the blood’s origin.
“Oh, marm!”
The knowledge, too, had just occurred to Katie.
“Oh, marm!” the maid repeated, sounding utterly astonished that a ‘lady’ was subject to the same physical realities as the lower classes.
Elaine looked down at the maid in budding dismay. Oh, marm, indeed! In this era that didn’t even have toilet paper, what did they use for sanitary napkins?
While I have always revered archeology and palentology, it was this book that gave me an undying love and appreciation for the Victorian era. I was as ignorant as Elaine when it came to what 19th century women used for sanitary purposes. Visiting the Chicago museum, I was informed that women used 'napkins' that they pinned to their drawers. But drawers in those days had no seams in the crotch, so how could they pin anything to them? . . . After perusing dozens and dozens of books about feminine apparel, I came across a reference to sanitary belts. And a little later, a one-sentence reference to sanitary napkins! Thus began an education that continues today. . . .
If you've read Awaken, My Love . . . or even if you haven't! . . . I would love to hear your comments. And please, if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask them: That is the purpose of a blog, to communicate!
Awaken, My Love was my very first romance. What a rocky road to publication it was! Twenty-eight agents rejected it. One agent wrote that I must study the romance market; a romance book simply could not start with the heroine masturbating! (Read the scandalous opening that evoked such a maelstrom of emotion in "Robin's Writing.")
Well, I persevered. The twenty-ninth agent read it, loved it, and sold it to Avon Books (1995) five days after submission. My Author's Edition was published in 2001 by Kensington Brava. Awaken, My Love is still in print today . . . fourteen years after its original publication (and being told I couldn't start a romance book with a masturbation scene!) . . . and has thus far been published in Germany, Poland, Spain and Taiwan.
Awaken, My Love is somewhat lighter in tone than my later works. It's about a thirty-nine-year-old modern woman who wakes up in the body of a twenty-one-year-old Victorian woman. Elaine doesn't know anything at all about the girl whose body she now possesses, nor does she know anything about the era. One of my favorite scenes is when Elaine starts her period:
“Oh, marm, ye’re hurt!”
Righting herself, Elaine turned a scowling face toward the maid. Fancy Katie noticing she was lame after all this time, she thought caustically. But the maid’s eyes, big as the spindle hole in a floppy disc, were fastened onto the back of Elaine’s gown, not her leg.
Elaine grasped the right side of her nightgown and pulled it forward until the back slid within visual range.
The white silk was smeared and speckled with blood.
Red blood.
Fresh blood.
But where had it come from?
She twisted the gown this way and that. It was stained only in the back. What . . . ?
Elaine’s cheeks flamed with sudden knowledge of the blood’s origin.
“Oh, marm!”
The knowledge, too, had just occurred to Katie.
“Oh, marm!” the maid repeated, sounding utterly astonished that a ‘lady’ was subject to the same physical realities as the lower classes.
Elaine looked down at the maid in budding dismay. Oh, marm, indeed! In this era that didn’t even have toilet paper, what did they use for sanitary napkins?
While I have always revered archeology and palentology, it was this book that gave me an undying love and appreciation for the Victorian era. I was as ignorant as Elaine when it came to what 19th century women used for sanitary purposes. Visiting the Chicago museum, I was informed that women used 'napkins' that they pinned to their drawers. But drawers in those days had no seams in the crotch, so how could they pin anything to them? . . . After perusing dozens and dozens of books about feminine apparel, I came across a reference to sanitary belts. And a little later, a one-sentence reference to sanitary napkins! Thus began an education that continues today. . . .
If you've read Awaken, My Love . . . or even if you haven't! . . . I would love to hear your comments. And please, if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask them: That is the purpose of a blog, to communicate!
Awaken, My Love is HERE!
Awaken, My Love is now available in eBook format at Amazon, B&N and Kobo! WITH an intro letter written by moi, which you can read in the sample excerpt chapter at the below sites. At least, I think you can read it at B&N and Kobo. I know you can at Amazon!
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Awaken-My-Love-...
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/awake...
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Awaken...
It seems like yesterday since Awaken, My Love was first published. I'm so excited that it is now available in eBook. And with such a sexy cover! Thank all of you for making this moment possible.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Awaken-My-Love-...
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/awake...
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Awaken...
It seems like yesterday since Awaken, My Love was first published. I'm so excited that it is now available in eBook. And with such a sexy cover! Thank all of you for making this moment possible.
