Regency House Party

Old Alresford Place

 Click to enlarge the photographs

 

There were about 14 of us staying for the weekend, and others coming the following day for the talks and/or dancing lessons, and more just for the ball.

I arrived on Friday afternoon at Old Alresford Place, a former rectory with some stunning grounds. I was told that dressing in costume was optional that day as it was so hot, but I felt that I should get the awkwardness out of the way and just had enough time to dress for afternoon tea. 

As suspected, my costume was rather out of place as everyone else wore authentic dresses, of the design and material of that age. Some even wore stays, corsets and petticoats from that period. I was far from the only new person however, and two other couples had never been to such an event before, one couple even came all the way from America!

What is a Love Story?

Ask a selection of people to name some of the best romances or love stories of all time and you will likely hear some of the following among their answers. Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet, and Gone with the Wind.

I'm sorry, but by what definition are any of these stories romantic?

Now, I do understand the power of a brooding hero, as well as the appeal of all consuming love/lust/infatuation/obsession, but these stories all clearly show the destructive nature of these emotions and in no way glorify the relationships.

Which is why I simply don’t understand why so many people classify them as love stories. What's more, I don’t believe that the authors ever intended for these to be love stories or romance stories.

Let’s start with the worst of that bunch, Wuthering Heights.

Has there ever been a less appealing collection of characters in a novel? I don’t think so.

Yes, Cathy loves Heathcliff and vice versa, but she rejects him because he isn’t rich enough. From that point on, it is a battle of wills to see who can destroy the other first, and not just between Kathy and Heathcliff, everyone around them gets caught in the crossfire too (or indeed, does their fair share of bad deeds). The pain and misery these two inflict on each other and everyone around them is positively loathsome.

Wuthering Heights is a lesson in the destructive nature of obsessive love and it far more resembles a hate story than a love story.

Romeo and Juliet.

Now this is about two children who are so totally infatuated with each other, that they end up dying for that love.

WTF! Leaving aside issues of them being children, they are willing to die for their love; they both commit suicide when they believe the other has died.

I don’t know about y’all, but I want the people that I love to go on without me, not to kill themselves if I died.

Besides Romeo and Juliet don’t love each other, they are infatuated with each other. They don’t even know each other a week when they die and it takes time to get to know someone. Once you’ve lived with their leaving the toilet seat up constantly, farting in bed and not killed them for saying “you know?” constantly, then you can claim to be in love. If he or she is just “the dreamiest person ever” then that’s inflation, or perhaps lust, but not love.

Look at those pictures below. Do you honestly think a love story staring those kids (middle and left) would be an epic romance? Because they're both 13 years old, the age of Romeo and Juliet.

Now, some people argue that Romeo is older than Juliet, since his age is never specifically stated. Many seem to think he is at least 20. Does a 20 year old wooing a 13 year old seem any better, or worse? 

All in all, Romeo and Juliet seems to be a story about infantile infatuation in stupid young people, or a predatory older man. Not exactly something to aspire to.

Gone with the Wind.

Is that what love looks like?

Don’t get me wrong, I love this story and watch the film about every 5 years or so but I still don't believe it's a love story.

Rhett loves Scarlet (and I believe he loves her warts and all, proper love, if you will) but she loves Ashley, who doesn’t love her.

Yes, Rhett and Scarlet get married and yes they have a child, but there is no love in that marriage, it’s a power game between them (slightly more so on Scarlet’s side than Rhett’s).

Then consider that the only time they have sex, Rhett rapes Scarlet. Apparently she sees nothing wrong with that and wakes the next morning smiling and happy (and preggers) warming to the idea of Rhett as her husband (yeah, as you can guess, I love that plot twist. NOT).

Meanwhile Rhett (I think, appalled by his actions) finally begins to distance himself from her.

Obviously, neither of them can be honest and after their daughter dies, they end up truly hating each other and doing their best to hurt the other.

To me, an integral part of love is respect and honour.

As I said, I believe Rhett truly loves Scarlet (despite being an arse and raping her) because when Ashley’s wife dies, he leaves so that she can have Ashley. He does what he thinks will make her happy, not himself. She realises too late that that she does want Rhett but she’s already done so much against him that he can’t believe her.

Still however, by marrying a woman who doesn’t love him, he isn’t respecting himself. He deserves better and because he doesn’t have a woman who loves him, they both end up hurting each other.

Gone with the Wind is an engaging, epic story, a wonderful snapshot of a period of American history, and a character study in how unrequited love affects different people.

But it is aanother hate story, not a love story.

Perhaps someone who likes these stories as romances can enlighten me, because even as a child and teenager, I never found anything romantic in these relationships. What is the draw of these tales? Star crossed lovers? Brooding hero's? 

*The images of both 13 year old children and the 20 year old man, were taken from news stories. 

Love, Lies & Murder, Chapters 1-3

NEW RELEASE: Love, Lies and Murder by Catherine Winchester

Ooh, sounds scary! (If you scare easy, that is). But if you like a little bit of mystery and intrigue with your romance, this is definitely the book for you.

The Blurb: An unusual proposal and an intriguing whodunit set in the sumptuous Regency period, with a passionate love story at its centre.

Under the terms of his father’s Will, widower Alexander Cavendish must remarry before he turns 30, but the suspicions which surround his first wife’s death mean that his choices are limited. On impulse, he picks a stranger, offering her security and protection in return for marriage.

Helen Norton has few options in life and accepts the proposal, but she quickly comes to realise that everything in Alex’s home is not as it seems. When attempts are made on her life, Helen realises that if she is to stand a chance of surviving, she must solve the riddle of his first wife’s murder.

Is Alex a killer, or is he Helen’s devoted husband? Was his first wife an adulteress or simply a loving mother? And if not Alex, then who among this family of aristocrats had the motive to kill?

Literary Snobs

Today, a Mr Michael Deacon (no, I hadn't heard of him before either) pens a heartfelt satire of Dan Brown's work, pointing out all the flaws in his writing.

I can't help wondering how much of his life Mr Deacon wasted penning that useless, uninformative, unimaginative bit of tripe. The whole thing smacks of jealousy.

"How dare Dan Brown, a multi-million selling author, not live up to my expectations of literary brilliance, while I, who does live up to my own exacting literary standards, am still struggling to break through! It isn't fair, goddammit!"

He'd have been better to spend those few hours trying to come up with an engaging plot and interesting characters for his own novel, rather than tearing down someone who has succeeded, in an attempt to make himself fell better about his own lack of success.

What Michael Deacon doesn't seem to realise, is that most readers simply want an enjoyable story, not a literary tome that is so brilliant, that one has to keep a dictionary handy and then decipher the hidden meaning behind each scene.

I suspect what Mr Deacon forgot is that his "article" (and  use speech marks for article, as it doesn't live up to any definition of journalism that I know of) isn't just insulting Dan Brown, but is also maligning every single person who has read and enjoyed one of his book. 80 million people read the Da Vinci Code; what astonishing arrogance it takes, to believe that you know better than 80,000,000 other people.

Someone needs to tell these literary aficionados that rather than coming across as a wise, educated and intelligent people, they sound more like elitist twits, who are completely out of touch with the majority of readers out there.

Dan Brown tells a good story. Michael Deacon does not.


P.S. If you have time, pop over to the Wall Street Journal, and read how one literary snob rediscvered his love of all fiction, and realised how much he'd been missing out on.

Has the world gone mad?

I tried to sign up for Barns and Noble today and had a rather confusing experience.

This is what their terms and conditions say: 

"If you wish to wish to publish and distribute your eBooks through NOOK Press, you must sign up for a Vendor Account, which will require you to provide us the following information: (i) for tax reporting purposes, your home address and, if you are located in the United States your federal tax identification number (or social security number if you are an individual), or if you are located outside of the United States, similar identifying information issued by the applicable governmental authority; and (ii) for the purpose of transmitting payments to you, your bank account number and routing information if you are located in the United States, or your SWIFT or International Bank Account Number (IBAN) if you are located outside the United States."

Sounds like they accept international authors, no? Except that once I had completed my account information, I got an email asking me to call them and verify the account. I called and was told that they cannot accept authors who are not US residents. 

I checked the terms and conditions again and called back, only to be told to instant message business services. I did, only to be told the same thing. Then I received an email to confirm that they cannot accept international authors.

However, NO ONE CAN ANSWER WHY THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS SAY THEY DO ACCEPT INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS, WHEN THEY DON'T!!!

"On Thursday, the company reported a stunning 26 percent drop in Nook sales during the last quarter of 2012. The Nook, said CEO William Lynch, was no longer able to compete with full-featured tablets like the iPad." Source

I know self publishing authors from all around the globe who are doing very well with Amazon kindle, and I alone have had 3 best sellers on Amazon. If you want to be some special snowflake of a company, who just can't accept international clients, then no wonder you are failing. You deserve to fail, and Amazon (despite my many problems with them of late) deserve to beat you.

My dealings with amazon go from bad to worse.

So near to paying some of my debts off,
yet still so very far.

After the whole cyberstalking incident, comes them withholding 11,000 dollars of my money. This is the email I have sent to Amazon's CEO, as their KDP customer services department don't even seem to be able to use common sense.

The images in this post weren't sent with the email below, although I was tempted.


Dear Mr Bezos,

I apologise for contacting you in this way but I hope that you can help me, as KDP customer services seem incapable of applying logic to my situation.

At the end of March I changed my payment details for royalties from EFT into a US account, to EFT into a UK account. 

When payments for April started going into my old account, I contacted Amazon to ask why, and was informed that the old method of payment would continue to be used for another 60 days. That was no problem, I just hadn't realised it took 60 days for changed to take effect.

In total, Amazon made 5 payments into my old bank account but notably, the payment for royalties accrued in the USA was missing. On the 1st of May I emailed customer services to ask where they payment was, as it hadn't gone into my account, nor had a received a remittance email for my USA royalties. The payment should have been for over $11,000 dollars, so I hope that you can understand my worry when this payment didn't come.

Literary fiction and Snobbery

I live in a city with a rich history of literature, indeed we have been named the UNESCO City of Literature. One thing that I notice however, is that despite being a writer, I don’t often feel welcome at writing events here.

My books are not literary, they never will be but that doesn’t mean that they are inherently without merit.

Reading anything, even rubbish, engages the whole brain, lowers Alzheimer causing protein, reduces stress and heart disease and may even improve empathy between cultures. Studies prove that reading tricks your brain into believing that you are engaged in the activities in your book, while watching TV, listening to music or playing video games are passive activities, which don’t stimulate the whole brain.

Books also increase happiness and stave off feelings of loneliness.