~A Letter from Julie~

Hello, my cherubs! Let me be the 3,012th person to wish you a happy, wildly prosperous 2006! So how are the resolutions going? Are you burning up the treadmill at the gym? Did you just now resolve to hate me for asking?? Ah, don't worry—I love you just the way you are. Personally, I resolve to stop losing cups of tea all over the house (I make one, carry it somewhere, forget where I put it, make another one, lose that one, until there aren't any cups left in the cupboard). "Um, keeping the resolution bar a bit low, this year, aren't you, Julie?" you ask? Well, I fgured I would, since my other ongoing goals are a tad ambitious and consuming (writing very good books and
making bestseller lists). I can handle keeping track of tea. I figure you guys will help me meet the other goals. :)

So, if I had written a 2005 Christmas letter about my literary offspring and sent it to you, I would have mentioned all the accolades my little overachieving firstborn, THE RUNAWAY DUKE, was honored with in 2005—among them, Rita, Holt Medallion, and Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice nominations—while secretly worrying whether my second-born, TO LOVE A THIEF, would catch up, or whether it would turn into the typical rebellious middle child (like yours truly). Well, 2006 began with a bang, both for TO LOVE A THIEF and for BEAUTY AND THE SPY, the first book in my new trilogy, out in March 2006. (Nothing like the words "profoundly passionate and brilliant" and "catapult her to the top" to warm an author's heart). I'm getting really excited about early reports—scroll down for book news!

What else? If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can meet me this month Saturday, February 4, 1:00pm - 2:30pm Barnes & Noble Tanforan Shopping Center San Bruno, along with five of the Fog City Divas, where we'll give a little talk and sign books. Also, on Saturday, February 11th, from 1:00-3:00 p.m, you can find me and several dozen other Bay Area authors in the middle of the mall at Northgate Shopping Center in San Rafael—we'll be signing books at an event sponsored by Borders Express.

I just wanted to take a moment to brag about my girls the Fog City Divas, too: Candice Hern's new Regency-set historical, In the Thrill of the Night, is a February Romantic Times top pick; Kate Moore's Sexy Lexy was voted one of 2005's top romances by The Library Journal, Barbara Freethy's Don't Say A Word was voted one of the best airplane reads of 2005 by USA Today; Barbara McMahon was nominated for a Romantic Times Career Achievement award and now has sold a total of 11.2 million books(!), and Carol Grace made the Waldenbooks list last year with her book, Cinderellie. Can you see why I'm proud of this bunch? Visit our blog, Dishing with the Divas, for reflections on things erudite and trivial. You can usually find me blathering on about something on Wednesday night or Thursday mornings.

Anyway, kids—I'm glad we can all embark on 2006 together! Here's wishing you happiness, health, at least one exotic vacation to the place of your choice, a wonderful stack of good books, and a reeealllly long massage. ( Just thought I'd get creative with the New Year's wishes.)

Warm Regards,

Julie :)

In BEAUTY AND THE SPY, Susannah's trip to Barnstable is delayed by a little accident that takes place in the yard of a Coaching Inn, right when everyone aboard is about to go in for the "bad food," or so she tells Kit. During the Regency period, travelers relied upon coaching inn for food, changes of horses, beds, and to hire post chaises to take them to the ends of their journeys, which were naturally much longer than they are today. But the food at these was legendarily bad, and coaching inn proprietors were always trying to save a shilling or two by serving the same joint of meat to several different groups of arriving passengers. Check out this vivid description:

The table was covered with a thrice-used cloth, was set out with lumps of bread, knives, and two and three pronged forks laid alternately, Altogether it was anything but inviting, but coach passengers are very complacent; and on the Dover road it matters little if they are not. ...Presently the two dishes of pork, a couple of ducks, and a lump of half-raw, sadly mangled cold roast beef, with waxy potatoes and overgrown cabbages were scattered along the table.

Imagine trying to digest that in a crowded coach on a bumpy Regency period road.

Go to the Anne Woodley's Regency Collection, a wonderful resource for information on daily life during the Regency period, to read a great article on the the role of coaching inns in Regency Travel, as well as to see some amusing illustrations from the period that go miles toward explaining why Susannah and her fellow passengers thoroughly loathed each other by the end of their journey. (Reminds me a little of San Francisco's beloved MUNI).

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