by Mary Jo One of the great pleasures of going to a conference in NYC is the opportunity to go to a Broadway show, by which I mean something generally fun and upbeat, with music. (Past choices have included HAIRSPRAY, BILLY ELLIOTT, and SOMETHING ROTTEN, all wonderful in different ways.) Since Pat Rice and I were rooming together, we looked at what was currently available and she suggested the Canadian musical, Come From Away which she'd seen in California and was willing to see again, which was high praise. I wasn't familiar with the show, but she said it was... Continue reading

By Mary Jo In June, I blogged about the cover evolution of my book Petals in the Storm, from its first appearance as a Signet Regency titled The Controversial Countess to the most recent incarnation. Here's the link if you'd like to see the cover changes over the years Petals is my only book with a first scene that was the last scene of the previous book, only told from this hero's point of view while in The Bargain, we watched the action through other eyes. It was that last scene that made me interested enough in Rafe Whitbourne, the... Continue reading

by Mary Jo I've loved Word Wench Anne Gracie's Marriage of Convenience series, and I pounced on Marry in Secret, which has just been released, along with an audiobook version. Today Anne is here to talk about the book and the series. MJP: In a brief recap of the series, Book 1, Marry in Haste, features Cal Rutherford, Lord Ashendon, an intrepid army officer who finds himself terrorized by a gaggle of uncontrollable young females for whom he is responsible. The book won the Holt Medallion for best historical romance, and won three awards from ARRA, the Australian Romance Readers... Continue reading

Mary Jo We Wenches are creatures of The Book, but we also enjoy stories in other formats. Here's a selection of what we've been watching and enjoying on TV/streaming/movies lately. From Nicola: I’ve been glomming on Killing Eve, which is a British spy thriller TV series where a female intelligence officer tracks down a female psychopathic assassin. It’s based on the Villanelle books by Luke Jennings which I haven’t read so I’m not sure how close the show mirrors the books, whether the book or the TV series is better, or whether it matters! The series has won multiple awards... Continue reading

by Mary Jo Petals in the Storm Last week I did a blog about the new release of my first full length historical romance, Dearly Beloved,and included the various covers the story has had over the years. there was interest in all the variations, I thought I'd do it again for Petals in the Storm, Fallen Angels #3, for which I've just done a new cover. Before I get started with that, though, HAPPY CANADA DAY to Canadians everywhere, especially our Canadian Wench, Susanna Kearsley, and our Canadian readers! It's the 152nd anniversary of the Constitution Act, and this year... Continue reading

by Mary Jo The Story Behind the Story: In this era of e-books, backlist books are widely available, but it's rare for an older book to get a major re-release by a different publisher. I started my writing career with the shorter, lighter Signet Regency romances, but after five books, I was champing at the bit to write longer, more intense stories, which might also pay enough to allow me to become a full time writer. Hence, Dearly Beloved. It was an edgy book when it was first published, and it's edgy still. It features themes that I return to... Continue reading

by Mary Jo Producing audiobooks from my back list is time consuming and not inexpensive, but I continue to do them because so many people really like listening to audiobooks. My current goal is to make audio available for all seven of my Fallen Angels books, and we're getting close! Several years ago I started with audio versions of Thunder and Roses and Dancing on the Wind along with the non-Fallen Angels book The Bargain. The economics of producing audiobooks changed dramatically so I put the audio program on hold for several years, but the marketplace is always changing, so... Continue reading

By Mary Jo and the rest of the Wenchly Crew Has it really been thirteen years since we cautiously launched the Word Wenches blog? Indeed yes, and so much has changed in the world, in publishing, and in us. We've lost beloved Wench sisters Edith Layton and Jo Beverley, entered into new genres and new forms of publishing, and we've expanded to having Wenches from Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US so we can truly say that the sun never sets on the Wench Empire! Here is the very first Word Wench blog post, also written by me. (I... Continue reading

by Mary Jo On Wednesday I talked a bit about museums I visited on my recent week long getaway in London, and they were great. Today I'm going to riff about the people and non-museum spaces, which was even more fun! (The very British shop window to the left was in the St. James area, about which more below.) A catalyst for the trip was the opportunity to take an interesting workshop, which I did and very interesting it was, but what made London special was the people. Firstly, I stayed with a writer friend at her home in Chelsea,... Continue reading

By Mary Jo I've always been an Anglophile. I'm not sure if it's my DNA or all the books I read with British settings and British authors. I remember being surprised in school when a world map showed me the actual location of the British Isles. So far north and so SMALL! But mighty in world history, and in my imagination. My interest in Britain and British history had a lot to do with living there for over two years in my 20s, when I was the art editor of a start up magazine about third World Development. I lived... Continue reading

by Mary Jo We Word Wenches love doing these posts because we always find new authors to try! Starting off with Pat Rice: One Plus One by JoJo Moyes I love the way romance has expanded into women’s fiction, and One Plus One by JoJo Moyes is a masterful example of how it’s done. It’s clear from the very first that we have a conflicted hero and heroine. Ed is owner of a software company about to go mega-huge. Jess is his housekeeper—and he doesn’t even know she exists because she cleans his vacation home, and he never takes vacations.... Continue reading

By Mary Jo Long term readers of the Word Wenches know that I look forward to the biennial show of the Baltimore Heritage Quilters Guild. I'm told they don't have annual shows because it takes time to create so many new quilts, which I totally believe because I could never do what they do! The long, narrow hanging at the left is the phases of the lunar eclipse of 2017. There are wonderful traditional quilts like traditional grannies used to make, but there are also many that are brilliant works of art intended for walls rather than beds. Clearly the... Continue reading

by Mary Jo I've already blogged about our cruise to Antarctica , but as I mentioned there, we visited other interesting places as well. (The picture above is from sailing into Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego.) A few highlights: Buenos Aires It was pleasant sunny summer in Argentina and Buenos Aires was beautiful--a city of trees and sweeping boulevards. One of the largest cities in Latin America and a major port, it's cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic and has been called the Paris of Latin America. Here is the view from the window of the hotel where we stayed for two nights.... Continue reading

by Mary Jo I'm delighted to welcome Karen Harper to the Word Wenches again! She is a wonderful, and wonderfully prolific, writer of historical novels, mysteries, and so much more, and she is here to tell us about her just released novel, American Duchess, the story of Consuelo Vanderbilt, which has been chosen by Women's Day Magazine as one of the 10 Most Anticipated Books of 2019. Over to you, Karen! “Everyone was calling it the wedding of the century. I was calling it the worst day of my life.” This quote is not from a tabloid article or scandal... Continue reading