Glad you’re all here with us for our Duck Chat!

Sherry Thomas is our guest today. If you have been to Sherry’s website to read about her incredible journey through life that eventually led her to becoming an author, you should hightail it over there. The short version is Sherry came to the United States from China at age 13; therefore, her first language is not English, but she did what was necessary and now Sherry gives readers like you and me beautiful romances to read. A motivating story like so few others.

Sherry’s first book was Private Arrangements, which released in March of last year, and was followed by Delicious in July. Both books have won awards and fans can’t get enough of them. Get ready for a fun day with Sherry! Be sure to ask questions or leave a comment because she is giving away a couple of copies of her latest release, Not Quite a Husband. Now let’s chat!

DUCK CHAT: Sherry, after reading about you on your website, I have to give you kudos on your commitment and dedication in learning the English language once you got to the United States at the age of 13. What a terrific story and it’s hopefully incentive for other people, no matter what they choose to do in life. Were there other similar obstacles you had to overcome on your way to discovering you’d like to write?

SHERRY THOMAS: Hmm, I would say the other obstacle was the belief that writing is not any kind of proper career. I come from a family of scientists and engineers. My mom especially is as practical a person as they come–she is still very much surprised that I’m an author.

So I don’t think I would ever have pursued writing if I hadn’t found myself a stay-at-home mom at a very young age, all my other plans put aside while I looked after my new baby. It was one of those things where I went, oh well, I don’t have any other career prospects now, so why the heck not? *g*

DC: If you could retire any question and never, ever have it asked again, what would it be? Feel free to answer it.

st: LOL. I think it is far too early in my career for me to have same-question fatigue yet. I’m happy and grateful to answer questions, even if I’ve answered similar questions before. I never copy and paste answers as I’m a different me every day and even similar questions get different answers depending on when they come to me.

DC: I hear you like playing computer games with your sons. What’s your favorite game? Do you let your sons win? Or are they a take-no-prisoners players and you have to be on your toes all the time?

ST: My favorite games are the Wonderland series and the Mystery Case Files series—both casual games, as we don’t really have game consoles at home. Wonderland is the cutest game ever, with these adorable characters and their equally adorable foes in adorable adventure-puzzle boards that you need to solve. My sons do the more action-y parts and I do the more think-y parts.

Mystery Case Files games started as a fairly straightforward hidden-object game—like I Spy. But it has since evolved to include ever more puzzle elements. Their latest installment, Return to Ravenhearst, is an absolute masterpiece of game design. I can’t rave enough about it.

None of these are head-to-head games so we play collaboratively, my sons and I. But on hidden-object games, I often hold back and let them find more of the items. I figured it wouldn’t be fun if I were playing with my mother, and she’s locating everything!

DC: I’ve heard writers often say their stories take them in surprising directions, or dialogue flows from some unknown place. Is it the same with you? Do your characters surprise you sometimes?

ST: I can’t really say my stories come from an unknown place. LOL, they come from my head and I’d like to think I am somewhat familiar with that particular place. The stories I write are the stories I’d like to read. They cater very closely to my personal tastes so it is highly unlikely that I am going to suddenly discover that I’m writing a ménage story or a tale of forbidden love between a werewolf and a wererabbit.

What does surprise me is how much I can improve a story, when my editor is standing behind me with a whip. My particular weakness as a writer is that I like the stuff I write—no tormented artist here. But my editor is very, very strict. She edits hard. I moan and wail. But my belief is that as a writer, you never explain yourself to a reader and hope they’ll like your books better as a result. If they’ve read it and they don’t care for it, either it is not to their taste or you’ve failed in your job.

Since my books are to my editor’s taste, or so she assures me every time after she tears a draft apart, I go back to the drawing board and reassess how I can do it better. And every single time, without fail, I end up with a vastly superior draft from the one I started with.

DC: Do you ever argue with your characters while you’re writing? Who usually wins?

ST: No, never. They do what I say. Whom do you think I whip when my editor whips me? *eg*

DC: There’s a quote on your website I found interesting, “when she is not writing, she thinks about the zen and zaniness of her profession…” I think our readers will be curious about this. Can you share a few of those thoughts with us?

ST: Writing is a profession that is tough on the ego, because there is no such thing as a book done exactly right. There is no objective standard. Every book that is loved is also hated. Every book that has passionate detractors will also have passionate defenders. And everyday people bemoan the presence of certain books on the bestseller list and the absence of certain other books.

So I think about how to maintain my inner equilibrium. How do I deal with both praise and criticism directed at my own books? How do I look at my numbers and neither despair—it is soooooo much less than so-and-so’s—nor gloat—it is still better than so-and-so’s? How do I stayed focused on the work rather than the peripherals of the work?

I wouldn’t say it is a daily struggle—I’m far too absent-minded for it. But it is an ongoing process to find the zen zone and then to stay there.

DC: What is sure to distract you from sitting down and working/writing?

ST: This blog and others like it. I have chronic and incurable blog-itis.

DC: How do you feel your male or female characters have evolved so far in your career? Do you think you write them differently now than you did when you started?

ST: When I first started writing, I had no idea at all what either character or characterization meant—I never had any creative writing or even plain old English classes in college. I remember working on my second heroine—in a space-opera story—and thinking to myself, no, she can’t be ruthless, because the heroine from my first story is ruthless, they’ll be exactly the same if they are both ruthless.

And mind you, that was after I’d finished a full manuscript already.

What set me on the road to truly understanding characters is Judith Ivory’s book Beast. Now I’m amazed that I started to write before I’d ever read her because she is such a seminal influence in my evolution as a writer. Not to be hyperbolic, but until I read Beast, I didn’t quite understand human nature. Didn’t understand how a person could contain so many contradictions and still be a working whole. Or how even with all our imperfections, we can still rise above.

DC: Let’s talk about Not Quite a Husband, which was released May 19. First, where did the idea for the story come from? Is it relatively the same book now as it was when you started it?

The germ of the idea came from the movie The Painted Veil, which is about a terribly estranged couple caught in a dangerous place (interior China) at a dangerous time (1920s). The movie was marvelous, except for SPOILER the death of the hero END SPOILER at the end. I felt so awful afterward that I just had to write about a terribly estranged couple caught in a dangerous place at a dangerous time.

My dangerously place turned out to be the North-West Frontier of British India in 1897, with the hero and the heroine encountering an uprising in the Swat Valley. Sound familiar? History does repeat itself, alas.

It is very much not the same book as when I started, because as usual, after my editor went through with it, I rewrote most of everything. And I couldn’t be more grateful that she pushed me for the changes, because the book ended up much better.

DC: Please tell us about Leo and Bryony.

ST: They are a mismatched couple. She is older than him by four years. He is vastly popular. She avoids society like the plague. He is multi-talented. She is good at only one thing, medicine. He understands himself. She doesn’t, at all.

But such is love, is it not, that it can forge connections that entirely baffle outsiders? *g*

Extra special treat, excerpt from Not Quite a Husband:

Prologue

In the course of her long and illustrious career, Bryony Asquith was the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, almost all of which described her appearance as “distinguished and unique, characterized by a dramatic streak of white in her midnight-dark hair.”

The more inquisitive reporters often demanded to know how the white streak came about. She always smiled and briefly recounted a period of criminal overwork in her twenties. “It was the result of not sleeping for days on end. My poor maid, she was quite shocked.”

Bryony Asquith had indeed been in her twenties when it happened. She had indeed been working too much. And her maid had indeed been quite shocked. But as with any substantial lie, there was an important omission: in this case, a man.

His name was Quentin Leonidas Marsden. She’d known him all of her life but never gave him a thought before he returned to London in the spring of 1893. Within seven weeks of meeting him again, she proposed. Another three months and they were married.

From the very beginning they were considered an unlikely pair. He was the handsomest, wildest, and most accomplished of the five handsome, wild, and accomplished Marsden brothers. By the time of their wedding, at age twenty-four, he’d had a paper read at the London Mathematical Society, a play staged at St. James’s Theatre, and a Greenland expedition under his belt.

He was witty, he was popular, he was universally admired. She, on the other hand, spoke very little, was not in demand, and was admired only in very limited circles. In fact, most of Society disapproved of her occupation—and the fact that she had an occupation at all. For a gentleman’s daughter to pursue a medical training and then to go to work every day—every day, as if she were some common clerk—was it really necessary?

There were other unlikely marriages that defied all naysayers and prospered. Theirs, however, failed miserably. For her, that was; she’d been the miserable one. He seemed scarcely affected. He had a second paper read at the mathematical society; he was more lauded than ever.

By their first anniversary things had quite deteriorated. She’d barred the door to her bedchamber and he, well, he did not wallow in celibacy. They no longer dined together. They no longer even spoke when they occasionally came upon each other.

They might have carried on in that state for decades but for something he said—and not to her.

It was a summer evening, some four months after she first denied him his marital rights. She’d returned home rather earlier than usual, before the stroke of midnight, because she’d been awake for seventy hours—a small-scale outbreak of dysentery and a spate of strange rashes had her at her microscope in the laboratory when she wasn’t seeing to patients.

She paid the cabbie and stood a moment outside her house, head up, the palm of her free hand held out to feel for raindrops. The night air smelled of the tang of electricity. Already thunder rumbled. The periphery of the sky lit every few seconds, truant angels playing with matches.

When she lowered her face Leo was there, regarding her coolly.

He took her breath away in the most literal sense: she was too asphyxiated for her lungs to expand and contract properly. He aroused every last ounce of covetousness in her—and there was so much of it in her, hidden in the tenebrous recesses of her heart.

Had they been alone they’d have nodded and walked past each other without a word. But Leo had a friend with him, a loquacious chap named Wessex who liked to practice gallantry on Bryony, even though gallantry had about as much effect on her as vaccine injections on a corpse.

They’d been having excellent luck at the tables, Wessex informed her, while Leo smoothed every finger of his gloves with the fastidiousness of a deranged valet. She stared at his gloved hands, her insides leaden, her heart ruined.

“…awfully clever, the way you phrased it. How exactly did you say it, Marsden?” asked Wessex.

“I said a good gambler approaches the table with a plan,” answered Leo, his voice impatient. “And an inferior gambler with a desperate prayer and much blind hope.”

It was as if she’d been dropped from a great height. Suddenly she understood her own action all too well. She’d been gambling. And their marriage was the bet on which she’d staked everything. Because if he loved her, it would make her as beautiful, desirable, and adored as he. And it would prove everyone who never loved her definitively wrong.

“Precisely,” Wessex exclaimed. “Precisely.”

“We should leave Mrs. Marsden to her repose now, Wessex,” said Leo. “No doubt she is exhausted after a long day at her noble calling.”

She glanced sharply at him. He looked up from his gloves. Even in such poor soggy light, he remained the epitome of magnetism and glamour. The spell he cast over her was complete and unbreakable.

When he returned to London, everyone and her maid had been in love with him.

He should have had the decency to laugh at Bryony, and tell her that an old-maid physician, no matter the size of her inheritance, had no business proposing to Apollo himself. He should not have given her that half smile and said, “Go on. I’m listening.”

“Good night, Mr. Wessex,” she said. “Good night, Mr. Marsden.”

Two hours later, as the storm shook the shutters, she lay in her bed shivering—she’d sat in the bath too long, until the water had chilled to the temperature of the night.

Leo, she thought, as she did every night. Leo. Leo. Leo.

She bolted upright. She’d never realized it before, but this mantra of his name was her desperate prayer, her blind hopes condensed into a single syllable. When had mere covetousness descended into obsession? When had he become her opium, her morphia?

There were many things she could tolerate—the world was full of scorned wives who went about their day with their heads held high. But she could not tolerate such pitiable needs in herself. She would not be as those wretches she’d witnessed at work, wild for the love of their poison, tenderly fueling their addiction even as it robbed them of every last dignity.

He was her poison. He was that for whom she abandoned sense and judgment. For the lack of whom she suffered like a maltreated puppy, shaking and whimpering in the dead of the night. Already her soul withered, diminishing into little more than this vampiric craving.

But how could she free herself from him? They were married—only a year ago, in a lavish affair for which she’d spared no expenses, because she wanted the whole world to know that she was the one he’d chosen, above all others.

Thunder boomed as if an artillery battle raged in the streets outside. Inside the house everything was silent and still. Not a single creak came from the stairs or the chamber that adjoined hers—she never heard any sounds from him anymore. The darkness smothered her.

She shook her head. If she didn’t think about it—if she worked until she was exhausted every day—she could pretend that her marriage wasn’t a complete disaster.

But it was. A complete disaster.

One small lie—This marriage has never been consummated—would free them both.

Then she could walk away from him, from the wreckage of the greatest and only gamble of her life. Then she could forget that she’d been mired in an unrequited love as unwholesome as any malarial swamp on the Subcontinent. Then she could breathe again.

No, she couldn’t. She could never leave him. When he smiled at her, she walked on rose petals. The one time she’d allowed him to kiss her, for days afterward everything had tasted of milk and honey.

If she asked for and received an annulment, he would marry someone else, and she would be his wife and the mother of his children, not Bryony, forgotten and unlamented.

She did not want him to forget her. She would endure anything to hold on to him.

She could not stand this desperate, sniveling creature she’d become.

She loved him.

She hated both him and herself.

She hugged her shoulders tight, rocked back and forth, and stared into shadows that would not dispel.

She was still sitting up in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking and staring, when her maid came in the morning. Molly went about the room, opening curtains and shutters, letting in the day.

She poured Bryony’s tea, approached the bed, and dropped the tray. Something shattered loudly.

“Oh, missus. Your hair. Your hair!”

Bryony looked up dumbly. Molly rushed about the room and returned with a hand mirror. “Look, missus. Look.”

Bryony thought she looked almost tolerable for someone who hadn’t slept in three days. Then she saw the streak in her hair, two inches wide and white as washing soda.

The mirror fell from her hands.

“I’ll get some nitrate of silver and make a dye,” Molly said. “No one will even notice.”

“No, no nitrate of silver,” Bryony said mechanically. “It’s harmful.”

“Some sulphate of iron then. Or I could mix henna with some ammonia, but I don’t know if that will be—”

“Yes, you may go prepare it,” said Bryony.

When Molly was gone she picked up the mirror again. She looked strange and strangely vulnerable—the desolation she’d kept carefully hidden made manifest by the translucent fragility of her white hair. And she had no one to blame. She’d done this to herself, with her relentless need, her delusions, her willingness to gamble it all for a mythical fulfillment conjured by her fevered mind.

She set aside the mirror, wrapped her arms about her knees, and resumed her rocking—she had a few minutes before Molly rushed back with the hair dye, before she must arrange a meeting with him to calmly and rationally discuss the dissolution of their marriage.

Leo, she permitted herself this one last indulgence, a widow at her husband’s grave, sobbing his name in vain. Leo. Leo. Leo.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way, Leo. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Chapter One
Kalash Valleys
Near Chitral, Northwest Frontier, India
1897

The white streak was a gash of barrenness against the rich deep black of her hair. It started at the edge of her forehead, just to the right of center, swept straight down the back of her head, and twisted through her chignon in a striking—and eerie—arabesque.

It invoked an odd reaction in him. Not pity; he would no more pity her than he would pity the lone Himalayan wolf. And not affection; she’d put an end to that with her frigidity, in heart and body. An echo of some sort then, memories of old hopes from more innocent days.

She’d finished washing her hands minutes ago, but she hadn’t moved from the edge of the stream. Instead she’d picked up a twig to traced random patterns in the swift-flowing, aquamarine water.

Beyond the stream fields of wheat glinted a thick, bright green in the narrow alluvial plain. Small, rectangular houses of wood and stacked stone piled one on top of another, like a collection of weathered playing blocks. Behind the village, the ground rose quickly, a brief stratum of walnut and fruit trees before the slope butted up against austere crags that supported only dots of shrubs and an intrepid deodar or two.

“Bryony,” he said at last—he wasn’t sure how much longer he could remain standing.

She went still. The twig washed downstream, caught in a rock, then spun and floated free again.

So she hadn’t known that he was there. With her it was sometimes hard to tell. She was capable of a surpassing obliviousness. But he did not put it past her to deliberately ignore him in public. It had happened before.

She picked up the rubber gloves she’d worn during the caesarean section and began to wash the blood from them. “Mr.Marsden, how unexpected. What brings you to this part of the world?”

“Your father is ill. Your sister sent several cables to Leh, and when she received no response from you, she asked me to find you.”

She was still again. “What’s the matter with my father?”

“I don’t know the specifics. Lady Callista only said that doctors are not hopeful and that he wishes to see you.”

She rose and turned around at last.

At first glance, her face gave the impression of great tranquility and sweetness. Then one noticed the bleakness behind her eyes, as if she were a nun on the verge of losing her faith. When she spoke, however, all illusions of meek melancholy fled, for she had the most leave-me-alone voice he’d ever heard, not strident but stridently self-sufficient, and little concerned with anything that did not involve diseased flesh.

But she was silent this moment and reminded him of a churchyard stone angel that watched over the departed with a gentle, steady compassion.

“You believe Callista?” she asked, destroying the semblance.

“I shouldn’t?”

She shook droplets of water from the gloves. “Unless you were dying in the autumn of ’95.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She claimed you were. She said you were somewhere in the wastes of America, dying, and desperately wanted to see me one last time.”

“I see,” he said. “Does she make a habit of it?”

“Are you engaged to be married?”

“No,” he said. Though he should be. He knew a number of beautiful, affectionate young women, any one of whom would make him a warm, delightful spouse.

“According to her you are. And would gladly jilt the poor girl if I but give the command.” She did not look at him as she said this last, her eyes on the gloves, which she patted dry with a cloth. “I’m sorry that she dragged you into her schemes. And I’m much obliged to you for coming out this far—”

“But you’d rather I turned around and went back right away?”

Silence. “No, of course not. You’ll need to rest and re-provision.”

“And if I didn’t need to rest or re-provision?”

She did not answer, but bent down to stow the gloves and the drying cloth in her bag.

Weeks upon weeks of trekking across some of the most inhospitable terrains on Earth, sleeping on hard ground, eating what he could shoot and the occasional handful of wild berries, so he wouldn’t be weighed down by a train of coolies carrying the usual necessities deemed indispensable for a sahib’s travels—and this was her response.

One should never expect anything else from her.

“Even the boy who cried wolf was right about the wolf once,” he said. “Your father is more than sixty years old. Is it so unlikely for a man of his age to ail?”

She tightened the straps of her bag and buckled it shut. “It would be four months to go from here to England and back, on the off-chance that Callista might be telling the truth.”

“And if she is, you will regret not having gone.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Her ambivalence toward most of Creation had once fascinated him. He’d thought her complicated and extraordinary. But no, she was merely cold and unfeeling.

“Chitral is one march away,” he said. “We can reach it tomorrow. We’ll need a day or two there for provision and coolies. Then we can start for Peshawar.”

She looked back at him, her expression unyielding. “I did not say I’d come.”

It was 370 miles from Gilgit, where he’d been peacefully minding his own business, to Leh, that much again back to Gilgit, then 220 miles from Gilgit to Chitral. For most of the way he’d done two marches a day, sometimes three. He’d lost a full stone in weight. And he hadn’t been this tired since Greenland.

Fuck you.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

DC: Is there a genre you haven’t tackled but would like to try?

ST: I tackle everything I like. So there are very few things that I like and haven’t tackled, but there are tons of things I’ve tried but haven’t finished. Somewhere on my hard-drive there are three science fiction romance partials, a two-thirds-there screenplay, a martial-art epic, and a Star Wars novel.

I also have an in-the-home-stretch contemporary romance that I call my waiting-for-Caitlin book. Caitlin is my editor. Whenever I’m waiting on her to get back to me about something, that’s the book I work on. I’m determined to finish it this year, right after I finished the current historical work-in-progress.

DC: What advice would you give to your younger self?

ST: To not have waited so long to chuck the “after I get published” rider. What I mean is that for a long time I used to postpone the rest of my life by saying I’ll do (insert heart’s desire) after I get published. LOL, now I’m published and I never do anything but type—I am a slow writer so deadlines, no matter how far out, are always breathing down my neck. I really should have lived it up back then!

DC: You have some terrific information about and pics of British India, where Not Quite a Husband takes place, on your website. Has that inspired a yearning in you to see it firsthand yourself?

ST: I have been to India—my husband is Indian—but not anywhere close to the foot of the Himalayas, where most of Not Quite a Husband takes place. I would love to see that part of the world, so incredibly rugged and beautiful. And ride the bus that rattles the whole length of the Korakoram Highway from Peshawar all the way to Kashgar in the very far west of China.

But only after the troubles die down and peace and prosperity return. And even then my mother might not let me!

DC: If you had never become an author, what do you think you would be doing right now?

ST: I have no idea what I would be doing now, but I do know that I would have liked to become a diplomat. Not that I have any particular finesse or international negotiation skills, but I love wearing cocktail dresses and I love eating hors d’oeuvres. Embassy parties, anyone?

Actually, you know what? I should have been an ambassador’s wife. Then I can write all day, and eat hors d’oeuvres in my cocktail dress all night!

DC: What’s next for Sherry Thomas?

ST: What is next for Sherry Thomas is certain humiliation. I’ve been telling people left and right that I am writing my own version of Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible, except without anything to do with Egypt. Well, guess what? I finally got around to re-reading Mr. Impossible and that book is pretty much perfect. I might as well have said I’m writing my own Hamlet, lol.

On the other hand, reading Mr. Impossible makes me impossibly happy. I love it when a romance really is all that.

Lightning Round:

- dark or milk chocolate? – Mild dark chocolate. I used to think I loved dark chocolate until I had the70%-pure sort. I totally cried uncle and ran back to milk chocolate for a while.
- smooth or chunky peanut butter? – Smooth.
- heels or flats? – Flats for everyday. Heels for RWA Nationals.
- coffee or tea? – Tea.
- summer or winter? – Spring and autumn.
- mountains or beach? – Mountains that rise from the ocean, beach optional.
- mustard or mayonnaise? – Mayonnaise. I was once gently escorted away from the salad bar in my high school’s cafeteria because I was loading my burger with so much mayonnaise.
- flowers or candy? – Cake.
- pockets or purse? – Pockets.
- Pepsi or Coke? – Italian soda.
- ebook or print? – Print, but only because I will not be able to keep track of an e-reader.

And because they’re still fun:

1. What is your favorite word?    – “Totally”
2. What is your least favorite word?    – “Vagina,” followed closely by “penis.”
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?     – Peace of mind.
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?  – Lack of peace of mind.
5. What sound or noise do you love?    – Rain.
6. What sound or noise do you hate?     -  Metal scraping against anything.
7. What is your favorite curse word?    – “Crap!”
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?    -  Advertising copywriter.
9. What profession would you not like to do?   – Prostitution of any kind, literal or figurative.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?   -  “Fresh hors d’oeuvres inside!” Or, if nobody ever eats in Heaven, then maybe, “Well done, my young Padawan.”

DC:  Sherry, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today!

Ok, so the Duckies have been so very remiss as to announce the winner to this contest. The contest is now TWO MONTHS OLD. Right, well better late than never (really Lawson was waiting for it to show up so she could read it and I had to break it to her that no hon going to the winner so she gave in). . .

Before we get there though, I thing this is a great thing to share, because I agree with Lisa Kleypas about Sherry Thomas:

“Sherry Thomas is the most powerfully original historical romance author writing today. She is a rebel, a rule-breaker, and above all, a romantic. Searing, tender and filled with passion, her writing is nothing short of a revelation. ‘Private Arrangements’ clearly heralds the beginning of a dazzling career, and I am looking forward to more brilliantly told romances from this accomplished writer.”

Now, on to the reason for this post, the winner.

Congratulations to Beverly!

The prize, if you don’t remember, is an ARC of Delicious, Sherry’s next book due July 29, 2008 and a Private Arrangements t-shirt.

Congratulations to our winner and you need to email your physical address to Sybil at redwyne @ gmail. com so that she can get your prize to you.  Be sure to put “SHERRY THOMAS IS A GODDESS” in the subject line of your email!

by Sherry Thomas

I read romance sites and blogs and have for a long time. Becoming a publish author myself, however, means that from time to time I suddenly run into mentions of my name or my book when I’m least expecting it.

The first time it happened it nearly gave me a heart attack. I was reading this opinion piece on DearAuthor.com, about the truths and perceptions of historical accuracy, when I came across this paragraph:

Recently I read a book set in the late 1800s in England that referred to New York harbor on Independence Day (1885); werewolf (Old English); velvet lined handcuffs (pre 1900s). The book was historically accurate but because I have had a decade of reading almost solely Regency related romances, when I first started reading, I had to remind myself of the time period. The more immersed I became in the story, the less this became a concern.

That book, of course, was Private Arrangements. And what gave me the heart attack was that I’d never thought to check up on any of those things, especially Independence Day, which according to Jane’s research came into use only 8 years ahead of the time setting of the scene in which it was mentioned — I totally lucked out there.

And it’s not as if I don’t research. I’m constantly looking up words, phrases, people and constantly learning dates that surprise and sometimes dismay me.

For example, the word “dreadnought“. I had my heroine’s mother barge into a duke’s path like a dreadnought. I loved that simile: this refined, petite woman compared to a deadly hulk of steel. Alas, according to my dictionary, the term “dreadnought,” at least as referring to a class of battleships, did not come into use until 1906. There went my wonderful imagery.

Another place in my manuscript originally had a phrase that went “Mycenaean bronze, still-vivid relics of Minoan fresco, glass-encased fragments of papyrus from the time of the Pharaohs.” Upon further research, however, I discovered that the word Minoan was coined by British archaeologist Arthur Evans, who had yet to start his major digging on Crete when this particular scene took place. And I couldn’t find mentions of fresco being found lying around, so Minoan fresco became “seals from the island of Crete.”

And other examples abound. My first copyeditor caught quite a few of them. The phrase “femme fatale,” for example, isn’t old enough: it came into use only in 1912. The word “deadpan” is even newer: 1928.

The word “Marquis,” however, is too old. My copyeditor commented that in England, the word “Marquis” had been deprecated in favor of “Marquess” since the early 1800s. At which point I said “You’ve got to be @#%&ing kidding me!” and hauled myself to the university library. I went through several hundred pages of a Debrett’s Peerage from the turn-of-the-century, and sure enough, not a single marquis in sight.

So, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, now we have words that are too old, and words that are not old enough. What are words that are just right? Yep, we have a few of those too.

“Shag,” for example. I know a lot of people think Austin Powers but shag, as in to copulate with, dates from 1788. The word “bang,” as referring to sexual intercourse, dates from some years after the setting of my book. But I took a little artistic liberty as the dates given in dictionaries are when the words first make it into written media, and it’s safe to assume that vulgar slang words could hang around for years — especially in those more restrictive days — before showing up in print.

And of course, the word “fuck” is as old as dirt. And the first instance of it in known writing? A satirical poem composed partly in code, which when deciphered, reads “they [the Carmelite friars of Cambridge] are not in Heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely [a nearby town]“.

Hehehe.

CONTEST!

Comment on any of today’s four Sherry Thomas guest posts with whatever crazy thing you’ve done for love, or the strangest anachronism you’ve ever read in a book or seen in a movie, and you could win an ARC of Sherry’s 29 July 08 Bantam release, Delicious, and a Private Arrangements t-shirt! (Two prizes, one winner.)

Remember, only one entry per IP address is eligible for the prize, but you can comment as often as you wish. Winners will be chosen from comments entered between now and midnight tonight, 24 March, according to the blog’s timestamp (U.S. Central).

Good luck!

by Sherry Thomas 

Everything under the sun pushes somebody’s button; that is an inescapable fact of life. So I feel it is my moral duty to be up front with readers about elements of my book, Private Arrangements (Bantam, 25 Mar 08), that might cause consternation.  Here we go:

1. OMGWTFBBQ, she be not chaste during their long separation! Back in 2001, a kindly NYC agent, after she read the first incarnation of Private Arrangements, called me and told me that while she thought the book had potential, she couldn’t sell it the way it was. One, she said, the story should not be told from the very beginning, but from the point when the hero and the heroine meet again. Two, she said, the majority of romance readers live below the Mason-Dixon Line and would not tolerate a heroine who takes other lovers. I tend to take 50% of the advice people give me, so guess which 50% I did not take? Seriously, I live below the Mason-Dixon Line and I would have a problem with a woman who does not take a lover in ten years, when her husband has vowed never to return to her.

2. There be flashbacks. That’s what I get for taking the advice about starting the book in the middle. And here’s a funny story. I once e-mailed Susan Elizabeth Phillips in the hope that she’d read my book and give me a blurb. The classy lady that SEP is, she turned me down in a way that made me feel wonderful about myself. Some weeks later at RWA Nationals in Dallas, I sat in on one of her workshops. She expounded on things that would take a reader out of a book. And she stressed, “Do not, do not write a wonderful first chapter and then start your second chapter with ‘Ten years earlier.’

Guess what my second chapter starts with? Wrong. It’s “Eleven years earlier.” Ha!

3. Omgwtfbbq, he be not chaste during their long separation! You saw that one coming, didn’t you?

4. There be a virgin hero. His first time is with her and it is on-screen. So this book qualifies as a book with a virgin hero. (But it’s so totally hot! Come on, Sybil, testify!)

5. There be a secondary romance. I understand some readers want only the primary relationship. Believe me, I was in that camp, because I felt that the secondary h/h often usurped the primary h/h. But then I figured out that the secondary h/h cannot have a problem half as bad as the primary h/h, they should have a problem only about 1/6 the severity of the primary h/h’s. That way, it makes for a pleasant change of pace and a good way to insert a bit of humor and levity.

6. There be bodice ripping! Months ago, I googled Private Arrangements and came across it on a Swedish college student’s nightstand. She called it a “bodice rippern”(sic). I laughed uproariously. Then my husband said, “But she’s not wrong. There is some sort of ripping in your book.”  I stared at him, dumbfounded, until I recalled this one scene where the hero was, um, impatient with the heroine’s nightgown. My jaw dropped and a wail was heard throughout these lands, “Omigod, I write bodice rippers!”

I wanted seven reasons. Seven is the most fabulous number — there are seven days in a week, seven colors to the rainbow, and seven books in the Harry Potter series — where as six is kind of stand-offish and weird… But my h/h do not sleep with other peeps on screen, there is no skanky villain sex — not even a real villain anywhere in sight — and no overabundance of prior-book characters visiting. So I guess I’ll have to settle for six.

Now don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

CONTEST!

Comment on any of today’s four Sherry Thomas guest posts with whatever crazy thing you’ve done for love, or the wildest reason imaginable for not reading at all, and you could win an ARC of Sherry’s 29 July 08 Bantam release, Delicious, and a Private Arrangements t-shirt!  (Two prizes, one winner.)

Remember, only one entry per IP address is eligible for the prize, but you can comment as often as you wish.  Winners will be chosen from comments entered between now and midnight tonight, 24 March, according to the blog’s timestamp (U.S. Central).

Good luck!

For a fact, Private Arrangements is one of this year’s most talked about books. And while that normally means it’s awful, I’m happy to say that isn’t the case for this one. :)  And that, my dear friends, is why Sherry is guesting today because the book really is THAT GOOD.

It is always a fear of mine that when a book is built up so much, there is no way it can live up to the hype. So when I read this forever and a day ago I was beyond excited to realize it was great. And emailed her I think a year ago and said “you have to guest.”

Ten to one she thought I was insane, most likely she still does.

Stick around and meet the author. Learn a bit more about the book and than tomorrow when you buy it keep your receipt because I need it. Yep… more on that in a min. (And shit I knew I was forgetting to do something. GWEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

by Sherry Thomas

I want to be Lisa Kleypas when I grow up. Yeah, I know that’s not an original wish, but the woman is beautiful both on the inside and the outside, has legions of adoring fans, and, according to bloggers who’ve lunched with her, totally knows how to order wine.

(And look at this: according to the marketing campaign enumerated on the ARC of Blue-Eyed Devil, the first print run for the paperback edition of Sugar Daddy is 1.2 million copies. Holy @#$%! I hereby coin a new publication milestone: the Lisa Kleypas call, for when an author gets news that her print run will be 1,000,000+. Sooo, J.K Rowling, how did you feel when you received the Lisa Kleypas call?)

I have irrefutable evidence that Ms Kleypas’s destiny and mine are inextricably linked. How so you ask? Well, I won my copies of Sugar Daddy and Blue-Eyed Devil right here on this blog. Blue-Eyed Devil releases the same day as my debut Private Arrangements. And Sybil is hosting a book club for Sugar Daddy right after my guest stint, again on the day Private Arrangements hits the shelves. Okay so it was to coincide with Blue-Eyed Devil’s release but it’s destiny I tell you.

It so happens I have read Sugar Daddy. And I had a blast reading it. It was during some of my most desperate hours, with a deadline hanging over my head like a guillotine — and I said screw it and kept on reading. So herewith, seven reasons you should also read Sugar Daddy:

1. Liberty Jones, the heroine. She is the kind of friend and sister you would love more than life itself.

2. The voice. Ms. Kleypas has a great contemporary voice. I didn’t expect it, but I was entirely carried away by it.

3. The vivid writing. “The late afternoon sun was as round and white as a paper plate tacked to the sky.” “Her skin was webbed and furrowed, constantly shifting to accommodate her animated expressions.” “No dirt on earth sticks to you like East Texas red clay. The wind blows it over you and it tastes sweet in your mouth. As the clay lurks under a foot of light tan topsoil, it expands and shrinks so drastically that in the driest months Martian-colored cracks run across the ground.”

4. The trailer park. I admit I had my doubts about a story in which a significant portion is set in a trailer park. But it would turn out to be the setting I most enjoyed. Ms Kleypas made the community of Bluebonnet Ranch Mobile Home Estates — and by extension the nowhere town of Welcome, Texas — come alive.

5. Diana Jones, Liberty’s mother. In the hands of a less-skilled writer, she might come across as foolish and brittle. But depicted by Ms Kleypas’s astute and deeply humane pen, she is a complex and fully developed character and engaged all my sympathies.

6. Hardy Cates, especially in the Welcome years. There have been lots of heroes from the wrong side of the tracks. But young Hardy is something else. From the moment you meet him you know that there is something different and special about him, that he had the grits and brains and the drive to rise to the sky, and charm many a pair of pants off along his way. And there is absolutely nothing emo about him. Hooray!

7. Ms Kleypas herself. The best reading experience, for me, is a kind of communion between the author and the reader, whereby two possibly very different sets of outlooks and opinions and experiences somehow meld into a single beautiful whole. And Ms Kleypas is the kind of author who does far better than coming half way to meet you. She brings such warmth and compassion to the story that it becomes easy for a reader (me) to let go of her cynicism and lose herself in the story, which is all any reader (me) wants.

I could easily come up with more reasons, but I will keep it at the mystical and elegant seven. And here’s to the inaugural success of the TGTBTU Book Club. Long may it prosper and bring great rejoicing to bloglandia. (And may I be the next guest if it works out!)

CONTEST!

Comment on any of today’s four Sherry Thomas guest posts with whatever crazy thing you’ve done for love, or give us another reason to read La Lisa, and you could win an ARC of Sherry’s 29 July 08 Bantam release, Delicious, and a Private Arrangements t-shirt!  (Two prizes, one winner.)

Remember, only one entry per IP address is eligible for the prize, but you can comment as often as you wish.  Winners will be chosen from comments entered between now and midnight tonight, 24 March, according to the blog’s timestamp (U.S. Central).

Good luck!

Sherry Thomas, author of Private Arrangements (Bantam, 25 Mar 08), is today’s Guest Author and she’s here to share several posts with TGTBTU’s readers.  So read on to learn more about this amazing author…

Learning English the Passionate Way
by Sherry Thomas

Some of you might know — Sybil, for instance, though I’m not sure whether she remembers such things — that English is not my native tongue. In fact I hardly ever spoke it during the first eighteen years of my life — the first thirteen couldn’t be helped, I was living in another country; the latter five, well, let’s just say I found American teenagers to be more alien than Martians and observed them from a distance with a mixture of astonishment and alarm.

But while in my teens I did not speak English in any noticeable quantities, I read a great deal of it. My bio tends to give the exaggerated impression — as bios are wont to do — that I learned English solely from reading romances. That was, of course, not strictly true, as I had a vocabulary of about 200 English words — likely less — when I got off the jumbo jet, not enough to read anything beyond little booklets provided by my English-as-Second-Language classes.

But I disdained those little booklets as a French gourmet disdained le Big Mac. I’d read thousand-page wuxia novels for breakfast back home, and here I was, stuck trying to decipher 10-page picture books about puppies.

So as soon as I could, I moved on to bigger and better things; and by bigger and better things, I mean those books with very colorful covers depicting a man and a woman in various stages of proximity, books that were stocked in K-Mart, Wal-Mart, the grocery stores, and the university bookstore that was a ten-minute bicycle ride from my new home (the married student dorm, since Mom was a grad student then.)

I still remember trying to decipher the back blurbs on some of those books with my very limited English. One book touted an “infamous pirate”—and left me scratching my head. I knew if you put “in” in front of another word, the resulting word meant the opposite of what the original word meant. So why would anyone care about a not-famous-at-all pirate?

Another book said it featured a governess. I got excited. I knew that a governor was the head of a state. And a governess was, of course, a woman governor. As I flipped through the first few pages, however, I became more and more confused. Since when was a governor given a small room in somebody’s house and expected to look after the children?

The first romance that I bought and brought home was Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers, when I was a few months short of fifteen. I still have it. A couple of days ago I flipped through it and its tonnage of adverbs rather struck me. Characters stared dourly, interposed lazily, and exploded violently. But you know what, the lack of finesse in the writing was one of the reasons it made perfect reading material for me — all those I-hate-you’s were easy to understand for someone whose grasp of the language was still shaky at best. And the histrionics kept me turning the pages.

I went on to read Lindsey, Devereux, and McNaught, though no one else gave my dictionary quite the workout Rogers did. It wasn’t obvious to me then, but in retrospect, I see that at eighteen I possessed the vocabulary of a Victorian old lady. It was perfectly slang-free, since I never talked to the kids at school, and remarkably old fashioned.

For example, I am almost sure that I didn’t know—or at least never used—the words “pee” and “poop” until after I’d had a baby of my own. “Dweeb”, “twerp”, “nerd”, were those even words? And all the infinite variety and splendor of the words and phrases that could be made out of “fuck?” They were Greek to me until I started reading blogs in 2003.

But I knew just about every synonym of ardor that could be found in a thesaurus. I knew that a marquess was ranked higher than an earl, who was ranked higher than a viscount. And I knew a thousand and one ways not to call a penis a penis.

And so…I became a historical romance writer!

CONTEST!

Comment on any of today’s four Sherry Thomas guest posts with whatever crazy thing you’ve done for love, and you could win an ARC of Sherry’s 29 July 08 Bantam release, Delicious, and a Private Arrangements t-shirt!  (Two prizes, one winner.)

Remember, only one entry per IP address is eligible for the prize, but you can comment as often as you wish.  Winners will be chosen from comments entered between now and midnight tonight, 24 March, according to the blog’s timestamp (U.S. Central).

Good luck!

Alicia’s review of Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas
Historical romance released by Bantam Books 25 Mar 08

I went into this book knowing nothing except that it was a romance and I could count on getting a happy ending. It’s a good thing I knew that, though, because this couple put me through the wringer.

We start the book with the ten year marriage about to be dissolved. Gigi has come to the end of her ability to wait for the husband she loves and wants to have a chance at some happiness. Camden, the husband, doesn’t want her for himself but still intends to make this as difficult for her as possible. We then go back to the beginning of the story. Knowing the horrible future awaiting the young couple as they fall in love and marry is kind of like watching a train wreck in slow motion, the tremendous force behind their love only making the devastation more horrible.

The book goes back and forth between the present plot and the couple’s back-story, keeping the reader constantly involved at both levels. The unfolding is exquisite. The dignity of the characters means that the pain is not portrayed in vulgar scenes. Instead it is the bleak, almost silent bleeding out of a dream.

Gigi is the daughter of new money. She intends to marry a title and is ruthless in her hunt. She’s not shy and selfless underneath. She’s not misunderstood or innocent. She’s not in desperation, trying to save some beloved family member or under threats by some evil one. She’s just exactly what she seems and is open about it from the beginning. Actually, Camden loves her that way.

Camden has been raised in the poor and untitled branch of a “good” family. He has spent his childhood in the most fashionable locations during the least fashionable seasons, when the owners were out of town and would lend out accommodations. He is a man to whom honor is everything. It is all he ever had.

The result is painful to watch. This is one of those stories that rips out your heart and pokes needles in it, slices it in pieces, puts it through the meat grinder, then puts it back where it belongs. The emotion is high and the characters well written.

The actual writing is wonderful. The dialogue is fantastic. The use of sexual tension is precise. It isn’t used to make the book “hot” until the characters are ready for it. It isn’t rushed. The setting is Victorian and we get a feel for the time without having random history lectures tossed in. The author allows sexual references without crossing the line into unrealistic erotica (which has its place but it wouldn’t be here). It simply feels like the kind of things real adults know are part of life. The plot is simple with the focus being the characters, their history and hope (or not) for the future.

The only thing bringing my grade for this book down is my feeling like Camden didn’t demonstrate nearly enough regret. Gigi groveled enough for both of them and she gets very little reassurance of his true feelings. She has made monumental leaps in character growth and none of it easily earned. While Camden was right at first, he wasn’t right for long, and I wanted to see his pain laid bare before her for all the years she paid for her sin. She learned her lesson early and well, and he knew it. I didn’t really feel he redeemed himself.

Grade: B-

     To all of London society, Lord and Lady Tremaine had the ideal arrangement: a marriage based on civility, courteousness, freedom—and living on separate continents.

     But once upon a time, things were quite different for the Tremaines…When Gigi Rowland first laid eyes on Camden Saybrook, Lord Tremaine, the attraction was immediate and overwhelming: she simply had to have him. But what began in a spark of passion ended in betrayal the morning after their wedding—and Gigi wants to be free to marry again. Now Camden has returned from America with an outrageous demand—an heir—in exchange for Gigi’s freedom.

     Gigi’s decision will have consequences she never imagined, as secrets are exposed, desire is rekindled—and one of London’s most admired couples must either fall in love all over again…or let each other go forever.

     Read an excerpt.

Read Lawson’s review

Lawson’s review of Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas
Historical romance released by Bantam Books 25 Mar 08

It’s a hard thing to do, write a review. After reading Private Arrangements, it’s even more difficult of a review to write. I don’t want to leave the assumption that there aren’t any good things about it. It’s a very well written story. The language is smart and there aren’t any “beat this into the reader’s head” type of themes. Both the hero and heroine are characterized extremely well and don’t do anything that goes against the grain of their characters. But. . .

Isn’t it sad that there’s a “but”? What’s worse is I just can’t put my finger on what it is that is possibly bothering me, or at least making me waver on my opinion of the book. Gigi is a little unlikeable at first, especially during the flashbacks when her youth, drive and single-mindedness in getting what she wants, which is actually what her mother wants: to be a duchess. But later what comes out is her insecurities because she’s been hunted for her money and had the idea that a title is what is needed in her life.

Enter Camden, who is newly a Marquess thanks to his cousin’s unfortunate early demise. That cousin was Gigi’s fiancee, whom she had basically blackmailed into marrying her. Camden finds a kindred soul in Gigi, for they both had lonely childhoods and carried the burden of responsibility for the family. Young lust blossoms quickly into young love, which is blind to faults, and in the end leads to betryals that tear the couple apart for ten years.

There’s some flashbacks that tell the story of the courtship, wedding, and subsequent life the two lead for the next ten years interspersed with the happenings of the present, when Gigi is seeking a divorce so she can marry a man she knows adores her and will stand by her. The chemistry between Camden and Gigi is electric, they play off each other’s good and bad sides so well and even though they spend a decade apart, they know each other well because they truly do love each other.

Maybe what bothers me is the wringer Camden and Gigi put themselves through due to how young they are when they meet and not thinking things through when they do them. Or maybe it’s the fact that though they have ten years to grow up and forgive each other it actually takes them that long to do it. Or that Camden, though he puts on a brave, strong front, is possibly just a little weak when it comes down to truly going after what he wants and being happy.

I can’t give this anything less than a high B though. I loved the dialogue, the setting, the scenes, the characters, the subplot with Gigi’s mother and the overall care and detail that Thomas obviously put into this book. Maybe I’m giving it such a high grade because it’s making me think about these things so much and deep down that’s what I want, a book that truly makes me analyze what’s good and bad about it but still gives a good HEA at the end. As well as put in my keeper shelf to reread and think more on in the future.

Grade: B+

To all of London society, Lord and Lady Tremaine had the ideal arrangement: a marriage based on civility, courteousness, freedom—and living on separate continents.

But once upon a time, things were quite different for the Tremaines…When Gigi Rowland first laid eyes on Camden Saybrook, Lord Tremaine, the attraction was immediate and overwhelming: she simply had to have him. But what began in a spark of passion ended in betrayal the morning after their wedding—and Gigi wants to be free to marry again. Now Camden has returned from America with an outrageous demand—an heir—in exchange for Gigi’s freedom.

Gigi’s decision will have consequences she never imagined, as secrets are exposed, desire is rekindled—and one of London’s most admired couples must either fall in love all over again…or let each other go forever.

Read an excerpt.

Read Alicia’s review here.