What brings me joy

When I sat down to write this blog, I had no idea where to start and, honestly, was feeling a bit gloomy. There's been a lot of darkness in the world lately, and part of me wanted to go on a rant about how we can all do so much better, both individually and collectively.

But I didn't want to add to the gloom. 

And then, I remembered something that Alyssa Cole said during her closing keynote at the (kinda!) recent Romance Writers of Australia Conference. 

Alyssa said: What the world needs now is love. 

And she was right. We all need more love. For ourselves, and for each other. 

So, I decided to write a little about what's currently bringing me joy. Starting with my TBR pile.

I have not been reading as much as I should. But this little stack of bangers is making me want make time for reading again! They're certainly not all recent releases, but they're all reliable purchases.

I'm about halfway through The Takeover by T L Swan, who spoke at the RWNZ Conference and she was phenomenal (I want to be TL when I grow up!). 

I've not yet started How to Survive a Scandal, but Regency romance deserves more love than it's been getting lately, and Amy Andrews and Renae Black ALWAYS produce a brilliant story.

And, last but not least, I'm particularly excited abut In Full Bloom by Elle Ashwell - I randomly sat next to Elle at the RWNZ Conference this year and she was a gorgeous human!

Second moment of joy from lately is I've been teaching as part of the day job. 

I was recently given the opportunity to guest lecture into a Masters level course on workplace investigations at the University of Sydney. It was great to be back at my old stomping grounds for a few hours, and on my feet in front of a group of really keen students who were interested in everything about workplace investigations (yes, I appreciate this is a niche topic, but it is my day job!). I couldn't believe how much the University had changed since I graduated! I mean, I'm sure graduation was only last year, right?  And I promise I had way more fun that my face in this photo suggests!

Third moment of joy is I got a new car! 

She's black, and beautiful, and has the most amazing sound system ever. Tay Tay has never sounded so good!

She's also quiet, and has a big, oversized sunroof and flashy touch screen with all the bells and whistles that makes her feel very luxe. I mean I can go in and change the colours of all the interior lights from red to green to yellow to blue and white! It's amazing!

Fourth, does anyone else love Law & Order SVU as much as me? 

New episodes for season 28 start in the US this coming week (and fingers crossed they're available in Australia via Apple TV the next day... they have been in past years!) 

And they're bringing back Elliott Stabler for episode 600 in mid-November! I pinched this photo from Mariska Hargitay's Instagram.

Elliott and Olivia are one of my all time favourite TV couples and, frankly, it's about time that they get their happy ever after! I'm hoping the powers that be come through with a little lovin'

Finally, to bring this back to writing, and reading, I love the words I've been writing. 

I'm working on a spicy short story about a man who comes back to his woman after some unknown number of years away and I'm actually loving the way it's falling into place. 

A little snippet from the beginning is to the side here!

So, now that I've shared a little of my joy, tell me what's been bringing you joy in the last few days, or weeks, or months!

LOVE TO LOVE: My cousin's brand new baby boy! He is the cutest baby to ever baby (and no, I'm not biased at all!)

LOVE TO LAUGH: Dad jokes. I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink. :-)

LOVE TO LEARN: I'm about to sign up to a course to become a Wedding Celebrant! Who wouldn't love to learn about love!

Falling in love with Setting

By Cassandra Samuels

 When a spark of an idea comes to life there are certain aspects a story must have. Characters, of course, and a setting. It's the old question - Whose story is it and where is it set? Obviously, there are other elements that also need to be added but these two are my launching pad.

At the end of this month - pre orders available now - my 3rd book with Dragonblade will be published. Most of my stories are set in England as I write Regency Historical Romance, but this idea hit me different. In book two the catalyst of the story is that Captain Markham, friend of the hero, had lost his finger and presumably his life and therefore the hero became the guardian of the captain's ward.  

Order Here

In book 3 we find out what happened to Captain Markham. He went to Spain on a mission and went missing. At this time Spain was still rebuilding after the Napoleonic wars where Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte had taken the throne of Spain, by tricking the Spanish King into abdicating leaving the Spanish people feeling betrayed by their allies the French. England came to Spain's defense, even though they had been enemies on and off for centuries, and together the English and the Spanish ousted Joseph, installing the Spanish King, Ferdinand VII back on the throne. 

In the aftermath of all of this is when Once Upon a Reckless Rogue is set. I fell in love with the country, the customs, the food and the language. Through the power of the internet I was able to virtually travel around various towns where my book was set and see for myself how it might have been during the Regency period. It is a definite on my bucket list now that is for sure.

Not quite the right era but you can see the use of the traditional Mantilla

 The heroine of my story, Elena is the daughter of a doctor and through him learned about medicine and also herbal healing, using ingredients that grew locally and what could be sourced from Spain's colonies. I loved learning all about herbal medicine, that the Spanish got married in Black wedding dresses, not virginal white. That the Spanish national flower is the red carnation which represents romance, passion and emotions. How perfect is that?  Will I write another book set in Spain? I hope so, if the right characters and story come along how could I not?

Carnation. Photo by Stanley Vaughn on Unsplash

Have you ever read a book and just wanted to visit that place immediately? 

LOVE TO LOVE: Seeing my books in print

LOVE TO LAUGH: Silly Instagram reels - usually containing dogs, cats and toddlers

LOVE TO LEARN: About other countries and cultures.

 

Lies and Bias

Don't Believe Everything You Read

For the past several years, I have been researching and drafting a detective series set in seventeenth-century Florence.

My research has taken me everywhere from peer-reviewed academic papers to the practical wisdom of historical re-enactors. And today, I want to talk about an example of cringeworthy bias and blatant mistruths which I came across recently.

Because here is the thing about historical fiction research, you expect the obscure details to be difficult. What you do not expect is to open a respectable-looking book by a respectable-looking author and find yourself muttering, “Wait. What?”

Recently I was reading The Medici in Florence by Emma Micheletti, published in 1985. Micheletti was an Italian art historian and, at the height of her career, a director at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. So, as reliable sources go, I assumed I was on firm ground. 

Then I came to a passage about the marriage of Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and Joanna of Austria. Their marriage, the book says, was unhappy “in part because of Joanna’s difficult, disdainful and conceited character.”

A paragraph later, it says Joanna’s last words to her husband were affectionate and tender, and that Francesco mourned her death with what appeared to be desperate sorrow.

Joanna of Austria by Allesandro Allori

Right then.

So she was difficult, disdainful, conceited, tender at the end, and desperately mourned. I'm not saying those things are impossible in one marriage. But the framing is doing a lot of work here, and most of it appears to be blaming the woman.  I was surprised. Micheletti does not appear to be quite the unbiased academic I assumed her to be.

Once I noticed, I could not stop noticing.

Maria Maddalena of Austria, wife of Grand Duke Cosimo II and later co-regent of Tuscany, is described as "not a woman of high intelligence," though “gay and vivacious” in youth, and later forceful and dictatorial.

Marie de'Medici by Frans Pourbus 

Marie de’ Medici, who became Regent of France after the assassination of Henry IV, is described as “blonde, small in stature, and somewhat chubby,” before becoming “extremely awkward and corpulent.” She was, the book says, “not intelligent but presumptuous, shallow and fatuous.”

Somewhat chubby.  A woman who was once a Director of the Uffizi is referring to a significant historical figure as somewhat chubby??

Wow.

Christina of Lorraine, another female regent of Tuscany, is treated no more generously. Following her husband's death we are told, she lacked political far-sightedness and intelligence, and is blamed, almost single-handedly, for the decline of the Medici grand dukes from that point forward.

Christina of Lorraine by Tibero di Tito

So, to recap: I am reading paragraphs about men who are complex political actors, patrons, rulers, collectors, and schemers. With the occasional one line where the women are described as difficult, conceited, unintelligent, dictatorial, fat, shallow, and responsible for everything going wrong.

No man is described as chubby. In fact, there is not one single physical description of men at all.

But the book had not finished with me.

I reached the claim that Grand Duke Cosimo II’s sole achievement was “to have given shelter to Galileo Galilei when fleeing persecution by the Inquisition in Padua."

This is not true.

Galileo was not fleeing the Inquisition when Cosimo II brought him to Florence in 1610. 

In fact he didn't seriously blip on the inquisition radar until 1615 when he got dobbed-in by a Dominican friar named Niccolò Lorini, who sent a copy of a letter Galileo wrote to the Roman Inquisition.*

The book also claims Cosimo gave Galileo a position teaching at the University of Florence.

Also not true.

Galileo taught formally at Pisa and Padua. In Florence he was a court philosopher and mathematician.

At that point, I put the book down and stared into the middle distance.  This stuff is the basics. Its well documented and a fundamental part of the Medici/Galileo story.  

This was not some random online listicle. It was a published book under the name of a renown Italian art historian who was born in Florence and had also written books on the Medici family history and the women of the family.

Then I looked more closely. The edition I was reading was a translation, by a man named Paul Blanchard.  Further investigation reveals Mr Blanchard to be a travel writer mostly, but, curiously, did author a books called “Why Men Cheat and What To Do About it: A practical handbook” in 1995.

Wow.

Sadly I haven't been able to find an excerpt of that undoubtably riveting tome.  But I think its fair to say the title gives a hint to how women might be framed within it.

So now I have a new question: did Emma Micheletti have any idea what had been written in English under her name?

I do not know. Translation is complicated. Publishing is complicated. Editorial decisions are complicated.

But it is a useful reminder that “published in a book” does not automatically mean “true.”  And that there is nothing stopping a translator adding their own bias, or even their own interpretation of historical facts to a text.

---------------------------

*Galileo's letter which went to the inquisition in 1615 basically said Scripture teaches people how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. In other words, the Bible’s purpose was spiritual and moral, not technical astronomy.  He was working up to claiming the Earth revolved around the Sun and not vice-versa.