For one day only!!!!!

OFFER EXPIRED NOW...

IN THE FLESH is Mills and Boon's Bank Holiday Special today! Only 99p!

It's always hot, but grab it while it's cheap! :)

Click the graphic for all the buying stuff... 

New edition of IN THE FLESH out today!

Fifty Shades 1890 style.

A Victorian spin on the classic story of an innocent heroine discovering the truth depth of her desires

Victorian high society already believes she's a scarlet woman... so why not become one?

Beatrice Weatherly's reputation is in tatters. With scandalous pictures of her being scrutinised eagerly by connoisseurs and condemned by respectable society, and her brother rapidly running them into debt, Beatrice's hope of ever making a respectable marriage is dashed.

Then powerful, wealthy Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie offers an indecent proposal that might save the day... at a cost. His terms are, one month of hedonistic servitude as his sensual plaything, and he'll pay off her brother's debts and settle a fortune on her and her sibling.

But nothing can prepare Beatrice for the reality of Ritchie's scandalous arrangement, and for discovering that she thoroughly enjoys her notorious demimonde status and what's more, she delights in the pleasures and daring games she shares with the handsome, inventive Ritchie. 

Very soon, she's addicted to a man who can never wholly be hers... and deeply in love with the master who's bought her body.

More information, an introductory excerpt and buying links HERE

Another gorgeous new cover!

Here's the lovely new UK cover for my Victorian 'Indecent Proposal' style romp IN THE FLESH!

Isn't it a cracker? Not sure that Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie is quite a Mr Darcy, but he's certainly a confident, somewhat arrogant man and just as in Pride and Prejudice, he and Beatrice, my heroine, first set eyes on each other across a dance floor.

This super new edition is due out in the UK in October!

More about IN THE FLESH here.

More August Excitement!

My posts are like London buses. Nothing for weeks then two on the same day! LOL

But there are two blog related events that I really must bring to your attention...

The first is a Grand BDSM Appreciation Event that is being hosted by Nix on her Scorching Book Reviews blog. This is a fab lineup of authors each posting about their take on BDSM fiction, one every day, for a month... along with a blog hop, too.

I haven't actually written my post yet, but I do already have some fun ideas, that I hope will be interesting and entertaining. :)

And to celebrate another event, that I completely forgot about in my other post... I've been interviewed by the Italian romance blog Pinkafe, to mark the occasion of my Victorian erotic historical, IN THE FLESH, being published in Italy!

The Italian title translates as OVERWHELMING PLEASURE... which pretty much sums up the story nicely!

The wonderful Hasmina has translated my answers to some questions about IN THE FLESH aka OVERWHELMING PLEASURE, and if you read Italian, you can find the interview here. 

L'Erotismo di Portia da Costa

I'm a guest blogger again!

This time I'm at the Risky Regencies Blog, where I've been interviewed by Janet Mullany about the Naughty Victorian world of my Ladies' Sewing Circle stories.

Portia Da Costa and those Naughty Victorians

I'd love it if you'd surf on over and leave a comment there. One lucky commenter at the Risky Regencies blog will win a copy of In The Flesh!

I'm guesting at RomCon

Zip on over to the RomCon site to read a spicy excerpt from IN THE FLESH! Leave a comment there [not here... although you can comment at both, if you like!] and you'll go in a draw to win a copy of the book!

Click here!

Historical romance novelist? Moi?

Here's my first full length historical romance novel - IN THE FLESH. It's had a weird road to publishing... it was going to be an erotica/erotic romance title, for Harlequin Spice, but when that line was closed, the book was moved over to the HQN line, and now it's listed as historical romance. For anyone that wonders, though, it's still the *same* book and it's just as hot! Luckily, it was always a traditional romantic love story too, with a journey towards a happily ever after ending, so it fit right into it's new home very nicely... despite an inordinate amount of bonking and other sexual shenanigans between it's stunningly beautiful covers. :)

This is what it's all about ie. the blurb:

"Society already believes she's a scarlet woman... why not become one?"

Posing nude to please her now ex-fiancé perhaps wasn't the most prudent idea Beatrice Weatherly has ever had. With the photographs scrutinized up and down society and her brother running them into debt, Beatrice's hopes of ever making a respectable marriage are dashed.

After one glance at Beatrice's infamous racy cabinet cards, wealthy, powerful Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie is soon obsessed with Beatrice's beautiful face and body. His indecent proposal--one month of hedonistic servitude in exchange for enough money to pay her brother's debts--is one she can hardly refuse.

Determined not to let the rogue best her, Beatrice sets out for the infamous House of Madame Chamfleur to learn how to appease Ritchie's well-known sensual appetite. Soon the couple is playing out exquisite fantasies...and feeling emotion that goes deeper than flesh. But Ritchie harbors a shocking secret, and Beatrice must decide if she's prepared to give up everything for a man who can offer her nothing, but who's come to mean the very world to her.

Read an excerpt here

IN THE FLESH is officially available today from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Barnes and Noble in a mass market paperback edition. It's due out in an ebook form on 1st April [some would say that's very apt when it's something I've written... LOL] in the epub format from venues like eHarlequin, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks and Diesel eBooks.

A Kindle ebook will surely appear before long, but I suspect it won't be before 1st May. If I had my way, all editions would come out simultaneously all over the world on the same day, so everybody who wants a book can buy it in whatever form they like best. But alas, publishing doesn't work like that.

I'll certainly be posting here as soon as a Kindle version pops up, and also tweeting the news too. Or you could join my mailing list for the latest news on IN THE FLESH and other titles. 

IN THE FLESH cover - just wow!

I'm speechless with delight!

Mid January update

I don't have any new covers or anything just at the moment, so I thought this cute new shot of Simon the Not Stray would make a nice alternative. Isn't he a handsome fellow? What a noble profile! :)

So, what's happening right now, with half of January already gone? I've been pretty busy since the beginning of the year, sorting out various stuff, writing, editing, trying to come up with new ideas. At the moment, I've finishing checking the page proofs for my 1st March Samhain title FAR FROM PERFECT. I'm really, really excited about this release because for the first time in a long time, it's not an erotica release. Far From Perfect is highly sensual, but not graphic. It's a category length contemporary, with a luscious alpha hero, Niccolo Lisitano, a rich and glamorous Italian businessman and sometime playboy. Nick is gorgeous, sexy, a perfect male specimen... but his complex relationship with Anna, the heroine, is hugely problematical, in fact, far from perfect... ta da!

What else have I been up to? Well, I've been working on an idea/outline for another Harlequin Spice book, to follow up my first one IN THE FLESH. Spice #2 is another hot Victorian story with central couple who have just as thorny a relationship and the above mentioned Anna and Nick. Adela and Wilson also have 'history', emotional and family complications that mean they are at odds as much as in lust with each other. I've subbed their story outline to my editor, and I'm hoping she'll be as excited about it as I am because I'd love to write Adela and Wilson's fiery story.

I'm also happy and delighted that I've already made a sale, even though it's only January. Legendary editor Rachel Kramer Bussel has accepted my story Concubine for her forthcoming anthology Obsessed. Am thrilled to be in this one because there are lots of wonderful writers involved.

News, reviews, links

Well, not all that much news, really. The main thing is that I've heard back from my agent about In The Flesh and she thinks it's "excellent"! She's also very pleased that I've completed it in time to submit it to the editor a full two months before my stated deadline.

I've also received a couple of lovely reviews for my Ladies' Sewing Circle titles, A Gentlewoman's Predicament and A Gentlewoman's Ravishment, both from author, editor and reviewer Lucy Felthouse. Lucy has long been a supporter of my work, and I'm delighted that she's enjoyed my latest offerings.

Here's what she has to say about A Gentlewoman's Predicament...

I’ve read lots of Portia Da Costa’s work in the past, but this is the first historical erotica of hers that I’ve read. And I have to say that although it’s a huge departure from her contemporary stuff, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been so brilliantly written that you forget that you’re actually in modern times, as opposed to Victorian England. The tone, the language and the dialogue are perfectly crafted and it makes for a fab read!

Read the full review here!

And now, her thoughts on A Gentlewoman's Ravishment...

This is a fabulous story in this series from Portia Da Costa. I actually preferred this to the first, and based on these two, can’t wait to see what’s going to happen to the Victorian ladies next. Recommended.

Read the full review here!

I'd also like to point my visitors in the direction of a fantastic new web site set up by Lucy...

EROTICA FOR ALL

This is a fast growing hub of information for authors and readers of erotica and erotic romance, and features author bios, excerpts, and competitions and giveaways. There's also a forum where readers and authors can interact. Why not surf along there now and check it out! 

At last - an update

Sorry for the long delay in updating my blog. I don't really have a valid excuse. I've been busy doing lots of things and the time just got away from me.

Anyway, in book news, I finally finished a draft of my Victorian erotic romance novel IN THE FLESH, and it's now with my agent, and I'm awaiting her verdict. This book has been a huge challenge for me. A new sub-genre with a new publisher. I've already written quite a few Spice Briefs for Harlequin, but a 100K+ word single title novel is a whole new ball game. Working in a historical setting for a longer work has been hard work, because I've only ever done contemporary novels before. Every fact, and it seems like nearly every other word and phrase has to be checked for historical accuracy. You can't just bowl along willy-nilly 'talking' the way we do nowadays. I'm sure IN THE FLESH still has more than its fair share of anachronistic speech etc, but I have tried to at least get a flavour of the times, and be as accurate as I can to the best of my researching ability. But, I'm not a history scholar, just an average writer with a passionate interest in all things Victorian, so it's not going to be 100% perfect on the historical score.

But despite all the hard work and angsting over the thing, I feel hugely happy to have done it, and eager to do more in the same vein. I also feel proud that I've pushed myself to do something that was out of my usual comfort zone, because I think it's made me grow as a writer. I feel I've achieved something. And I think it's particularly important for someone like me, who's no longer a young writer, to keep on stretching themself, and learning new things and new skills.

So, what's next? Well, no doubt my agent will have some suggestions for IN THE FLESH and that might mean a bit more work on it, but hopefully in the next week or so it'll be off to the editor and then I'll be keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that it makes her grade. But obviously, I won't be just sitting around waiting to hear the verdict. At the moment, I'm still working in the Victorian era, weaving another of my LADIES' SEWING CIRCLE tales. I've got a contract to do two more, and this first one of those is provisionally titled A GENTLEWOMAN'S RESCUE and is about Miss Lucy Dawson, a bespectacled bicycle riding spinster, who sees herself as a bit of an ugly ducking and has philosophically resigned herself to a solitary life... or at least a life without a man. That is, until she tumbles off her bicycle in the rain, on a lonely country road and is rescued by a handsome rustic Adonis who takes her to his cottage to recuperate...

After RESCUE, I'll be writing the next Sewing Circle Lady's story, but I don't have a title for that, and I'm still mulling over a few different ideas. It'll be fun though! And when that's turned in, I'll be seriously applying myself to writing the outline and character biographies for my second Victorian Spice novel. No firm details on that yet, but I'll definitely be setting it in the same 'world' as IN THE FLESH and THE LADIES' SEWING CIRCLE.

Also in the pipe is my sweeter novel for Samhain Publishing, FAR FROM PERFECT. I don't have any publication date for that yet, but I'm hoping to get edits on that soon, and then I'll know more.

That's all for now, but hopefully when I've worked on it to my satisfaction, I'll soon be able to post an excerpt of A GENTLEWOMAN'S RESCUE.

Gratuitous Patrick pic and what's going on here...

Mmm... delicious, eh? Bit of a blowing in the wind, big hair Patrick. :)

Latest news from me is that I've just completed the first draft of my historical erotic romance novel, IN THE FLESH. It's clocked in at a chunky 105K words, and is one of the longest, if not the longest book I've ever written. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to take me all that long to write, once I got going, and even though it was a challenge, it was huge fun to do. I love my characters Beatrice and Mr. Ritchie aka Edmund and I had a smile all over my face while I was writing the final chapter and their happily ever after.

As I've completed this draft well in advance of my delivery date, I'm going to set it aside to 'set' now for a little while, and work on other projects, including outlines and ideas for new books, novellas and stories. Then, after the setting time, I'll be back to work on IN THE FLESH, for a lot of editing, polishing, fine tuning and enhancing, to make it the best it can possibly be before I turn it in to my editor.

A fond farewell to Numb3rs

I'm just in the middle of watching the final episode of one of my favourite TV shows, the quirky cop drama, Numb3rs. I loved the show from the first time I saw episode one, and particularly fell for the brilliant, dorky and adorable Professor Charlie Eppes. But it was one of those shows with a great ensemble cast too, so I loved following the storylines about Charlie's dad, his friend Larry, and his brother Don, and the other FBI agents on Don's team. With six series, Numb3rs is one of those programmes that so wormed its way into my heart that the characters seemed to become part of an extended family... and now, I'll sorely miss them. 

Of course Numb3rs isn't the only show to become 'family'. I think millions of people all over the world will consider the characters of the various different Star Trek shows to be family. I certainly do, with Next Generation having made the most impact. Just as I've been sobbing over Charlie and Amita's wedding, I sobbed at the final episode of TNG, where the main cast assembled for a poker game with Picard one of the players at last. 

Of course, prior to Numb3rs, and concurrent with it, Law & Order Criminal Intent has been a major, major extended family show for me too. Detective Robert Goren was/is an astonishing character and profoundly inspiring in terms of hero templates, for me. Goren might be gone from our screens, alas, but a version of him still lives on for me as Robert Stone, the hero of ENTERTAINING MR STONE.

The characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel were also part of my life for a long time, especially the wonderful bad boy Spike, who eventually endured a long, painful climb towards goodness. Something I very much liked. Spike too, inspired a book hero. He 'became' Lukas, the gorgeous blond super model in DESIGNED FOR SIN, one of my X Libris titles under the pseudonym Dorothy Starr.  

Now, of course, I have another show that's captured my heart and imagination, and is also proving inspirational in terms of hot male totty. I refer of course to THE MENTALIST, and it's glorious central character Patrick Jane, who's already provoking a new spate of yummy blond heroes, including a certain Mr. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie. It's too soon to know whether The Mentalist will become 'family', but it's shaping up that way, because it's another show where the supporting characters are all appealing and entertaining too, and I'm very fond of Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt as well as their gorgeous 'consultant'. The man who hides a tortured heart behind his sunny smile.

And so, back to Numb3rs. And to paraphrase Rick, from Casablanca, Charlie and I will always have IN TOO DEEP. In which Professor Hottie McHotstuff aka Daniel will always bear a startling resemblance to a certain Professor Eppes. 

IN THE FLESH has a blurb!

Indecent Proposal - 1890 style...

When headstrong and impoverished gentlewoman Beatrice Weatherly accidentally poses naked for the camera of the man she thought was her fiancé, her conventional Victorian world is turned upside down. Abandoned, reputation in tatters, and with her own debts and her brother's to contend with, she accepts a radical solution offered by a notoriously attractive and fiendishly wealthy man.

Successful man of business and noted womanizer Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie is stunned and beguiled by the lush sensuality of a model he espies in a series of erotic cabinet cards. Used to having any woman he wants, he sets out to possess the beautiful Siren of South Mulberry Street and make her his own for the duration of a hot affair. The fact that Beatrice Weatherly needs money, and he has plenty to offer, only makes ensuring her compliance all the easier.

Embarking on a mutually advantageous and pleasurable liaison that's only supposed to last a month, both parties quickly realize that the best laid plans of sirens and seducers can quickly and easily go awry. Beatrice's resolution to be sensible and practical and just enjoy the experience is rocked by her fast growing feelings for the sexy, enigmatic Ritchie, and Ritchie too experiences a new level of tenderness and emotion that he thought he'd put behind him with his dark and painful past.

So, with both their hearts in jeopardy despite their best intentions, can two strong-willed lovers with issues and secrets a-plenty navigate their way to a future together beyond the boundaries of their month long 'indecent proposal'? Or at its end will they kiss and go their separate ways?

In the Flesh will be published in early 2012 by Harlequin Spice

Click here for a mini excerpt from Chapter One

Forward momentum...

After a day and a half of backtracking, in order to re-engage with my characters after a brief writing hiatus, I'm pleased to announce I'm now moving forward with the plot again. Yeehah!

Have just written a prickly little scene that deals with the aftermath of Beatrice and Ritchie's 'first time' ie. the first time they doooo eeeet, as opposed to all the sensual play they've been indulging in up until now. As Beatrice was a virgin, it's a bit of a big deal for her, and already, rightly or not, she's staring to forge deeper feelings for Ritchie than she knows she ought to, given their relationship is grounded in an 'indecent proposal' arrangement. Ritchie too senses that he's getting in deeper than he planned [ooer missis] and being a guy with a shed load of emotional baggage and complications in his life, that could lead to even more of the same ahead.

It's going to be a bumpy road for these two, I guess...

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Eating: more swiss roll
Watching: bit of British Superbikes
Reading: stalled on about four books, planning to read something different
Writing: IN THE FLESH
Feeling: fairly chipper

Back and forth

Have been back at work today on Victorianoid after a few days of procrastinating and doing other things.

I mostly find that when I've had a few days off from a book, I need to backtrack a bit to re-engage with the characters and the plot, and in this case, I went back about three [short] chapters, to rewrite and refine. I was going to change the 'action' in these scenes quite a bit, to follow what I laughingly call my outline, but on rereading the scenes, I think I'll keep the interaction between Beatrice and Ritchie pretty much as it is, and just change the outline! In my synopsis and outline thingoid, Ritchie was always the one pretty much calling the sexual shots, but as I've been writing, Beatrice has very much developed a mind of her own in these matters and is more sexually aggressive than I'd anticipated. I'm not sure how 'of her times' she is in this, but I'm sure that beneath the prim exteriors of many a Victorian miss or matron, there was a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to reach out and take hold of it... much like Beatrice, beneath the tablecloth in the restaurant of Belanger's Hotel. Think about it... ;)

I've also been thinking about length again [much like Beatrice during her under the table manipulations!] and have been reworking the outline with that in mind too. Have cut out some scenes, and some unnecessarily non-relationship type aspects, to leave more space for Beatrice/Ritchie emotion and sensuality. I know a novel needs *some* plottiness, but not at the expense of the love and sex stuff in this kind of book ie. an erotic romance.

Anyway, feel better to be writing again... even if my wordcount has shrunk today, having cut out 300 words of dead wood and cringe-inducing clunkiness. I don't think super fast drafting will ever be for me, because the absolute tosh I write when I'm racing just makes me wince. I'd rather work more slowly, and go back and forth with the thing, and then know/hope that the prose isn't too horrendously awful when I've finished the first draft. :)

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Eating: a lot of chocolate swiss roll
Watching: Victorian Farm/Victorian Kitchen Garden
Reading: my outline
Writing: Victorianoid
Feeling: not bad

The Long and the Short of it

Over the past couple of days I've been procrastinating. Not an unusual thing for me. I've actually been doing some quite useful stuff while I've been 'not writing', in that I've made inroads into some long needed tidying up and sorting out of both my web site and the book sidebar on this blog. You probably won't notice a great deal of difference in either of them, but it's part of a process of creating more order and uniformity [don't laugh]. It's not finished yet, but both in the blog bar and on the homepage of my site, I've been streamlining links and centralizing all the info for each book on its own individual excerpt page, hence the sudden appearance of a smattering of 'Info/Excerpt/Buy' type clickables [that one leads to IN TOO DEEP, picked at random].

Anyway, while I've been engaged in all this techy/semi creative type activity, hopefully my higher brain function [yeah, right...] will have been mulling over thoughts and issues to do with IN THE FLESH aka Victorianoid. The main thing at the moment is that it's turning out as if it's going to be far too long! I always start out each book worrying if I'm going to 'get the wordcount' ie. whether my undeniably tissue paper flimsy plots will stretch to the required number of words for the publisher's guidelines. I do always manage it, because all sorts of things occur to me as I'm writing and the stories usually turn out richer than I dared dream of when I began... But this time, with IN THE FLESH, I seem to be heading for a massive over-run if I don't streamline the plot a bit. Yes, even the slight plot I've developed for this one seems to be very complex by my standards and needs a goodish bit of wordage. Plus, it's a historical, and the defining historical characteristics of setting and world-building are like extra characters and plot twists in themselves. So they need space too.

So, it's a question of constant monitoring and balancing... One thing that HAS to stay in is masses of delicious, naughty sensuality between my characters, and their emotional and psychological voyage of discovery. Those elements are the bedrock and the raison d'etre [oooh, posh] of my writing and my readers expect and are entitled to those elements... in very large amounts!

I can do this. [I once wrote a 100,000 word long book under another pseudonym] And the challenge is exciting and fun and good for me because I need to grow as a writer. But it does need a fair bit of brain bashing and the occasional step back to review and reassess. Which is what I've been doing these last few days... And the good thing about a little 'holiday' from the writing is, I'm absolutely dying to get back to Beatrice and Mr. Ritchie and find out what incredibly sexy and scandalous thing they're going to do next!

Writing a baddie!

In the last couple of days, I've been thinking about and writing about the baddie in my WIP. Now this is tough for me, because I'm a sucker for sympathetic characters, even when they're sexy, somewhat domineering alpha heroes... but the dastardly Eustace Lloyd's actions have a pivotal effect on the plot of IN THE FLESH, so I don't think it'll work to have him simply referred to, rather than put in an actual appearance. In fact, come to think of it, a dirty trick that Eustace plays on my heroine, Beatrice Weatherly, initiates the entire plot of the book. Not that there's a *huge* amount of plottiness. I'd be the first to admit that my stories depend mainly on characters, erotic interplay and emotions, rather than a lot of racing around doing things.

Because I mostly like 'nice' characters, I don't write many nasty ones. I think the last proper villain I wrote ie. one without much in the way of redeeming features, was Isidora, the wicked sorceress in my GOTHIC duo, Gothic Blue and Gothic Heat. Now she was a very bad girl, and totally ruthless, and didn't care what she did to people as long as she got what she wanted. Readers seemed to like her, and I must admit, she was fun to write, so maybe I can channel some of that irredeemable mojo into Eustace... although I'm already looking for reasons for him being the way he is. Not that I'll have much time to go into his back story. I've nearly got three quarters of my wordcount done, and I'm only half way through the plot!

Looks like this book is due some stringent and carefully considered cutting and compressing in the editing... or it's going to be a helluva sight longer than the projected 95K words!

Now then... shall I do a bit more Eustaceness? Or return to Beatrice and Mr. Ritchie and their delicious bedroom games? Hee hee!


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Eating: far too much sweet stuff
Watching: The Mentalist, Numb3rs etc
Reading: Patience - Lisa Valdez/Sherlock Holmes for Dummies
Writing: IN THE FLESH aka Victorianoid
Feeling: so so

Chugging along...

Despite yesterdays mini tantrums over the state of the office, I'm still managing to keep the first draft of IN THE FLESH chugging along. It's pretty rough and ready at the moment, but I plan enhance and polish and layer in both deeper emotion and more historical detail as I work on the second draft. What I'm putting in place now is really the skeleton, although I think some good little bits are already there.

This morning, I've been doing more work on a scene between Beatrice and her brother Charlie, and trying to paint their complicated but basically fond relationship. I enjoy the fact that I'm working in a slightly longer form for a different publisher now, where I can go into areas like this, instead of it constantly having to be *all* sex, sex, sex, with no room to expand on the rest of the characters' lives! Of course there will be masses of eroticism and naughtiness, because that's the centre of the story, and what drives it, but I like being able to surround that by more richness of detail and a more fully developed world for the characters to be sexy and outrageous in. :)

Ah well, must get on. I have a zillion other things to do today, as well as working on ITF... so must get to them, busy, busy, busy.

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Eating: grapes
Watching: nothing
Reading: Molesworth - screamingly funny!
Writing: In The Flesh
Feeling: not too bad

Why?

Do I suddenly have to keep signing in, again and again, to Blogger? Up until not long ago, I could sign in once in a session, then edit my sidebar thingies on the fly, from the page... not so now. Very annoying.

You'll be pleased to know that I've now begun moving forward again with IN THE FLESH. I spent yesterday pootling about with the 12K I'd completed and doing little tweaks and adjustments to reflect thoughts I've had and research I've uncovered since I first worked on it, many, many months ago. I was pleased to discover that I clicked with Bea, the heroine, again immediately. She's an interesting girl, brave and feisty, who looks on the positive side. She's made silly mistakes, but she's learning from them so she doesn't slip up in quite the same way again. I'm not sure that she's a totally strictly accurate Victorian young lady in her thinking, maybe... but she has to be what she'll be, that's the way I write. And I think I can avoid any super ridiculous anachronisms... ITF will be a bit wallpapery, but not too much, I hope.

Ritchie, I'm already liking very much again too. Especially his ruthless sexiness at this stage. I hope to bring out his more tormented and angsty side later, although it won't be black, bleak, miserable angst, just a guy trying to make the best of the hand life's dealt him.

I'm also, currently, opening the door to the mind of Charlie, Bea's brother, who's an unwise character although not a villain. I hope to make him grow stronger through the book, although at the moment he's teetering on the brink of an erotic tryst in a moonlit garden with another man... Very foolhardy indeed in an age where homosexuality was against the law, and he could go to prison and serve a term of hard labour. Eek, Charlie, be careful!



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Eating: chocolate finger biscuits
Watching: nothing yet
Reading: nothing yet today
Writing: IN THE FLESH aka Victorianoid
Feeling: quite positive