Maggie's Journey to 20th Century Historical Mysteries and Romance

It’s a delight to be here on the release day for my second Lady Adelaide Mystery, Who’s Sorry Now?

More about Addie later, but I thought I might start with…the start. Like so many romance authors, I began my career writing Regency historicals, because who can argue with Georgette Heyer? I wrote two series, the Courtesan Court and London List books, although technically George the IVth was on the throne in the third Courtesan Court although he hadn’t had his coronation. J

And then, I came across a photograph of my grandmother and her sisters, known collectively as “the beautiful Miller sisters.” She was the youngest of eight siblings, and the seventh sister (her poor brother), born in 1887 or 1889. The discrepancy results from all the sisters changing their birthdates in the family Bible, the minxes.

Seeing them in their Edwardian finery around the turn of the twentieth century inspired me to write the Ladies Unlaced series, all featuring young women anxious to embrace societal changes. Telephones! Cars! Jobs! Suffrage! All of the Miller sisters save for my grandmother were redheads; some never married, and those that did were either very late to do so, or wound up scandalously divorced. I believe they must have been forces to reckon with.

After a brief foray into the Victorian era (the Cotswold Confidential novels), I turned again to the twentieth century, only this time I decided to try a mystery—quite a challenge for a writer who loves research but does not plot.

At all.

Thus came Lady Adelaide Compton, a widowed marquess’ daughter in possession of seven automobiles. It would have been eight, but her late husband crashed it, along with his French mistress, into a stone wall. There’s a strong vein of romance in the series, because Addie is a pretty, rich widow—who wouldn’t want to be husband number 2? Well, except for Detective Inspector Devenand Hunter from Scotland Yard, an ambitious Anglo-Indian fully away of society’s constraints. Will Addie break him down? TBD.

I’ve discovered the 1920s were an absolute golden age of music. As a little girl, I saved my allowance to buy a 45 of Connie Francis’ Who’s Sorry Now, loving her voice. Who could imagine it was written in 1923? And who could imagine it would be the perfect title for a mystery set in 1925 amongst the Bright Young People in London, whose only goal was to have to no goal but lots of fun?  The more things change, the more they stay the same, with apologies to the French.

And here’s my grandmother, as a young mother during the Great War, and as a gay divorcee sometime in the late twenties or early thirties. I think she’d be tickled to know how she’s inspired me. Do you have favorite old family photographs?

Maggie Robinson is a former teacher, library clerk, and mother of four who woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely compelled to create the perfect man and use as many adjectives and adverbs as possible doing so.

A transplanted New Yorker, she lives with her not-quite perfect husband in Maine, where the cold winters are ideal for staying inside and writing historical mysteries and romances.

A two-time Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice nominee, her books have been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Thai, Dutch, and Italian. Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Romance Writers of America, and Maine Romance Writers.

You can find Maggie's website at www.maggierobinson.net. She's also on  Twitter @maggielrobinson  and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maggie.robinson.165

And Onward To Nine!

First, the Blog Queens and all the Genre-istas want to Thank You for your support of Romancing The Genres for 8 years.

Here’s what you can look forward to in the coming months!

As you’ll see we have a Guest Theme and a Genre-ista Topic for each month. We invite you to recommend authors who write in our Guest Themes as Sarah and Judith are always looking for new-to-us authors.

June our guests are 20^th Century Historical Romance authors: Maggie Robinson, Anna Brentwood, Margaret Tanner, Lauri Robinson and Eleri Grace. And the Genre-istas will be sharing Wedding Stories. Judith already has her June 7^th post up “Say Yes To The Dress” but you’ll have already read posts by Paty Jager, Luanna Stewart, Robin Weaver and Dora Bramden before Judith’s day.

July our guests are Emerging Romance Authors. What’s an Emerging Romance Author? One who has at least 3 books published but not yet seven. In other words, fairly new to the wide, wonderful world of publishing. At the writing of this blog post we’ve got Kerry Blaisdell, Kathy Coatney and Andra Ashe signed up. And Genre-istas will post about the one thing they would change about their past and why. That should be an interesting month.

And in August we’ll share an “Adventure in Traveling.” Hmm, Judith’s had several including ending up on a list of suspicious international travelers. Wonder if she’ll expand on that one. While you read about our travel adventures, our guests will be Authors of Historical Romance From Around The World.

September our Topic and Theme center around The Craft of Writing. As a reader let us know what you’d like to learn from us.

October we celebrate Superhero/heroine Romance and the Genre-istas will be talking about Their Own Superhero/heroine.

Over the years we’ve settled into our November and December topics so there’s nothing new here: November: Holiday Reads is the Genre-ista topic and Holiday Romance Authors is our guest theme.

December is our What’s New In Publishing theme. Our guests have included folks from Draft2Digital, Findaway Voices, Alli, as well as a couple of people who stay on top of the publishing trends.

As the calendar shifts from 2019 to 2020, we head in to the last four months before our 9^th Blog-O-Versary. We’d love to have your thoughts on topics and themes you’d like to see. After coming up with topics and themes for 96 months, you can imagine how grateful the Blog Queens are for ideas.

And to sweeten the request, leave your ideas and contact information in the Comments. Those who do will be entered in a drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

Anatomy of an Anthology by Delsora Lowe

Working on an anthology is an entirely different beast. Think Beauty and the Beast. You start out with a quarrelsome, growly, domineering chunk of words that need to be tamed into one cohesive book.

Picture this: Beauty dreaming of finding her hero. Every August the Maine Romance Writers partake in a brainstorming retreat. Okay, so it’s like a huge slumber party. We arrive with sleeping bags and pillows and laptops and snacks (salty and savory) and wine. Did I mention laptops? Yes, we do work. We spend all day either brainstorming our next story in small groups, or sitting on the deck or down by the lake writing on our current work. We break every few hours to exchange writing tips, eat, or take a boat ride around the lake.

Two years ago, we sat on the deck, sated with food and talk and wine (just a little), with the sound of loons on the lake and the full moon arrowing a golden path across the lake and right up on the shoreline in front of us. Our host suggested we might like to try writing an anthology. Within minutes we’d created a town, brainstormed names of the town, set a few guidelines, and we were off and running

Or so we thought.

The reality is the work we did that night was Beauty’s fantasy.

Then the Beast appeared. All the details of actually putting together an anthology. The writing was the easy part—Beauty’s fantasy. Managing a project, was the roaring and untamable Beast. I am happy to say we did finally tame the beast, and named it Welcome to Serenity Harbor.

Beauty and the Beast are now living happily ever after. But as with all good marriages or committed relationships, one must open their eyes, negotiate, persevere over the hurdles, and make a strong commitment to reach that Happily Ever After.

Why am I here?

As one of two project managers, working with a group of six committee members and all the authors who were excited about the project, here are the things I learned: (caveat, not all anthologies revolve around a town, like ours did. Some have a theme. Some are made up of a group of authors and there are no rules around story content.)

♥ Map out the project and plot exactly what the project will look like.

♣ Set rules, such as genre of anthology (ours was contemporary), length (we chose short novellas, 15 – 25K words).

♣ Write a contract. Include costs, such as professional editor for each work, (authors absorbed that cost), due date of manuscript, anticipated release date, budget (cost of formatter, cover artist, and promotion, for which we shared cost), and production timeline.

♣ Determine as a group, parameters around the theme, such as name and details of town that all authors will set their story in, name of overall anthology, type of promotion, voting on book cover design, etc.

♥ Research

♣ What anthologies are being sold now, how are they set up, etc.

♣ Talk to other authors in anthologies to understand their process.

♣ Find professionals, editors, formatters, cover artists, etc.

♥ Communicate

♣ As a committee, agree on the process.

♣ Communicate with all authors each step of the way.

♣ Vote on any spending.

♥ Evaluate at the end. Our learnings included:

♣ Making sure you factor in realistic expenses, such as copy editing and project manager costs up front.

♣ Set deadlines and stick to them.

♣ Hire a copy editor, and have one person, not an author related to the anthology, determine if the book fits the criteria and is edited properly

♥ Make it your own

♣ One fun thing we did, was to insert the mention of a sheep into each story. Look at the back cover and you will see a rendering of a sheep that says “find me”, crafted by one of our authors.

Although, as a group we bumbled our way through the process, for me it was an incredible experience of teamwork and learning about self-publishing. And although the Beast still growls once in a while, the Beast is also loving and tamed. And he and Beauty are living happily ever after.

Serenity Harbor

Welcome to Serenity Harbor, Maine, where waves slap against the rocky shore and love is always in the air.

Two centuries after a ship, The Serenity, brought the first families to this part of the secluded Maine coast, the town is home to their descendants and a destination for tourists and travelers seeking their own slice of heaven—and blueberry pie.

Join nine Maine authors and their friends in their walk around Serenity Harbor, and maybe you’ll find the sheep that sometimes get loose on Main Street!

Authors contributing to Welcome to Serenity Harbor:

Terri Brisbin, Teagan Oliver,

Kat Henry Doran, Luanna Stewart,

Michelle Libby, Maggie Robinson, 

Delsora Lowe, April Canavan and

Rose Morris, Meg Kassel

Welcome to Serenity Harbor is available now. Check your favorite e-retailer to purchase.

About Delsora Lowe

From Cabins to Cottages…Keep the Home Fires Burning

A transplanted big city girl, world-wide traveler, and foreign-service brat, who now lives in a coastal Maine town, Delsora Lowe loves to write about small town heroes from the cowboys and ranchers of Colorado to the game wardens and lobstermen of Maine. Her work in the hospitality industry, rape crisis, admissions, alumni relations, and women’s advocacy has allowed her to interact on a daily basis with real life heroines and heroes. Lowe’s family visits to Colorado are the inspiration for an upcoming contemporary western series.

www.delsoralowe.com

The Legacy of Parkers Point by Delsora Lowe in the anthology Welcome to Serenity Harbor:

Two lives, one legacy—the lure of Parkers Point

One runs from …

Inheriting his grandfather’s property on the rocky point in Serenity Harbor, Maine is the perfect escape from the biggest professional disaster of Grayson’s life. Will distance and space help Gray heal old family and professional wounds enough to open his heart to love?

One runs toward …

Lauralee struggles to save the family art gallery for her aunt. Returning to Serenity Harbor is payment for her aunt’s kindness that saved her life and soul. Now she’s on a quest to find her father. Will this trip home help her learn to trust and finally convince her she can truly belong for the first time in her life?