Goodreads Giveaway and RELEASE DAY!

Congratulations to Sarah H of Knoxville, TN for winning print copies of Wicked Desires, Wicked Temptation and Wicked Lord (the first three books in the Wicked Affairs series.) Wow, nearly 600 entries. Thanks for all those readers who entered.

And in even bigger news: It's Release Day! From Now On, Book Two in the Mad Duchesses series hits the shelf today. Of course, you can always buy my books at Ellora's Cave (and btw, I get better royalties there so thank you for purchasing direct,) and the Kindle version is already up at Amazon. B&N usually takes several days longer but it will be up eventually.

I hope this doesn't sound douch-ey, but on release day, I like to reread the final version of the book. As an author works through edits, the manuscript is always full of redlines and comments, so it is a thrill to see a clean novel, ready for the reading masses. I told someone this morning (Cathie - one of my WWF buds) that this novel is beautiful sexy. I hope when you read it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Modern Flash Dictionary

I suppose a flash dictionary, written in 1848, might be considered the urban slang of its time. In the book, Sinks of London Laid Open, an addendum includes a list of the flash spoken in the late Regency period. I'm am curious as to how long it would have taken slang, from any class of people during that time, to actually find it's way to print.

Here is a list A-B:

Academy: brothel, bagnio

Angelics: young, unmarried ladies
Anointed: knowing, ripe for mischief
Arm props: crutches
Back slums: low unfrequented parts in the metropolis
Badgers: murderers
Baggage: slut, a common prostitute
Balm: a lie
Bark: an Irishman
Barking irons: pistols
Barnacles: spectacles
Beak: a justice of the peace, a magistrate
Betty: a small picklock
Billing: the sexes humbugging one another; courting
Bingo: spirituous liquors
Black box: lawyer
Bleeder: a lie
Bobtail: a lewd woman
Bounce: to lie
Boxed: locked up
Breeze: kicking up, an exciting disturbance
Brusher: a gull glass 
Bub: guzzle, drink
Bulldogs: pistols
Buntlings: petticoats
Button: a bad shilling
Buz: pickpocket
Bye-blow: a bastard


Interesting how many phrases there were for lying!

What are some of the interesting words and phrases you've read in historical writing?

Release Day for From Now On, Book Two in the Mad Duchesses series.

Great news. The second in the Mad Duchesses series will be available on January 29th from Ellora's Cave.

I love this story - I know I say that about every story I write! Well, this is one of the best and most used plot lines - lost love.

This story plot is  number 35 on Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations list - recovery of a lost one. I don't claim to write original plot lines, I just put my own twist on the story. I love this list. It's a great resource when identifying the single thread of a story.

Sebastian and Grace were once close friends - he the second son of an earl and she the ton beauty, betrothed to the Duke of Hammond. Young Sebastian enjoyed his life too much to worry about marriage while Grace loved him deeply.

When she was gone, when he realized there wasn't another woman such as Grace, he understood the depth of his mistake.

And then the shocking news - the scandal of the last Season in London - Grace had been horribly scarred by her drunken husband, and then in the space of a week she was left a widow.

He was not going to waste another opportunity. From now on, he would be the man she needed.


Book One, One Last Night

New Year's Resolutions

I would imagine there are thousands of blog posts being uploaded today with the same heading.

I don't think I've made a New Year's Resolution in the past twenty years. My FB friend Roger just posted this meme in his feed. That's about the extent of my list!

Aside from the idea that I should be a better person, I don't really get motivated by a list of things I should do: lose weight, write the great American novel, do more charitable work, adopt a stray cat. I think the idea of resolutions doesn't fit my outlook toward life because I am already an eternal optimist. I always think things will work out for the best. For example, I already believe that the novel I am writing NOW will be the great American novel.

But there is an underlying secret to my optimism. I don't do things that I will regret. For me, the measure of the doing or not doing comes down to one question - will I regret doing or not doing something? Will I regret walking two miles a day? No. Will I regret not adopting a cat? No. Will I regret not seeing the world? Yes. Will I regret not being as nice as I can be everyday? Yes. Will I regret not writing? Yes. But these are questions I ask every day, not on the first day of the year.

On a day to day basis I do like having a ticker list of things I want to get done. I recently wrote a list of about twenty things I need to get done with my writing this year - all of it pertaining to the order I need to finish books, get them edited, get them to my editor, get them published or self-published, have a cover completed, etc. There is a certain appeal to getting things done and checking off finished items. Yes, a topic for another blog.

So in the interest of actually having a New Year's Resolution, I resolve to post more David Gandy pics. How's that?

Tell me about your goals for 2014. What is the one thing you wish to accomplish that would excite you most?





And here's a little something extra: http://health.yahoo.net/articles/healthcare/13-weight-loss-resolutions-you-shouldnt-make