The Christmas Wager, or Much Ado About Dickens

DELILAH MARVELLE

My dearest Reader,

The Christmas Wager is humbly dedicated to the genius known as Charles Dickens. He created the written joy of the Victorian Christmas we know of today and made my upbringing magical by bringing characters to life in my heart when I was surrounded by the worst of times as opposed to the best of them. He tossed me into the vast world I’m inspired to write about.

In honor of Charles Dickens and the season of Christmas, especially given my new release, I've decided to create a list of 10 things you may or may not know about Charles Dickens.

1. The term "What the Dickens" was in use long before Dickens was ever born. We're talking Shakespeare. Dickens back in Shakespeare's era was a term for "the devil." Imagine that.
2. He was known to inspect his children's room every morning and leave notes for them about their lack of tidiness. Parenting through writing, I say!
3. Charles had a secret study built behind a door that looked like a bookshelf. He liked to hideaway in this secret room.
4. He had a pet raven named Grip. You think Edgar Allen Poe had a thing for ravens? Not like Dickens did! The raven was so beloved by Charles, that he used Grip as a character in his mystery novel, Barnaby Rudge. It's believed that the raven in Barnaby Rudge actually inspired Poe to write his poem. As if his love wasn't apparent in his writing, when Grip died, Charles Dickens had it stuffed.
5. Commercialization as we know of today (think Star Wars toys and so on), started with non other than Charles Dickens. His first serial, The Pickwick Papers, was so popular that there were unauthorized sales of "Pickwick Pastries" and other items in shops that owners tried to cash in on. Obviously, Charles didn't see a penny of the sales on those pastries, but his popularity said it all. He had pastries named after his books!
6. He always started other books as he was writing his current ones. He was known to write as many as four books at once, always overlapping ideas and thoughts between them all.
7. His youngest son, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, was named after the infamous author whose opening lines started with, "It was a dark and stormy night." Bulwer Lytton and Charles Dickens were good friends and so Dickens thought it fitting to honor his friend accordingly.
8. He loved giving everyone nicknames. Including himself. He referred to himself as "Revolver" and gave nicknames to his kids like "Chickenstalker" and "Skittles." (And no, they didn't have Skittles candies back then). Skittles was a variant to bowling and was a pub game. Makes you wonder about his kids...
9. His first published fiction hit a Monthly Magazine when he was only 21.
10. He was obsessed with cold showers. Imagine that. He claimed it "became a necessity". Mmmmm. A bit hot blooded, Mr. Dickens?

THE CHRISTMAS WAGER

If you loved learning about Mr. Dickens, consider delving into The Christmas Wager as it's set in his era! 

Here is the blurb:

-A mysterious key to an attic that cannot be found...

-A ghost with good but overly ambitious intentions...

-And a forgotten wager that is about to turn Miss Barrington's life into a holiday mess.

London, England - Winter of 1860

When all the ladies of London realize that handsome and refined gentleman, the Duke of Ainsley, is formally looking for a wife, only weeks before Christmas, a mad dash to claim him begins. Miss Barrington knows her chances with the duke are incredibly good given what her close gypsy friend had once foretold, but a forgotten wager with her greatest nemesis, American millionaire, Mr. Redstone, is about to bring on complications and...chaos. Will she claim the dashing and respectable duke once foretold by the stars? Or will she fall for Mr. Redstone and go against destiny? Only the days leading up to Christmas will tell!

The next book that follows will even feature Mr. Dickens himself.

Happy Christmas!

Much love,

Delilah Marvelle

Here is the link to my website: http://www.DelilahMarvelle.com

Wow!!!

Judith Ashley

The latest issue of RT Book Reviews arrived in my mailbox on Friday. Saturday I took a few minutes to look over the Historical and Contemporary list of reviewed books because that is what I most enjoy reading. However, as I was leafing through the pages I caught sight of Delilah Marvelle’s picture and a few pages later, an ad featuring Opal Carew. My curiosity piqued I started at the beginning and read every article and looked at every ad as well as skimmed down the list of names being reviewed. What was I looking for?

If you are reading this post, you know about Romancing The Genres. If you are new to RTG, you may not know that two years ago in February, Sarah Raplee and I conceived the idea of a group blog featuring romance authors from a variety of genres. We’d each blog on a particular day of the month (I’m the first Friday). Having guests would be an added value to our readers and we thought Saturday would be a good day to schedule them.

Even in the beginning we thought of having a time and place where the Genre-istas could post short stories. We launched Free ReadsFrom The Genre-istas in February, 2011.

You can click on the links above and scroll down to see who our guests have been and what our Genre-istas are writing about.

Back to RT…

Delilah Marvelle, who has been our guest in August and September 2010 and December 2012, is featured in an article on clothing from the early 1800’s which is where her stories are set. She’s also listed as a Top Pick with 4.5 Stars for Forever a Lord, book three in her latest series.

If you look on page 21, you’ll see an ad placed by St. Martin’s press touting six books coming from Genre-ista, Opal Carew. Because her career is shooting into the stratosphere with demands for more works, deadlines, etc., Opal’s January post will be her last with us.
Madelle Morgan will be joining us in February on the 2^nd Tuesday of the month.

Matt Buchman (M.L. Buchman) our 12/08/2012 guest is listed in the Series Rap Sheet. Matt was also featured in Eloisa James’ NPR column. Matt’s book Wait Until Dark was given a 4 Star rating. Reviewer writes “…this book has it all. The only thing you’ll ask yourself is “When does the next one come out?” the full review is on Page 70.

Genre-ista, Paty Jager’s The Secret of an Aztec Temple is included in the All Romance e-book advertisement on Page 28. Paty writes our 1st Monday post.

Genre-ista, Bronwen Evans’ To Challenge The Earl of Cravenswood which is self-published, was given a 4 Star rating. Bron, who has been a Genre-ista from the beginning, also won the 2012 RomCon Reader's Crown for her Invitation to Ruin. Bron's regular post time is the 1st Thursday of the month.

But that’s not all! The 2013 Romantic Times Convention also has familiar names.

Genre-ista Kris Tualla is a presenter in two workshops on Self-Publishing. Kris’s regular RTG post time is the 1^st Tuesday of the month. She also was a December guest because of her knowledge about Self and Indie Publishing. If you are interested in a great book on the subject, check out her Becoming an Authorpreneur: Navigating A Career in 21st Century Publishing.

Other RTG Guests are presenters at the Self-Publishing Program during the Convention. You can attend workshops with Theresa Ragan and Bob Mayer. Bob, who we see as a generous supporter of RTG, has shared his insights on self-publishing. He and Jen Talty co-authored The Shelfless Book and she is also co-presenting the workshops with him.

Check out Theresa's inspiring self-publishing story.

While we certainly had hopes and dreams about the success of Romancing The Genres, neither of us would have predicted how much we’ve grown.

This month we will pass 50,000 page views!

December 31, 2012 marked our 560^th post.

December 30, 2012 we had 41,112 comments on those 560 posts.

Free Reads From The Genre-istas should pass 3,000 page views late in January or early in February. Each post is a short, short story. Romance Genres included are Western, Romantic Suspense, Contemporary, Steampunk, Paranormal, Fantasy and Historical.

December 31, 2012 marks 31 posted stories.

And we’ve had 107 comments on those 31 short stories.

All I can say is “Wow!” We did it and then some. Thanks to each and every one of the Genre-istas and to each and every one of you for making an idea flourish into a growing, living labor of love (well, most days it’s a labor of love).

And, if you ‘follow’ us, you don’t have to click around or remember to check us out. We’ll show up most days on our own.

www.JudithAshleyRomance.com

'Tis The Season for a New Adventure

Delilah Marvelle

As a writer who has been in the business for well over fifteen years (that includes my struggles to get published), I have learned that the only way to grow in my career is to look beyond the path I’m on.  I’ve learned this the hard way when I was dropped barely two books into my career by my publisher at the time.  I had to pick myself up and find a new publishing house (which I thankfully did). 

At the time when I was dropped by my publisher, for reasons that didn’t have to do with sales but rather the closing of a line, there was no self-publishing to turn to.  If I couldn’t publish with New York, there would be no book on the shelf. 

My oh my, how things have changed!   After receiving a less than favorable offer from my publisher in New York, I decided it was time to step back and recognize that I had other options.  And in doing so, I have discovered the joy of leaving New York.  Not only am I now working for myself at a fair wage (by self-publishing), but I’m also working for a smaller publisher who is showing the big five just how it’s done: Entangled Publishing.  I’m thrilled to say that my first Christmas anthology with Entangled launched their new Historical Scandalous line.  It’s exciting to know that I’m part of a new adventure.

After writing for years for the big publishers of New York, I realized, I wanted more freedom, more transparency and enough money to make my business viable.  None of which I was getting.  While I learned a lot of incredible skills from the big publishers, I learned something even more relevant from Entangled.  The idea of team work and keeping everything transparent.  Being able to know every step of the process as it’s happening and having a say in important things like the cover itself (which I never had), is a breath of fresh air.  And I’m breathing in deep, lol. 

There were a lot of things outside of my control with the big five New York Publishers.  Not knowing where my books were selling and just getting numbers was mind boggling.  Yet as an author I was expected to accept it.  Not knowing what my cover is going to look like and having no say in what it will look like was as equally boggling.  Yet as an author, I was expected to accept it.  Many times, I felt left out of the process of my own book.  There were times I had no say at all about even my writing. 

But it’s a new chapter in my career and I’m enjoying every moment of it.  I hope both writers and readers alike realize that this is very exciting time for the publishing industry.  Writers have more freedom to write and get paid fairly for it and readers have the ability to read the books that the publishing houses refused to publish for years (like Westerns!).  It is OUR time as writers and readers and I’m so excited to be part of it.  I hope you are too!    

You can check out Delilah's website Here 
You can purchase "All I Want For Christmas Is A Duke" Here

The Birth of Romancing The Genres

By the time you read this, Romancing the Genres group blog will be five months and one week old and just short of nine months since the idea was born.

A family tradition is to tell the 'the day you were born' story. Here is RTG's.

I began my blog, Intentions and Synchronicity in May 2010 when I took 1st Turning Point's Platform Building class and met Tam Linsey. Sarah Raplee McDermed and I were writing friends who met every couple of weeks to share ideas and support each other’s writing goals. Some of the time, SamMarie Ashe joined us. But on this one particular wintry January day, we were at the now closed Beaverton Borders coffee shop talking about our blogs and how hard it was to get something up every day or even once a week.

Delilah Marvelle’s name came up because Delilah posts once a month and both of us thought that was doable. So, how could they post once a month?

With a group of other writers!
Paper and pen in hand, ideas were noted and the foundation for Romancing The Genres was laid. Week days in the months were counted and that’s how we came up with 21 – all months have at least 21 week days in them. Next was - who to invite.

We put our heads together and expanded our original list to include various parts of the country and various genres because we wanted this blog to inform, educate and entertain both other writers and readers. Since both Sarah and Judith are ‘yet-to-be-published’ we included other writers like us as well as published authors.

And genres? Well, as you know if you’ve followed RTG, there are genres and then there are Genres. We decided that romance was the key and we wanted as many sub-genres of romance to be included as we could. However, there are not enough days in the month to cover all the sub-genres of Romance. Take Historicals for example – that would cover a whole week and still leave some out!

We focused on finding Genre-istas (Sarah coined that term) who live in various parts of the U.S. Currently Genre-istas live in Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, Iowa, New York, North/South Carolina, Oregon and Washington.  We have Laurie SchneblyCampbell to thank for most of our Arizona Genre-istas.

In November we are adding Bronwen Evans from New Zealand.

It’s my party and I’ll blog if I want to! Since it's easy and effortless when done once a month – I do.

© Judith Ashley, 2011. All rights reserved.