Getting ready to go to a friend’s house for a Mother’s Day dinner party, I started thinking about mothers in fiction. Specifically heroines are mothers. A number of my heroines have had children or have become stepmothers because in the course of the story. I knew being a mother would be an important part of who Mélanie was from my very first plotting the idea for the book that became Daughter of the Game and then Secrets of Lady. I hadn’t even come up with the idea of Mélanie and Charles’s son being abducted yet. I just had the idea of the two of them and the secrets in their marriage. But I knew I wanted them to have children, because that would be an extra tie between them, a tie that would add so much more weight to the choices they had made and the choices they would be compelled to make in the course of the novel. Once I had the idea of having their son kidnapped, I knew I wanted them to have another child, so I could show them interacting as parents even while trying desperately to get their son back.

Like my friends who are working parents, Mélanie and Charles struggle to balance their responsibilities to their children with the other responsibilities in their lives. In Beneath a Silent Moon, Jessica is a baby. Investigating a murder and coping with spies, smugglers, assassins, and the Elsinore League while taking care of an infant is a challenge for Mélanie. It was a challenge for me as a writer as well. I decided Mélanie would nurse Jessica herself, so I had to keep track of how long it had been since she’d fed Jessica, and I made unexpected research forays into questions such as “did they have breast pumps in the Regency?” (they did, called “breast exhausters”). But having the children in the book, particularly baby Jessica, was a great way to bring the tensions in Mélanie’s to the fore. At one point in the book, when Mélanie’s deliberately put herself in a dangerous situation, Charles tells her she should remember she has children. Mélanie shoots back that she never forgets she has children and says she’ll stop putting herself in danger whenever Charles stops running risks himself. Mélanie takes being a mother very seriously, but she isn’t completely defined by it, any more than Charles is completely defined by being a father.

In one of the excerpts I posted from The Mask of Night,, Charles and Mel try to balance the demands of an investigation with the demands of their children. The tension between having children and their lives as agents is a continuing thread throughout the series for both Mélanie and Charles, one I look forward to exploring.

Do you like heroines who have children? Any examples of books where being a mother shaped the heroine in interesting ways? How do you think Mélanie would be different as a character if she didn’t have children? How might her relationship with Charles and the choices she made be different?

This week’s addition to the Fraser Correspondence is a letter to Mélanie from her friend Isobel Lydgate (David’s sister and Honoria’s cousin) about the vicissitudes of being a mother.

Yesterday I guest blogged on the Avon Romance Blog about themes in Beneath a Silent Moon. It was a fun and thought-provoking blog to write. I thought I’d repeat it here for this week’s Dear Reader post, with some additional thoughts stirred by the discussion around the post on the Avon Blog.

When I was plotting Beneath a Silent Moon, my good friend and critique partner Penelope Williamson said, “This book is all about sex.” That brought me up short. The book I was plotting was a spy story, a love story, a family drama. At its thematic heart, I saw it as a book about characters reacting to the manners and mores of the Regency, which all have to do with–

Well… Yes. Penny had a point. So many of the intricate social codes of the era relate to sex in one way or another. How many times an unmarried couple can dance together. Not waltzing at Almack’s without permission from a patroness. What constitutes being compromised. A husband and wife not living in each other’s pockets. A gentleman not dallying with another gentleman’s wife until she’s given him a legitimate heir.

In Beneath a Silent Moon, Mélanie is struggling to make sense of these unwritten rules and what they say about the elusive emotional truth at the heart of her marriage to aristocratic Charles Fraser, who grew up in this world and is connected to the most powerful families in Britain. French-Spanish Mélanie met and married Charles (a British spy) in the crucible of the Napoleonic Wars. Now, with the end of the war, they’ve settled in London. Unlike many couples in the haut ton, they share a bedchamber (breaking one of those unwritten rules), but Mélanie is not at all sure she really knows her husband. Nor is Charles sure he can define what lies between him and the woman he married out of honor and necessity. Passion isn’t the same as love or intimacy, as Charles knows to his cost, having grown up in a world in which marriage is to cement alliances and produce heirs, love is a game, and seduction a sport. As he thinks at one point, “How poorly demarcated was the line between want and need, between lust and tenderness, between giving a lover pleasure and using her for it. When did desire become manipulation and honesty give way to deceit?”

The older generation in the novel–Charles’s father and aunt and their friends, “the Glenister House set”–still play at love by the rules of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which seductions are strategized with the cool calculation of a chess game. Charles’s younger sister Gisèle chafes against the constraints placed on an unmarried girl in this hothouse of romantic intrigues. “Everyone else in the Glenister House set has a lover,” she points out. “Or two. Except the unmarried girls. It’s so boring being a virgin.” Honoria Talbot, the girl Charles almost married, has decided to treat love and passion with a cooler, more calculating eye and makes a surprising choice of husband. Charles’s best friend David is a serious young man who takes the gentleman’s code seriously but has failed to do his duty to his family by marrying and producing an heir, because the love of his life happens to be another man.

Charles, Mélanie, and the other characters gather together for a house party at Dunmykel, the Fraser family castle on the Scottish coast. Espionage intertwines with romantic intrigues until it is difficult to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Past sins, personal and political, reverberate through the present. An assassination is plotted, secret councils take place, and lovers find and lose each other beneath a silent moon. When I read through the galleys I was pleased that the book seemed to me to hold together well thematically. And Penny was right. It’s all about sex ☺.

Commenting on the blog, my friend Monica McCarty said, “I totally agree with what Penny said, but didn’t make the connection when I read it the first time.” I didn’t make the connection until Penny made the comment either, but since that was early in the writing process, I was then aware of it when I was writing the book. But even before that I think the theme had been in my subconscious as I plotted. I think we often develop stories with thematic threads without consciously realizing it, at least in the early stages of writing a book. I remember my mom and me realizing in the second draft that one of our books (A Touch of Scandal) was all about relationships between parents and children. On the other hand with Secrets of a Lady, I knew from the start that the book revolved around fidelity and betrayal and the elusive nature of truth.

If you’ve read Beneath a Silent Moon, did you notice that many of the plot threads were “all about sex”? Do you notice themes in general when you read? Writers, do you think in terms of themes? Do you start out with a theme in mind or do you realize in the writing process that there are thematic threads running through the story you’ve developed? Have your friends ever noticed something in your work that surprised you?

This week’s addition to the Fraser Correspondence is a letter from Lord Carfax (Charles’s former intelligence chief who appeared in last week’s excerpt from The Mask of Night) to his son David, dealing with an issue mentioned in this post–David’s failure to marry and produce an heir.

7 May Update: I’m blogging on History Hoydens today about epistolary novels and the Fraser Correspondence. Do stop by!

I’ll post a full update this evening, but today Pam Rosenthal is interviewing me about Beneath a Silent Moon on History Hoydens and I’m guest blogging on the Avon Romance Blog. Do come by and visit and ask a question or leave a comment.

Cheers,
Tracy

My apologies for the late update. I wanted to post this week’s update on 29 April, because this is the day the new trade edition of Beneath a Silent Moon goes on sale. I’m so excited to finally see it on the shelf! And I’m also running a bit behind, because I just returned from four days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. My good friend and fellow writer Penny Williamson and I go twice a year, see two plays a day, analyze the plays and talk about the connections to our own writing, and in between eat at some wonderful restaurants and find time for shopping. It’s always a great trip–so creatively energizing and so much fun.

All the plays we saw were wonderfully done, but three particularly resonated in thinking about my own work. A taut, energetic Coriolanus for it’s fascinating depiction of political maneuvering (after all, so many of many of my characters are politicians). A brilliant, innovative A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which reminded me of the debt Beneath a Silent Moon owes to the play (lovers changing partners beneath a silent midsummer moon). And a new play called The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler by Jeff Whitty. It’s set in a fantasy world in which fictional characters from plays, books, operas, movies, and television, live out their lives, caught in the infinite loop of the conflicts and choices their authors wrote for them. The can’t change the circumstances of their stories, but as long as they are remembered, they remain immortal. Once they are forgotten, they fade away. Hedda Gabler rebels against forever playing out the tragic existence Ibsen wrote for her and goes on a quest to rewrite her ending. But would a happy Hedda with a happy ending linger in the memory? Or would she simply fade away?

What do you think makes a character linger in the memory of readers and audiences? Do you imagine characters having adventures off the pages of a novel or play? Do you find every find yourself wanting to rewrite an author’s ending?

For the week of Beneath a Silent Moon’s release, the edition to the Fraser Correspondence is Lady Frances’s take on Charles and Mélanie, a few weeks before the book begins. It’s a letter she writes to her friend Louisa Drummond who is mentioned in Beneath a Silent Moon (Frances and Louisa invaded one of the Elsinore League’s gatherings).

And, as promised, here’s another brief teaser from The Mask of Night. Set early in the book, it involved another real historical figure, Lord Castlereagh (the Foreign Secretary) as well as the fictional Lord Carfax (chief of Intelligence) and Charles.

______________________________
Lord Carfax pushed the door of his son-in-law’s study shut. The click of the latch echoed through the oak-paneled room. “Might I inquire what the devil you were thinking sending to Bow Street?”
Charles met his former employer’s gaze. “It seemed the obvious course of action with a dead body in the garden.”
“Since when have you been one to take the obvious course of action? I expect better of you, Charles.”
“But it’s hardly the first time I’ve failed to meet your expectations, is it, sir?”
“Don’t remind me,” Carfax said.
Lord Castlereagh strode across the room, a cloud of powder billowing from his wig. “Did you know he was in England, Carfax?”
Carfax turned his gaze from Charles to the Foreign Secretary. “Of course not. I’d have told you.”
“Would you?”
Carfax and Castlereagh regarded each other, the uneasy balance of their relationship pulling between them. Spheres of control between the official world of the diplomatic corps and the unofficial world of intelligence operations frequently became blurry. Charles, who had served under both men as an agent and diplomat, had more than once been witness to the tension that could result.
“When,” Carfax said, “have you ever known me to withhold—”
“Count Nesselrode’s dispatches.” Castlereagh took up a position beside a wing-back chair, one hand gripping its high back. “The naval treaty. The incident with the frigate off Lisbon. The unfortunate business at the Russian Embassy last—”
“As I recall I told you everything you needed –”
“You blindsided me.” Castlereagh’s usually well-modulated voice cut across the study like the crack of a musket. “More than once.”
Carfax leaned against the desk, hands braced behind him. “Until I saw the body in the garden just now I had no notion the man in question was in England. I assume you’ll take my word for it, Robert?”
“When have I ever declined to take your word, Hubert?” Castlereagh’s cool gaze remained steady on Carfax’s face. “Which leaves the matter of what he was doing here.”
“I hate to ask troublesome questions,” Charles said, “but who was he?”
Carfax raised a brow at Castlereagh. “Would you prefer to explain or shall I?”
Castlereagh inclined his head. “Go ahead by all means. You know–knew—-him better than I did, after all.”
Carfax folded his arms over his furred velvet robe. “Does the name Julien St. Juste mean anything to you, Charles?”
“St. Juste?” Charles shook his head. “No.”
“It’s not surprising. He went by a different alias for each mission and managed to remain safely anonymous. Even to fellow agents like you. Our first record of him is in Paris in the years of the Directory. He was still in his teens. He worked as an assassin for Fouché in the French Ministry of Police. Later he sold information to our side. After that he began to work for the highest bidder—us, the French, the Russians. We also suspect he was the Empress Josephine’s lover. Before she was the Empress. Before she married Bonaparte and through the early years of their marriage.”
“You had Josephine Bonaparte under surveillance all those years ago?” Charles said.
“She was Barras’s mistress, and he was the most powerful of the Directors. Then she married Bonaparte. I suspected her husband was likely to prove a force to be reckoned with. One of the best ways to acquire a hold on a man can be knowing his wife’s indiscretions.”
Charles willed his face to remain blank. “Did Bonaparte know about the affair?”
“Apparently not. At least not at that time.” Carfax walked to a glass-fronted cabinet and touched the silver-framed miniature of Oliver and Isobel’s three children that stood atop it. “St. Juste continued to work for various sides during the Peninsular War. The last I heard of him, he was working for the French again at the time of Waterloo. I lost track of him after that. Until tonight.”
“But you’re sure the dead man is St. Juste?”
“When have you ever known me to forget a face?”
“I met him a handful of times as well. He wasn’t a man one easily forgets.” Castlereagh put up a hand to straighten his elaborate cravat, a rare gesture of discomposure. “What in God’s name was he doing here?”
“Precisely.” Carfax turned to face Charles. “We need to know why St. Juste met his death tonight. More important, we need to know what he’s been doing for the past four and a half years and what brought him to England now.”
Charles rested his shoulders against the bookshelf behind him. “It’s an interesting problem.”
“So it is. And you’re going to solve it for us. “
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking.
“I want you on this as well, Charles,” Castlereagh said. “I need someone I can trust.”
“Thank you,” Carfax murmured.
“I don’t work for you anymore.” Charles’s gaze flickered between the two men. “Either of you.”
“You’re still an Englishman,” Castlereagh said.
“Scots.”
“British. You know what’s due to your country, whatever Radical nonsense you spout off in the Commons.”
“The war’s over.”
“One can scarcely turn round without stumbling over a former Bonapartist,” Castlereagh said.
“Oh, come, sir.” Charles shifted his shoulders against the cold glass at his back. “You’re starting to sound like the Comte d’Artois and the Ultra Royalists, seeing Bonapartists round every corner. Which is hardly likely considering how many are in prison. Or executed.”
Castlereagh tugged at the braided cuff of his frock coat. “I presume you noticed the Comte de Flahaut in the ballroom this evening?”
“I don’t imagine the ladies Flahaut flirts with are much concerned with which side he fought on.”
“Surely I needn’t remind you that flirtation can be a mask for other matters?” Carfax, who had fallen to staring at the miniatures, snapped his gaze back to Charles’s face. “Don’t pretend to be simple-minded, Charles. We’ve been sitting on a tinderbox since Waterloo. The French king’s hold on the throne is tenuous, the Russians aren’t happy about the Polish situation, Spain is threatening to revolt. And the Prince Regent couldn’t even open Parliament without a mob shooting at his carriage.”
“Are you saying you think St. Juste was hired by English Radicals?”
“We don’t know whom he was hired by. That’s the problem. But he wasn’t the sort of man to take a pleasure trip.”
Castlereagh spread his elegant fingers over the tufted leather of the chairback. “Whatever our differences, Charles, I can’t believe you wish to see the country of your birth disintegrate into the bloody mess we saw in France.”
“Don’t waste your breath, Robert. The appeal to God and country has never been much good with Charles.” Carfax fixed Charles with the steel-eyed look he wore when outlining a tactical mission. “Despite your tiresome tendency to think for yourself, you’re one of the best agents I’ve ever trained. You have a knack for investigations. Your work resolving the murder in Vienna was brilliant. Not to mention–” Carfax’s swallowed. “You performed ably in the business of my niece’s death two years ago.”
Charles’s fingers tightened on the cut velvet of his sleeves. He did not want to talk about Honoria Talbot and her murder and its aftermath. “Sir, it’s been barely two months since my son was abducted. We’re lucky he hasn’t suffered more, but he still has nightmares. He needs his parents—“
“We’re not asking you to leave London.” Something shifted in the hard set of Carfax’s features, so that Charles was looking not at his former spymaster but at the school friend’s father at whose house he had spent boyhood holidays. “I’m not insensible of what you all went through, Charles. But you’ve got Colin safely back, and the villains have been apprehended.”
“That doesn’t erase the scars. And my brother—“
“Your brother is buried. There’s nothing you can do save mourn him, and you’re not one to wallow in mourning. Mélanie will understand.”
Of course Mélanie would understand. Mélanie would never admit that any strain might be too much for her. For them. He couldn’t say to Carfax and Castlereagh, My marriage almost ended two months ago. My wife and I are still learning to know and trust each other again. And most certainly not, Anything that touches on international politics may be ground too dangerous for us to tread at present.
“You’re not a boy any more,” Carfax said. “You won’t fall apart. Not now.”
Charles forced himself to meet Carfax’s gaze. Twelve years fell away, and Charles was a young man of twenty, shirt cuffs buttoned low over wrists still raw and bandaged from his own inexpert attempt to slash them. Carfax was right. Whatever happened, he would never seek that way out again. He had responsibilities, people dependent on him. But at a time when there had seemed nothing to tie him to life, Carfax had come to his rescue. He owed the older man a good share of his sanity and quite possibly his life.
“I know you, Charles. You want to investigate this. You never could resist a challenge, even as a boy.”
Truth, always the keenest dart. “What I want and what’s best for my family isn’t the same thing.”
“I’m asking you as a favor, Charles,” Carfax said. “I don’t ask for favors unless the need is great.”
“Jeremy Roth is on his way here. He may be outside even now.” Charles pictured Roth joining Mélanie in the garden and mentally called himself seven kinds of fool. He’d told Oliver to ask for Roth because Roth was an honest man with a keen understanding, which God knew could not be said of all Bow Street Runners. But he’d have thought twice if he’d known he and Mélanie were going to be drawn into the matter.
“We can keep Bow Street out of it,” Castlereagh said. “The Chief Magistrate answers to the Home Secretary. I’ll have a word with the Lord Sidmouth.”
“That won’t stop the talk. Word’s going to get out that a man was killed here tonight. If Bow Street aren’t seen to be investigating, it will draw the wrong sort of attention to the matter. We’ll do better to involve them.”
Carfax and Castlereagh exchanged a look. Whatever their differences, Charles realized, the two men had played him brilliantly. “We’ll do better?” Carfax echoed.
Charles swallowed. Regret, anger, and alarm sat bitter on his tongue. Along with the seductive tang of danger. “I’ll work with Roth.”
“You’ll bring us what you learn?” Carfax asked in the same level, reasonable tone Charles had heard him use to order the assassination of a double agent.
“We’ll bring you what we learn,” Charles said.
As cold as the terrace had been, it was only now that he felt chilled to the bone.

I blogged on History Hoydens last week about the historical background to The Mask of Night, so this seemed like a good time to post another excerpt. Following up on the historical background, here’s Mélanie’s first meeting in the book with Hortense Bonaparte (the Empress Josephine’s daughter, Napoleon’s stepdaughter and his younger brother’s wife). It takes place at the masquerade ball given by Oliver and isobel Lydgate.

I’ve also just added a letter from Evie to Quen to the Fraser Correspondence.

Have a great week and let me know your thoughts on the excerpt!

___________________________
A hand closed on her arm. She turned round and found herself looking into a pair of clear, bright blue eyes, behind a gilded half-mask. The rest of the woman’s face was covered in white paint, bright lip and cheek rouge, dark brow blacking. A remarkably realistic imitation of Queen Elizabeth completed by a red wig, a crown that glittered with real diamonds, and a stiff cloth of gold gown.
“I must speak to you, Mélanie.”
Mélanie nearly dropped her fan.
“It’s me.” The woman’s fingers bit into her arm. “Please.”
Without wasting time on further speech, Mélanie led the way through the crowd to the far end of the ballroom—ducking behind a statue of Apollo to avoid Lady Jersey—and opened a door onto a small circular ante-chamber hung with cinnamon-striped silk. A fire and two lamps had been lit in case any of the guests wished to retire, but the room was empty and the curtains had been drawn across the French windows to the terrace.
Mélanie closed the door and put her back to it. The woman turned to face her. In the lamplight, the blue gaze was unmistakable, as was the soft, crimson-painted mouth beneath the mask.
“I know this sounds absurd in the circumstances,” Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte said. “But it’s so very good to see you.”
“You too.” And she meant it, even as another part of her brain screamed that she was about to be sucked into a maelstrom.
Hortense gave one of her sudden smiles. “But you’re wondering what in God’s name I’m doing here.”
“On the contrary. I can hazard a very good guess what you’re doing here.”
Hortense drew a shaky breath. “Have you seen him?”
“I could scarcely avoid it. Though he hasn’t been in London much since his marriage.”
Hortense’s fingers tightened on the stiff folds of her gown. “How is he?”
Mélanie saw the Comte de Flahaut as she had glimpsed him in the three years they’d both been in Britain. Sitting beside Margaret Mercer Elphinstone in a box at Drury Lane. Standing by the pianoforte to turn the pages of Miss Mercer’s music. Waltzing with her this evening. Smiling the smile that had dazzled women across the Continent. “Trying to find his way in a hostile world. Like the rest of us.”
“They have a child.”
“Yes. A little girl.”
“I’m glad. I always knew he’d make a good father.” Hortense hesitated, her gaze filled with ghosts. “His wife—does he love her?”
“Oh, chèrie. It’s difficult enough to know if one’s in love oneself let alone if someone else is.”
“His father pushed him into it. He never approved of me, and now he wants Flahaut as far away from the taint of Bonapartism as possible.”
She meant not the late comte, Flahaut’s legal father, but the man widely assumed to have fathered him, his mother’s former lover Talleyrand. Talleyrand had navigated the dangerous waters of the French Revolution to serve as Napoleon’s Foreign Minister and had survived Napoleon’s first exile to represent the French at the Congress of Vienna. He had managed a to survive yet again after Waterloo in the restored Bourbon government.
“M. Talleyrand’s own position is precarious,” Mélanie said.
“As are all of ours. I know I was mad to come here.”
“You want to see Flahaut—”
“On, no. That is, yes of course I do, but I wouldn’t run such a risk for so selfish a reason. Not now.” Hortense sank down on a gilded settee. “I’m not that girl anymore. The girl who tumbled so blindly into love when I should have been old enough to know better. I told Flahaut it had to end after Waterloo. He had to protect himself. I had to protect my children.” She looked up at Mélanie with a gaze as raw as a bullet wound. “I have no right to ask this, but I need your help.”
Mélanie’s fingers tightened round her fan. The plea had been inevitable from the moment she recognized Hortense, but that made it no easier to answer.
“I know it goes beyond any call of friendship,” Hortense said. “I know you can’t afford for your husband to know the truth–”
“My husband does know the truth.”
“Sacrebleu. How—”
“I told it him last November.”
“You told him—”
“That I’ve been a French agent since I was sixteen, that I married him to gather intelligence, that everything he thought he knew about my past was a lie.”
“But– You’ve been married for seven years. Why—”
“The past intruded when I least expected it. Our son was in danger. The whys and wherefores don’t matter. Suffice it to say, I saw no alternative.
“And your husband—”
“Charles is a remarkable man.”
“He must adore you.”
What Charles felt for her and she for Charles was too private to be shared, even with Hortense. “Charles was a spy himself. That helped him understand.”
Hortense stared at her as though she’d claimed Charles Fraser was possessed of magical powers. “I can scarcely imagine what Louis would do in such a situation. He’d be furious–”
“I didn’t say Charles wasn’t furious.” The sound of Charles’s fist smashing through the wall of their salon echoed in Mélanie’s head. “At first I couldn’t imagine we’d ever be able to carry on a civil conversation, let alone maintain any semblance of a marriage. Even now– It isn’t easy for him. It’s never going to be easy.”
“Mélanie—”
“I told Charles I stopped spying after Waterloo. Which is the truth. And I promised him I’d indulge in no more intrigues behind his back. I owe it to him to keep my word” And yet she could not deny the pull of that older loyalty, the plea in her friend’s eyes, so like her mother’s. “If you didn’t come to England to see Flahaut, then why?”
Hortense leaned forward. “Believe me, Mélanie, I wouldn’t ask this of you were the situation not dire. I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. Two months ago– Mon Dieu, was that an animal?”
Mélanie had already sprung to her feet. Years of listening for the telltale footsteps of an enemy sniper or the stir of a woken child had trained her to hear sounds beneath the general din. The noise had come not from the ballroom but the garden. And it hadn’t been an animal. It had been a scream that was all too human.

Last week I had coffee with two of my best friends, who also happen to be fellow writers–Penelope Williamson and Monica McCarty. Over lattes in a bookstore café, we got to talking about the differences between historical romance and historical fiction. Monica (who writes wonderful historical romances grounded in real events and characters–the couples in her first three books are all real historical characters) blogged about the topic and inspired me to do the same.

As Monica wrote in her blog, the differences between historical romance and historical fiction “can be difficult to qualify (Outlander comes to mind, as do Katherine, or The Other Boleyn Girl). In general, I think romances focus on the relationship whereas in historical fiction, the romance is just one of the plot threads.” That’s certainly true of the three books Monica’s mentions. Outlander and Katherine have a central love story, where The Other Boleyn Girl has more than one romantic relationship for the heroine. The Other Boleyn Girl and Katherine center on real people whereas in Outlander the main characters are fictional. But in all three books historical events and secondary characters and relationships share focus with the love story. I’d also add in Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolò series, in which fictional main characters are so intertwined with real characters and events that it’s difficult to separate the two. Both series have multiple love stories and a central love story for each hero (the outcomes of which are the subject of much speculations and anxiety by many Dunnett readers), but the focus is much more broad.

Penny (who moved with equal skill from writing historical romance to writing historical fiction and is now writing a contemporary thriller), summed up the difference really well by saying that in historical romance there’s a spotlight focused in tight on the main couple. Whereas in historical fiction it’s more as though the lighting shifts all over the stage, catching the main couple (if there is one) at times, but also secondary characters, political intrigues, historical details.

The line is still often blurry. Many historical novels (like those mentioned above) contain a love story and many historical romances (such as Monica’s) deal with real people and events. When I first discovered the historical romance section (years and years ago), I was excited to find all these books with historical settings. I didn’t really differentiate them from historical fiction. I don’t think I completely started to understood the difference until after I was first published writing historical romance. Even then I constantly drove my poor editors to distraction by getting caught up in intrigue subplots, historical details, secondary characters. Going back to Penny’s description, my lighting plots tend to be broad, with lots of shifts of focus. It was when I finally realized this that I decided to write the first Charles & Mélanie book (Daughter of the Game/Secrets of a Lady).

I also discussed historical fiction/romance differences recently with my friend Lauren Willig, who like me writes a romantic historical spy series set in the Napoleonic era (it’s so wonderful to talk to a friend who also writes such a specific type of story!). Lauren said that when she wrote The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, the first book in her series, she thought of it as an historical romance. Unlike my books, each of hers has an individual central romance. But the intrigue plots and secondary characters play an important role, perhaps more so as the series has progressed. Kirkus Reviews describes her latest book, the wonderful The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, as “romantic adventure.” Lauren’s website sums her books as up with the words “Intrigue. Espionage. Romance. Sword play. Comedy.”

My Charles & Mélanie books have been described as “historical mysteries,” “historical fiction,” “romantic historicals,” “historical suspense,” romantic suspense,” “Regency thrillers,” “historical romance,” “psychological thrillers.” I tend to call them “historical suspense fiction,” a nice broad all encompassing definition

Do you read different types of historically-set novels? What do you think sets historical fiction apart from historical romance? Does how a book is marketed affect your expectations when you read it? Can you think of examples of books that blur the lines between categories? How would you categorize the Charles & Mélanie books?

For this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition the focus shifts to Kenneth Fraser (Charles’s father) writing to the Marquis of Glenister.

Update 14 April: I’m blogging today on History Hoydens about The aftermath of Wateroo & Peterloo. I take off from the Historical Notes for the The Mask of Night and ask how people feel about books where the social and political context is the basis of the conflict. Do stop by and join the discussion.

You may have noticed that the Books page on the site now includes a Works in Progress section.  Here you will find links to detail pages for both The Mask of Night , the third Charles & Mélanie book, which is written but not yet published (hopefully it will be soon, but I still don’t have anything definite to report), and the fourth, as yet untitled Charles & Mélanie book, which I am just starting to write.  The Mask of Night detail page includes links to the excerpts I’ve posted in the Dear Reader blog, as well as Historical Notes.  The detail page for Charles & Mélanie Book #4 so far only has a brief paragraph about the book but I’ll be updating it as I develop the novel.

Do take a look and let me know what you think. I thought it would be fun to make these two books and other future books this week’s blog topic.  Any questions about The Mask of Night or Book #4?  Any suggestions of things you’d like to see happen in these books or other subsequent books?  Any thoughts or questions raised by the Historical Notes or the excerpts?  Any questions about members of the Fraser family (or extended family) who haven’t appeared in the books yet?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition deals with one of those family members.  Aspasia Newland, Chloe Dacre-Hammond’s governess, writes a letter to her sister about the wedding of Lady Frances’s daughter Judith in April of 1817.

Thanks so much for the wonderful discussion following my post on Anti-heroines last week. In the course of debating what makes a character an anti-heroine, Sarah commented, “An anti-heroine isn’t, in my eyes, necessarily a good girl gone bad, or even a better person trapped by circumstances, but a character fighting against the hero, for whatever reason - opposing interests, whether personal or political - who inspires the reader to follow their story just as much as that of the protagonist.”

As I replied, “That’s an idea that intrigues me, because I think every reader brings a lot to a book and every reader reads a given book slightly differently.” Gabriele commented, “You’re so right about the reader bringing his/her own to a book. I have a soft spot for mysterious, tortured heros, and for me, Athos is a perfect example of those. And since I had developed a crush on him before I learned about his past with Mylady, I was on his side. “

While Sarah and I both found ourselves sympathizing with Milady when we read The Three Musketeers, seeing the story from her perspective. As CJM pointed out, “Though Milady is fully wrought, and delightfully so, she’s an antagonist, not a protagonist.” And yet Sarah and I both found ourselves, as Sarah said, wanting to follow Milady’s story as much as the story of the four musketeer protagonists. A great deal of fan fiction is based on retelling television show episodes, books, or movies from the POV of a character who isn’t the protagonist in the original story. Lately in particular there seems to be a trend of re-telling classics from a different POV from that in the original story, which books such as Geraldine Brooks’s March (which I’ve heard wonderful things about but haven’t read yet), Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale, a number of retellings of Jane Austen. I don’t think anyone’s retold The Three Musketeers from Milady’s viewpoint, but it would definitely make an interesting novel.

I think that to a certain extent every time we read a book we collaborate with the author. We bring our own likes and dislikes to the story, our own preconceptions, our own historical knowledge. We may hear lines inflected differently from the way the author hears them, imagine different expressions of the character’s faces as they speak, even fill in bits of back story differently in our imaginations. Our sympathies may not lie precisely where the author’s do. The words on the page may be the same, but every book is slightly different depending on who is reading it.

As a writer, I find the thought that readers are reading a somewhat different book from the one I wrote totally fascinating. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve heard from readers who have sharply differing views of Charles and Mélanie. Perla commented, “I have not had much sympathy for Melanie, I hadn’t forgiven her even if Charles had. And Cate said, “I’ll echo Perla in saying that I didn’t precisely ‘like’ Melanie on my first reading of the books. I found her fascinating and wanted to know more about her.” On the other hand, a good friend of mine said on reading Secrets of a Lady, “Why is Charles being so stubborn, she was only doing her job?” and some have gone so far as to suggest Mélanie should take the children and leave since Charles is being so unforgiving. ” Sharon had yet another perspective when she said, “Twice I’ve tried to answer the question of with whom I sympathize more, and twice I couldn’t come up with an answer. I finally realized that it is because I don’t really sympathize with either one of them. I admire and feel for both of them, but sympathies? No. To me none of their actions asked for sympathies, and it doesn’t seem to me that either one of them would have cared for anyone’s sympathies at all. Does it make sense?”

And then there’s Raoul O’Roarke, who also inspires conflicting feelings in readers. I’ve heard from readers who find him a fascinating character and want me to write a book about him (one of my friends, also a writer, said that while Charles is the most “marriageable” guy in the book, Raoul would be fun to have a fling with :-). On the other hand Perla wrote, “I intensely dislike Raoul. And not because of Melanie, but because of what Raoul did.” You could retell Secrets of a Lady from Raoul’s POV. Or Edgar’s. Or Beneath a Silent Moon from the POV of Evie, Gisèle, Quen, or any number of the characters. One of the things I love about writing the Fraser Correspondence is that it lets me explore the viewpoints of different characters.

One of the things I love and blogging and particularly the follow up discussions is that it gives me the chance to try to see my books and characters through the eyes of different readers. Have you ever read a book and then discussed it with a friend or in a book club and been surprised by how differently others viewed the story and characters (so that it almost felt as if you’d read different books)? Have you ever found yourself more engaged by the story of an antagonist or a secondary character than by the story of the protagonist? Have you found yourself wanting to retell the story from that character’s perspective? If you’ve read Secrets of a Lady/Daughter of the Game, what did you think of Raoul? Does reading my comments on my books and characters ever make you feel you read a different book from the one I’m talking about? :-).

As you’ve probably noticed, the site has a new look (thanks to Greg and jim, my fabulous web designers) for the 29 April trade re-release of Beneath a Silent Moon. Make sure to check out the Gallery. There are two new photo groupings with photos of setting from Beneath a Silent Moon. And take a look at this week’s Fraser Correspondence. Talking of how characters may be viewed differently, Lord Carfax’s take on Charles is not the same as that of many of the other characters (let alone the author :-).

I blogged a while back about my fondness for imperfect characters. As I wrote, “I’ve always found flawed characters much more interesting than the more conventionally heroic sort. Growing up, Milady de Winter was my favorite character in The Three Musketeers (I thought Constance was boring), I couldn’t understand why Lucie Manette looked twice at Charles Darnay when Sydney Carton was around, I much preferred Mary Crawford to Fanny Price.” Sarah wrote to me recently following up on this, because she’s reading The Three Musketeers and getting to know the fascinating Milady de Winter. Sarah wrote, “I know I tend to prefer heroines who use their ‘feminine wiles’ - or sexuality - to achieve their own way, instead of resorting to the cliched ‘PC’ approach of typically male methods, such as physical violence, and Milady is the perfect example of a strong woman.”

As with so many classics, my first introduction to The Three Musketeers was my mom reading it out loud to me when I was quite small. I remember her describing the book before we read it and saying “It has a fascinating heroine–I mean villainess.” That’s a perfect way to describe Milady, because while she’s definitely an antagonist to d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, she’s a compelling, fascinating character. As Sarah said, Milady “was actually wronged as well as in the wrong, and yet was punished for her ambition and desire.” Sarah compared Milady to another character we’ve discussed on this blog. “Milady reminds me a lot of Chauvelin, actually - the sympathetic villain, the ‘anti-hero’.”

Anti-heroine seems an appropriate description of Milady and, I think, sums up the contradictions of her character. Milady is an agent of Cardinal Richlieu which pits her against the musketeer heroes in the complex intrigues of the novel. She also, it is later revealed, has a connection to Athos. Athos (the most tormented of the musketeers) was once married. He was madly in love with his wife until he realized she bore a brand which meant she had been in prison. Enraged that she had deceived about her identity and past, he killed her. Or thought he did. It turns out she escaped, and she and Milady de Winter are one in the same. From the time I first read the book, I was far more sympathetic to Milady than to Athos (a view my mother reinforced). Sarah had the same response. As she wrote, “I think Milady won my sympathy in comparison with the men in the story, particularly when her ‘crime’ is held up against her husband’s. Imagine if Percy had flown so violently and absolutely off the handle when he learned that Marguerite had kept her past from him!”

I hadn’t thought of this comparison until Sarah brought it up, but it’s very apt. Athos trying to kill Milady is much as if Percy tried to kill Marguerite. Or if Charles tried to kill Mélanie when he learns about her past in Secrets of a Lady. As much as I’ve thought of alternative ways the revelation of Mélanie’s past might have played out, that’s one scenario that never occurred to me. And yet, Charles would have had a “better” justification than Athos, because Mélanie was using him when she married him. Milady lied about her past to Athos, but as far as I recall she wasn’t spying on him or otherwise betraying him at that time.

What makes an anti-heroine? Are they the opposite of a heroine? Or of what we expect of a heroine? As with an anti-hero, I think the term encompasses a wide range of characters. I don’t think I’d call Marguerite an anti=heroine. She has some interesting flaws, but for the most part she is a caught in a fiendish dilemma and trying to do the right thing (at considerable personal cost). Mélanie may be an anti-heroine. Her actions are certainly food for debate, and as we’ve discussed, she elicits a wide range of responses from readers. I always knew that Milady de Winter influenced Mélanie a bit, but until I wrote this post, I didn’t realize quite how much :-).

Sarah wrote that “another literary ‘black hat’ is of course Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair - I couldn’t quite finish that novel, but I did admire her determination and guile!” I would definitely call Becky an anti-heroine. Unlike Milady she is the protagonist of the story rather than the antagonist, but she schemes her way throughout the novel, managing to make her friend Amelia, a more “typical” heroine, look distinctly dull in comparison. Troubled, spoiled Barbara Childe in Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army perhaps might also be called an anti-heroine. Certainly her perspective sister-in-law Judith sees her as an undesirable wife for the hero. Judith would prefer him to marry sweet Lucy Devenish, like Amelia more typical heroine material. But Lucy proves to be not precisely what she seems on the surface. And Barbara grows and changes in the course of the novel and ends up with a quite believable happy ending. Scarlet O’Hara also grows and changes in the course of Gone with the Wind, though the end of the novel is more up in the air. And then there’s Emma in Jane Austen’s novel of the same name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Emma described as an anti-heroine, but just a few days ago a friend was saying that much as she loved Austen’s novels, she just couldn’t sympathize with Emma. Emma is arguably more flawed than the heroines of Austen’s other novels. Given my fondness for flawed and imperfect characters perhaps it’s not surprising that she’s tied with Elizabeth Bennet as my favorite Austen heroine :-).

What makes anti-heroines so intriguing? Well, for one thing (as I noticed as a child) they usually get to wear the best clothes (only compare Emma with Fanny Price or Becky Sharp with Amelia or Milady with Constance). But more seriously, I think it’s in large part that they often are characters who break rules and defy conventions. That’s part of the appeal of anti-heroes as well, but I think there’s something particularly interesting about women who defy conventions in an historical setting in which there are so many restrictions on a woman’s role. Becky Sharp has nothing but her wits to rely on (unlike Amelia, who is protected by fortune and family, at least in the beginning). I’ve always seen Barbara and Emma both as bright women who have trouble finding an outlet for their intelligence.

As a child of seven, I liked Milady because she got to *do* things, instead of waiting to be rescued. She plays the game with (and against) men and sometimes wins. As Sarah says, “I don’t know if her brand is meant to signify that she is guilty of a serious crime, such as murder, or merely a crime against the church/state, but Athos makes it clear that he punished her for betraying him. It’s almost as if he turned on her because he felt that he was in her power, that she was in control of him - and there are various references to her hypnotic, supernatural allure, comparing her to a snake and a devil, that suggest she cannot be merely a natural woman and a fearful enemy at the same time. For all that, Dumas doesn’t exaggerate her character - Milady serves her own interests, and uses her wits and attraction to manipulate others, because she has good reason not to trust anybody else!”

I would have ended Milady’s story quite differently had I written it. Sarah referred to my earlier comment on this, asking, “Is it necessary to believe that an anti-heroine can be ‘redeemed’? In a previous topic, you mentioned that you would have written Milady with a ‘heart’, but what would that mean for her? Should she have spared Constance? …I think this is what intrigues me - the concept that ’strong’ women must be caring and forgiving at heart, or face their own destruction, as ‘independent’ heroines are really only awkward, plain creatures searching for a husband!’”

I certainly don’t think anti-heroines need to be redeemed or even redeemable. I would have written a Milady with a bit more compassion (I wouldn’t have had her kill Constance) because that’s the way my mind works and the sort of story I write. I would have wanted to give her a happy ending with Athos–which would have necessitated changing Athos’s character a great deal (more than Milady’s, I think). That’s me, and the stories I tend to tell. My heroes and heroines (and even a number of my villains) tend to have a fair amount of compassion and empathy (as I mentioned in a previous post, whne my mom’s and I attempted to write a hero who began the book as amoral–in A Touch of Scandal–he didn’t turn out nearly as amoral we intended). But I too dislike the idea that heroines or anti-heroines need to give way to softer impulses. Mélanie has her share of compassion (though not as much, I think, as Charles), but she puts her loyalty to her cause before her loyalty to her husband, and if she had to do it again, I don’t think she’d make a different choice.

Do you like anti-heroines or do they simply lose your sympathy? Any thoughts on the characters discussed above or any other anti-heroines to suggest? If you’ve read The Three Musketeers (or seen any of the film versions) what did you think of Milady? Do you think Mélanie is an anti-heroine? What about Emma?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is a (fictional as are all the Fraser Correspondence) letter from Emily Cowper (a real historical figure, the sister of William Lamb and sister-in-law of Lady Caroline Lamb) to her friend Harriet Granville (also a real historical figure, the daughter of the Duchess of Devonshire and Caroline’s Lamb’s cousin) just after Charles and Mélanie have settled in London in the spring of 1817.

Update 26 March: I’m blogging today on History Hoydens about An Age of Unrest: Britain in 1817. Do stop by and comment if you have time!

My wonderful web designer friends Greg and jim are working on an update of the site for the May release of Beneath a Silent Moon. It should go live in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, there are now Reading Group Guides for both Secrets of a Lady and Beneath a Silent Moon on the detail pages for both books. I spent a lot of time on the Beneath a Silent Moon questions this week, so I thought I would make them this week’s blog topic.

1. The book opens with the line “The night air was like a lover’s touch. Cloaked in mystery, beckoning with promise, sweet at times but quickly cloying. And underneath rotten to the core.” How does this line set up the themes of the book?

2. Charles and Tommy are both returning home. How have their experiences in the Napoleonic Wars shaped their feelings about Britain?

3. What sort of marriage would Charles have had with Honoria? How does that compare with the one he has with Melanie?

4. What sort of marriage would Kenneth Fraser and Honoria have had?

5. Several characters–Charles, Mélanie, Francisco, Tommy, le Faucon–are dealing with the end of the war that has framed their lives for years. Discuss the similarities and differences in the dilemmas they face and the choices they make in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars.

6. Why do you think the author chose to introduce the reader to the Glenister House set through the viewpoints of Evie and Gisèle?

7. In Chapter 13, Charles thinks “The past echoed through the present, laughing at him for the presumption of thinking it could be left behind.” In what ways are various characters in the book–Charles, Mélanie, Honoria, Glenister, Kenneth, Lady Frances, Evie, Andrew, Gisèle, Quen and others–trying to come to terms with the past? How does the past shape their actions in the present?

8. What did you think of the hints about Mélanie’s past? If you’ve read Secrets of a Lady, how do you think her thoughts in Beneath a Silent Moon fit with the revelations in that book?

9. Charles says he isn’t a Romeo, and Mélanie says she can’t see him climbing a balcony unless it was to steal documents from the room beyond. But later Gisèle says that when Charles doesn’t think Mélanie is noticing he looks at her “like Romeo gazing up at Juliet’s balcony.” Whom do you believe and why?

10. Charles, David, and Simon are close friends who share many of the same political ideals and progressive thinking. Yet their reactions to the revelations in the book, particularly those involving romantic intrigues, are somewhat different. How might their childhoods and the more recent past have colored their reactions?

11. In Chapter 24, Lady Frances tells Mélanie that the younger generation don’t necessarily play the game of romance by the same rules as Lady Frances’s own generation. How do the attitudes of Lady Frances, Kenneth Fraser and Glenister toward love and sex and marriage differ from those of Charles, Mélanie, Honoria, Quen, and the other younger characters? Do these differences reflect differences between the late 18th century and the Regency?

12. How does Charles and Mélanie’s marriage change over the course of the book?

13. In Chapter 36, Lady Frances says “When I think the way Frederick and Cyril carried on their affairs with impunity while their sister suffered miserably for one love affair–which ended in marriage– It’s enough to make me take that Wollstonecraft woman seriously.” What do the differences in the ways Frederick and Cyril’s indiscretions are treated versus their sister Georgiana’s and the differences in the expectations for Quen and Val versus Honoria and Evie say about the roles of men and women at the time, even amid the license of the Glenister House set?

14. Charles, Gisèle, Quen, Val, Honoria, and Evie all have quite different attitudes toward love and sex and marriage. Yet in what ways have all of them been shaped by reacting to their parents’ intrigues?

15. What do you think was the real purpose behind the Elsinore League?

16. A number of Kenneth Fraser’s art treasures are described in the course of the book (the bronze of Triton and Nereid, the Gentileschi Cleopatra, the Fragonard oil, Danaë reaching out to clutch a fistful of gold coins). How are the works of art metaphors for the themes of the novel? How do the art-filled house and Elizabeth Fraser’s exquisite gardens contrast with Dunmykel village and the tenants coping with Kenneth Fraser’s Clearances?

17. In Chapter 18, Charles tells Mélanie, “Father and Glenister and perhaps even David think they can control the investigation through me, for all my fine words to the contrary. Tidy away the messy bits. Avoid a prosecution, if that proves inconvenient.” What do you think would have happened if the novel had ended with the killer still free?
Which of the characters would have wanted the killer brought to justice? Which would have wanted the killer to go free? How would Charles have felt himself? What does “justice” mean?

18. In Chapter 24, Dunmykel is described as “a turreted mass against the blue sky, the fifteenth-century north wing, the seventeenth-century central block and south wing, all overlaid by the embellishments and improvements of the eighteenth century. A jumble of eras, layered one on top of the other, like a tangle of memories.” How does Dunmkyel as a setting frame the events of the book? In what ways is the house its own character? How does the history of the house echo the history of the characters?

19. Charles and Mélanie often use Shakespeare quotes and Shakespeare plays as a sort of private code in their conversations. Why do you think they refer to “Hamlet” in particular so much in this book? (For example, their conversation in Chapter 36 and the last scene in the book).

If you’ve read Beneath a Silent Moon, I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions. If you haven’t read Beneath a Silent Moon, are there other things you’d like to know about the book? What do you think of Reading Group Guides in general?

This week’s addition to the Fraser Correspondence focuses on the Glenister House family with a letter from Evie to Gisèle.