Moonstone Obsession
by
Elizabeth Ellen Carter
I've got another wonderful Australian Author as a guest today here on my blog. Elizabeth Ellen Carter's release is Moonstone Obsession, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Romance Writers Of Australia’s Emerald Awards for unpublished manuscripts.
Today, she's giving us insight into the genre "Regency".
For many people who think of the Regency
period, the images that come to mind is those of Pride and Prejudice and the
Industrial Revolution.
For me the interest in the Regency period
goes back 100 years earlier.
The Enlightenment movement is a
socio-political philosophy born at the beginning the 1700s with scientists such
as Isaac Newton and social philosophers such as Kant, Rousseau and Voltaire.
Discussions in the halls of academia and
fashionable salons focused on the nature of man and his relationship with the
state. From there the notion of full enfranchisement for all and the beginnings
of discussion of feminine equality was born - Mary Shelley and Mary
Wollstonecraft were highly influential.
By the end of the 18th century
the theories left the realm of the hypothetical and had the opportunity to be
put into practice in the formation of two new nation-states – the United States
of America and la Republique de France.
The influence of both nations in culture,
art, science and politics has been so profound that it is difficult to imagine
today's world without them.
However, as with all high-minded
socio-political movements, the theory works better than practice – mostly owing
the fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.
And no more apparent was this dichotomy
then in the treatises written by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine – both were
supporters of the American Revolution but they fell out over support for the
French Revolution.
History and the bloody aftermath of the
French Revolution's Reign of Terror would prove Burke right.
So for a writer with an interest in
religion, history and politics, the Regency period is like nectar to a bee!
Moonstone Obsession takes a look at the type of discussions they might have had
during that time and foreshadows what happened next in European history.
Certain thinkers of the Enlightenment
school were also adept at myth-making with respect to medieval history, doing
much to promote it as the 'dark ages' from which people require deliverance by
way of 'science and reason'. Serious scholars today have long agreed that rather
than being an intellectual waste ground, the medieval period was rich in the
development of science, art and philosophy.
One of the most pervasive myths of that
time - so much so that many people believe it today – is that medieval people
thought (and that the church taught) that the world was flat.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
And that led me on to my WIP which I'm
editing at the moment - Warrior's Surrender which is set the end of the 11th
century in the north English region of Northumbria in the years following the
Norman Conquest.
I hope with both Moonstone Obsession and
with Warrior's Surrender that readers will not only love the romance but also
fall in love with the history as well.
Blurb:
Selina Rosewall had given up on love, but while helping her brother further his merchant fleet business, she meets Sir James Mitchell, Lord of Penventen. Their attraction is mutual, but what James wants from the relationship goes further—much further—than Selina could have expected. And she learns that in the world of the Ton, scandal and deceit are commonplace.
For Sir James Mitchell, Lord of Penventen, it’s hard to say which is more dangerous: being a spy or being considered husband material by the Ladies of the Ton. With political machinations threatening to draw England into the violent wake of the French Revolution, the last thing James expected was to fall in love with Selina Rosewall, daughter of an untitled seafaring family. But when James’ investigation stirs up a hornet’s nest, can he protect Selena from danger that threatens her very life?
Buy Moonstone Obsession here ~~Amazon ~~ Barnes and Noble ~~ All Romance Ebooks ~~ Kobo ~~
