Joy Lynn Fielding's Blog, page 12

Sizzling Summer Reads Party

I hope everyone’s enjoying the party over at The Romance Reviews. For those who are here looking for the answer to the Changing Gear Q&A, there’s more information about the book under the Books tab. Good luck all!

Publication date for ‘A Gilded Cage’

A Gilded Cage, the sequel to Carnevale, is due to be released by Siren on August 27th. I don’t want to say any more about its contents yet, as to do so would give away what happens in the first book, released on July 30th.

Instead I will mention that I am currently in the midst of a completely different style of book. It’s a contemporary paranormal, involving gay cowboy shifters. And that’s a sentence I never expected to write. I’m not quite sure where the inspiration for this one came from; I was contemplating taking a break from 1790s Venice and writing something a little less formal, and my brain was suddenly taken over by an argumentative shifter and his reluctant mate, who would not rest until I’d written their story.

So if werewolves suddenly turn up in Venice, or a cantankerous shifter starts wearing silk knee breeches and speaking in full sentences, you’ll know I’ve got myself a little confused.

Sizzling Summer Reads party in June – prizes to be won!

From 1-30th June over at The Romance Reviews, there are games to play and prizes galore to be won, including gift certificates and books. Click on the poster below to reach the site, and come and join the fun! (You will need to be registered and logged in in order to play and be entered for prizes.)

A new book, and gondoliers.

While research into eighteenth century Venice was fun for its own sake, I’m delighted that Siren BookStrand have accepted the novella for which it was undertaken. Titled Carnevale, it’s due to be published on July 30th, and follows the fortunes of Peregrine (Perry) Sinclair, an English gentleman visiting Venice as part of his Grand Tour.

I’m in the midst of the sequel to Carnevale at the moment. Continued reading around the subject of Venice led me to John Addington Symonds’ memoirs. They’re interesting in their own right, but I was particularly struck by his love affair with Angelo Fusato, a gondolier. Symonds was fascinated by Angelo from the moment he first laid eyes on him:

The image of the marvellous being I had seen for those few minutes on the Lido burned itself into my brain and kept me waking all the next night. I did not even know his name; but I knew where his master lived. In the morning I rose from my bed unrefreshed, haunted by the vision which seemed to grow in definiteness and to coruscate with phosphorescent fire. A trifle which occurred that day made me feel that my fate could not be resisted, and also allowed me to suspect that the man himself was not unapproachable. Another night of storm and longing followed. I kept wrestling with the anguish of unutterable things, in the deep darkness of the valley of vain desire — soothing my smarting sense of the impossible with idle pictures of what it would be to share the life of this superb being in some lawful and simple fashion.

In these waking dreams I was at one time a woman whom he loved, at another a companion in his trade — always somebody and something utterly different from myself; and as each distracting fancy faded in the void of fact and desert of reality, I writhed in the clutches of chimaera, thirsted before the tempting phantasmagoria of Maya. My good sense rebelled, and told me that I was morally a fool and legally a criminal. But the love of the impossible rises victorious after each fall given it by sober sense.

I would love to know what trifle occurred that made Symonds think Angelo might not be unapproachable! The following day, Symonds learned Angelo’s name and arranged to meet him. Symonds expressed his surprise at Angelos’ willingness to do so, for he was not then aware that gondoliers were accustomed to selling their sexual services. And they retired to Symonds’ bed together:

I am not dreaming. He was surely here
And sat beside me on this hard low bed;
For we had wine before us, and I said —
"Take gold: 'twill furnish forth some better cheer".
He was all clothed in white; a gondolier;
White trousers, white straw hat upon his head,
A cream-white shirt loose-buttoned, a silk thread
Slung with a charm about his throat so clear.
Yes, he was here. Our four hands, laughing, made
Brief havoc of his belt, shirt, trousers, shoes:
Till, mother-naked, white as lilies, laid
There on the counterpane, he bade me use
Even as I willed his body. But Love forbade —
Love cried, "Less than Love's best thou shalt refuse!"

I have wanted for some time to write the love story of two of the secondary characters in Carnevale, a Venetian nobleman and his gondolier. Having read this, and also about the shenanigans of Lord Byron’s “muscular young gondolier”, I think that wish is fast becoming a necessity.

The rabbit holes of research

One of my favourite parts of writing is research, because I never know where it’s going to take me. In the last two months, I’ve gone from reading up on the choke settings on a V8 engine to watching the volleyball scene from Top Gun—that was really and truly in the name of research—and reading about prostitution in Renaissance Florence.

Fun facts I’ve discovered when researching Venice for my current work in progress:

In the fifteenth century, city authorities in Florence became so alarmed by the predilections shared by so many of their young men that they built municipal brothels for female prostitutes specifically to lure young men away from homosexual acts.


In the fourteenth century, a young Turkish acrobat is said to have walked along a rope from a boat moored in front of San Marco piazza all the way to the belfry of the church belltower. This feat was commemorated in later years by others who emulated his feat, their ascents and descents often, though not always, assisted by ropes and winches. One year, a man managed this feat seated on a horse. I still can’t get my head around (a) how, and (b) what the poor horse thought of it.


Because of carnivals and other festivals, it was possible to go about Venice in disguise for more than six months of each year.


Venice was so jealous of its trade secrets that its glass blowers were forbidden from talking to outsiders (so just how is my English hero going to get his glass sex toy made?).


Lord Byron took on William Fletcher as a valet after seeing him ploughing a field (because obviously that was a really good way of determining his likely valeting skills). Fletcher’s later duties included rubbing Byron down after exercise.

I’d love to hear what interesting facts others have come across, either in research or when reading.

Coming soon

Changing Gear is due to be published by Siren-BookStrand on April 13th, 2013. It’s an angsty m/m/m with classic cars and dirty business dealings. Oh, and sex. Lots of sex.