Tag: regencyromance

Doing Something Scary

February 28, 2023 / Gigi Lynn

I did it. I made a YouTube video. I told the world that I am going to be writing a novel based on your feedback. Week by week, I will write a new installment, or episode. This is scary enough, but I will be reading it aloud on my YouTube.

Look for: Gigi Lynn For Romance

Why, you ask?

I want to write my sweet romance novels. I want you and your friends to read them. That already is outside any ‘comfort zone.’ But an amazing thing I have found since beginning this writing journey is that I am not content to write formulaically. I need to try new things. I need to challenge myself to get better with each novel. Which means I need to push myself to do uncomfortable things.

I hope you will join me for a few minutes each week as I discover with you Corinna’s and Nora’s stories. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you think needs to happen next. (the discussion board in on the main menu on the site here).

I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

How About a Little Sneak Peak?

September 2, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

In The Lies We Tell, when Amelia sees the young girls at the brothel, this refined lady acts in a way that is so outside her nature it surprised me. I wanted to explore what would make her unable to walk away from these poor girls. This question was the impetus to write my current Work in Process. Right now I’m calling it An Honorable Man. It’s a fun reverse Pygmalion story. Cecily (Amelia’s mother–And Amelia makes an appearance as a five year old) is helping Mr. Hatton make himself over so that he can enter into society.

I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying this story. Would you like a sneak peak?

I have a new page on the site. It’s called Free Romance Reads. If you’d like access, go ahead and sign up for my newsletter. You’ll get a free story, “One Stormy Day,” and I’ll give you the password to the page where I will be loading the first chapter of An Honorable Man. As time goes by, I will be adding other sneak peaks, deleted scenes, short stories and such.

I’m Teeming with Ideas for New Romances

August 22, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

When I first began writing, I had a character. Liza got into a mess, or she had to get her neighbor and father out of their mess. I had one book in my mind. Sometimes I worried a little that I would be a “one book wonder.”

Then Liza went to a ball and talked with a tipsy Amelia. I loved that scene. Amelia made an impression. She talked herself right into the second book. What a relief! And then toward the end of that first book, I met Sidonie. She was so engaging. Suddenly, I had a series. (I added two novellas somewhere in there too).

Then I had an idea for a short story, a prequel about Amelia’s mother. Except my short story wants to be a novel–I’m working on that now, a little more than half-way through. I do believe this will be the last book in this particular series. But did I only have one series in me?

person writing on a notebook beside macbook — Photo by Judit Peter on Pexels.com

I’ve discovered that there is something about writing, at least for me. The more I write, the more ideas come to me. I have three sisters that I can’t wait to write about. One of them needs to marry into money. Sometime soon I think I must do a spin-off series beginning with a book about Madeleine (The French agent that we meet in The Masks We Wear). I have a stand-alone knocking around in the back of my brain–a forced marriage, and some men recently returned from the war who meet once a week to play cards showed up in my brain and are waiting for romance.. The ideas just keep coming. I keep making notes and suddenly I have plans for the next year and a half. I can’t tell you how excited, and relieved I am to know that I have more than one book or one series in me.

I can’t wait for you to meet all the people who are now floating around in my brain just waiting to have their turn to tell their stories.

Coming Your Way

June 12, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

person holding white ceramci be happy painted mug — Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

I’m in the middle of writing a new novel/novella to give to readers who sign up for my Love Notes. I realize that hose of you who already have subscribed have received my short story, One Stormy Day. Though technology isn’t my first language (or second or third), I will figure out a way to get this new free book to you. My plan is to have it ready to share in July, 2022!

Let me tell you about it. We could call this a teaser. The working title is An Honorable Man. (I’m trying to decide if that will change or not). Set in 1792, this is a prequel to Amelia’s book, The Lies We Tell. I tell the story of Amelia’s mother, Cecily and how she meets and falls in love with Mr. Hatton. It is also, and I don’t think this is a spoiler, a little bit of a reverse Pygmalion story. Who doesn’t love a makeover?

I also have another stand-along spin-off novella percolating in the back of my mind. I told myself I had the final novel, The Masks We Wear and this Prequel, and that would be the last of the Illusions Series, but in The Masks We Wear, I met Madeleine. She has a story. What happens to bring a young French woman to work with the British against Napoleon’s government?

I also have two or three more short stories (Mercy, Patience, Caroline) that want to be born. So watch for lots of free romance in the next few months. Because Love Is The Key.

Writing An Homage

March 21, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

My dad likes to watch British mysteries. On my last trip to Idaho, I wrote during the day. In the evening we watched old episodes of Poirot, based on Agatha Christie’s novels. I had never read any of Agatha Christie’s works. I was intrigued.

Mystery Inspired by Agatha Christie

From 1920 through 1973, Agatha Christie wrote 66 mystery novels, 14 short story collections, and plays, one of which is The Mousetrap, which is the world’s longest-running play. The Mousetrap has been performed continuously (except for Covid) since 1952. She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

Many of her works have been adapted for television, film (30 of them), radio, and the stage. She holds the honor of having the most translated works by a single author.

Okay, she is a big deal.

Veiled In Mist–a romance, but also a mystery

Veiled In Mist, my newest novella, is my Regency Romance nod of respect to the extraordinary Agatha Christie.

It didn’t start out that way. When I finished The Lies We Tell, the second full-length novel in the Illusions Series, I started right in on the third novel–The Masks We Wear, but I couldn’t get Lady Helen Ramsgate out of my mind. He father had been caught working with the local smuggling gang. Their family was in disgrace. She retreated to the Phoenix House to live in seclusion.

How could I just leave her there? So, I started writing a little romance for Helen.

For years, I have heard other writers talk about how their characters take over and want something different than they planned. I always thought those stories were flights of fancy, told for marketing purposes. It so happens that those stories are true. At least it has been true for me—every single time.

The girls of the Phoenix House, a school for reforming girls, wanted to tell scary stories on a stormy night. And the former occupants of the house—when it used to be The Hydra House, a gambling hell and brothel weren’t finished with their business there. Poor Lady Helen got pulled into their plots.

Suddenly my little romance novella took on elements of a mystery. I had to research closed circle or locked room mysteries and found Agatha Christie’s name again.

I don’t claim to be anything near the mystery writer that Christie was. However, I did sometimes feel her shade leaning over my shoulder as I tried my hand at weaving a little mystery into my romance.

I hope you enjoy reading my romance/mystery novella as much as I enjoyed writing it. Veiled In Mist, releases on Amazon (and Kindle Unlimited) this week.

What topics do you research?

September 19, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

Spying: Part One of a Three Part Series

Research is the one avoidance behavior I don’t feel too guilty about. I find the most interesting information while researching for my books. While my time spent delving into Regency England informs my writing, I can’t put everything I find in the stories. For fun, I want to take a few weeks and share some stories I’ve found about spying during the Napoleonic war.

Both England and France collected information, discredited their enemy’s diplomats, and even planned assassinations. I hope you enjoy reading about a few Napoleonic era spies.

This week, meet Karl (Charles) Ludwig Schulmeister, Austrian double agent for France.

Karl Ludwig Schulmeister Unknown artist – www.servimg.com

Charles was one of Napoleon’s most successful secret agents. His father was at various times a metalworker, grocer, shopkeeper, smuggler, and a Lutheran minister in Baden. Charles was raised as a shepherd, ³ but later became a smuggler in Strasbourg. One of the things he traded was information. ²

Charles gathered contacts among the French. One of his contacts, General Anne-Jean-Marie-Rene Savary, was aide-de-camp to Napoleon and recruited him to work for Napoleon. He was sent to Vienna to find out the plans of General Mack, the commander of the Austrian Army.⁴

Once in Austria, he claimed he was a Hungarian noble who had been exiled from France. He began to move in aristocratic circles and soon met General Baron Karl Mack von Leiberich. ⁴ He persuaded Mack that he represented royalist opposition to Napoleon and gave him secret data about the French army (Given to him by under Napoleon’s orders).

Now trusted by General Mack, Schulmeister was made chief of intelligence in Mack’s army.

Taking information from Schulmeister, Napoleon printed false newspapers and letters reporting unrest in the French army. Mack believed that the British were landing a force and that France was close to an uprising and were retreating. When Mack pursued the French, he was surrounded by their “retreating army.” He had no choice but to surrender. Napoleon won one of his most famous victories at the battle of Austerlitz. He captured Vienna and Schulmeister became chief of police.¹

At various times during the war, Schulmeister acted as a General in Napoleon’s army, was active in espionage in England and Ireland, and was director of the French Secret Service.²

Schulmeister set up an effective cluster of spies from Napoleon’s enemies in the East. After Napoleon’s success at Austerlitz, he told his officers “Gentlemen, all respect to Charles, who I estimate highly, because he was worth an army corps of 40,000 men to me.”³Schulmeister wanted to be awarded the Legion of Honor, but Napoleon later said that “gold is the only suitable reward for spies.” ¹

After Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and exiled, Schulmeister was arrested. He bought his freedom with his fortune. Nearly penniless, he received a a tobacco stand from an old friend in Strasbourg. He was able to earn a small income until he died of heart failure.³

I thought it interesting that Napoleon used Schulmeister for his information but didn’t trust him or respect him. His death in poverty seems a just end.

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