✉ My Romance with Regency - M Pepper Langlinais

Today returning author M Pepper Langlinais takes over our blog to tell us about her latest novel, Brynnde (9 February 2017, M Pepper Langlinais, 212 pages), a Regency Romance.

"I don't usually read Regency romances, but I was happy to discover I thoroughly enjoyed this light and sweet read.

I was whisked away to another time with fancy dresses, big balls, and overly proper manners. The settings are lush, especially Brynnde's home, Aux Arbres. It was the characters themselves that hooked me." ~ Christine Rains, author of The Thirteenth Floor series.

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My Romance with Regency

by M Pepper Langlinais

I was never a romantic when it came to reading. I wanted fantasy and adventure, and I wanted stories with animals in them. Love to me was something for television and film Ah, when Elizabeth dies in Young Sherlock Holmes . . . And the ongoing tension between David and Maddie in Moonlighting or Laura and Mr. Steele in Remington Steele . . . These were the things that sparked my idea of “romantic” as a pre-teen. Books not so much.

It wasn’t until I got to high school and became very ill that I encountered first gothic and then Regency romance novels. I was bed-ridden and had an old paperback from the library (where I worked) of Rebecca. Adored it. Began eating up every Victoria Holt novel I could find. And then, while at a second-hand bookstore with my mother one day, she introduced me to Regency romance novels.

You have to understand that I grew up in a very Christian household. Bodice rippers were not going to happen. To this day, I don’t particularly enjoy those kinds of books. Call me repressed or a prude, but while I wouldn’t tell anyone else not to read them, they just aren’t for me. Reading should be enjoyable, and I don’t enjoy that kind of story.

Maybe it’s that I’m old-fashioned. I like things to be a bit courtly. And I grew up in the South where manners are impressed upon us at a young age. Regency romances, then, spoke to my understanding of the world and how it should be (though, not necessarily was).

Once I’d discovered these books—the Signet and Zebra and Harlequin paperbacks that came out each month—I couldn’t get enough. All the balls and gowns and gallant men and reprobate gamblers and evil aunts and whatnot. I hadn’t even found Jane Austen yet! I would need that BBC Pride and Prejudice for that.

Then I went away to college and only really had time to read what was assigned. Well, and I kept up with Anne Rice and Neil Gaiman. Romances, however, fell by the wayside until much later, when I was married and our Sunday routine became me reading Regency romances while my husband played video games.

It was at this time that I actually began playing with the idea of writing my own Regency romance novel. I started Brynnde but only got about a page or two into it.

And then: children. Well, just the one at first. But after he was born, I would read aloud to him from whatever Regency I happened to be reading at the time.

Around the same time, many publishers were folding their Regency lines. It didn’t make sense to try to write a Regency romance any more. Brynnde got shelved and pretty much forgotten. I scoured eBay for bulk lots of old Regency paperbacks, searching for ways to get my fix.

So here I am, ten years later, and Brynnde has been published. What changed? Well, for one thing, thanks to the advent of self-publishing I no longer had to worry whether a publisher would take the manuscript. For another, it turns out there are lots of people like me who love to read Regency romances. And what put things over the top—I stumbled across the old Word file at just the right time.

I’d just finished writing two relatively heavy books:  The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller and Manifesting Destiny. By “heavy” I mean they had serious protagonists dealing with complicated relationships and life events. After that, I was ready—needed—something lighter. While trying to organize some old computer files, I uncovered Brynnde and knew I’d found the right project. There was something so freeing about writing it, despite the research required in terms of the historical period. In fact, I enjoyed the work so much I’m now writing another one.

It’s easy, as an author, to take the work too seriously and feel the pressure of having a lot riding on whatever book you’re writing at the moment. Writing Brynnde brought the joy of writing back to me. I hadn’t even realized I’d lost it until I found it again. Just like, after not having Regency romances to read, that joy returns the minute you pick one up.

Brynnde
Available NOW!

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