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Royal Regard – a book to revisit

rr-memes-10-22-14-5Royal Regard is a five star book. The characters are well drawn, the plot exciting, with many twists and turns, and a building sense of suspense, and the dialogue excellent.

Bella returns from overseas with her elderly husband Myron, who has come home to die after 15 years representing England in many foreign lands. The couple are friends of the recently crowned King George IV. Bella is painfully shy, but has learnt to hide her insecurities behind a mask of competence. Myron and the King are worried about how she will cope as an extremely wealthy widow.

Two dukes woo her, both with ulterior motives. One is a rake with a fear of emotional commitment, and one is a fortune hunter who hides some grim secrets behind a charming facade. Bella must cope not only with the vicious tongues of society’s gossips and her own unpleasant memories of England, but also with the determined assault on her senses of two practised seducers.

Royal Regard gripped me from the first. I particularly enjoyed the interchanges between Bella and her dukes – Marianna Gabrielle writes clever, witty, and thoroughly convincing dialogue. As the rake begins to grow up and realise what Bella means to him, the fortune hunter decides to take decisive action. To avoid spoilers, let me just say that I had to put the book down at that point and wait till I could finish it in one sitting, because I could see that Bella had invited a traitor into her house and I was fast approaching the point where I had to know what happened next.

In the last part of the book, Gabrielle – having resolved the external conflict – is able to zero in on the internal conflict. Both the hero and the heroine grew through their experiences and gave me a satisfying ending that totally convinced.

I have one minor quibble, and it may yet prove to be nothing. The heroine’s brother turns up three quarters of the way through the book and stays for 100 pages before disappearing again. He seemed unnecessary to me. On the other hand, he could be good for a sequel. I did want to know what had happened to him in the years he’d been estranged from his sister, and what would happen to him next, which is a credit to Gabrielle’s deft outline of his character.

So I’ll be watching with interest to see where Gabrielle goes next. Meanwhile, Royal Regard goes in my to-be-read-again pile, for books I’ve enjoyed and want to one day revisit.

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I’ll be home for Christmas

High Country New Zealand - pg208I’ve joined a Facebook event called A Story for Christmas, and I thought you might enjoy the story I’m telling there. It is set at the other end of the 19th Century, and on the other side of the world to my novella and current WIPs. Here’s the first excerpt.

“I’ll be home for Christmas.” That’s what Rick had said, three months ago when he’d left their farm up in the high country. Since then, all Molly had had of him had been his letters. He wrote faithfully every day, and she wrote back, adding to each letter until they ran to pages and pages, and saving them until her monthly trips down into town, when she could collect his fat package and send her own.

Then she would drive the 15 miles home, and–between guiding the tired horse and refereeing the tired squabbling children in the cart behind her–sneak peeks at his precious words.

Sarah, Michael, and Charlotte missed their Papa, but not as much as she did.

“I’ll be home for Christmas,” he finished the entry for each day, as if it was a mantra that, repeated often enough, would come true.

Molly couldn’t understand the goings on in far off Auckland, where lawyers squabbled over which of the competing heirs owned the estate left by Rick’s distant cousin.

“It would be a good thing for us,” Rick insisted. “We could afford servants to help you with the work. We could even move into Christchurch, where you could be near your family.”

She had shaken her head at that. She loved their land. She loved the high still bowl of plains, ringed by mountains with their caps of snow even now as summer crept over the land. Here, sitting on their front verandah on the morning before Christmas, she could look out over the nearby fields where the grain ripened. She couldn’t see the braided river that snaked through the valley, but she could hear it. In Spring, when the snow melted, it roared, but today it used its summer voice, chuckling over the stones.

Their grain. Their hens in the yard, their cows in the small field behind the house with the patient horses, and their sheep dotting the mountainsides all the way up to the snowline.

She couldn’t imagine exchanging the peace of their own farm for the leafy suburbs of Christchurch and the pleasures of colonial society. And she knew Rick loved this farm even more than she.

Inside the house, she could hear the children talking from their bed. She tucked the doll’s dress she was making back into her sewing basket. Time to serve breakfast. As she stood, she looked once more down the valley to where the road came over the pass. And stopped. There, just cresting the hill, was a far off figure.

Molly had laid the table after milking the cow, so there was little to do but ladle out bowls of porridge for the children. She set the rack of sliced bread onto the hot plate to grill. In between spooning mouthfuls of porridge into Charlotte, and batting Michael’s hands away from his bowl when he tried to use them instead of his spoon, she ran three times to the front door to see the traveller, who was closer each time.

Whoever it was–and she’d quickly realised it wasn’t Rick–he was walking. She didn’t think it was one of the Johnson men, either. The figure was not as thick-set, as the neighbours Rick had commissioned to help her with the heavy work and to check on her and the children every few days. And the Johnsons rode across the hill that separated their valley from hers and Rick’s. They didn’t walk.

On her third trip, she watched the traveller disappear below the grain, out of her sight. He would be on her doorstep within ten minutes. She buttered toast for the children, and spread it with jam, listening for the knock on the door.

When it came, it was soft, almost deferential. Even so, a dozen frightening scenarios flitted through her mind as she went to the door. Usually, she was too practical and too busy to worry about being here alone. But she couldn’t remember last time a stranger had come to her door. She opened it wide enough to see the stranger, but kept her hand in place to slam the door if she needed to.

He was thin to the point of gauntness, and his clothes were patched, faded, and frayed at the     edges. A swagman. One of the army of unemployed who walked the roads looking for work, though he was older than most who pursued that life.

“Merry Christmas to the house, Mistress,” he said, with an elegant bow that would not have been out of place at the Mayor’s mansion  in far off Christchurch. His voice, too, surprised. Quiet and husky, with a refined accent directly from Mayfair.

 

Lofty, the drifter, ate with intense concentration, as if he hadn’t seen breakfast in half a lifetime. Then he chopped wood with the same focus, quickly filling the wood stand near the kitchen lean-to.  By the time Molly came to find him for lunch, he had chopped sufficient wood for another month of cooking.

He shook off Molly’s thanks, but she was grateful, anyway. For days, she’d been chopping just enough for each day, waiting for one of the Johnson men to turn up and replenish the wood pile as they’d been promising every time they rode over.

Perhaps he would consider mending the fence that she’d patched? If Daisy the house cow was not such a calm beast, she’d have been out of the field and up into the hills long since. And Daisy’s growing calf was a far less tractable animal. The Johnsons had promised to fix the fence and neuter the bull calf, but always on their next visit, never the current one.

Before long, Lofty was whittling the end of a new fence paling to form a peg that would fit into the post. The two older children were sitting on the rung he’d already finished, listening awestruck to the story he was telling about Christmases he remembered from far away England.

Molly sat within earshot on the verandah. There, she could keep an eye on the children and Charlotte, who was asleep on a blanket at her feet, continue her sewing, and watch the road over the hill for Rick. Surely he would come today?

She was as fascinated as her children by Lofty’s stories. The childhood he remembered was one of privilege and plenty. What path brought him penniless to her door at the other end of his life on the far side of the world?

The Johnson men came thundering down from the hilltop, leaping the fence into the home paddock and out again perilously close to the children.

“Merry Christmas, Mrs Berringshaw,” shouted Mike Johnson, the oldest, his voice startling Charlotte awake. “We just came to see if your husband was home yet.”

“Not yet,” Molly told them. “I expect him today.” Then, to Charlotte, who was inclined to be fretful when woken, “Hush, baby. It is only some horses.”

The three brothers swung down from their horses, Jake and Zeke going to talk to Lofty while Mike came up onto the verandah.

“Mama says you’d better come over for Christmas tomorrow. Looks like your man isn’t going to make it,” Mike said.

“Thank your Mama for me,” Molly told him, firmly. “But the children and I will be having Christmas here. And Rick will be home. He promised.”

I’ll post the next excerpt once I’ve written it.

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Beginning to think about edit for Farewell to Kindness

A_Quiet_Read_by_William_Kay_BlacklockI asked those beta-reading my novel to come back with feedback by the end of December, but I’m already beginning to get some responses. What amazing people those beta readers are. I’m getting lots of affirmation, but also some really useful advice. Thank you so much, you wonderful people.

If I’m to have Farewell to Kindness up by 1 March for pre-orders, I have a great deal to do in January and February–and I just worked out yesterday that Encouraging Prudence will need to go to beta readers in mid-May to give the same kind of timeline. So the pressure is on, and the excellent feedback from the beta readers is going to be really useful in helping me focus my attention in the final edit.

Because I work in a writing business where everything must be peer reviewed before it goes to clients, and because my commercial writing is for people who ‘own’ the content, I’m used to accepting reviews. But serving the criticisms with a healthy dollop of praise certainly helps!

I absolutely love that each reader so far has become engaged enough with the characters to discuss their motivations. And every single one has commented on the death of one of my hero’s buddies in the final showdown.

K.M. Weillard has written a useful post for beta readers and authors. My beta readers so far have not needed any of her tips, bless them, but I’ll certainly follow her pointers for authors.

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Christmas at Avery Hall in the Year of Our Lord 1804

XMASbloghopThe Christmas Season 

(whatever your belief or religion)

 is the time for merry-making and parties…

So come and join some wonderful authors 

(and their characters)

for an Online Virtual Party!

Browse through a variety of Blogs 

(hopping forward to the next one on the list)

for a veritable feast of entertainment!

(And as with any good party, you’ll find a few giveaway prizes along the way!)

BookcoverCCC2Today, I’m officially launching my Christmas novella, Candle’s Christmas Chair. It’s available as a free download from Smashwords. They’ve been distributing to other ebookstores, and I’ll add links as the ebook hits the shelves of Barnes & Noble, Apple, and the rest. (Please note: Amazon insist on a charge of at least 99c, but you can download a mobi file for free from the Smashwords bookstore.) Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy my novella.

 

Now join me in Avery Hall on Twelfth Night, 5th January 1805, and let’s play a few party games

Mary, Lady Avery looked around the large ballroom with great satisfaction. Everyone was enjoying themselves.

At the head table, the Bean King, her son Randall’s guest Lieutenant Beckett, was conducting a game of snapdragon. Randall was currently trying to snatch raisins and almonds with his teeth, ducking his hand in and out of the shallow bowl of burning brandy. Beckett had ordered the candles and lamps doused, and the flickering flames of the snapdragon bowl lit Randall from below, making him look strangely sinister, particularly costumed as he was.

Snapdragon 1887All of the party wore costume of one kind or another, in the character that they’d drawn earlier in the day.

The chant of the other players came to an end, and they cheered Randall’s haul, calling out the silly nickname he’d worn since he was a tall skinny redhead just entering Eton.

“Candle, Candle, Candle!”

Randall gave his place to Miss Petherick, daughter of the local squire, and the chant started again as she darted her hand at the bowl, shying away before the flames could nip her fingers.

This had, perhaps, been the best Christmas ever. In the six weeks since Stir-up Sunday on the 25th of November, when the whole household had gathered in the kitchen to take turns in stirring the Christmas pudding, she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into every Christmas tradition she knew, and embellished them as far as she could.

Twelfth night partyShe and Myron had only had the last three Christmases together in their lifetime. Myron had gone to India before she left the nursery, and in any case, Christmas was never celebrated in her father’s house. It was, in his view, a work day like any other. Partying was frivolity, and decorating was pagan.

The snapdragon game was drawing to a close, and several of Randall’s guardsmen colleagues were pouring wassail for the young ladies. She would have to watch their consumption. She had, herself, enjoyed a warming bowl from the wassailers when they came carolling up to the Hall earlier in the evening. Theirs was based on cider, but Mary was fairly certain that the guardsmen had added brandy to the wine, apples, and spices in the Hall’s wassail bowl.

wassailing1Beckett was ordering that the lamps be relit. Some of the guardsmen did his bidding. After the wassailers and the mummers finished their entertainment, accepted their figgy cake pudding reward, and went on their way, the houseparty had split, with the gentry to the ballroom and the servants to the servants hall. They were enjoying their own Twelfth Night party, around a wassail bowl that was the counterpart to the one in the ballroom.

The young people were organising a game of Blind Man’s Buff. She moved closer to her brother Myron, out of the way of the players. Myron smiled as she came as close as she could without scorching herself. He sat almost on top of the fireplace where the remains of the giant yule log burnt. He said his years in India made him feel the cold, but she feared he was wasting away from the illness that he had not yet admitted to her.

Randall had led the team that brought the yule log in on Christmas Eve. It was Viscount Avery’s job, as head of the household, but her husband had not spent Christmas at Avery Hall for many years. Though this year he had joined them on St Nicholas Day, the 6th of December, and surprised her with a gift of bulbs for her garden. Myron had given her a length of Indian silk, and Randall, still on duty in London, had sent a ring cut in the shape of a rose, and a bottle of rose-scented perfume.

kissing boughIn many houses, the greenery and other decorations went up on Christmas Eve, too. Mary couldn’t wait. As soon as the first O Antiphon was sung, heralding the Christmas Octave, she and the servants dressed the house with evergreen branches, holly, rosemary, ivy, and mistletoe.

Yes, and ribbons and paper flowers, and cut-outs of dolls, and apples and oranges, and candles.

Every available surface was garlanded or framed, and every room had its own kissing bough, most now sadly denuded of mistletoe berries, one taken in payment for each kiss. The males in the household, of high and of low estate, had certainly done their duty this season!

Yes, it had been a wonderful Christmas; the best since Myron returned home three years before. Since Randall and his friends arrived on leave from London, the young men and women of the neighbourhood had flocked to the house every evening, and most afternoons. They had filled this Christmas season with laughter, music, games and dancing.

They had moved onto a game of Courtiers now, with the Bean King and  the Pea Queen making ridiculous gestures, while the rest of the party copied them and tried to keep their faces serious. To laugh was to be disqualified.

Fairfax-xmas-08-18Mary helped herself to a Twelfth Night pie. The food had been wonderful this year. Cook and her team had outdone themselves, filling the tables at every meal with festive dishes, such as goose, Christmas pudding, gingerbread, butter shortbread, trifle, and a whole host of vegetable, meat, and fruit dishes.

All too soon it would be over. Already, some of the parents were making moves towards leaving. And tomorrow, on the Feast of the Epiphany, the greenery would come down, the decorations would be put away, and the last of the yule log would be doused (and carefully saved to rekindle next year’s log). After church tomorrow, and an exchange of Epiphany gifts, Randall and his friends would head back to London and the new year.

Mary wondered what 1805 held for them; for the brave young men and the pretty girls; especially for her dear son.

(To find out what happens to Randall in 1805, please download Candle’s Christmas Chair.)

Thank you for joining my party

now follow on to the next enjoyable entertainment…

  1. Helen Hollick : You are Cordially Invited to a Ball (plus a giveaway prize)
  2. Alison Morton : Saturnalia surprise – a winter party tale  (plus a giveaway prize)
  3. Andrea Zuvich : No Christmas For You! The Holiday Under Cromwell
  4. Ann Swinfen : Christmas 1586 – Burbage’s Company of Players Celebrates
  5. Anna Belfrage :  All I want for Christmas
  6. Carol Cooper : How To Be A Party Animal
  7. Clare Flynn :  A German American Christmas
  8. Debbie Young :  Good Christmas Housekeeping (plus a giveaway prize)
  9. Derek Birks :  The Lord of Misrule – A Medieval Christmas Recipe for Trouble
  10. Edward James : An Accidental Virgin and An Uninvited Guest
  11. Fenella J. Miller : Christmas on the Home Front (plus a giveaway prize)
  12. J. L. Oakley :  Christmas Time in the Mountains 1907 (plus a giveaway prize)
  13. Jude Knight : Christmas at Avery Hall in the Year of Our Lord 1804 (you are here)
  14. Julian Stockwin: Join the Party
  15. Juliet Greenwood : Christmas 1914 on the Home Front (plus a giveaway)
  16. Lauren Johnson :  Farewell Advent, Christmas is come – Early Tudor Festive Feasts
  17. Lindsay Downs: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree (plus a giveaway)
  18. Lucienne Boyce :  A Victory Celebration
  19. Nancy Bilyeau :  Christmas After the Priory (plus a giveaway prize)
  20. Nicola Moxey : The Feast of the Epiphany, 1182
  21. Peter St John:  Dummy’s Birthday
  22. Regina Jeffers : Celebrating a Regency Christmas  (plus a giveaway prize)
  23. Richard Abbott : The Hunt – Feasting at Ugarit
  24. Saralee Etter : Christmas Pudding — Part of the Christmas Feast
  25. Stephen Oram : Living in your dystopia: you need a festival of enhancement… (plus a giveaway prize)
  26. Suzanne Adair : The British Legion Parties Down for Yule 1780 (plus a giveaway prize)

Thank you for joining us and:

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