Elizabeth Mansfield (? - December 21, 2003)

Readers of Regency novels say that Elizabeth Mansfield was the heiress to the literary crown of Georgette Heyer, the high priestess of Regency novels. But Elizabeth only smiled at the appellation. After all, she was the writer who admitted, "I received a Master's degree in English lit, but I secretly read Georgette Heyer in the bathtub."

She believed that the love story has been with us ever since people began telling stories, and it will continue to be with us until the world ends.

"I was born and grew up in New York City," said the freshfaced blonde, who was born on March 13, between the years of the Depression and World War II. "I teach freshman students in a local community college one day a week. I used to teach full-time, but now I have too many deadlines to meet. At the moment I'm teaching Jewish-American literature of the twentieth century. Writing is so quiet; I need to teach to get me but of the house arid talking," she added with a grin.

Elizabeth Mansfield's happiest girlhood hours were spent sitting out on a fire escape in the Bronx, eating apples and reading. "I had to practice the piano an hour a day, but I kept a book in the piano bench in case my mother stepped out of the apartment."

She majored in English literature at Hunter. "But," she confessed, with a shake of her blonde curls (all Regency heroines have curls, you see!), "I guess those early romances remained in my blood even though I believed I'd grown out of them."

( Read more... )

First Book - A Christmas Kiss (1978): A Christmas Kiss and Winter Wonderland (Signet Regency Romance)

Last Book - An Encounter with Venus (2003): An Encounter With Venus (Signet Regency Romance)

Source: Love's Leading Ladies

Because It's True by Willa Okati

As usual Willa Okati’s stories are a mix of romance and magick, and Because It’s True is not different. Ford is a man who believes in magick, in good omens and signs. A mix of finnish, irish and chinese heritage, he is a man with the body of a bear and the soul of a fairy (no pun intended). While speaking with a new friend, he is challenged to read his own fortune and all the signs are saying that he will meet the man he will marry; when the elevator opens and Gavin is the man in front of him, Ford is lost: Gavin is small, fragile and beautiful. He is also scared, not by Ford on a physical way, but from the strength of Ford’s feelings. Already once in the past Gavin has been stormed away by a crazy man and the end was not an happily ever after.

With all his passion, and with an old fashioned courtship, Ford manages to convince Gavin to give him a chance. It’s a crazy idea, it’s completely against Gavin’s tentatives to shelter his heart from further damage, but Ford is a force of nature. The nice thing is that Ford doesn’t use his strength to convince Gavin, and not even the physical desire, it’s more a play of doing little things and be always there for Gavin. Ford’s strength is in the little things, in the details he read as good or bad omens, in the things people usually underestimate since are too small to get notice. I think there is a parallelism on being Ford so big and his conviction that the true is in the small things: Ford is really self-conscious of his clumsy body (almost 7 feet tall he has indead a scaring exterior) and in the aim to protect who is smaller, he is more aware than other of how much fragile people and things can be.

I was already good with the story like that, a nice guy meets guy, guy gets guy story, but Willa Okati decided to give us even more; what if the all-together good guy Ford suddenly is making a mistake? What if, after spending days and days convincing Gavin that he is the right one, that he has to trust him, that he loves him, and when Gavin asks why, the simple answer is, Because It’s True, what if suddenly Ford changes his mind? Will Gavin read it as the final betrayal, will he close himself in his shell without letting anyone reach for him? There is another nice parallel at this point between Gavin and his “pet”, a F1 cross, a mix between a domestic and a wild feline: Ford is trying to conquer both of them, and I think that if he conquers one the second will soon follow; but as Oscar, the F1 cross, also Gavin is skettish, and they tend to react hiding himself when in danger.

The sex is good, not so much kinky as it could have been due to Gavin and Ford’s body differences, but in a way it was better, since this novel targets more the romance than the sex.

http://www.loose-id.com/Because-Its-True.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Because It's True

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by P.L. Nunn

Because It's True by Willa Okati

As usual Willa Okati’s stories are a mix of romance and magick, and Because It’s True is not different. Ford is a man who believes in magick, in good omens and signs. A mix of finnish, irish and chinese heritage, he is a man with the body of a bear and the soul of a fairy (no pun intended). While speaking with a new friend, he is challenged to read his own fortune and all the signs are saying that he will meet the man he will marry; when the elevator opens and Gavin is the man in front of him, Ford is lost: Gavin is small, fragile and beautiful. He is also scared, not by Ford on a physical way, but from the strength of Ford’s feelings. Already once in the past Gavin has been stormed away by a crazy man and the end was not an happily ever after.

With all his passion, and with an old fashioned courtship, Ford manages to convince Gavin to give him a chance. It’s a crazy idea, it’s completely against Gavin’s tentatives to shelter his heart from further damage, but Ford is a force of nature. The nice thing is that Ford doesn’t use his strength to convince Gavin, and not even the physical desire, it’s more a play of doing little things and be always there for Gavin. Ford’s strength is in the little things, in the details he read as good or bad omens, in the things people usually underestimate since are too small to get notice. I think there is a parallelism on being Ford so big and his conviction that the true is in the small things: Ford is really self-conscious of his clumsy body (almost 7 feet tall he has indead a scaring exterior) and in the aim to protect who is smaller, he is more aware than other of how much fragile people and things can be.

I was already good with the story like that, a nice guy meets guy, guy gets guy story, but Willa Okati decided to give us even more; what if the all-together good guy Ford suddenly is making a mistake? What if, after spending days and days convincing Gavin that he is the right one, that he has to trust him, that he loves him, and when Gavin asks why, the simple answer is, Because It’s True, what if suddenly Ford changes his mind? Will Gavin read it as the final betrayal, will he close himself in his shell without letting anyone reach for him? There is another nice parallel at this point between Gavin and his “pet”, a F1 cross, a mix between a domestic and a wild feline: Ford is trying to conquer both of them, and I think that if he conquers one the second will soon follow; but as Oscar, the F1 cross, also Gavin is skettish, and they tend to react hiding himself when in danger.

The sex is good, not so much kinky as it could have been due to Gavin and Ford’s body differences, but in a way it was better, since this novel targets more the romance than the sex.

http://www.loose-id.com/Because-Its-True.aspx

Amazon Kindle: Because It's True

Reading List:



http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading_list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by P.L. Nunn