Once again it’s guest blogger day at the Tiki Hut. Joining us beneath the beach umbrella is Regency author, Joanna Waugh. Her debut novel, BLIND FORTUNE, released last July from Cerridwen Press and is now in trade paperback. It was chosen as one of Romance Lists’ top ten notable historical romance debuts for 2008 http://romancelists.com/lists/notable-romance-debuts-2008-pirates-blind-ladies-and-more , and the music room love scene from it won Midnight Seductions’ 2008 Endless Romance Contest http://midnightseductionsauthors.wordpress.com/winners-of-the-endless-romance-contest/.
For a chance to win an autographed copy of her debut, head to AuthorIsland.com today and check out the Book of the Day!
Welcome to the Tiki Hut, Joanna!
Thanks for inviting me to your island, DeNita! It’s great to lounge in the warm sun while everyone back home is shivering.
A little about me -- I live in Northwest Indiana, just a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan and the beautiful Indiana Dunes. BLIND FORTUNE is my first published novel. Here the blurb:
They say love is blind, but Lady Fortuna Morley doesn’t believe it. Sightless since birth, she can think of only one reason a gentleman would wed her—for the dowry and three thousand pounds a year her father will provide. She’s in London the spring of 1814 to help launch her younger cousin into society, but prefers living quietly in the country with her music. The last thing Fortuna wishes is to cross swords with the arrogant Marquess of Granville.
Charles Lowden, Lord Granville, has decided to take a wife. The bride he’s chosen is thirteen years his junior, but meets all criteria. What he won’t abide is interference from the girl’s impertinent cousin, the outspoken and opinionated Lady Fortuna Morley. The woman is determined to thwart the match. Charles is just as determined to charm Fortuna out of her disdain for him.
What neither expects in the ensuing battle of wills is to fall in love.
The question I’m most often asked about BLIND FORTUNE is -- why a blind heroine? As many readers already know, I wrote the story based on personal experience with my husband who lost his sight to diabetes. But I also was fascinated by pre-21st century attitudes about people with disabilities.
Welcome to the Tiki Hut, Joanna!
Thanks for inviting me to your island, DeNita! It’s great to lounge in the warm sun while everyone back home is shivering.
A little about me -- I live in Northwest Indiana, just a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan and the beautiful Indiana Dunes. BLIND FORTUNE is my first published novel. Here the blurb:
They say love is blind, but Lady Fortuna Morley doesn’t believe it. Sightless since birth, she can think of only one reason a gentleman would wed her—for the dowry and three thousand pounds a year her father will provide. She’s in London the spring of 1814 to help launch her younger cousin into society, but prefers living quietly in the country with her music. The last thing Fortuna wishes is to cross swords with the arrogant Marquess of Granville.
Charles Lowden, Lord Granville, has decided to take a wife. The bride he’s chosen is thirteen years his junior, but meets all criteria. What he won’t abide is interference from the girl’s impertinent cousin, the outspoken and opinionated Lady Fortuna Morley. The woman is determined to thwart the match. Charles is just as determined to charm Fortuna out of her disdain for him.
What neither expects in the ensuing battle of wills is to fall in love.
The question I’m most often asked about BLIND FORTUNE is -- why a blind heroine? As many readers already know, I wrote the story based on personal experience with my husband who lost his sight to diabetes. But I also was fascinated by pre-21st century attitudes about people with disabilities.
During the Regency, the principle cause of blindness was conjunctivitis contracted by newborns. Remember, this was a time before the concept of germs and sterilization. In addition, people lost their vision to small pox, scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough. By 1851, one person out of every 979 was blind in England and Wales.
Some folks believed physical disabilities were a mark of the devil or God’s punishment. Sightless people were thought to be mentally inhibited and uneducable. Blind women especially were vulnerable to unscrupulous men. In BLIND FORTUNE, Lady Fortuna fears that if she marries, her husband will lock her away in an asylum once he gets his hands on her money.
Not until the late eighteenth century did notions about the blind begin to change. In 1784, the first European school for the blind was founded in Paris. Once a week students enjoyed an outing to the local botanical gardens. Their teacher led them there by a rope onto which each of them held. I used this idea in BLIND FORTUNE when Lord Granville creates a ropewalk on his estate for Lady Fortuna.
A young boy named Louis Braille attended the Paris school. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he invented a system of six raised dots that, when arranged in combination, represented letters of the alphabet. Unfortunately this revolutionary reading method came too late for Lady Fortuna. But, by the middle of the nineteenth century, it was the world-wide standard.
So what are some of the things you are passionate about as a reader or writer? What life experiences have effected the way you view the world?
To read excerpts from and reviews about BLIND FORTUNE, go to my website at http://www.joannawaugh.com/
Be sure to friend me on Myspace http://www.myspace.com/joannawaugh
and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/Joanna-Waugh/1355015961
and check out my blog about British customs and holidays at
http://www.joannawaugh.blogspot.com/
BLIND FORTUNE is available in ebook format and trade paperback at http://www.cerridwenpress.com/
Look for it soon at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble
