Jo Beverley and Anne Gracie: And now for something different

Here's something different. Two authors of Regency historicals compare and contrast their books, which are coming out on the same day — today! Dueling authors, one could say, but they're friends.

Jo Beverley and Anne Gracie have things in common — they blog together on the Word Wenches blog and live on opposite sides of the world. Anne lives in Australia, and Jo in England — in Devon, in fact, where part of her latest book is set. But, then, so is a bit of Anne's.

So how different are their books? And what do they have in common?

Both novels are set in the Regency — Anne's in late 1816 and Jo's in spring 1817. Anne's takes place almost entirely in London. Jo's begins there, but later moves to Devon.

Jo Beverley: In A Shocking Delight, my hero and heroine come from very different worlds. David was born a bastard, but he's been raised with love, so he's comfortable with that. His life is messed up when he becomes legitimate and thus the Earl of Wyvern. He doesn't want the title, and he hasn't been raised to live in the beau monde. Lucy's an outsider, too — a Cit, the daughter of a London merchant.

Anne Gracie: In The Winter Bride, my two have very different backgrounds also. My hero, Freddy, is a member of the ton, in line for his father's title from a young age, but Damaris is the daughter of missionaries in China. He's never known want, but she's been poor and desperate, and she knows the importance of money to a woman's freedom.

Jo: Lucy, like Freddy, has never known want. However, she'd be completely in agreement with Damaris. Her money is her freedom, and she's determined to protect it from predatory males.

Anne: Freddy does have some money issues, to do with his parents, but that means he, like Damaris, knows how important money of one's own is.

Jo: David never cared about money, but now he has to be a fortune hunter. The earldom's broke, but he doesn't just have the estate's servants and tenants to care for; he's also the leader of the local smuggling gang. He resents having to marry for money rather than love, but it's his duty.

Anne: Freddy's definitely not looking for a bride! He's a delightful, elegant, flirtatious, marriage-averse bad boy, but as the heir to a title, he's hunted.

But in the last year or so his mother had apparently informed the mothers, aunts and grandmothers of every eligible female in the kingdom that he was contemplating marriage —she might as well have put a notice in The Gazette, curse her!—and as a result, wherever he went, muffins popped out of the woodwork.

He wasn't contemplating marriage, dammit! Not with anything other than horror.

Jo: I love his use of the word "muffins" for all the husband-hunting young ladies, and the way you use it in the book. Also, his feelings about romantic novels are a hoot. In A Shocking Delight, Lucy is the one being hunted. She buys a copy of a novel called Love and Horror (it really exists, by the way) because that's how she feels about the perils of love. Damaris, too, is avoiding love and marriage, so the books are in sync there.

Anne: Not quite. There are secrets in Damaris' past she believes a husband won't be able to swallow, so that's why she has no desire to wed.

Jo: Ah, true. Whereas Lucy doesn't want to marry because she hopes to join her father in trade, and she knows that if she marries, the men will look to her husband, not her. And indeed, a husband would hold all the power. As Damaris points out in The Winter Bride.

Anne: Yes, here:

Freddy said, "If a gentleman and a lady enter into a betrothal and the gentleman discovers she's an evil-tempered harpy, he can't break the betrothal without disgracing himself. A gentleman's word is his bond, and once he's publicly given it, he's honor bound to keep it. The poor fellow's stuck with the hag for life. But she can call it off without any public censure whatsoever. It's horrendously unfair, but there it is."

"It is fair. A woman has more to lose in getting married."

He stared down at her. "What? A woman loses? What nonsense. She gets a husband, a home, and she's supported for the rest of her life."

"If the husband is good and kind. But if he is not, she is wholly at his mercy for the rest of her life. If she has money before marriage, afterward she has only what he deigns to give her. He rules every aspect of her life—who she sees, where they live, how she dresses—even her body is not her own, and when she gives birth, her children belong to him."

Jo: Lucy would be beside her, waving the banner. She tells David:

"If I do marry, a substantial portion of my dowry will be put in a trust, to be used by my husband only with my trustee's consent. That is, with my consent."

"Have you told your suitors that?"

"Negotiations haven't reached this far with any of them."

"Are we negotiating?"

"For your loverlike attentions, Lord Wyvern, with the slim possibility of a reward."

Yes, they too enter into a false arrangement. It isn't a betrothal, but she persuades him to take time off from fortune hunting to pretend to woo her in order to deter her pestilential suitors, especially the one who stalks her with atrocious poetry:

My Aphrodite, here I stand to make my plea.

If you desire I will do so on my knee.

If I transgressed, 'twas only from my heart,

Compelled to blood by my desperate lover's part.

Anne: Despite their different backgrounds and different goals, I suspect our heroes would get along. For a start, they could commiserate about difficult women. Freddy is an elegant fribble with a hidden core of steel. David is only playing at social elegance, and he's as tough inside because he commands a band of smugglers. In both cases there's more than meets the eye and it takes the right woman to bring the best out in them.

Jo: The right person is key. Family is a strong thread in both books, the threads that bind as well as those that fail, and also the pain that family can bring.

Anne: Freddy is estranged from his parents. He proposes the faux betrothal to Damaris to get them off his back. Damaris is orphaned but has a strong and supportive family in her adoptive "sisters" and Lady Beatrice, who acts as guardian.

Jo: In fact, all our characters are abandoned by their parents in some way. Lucy's mother has died, and in wanting to marry again and have a son, her father hurts her. David was abandoned by his parents, but he did well because he was lovingly raised by his uncle and aunt. That's why he dislikes having to marry for money — he wants the same sort of marriage and family.

Anne: Whereas neither Freddy nor Damaris were raised with much parental love, and neither expects the love that takes them utterly by surprise.

Jo:A Shocking Delight, perhaps! I came up with the title because Lucy thinks exactly that when she realizes she's fallen in love and is willing to risk all to be with David, even if it means moving from the modern delights of London to a remote cliff-top in Devon.

She'd won the means to spend time with him, to learn him better, to find the way. She had to suppress a smile at how he'd seen the daily kiss as a bargaining point when the prospect filled her with a shocking delight.

So there you have it — the magical mystery of fiction, where authors can take similar elements, mix in fresh ones, and create unique delights for their readers. The Winter Bride and A Shocking Delight are both top picks from Romantic Times and are available in print and e-book today (April 1).

We hope you've enjoyed this discussion. Do you have other questions you'd like to ask?

Do you like Regency novels with characters who come from outside the ton, or do you prefer the hero and heroine to fully belong? How do you think you'd fit into the beau monde if suddenly plunged there, even with friends and family to help?

To find out more about Jo and Anne's books, visit jobev.com and www.annegracie.com.