Cerise DeLand's Blog

Roman Baths in Bath, EnglandWHY READ HISTORICAL FICTION? So much is being said about the demise of the popularity of historical fiction. Authors notice the sales numbers! Readers may not feel it, other than totaling up their current purchases and noticing what they tend to buy lately.While all genres are subject to flux and change within, so too do readers respond to their own current psychological and cultural currents. The one we currently live in the USA has brought us a recognition of the extraordinary. Romantsy in all its new forms seems to be the new new kid on the block that is driving out romance in all its forms. I recently went to my local Barnes & Noble where fully 1/3 of the first floor was nothing but this new new thang! The romance section that was for years 1/2 of the floor? Now 3 stacks.Shocking to one who has seen the rise of historical romance in the late 80s and 90s, its top of market ascendance and now, many who call it ailing.I don't.  Ostia Public Toilets, Rome
I know that this is exactly the time when we need to read good solidly fact-based historical fiction. Not just the gay, light-hearted ones. But all of them that bring us the real goods about a past that was not necessarily glorious. Would you like to live in a world without (pardon me here for the real life question) a vaccine for smallpox?Would you like to live in a world where you feared drinking the water?Would you live in a town ransacked by the nearby king's guard?How about no toilets. No tv. No printed books at all.I will have more to say later on this subject. Please tell me your point of view! Pictures: both in Public Domain! #1: Roman Bath in Bath, England#2: Ostia latrinae: public toilets in Ostia

GILDED AGE Fun fact: If you wanted to go dancing at the Moulin de la Galette after visiting House of Worth for your gowns (of course!), you went in plain clothing without jewels or a lot of money. You took a public fiacre and stayed to enjoy the small band that played for the guests!

GILDED AGE Fun fact: If your papa or mama wanted to purchase paintings for their new Fifth Avenue or Newport homes, they went to Paris to a certain art dealer. He sold them art for inexpensive sums by Parisian painters whom few knew. They included those whose work was not accepted by the Paris Salon, like Monet, Renoir and a few ladies, too, like Berthe Morisot and American Mary Cassatt.

GILDED AGE Fun fact: Traveling to Brighton for a summer holiday could be done via private carriage or after 1865, by the new railroad line. Numerous trips per day were the schedule and one could go in the morning and return to London late at night. The upper classes could rent houses or rooms in hotels. There they could dine in their rooms or in the dining rooms. But they could also rent the ballrooms and host parties as lavish as they wished. While there, the middle and lower classes could swim, without or without a bathing machine. But you could inhale the sea salt air, eat ice cream and fresh seafood. Walk the pier. All for an affordable price.

Cerise DeLand's richly acclaimed THOSE NOTORIOUS AMERICANS series, each 99 cents. https://amzn.to/3yOzLll

 

The Gilded Age on HBO has charmed us with its vibrancy, color, fashions and trauma!

Worth of Paris did create the gowns for these mighty matrons and debutantes. These heiresses took Europe by storm with their ambition and their daddy's wealth. Not all were happy with their lots. Nor were  all fathers pleased with their sons-in-law nor with their business success.

To celebrate the richness of the era and the stories we authors love to tell, I have each of my novels in THOSE NOTORIOUS AMERICANS selling for 99 cents this month.

We will meet dukes and princess. Dine with the newly rich in Europe. Meet artists. Dance at the top of the Butte in raucous Montmartre at the Moulin de la Galette. Fall in love and fight to keep the one person worth it all.

Find them all here for sale and on Kindle Unlimited: 

https://amzn.to/3yOzLll

 

I bet you have noticed that I make videos for my recent releases. It is a new promo bit for me, but based on many years of working with tv media to create commercials for my PR clients. (Yes, I owned a PR firm for 23 years!)

Do you watch others' videos as promo for books? Do you tend to watch them on TIKTOK and INSTAGRAM? 

I do. I even have a PA who creates my flashy INSTAGRAM short videos.

But do you like them? Are you attracted to them and watch just for fun?

I do. 

But what else motivates you to delve into the possibility of buying a book?  TROPES like marriage of convenience, Alpha male (Mafia, Villain, etc.), wounded hero, reluctant bride, etc.

I am hooked by BLURBS. If they are tight, active verbs and give me a shiver, I am IN. I confess they are tough to write. It is an art ,and others are more expert than I.

One new trend that does not appeal to me is the scenes with AI characters portraying the main characters. I see right away they are AI. HOW? Hmmm. The women have waistlines too small to bear any stomachs or even any children...and you know we need babies for these men to carry on their titles. But truly, the characters are very "perfect" mores than many models one finds in photo sites. 

LIE DOWN WITH A LYON

https://books2read.com/u/bWa8n7

Do you know this lady and her children? Are you reading as much historical romance as you ever have?
Some say it's dead. Some say there is nothing new to be written or read. What do you think?
My thoughts include:1. the fact that many people do not want to read a "big" book. Tenacity has been bred out of most by computers and phones, wifi, streaming and music videos.
2. I also say it is the fault of poor education. Lack of understanding for basic American history is faulty...and getting worse now that we have CRITICAL RACE THEORY, especially here in the south.
3. Many Americans—GOD HELP US—cannot read...and/or do not like to. Here in south Texas, as an example, 55% of those graduating from high school cannot read at 8th grade level.
Trust me, I know because I ran a PR business here for 15 years and I had so many high school and college kids apply for my internships and their letters of application were filled with misspelled words, poor grammar and silliness. 
The case for reading historical fiction? Ahhh. I return with my thoughts on that one!
For now, tell us if you are reading as much historical fiction as you ever have! Why or why not?

     I am participating in this wonderful giveaway! 

Go now and get as many books as your heart desires!

LINK: romancebookworms.com

or 

https://books2read.com/u/3LN6X1

BUY LINK: https://books2read.com/u/boxvz1

I hope you are reading this series which is getting so many readers' happy reviews! As one reader said of them, they are " not your average ballroom romance."

Try one and read them all for excitement, charm and the drama of falling in love with the one person who makes your life complete!

“…a fairy tale romance with lots of intrigue, danger and mysterious happenings.”

“…[I was} swept into the lives of those whose lives were in peril as Napoleon began his attempt to conquer Europe. The research is superb.”

“The attraction between the main characters sizzles…”

“An exciting, captivating, and well written historical romance with such beautiful historical detail. The drama, action, intrigue, suspense, and so many emotional issues, and plot twists that kept me very entertained.”

Pix of me in Amboise, with River
Loire in background. Ready to tour!
Change. (A discussion and questions for you, dear readers.)We often think of change as major life events. A birth. A death. Marriage. Divorce. Moving to a new house or town.But lately as in the past three years, I’ve begun to think of change as something subtle. The passing of years. The growth of grandchildren from 6 to 10. Their emerging personalities as they turn 12. How I look to myself in the mirror. How my husband stands now, his marathoning days so many decades behind him. Our changing preferences in foods.Of course, the minor stroke I had in 2021 affected my feeling of invincibility. I had often talked (rejoiced) about the fact that I had made it to 77 without any daily meds.Then in December ’23, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The surgery and treatment for that was intense. But frankly, they caught it early and my treatment was brief, even though now I see the team of oncologiests about every 3 months.But something else changed in my writing. Having started daily wriiting when I was 33, with 2 babies and 1 toddler to love, I began to notice forty-odd years later that I wanted to write  more . That I wanted it to mean SOMETHING. Not just my own satisfaction. Not just income. Not just the joy of writing romance, or solving a mystery. But as something of value that lasted longer than the hero’s last kiss…or the heroine’s renewal on life.After all my years in undergrad and grad school, all the years researching every kind of history from that of the use of salt (really!) to the quarry where stones came from to go into Parisian mansions, I wanted something more from me. Something more for the reader.What emerged was my desire to write a series that bridged the description of historical romance and historical ficiton. I wanted substance for me and for the reader who liked the past as backdrop but who, I thought, needed more to appreciate the problems. What resulted was my current series of romantic suspense, SCARLETT AFFAIRS. Here what I have poured into those plots is the very factual background of the years in which the world fought the attempt of Napoleon Bonaparte to rule over it.I’ve picked one major event or conflict in each year that occurred, from 1802 through 1816, long after he had gone to St. Helena. Go here to start or continue: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi .Something else began to eat at me too. That I could not write as fast as I had before. (And the emphasis on keeping up sales, we authors are told, is to put out books as fast as possible.) Truly, that is not me.I digress!But now I have begun to fiddle with a new new new idea. Romansy which is romance with fantasy and time travel, maybe a bit of paranormal shifting or witches or faes thrown in, is a new concept in plotting.I’d say it is popular because real life these days demands something a wildly supernatural to counter the feroiciosly supernatural events in our daily lives. So now we come to you. And here are my questions: Have you experienced great change in your life lately? How are you dealing with that? Do you see minor changes in your body (grey hair, indigestion, sagging interest in old delights, new interests in cards, conasta, bowling, etc) that you have dealt with or not?Do you still read as much as you did before those changes, big or small? Do you read the same things, fiction, romance, mystery, whatever?What have you read lately—fiction or non—that thrilled you or disturbed you?Talk to me. I want to hear about the changes in your life.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (16 April 1755 – 30 March 1842) traveled Europe after she fled Paris during the Revolution. Known even before she left as the woman who portrayed Marie Antoinette in her boudoir wit her children, Le Brun had also painted many Frenchmen and woman and those who traveled to Versailles.

She feared returning to France during the upheavals of governments and traveled freely in the UK and on the Continent. She never learned English, but so many spoke French in many countries that she got along in a smattering of German and Russian.

She painted the portraits of Alexander I of Russia and his wife, Alexandra. Other portraits were of women and men in Lichtenstein, Bavaria, Belgium and England. Her price was approximately 1,000 British pounds in 1805.

She visited Brighton in the summer of 1805 and I have included her in LORD CARLISLE'S ENTICING LURE, debuting in August 2025!

Marie-Antoinette and her children 1787. Versailles.

Madame du Barry, portrait by Le Brun.

Comte de Vaudreuil, portrait by Le Brun.
He was for a short period Le Brun's lover.

Here I have talked about the dukes of Baden, their alliances with Bonaparte for land, money and protection, but part of those alliances included arranged marriages that went wrong.

Here first is Stéphanie von Baden, niece of Josephine, whom Bonaparte adopted so that he could wed her to a ruler who was an ally of France. She became Grand Duchess Stéphanie von Baden (1789–1860), out living her husband.

They lived apart in the beginning of their marriage, but came together to have five children, three daughters and two sons. Both boys died in childhood.

Stephanie lived in Mannheim after her husband's death.

~~~~

Elizabeth Alexeievna—or as she was known at birth, Louise von Baden—was the eldest daughter of the duke of Baden and therefore the sister-in-law of Stephanie, the Grand Duchess. She was considered the loveliest woman in Europe and many wished to marry her. Bonaparte thought of it himself but this was early in his role as Emperor and had not yet divorced Josephine.

Louise married the Tsarevich, Alexander, who later became Alexander I, emperor of Russia. They had no children.

In 1802 Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun painted this portrait of her. (Le Brun who lived in many countries after she fled Paris and the Terror, painted many rulers of Europe.)