Loretta Chase's Blog, page 36

Is it done yet?

After the usual frenzy attendant upon my finishing a book, the fifth book of the Carsington trilogy (I know) is now in production.  LAST NIGHT'S SCANDAL follows into adulthood Olivia and Peregrine, the two troublesome children of Book Four, LORD PERFECT. 

The thing with a manuscript is, it keeps coming back, like the undead.  We finish it—we think—and send it to our editors, who send it back

The Bride returns

Let's face it. My brain simply isn't big enough to finish writing a book, blog every other day or so at Two Nerdy History Girls, and blog here, too.

Now, though, I've sent off the copyedited manuscript (more about that later)—and the experience may well provide blog fodder. That leaves me in the stage of staring into space, wondering what the next book will be about.

So here's some news.

News from the 18th & 19th centuries

The Two Nerdy History Girls, Susan Holloway Scott & I, have returned from our latest junket to Colonial Williamsburg, and we're ready to Tell All. You can learn what we learned about 18th-19th c. coaches, clothes, dancing, and other delights. In case you were wondering, our sources' knowledge extends far beyond Colonial America. For one thing, in Colonial times, Americans viewed themselves as

Mystery vocabulary

I just finished re-reading (for about the sixth or tenth or eighteenth time) Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, and am once more overwhelmed by my ignorance. Yes, this was an edition with notes, but no, it was not a Norton Critical Edition (there isn't one, I discovered to my intense annoyance), and whoever wrote the notes took an excessively optimistic view of the average reader's knowledge of

Two Nerdy History Girls debut

You may have noticed the new link under My Other Blog.Susan Holloway Scott & I have joined forces to indulge our historical obsessions.We've been working on it quietly in the background for a while, but finally decided it's time to spring it on an unsuspecting public.Michelle Buonfiglio at Romance B(u)y the Book hosts our launch party.It's not too late to stop by and say something.

Scandalous prints

In Don't Tempt Me, I make frequent mention of satirical prints. These were something like today's editorial cartoons. They were often but not always political. They tended to mock Society, high and low. Most interesting of all, I think, is what the artists got away with. True, the erotic prints tended to be kept under the counter for special customers, but a great deal hung in print shop

Them's fightin' words

A Central Massachusetts columnist today called for civility in the discussion about health care. I, too, would prefer civilized discussions to scream fests, on this and all other topics. I found myself thinking, though, how differently these things were handled a couple of centuries ago. I've been watching, courtesy NetFlix, John Adams. The shouting matches in Congress (and hey, how

Don't Tempt Me still in favor

More good news today. Don't Tempt Me is in its fourth week on the New York Times Mass Market list and the USA Today list.It's gone into a third printing, too.We'll return to our irregularly scheduled blogging soon, but these moments of triumph are all too fleeting in the writerly life, and we want to make the most of them.Readers, THANK YOU!

Me--or at least my cover--in People

Yes, Sarah and Candy have done it again. They've made mathematicians and NPR interviewers read my book. Now they've got it into People magazine. No, I'm not kidding. 3 August 2009 issue. Lord of Scoundrels, in living color. For all the world (the part that reads People, that is) to see.Read it all about it at Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books.

All About Romance Ranks 'Em

Big thanks to all who voted in the recent All About Romance Poll, Favorite Books by Favorite Authors. Don't know if the results will surprise you, but they surprised me.You can view the results here.