My next book…

I’m working my way through chapter four at the moment, so I guess that I can talk about it now. I’ve become terribly superstitious about my writing lately and had this idea that talking about it prematurely might put a halt to the creative flow or something. Not that it matters really – I am sure that I have read a very sobering statistic somewhere about the ratio of half finished novels mouldering in bottom drawers to gleaming completed manuscripts.

However! The book that I have been hard at work at lately is an eighteenth century re-working of The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton, which just happens to be one of my all time favourite books so I am kind of keen not to butcher it too much. I’ve made changes obviously and in fact although the premise and basic plot are the same, the characters are already starting to deviate from Wharton’s originals and take on their own personalities.

The Buccaneers, of course, is set in America and New York at the end of the nineteenth century and is about a bevy of beautiful American heiresses who are too much on the fringes of upper crust New York society to make suitable matches so they cross the Atlantic in search of husbands, with mixed results. It was clearly inspired by the true stories of fabulously wealthy American girls like Consuelo Vanderbilt, who crossed the Atlantic and married the Duke of Marlborough.

In my book, which starts in 1787, the girls belong to the newly rising wealthy middle classes and after failing to break into Mayfair society, they instead head over the Channel to Paris, where all things English are very much a la mode and it is hoped that they will be enough of a novelty for their lack of noble lineage to be too much of a hinderance. Of course, if they don’t pick up husbands then a bit of Parisian polish wouldn’t go amiss either when they eventually return to London…

I set it in 1787 to coincide with the visit of the Duchesse de Polignac to London and Bath in the Spring of that year, an event which I anticipated would bring the first bit of French glamour into the lives of the four heroines. Of course this means that their introduction to Paris takes place perilously close to the events of Summer 1789 but I think that this will add a dash of drama to the closing chapters and have already laid plans based on this!

Judging by the book so far and my copious notes, I would say that it owes as much to my adored Georgette Heyer (in particular The Nonesuch and A Civil Contract) as it does to Edith Wharton. I love working with all the little details that pertain to class and etiquette, as they are basically at the very heart of the plot so I am spending a lot of time on the subtle nuances like the exact London street that a disgustingly wealthy but aspiring businessman would have lived on at this time or where his wife would have shopped.

I love London, or at least I love certain parts and periods of London if that makes sense? Miss Testvalley, the governess, is an important character in The Buccaneers where she comes from an Italian immigrant family and is a cousin of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In my book, her counterpart is Miss Sidonie Roche, who comes from a French Huguenot family who have settled in Spitalfields, which as you all know is an area that I most particularly adore.

I’m really proud of what I have done so far and really look forward to many happy months working on this book! I twisted my ankle really badly last week so have been trapped on a sofa for over four days now, which is grim but on the plus side it’s meant that I’ve had a bit of extra time to write while my husband waits on the boys and I. Okay, he doesn’t clean the cooker in the way that I like but at least I get a bit more time to escape to Bath in the 1780′s!

Anyway, yes, that’s what I have been working on lately? Would you like to read a little bit? I added a tiny snippet to my post about the Gunning sisters, but you probably missed it so here’s a little bit more:

‘They had arrived at South Parade, which was lined on both sides by a terrace of imposing mansions and turned down it to walk down towards the river. Six large travelling carriages had just pulled up outside one of the houses and the two girls stopped to watch as a liveried footman sprang forward to let down the steps then pull open the door of the first, a splendidly gleaming yellow and black vehicle pulled by a team of sprightly chestnut horses.

‘Now, if I am not mistaken…’ Venetia murmured, as he helped down a small, thin woman dressed in a tight pink velvet travelling dress and with an enormous matching beribboned and feathered hat perched on top of her elaborately curled and ringleted auburn hair. She paused for a moment and looked at the two girls, inclining her head slightly and rather frigidly to them both before sailing briskly into the house, shouting orders in French as she went.

‘Who is that?’ Clementine whispered, her eyes wide with wonderment. ‘What an amazing hat she is wearing. It is almost as big as she is.’ She regretfully touched her own plain straw effort. ‘Bigger, in fact. Did you see how tiny she is?’

‘That lady is Madame la Duchesse de Polignac,’ Venetia whispered back. ‘Is she as famous here as she seems to be everywhere else? No? She is the best friend of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. They are said to be inseparable. In fact, that’s not all they say…’

Madame la Duchesse was followed out of her carriage by a tall, dark haired young man in a green coat who impatiently waved away the footman who came forward to assist him. He paused for a moment on his way into the house and bowed to them both, his grey eyes making no secret of his admiration for Venetia who smiled and responded with a curtsey.

‘Do you know him?’ Clementine asked as they watched the man go into the house with a final warm look over his shoulder at her new friend.

‘That is the Comte Jules de Choiseul-Amboise,’ Venetia replied with a tiny shrug as they carried on down the street, where a dozen footmen were busily helping the Duchesse’s fabulously dressed entourage of chattering French ladies and gentlemen down from the carriages and carrying in what appeared to be hundreds of boxes and trunks. ‘I met him once in London. He is quite handsome isn’t he?’

‘I think he is very handsome,’ Clementine replied rather breathlessly, feeling a little envious of the other girl. When would a young man look at her in such a way?’