My cover

My cover
Nell and her oranges

Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Royal Mistress Challenge and Running Into Charles at the Airport

I am behind in catching up my poor little blog on my most recent doings in England (while primarily doing research for my next book, but also doing odds and ends on Nell.) But I have a couple of items to report!

First, when I flew home from London 0n November 11, who should be next to me at the BA counter checking into the same flight but Rufus Sewell, who among other things did a great job of playing Charles II in the British miniseries "Charles II, The Power and the Passion." I made so bold as to accost him and tell him that I am a big fan of his work, especially his portrayal of Charles, and told him about my upcoming books. I gave him my card, and he grinned and said, "The Darling Strumpet! I'll have to find that!" So if you're out there, Mr. Sewell, you made my day!

Another happy event was receiving an email from Helena, aka Miss Moppett, telling me that she was going to be running a "Royal Mistress Challenge" on her historical fiction blog, and that The Darling Strumpet will be included! Even though Nell won't be making her debut until January 2011! You can check out the blog on misadventuresofmoppet.wordpress.com/challenges/the-royal-mistress-challenge. Thanks, Helena!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Bonfire Night and Greenwich

I'm back in London doing research for my next book, The Royal Miracle (you can follow that adventure at theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com), but the trip is also giving me the opportunity to add a few items to the Nell story.

Bonfire Night

There's a scene in The Darling Strumpet when Nell experiences her first Bonfire Night. The Fifth of November is still the occasion for the annual commemoration of Guy Fawkes's failed 1605 plot to blow up the King and Houses of Parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night). Since then, the Fifth of November has been celebrated with bonfires, firworks, and burning "Guys," or effigies of Guy Fawkes. Our commonly used term "guy" to refer to a man derives from this custom, incidentally. The guy came to mean not just the effigies that were burned, but any ragged-looking man, and thence just to any guy.

Since Bonfire Night fell on Thursday, most of the big public fireworks displays were on the weekend instead, and on Saturday night I walked with my friends Clare and Alex up to Blackheath to see the fireworks. It was great display, to music, and a big crowd was gathered. It really is very much like the Fourth of July celebrations in the U.S. I didn't take into account exactly how the crowds would impact our getting around, and afterward we made our way, slowy, slowly to Donna's house in Lewisham. The streets and busses were packed, so we walked from Blackheath to Lewisham Station (quite a ways) and then got a bus to Donna's arriving at 10 p.m.

We missed the burning of the guy but got there in time for Tim setting off some fireworks that came perilously close to the house, throwing a couple of old Christmas trees on the embers of the bonfire and creating a raging inferno, as well as mulled wine, hot soup, sausages, and pies.

Greenwich

I'm staying in Greenwich, a place I love, and that I think Nell probably did, too. Charles planned to make Nell Countess of Greenwich, but died before he could do so. The Royal Observatory still stands where Nell would have known it as a new building. The view from the top of the hill is spectacular, as it would have been then. The Royal Park still rolls down to the river, and the Queen's House, which Inigo Jones designed for Charles's mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, still stands above what is now referred to as the Old Royal Naval College, the first building of which was one that Charles built to replace the old palace.

Of course there is much here now that wasn't standing in the 17th century. Looking west to the City, you can still see London Bridge (a different bridge than the one that Nell knew) and St. Paul's. Nell would have known the old cathedral, which burned in the Great Fire in 1666, and would have seen the early construction of the present cathedral, which was begun in 1675 and completed in 1710 but it is now almost lost in the forest of buildings. In her time, the area between the Tower and London Bridge was called The Pool of London, and was perpetually crowded with hundreds of ships and smaller vessels, loading and unloading at the "Legal Quays."

The Isle of Dogs, which was nothing but meadows in Nell's time (though there was a ferry running to Greenwich - Samuel Pepys wrote about taking it), became the site of the London Docks in the late 18th and early 19th century, which were built because the old docks could no longer accomodate the traffic. It was a massive engineering project, and the docks were some of the busiest in the world, but when container shipping was introduced, business began to fall off, and by the early 1970s, the area was derelict. The area's new life began in 1991 with the construction of Canada Tower, the first office building at Canary Wharf, which has since become a forest of towers and the home of many international corporations. It has virtually replaced Fleet Street as the centuries-old home of England's press, and has lured many financial firms from the City.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

SOLD!

I'm very, very happy to say that my wonderful agent, Kevan Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, has just sold The Darling Strumpet -- and my next book, which I've only just begun -- to Berkeley Publishing Group!

Darling Strumpet will likely be published in Fall 2010, and the next book the following spring. I'll be blogging about my new book, The Royal Miracle, during my research adventure beginning next week -- theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com.