Step Into The Story

We were talking yesterday on the Word Wenches Blog about how our pets manipulate us, train us and generally make sure that if we are paying too much attention to our writing and too little to them then that imbalance will be addressed as quickly as possible. The natural charm and intelligence of animals cannot be overestimated and here, to prove the point, is the story of Puss in Books, Fidel the cat, who has visited his library in Kent almost every day for the past 2 years. Fidel spends the day on his favourite blue chair, only leaving the building when he sees his owners arriving home. As well as checking out the books, Fidel is apparently something of an art critic and has been seen examining the paintings on the library walls. The story is on the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/8021407.stm and yes, you guessed it, it's one of the most emailed news stories of the day! The story reminded me of a talk I did at Pewsey Library a few months ago. When I arrived a rathe...

Today I am blogging with the fabulous Word Wenches at: http://wordwenches.typepad.com/ Amongst other things we will be discussing manipulative pets, Scandinavian melancholy and the wonderful diversity of the Harlequin Historical line! Please join us! There are also prizes, including an advance copy of my NEW HQN Regency historical, The Confessions of a Duchess!

This is the book cover for my new HQN e-book, The Secrets of a Courtesan, which is coming out next month from e-harlequin. It's the short story prequel to my new Brides of Fortune series and introduces the village of Fortune's Folly and some of the characters. And once again I think the cover goddess has been smiling on me because I think it's beautiful! I've been lucky in more ways than one because this is the short story that seemed destined to crash and burn. I love writing short stories and particularly enjoyed my recent one for Harlequin Historical Undone, The Unmasking of Lady Loveless. So I set out on this one with the same cheerful intent to create something that was fun, witty and sexy (of course!). I wrote the story at the start of the year. I had a tight deadline of my own making because I was going on holiday and it simply had to be finished before I left so that I could press on with a new book on my return. And I had what I thought was a good story idea, ...

In the newspaper yesterday was the intriguing idea that the taste of wine changes with the lunar calendar. Have you noticed this?! A delicious glass of white "reminiscent of clean seashells on a ocean beach" to quote one wine connoiseur can on another day taste a bit fishy. Apparently in order to know when is the best time to drink your wine you need to consult the lunar calendar, which has been published for 47 years by a gardening great-grandmother called Maria Thun who lives in rural Germany. Days are divided up into "fruit," "flower," "leaf" or "root" with fruit and flower being the days on which the wines tastes good and leaf and root the ones on which it goes off. This coming week the best days are from 11pm Sunday and then from 8pm on Wednesday until 11am on Thursday and from 6pm on Friday - good timing for the weekend!

What is your favourite stress-buster? In the news this week was the story that charities are calling for a nationwide campaign to help promote mental health after a survey suggested that more people are growing anxious. According to the Mental Health Foundation people are more fearful than they were 10 years ago and more people are suffering from anxiety and depression. I suppose this is hardly surprising with so much bad news in the media, the credit crunch and the prospect of looming global depression. So let’s dispel all that gloom and think about happy things. Here are some nice suggestions that were put forward of ways to beat the blues: Suggestion 1: Invest in a light box. Some people find that the effect of long winters and the depression that they can bring can be shortened with the use of light boxes, which deliver a dose of bright light similar to daylight. I like the idea of this. I found it really difficult to get up in the dark during last winter so I’m planning on getti...

...For history. Now, I know that I talk about Ashdown House a lot but it is one of the most beautiful and atmospheric historic houses in England so I think that's fair enough. The house is now open for the 2009 season and on Saturday April 11th I will be taking my first guided tours around the property. We're hoping for some lovely spring weather and lots of visitors! So just to whet the appetite, here is a picture! And remember - if you live in the UK or you are visiting this year, do call in to see us. We would love to show you round and afterwards you can go for a delicious cream tea in historic Ashbury village! For more information on Ashdown visit the special Ashdown House blog !

Last week David Starkey, who non-co-incidentally has a new TV programme starting this week on King Henry VIII, commented on the way in which history has been feminised by female authors who concentrate on Henry’s wives rather than on the King himself, a situation which Dr Starkey apparently finds “bizarre.” To quote: “But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box office.” Earlier this month Dr Starkey said he believed Henry VIII's handwriting showed he had an "emotionally incontinent" personality because he was brought up in a female-dominated household. Dr Starkey has never made much secret of the fact that he enjoys being outrageously provocative so I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise. What is a surprise is that these comments don’t strike me as being particularly scholarly. Let’s start with the emotionally...