Ice cream and coffee

In the course of writing a certain scene I was wondering to myself ‘I wonder how I can describe John’s smell’. I wanted something that combined cream, salt and citrus (from his lemon and bergamot cologne), and after a bit of Googling I came up with yet another reason that the 18th Century was indeed an age of Enlightenment.

Georgian Ice Cream!

OK, so I personally would not be so keen on the Parmesan Cream Ice, but the Royal Cream Ice – flavoured with lemon zest – was exactly what I was looking for. Also featured; Chocolate Cream Ice, Burnt Filbert Cream Ice, Punch Water Ice and Bergamot Water Ice. And check out the gorgeous little fruit molds 🙂

http://www.historicfood.com/Georgian%20Ices.htm

Also, I has a Forum! I found a site called ‘Coffee Time Romance’ which kindly offered me a free forum. Click on the coffee pot to check that out 🙂

Book Review: Empire of Ivory

 Returning from disaster on the Prussian front, William Laurence and his dragon Temeraire find yet more misfortune awaiting them.  A lingering but deadly sickness has struck the dragons of Britain, leaving His Majesty’s Arial Corps barely able to keep up enough of an illusion of strength to prevent an immediate invasion from the air forces of Napoleonic France. 

Fresh from their experience in China – where dragons and humans exist as equal members of society – it is all the more distressing to Laurence and Temeraire to see their sick friends treated as dumb beasts.  In an attempt to argue for dragon’s rights they form natural allies of Wilberforce and the abolitionist movement.  Too late, however.  When they are sent to Africa to attempt to find a cure for the dragon plague, their success brings them to the attention of the Empire of the title; the powerful empire of the heartland of Africa, whose dragon riding warriors have reached the end of their tolerance with slavery and Western colonization.

I don’t think I’ve made any secret of the fact that I was disappointed with the book before this; ‘Black Powder War’, in which Novik fell into the trap of describing Prussian troop movements with the most exquisite detail and truly authentic boredom.  It looked then as though the series was about to fall into the pit of ‘worthy serious literature’ which would be read by academics and fans of table-top war-gaming only.  But fortunately that hasn’t happened.  This is a return to the exciting derring-do of the first two books.  I loved the way that we simultaneously met ‘real’ celebrities of the 18^th Century, like Wilberforce and Nelson, while also expanding Novik’s world of dragon riders.  The glimpses of African village culture, each with their dragon elder looking after them, were very touching, and the anger of the Empire of Ivory against Laurence and his ilk was a blast of fresh air.  I’m very glad that they are poised to (I hope) form an interesting part of book 5.

I also adored Nelson!  As a Nelson fangirl myself Novik’s version with his charisma, fearlessness and total ruthlessness in the pursuit of victory is as lovable as the original.  I was unsettled by the ending.  Laurence’s morals are finer than mine, and in consequence I found the ending very painful.  It seems hard to believe that Book 5, (and I’m sure there must be one,) won’t be very very short.  But whatever length, I’ll be pre-ordering it, because this is a superb series and it seems to be just getting better.

I have a banner!

So ok, I made it myself, but I still think it’s really not that bad 🙂

Now to find somewhere to show it off!

GBLT promo blog

Some time ago a lady called Allison Knight set up a blog for which people were invited to submit interviews with the characters of their books. She preferred to keep this as a space for m/f romance novels only – which is of course her right. But I thought it was a bit of a shame that those of us who write m/m or f/f romance didn’t have a place to do the same.

So after a long delay I have finally launched In their own words A blog for interviews of characters in GBLT romances. So if you know anyone champing at the bit to send in an interview and promote their novel, ask them to send it to alex@alexbeecroft.com, and I’ll post it up as soon as maybe 🙂

Quote from WIP

I got this idea from  – much more interesting than just a bit of blathering on and a wordcount.

Though, by now it’s ‘quote of yesterday’ 🙂

“Most of my gentlemen would prefer to spend their time on other sports,” said Mrs Deane, and laughed aloud at the expression on his face.  Letting go of his arm, she tapped him sharply with her closed fan.  “Oh, Lieutenant, you think yourself so inscrutable!  But I assure you I have your measure.”

Mrs. Deane was a surprise to me, as she was meant to be a one paragraph experiment on John’s part.  Instead she took over the story for three pages, shocked and amused him and extracted a promise that he would write to her.  Also she got to tell him all kinds of things through fan language as per this site   None of which he actually understood because he doesn’t know there *is* a language of fans, let alone what it means.

Hereward Wakes – a ghost story

Hereward Wakes

This is heavily influenced by all my years spent doing Anglo-Saxon re-enactment.  Also by the fact that we’ve just moved to the Fens, which is Hereward’s country.  He was a real Robin Hood, who held out against the Norman invasion for years.  They tried everything to get rid of him, including bringing in a witch to curse him, but in the end they couldn’t defeat him – they had to give him his lands back.  Naturally, since the story has a happy ending, very few people now remember him at all 🙂

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Book Review: The Phoenix

The Phoenix, by Ruth Sims

How to begin to summarize this?! It’s a wonderfully complex book, but at its heart is the love between Kit St Denys – the famous actor who was born a gutter rat in London but killed his abusive father and earned a better life – and Nick Stuart, the idealistic doctor from a background of stifling piety.

Nick is the only one who can keep Kit’s nightmares away, Kit is the only one who can break through Nick’s self restraint to allow him to be the person he really is, but neither of them are happy to need each other so much. They are so different that Nick’s principles and Kit’s lack of them push the two apart, even when they cannot deny the force that pulls them together. It’s a passion that will tear them apart, follow them to the ends of the earth, but is it strong enough to triumph over the vengeful shadow of Kit’s father, and the love of Nick’s wife and son?

As I say, a wonderfully complex book, and a romp through the 19th Century theatre world with a brief walk on part for Oscar Wilde, and all the decadence he could desire. Underworld London, high society London, the theatre, the circus, and the Elephant on Coney Island – you feel almost as if the whole world is there. The story is a roller coaster that takes you from terrible lows to joyful heights and then back again, always with that slight element of fear that you might have let yourself in for something more heartbreaking than you can handle. But what it doesn’t do is disappoint. I was gripped throughout and left feeling very satisfied, and yet as though I needed to read it again. A definite keeper!

Sweet rejection

Oh well, I got my first rejection today since deciding to try and write professionally again.  (Witch’s Boy went through 15 of them).  This was for the reworked ‘90% Proof’.  In the interests of anyone thinking of submitting their own stuff for publication, I thought I’d post it here so you can see what sort of things to avoid 🙂

Author seems to have a good grasp of the historical research needed for
this story. However, the premise to the story is not very compelling (boy
loves boy who loves another boy who loves a girl). The writing needs help.
There are lots of run-on sentences (paragraphs of them in fact). It would be
a lot of work to fix. There are lots of flowery descriptions of the ship,
the port, etc. but no character descriptions of the main characters,
although there is a delightful one of a woman one of the characters meet for
lunch.  The author also doesn't consistently refer to the characters by
their first or last names...so had an awful time figuring out who was who
throughout the entire reading." 

I actually agree with a lot of this – I’m a martyr to the run on sentence 🙂  And picking one name and consistently referring to each character using it is certainly a way to minimize confusion.  I wasn’t so sure about the ‘character descriptions’ of the main characters, as I always thought it was considered bad style to info-dump everything about a character the moment they’re introduced.  (Also I thought my description of Miss Kent was a little over the top!)  But it’s all fairly easily put right, and it’s great to have such a helpful rejection.  In fact they say I am welcome to submit it again if I rework it according to the above guidelines, which is good  🙂

I thought I was not particularly bothered, but I seem to have wasted the entire day since, eating cake and moping, not writing at all.  Clearly my methods of coping with rejection have not improved since The Witch’s Boy ten years ago.  And this was a nice one!

Never mind.  Back into the saddle tomorrow!  And at least I’ve developed a sudden fascination for Maecenas, (Octavian’s negotiator and poet/patron of the arts) that promises to lead me into some interesting research.

‘Rome’ and John Cavendish

So you know how I was saying that playing John Cavendish in the RPG had helped me to get a firmer grip on what his character was like?  I thought it would also help if I found him a face 🙂  So I hunted around for an actor who looked how I imagined John to look, and came up with Simon Woods – the fellow in the icon – who played Mr.Bingley in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice.  John is blond rather than ginger, and his eyes are grey rather than that slightly alarming shade of blue,  but otherwise this is a close match.

Naturally I wanted to make icons!  But the amount of material in P&P where the man is not grinning like an idiot is very limited, (and what was with that?  Did they deliberately set out to make Bingley look like a right pratt, so that Darcy would look better?  I did find it difficult to imagine why a sensible girl like Jane Bennett would fall for such a gurning loon.  But probably the least I say about the 2005 P&P the better.  That’s a subject for another rant!)

So anyway, I thought I’d check out what else Simon Woods had been in, to try and find some better pictures.  It turned out that he’d been in ‘Rome’,

so on a whim (provoked by the fact that Andrew is in America and I was a bit lonely and miserable) I bought the boxed set of the second series.  With the result that after a two day marathon of watching it (provoked by my internet connection going down and not being able to get on LJ or answer my emails) I’ve now become a confirmed Octavian fangirl.

‘Rome’ is an amazing series!  I wish I’d known about it when it was on, because all the communities I can find for it seem to have already become moribund.  It’s a bit like Torchwood, in that there isn’t a single character in it who is admirable 100% of the time – in fact most of the people are cruel, petty, vindictive, lust addled monsters – and yet you can’t help feeling for them.  *All* of them; no matter which side they’re on at any particular moment.  I think that’s what Pirates of the Caribbean tried to do in its sequels, but IMO failed.  You need really to establish the universe the people live in as an amoral one to start off with before that kind of thing will work.  If they live in an amoral time, then them being amoral is par for the course.  PotC didn’t do that… but that’s also another rant for a different day 🙂

I have discovered though, on a quick voyage around the fansites, that *yet again* I’m in a severe minority for having Octavian as the character I find easiest to identify with, and would want to read or write about.  I seem to have a knack for falling for the characters that no one else can stand 🙂  I’m rather puzzled as to why the characters in the series would call him cruel, given that he’s not the one torturing his enemies or shooting random slaves for sport – but perhaps that’s admirable historical accuracy, and exposing his mother and sister to the possibility of humiliation *would* have been seen as more cruel than anything physical at the time…

I’m slightly worried that the programme is making me think things like ‘wouldn’t it be nice to see a proper conversation between Pullo and Octavian now that Octavian is grown up’, or ‘what’s between Octavian and Maecenas that allows Maecenas to be so corrupt and get away with it’, or even ‘why does Cleopatra say that Octavian has a rotten soul when she’s been living with Marc Anthony all this time (and he’s a complete shit)?’

Of such things is fanfiction born, and I *really* don’t need another fandom right now!  OTOH, if anyone knows of any Octavian fanfic out there, written by other people, I’m definitely in the market for recommendations!

Martial excerpt from ‘Captain’s Surrender’

Peter, Josh and a senior Captain, Captain Joslyn have been sent to intercept a French three-decker believed to be trying to break the Hudson Bay treaty by capturing the bay for France, but they have come across a smaller scout ship on the way.

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