10 days until London Gambit – the Berkeley Square breakfast parlor

 

London Gambit is out a week from Thursday! Hard to believe release day is almost here. The picture above is a room for the American Wing at the Met that was my inspiration for the breakfast parlor in Suzanne and Malcolm’s Berkeley Square house, where several key scenes in London Gambit take place. Malcolm thinks about Suzanne redoing the room and making the walls a soft peach, whereas they’d been ice blue in his mother’s day. Any predictions for the book you’d like to share? It’s definitely a story that shakes the series up a bit. A game changer, as one ARC reader said.

On another note, I’m giving away five copies of the Kindle edition of The Mayfair Affair on Amazon if anyone wants that edition and doesn’t have it yet.

 

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Inspiration

Arrived in Ashland in the OSF Member Lounge

Happy Friday! I’m very pleased to announce that the Teresa/Tracy Grant Google+ group is starting up again, thanks to the wonderful Betty Strohecker. If you’re a member, be sure to check it out. If you aren’t a member, do consider joining. There’s a icon to join on this site. i’ll be popping in myself, though it’s primarily a group for readers.

At Crater Lake

Lunch at the Crater Lake lodge

Earlier this month Mélanie and I had wonderful trip to Ashland, Oregon. We saw friends, ate some great meals, went shopping, took a great day trip to Crater Lake (Mélanie was fascinated by the model showing how it was formed by a volcano), and my friends and I saw some amazing theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. As always those performances were a wonderful source of creative inspiration for my writing. Among the highlights was Sweat, the world premiere of a play by the wonderful Lynn Nottage. Set between 2000 and 2008 in Reading, Pennsylvania, a manufacturing town in which the factories are closing down, the play manages to at once offering a broad social commentary and create vivid, heartrending portraits of specific characters so real you feel you could step on the stage and into their world. A great example of examining complex ideas by showing not telling. It opens in 2008 and with two characters being released from prison and then moves back in a time to the events that got them there. This creates wonderful dramatic tension. I love playing with narrative and timelines and how it can affect how a story unfolds.

Shopping!

Après theatre in Ashland

Another highlight was a brilliant Antony & Cleopatra directed by OSF artistic director Bill Rauch. The tension between personal relationships and the political stage could not be resonate for me with my own writing. Suzanne and Malcolm are minor characters in world events compared to Anthony and Cleopatra, but the tension between personal loyalties and desires and political loyalties (and sometimes sheer political expedience) is one they and many other characters in the series know well. Miriam Laube and Derrick Lee Weeden brought Cleopatra and Anthony to life in fabulous performances that made the two characters at once larger than life and very, very human. In the “One more gaudy night” scene, Anthony, who has just talked boldly about charging back to battle, has a moment the reveals his own qualms about success. A few moments later, Cleopatra’s concern for him flashes across her eyes when he isn’t looking. Anthony and Cleopatra are flawed characters who make flawed choices at times. They aren’t always loyal to each other. But in the end their love for each other survives the political maneuvering, even if they do not.

Dinner at Alchemy, one of our favorite restaurants

Après theatre

Family portrait

At intermission, a friend and I were discussing how wonderfully clear and exciting all the political intrigue felt. John Tufts as another stand out as Octavius. Cold, scheming, but not entirely without empathy. All in all a brilliant night of theatre on a trip filled with wonderful theatrical moments and wonderful writing inspiration.

Drinks on our terrace

Dinner at Amuse, another favorite

In closing, a question inspired by blog discussions the past couple of weeks that perhaps is not unrelated to the love and politics themes of Anthony and Cleopatra. At the end of The Mayfair Affair Raoul tells Laura “I have no right to ask you to feel any sort of obligation. But I feel one.” When the novella opens six weeks later, Laura has been muling what this means. What do you think it means? What if Raoul offering/committing to?

Visiting our friends at Weisinger Winery

Brunch at Brother’s, a favorite haunt

 

Mayfair Affair out take & Malcolm and Suzanne now in the UK

Concert with friends

Happy Friday! In the midst of a busy Merola Opera Program Summer Festival and work on my WIP, Mélanie and I are managing to squeeze in some summer fun, like a picnic and outdoor concert last night with friends and their kids.

I have some exciting news – all the Malcolm & Suzanne books and novellas are now available as ebooks in the UK. You can kind them on Kindle here and they should be available on all platforms by next week. They have gorgeous new covers – here is His Spanish Bride. I’ll have all of them posted on the site soon.

Though I edit my manuscripts a lot, I don’t often cut whole scenes. But writing in the wonderful program Scrivener, I find it easy to write scenes without always knowing precisely where they will fit in the finished book. Usually they fall nicely into place but I wrote a quarrel between Malcolm and Suzanne for The Mayfair Affair that, though it seemed to fit with where their relationship was, never found a place in the finished book. I thought I would share it here.

Have a great weekend!

Tracy

“Malcolm, I think we should talk about this.”
“No.” His voice had the force of a sword cut. “I think that would prove fatal. Once words are spoken they can’t be taken back.”
“You’re afraid of what you’ll say to me?”
He turned to the drinks trolley, but tension was in the set of shoulders. “I don’t like myself very much just now, Suzette. There’s not much point in inflicting that on you.”
“I hate that I’ve done this to you.”
“Not everything is due to you, Suzette..”
She moved toward him and put her arms round him. “There are other things we could do than talk.”
He spun round and caught her wrists. “No.”
He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath. “You don’t want—“
“To be manipulated.”
“You’ve been manipulating me since we met, Suzette. Perhaps in bed more than anywhere.”
“You can’t think I was pretending—“
“No.” He hesitated a moment. “Perhaps I’m a fool not to consider it, but no. But how many times have you got me into bed to end a difficult conversation? Or because you wanted me asleep so you could slip out of the house or ransack my dispatch box?”
The memories couldn’t but rush into her mind.
Malcolmreleased her wrists. “Precisely.”
“Darling—“
“I know what we have, sweetheart. But even when we couldn’t talk of love, it was the one place I thought we had honesty.”

 

Guest blogging on Word Wenches today!

Friday night dinner and jazz

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. Mélanie’s and mine started with jazz and dinner al fresco and ended with an outdoor production of Peter Pan (Mélanie loves pirates right now) and a family dinner.

Today I’m guest blogging on the wonderful Word Wenches blog about governesses, Laura Dudley, and The Mayfair Affair. Be sure to check it out.

Have a great week!

Tracy

 

Back at Book Passage & a Discussion Question

Last week I had the fun of going back to my favorite book store, Book Passage, this time for a summer reading event put on my the Larkspur Corte Madera Mothers Club, which I just joined. A great group which Mélanie and I are having a lot of fun with. I got to talk a bit about The Mayfair Affair and to listen to some wonderful summer reading suggestions for the moms and their children.

With the wonderful Elaine Petrocelli, founder and president of Book Passage

With Laura von Waldburg and Erica Applestein who organized the event

And to keep the Mayfair discussion going, I’d love to hear readers thoughts on one of my favorites of the discussion questions.

1. What do you think Raoul is really saying with his last question to Laura and why is he relieved she understands?

At the gate, he turned back, his hand on the latch. “Laura—”

She saw him hesitate, searching for the words. All at once she understood. She smiled. “I’ll look after them for you.”

Relief at her understanding broke across his face. “Thank you.”

Happy weekend!

Tracy

 

The Pelican Inn

The Pelican Inn, the setting for some key scenes in The Mayfair Affair, was inspired by the real Pelican Inn, a wonderful recreation of a sixteenth century inn near Muir Woods in Marin County, not far from the coast where Francis Drake landed. Mélanie and I spent a wonderful afternoon at the Pelican Inn doing research when I was writing Mayfair.

Following up on last week’s great spoiler thread discussion of Mayfair, (which I hope readers continue) this seemed a good time to start a spoiler thread about the developments in Laura and Raoul’s relationship that begin during their stay at the Pelican Inn. What did you think? Were you surprised? What do you think lies in store for them?

Cheers,

Tracy

 

The Mayfair Affair – Comments & Spoiler thread

My image for Trenchard House. It looks remarkably like the image that ended up on the cover of The Mayfair Affair.

Happy Friday! The picture above shows a Mayfair town house that could easily be Trenchard House where the plot of The Mayfair Affair is set in motion (and it looks very like the picture on the book cover, which  I love).  I’m back from a lovely trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and really enjoying delving into the next book in the series.

Mélanie and me visiting our friends at Weisinger Winery.

The Mayfair Affair has been out a week now, and I’ve heard from some readers who’ve read it, so I thought I would start a thread where readers can post impressions, comments, questions for me or for other readers. This is for discussion of the book, so spoilers are fine. If you haven’t finished Mayfair yet, proceed at your risk :-).

If you missed it on Monday, we sure to check out my very fun interview on The Bubblebath Reader. Always a treat to chat with Ashley!

Below is another picture that could be right out of The Mayfair Affair. This view of Hyde Park was in my mind when I wrote a key sequence there involving Suzanne’s late night meeting with a mysterious stranger.

Hyde Park, not for from the stand of trees near the Serpentine where a key scene in The Mayfair Affair takes place.

Happy weekend!

Tracy

 

Links & Updates

photo: Raphael Coffey

Hope all moms (of humans and pets) and honorary moms had a great Mothers’ Day! Mélanie and I had a very fun brunch and dinner with friends. And following up on the blogs about her Regency-era American Girl doll clothes and parlor, we took a trip to the Stanford Mall on Saturday and got several more outfits and accessories for Caroline, the 1812 doll who is soon to be retired (some are put away for future birthday and Christmas, though Mel ended up opening more than I intended). We promptly had a picnic with Laura in her new clothes.

Just a few days until the release of The Mayfair Affair (and the paperback is already available for order). You can download teasers from the ebook version on various platforms. Yesterday I had the fun of doing a guest post on Lauren Willig’s site about governess books (in the course of which I realized that my own Laura shares her name with two other governess characters in favorite books). Today I’m talking about Frozen and The Mayfair Affair and giving away a book on Deanna Raybourn’s blog. And Thursday, JT Ellison will be interviewing me. So great to be hosted by so many writers I admire!

Cheers,

Tracy

 

One week until The Mayfair Affair!

Laura’s parlor. Not unlike rooms that feature in The Mayfair Affair.

The discussion inspired by Laura the doll’s dark blue pelisse (which resembles Laura Dudley’s pelisse in The Mayfair Affair) was wonderful. The same day we bought the pelisse and hat at the American Girl doll store at the Stanford Mall, we wandered through the rest of the store, drinking in the exquisite doll worlds. In addition to dolls and doll clothes, there were several rooms or other settings to go with different dolls, including a beautifully detailed Regency era parlor. Before we left, I checked the price, so I’d know if it was possibility for a birthday or Christmas. Only to find it was well over half off. Which meant it was affordable and most likely discontinued.

Needless to say, we left the store with the parlor. I was going to keep it for the next gift occasion. But when we got back from the party we were in the area to attend and Mélanie was asleep, I couldn’t resist setting it up. And then I couldn’t resist keeping it up. Mélanie loves it. It’s better than a doll house because can sit down in it herself and play so that it’s almost like a play house. And I can envision scenes from my books happening within those pale blue walls.

A tea party in Laura’s parlor

Editing The Mayfair Affair, I realized that several of the rooms in different houses in the book have blue walls (including Suzanne and Malcolm’s “small salon”). I was going to change some to different colors, but then I decided it was a nice commentary that the color runs through the lives of different characters, in different social classes The color, as Laura’s parlor demonstrates, seems to go with the period.

On a different note, we just got the official pictures from Merola Benefit Gala by the wonderful Kristen Loken. I love this picture of Mélanie and me and can’t resist sharing.

photo: Kristen Loken

Have a wonderful weekend! Happy Mother’s Day to moms and honorary moms!

Cheers,

Trac

 

3 Weeks until The Mayfair Affair!

Mélanie’s Laura doll in a blue pelisse just like the pelisse Laura Dudley wears in The Mayfair Affair

My daughter Mélanie still lets me name most of her toys. Usually I resort of literary characters, my own or others. When she got a Pottery Barn Kids Götz doll for her 2nd birthday, Mélanie and Suzanne (one of our cats) were taken as name options, as was Jessica (the name of Mel’s beloved baby doll). So we named her Laura, after Laura Dudley, governess to the Rannoch/Fraser children and a central character in The Mayfair Affair, which I was writing at the time. Recently we paid our first visit to an American Girl Doll store (at the Stanford shopping mall). Laura is the same size as American Girl dolls and one of the American Girl dolls is from 1812. I couldn’t resist her fabulous collection of Regency clothes. Fortunately, Mélanie was excited when i asked her if she wanted to pick out an outfit for Laura “like the clothes in Mummy’s books.”

Mélanie selected the pelisse and hat above. Which is perfect, because in The Mayfair Affair Laura Dudley wears a dark blue pelisse trimmed with black braid. Laura Dudley is titian-haired and considerably older (35) than Laura the doll, but above is a glimpse of an ensemble not too far off from what she wears in the book.

Have a wonderful weekend! It’s a busy one for us – the annual benefit gala of the Merola Opera Program. A long, fun day, and a chance to wear a ball gown! I’ll post some photos next week.

Cheers,

Tracy