Come Be My Pen Pal

Hello, dear readers! 

I greet you for the last time from this blogspot because I am moving my book news, book recommendations/reviews, research tidbits, and so on to my monthly reader newsletter. Hope you will join me there.

To subscribe, click HERE and enter your email address. Once you confirm, you'll be whisked off to BookFunnel, where you can download a Kindle copy of A Fair Judge, a Hapgoods of Bramleigh novella! (Even if you don't own a Kindle, you will be able to read on the Kindle app on your phone or tablet or desktop.)

Hope to hear from you soon!

Christina

The Countdown for THE PURLOINED PORTRAIT is on!

Book Five in the Hapgoods of Bramleigh series drops Friday, March 18, 2022, a day when I will be distracting myself by going on a little road trip with my mom down to pick up my son for his spring break! If you would like to pre-order your Kindle copy, please click here. Paper copies will be up around the same date, but there isn't any pre-order option for paper, unfortunately.

The Purloined Portrait tells the story of Edith Hapgood's journey to becoming an artist, with the devoted support of her family, including her cousin Lionel. Like the course of true love, the course of becoming an artist doesn't run smoothly either, but that makes for all the fun.

Speaking of art, take a moment to admire my cover designer Kathy Campbell's work. She has taken up portrait painting(!) and offered to do some hand-painting on Lionel's coat here, because the original painting was rather flat. I am so, so amazed by and grateful for her work.

I am drawing near the end of this series I've loved writing. I know I've lived with these characters in my head for the past several years, but a couple readers mentioned wishing there were a family tree or character list in the last book Matchless Margaret. Readers, I have listened! In The Purloined Portrait I've included a couple family trees. This one of the squire's family, for example:

There will be one more book in the series, cousin Hetty's story (of which I'm currently on Chapter 4), and then I'm already kicking around ideas for the next.

In researching Edith's story, I plunged into her contemporary art scene and would love to do a little art viewing as a book launch. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here is one very famous portrait of Napoleon that gets mentioned in the book as a resemblance to one of the main characters:

David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)

Who knew marauding conquerors with dreams of empire could sometimes be dishy? (The ones we have today don't have the option of controlling and projecting their desired image with the help of talented artists like Jacques-Louis David.) 

Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose encouraged me to make more efforts to market and reach readers, so I've been experimenting with Amazon ads and such. All marketers seem to agree email lists are key, so I can tell readers about launches and giveaways and promotions and such. Message received! If you'd like to join my email list, sign up with this QR code. My first book promotion is coming end of March!

Cover Reveal for Matchless Margaret! Pre-Order Now

 

Whose "fine eyes" are these?

Dear readers, I'm happy to announce Matchless Margaret is just about finalized, and I've set her up for pre-order on Amazon! There will be both Kindle and paperback versions, and I managed to get Matchless Margaret down to 99,000 words so that you won't feel like you've committed to War and Peace.

Matchless Margaret's birthday will be Thursday, November 4, 2021, and, as promised, we will celebrate with a tea party and walk through early 19th century Bath in person (and over Zoom) on November 20. More on that later.

If you haven't gotten around to starting my traditional Regency romance series, the kickoff book The Naturalist is going to be a mere $0.99 on Kindle this weekend! (Or read it as part of your Kindle Unlimited subscription.)

Just $0.99 on Kindle (10/21-24)!

Matchless Margaret is the fourth book in the series, but they all work as standalones, too, so don't be daunted. It just adds to the fun to know everyone's story and to see people at different points in their lives.

All righty. On to the cover reveal! My designer Kathy Campbell did her usual impeccable work, combining the lovely person of Elizabeth McEuen Smith and a period illustration of Milsom Street to create this wonderful book cover:

Won't you join her in Bath this winter?

Pre-order now by clicking here! And thank you for your faithful readership.

Margaret on Milsom Street

Oh, happy day, I have finished the rough draft of the next installment of my Hapgoods of Bramleigh series! Four years have passed since the events of the first three books (because I can't marry Margaret off at age 15-16), but only one year in my writing time, which must be something of a record for me. This is what a nearly-empty nest and COVID remoteness have done for me! Cover design for Matchless Margaret is underway, and I'm starting to kick around launch plans.

But first,

Question: What do I, as an author, have in common with J. K. Rowling?

If you answered mind-boggling book sales; untold wealth; side hustles of amusement parks, movie adaptations and merchandise; or red hair, you're wrong.

Correct Answer: My books get longer and longer.

Yes, folks, so far Margaret's story is clocking in at 115,838 words, which is about 25,000 words longer than School for Love, which was longer than A Very Plain Young Man, which was a whopping 25,000 words longer than The Naturalist. In brief:

Margaret............................115,838

School.................................93,121

Young Man.........................91,805

Naturalist............................66,263

However, unlike Rowling, I am putting out my own books and really cannot afford to be so prolix when the word count determines how many pages the paper book will be and how wide the spine and how much the darned thing will cost to print. (If I could get all my readers to move to Kindle or reading on their phones/tablets, I could give Gone With the Wind a run for its word-count money if I felt like it, but not so with physical books.)

I love Margaret's story. I hate to think of cutting any of it, so I'm giving myself a couple days to let it sit before I start hacking away. Maybe I'll even keep a copy of the original for my e-book readers who might be interested in the "director's cut" later--although I've often thought director's cuts aren't as good as the theater versions. It never hurts writing to be gone over and gone over and pared down for economy and elegance.

While I ponder, I've been drinking my "Jane Austen Blend" tea that I bought in Carmel (delicious) at the charming Jane Austen at Home shop.

Speaking of Jane Austen at Home, I've also been re-reading Lucy Worsley's bio of Amazing Jane that happens to have the same title.

I actually have no memory of having read it before, but Goodreads tells me I gave it a star rating in 2017, and Goodreads never lies.

Much of Matchless Margaret takes place in the beautiful city of Bath, England, and the husband and I had planned to visit again this fall on an empty-nest, hooray-COVID-is-over trip. I'd even picked out the hotel I wanted to stay this time, just a hop, skip, and a jump from where Margaret lodges in Henrietta Street. 

[Pardon me while I weep a little while...]

Well, as long as the U.S. requires a (negative) COVID test before flying home, this trip is off the table. We both work, and his is the kind of job (pastor) that does not allow him to get stuck in foreign countries for weeks at a time. 

Which makes me think that, when I launch Margaret on the world, the launch parties (both the in-person one and the Zoom one) will include a virtual "walk through early 19th century Bath"! After I've spent all that time poring over old maps and peering at old engravings and reading excerpts from odd little random books, I'm taking you readers with me.

So mark your calendars for sometime in November or January and we'll go for a stroll on Milsom Street:

and grab tea and a scone at the Pump Room:

More to come. Thank you, dear readers.

Indulge Your Valentines with Book-and-Tea Pairings

 

In this season where we can't all be together, what better gifts to show your love than a book and a cup of tea? The combination spells c-o-m-f-o-r-t to me, and, while I don't want to discourage you from also purchasing some quality dark chocolate, let's be honest--we've probably all been eating more chocolate than is good for us lately. Those COVID pounds don't gain themselves.

For some months now, my oldest daughter has been working at the Queen Mary Tea Emporium in Seattle, which is a dangerous place for me to spend time because I invariably come home with new flavors to try. The girls and I already had a yearly tradition where we would go for high tea, and, in fact, it was the last "normal" outing we had before everything shut down last year.

Seriously, we need to make this happen again

Because the tea room itself is so cozy (besides being darling and delicious), it has been closed this whole time. Opening at 25% capacity wouldn't allow enough customers to make business sense, but they hope to re-open as restrictions loosen. In order to do this, the Queen Mary Tea Room needs our help! You can donate to their GoFundMe account, or you could also just buy yourself and your loved ones some of the most tasty tea you will ever encounter. They ship all over the country! To help you help yourself, I've suggested some tea pairings with some of my latest favorite reads below!

For the Valentine who could use a mental getaway...

This is the first book in the delightful trilogy that inspired The Durrells in Corfu. Take my book snob warning, though--once you've read the books, you can never go back. Apart from the great scenery and the characters' names in the TV show, the show has little to do with the books, and the books are in every way superior. Both lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny. Having transplanted themselves from England, with its dreary (Seattle-like) weather, the Durrells escape to paradise. But no matter what adventures they are having with the Corfu natives or with Corfu fauna, they and the other British expats never fail to stop in the afternoon for tea.

In honor of little Gerry's obsession with the island animals and insects, I would pair this book with Queen Mary's Golden Monkey tea, the first Queen Mary Tea I ever tasted and still one of my very favorites, for its lovely caramel-y notes.

For the Valentine who loves London and a good mystery...

And by this I mean the whole series of mysteries not-so-secretly written by J. K. Rowling. They're great fun, and you can follow Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott all through the neighborhoods of London on Google Maps, if you like, because Rowling grounds them in a contemporary London as real as that of Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. These are also fun if you like a little romantic tension in your books, because the two detectives have it in spades. Like the Durrells in Corfu, Strike and Robin are always heating up the kettle for a cup of tea, and Robin knows that Strike prefers his "like creosote"-- dark, dark, dark, with no cream or sugar.

While I suspect Strike brews his tea beyond the 3.5 minutes recommended by Queen Mary (maybe because he has inferior tea), I think he would enjoy a favorite wake-me-up tea of mine, Queen Mary's Irish Breakfast.

For the Valentine who loves Napoleonic-era adventure on the high seas...

Forget Master and Commander and the other Patrick O'Brien, wannabe Forester books. Horatio Hornblower is where it's at. If you want to read the books in chronological order, according to Hornblower's age in them, start with this one, where our favorite seaman is but 17.

"Hellish cold" said Preston. "The devil of a morning to turn out. Nelson, where's that tea?"

The mess attendant came with it as Hornblower was hauling on his trousers. It maddened Hornblower that he shivered enough in the cold for the cup to clatter in the saucer as he took it. But the tea was grateful, and Hornblower drank it eagerly.

 "Give me another cup" he said, and was proud of himself that he could think about tea at that moment.

I'm guessing the British Navy couldn't afford to furnish its men with the good stuff, but perhaps by the end of Hornblower's career he could sip a cup of Earl Grey in retirement (it was named for an 1830s Prime Minister). Let's hope it was as good as Queen Mary's Earl Grey or (my daughter's favorite) Queen Mary's Creamy Earl Grey.

And, finally, for a Valentine who just wants a love story...

If you've read any of my Regency romances, set in Somerset in 1808 (not technically the Regency, but you know what I mean...), you know the Hapgood sisters and their neighbors frequently enjoy a good cup of tea, whether they are welcoming a new eligible gentleman or simply talking over the latest goings-on.

I know without a doubt that my characters would love a pot of Queen Mary's Queen's Royal Afternoon tea because I certainly drank enough of it when creating them!

So here's wishing you and yours many more years to love, and wishing the Queen Mary many more years to reign!

Launch Day of SCHOOL FOR LOVE

 Yesterday, while on a walk with my youngest, I ran into a woman who asked if I was still writing. When I said yes, and that my book was coming out this Friday, she said, "That's great! Who's promoting it?"

Good question. Just like I discovered I can get parenting short-timer's disease (ask my youngest how much I've helped with school, college apps, or getting a hold of her counselor this year), I've also found I can get Marketing Short-Timer's Disease. Meaning, it's hard to motivate. I answered her, "Uh...no one. Not even me."

Fortunately, these arrived in the mail an hour later:

Yes, paperback and Kindle versions are now available. And professional reviews will be forthcoming (late December and early spring--because I waited too long to ask!!!), but I hope you will read in the meantime. Click here (I hope) to go to the Amazon page.

We're all sick of the present, right? Come join Hugh and the other Hapgoods and my Rosemary in 1808, if you need a mental getaway.

We'll see if I whomp up more enthusiasm for an online thing, but this is my marketing burst for now.  :)

Paperback Version of SCHOOL FOR LOVE is In Process!

 So more of you are clinging to your paperback books than I thought. If you're among those paper-philes, you'll be happy to hear that my wrangling with Amazon's print-on-demand is nearly complete, and I will indeed be putting out a paper version of School for Love!

This latest book is a little longer than A Very Plain Young Man and therefore a little thicker. Check out the full cover:

(I do apologize for the image quality. I took a screenshot of a pdf, with predictable results.)

For some reason, since Amazon does not link the release of the paperback to the release of the Kindle version, the paperback may actually be available sooner! Who knows.

I'm on my final edit and thought fit to re-read the first two books in the series. Sharp readers may note that Margaret Hapgood has dark hair in an earlier book and ash blonde by School for Love. And that little Hetty Hapgood gets spelled as both "Hettie" and "Hetty" in A Very Plain Young Man. Hopeless. And then I spelled "curtsy" without the "e" in the first two books and therefore had to remove the "e" in School for Love. How can my spelling even change, in six years???

But those seem to be the biggest clangers. Readers of romances shouldn't be nitpickers, right? You're just there to get lost in a pleasant story, after all.

Still looking at a November 5, 2020, release. Austenesque Reviews has kindly agreed to review it in the spring, and I hope other reviews will be forthcoming.

School for Love now available for pre-order!

Hip hip hooray! School for Love, the third in my Regency romance series The Hapgoods of Bramleigh, is now available for pre-order on Amazon!

Had enough of 2020? Need a little escapism? Then this is the book for you. If any of you read the second book in the series A Very Plain Young Man, you'll remember that Hugh Hapgood, the widowed cousin of the squire, proposes to Elfie but (spoiler) loses out to Frederick. Not many of you readers spared any pity for the rejected Hugh (one reader even made a face when I said the third in the series would feature him), but I hope he can win you over when we get to dive deeper into his story.

I've chosen November 5 as my release date for three reasons:

1. The draft is complete, but I need a little more time do to a final revision.
   
   
2. In a normal year, my husband and I would do a "Literary Night" at our church the first Friday in November. COVID took care of that tradition, so instead I'm releasing a book.
   
   
3. November 5 will be my 26th wedding anniversary, so what better day to launch a romance?

My favoritest cover designer in the whole world Kathy Campbell has come up with another winner and was able, even after the six-year hiatus, to channel that Hapgoods of Bramleigh vibe she came up with the first two times around. Don't you agree?

Okay, now for a little FAQ:

Q: Do I have to have read The Naturalist and A Very Plain Young Man first?

A: Nah. This isn't Harry Potter. You can jump in at any point. Though there is plenty of overlap between books of characters and even timelines, they stand alone fine. (Or you could use the month ahead of you to read the first two in the series!)

Q: Why is it only available to pre-order on Kindle right now? 

A: Because it's easiest and cheapest, and I don't have a publishing house behind me! Kathy made me a paperback cover, and I may tackle a paperback version when I have more time, but that time is not now. And, while I'd have to charge you $11.99 for a paperback, because they're so much more expensive to produce, a Kindle version can be $5.99.

Q: What if I don't have a Kindle?

A: You can read on your phone or computer or tablet--anywhere you can download the Kindle app. OR, you could buy yourself a Kindle for like $50 or less on Amazon Prime Day (Oct 13-14 this year). I love my Kindle and keep it in my purse so I always have dozens of books to read, and, in these COVID days, it's nice to download books from the library for free with no hassle. We are a five-Kindle family, actually, so bonafide, card-carrying members of the Evil Empire. 

Q: What is a pre-order?

A: You pay now, and, on the release date, the book automatically downloads to you. 

Q: Will there be a launch party or a reading?

A: Sigh. No Regency dancing and negus for us this time around (see "2020"). But I may do an online reading or giant Zoom book club (we could all "attend" with our best Regency hairstyles, like Rosemary's on the cover), with questions submitted in the chat. And I would always be happy to Zoom in for your book club. 

Thanks for reading and sticking with me on this journey. I so appreciate it and all your encouragement. One more time: click here to pre-order!

Back from the Dead

What can I say? Raising teenagers and going back to work took it out of me, and I didn't write for quite some time. But now, with two in "college" (that is, studying remotely) and a job that is now homebound (thanks, COVID), I found myself inspired again. Heck--if Stephenie Meyer can put out Midnight Sun fifteen years after Twilight, what's a six-year wait?

I've got two works in progress: the next installment of the Hapgoods of Bramleigh series, School for Love, and another contemporary novel, with the working title of Andrea.

I'm hoping to finish School for Love and get out a Kindle edition before the end of this benighted year 2020. This installment picks up right before where A Very Plain Young Man left off. We circle back to the squire's cousin Hugh and family and see what happens to them after Elfie chooses her own adventure. Funny thing is, I was a few chapters into writing Andrea when I decided to re-read The Naturalist and A Very Plain Young Man. Diving back into that world was such fun that I shoved Andrea to the side and went back to revisit the early chapters of School for Love that I'd drafted back in 2015.

Stay tuned. Oh--and maybe get yourself a Kindle or other e-reader. What with COVID and all, I don't think I'm up to a print edition this go-round, and I'm guessing book launch parties will be out for a while...

Beach Reads for Summer 2015

Whew! Just when you thought I'd never post again (and I kinda thought so too), the urge hits me. Basically I think I was feeling guilty for not producing the third installment in my Hapgoods of Bramleigh series. I've begun it and am currently bogged down in Chapter 11, wanting to knock Hugh Hapgood's head against a wall for not cooperating with the authorial process! (If you don't remember who Hugh is, that would be the older cousin whom Elfrida rejected.)

But enough about my frustrations.

While alternately struggling with and ignoring my beloved Hapgood family, I've also been reading some good books, and I have my annual beach read list for ya because summer is nearly upon us! Here are my top picks by category:

Turgid Victorian:

A handsome, clueless man. A lovely, suddenly impoverished earl's daughter. A murder mystery. A neighbor altogether too adoring of the handsome, clueless man. This book has it all. A fun, Victorian page-turner. Yes the author waxes too moral about her one character's downfall, and you'll want to re-write the end in your head, but I relished this one all the same. And I swear it inspired a portion of the equally turgid 1997 period film Firelight.

Told ya it was turgid

Added bonus of East Lynne: it's free on Kindle and comes in at under 50 hideous typos. Gotta love those old "classics."


Sprawling Family Saga:

Sometimes you need room to move in and with characters and get attached. This Texas tale has multiple viewpoints, covers a sweep of time, and keeps you turning the pages.

Adventure and Grim Death (Nonfiction):

I'd only read one other Lusitania book and loved that one, too. Erik Larson rebounds from In the Garden of Beasts (not my favorite of his) with this exciting account told thoroughly from various perspectives. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll start wearing a life jacket around the house.


Pure Froth and Fun:

This one is an A+++++ for royals fans (which I'm, as Foghorn Leghorn would say).

A fictionalized version of Will and Kate's romance. I enjoyed every page of it. The heroine is American and has a twin sister, and the lovebirds meet at Oxford, not St. Andrews, but everything is seriously recognizable. I really did laugh and cry (or at least tear up) over this one. This is the definition of beach read.

There you have them! So pour yourself some iced tea with mint, put on your sun hat, and grab that pool deck chair because you've got hours and hours and pages and pages to enjoy.

Sticking Up for Nice Guys and Other Writing Endeavors

The reviews for A Very Plain Young Man continue to trickle in, but at least the trickle is made up of drops of glacier-pure watery goodness filtered for thousands of years until all the impurities are gone. Both Austenprose.com and Austenesque Reviews gave the book 5 stars, to my utter delight, and there all the excitement peaked.

Although Meredith of Austenesque urged one of the commenters to "hurry, catch up before Book 3 comes out," I'm sorry to report I'm only on Chapter 7 of said WIP because of TWO MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS which I'll get to...

Hugh Hapgood, rocking the plot twists [pic from NYTimes.com]

I will say that there were a few reviewers who were glad that Elfrida chose Frederick (hope that wasn't a spoiler--this is the Romance genre, after all, not known for pulling the rug out under readers!) because Cousin Hugh was "old" and "boring." "Old"!!! "Boring"???!!!! The very idea. I happen to like Hugh Hapgood, and it's not his fault he's not as youthful or playful as Frederick Tierney, and how could he be, when he couldn't help his age and we were not able to hear the story from his POV?

Nor was Hugh Hapgood the first of my fictional rejected suitors to be criticized. In my debut novel Mourning Becomes Cassandra, similar comments were made about Cass's co-worker James, whom I absolutely loved. What was not to love about a kind, persistent, impulsive ex-nerd who was employed and didn't live in his parents' basement? Were Hugh and James too nice, in a world where nice=bland?

Having always liked nice guys myself, I'm letting Hugh Hapgood have his revenge because Hugh Hapgood is the love interest in Book 3 of the Hapgoods of Bramleigh series. Poor widowed Hugh with his three motherless children! If ever a fellow needed a romance-writer to take charge of his life, it's him. And I have picked him out the loveliest wife...

But, as I was saying, the writing is proceeding slowly because of those TWO MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS.

Development Numero Uno:
I got a job. Part-time, three days a week, assistant to a private career coach in Seattle. If you're trying to figure out what to do with your life, or how to get back into the workforce, or how to switch career gears, Elizabeth is the person you want to talk to. I love hearing people's stories, and tomorrow I even get to participate in one of her Tools for Transition Career Workshops!

Development Numero Due:
I've been hired as a ghostwriter. I'm not kidding. I suppose, after having written a ghost story, it's only fitting that I try my hand at ghostwriting. While I've only committed to trying out a chapter or two (20ish pages), if it works for both of us I may go the distance. I'm pretty excited about both the story and the challenge. The freeing thing about already having a few books with your name on them (however obscure they may be), is that you don't much care if the next thing you write has somebody else's name on it!

But I'll finish Book 3 in any case, in the little nooks and crannies of life. And then get to Book 4, of course, because how could I not tell Miss Margaret Hapgood's story? Although I might pull a switcheroo and make Book 4 Miss Edith Hapgood's story because that idea is firmer in my mind. Maybe Margaret might marry last...And then I'm already thinking about some of those cousins, Hugh Hapgood's children.

Thank you for your readership and patience, all 100 or so of you. I'll keep you in the loop!