Authors who take part in Rainbow Snippets each weekend are encouraged to post six or so lines from one of their stories on their blog and then link back to the group post on Facebook. I always enjoy joining in with Rainbow Snippets, especially to read and comment on everyone else’s choice of snippet.
In the past two snippets from An Unlikely Alliance, I’ve focussed on the initial attraction between our trio. But there is another element that brings these three men together in the form of a revenge plot.
In this snippet, Clem unburdens to Abe what went so badly wrong in his recent past and names the culprit of his undoing.
~~~
Abe felt emboldened to ask, “What happened?”
“Hubris,” Clem said. “I was dazzled, mixing with the high and mighty at Oxford as though I was one of them, even though I was a scholarship student. One of my tutors even encouraged me to return for a further degree once I had sufficient funds. I dreamed that one day, I’d teach at my old college.” His sigh was that of an utterly disillusioned man. “I was such a fool to believe I had a chance at any of that.”
“Not foolish at all. I’m sure you were given to believe that was possible.”
“And that’s what caught me out. I rue the day I ever laid eyes on Richard Farquarson. That I believed his promises and accepted his friendship. He didn’t need a secretary but a dupe, and who better than a penniless orphan to take the fall?”
This weekend, there’s 45% off ebooks in the Mother’s Day sale at JMS Books!
Snag some bargains from such wonderful authors as Addison Albright, A.L. Lester, K.L. Noone, Anne Russo, Scarlet Blackwell, K.S. Murphy, Clare London, Fiona Glass, Eule Grey, Mags Hayward, Mere Rain, Ofelia Grand, Nell Iris, Holly Day and so many more!
I’m snipping from my brand-new release this weekend for Rainbow Snippets! An Unlikely Alliance is a 27k-word MMM Regency novella and is currently 45% off in JMS Books’ Cinco de Mayo ebook sale from May 4th – 5th. with all my stories. This story is also available in JMS Books’ Regency Lovers Trio collection with MMM stories by K.L. Noone and Alexandra Caluen, included in the sale.
Authors who take part in Rainbow Snippets each weekend are encouraged to post six or so lines from one of their stories on their blog and then link back to the group post on Facebook. I always enjoy joining in with Rainbow Snippets, especially to read and comment on everyone else’s choice of snippet.
I introduced Clem and Abe, two of my Regency trio in my first snippet from An Unlikely Alliance. In this snippet, we encounter Humphrey, an unassuming gentleman, who has already met and been seduced by blond and winsome Clem and, in a busy tavern, is about to meet his other match in piratical Abe.
~~~
Humphrey was dawdling indecisively when the blond looked up. Humphrey was neatly hooked by that sultry grey gaze. The man nudged his friend. He whispered a few words in his ear, from which hung a gold hoop. The other man grinned and looked Humphrey up and down in a far too knowledgeable way.
Oh good heavens, has he told him? Humphrey felt hot and cold and flustered all at once. He didn’t know whether to be flattered, alarmed, or horrified.
It’s the release day for An Unlikely Alliance, my 27k words MMM Regency Romance!
I’m thrilled to say that this story release coincides with the Cinco de Mayo sale at JMS Books on Saturday, May 4th and Sunday, May 5th with 45% off ebooks, including all my stories.
I wrote An Unlikely Alliance for JMS Books’ Regency Trio submission call and so this story is available both separately and together with As Many Stars by K.L. Noone and The Hunting Box by Alexandra Caluen. The Regency Lovers Trio stories are also in this weekend’s sale at JMS Books (together with Kristin’s and Alexandra’s individual stories).
During the final week of February in 1808, Clement Metcalfe has a brief and heated encounter in the back room of a busy London coffee house with bashful gentleman Humphrey Atkinson.
Clem, a private secretary, is accustomed to grabbing at random interludes to brighten his tedious and underpaid working days following a professional fall from grace. But Humphrey seems to hanker after more than one taste.
So Clem introduces Humphrey to Abe Pengelly, the other semi-regular man in his life. Imposingly dark and dangerous, Abe is an enigmatic figure, with his operations based at the decaying and infamous Old Red Lion Tavern. His endeavours, if not blatantly lawless and criminal, are definitely murky.
There’s an undeniable attraction between the three men that promises passion. However, Clem discovers that his lovers are also willing to exert themselves on his behalf to right past wrongs.
Might this be a case where three is not a crowd but the perfect number?
Excerpt:
Humphrey had tried and failed to forget the episode in the coffee house the week before. It wasn’t as though he had the excuse of no other distractions. He barely had a free minute given the number of house guests arriving for the start of the Season. There seemed to be a constant round of relatives expecting him to conduct them in the social round.
At Drury Lane Theatre, Humphrey was entirely distracted during a performance of Hamlet, simply because one of the supporting actors bore a faint resemblance to the man from the coffee house. Only then did he admit he was a lost cause. In conversation with his cousins afterwards, he tried to hide that he couldn’t remember a single scene from the play, even though he’d studied it at school.
So after dinner one evening, when he wasn’t required for an hour or two, he audaciously decided to beard his seducer in his den, or rather the Fleet Street tavern he frequented.
Humphrey was so flustered by his uncharacteristic decisiveness that he changed his waistcoat three times. Although the blond had seemed more interested in what lay beneath Humphrey’s clothing.
He eyed his modest supply of coats with trepidation. Is the green too sober, the blue too frivolous and the buff-coloured one too plain?
In the end, he solved the problem by closing his eyes and picking a garment at random. He didn’t dare glance at the mirror in case that prompted more equivocation.
When downstairs, Humphrey hesitated by the drawing room door, lured by comfortable congeniality versus the pursuit of illicit pleasure. One minute he was about to enter the room and in the next, he was haring out of the front door and down the steps to the street.
He calmed his pace when he reached Holborn, slowed by a steady trickle of early evening foot traffic that thickened as he made his way towards Fleet Street.
I’m just going for a quiet drink, he thought. He might not even be there.
Humphrey halted at the entrance to the tavern, his resolve failing him. His vacillation was overcome by pure coincidence. A group of men required access and their impetus carried him over the threshold. Humphrey removed his crown beaver hat and looked around the unevenly shaped room.
With a combination of disappointment and relief, he concluded that his quarry wasn’t present. Then he spotted him in a corner nook. A second glance proved that he was not alone.
Humphrey shifted from foot to foot. In any given social situation he was a reliable sort of fellow, or so Aunt Cece reassured him. But etiquette couldn’t guide him in this particular situation.
It didn’t help that the man seated beside his acquaintance was equally attractive; well-built and with deep olive toned skin. He made a pleasing contrast to the other’s fair slenderness. His massive build reminded Humphrey enticingly of a bare knuckle boxer in an exhibition bout at the Lyceum.
Humphrey was dawdling indecisively when the blond looked up. Humphrey was neatly hooked by that sultry grey gaze. The man nudged his friend. He whispered a few words in his ear, from which hung a gold hoop. The other man grinned and looked Humphrey up and down in a far too knowledgeable way.
Oh good heavens, has he told him? Humphrey felt hot and cold and flustered all at once. He didn’t know whether to be flattered, alarmed, or horrified. He stood stock still, to the annoyance of another patron, halted in the course of reaching the bar.
“Scuse me, squire.”
“Beg your pardon,” Humphrey said immediately. Unfortunately, his reflex response brought him in front of the table occupied by his coffee house companion.
For this week’s writing blog, I’m remaining in London but fast-forwarding to the Regency era for my upcoming release, An Unlikely Alliance. This Regency MMM story will be published concurrently on May 4th with The Hunting Box by Alexandra Caluen and As Many Stars by K.L. Noone.
These three stories will also be published in one volume of Trio stories, Regency Lovers. Both separately and together, they are in the 45% off ebook Spring Sale at JMS Books ending today.
In my Regency romances, I prefer not to stick to the ton for my cast of characters and I like to include men from different walks of life to illustrate the diversity of Regency London. That choice is reflected in the locations of my stories. I do mention the West End, and the exclusive environs of Mayfair, St. James’ and Piccadilly, but my characters tend to haunt the main roads eastwards and flock to Covent Garden, the party area of the city where rich and poor mingled freely. As Covent Garden featured heavily in my Town Bronze series, I wanted to choose somewhere new for An Unlikely Alliance.
As An Unlikely Alliance is an MMM romance, I wanted my three MCs to represent a cross-section of London society. So there’s Humphrey, an unassuming gentleman, Clem, an orphan, scholar and a professional private secretary, and Abe, of unknown pedigree and with links to London’s criminal underworld.
I wanted to place these characters somewhere specific in the streets of Regency London and mulled over my trusty online copy of the 1806 Mogg Map without much success. Then one day, I was scanning through a social media site and came across a blog by Lizanne Lloyd on The Old Red Lion Tavern that spanned the Fleet Ditch just off Holborn Hill.
This ancient tavern was a thieves’ den, notorious by the 18th century. I was rapt by the hair-raising exploits that Lizanne Lloyd describes. It makes for fascinating reading!
In terms of my story, stumbling across this article was pivotal. The Old Red Lion seemed the ideal base for Abe and his dubious past and I couldn’t help but imagine him in terms of a throwback, in appearance, an 18th-century highwayman, complete with a dashing red velvet frock coat and long, lustrous hair.
Having decided on Abe’s headquarters, the other characters’ haunts fell into place, a bit further eastward than usual in my stories. Rather than a scion of Piccadilly or Mayfair, Humphrey lives in the rather more old-fashioned district of Bloomsbury, off the main thoroughfare of Holborn, and Clem’s employer is near Leicester Square, no longer in vogue by this time.
Because these men inhabit the regions of Holborn, the Strand and Fleet Street, I couldn’t resist choosing a specific and still-existing tavern for their habitual drinking haunt. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub near Fleet Street, originating in the 16th century, has a history to rival the long-demolished Old Red Lion, but far more wholesome, thankfully!
I’ve been so excited at the prospect of taking part in the Regency LoversTrio MMM collection, released on May 4th, together with stories from the wonderful writers, K.L. Noone and Alexandra Caluen.
So I’m thrilled to see that the pre-release of Regency Lovers has been added to the 45% off Spring Sale at JMS Books, ending tomorrow.
This weekend, through Monday, April 22nd, there’s a 45% off ebook sale at JMS Books.
So that’s the perfect opportunity to grab some bargains from such wonderful authors as Holly Day, Ofelia Grand, Nell Iris, A.L. Lester, K.L. Noone, K.S. Murphy, Amy Spector, Addison Albright, Clare London, Scarlet Blackwell, Alexandra Caluen, Mere Rain, Eule Grey, Ruby Moone and so many more.
The sale includes all my stories and my latest release Lucky in Love, a 17th-century Restoration romance with Owen and John, my established couple from Lucky John.
This weekend for Rainbow Snippets, I’m snipping from my upcoming story Lucky in Love. This is the sequel to Lucky John, where we first met MCs Owen and John on the cusp of the Restoration of Charles II.
Authors who take part in Rainbow Snippets each weekend are encouraged to post a few lines from one of their stories on their blog and then link back to the group post on Facebook. I always enjoy joining in with Rainbow Snippets, especially to read and comment on everyone else’s choice of snippet.
At the start of Lucky in Love, after spending many perilous years as a Royalist messenger, Owen has settled down on the family farm with his servant and lover, John. Owen’s not best pleased to be summoned to the palace of Whitehall in London by his older brother and is even more unhappy at the prospect of John joining him on his expedition.
~~~
He sat on the end of the bed. “If we were going anywhere but the royal court in London, then I would take you without hesitation.”
“Aren’t I good enough to come with you?”
“It’s the other way around,” Owen replied without hesitation. “It’s not a decent place. Palace life doesn’t suit us ordinary folk.” Owen recalled the heedless customs of the court in exile abroad. He reckoned such indulgent behaviour would have increased a hundred-fold since the king’s return to England.
John was unconvinced. “You think I’d get into trouble.”
Authors who take part in Rainbow Snippets each weekend are encouraged to post a few lines from one of their stories on their blog and then link back to the group post on Facebook. I always enjoy joining in with Rainbow Snippets, especially to read and comment on everyone else’s choice of snippet.
In The Way Home, my established couple, Luc, a violinist and his actor lover Harry, are visiting Luc’s French émigré parents at their modest cottage in rural Essex. I’ve been snipping chronologically from the story so far, and moving slightly forward, Luc’s family have just visited their relatives the Reids, the owners of the estate, at the nearby manor house.
In this snippet, Harry is fuming at the way the wealthy and superior Reids patronised his hosts, particularly because they have virtually ordered Luke to play the violin for their guests’ entertainment at an upcoming dinner party. As a result, Harry learns more about Luc and his family background.
~~~
“I don’t know how you can stand it, being spoken down to like that.”
“Are you talking about the Reids? They mean no harm.”
Luc’s calm acceptance only increased Harry’s indignation. “You’re not a sodding servant. My God, would they presume to order another First Violin around in that way? Who the frigging hell do they think they are?”
“Our saviours.”
That simple statement made Harry momentarily stop in his tracks. Luc continued, “If Mama’s cousin Madeleine hadn’t urged my parents to leave France at the opportune moment with the guarantee of a place to stay, I dread to think what might have happened. Although, I doubt if I’d be here to tell the tale. You see, Harry, with France in turmoil, and anyone of noble birth en route to Madame Guillotine, we had nowhere else to go.”
This week I’m continuing to chat about one of my favourite historical topics, the emergence of theatre in Elizabethan London. I blogged about a background to this last week to coincide with the bookversary of my under 5k-word story Stage Struck, which with all my titles is in the Labor Day Weekend 40% off ebook sale at JMS Books, ending today.
Both these books give a wonderful insight into the physical structures of the theatre buildings and the people who flocked there in the late 16th century. I was going to chat about playwrights and the audience, but as usual, I’ve run out of space, so I’ll just stick to the theatre-going experience this week.
Nowadays, we are accustomed to theatre-going as a rather polite middle-class activity for both the performers and the audience. A visit to the rebuilt Shakespeare’s Globe in London’s Southbank is considered a treat of the cultured kind, with the audience mainly consisting of day trippers, tourists and families watching classically trained actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company on the stage.
Rebuilding Shakespeare’s Globe relates the reconstruction of the theatre in detail, so the modern audience will certainly experience what it feels like to watch a play in an Elizabethan theatre building, a huge contrast to most of the modern West End theatres.
However, the similarities end there. In rapidly growing Elizabethan London with a population of almost 400,000 people by the 1590s, any mass activity caused alarm to the authorities due to the spread of disease, fire or a riot. Theatres were shut down immediately at the threat of these eventualities. So it was no coincidence that the majority of the theatres were built outside the jurisdiction of the city and, like The Globe, in lawless areas.
This meant that a trip to the theatre was an adventure in itself, crossing the River Thames by ferry or across London Bridge from the relative safety of the city. As these theatres didn’t have stage lights, (an extra risk of fire hazard,) performances were held during the day with the trumpet call instead of a theatre bell summoning the audience to gather in time for the performance.
The Globe had a capacity of 3,000 audience members from all walks of life. The open-air building (to let in the light) could be described as a wooden ‘O’ with three levels of tiered galleries around the sides, and on the ground floor, what we’d call the pit or standing room in front of the stage. As Judith Cook explains, ‘it cost a penny to stand, tuppence or thruppence for a seat in the gallery’ (cushion not included), sixpence to sit on the stage and considerably more for a box.’
I can only imagine the crush, the noise, and the smell! However, despite these distractions, including sellers of oranges and beer, plus some inevitable heckling at the actors, the Elizabethan audience was far better equipped to listen intently to performances lasting some hours. Much of the population was illiterate which had the side effect of being able to memorise stories and folk tales to pass down the generations.
So despite our modern education and literacy, the language and feats of the imagination from Elizabethan playwrights would transmit much more easily to a contemporary audience of Tudor theatregoers.
Ellie Thomas Romance 