Susan Leona Fisher, author of historical & contemporary romance
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January 2021

1/4/2021

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​Reflections
The past year has been a strange one, most of our engagement with others being only through eye contact, often through misted glasses, trying to speak clearly through layers of face-mask, being greeted at doctors and dentists surgeries by receptionists kitted out for space travel and inevitably there has been the sadness of losing old friends.
Thank goodness for community, its practical and emotional support, fun engagements on-line for quizzes and sing-songs and learned talks from fellow U3A members and for the amazing shop staff who have kept our supply chain going for all those daily essentials.
As a reader, how great to have access to so many books in e and audio format, and as a writer to supply my own via Kindle and KDP Direct. I’m sure I’m not alone among self-published authors in appreciating the support we get from all those staff behind the scenes at Kindle Direct Publishing. Thank you!
Reflecting on 2020, I am gratified that all my titles continue to sell, the most sales being via KU and KOLL. My most selling paperback continues to be the biography of Violet Douglas Pennant. My 3 historical series (Regency Lady, Regency Master and Regency Secret) continue head my e and KDP sales, and my top seller for the year has been His Capricious Lady, about a budding young woman author crossing swords with a somewhat conventional duke and his disapproving mother.
THANK YOU READERS!
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December 2020

11/19/2020

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A winter comfort read
 
Watch out for another piece of nostalgic comfort. It harks back to the early eighties, pre internet and mobile telephony, and is both a romance and an adventure and my second tribute to the late Betty Neels. BEATRICE is available now on Kindle, KDP Select and in print from Amazon.
 
In a quest to explore her roots, Beatrice Asante is determined to visit her father’s homeland in Africa. So she sets out on an adventure that will take her from a small farming community in the north of England to the heat of tropical Africa, where unforeseen danger awaits. Set in 1981/2, the story references the icy weather of that British winter and the very real political upheaval in one African country at the time, as Beatrice, aided by agricultural consultant Richard Maitland, struggles to survive and to escape.
 
The Kindle edition is specially priced at 99p/99c, as is my first tribute novel to Betty Neels, JOANNE.
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November 2020

11/2/2020

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New contemporary novel coming SOON

Some months ago, I watched the powerful film A United Kingdom (2016), which relates the story of Ruth and Seretse Khama and their struggle to gain acceptance as a racially-mixed couple both in the UK (where Seretse was training as a barrister) and Bechuanaland, in the 1940s. That led me to take a closer look at colonialism and the struggle again British rule. The west African country of Ghana gained independence in 1957, the first African colony to do so, and was initially ruled by Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah studied in London and for a short time also undertook legal training at Gray’s Inn (Seretse was at the Inner Temple around the same time).
 
This background gave me the idea for the context of my latest novel. It’s a contemporary romance set in 1981/2 and the heroine is the daughter of a Ghanaian/British racially-mixed couple. It’s called Beatrice and is due out in December, available on Kindle, KDP Select and Amazon paperback.
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October 2020

9/30/2020

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Escape to nostalgia
 
The RNA defines a historical novel as one set 50 years or more ago in the past. Technically, that means a contemporary novel is set within the past 50 years. That got me thinking about the meaning of such labels. A Victorian novel could be set in the late 1830s or any year up to 1901. Yet in 1837 there was no railway, no motorcar, no bicycles, no telephone, no Origin of Species, no electricity, no sewing machine, no typewriter or camera  A lot of inventions arrived during Victoria’s reign. Then again, if the reader resided in Australia or BC, it could have an entirely different meaning, relating to geography rather than date.
 
So a contemporary novel could be set in the 1970s, before many readers were born, and also before the advent of the world wide web, emails and all the electronic communications we now take for granted. As a young adult I taught in rural central Africa on a school compound without electricity. Our refrigerator was powered by paraffin and we had to learn the vagaries of oil lamps for lighting after dark. During my 2-year contract I rang home once, on the occasion of my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary. I had to book the call and experienced the several second time delay as we took turns to speak. I wrote and received a lot of letters!
 
If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know I recently read a number of Betty Neels’ romances, many set in the 1970s/80s, and recently produced my own tribute novel (Joanne). I like being able to slow things down, so communication is not instant. It gives more time to describe the journey and the feelings along the way. In the present climate of uncertainty as the world tackles a life-threatening virus, might it be true that people want a comfort read and a bit of nostalgia. The word nostalgia in fact comes from the Greek for return to pain! Since I’m after a return to comfort, what shall we call it as a genre? How about nostfort?
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September 2020

9/1/2020

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Reality of the Regency
 
Regency is one of the most popular periods for romantic novels and TV dramas, but behind the glitz portrayed on page and screen, the reality was somewhat different. Here are some less palatable facts, which most of us authors choose not to mention!
 
1.Hands and faces were regularly washed but not so much bodies, not least as soap was highly taxed and beyond most purses.
2.Sanitation was non-existent and that and the poor quality of water exacerbated the spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera.
3.Sugar was an expensive luxury enjoyed by the rich, but not by their teeth, which went black and caused halitosis.
4.The best dentures were those made with healthy teeth harvested from the thousands of young men who died at the Battle of Waterloo.
5.Addiction to morphine and heroin was commonplace, including imbibing laudanum for pain control and to fuel addiction.
6.Arsenic was commonly used in face creams, remedies to increase fertility and cure baldness and in the manufacture of everyday items like candles and cloth.
7.Prostitution was commonplace and in the late 18th Century ‘gentlemen’ could purchase a copy of ‘Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies’ detailing what each lady offered.
8.A slightly different publication was produced by Mr John Penn, also for circulation amongst upper-crust gentlemen, listing the qualities of marriageable society ladies.
9.Pineapples were expensive and tended to be passed on from one household to another as gifts of status, to the extent that they were never eaten, but eventually went rotten.
 
So, next time you pick up a Regency novel, read between the lines!
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August 2020

7/21/2020

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And now for something completely different
 

Last month I wrote about Betty Neels, the prolific writer of medical romances published by Mills & Boon in the closing three decades of the 20th Century. They are so popular that they have been republished as e-books. I caught up with a few available online through my county library service and began to consider what gives these stories their enduring popularity. Do women secretly want to be rescued by a man who has everything and adores her? The stories are predictable (we know he’ll win her in the end and all those misunderstandings will be cleared up and he’ll turn out not to be engaged to that stunning other woman, etc) but still we read them. I’ve spoken to others about reading choices during the C-19 crisis and found some common ground—an easy comfort read for a little diversion from all the stress!
 
So I decided to have a go. Amongst her many stories, in 1980 she published one called Judith. Mine is called Joanne and is set in 1980 in a seaside resort in Devon. Joanne is the eldest daughter of a widowed clergyman and has run his household for years and brought up the rest of the children. Then a handsome Swiss architect arrives in town, bent on acquiring a run-down hotel for his family’s five-star chain. I hope you enjoy my take on the traditional contemporary sweet romance.
 
Available now on Amazon Kindle, KDP Select and in print from Amazon.
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July 2020

7/5/2020

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I’m just an old-fashioned girl
 
British readers of my generation may have come across the prolific Betty Neels, who retired from nursing in 1969 and then began to write warm-hearted, traditional romances in a medical setting for Mills & Boon. She died aged 91 in 2001, having written over 130 of them.
 
Her stories are traditional and quite chaste—nothing beyond the bedroom door, nothing below the waist and very little below the neck. She confined her protagonists to the occasional kiss. Her heroes often smoked a pipe and her heroines were frequently described as ‘splendid’ girls. Some were beautiful, some were plain, but they were generally dedicated, kind and quite self-effacing.
 
Her first book was called Sister Peters in Amsterdam and subsequent stories followed a similar pattern. The hero was usually a Dutch hospital consultant (Neels’ husband was Dutch), the heroine an English nursing colleague or a Cinderella poor girl figure. He usually drove a Bentley or a Rolls, while she was a nurse or did unskilled work and had family commitments. There were generally a large dog or two around and a cat or kitten also usually featured (often rescued by her).
 
Her stories were mostly set in the age before computers or mobile phones were generally available. The heroines were quite feisty at times, but nevertheless susceptible to the gallant, masterful, honourable, hard-working, RICH knight-in-shining-armour who came to take them away from all this. The heroine couldn’t believe he would fall in love with her, given the sophisticated, beautiful creatures in his social circle. The hero generally had several properties each staffed by loyal longstanding servants who’d known him since childhood and he usually fell in love with the heroine at first sight, before setting out to woo and win her. Nostalgic stuff!
 
So I thought what if…the result is I am currently writing what I call a traditional contemporary romance, incorporating my own version of some of the features that made Neels’ writing so popular, except mine is in a business rather than a medical context. More on this soon. Hoping to publish in August.
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June 2020

6/1/2020

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​New Regency romance
 
Pleased to announce my latest Regency romance is now available. His Philanthropic Lady is third in the Regency Lady series, all available on Amazon Kindle, KDP Select and in print. In recognition of the importance of e-books at this time, the Kindle editions are ALL priced now at 99p/99c.
 
Meet Susannah Thistlewood, who first appeared aged 7 in A Master of Industry, being educated by a somewhat radical governess. Now aged 19, you won’t be surprised to find her full of idealistic fervour to make the world a better place.
 
Independent-minded and very outspoken, she has no interest in following her older sister Roberta, nor her friend Primrose, into marriage. What a challenge to transform her into the heroine of a romance! I needed a little help and that came in the form of a little bay mare called Florence who liked eating daffodils. Because of her, Sir Edward Derringham is literally thrown in her path, as well as into something less savoury, and the scene is set. Then, of course, there are Mr Penn’s Parties, the Regency equivalent of a high society dating agency, so they simply can’t avoid each other.
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May 2020

5/11/2020

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Contraception in the early 1800's
 
If it were understood that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such precautionary means as would prevent conception, a sufficient check might be given to the increase of population beyond the means of subsistence.
 
This was written 200 years go in ‘Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population’ published in 1822 by Francis Place, ‘the tailor of Charing Cross’ who was also a champion of workers’ rights.
 
Whatever our ethical/religious beliefs about birth control, these days it is a given, as is publicity on menstrual products in the media. Two hundred years ago such subject matter would have been deemed obscene, as would descriptions of how to prevent conception. In the UK, the established Church of England (and other denominations) disapproved of birth control as anti-biblical and those who disseminated such information were liable to be prosecuted.
 
This may sound a little serious as an inspiration for my latest Regency story, but I hope you will find it entertaining. The heroine, a baronet’s daughter, works amongst the poor in London and has a secret mission to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies to restrict the number of children they have. Naturally she gets into trouble when it’s found out, at the behest of a jealous lady.
 
‘His Philanthropic Lady’ is the 3rd book in the Regency Lady series (following His Haughty Lady and His Capricious Lady) and is due out on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and print next month, a light, romantic diversion in the current stressful situation.

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April 2020

3/28/2020

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Weaving a tale
I know quite a few people who are using this period of enforced isolation to be creative in whatever way they can, writing or sharing poetry, composing music, cooking… In my case I unearthed a miniature weaving frame (my daughter’s as a child) and have begun a colourful piece which will end up as a small mat (hopefully). I’m not as clever as might first appear, since the wool itself is a variegated dye!
The task got me thinking of metaphor and exploring the parallels between weaving and writing novels.
At the simplest level, you’re creating something new and unique, although there will inevitably be similarities with something that’s been done before.
Before I could begin, I had to learn the language of weaving, the frame, the heddle, the shuttle, the warp and the waft and the function of each part. Then I had to set up the warp threads correctly. At last I began to slide the shuttle back and forth, alternately raising and then pressing down the heddle, ensuring I didn’t pull the yarn too tight or leave it too loose, a repetitive task which felt quite boring until the piece began to grow and the patterns emerged.
Not to labour the point, writing a novel has similar creative elements in the terminology and ‘rules’ of writing, in planning plot and characters, the hard grind of keeping on writing, and satisfaction as it takes shape. We also know how important it is to edit, edit and edit again. In the case of weaving that is rather a drastic task as it means undoing the whole thing and starting again, like the Winchester Cathedral Broiderers in Tracy Chevalier’s ‘A Single Thread’, or Penelope as she waited for Odysseus/Ulysses’ return. That legend inspired one of my novels, in which the heroine’s shawl features in various ways, including at one point being unravelled and reworked. It’s called ‘In for a Penny’ (yes, the heroine is of course Penelope), a somewhat racy and down-to-earth Victorian comedy about the development of the flushing toilet (in those early days when you went in for a 1d)!
Keep safe, keep smiling.


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