Nicola Cornick's Blog, page 11

Lord of Scandal and the Cult of Celebrity

Today on the Word Wench blog we are chatting about the cult of celebrity in the Regency era and I am giving away a copy of my “celebrity Regency” book, Lord of Scandal. Please drop by to share with us which personalities of the Regency age interest you and tell us what you think about celebrity! Here’s the link!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Prizes!

Congratulations to Amanda, Hannah and Alexandra who have won copies of Forbidden in the blog contest. Thank you to everyone who shared their favourite reality TV show – or took the hermit pledge! Happy reading, everyone!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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UK release day for Forbidden!

Today is UK release day for Forbidden. Hooray! My final Scandalous Women of the Ton book hits the shelves on this side of the Atlantic at last, published by MIRA UK.  To celebrate Forbidden’s UK debut I am offering 3 copies of the book to readers.  Just leave a comment here on the blog. I am so excited to see it in the supermarkets in its gorgeous UK cover. I’m even more excited that it is going to feature on the Channel 4 reality TV show The Intern hosted by Hilary Devey ofDragon’s Den fame! The programme will be going out at the end of this month and will show the process by which the cover for Forbidden was designed. My only regret is that I wasn’t invited along to watch the filming because I am sure I would have found the whole process fascinating.

To celebrate Forbidden’s UK debut I am offering 3 copies of the book to readers.  Just leave a comment here on the blog. The question – if you were going to be on a reality TV show, which one would you like to feature in and why? Or would you rather become a hermit than ever be on reality TV? Tell me what you  think!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Updates, Books and Prizes!

It’s been a little bit quiet here on the blog over the past 10 days. In fact it’s been quieter than I had intended it to be! My book deadline was brought forward and I have been writing frantically to meet it. Now I have pressed send and the manuscript winging its way to my editor so I have space in my head for other things again – and also time to catch up on jobs like the washing, the ironing, and everything else that gets neglected when I’m on a deadline. (Husband? Dog? It’s lucky they have each other!)

Normally when I write it isn’t so intense. There may be hours or even days when I am so involved in the story that I forget the time or even what day of the week it is. Most of the time though it’s a question of meeting my word count and trying not to get distracted by the internet. Some books are a dream to write. Others are made up of words dragged out of the treacle swamp. But there is something different about those last few days as I race to meet a deadline. I dream about the book or lie awake thinking about it at night. The characters and their conflict consume me.  I simultaneously can’t wait to finish and don’t want to finish. And finally I stagger out looking wrecked and slightly mad. I’m sure I’m not the only writer who does this. I’m hoping it’s not just me.

So now it’s on to announcements and I’m happy to report that Heather, Victoria, Joanne and Denise are the winners of the February and March website contests (yes, I am that far behind!) Congratulations to them and thank you to everyone who entered the contests. You may already have checked out the new contest this month. I think it’s another really nice one, to win a china mug fit for a Queen (it has crowns on it!), a set of Jane Austen themed stamps and one of my backlist books. You can enter the contest here.

Last but not least, tomorrow sees the publication of the UK edition of Forbidden (hurrah!) and an exciting announcement and a giveaway so please check back tomorrow or over the weekend! Have a good day!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Ways of Keeping Warm in the Regency Period!

Today on the Word Wenches I’m blogging about ways to keep warm in the Regency period. Whether it’s by a hot brick for the feet or shared bodily warmth (!) come and tell us your winter warmers!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Blue Sky Thinking

It is officially spring today in the Northern Hemisphere! For the next six months the days will be longer than the nights. Here in the UK, winter has clung on for longer than usual. According to the Met Office, March has been colder than both December and January. There is still snow in Scotland and gale force winds, rain, hail, thunder and every other weather variation you can imagine.

I like stormy weather and I love noticing the differences between the seasons. In books I think a bit of weather can add a lot to the atmosphere the writer is creating. But in real life I’m struggling a bit and still have my UV lamp on in the mornings. This year the cold and the dark does seem to have impacted more than ever on people’s mood as well as their livelihood. It’s hard to avoid.  How many of us have woken up and simply wanted to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to face the day until we are ready? At one time or another all of us have tough patches that we go through and the last few weeks have been very tough for me with a very poorly puppy and various other domestic crises.   So today I am posting a gorgeous blue sky and blossom picture to celebrate the start of spring and wish everyone happy times.

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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This Season at Ashdown House

It’s a while since I blogged about Ashdown House, the National Trust property where I work as a guide and historian. Today I would love to share what has been going on at Ashdown and what we have planned for the season ahead. As many of you know, I feel so lucky to be able to work in such an inspirational historic house and it has many amazing stories to tell.

Although the house has been closed over the winter, there has been plenty going on in Ashdown Virtual World! On the Ashdown Blog we are running an A-Z of fabulous facts about our gorgeous little gem!  Today’s post is about Ashdown’s big sister, Hamstead Marshall Palace, built by William Craven for Elizabeth of Bohemia as a place where she might “live quietly in the country.” You can read all about it here. Ashdown also has a Facebook page here (please “like” us!) and a Twitter account where we post information about other historic houses and snippets of history. We also tweet some gorgeous photos. Please follow us if you enjoy historic buildings and their history! You can find us here. Finally, speaking of photographs, Ashdown also features on Pinterest. You can see our fledgling board here. We’ll be adding interesting pictures to it as we go along. We think it’s nice for people who can’t necessarily come and visit still to be able to share in Ashdown House and its history!

Meanwhile we will be opening for the season on April 3rd and it’s going to be an exciting year. Our conservation work is complete and we can’t wait to show off our beautiful little house to the visitors now that it has been restored to it’s 17th century glory! In the Information Centre we have a new display and we are celebrating our links to Jane Austen with a bit of Georgian and Regency Ashdown history. There is so much to see at Ashdown; not only the house, its portrait collection and its parterre gardens, but the walks through the medieval hunting grounds and of course the atmospheric hillfort of Alfred’s Castle, reputed to be the site where King Alfred gathered his troops before the Battle of Ashdown in AD 871. To those who would like to visit, we can’t wait to show you around and to those too far away, if you would like to keep up with our activities on line we would be delighted to share them with you!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Georgian and Regency Wallpapers

On the Word Wenches today we’re talking about Georgian and Regency wallpapers. Would you paper your home in these styles? And what does our decorating style say about  our character? http://tinyurl.com/avfoz4y

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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On This Day in History

There is a rather nice historical anniversary today. In 1813 a group of professional musicians including Muzio Clementi formed the Philharmonic Society, one of the first permanent orchestras. The Prince Regent was its patron. The Philharmonic Society gave its first concert at the Argyll Rooms, Little Argyll Street on 8th March, performing symphonies by Haydn and Beethoven. You can read about Royal Philharmonic Society history here. It was this society that commissioned Beethoven to write his 9th Symphony and worked with many famous composers of the 19th century. When it was founded it’s aim was “to promote the performance in the most perfect manner possible of the best and most approved instrumental music” and to encourage public appreciation of that music.

It had not occurred to me until recently that in the Regency period you would probably not hear your favourite piece of music more than a few times in your lifetime and indeed until 1813 there was no permanent symphony orchestra that played public performances. I find so much classical music so inspiring that I’m not sure how I would have managed without my regular fix of Beethoven!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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The Scottish Brides Trilogy – Coming Soon!

This month I am so proud and excited to unveil my Scottish Brides trilogy with an excerpt from Book 1, The Lady and the Laird, here! Each book in the Scottish Brides series features one of the MacMorlan sisters and the dashing Regency lairds who steal their hearts. In book 1, Lady Lucy MacMorlan, the youngest of the sisters, inadvertently opens up an old clan feud by sabotaging the betrothal of Robert, Marquis of Methven.  As Lucy has lost him a bride, Robert demands that she become his wife instead and provide the heir that he needs.

It’s been my ambition to write a series of books set in Scotland for years and I can’t quite believe that this is happening at last. Long term readers and visitors to my site will know that I love Scotland and visit as often as possible. Over the next few months I’ll be sharing my favourite historic sites,  lesser known castles and their history, and some pictures of the stunning scenery, and I would love it if you would drop in to visit and chat about Scotland, that most beautiful, romantic and historical of countries. I know there are so many fans of Scotland and Scottish historicals out there. I’ll be talking about some of my favourite books and films and I would love to hear yours. There will also be Scottish themed contests and lots of information about the series on the book pages. So there is going to be quite a tartan theme to the Passion for History blog! Last but not least I’d like to thank all those readers who encouraged me to write a series set in Regency Scotland! Thank you!

©2013 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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