...Tra-la... Have nothing to do with the case. Mikado - WS Gilbert Laburnam Walk Photo of Temple Newsam House, courtesy of TripAdvisor I usually bedeck my books with flowers, both wild and cultivated. More often than not, they do indeed have nothing to do with the case. They’re part of the setting, marking the seasons, differentiating between town and country gardens, hedgerows, meadows, moors, and woods. Sometimes, though, they have other purposes. In Heirs of the Body , the 21st Daisy Dalrymple mystery (just reissued by Minotaur in trade paperback), I use a pleached walk of laburnam to suggest the threat of poisoning. The seeds are deadly. In fact, I use the walk for a different purpose, and another plant is used later in the book to poison one of my characters. In another book, I killed a victim with oleander he himself had nurtured and cherished in his conservatory. Perhaps the most fun I’ve had with flowers was when I used them to indicate character and...

Regency Wedding, image by Louish Pixel, via Flickr I was once interviewed by a local newspaper reporter who asked me why, as a romance writer (a species he all too obviously despised), I didn’t write sex scenes. Not expecting the question, I gave a snappy answer off the top of my head: “I’d rather do it than write about it.” Naturally that was the only thing I said that he quoted accurately. A more thoughtful answer would have been: To me, romance is getting to know each other, falling in love. Going to bed is the end product, the culmination, not part of the process. As it comes after discoveries, difficulties overcome, and in fiction the author’s efforts to keep lovers apart for 75,000 words or so, it’s an unnecessary coda to the story. After all, as a neighbour of mine said, we all know what happens after they close the bedroom door. Maybe my attitude is old-fashioned, but my historical setting encouraged my view. Zeitgeist strikes again! In Regency times, contraceptio...

Previously I shared some anecdotes on some of my less-than-ideal experiences with editors. My next editor at Walker remains a good friend. She let me stray from the genre to write a Time Travel Regency (having written one herself). Byron's Child came about because I wanted to tell the story of Lord Byron's legitimate daughter, Ada, often called the first computer programmer. Unfortunately, she wasn't born till towards the end of the Regency, but a time traveller from the present—a historian who happened to have Ada's biography with her--worked perfectly. I continued to write for Walker, but when I got divorced, I wasn't making enough to pay the bills. Regencies are very much a minority genre, and I had no interest in any other kind of romance. Though a part-time job helped, it wasn't enough. Then I had an amazing stroke of luck. At a(n) RWA conference, I met a senior editor from Harlequin. She actually knew my name! She told me that Harlequin were...

In 35 years of writing, I've dealt with quite a few editors, even if you don't count the ones who only sent rejections--as I'd much rather not. My first editor, Fredda Isaacson at Warner Books, bought my first Regency, Toblethorpe Manor . She then told me it was about 20,000 words too long for their format and would have to be cut. (Writing longhand and then typing, I hadn't a clue how long it was: 96,000 words, apparently.) If I hadn't been totally ignorant of the publishing business, I'd have replied that I'd see what I could do. As it was, I left it to her. It turned out to be a good thing. Goodness knows what sort of a mess I'd have made of it, whereas she got back to me some time later to say she had been able to cut only about a page and half. The story was so tightly woven any more would have wrecked it. Warner published it at $1 more than their usual price! My second editor was Ruth Cavin, later doyenne of mystery editors at ...

In my first post for Blood-Red Pencil, I mentioned that I have been writing Regency romance for 35 years. In that time I've seen some interesting, and head-scratching, decisions by various art departments, particularly on the foreign translations of my books. It seems certain concepts just don't translate very well. Left is the original paperback cover for Mayhem and Miranda , a Regency about a penniless companion to an eccentric lady, and below right is the original ebook cover. Totally misleading is the cover to the Hebrew translation ( below center ). Unless they drastically altered the text in translating it, the image has nothing whatever to do with the story. Anyone buying the book expecting a bodice-ripper would be sorely disappointed. What's more, they spelled my name--I'm told--"Carol Deen". The apparently bodice-ripping Hebrew translation of Mayhem and Miranda The cover for His Lordship's Reward is cute: the three-year-old, black-...

I wrote my first book in 1979, as a way to postpone getting a "real" job. I'd had many and various temp and part-time jobs, from construction to writing and editing definitions for a dictionary of science and technology. Then, after moving constantly, we settled down and bought a house. It was time to get serious. At least, it was time to look as if I were getting serious. I sat down at the kitchen table with a pad of lined paper and a ball-point and started writing. Why Regency? I'd reread Georgette Heyer's often enough to know what was coming on the next page. I wanted more, so I started reading some that were written around that time—late '70s—and they were so awful, I reckoned I couldn't possibly do worse. I didn't really expect to write an entire book, still less to get it published (Warner), let alone for it to lead to a 35-year career and still counting. In case the term "Regency" means nothing to you: Strictly speakin...