Playing with History

There’s always a risk when setting your story in a real historical background that you can later find out events or people of the day might actually have a real history that contradicts what you’re trying to do.

When I wrote my Passions series of books back in the early years of this millennium (and doesn’t that feel weird?), I did a lot of research on England in the fourteenth century, including major events and the main historical characters of importance. Because I’d studied Medieval literature fairly extensively in college, I had a fair grasp of the events of the period, but I tried to double-check details.

I put a date on the first book in the series but not on the subsequent ones because I didn’t want to be tied to a particular year.  There was a lot going in 14^th century England and I didn’t want to have to account for everything that might’ve happened in a year and how it would impact the characters and events. For the most part I’ve steered clear of using actual historical events and personages.

In my most recent release, Healing Passion, however, there are references to battle happening on the continent and a prince who is in charge. And there is a scene toward the end where the hero and heroine go to court and meet the king and prince.  I don’t name the king, though it’s not hard to figure out he’s meant to be Edward III, because I do allude to the prince present with him as the Black Prince.

Edward, the Black Prince, is granted Aquitaine by his father King Edward III. Initial letter "E" of miniature, 1390; British Library, shelfmark: Cotton MS Nero D VI, f.31
This picture is in the public domain.

And right there I take a couple of historical liberties.  First of all Edward of Woodstock, later Prince of Wales and Prince of Aquitaine, was not (as far as we know) ever referred to as the Black Prince while he was alive. The first written use of that name for him comes almost two centuries later. But I figured that there was likely a tradition that gave him that sobriquet well before that, possibly even during his lifetime.

The second was that from a young age, Edward spent most of his time on the continent, leading the English forces in what must have seemed like an unending war.  He was rarely in England until near the time of his death and even then he spent most of that time at his own estates, separate from the king’s.

If you’re interested, I have more interesting facts about The Black Prince at my website here:http://katherinekingston.com/playing-with-his…the-black-prince/

Meanwhile, Healing Passion, the last of the Passions series of Medieval Historical Erotic Romances is now available at all major outlets.

HEALING PASSION
Re-release date June 1, 2017
Genre: Medieval historical, domestic discipline, BDSM
Length: Novel
Order eBook from:  Amazon    B&N    Kobo    iTunes
More info

The king has charged Sir Thomas Carlwick with learning what became of Baron Groswick. No one has seen or heard from the man for more than a year. Thomas’ inquiries have so far turned up no sign of the Baron. When he goes to Groswick Keep, he gets a mixed reception. Young, lovely Lady Juliana welcomes him graciously, but that evening someone tries to kill him by firing a crossbow at him. Juliana apologizes and tends his injury. She also tells him she has no idea what happened to her husband, but she’s beginning to accept that he’s dead.

Thomas is attracted to Juliana, finding in her everything he’s wanted in a woman. Despite a past that was nearly destroyed by a woman’s lies, Thomas is ready to settle down again, and he believes Juliana is exactly what he’s looking for. As soon as he can prove Baron Groswick is dead, Juliana will be free to marry him.

But he may not want her anymore when he learns what really happened to Baron Groswick.

Research for Binding Passion

The third of my Passions series of Medieval historical stories (and the second full-length novel) has just released. Like its predecessors, Daring Passion and Ruling Passion, Binding Passion features some BDSM, spanking, and domestic discipline. In that I think they are more true to their time than some recent novels set in the time period would have us believe.

In college I was fascinated by the Medieval period, so even though History wasn’t my major I took several courses about those times. And I’ve continued to read and study the period. I have an entire shelf of books on the period, focused particularly on the high middle ages, the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, in England.

Because my son lives in England, I’ve had a number of opportunities to visit there. One of favorite things to do is tour castle ruins, restored castles, and museums attached or related to them. Most of them spend plenty of time relating the battles and sieges the castle or its residents took part in, the strategic importance of the place, and how it was defended.

But I find myself more interested in the small details of daily life. What people ate and drank, how the food and beverages were prepared, what they wore and how the fabric was made, the entertainment, stories, festivities, and how they spent most of their time are the things I try to learn from each visit.

Recreated kitchen at Dover Castle

One of the most fun bits of research I did for Binding Passion was to learn about Christmas festivities in the fourteenth century. That required extensive dips into books and searching through websites for the details to bring those alive. What I found was fascinating because the celebrations of the time were so different from today.

No Christmas trees, greeting cards, Santa Claus and reindeer, or striped candy canes permeated the Medieval Christmas celebration. And Christmas Day was just the beginning of the twelve days of celebrations back then. (Yes, that song has its origins in the celebrations of the Middle Ages.) Unlike today when it sometimes seems like it builds up to December 25^th and is all over on the 26^th.

Christmas was more rooted in religious rituals in fourteenth-century England. Most towns were built around a church and religion played a central part in the lives of the people of the times. It wasn’t something they did; it was who they were. Christmas was still a fundamentally religious celebration of Christ’s birth and the beginning of salvation. Celebration was in order, but that often meant activities meant educate and remind people of Biblical stories and songs and verses memorializing the events of the Savior’s birth.

But some things we have in common with them. Special foods were a particular treat during the Christmas season. Sweets, uncommon during much of the year other than the natural ones in fruits, were more widely consumed. And drinking alcoholic beverages formed a very large part of the festivities. Charity toward the less fortunate was encouraged particularly during the dark days of mid-winter. Music, dancing, plays, and gatherings of friends and families helped brighten the days and nights. Deeply religious they might have been, but they still loved a good party!

My First Published Novel is Now Available Again

The second in my Passions series of erotic Medieval historical romances is now available! Ruling Passion is a full-length novel that features handsome knights, a lady in distress who manages to get herself rescued, then has to face the consequences, and a story of two people kept apart by circumstances but drawn together by love for each other.

This was my very first published full-length novel. I’d had a number of short stories published in various magazines before then, but in 2001 an editor from Ellora’s Cave contacted me to ask if I had any novels I might consider publishing with them. I did, in fact, thought it wasn’t finished.  I emailed what I had to the editor and she sent back an enthusiastic, “Yes, I want it.”

I set to work, but that January, my father died and for a couple of months I couldn’t even think about writing. The editor was sympathetic and told me to take whatever time I needed. A couple of months later I was finally ready to get back to writing and it seemed like the story just flowed out of me at that point. I finished it within a month and we began a whirlwind round of back and forth edits that lasted another month or so. The book released in June, 2002.

It was put into print a few years later and had had numerous different covers since its first release. I haven’t tried to count how many, but I can remember at least four right off-hand. Despite that, it was my best-selling book for EC.

EC is now gone and I have rights back to all my stories. I’ve never been entirely happy with the way my stories were edited or some of the changes I was asked to make, so I’m going back and re-editing all of them. It’s a lot of work, but worth it to shape them into the stories I’ve always wanted them to be.

Definitions: What is Erotica? by Regina Kammer

Riffing off Suz’s post A Few Words About Writing Erotica, I’ve decided to offer definitions of erotica, erotic romance, and such. You can read the extended version on my blog.

Introduction

People frequently make broad assumptions about what it is I write. Friends, family, and acquaintances snicker about my "porn". Romance writer colleagues imbued with the cadence of traditional romance often bandy about the term "erotica" as if to signal the ugly otherness of erotic romance.

So I will attempt to answer the provocative question What is erotica? and by doing so answer corollary questions about misunderstood erotic-like literary variations: Erotic romance, steamy romance, smut, porn, and Romantica®.

Kammerotica Definitions, or The What is Erotica? Cheat Sheet!

Erotica
Erotica is a literary form where the core of the story is sexual in nature. As a literary form, erotica has plot, themes, character development, goals and motivations, conflicts and resolutions, and all those elements that make up a story. But all those elements deal with something sexual in nature. Typical themes include the erotic development of a relationship (e.g., a Dominant and submissive), or an innocent’s journey of sexual discovery, or a character’s exploration and development of their true sexual nature. One could not strip out the sex scenes and be left with a comprehensible story. The sex is the story.

But, blasphemy of blasphemies, I do not think erotica has to necessarily be arousing. Sometimes the erotic development of a relationship or a character’s journey of sexual discovery is sad, lonely, and depressing. Sometimes it is shocking. Sometimes it is sweet and romantic. And sometimes it is arousing.

Erotic romance
In order to define this, I have to define "romance". I'm not talking le Roman de la Rose or Arthurian chivalric knights, which are the roots of the idea of romantic love. No. I'm talking Romance Writers of America (RWA) romance.

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

Erotic romance takes all the elements of erotica but has a love story at its core. An optimistic resolution to a relationship—a Happily Ever After or a Happily For Now—is essential in an erotic romance.

Sex scenes are not gratuitous in erotic romance. Sexual elements form the foundation of the plot, themes, and characters. One cannot simply strip away the sex scenes and be left with a comprehensible story. The sex scenes drive the plot and character development and push toward that culmination of a HEA/HFN.

Steamy (or Sexy, or Graphic, or Gratuitous, or Explicit) Romance
Steamy Romance is a romance with a lot of sex in it. Generally, there is a very good reason for at least one of the sex scenes—the moment when the hero and heroine (or whatever permutation of H/h the story has: two men, two women, three people, etc.) connect deeply and emotionally. But in a lot of steamy romances, one could tone down the sex scenes or fade to black before the sex scenes and the story would be sound.

Unfortunately, some steamy romance novels have too many purely gratuitous sex scenes. Personally, I find these sorts of stories rather boring. I want the sex in a story to have purpose, to move the story forward. Characters should change, relationships should develop, conflicts should increase or resolve — something has to happen because of the sex. I find it interesting that erotica and erotic romance is often criticized for having gratuitous sex. It’s actually the steamy romances that too often fall into that pit.

Romantica®
Romantica® is a registered trademark of the erotic romance and erotica publisher Ellora’s Cave. The term is exclusively used for their line of erotic romance. Because it is a trademark one should never use the term unless discussing an Ellora’s Cave erotic romance. Maybe one day it will be a generic term, but until then I strongly urge people not to use it out of context.

Smut
Depending on who is using it, this word can mean "erotica" or "literary porn" or "just plain porn". It’s a cute word that seems to be used mostly by erotica authors from the UK.

Pornography / Porn
In pornography sex scenes exist purely for the purpose of sexual titillation. Plot, character development, theme, and all other literary devices are generally missing in pornography. In fact, such literary effects are irrelevant and unessential. The entire emphasis is on sexual acts. "Literary porn" is really just well-written porn, but once the story starts to have some of those literary devices, porn starts sliding toward erotica.

Pornography starts with a set-up, e.g., pizza boy goes to a sorority house and sexiness ensues. Characters remain the same after the act is finished: there is no character development, no character growth, no conflict resolution. There is just pure sexual satisfaction—although I suppose that is a resolution of some sort!

What I Write

So, what is it I actually write? I write all of the above except porn—despite what my friends think. I offer a few examples below.

Erotica
My story in Naughty List, "A Night at Valley Forge", is erotica because a HEA is not an element.

Erotic romance
Most of what I write can be categorized as this. I like a happy ending! I like my characters to explore their sexual natures! My favorite novel of mine, The General’s Wife: An American Revolutionary Tale, is pretty much textbook erotic romance.

Romantica®
Because I’ve written for Ellora’s Cave, I’ve written Romantica with my Harwell Heirs series. The Pleasure Device, Disobedience By Design, and Where Destiny Plays are all erotic romance novels under the Romantica brand.

Steamy romance
Yes! I’ve actually written steamy romance! It surprised me too, because I never thought I would. My story in Naughty Flings, "Hot As Hades", is a story with hot sex and a Happily Ever After. I think the story would not be as good without the sex or with toned down sex, but I hesitate calling it erotic romance. Maybe you can convince me otherwise in the comments?

About the Author

Regina Kammer is a librarian, an art historian, and an award-nominated, best-selling, multi-published writer of erotica and historical erotic romance. Her short stories and novels make history sexier, whether the era is Roman, Byzantine, Viking, American Revolution, or Victorian. She’s even sexed up contemporary settings, Steampunk, and Greco-Roman mythology. She has been published by Cleis Press, Go Deeper Press, Ellora’s Cave, House of Erotica, Story Ink, The Naughty Literati, and her own imprint, Viridium Press. She began writing historical fiction with romantic elements during National Novel Writing Month 2006, switching to erotica when all her characters suddenly demanded to have sex.

Keep up with Regina on her website

Follow her on Twitter @Kammerotica

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See what’s new on her Amazon Author Page

RELEASE DAY... NAUGHTY LIST is now available everywhere!

The 13 authors of The Naughty Literati are very happy to announce that our first boxed set of alternately hot, thoughtful, funny, emotional, poignant, suspenseful, and always passionate love stories is now available anywhere you could wish to buy it. Amazon/Kindle, iTunes, Googleplay, B&N, Kobo... we wanted to make certain our readers have the opportunity to enjoy NAUGHTY LIST on all of their favorite digital platforms.

For authors (and hopefully for more than a few readers) a Release Day is a special bubble in time. It's that moment when weeks or months of work and anticipation all of the sudden come to fruition. Just like that, voilà and ta-da -- a book is born. 

To celebrate we're giving away a Kindle Paperwhite that's packed with our authors' books, so don't forget to enter before December 7, 2014! 

Since October of this year, while working closely to put our stories together from miles, many time zones, and sometimes hemispheres apart, the members of The Naughty Literati found we enjoyed playing together so much that we've already got our next boxed set of sensual-to-erotic stories on the drawing board for a February/Valentine's release. That's right. While we're still enjoying today's Release Day glow (and some truly lovely early reviews for NAUGHTY LIST... thank you!) we're already sharpening our quills and shaping more naughty happily-ever-afters for our next release. Stay tuned for NAUGHTY HEARTS coming in February 2015.

Clearly, there is no rest for the naughty!

Naughtily yours,

The Naughty Literati
Alexa, Belle, Berengaria, Charlotte, Francesca, Katherine, Lainey-Jo, Lynne, Marianne, Nicole, Regina, Suz, and Trinity

Rhona and her #Viking #Vampire from "Viking in Tartan" in the new NAUGHTY LIST #boxedset (#romance #medieval #Scotland @MFRW_ORG)

Today I'm blogging about a short story that will appear in the Naughty List, a boxed set The Naughty Literati created to warm up your chilly winter nights. It’s available for preorder now and will be published on  December first.

Here's the 4-1-1 about Viking in Tartan, a medieval romance from the Highland Vampires series: A Viking raider brings change to little Clan Kilbirnie, especially to the chieftain’s daughter Rhona.

And here's a sexy little snippet to jumpstart your weekend:

He kissed her neck, feathering his tongue over the sensitive skin, and all conscious thought fled. She gripped his shoulders, then stroked them, admiring his strength, a contrast to his sweet, sweet kisses.

Her body was heating, tingling, sizzling, and she wanted to touch herself the way she did when she was alone at night, but... Wasn’t that wanton? Would he cease to treat her kindly if he knew the desires that drove her?

He lifted his head. “Touch yourself. Touch yourself in whatever way feels good to you.”

Here's where you can preorder the boxed set:

Amazon: http://indi.uno/1taThiO

iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/nogyvpe

 Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/naughty-list-2

Google: http://tinyurl.com/nqdnq3k

Special preorder price only $.99!

Remember: this is a blog hop! Find other talented writers' sexy snippets here: http://thenuthousescribblers.blogspot.co.uk/