More News on The Age of the Regency

For all fellow Regency-ites out there, here's more details on BBC4's upcoming series to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Regency, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency.

The first episode will air at 9pm on BBC4 on Monday 29th August.  Further details on the content of episode one (and two) can be found here on the BBC web-site.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page for a short programme trailer :0)

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of Regency

At last!  A BBC programme about the Regency era!

Thank goodness...we've had so many about the Victorians, I was ready to toss my corset across the room in disgust *g*   Seriously, I like the Victorian era but it's been done to death by Auntie Beeb in recent times and it's therefore an absolute treat to get a three-part series about my favourite period, the Regency.

Elegance and Decadence: The Age of Regency airs soon on BBC4.   I'm not sure of the exact transmission date, but as trailers are already appearing, I'm guessing in the next two to three weeks.  It will be presented by the delightfully warm and enthusiastic Dr. Lucy Worsley (above), who recently appeared on another BBC4 history programme,  If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. 

The three episodes look set to cover the Prince Regent himself, great events of the era, famous artists, architecture - including Brighton Pavilion - the middle classes and a little bit of Jane Austen.  It will conclude with the Peterloo massacre, industrialisation and Royal divorce.

There's a few more details on Lucy Worsley's blog and at the BBC Press Office, but I'll post more information on here about transmission dates and content as and when it appears so keep checking back :0)

caricature of George, Prince of Wales from Wikimedia Commons

Fake or Fortune?

Fiona Bruce and Philip Mould

There's an excellent series currently running on BBC called 'Fake or Fortune', in which presenter Fiona Bruce teams up with art dealer and Antiques Roadshow expert Philip Mould to investigate mysteries behind paintings.

Through a combination of sleuthing and scientific testing, the Fake or Fortune team try to prove the authenticity or otherwise of the featured paintings.  One astonishing fact to emerge from the series is that it is estimated that between 20-40% of works of art on the market are faked, so as well as there being a huge amount of money at stake, there is also presumably plenty of material for our sleuths to work with!

Courtauld's '17th century painting', 'The Procuress'

This week's episode featured a painting called 'The Procuress' which hangs in the Courtauld Institute in London.  The painting has divided scholars' opinion for years and Fiona and Philip's mission is to find out whether the Courtauld painting is a genuine 17th century original, possibly painted by Vermeer, or a 1940s forgery from the prolific brush of Dutch superfaker Han Van Meergeren.   Van Meergeren was a man who dared to fake the work of Old Masters and made millions from his deception, until he was caught in 1945 after selling a supposedly Old Master painting to Hermann Goering.

To prove that he had not sold Dutch cultural property to the Nazis, Van Meegeren had to confess to multiple forgeries.  His subsequent trial caused a sensation when it was revealed for years he had duped art collectors and galleries into purchasing apparently Old Master paintings.  As Van Meegeren died before a complete record of his fakes was made, mystery survives to this day as to how many are still out there.  Philip and Fiona get to work on the London picture which, legend has it, hung in Van Meegeren's studio on the day he was arrested. Was it his last work? And by testing it, can it be proved prove how he out-foxed some of the most eminent minds in the art world?

The programme was fascinating and along the way we got to see Scotland Yard's storeroom full of fakes and latter-day forger John Myatt trying to reproduce Van Meergeren's techniques which involved painting a copy of Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring using a toxic mix of oil paint and corrosive bakelite resin.

Super stuff and I'll be rivetted to the final episode next week :0)

Fake or Fortune echoes a theme in one of my short stories in my latest release Brief Encounters.  The Virtuous Courtesan tells the story of a valuable painting which hangs at Rookery End, ancestral seat of the Earls of Allingham.  The current Earl would like to sell the painting to clear debts run up by his father, but the provenance of The Virtuous Courtesan is not as straightforward as it seems....

Brief Encounters is available now as an e-book, and in September as a paperback.

Fake or Fortune is currently showing on BBC1 at 7pm on Sunday evenings :0)

Midsummer Eve competition at FRR

Today (20th June) is Midsummer Eve and to mark the occasion this year, over at ForRomanceReaders we're offering boxes of gorgeous Thornton’s Summer Chocolates to two commenters!

All you have to do is answer this simple romance-themed question: “What is your top romantic movie and why?”

Pop over to FRR and tell us all about your favourite romantic movie for a chance to win chocolates and a free ebook of Midsummer Eve at Rookery End if you haven’t already got a copy.

Closing date is one week from today, at Midnight BST on Monday 27th June.

Have fun and make sure you leave your contact details so we can get in touch if you win!

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge

Brief Encounters Review

Angie at Bookishly Attentive has reviewed Brief Encounters - she loved it and said:

"Brief Encounters is a must read, and its size makes it the perfect evening getaway.  Be sure to download this as quickly as you can! "

To read the full review, click here.


Many thanks to Angie & the Bookishly Attentive team for reviewing!

Some exciting news

Sharing is always fun so I'm delighted to share the exciting news that my Regency romance The Paradise Will is to appear as an ebook in September.  Yaaaay!!

The Paradise Will was first published in 2008, but it has been out for print for some time due to heavy demand.  An ebook edition is therefore good news for all those who have contacted me about getting hold of a copy, and for everyone else who enjoys a great story!  You don't even need a Kindle or any other reader - ebooks can be downloaded to your PC.  :0)  More details as I get them, but mark the date in your diary now and in the meantime, here's a little reminder.....

When spirited Alyssa Paradise unexpectedly inherits her uncle’s property in Dorset, she is determined to   meet the challenge of running a grand estate. However, there is a surprising condition: every week for six months she must dine tête-à-tête with the enigmatic Sir Giles Maxton, who owns the adjoining land. Alyssa wonders how she will endure this arrangement – Sir Giles cuts a dashing figure but he is positively insufferable.

 *Finalist in the RNA Joan Hessayon New Writers Award*
 *Finalist in the RedRosesforAuthors Christmas Awards 2008*

And there's more good news... Brief Encounters - a sparkling new anthology of six romantic short stories - is currently available for just £1.39!   Sweet and sexy, contemporary and historical, the collection has something for everyone and is perfect if you need a quick fix of romantic fiction during your coffee or lunch break, or to wind down with in the evening.

The other Brief Encounters tales are by fellow members of the Coffee Crew, Nell Dixon, who writes warm-hearted contemporary romances, and Phillipa Ashley, who writes lively, sexy and fun romantic fiction.  Nell and Phillipa have had exciting news too.

Nell has just sold two romantic comedy novels to Myrmidon.  In the first Renovation, Renovation, Renovation, Kate would like an engagement ring from Steve but instead he's lumbered them with a thirteenth renovation project, and doing up Myrtle Cottage disturbs a ghost from the English Civil War who has romance troubles of her own.

Phillipa's brand new US release Wish You Were Here is riding high in the Amazon charts, as is Dating Mr. December which is absolutely free for one week in the USA and Canada.  As I type this, DMD is #1 in the Top 100 free Kindle books and WYWH is #20 in the Top 100 paid Kindle books.  

Congratulations to Phillipa and Nell!

 
 

Derby Day and the Royal Connection

Today - 4th June - is Derby Day and like millions of others, I'll be glued to the TV to watch this very special race.

The Derby Stakes, or the Epsom Derby, or just The Derby is run every year in early June on the Epsom Downs in Surrey. It was first run in 1780, 231 years ago, and although it's not the oldest race (that title is held by the St. Ledger, first run in 1776), it is the richest and the most prestigious of the five Classics.  It's also known as the Greatest Horse Race in the World and the race that every owner, trainer and jockey wants to win more than any other.  This Group 1 race, now sponsored by Investec, is open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies and is takes place over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 10 yards on the notoriously difficult Epsom course, about which more later.

The Derby at Epsom, 1821 - Theodore Gericault (1791-1824)

History

Edward Smith Stanley, the 12th Earl of Derby, organised a friendly competition for himself and his friends to race their three-year-old fillies over one and a half miles. He named it The Oaks after his estate. The following year a new race was added, a race that would determine the Best of the Best for both the racing and breeding of racehorses. The title of the race was to be decided by the tossing of a coin between the Earl of Derby and Sir Charles Bunbury, a leading racing figure of the day and friend of the Earl's.

This tossed coin was won by Stanley and the race would be known as ‘The Derby'; won incidentally, that very first year by Sir Charles Bunbury's horse, Diomed. 140 other countries now hold a sporting ‘Derby’, but, Epsom still remains ‘The Home of The Derby’, attracting the largest one day sporting crowd in excess of 125,000 who descend upon the Surrey racecourse to be part of something special - The Greatest Horse Race in the World.


The Course

As one of the most famous race courses in the world, its also one of the most testing trips in flat racing. Resembling the shape of a horseshoe, the Derby course of a mile and a half is ran in a left-handed direction. A right-handed rise of some one hundred and forty feet begins not long after the race commences. After about three furlongs at the top of the hill the field descend at Tattenham Corner and enter the finishing straight of about three and a half furlongs. The drop of about one hundred feet continues until about one hundred yards from the finishing line, the ground here rises for another several feet before the winning post.


Derby winners are special - any horse that can cope with the noise, plus the undulations, twists, turns and unusual camber of the Epsom course, plus have the necessary speed and stamina, are highly prized.  Colts usually become valuable stud stallions and Sea the Stars, the 2009 winner, went on to become the most valuable horse in the world after winning The Derby, the 2,000 Guinea and the Eclipse Stakes.


2011 Race

Shergar

This year's race is the 30th anniversary of Shergar's win.  Shergar won The Derby in 1981 by a record 10 lengths, the longest winning margin in the race's history.  He was retired to stud, but two years later in February 1983, armed and masked men broke into the Ballymany Stud in County Kildare and kidnapped Shergar.  A ransom demanded, but after a series of negotiations it was never paid and Shergar was not seen again.  Shergar's remains have never been found and the thieves have never been officially identified.

For the tenth time, HM The Queen has a runner in The Derby with a colt named Carlton House (after the Prince Regent's mansion in Pall Mall).   The Queen has never won The Derby and in this Royal Wedding year, millions of people will be cheering on the favourite Carlton House in the hope he can achieve victory in this most famous of horse races.

I'll be one of them ;o)