Are You Ready for a Regency Spy Adventure?

Pride and Prejudice meets Mission: Impossible

What inspired me to write the Lady Wynwood’s Spies series:

While I love Regency Romances and Jane Austen's books, I also really love action movies. When plotting the rest of the series, especially in light of Sol's clandestine job for the Crown, I realized that I really wanted to do a mash-up of Mission: Impossible in the Regency era.

So I created Sol's team of agents, some who used to work for the Foreign Office as spies and some who are civilians with unusual skill sets. And, of course, there will be lots of romance for each of the team members, as well as lots of action and suspense.

What exactly is an epic-length serial novel?

Originally I had written The Spinster's Christmas, a Christian Regency Romantic Suspense, as a stand-alone novel, and I had planned more stand-alone novels with Lady Wynwood and Sol as minor characters in each of them. However, as I began planning the series past that first Christmas book, I realized the storyline was becoming longer and more complex.

I fought it for a while because it would have been a really long series—I even tried writing the next book as a stand-alone novel, but I wrote almost 90,000 words and I hadn't even gotten to the 25% mark in the book!

So I decided to structure the series like a Japanese light novel series, in which each book has a complete story arc, but there is an underlying story arc that runs through each of the volumes and isn't resolved until the end.

This is similar to the serial novels being published in the U.S., but those tend to be smaller installments of around 20,000 words, while each of the volumes in my series is around 100,000 words.

I have already plotted the entire series and it will be 12 volumes, plus a prequel novel (The Spinster’s Christmas) and a prequel novella (The Gentleman Thief).

Read bonus extras about the entire Lady Wynwood’s Spies series (there are some spoilers).

Read the first chapters of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer in your browser.

I hope you enjoy my latest Regency series!

Camy

Comments

Lavender hand lotion

Captain's Log, Stardate 11.05.2009 I have to tell you, I LOVE Etsy.com ! Etsy is dedicated to providing a marketplace for people who like to make handmade products and people who appreciate them (and buy them). It has everything from handmade gifts (like my mom’s Bucilla Christmas stockings and ornaments and tree skirts and wall hangings and … well, just click here to see what she has! ) to soaps and lotions and jewelry and knitted items and hand-painted yarn and ... I could surf that website for DAYS. Anyway, lately I’ve been concerned about the lead content in my lotions, especially since I’m using them more now that it’s turned colder and drier here in California. I have to use lotion on my hands everytime after I wash them. So I went onto Etsy and searched for organic hand lotions, and bought this lavender lotion from Lue Cosmetics . What was really nice is that the owner, Jane, sent me a direct message via Etsy right after I made the purchase to ask if I’d received it yet and ...

I’m a Book of the Year winner!

Captain's Log, Stardate 09.22.2008 I won first place in the Debut Author category of the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year awards! Here are all the winners! Debut Author Sushi for One? (Camy Tang) Zondervan, editor Sue Brower Bayou Justice (Robin Miller writing as Robin Caroll) In Between (Jenny B. Jones) Contemporary Novella Finally Home in Missouri Memories anthology (Deborah Raney) Barbour Publishing, editor Susan Downs Moonlight & Mistletoe in A Big Apple Christmas anthology (Carrie Turansky) Remaking of Moe McKenna in Race to the Altar anthology (Gloria Clover) Historical Novella Love Notes in Love Letters Anthology (Mary Davis) Barbour Publishing, editor Rebecca Germany Beyond the Memories in Missouri Memories anthology (DiAnn Mills) The Spinster & The Tycoon in The Spinster Brides of Cactus Corner anthology (Vickie McDonough) Lits Splitting Harriet (Tamara Leigh) Multnomah Books, editor Julee Schwarzb...

Grace Livingston Hill romances free to read online

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci...

Tabi socks, part deux

Captain's Log, Stardate 07.25.2008 (If you're on Ravelry, friend me! I'm camytang.) I made tabi socks again! (At the bottom of the pattern is the calculation for the toe split if you're not using the same weight yarn that I did for this pattern (fingering). I also give an example from when I used worsted weight yarn with this pattern.) I used Opal yarn, Petticoat colorway. It’s a finer yarn than my last pair of tabi socks, so I altered the pattern a bit. Okay, so here’s my first foray into giving a knitting pattern. Camy’s top-down Tabi Socks I’m assuming you already know the basics of knitting socks. If you’re a beginner, here are some great tutorials: Socks 101 How to Knit Socks The Sock Knitter’s Companion A video of turning the heel Sock Knitting Tips Yarn: I have used both fingering weight and worsted weight yarn with this pattern. You just change the number of cast on stitches according to your gauge and the circumference of your ankle. Th...

Sourdough Treacle Buns recipe from Lady Wynwood's Spies

If you read my Christian Regency Romantic Suspense novel, Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 2: Berserker , you will have noticed that Miss Tolberton brings humble treacle buns to eat with tea at the church. Not only that, but the treacle bun appears in a surprising way in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 3: Aggressor . I got the idea for treacle buns from looking through old cookbooks from the 1800s. Commercial dry yeast cakes for making breads were not available until 1825, which is 15 years after the date of my book, so most breads during the Regency period were made with sourdough starters. “Black treacle” is the same thing as molasses, and was mentioned in cookbooks published during the Regency period, but in those books, I couldn’t find a recipe for treacle bread or treacle buns or brown bread. This seemed a bit strange to me since brown bread (made with whole wheat and black treacle) has been around since before the Regency period, but I am guessing that it was such a common food, m...

Search This Blog