Downton Withdrawal. Why do we like it, anyway?

So many friends, on Facebook and in the real world, have told me they are suffering from Downton withdrawal and don't know how they are going to get through a whole year until season 3 starts.
In this world of fast paced action thrillers it's interesting to me why this series has grabbed so many people, especially in America--a country that threw out royals long ago and prides itself on it's "I'm as good as you are" mantra.

I suppose it has something to do with being fascinated with something we've never had. The big house, the rituals of dressing for dinner, going hunting, garden parties and oodles of servants. It all sounds so impossibly glamorous, if one were of the right class. Getting up at five to carry up the coal and light the fires wasn't such fun, as my heroine, Lady Georgie finds out in the book Her Royal Spyness. For those of you who haven't read it yet, she decides to escape to the family's London home, without servants, for the first time in her life. It is a steep learning curve as she wonders how the milk arrives on the doorstep, how to light a fire (and how to get into the dreaded coal hole) and how to make even the most simple things like tea and toast.

We love the luxury and the glamor of Downton but obviously it is the inter-personal relationships that have gripped us this season. Star crossed lovers, (Mary and Matthew, Anna and Mr. Bates) evil schemers, and the heightened atmosphere of war and then the great flu epidemic. I have long been fascinated with World War 1, fascinated and horrified, that is. It robbed England of a whole generation of young men. Those who survived were often badly damaged physically and mentally. The war was the most inept fight in the history of mankind. Generals who had commanded cavalry charges directed soldiers as if there were no modern weapons. 50,000 men were lost in ONE DAY as they were ordered over the top and were cut down in wave after wave.

The other thing that was so horrifying about that war was that it was so close. The major battles were fought just across the Channel. Young men could be home on leave, eating strawberries and cream, one day and back in hell the next. It's no wonder there were so many mental breakdowns.
I wonder how they will keep up the intensity next season when there is no more war? Obviously Irish independence will come into the story, and then the general strike of 1926  Will they get as far as the crash of 29? The Great Depression?

This is the time I write about and again find so fascinating because society hangs in the balance. In England they have already experienced the 'war to end all wars' and yet nothing has changed. In the 1930 census the largest employment category was "domestic servant." It would take WWII to finally make Downton Abbey impossible to continue as power and coal shortages make big houses impossible to heat and returning servicepeople refuse to go back into domestic service. The only stately homes that have survived have done so by turning themselves into tourist attractions, adding amusement parks, zoos to their grounds and opening the place to the public. Never more will that class be shielded from the real world around them!

And if you are having those withdrawal symptoms, do check out my Royal Spyness books. There are plenty of great houses, beautiful people, intrigues as well as an old Cockney policeman and the worst lady's maid in the history of servants.

Downton Abbey revisited.

Big article today in the New York Times about America's obsession with Downton Abbey and the excitement building up to the new series.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/business/media/mad-for-downton-publishers-have-a-reading-list.html?_r=1&hp   This is all great news for me and for other writers who set their novels in that milieu and that period. My heroine, Lady Georgiana, is related to the royal family, 34th in line to the throne and through the course of my stories she hangs out with royal kin at Buckingham Palace  She sees her cousin, the Prince of Wales, become hopelessly enamored of a dubious American woman called Mrs. Simpson. And because her mother was of lowly birth, she is also a keen observer of the gulf between the haves and have nots.

I suppose I can understand this current fascination with upper class Britain and the time between the wars--in many ways our current situation mirrors it. We have a clear gulf between rich and poor, we have a deep recession with many people losing their homes and a general feeing of uncertainty.. And the life of British aristocrats is so deliciously decadent and so far removed from most of us that we love to take a peek at it.

I have to say that I love to write about it. During my life I've had a chance to take my own peek into that lifestyle. My husband's family used to own stately homes (Sutton Place included, but that was before my time) but I have met older relatives who talk fondly about pranks they played on the butler and dinner parties for a hundred guests. And I have met people who firmly believe that that era has not passed and still think of the world as "them and us"--with other classes only being created by God for their use to the aristocracy.

So it's all great fun and of course my books have the added attraction of a murder or two thrown into the mix. If you haven't read them yet, do give them a try. The latest is Naughty in Nice in which Georgie tangles with a murderer, a jewel thief and Coco Chanel on the Riviera!

Historical Goofs

A Facebook friend sent me a very interesting link today to an article about Downton Abbey--remember the TV series about the stately home in the 1930s?

The second series is now airing in the UK and all sorts of complaints are coming in about the anachronistic language that jerks viewers out of the period. Apparently characters say thinks like "get knotted" which really come from the Sixties. 

Here's the link: http://www.aoltv.com/2011/10/21/downton-abbey-criticized-for-historically-incorrect-language/?ncid=webmail2

Correct language for the period is always a high priority for me when I'm writing both my series of historical mysteries. I want the reader to feel he or she is in New York in 1903, or having fun with Lady Georgie in 1930s England. If a word sounds too modern, I have broken the spell. The funny thing is that some slang I know was in use in 1900 I simply can't use because readers would find it too modern. Phrases like "far out" for example were in use then.

So how do I make sure that I keep my readers in the period, when obviously I wasn't alive at either time? Well, for Molly I try to remember how my great-aunts spoke. They were born in the late 1800s and several things were different about their language:
They were horribly formal. Only close family was addressed by our first names. Other friends were Mrs. this and Miss that.
They had huge vocabularies as a result of all that reading as young women. They'd never use filler words like "you know".
They didn't use any kind of swear word, or any word that might seem delicate--a body part, the bathroom etc.
A lady really remained quiet in the presence of gentlemen.
So I channel them when I'm in Edwardian times--although I can't keep Molly quiet too often!

For Georgie--well, I knew older people who were young in the Thirties. I remember their slang. I had friends who called each other "Old Bean" or "Old Fruit." I also adore P.G Wodehouse and channel Bertie Wooster for my young male characters. I watch Thirties movies. And for the grandfather in the series, who is an old Cockney, I only have to remember the way my father spoke. Actually the grandfather is a re-creation of my father.  Because my family background spanned the classes--father self-educated to become a research engineer, mother from a professional and artistic family--her father was an orchestra conductor. Then I married into a family in which Georgie would have been right at home with the cousins with silly nicknames and butlers and stately homes. So I get Georgie right because I have been an observer in all these worlds.  I'm only surprised that Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey and also part of that upper crust, has slipped up in his efforts to get it right.

So watch the new series then tell me what you think.

Signs of Fall

Home for a breather from the heat of Texas and AZ. And I've decided I must have been a swallow in my past life. Because I was driving down the street today and I noticed that the leaves were turning yellow. And my first thought was, "It's fall. I need to get out of here."

You wouldn't have thought that someone raised in the bleak damp cold of Britain would need to live in perpetual summer, would you? But fall always stirs flashes of alarm in the depths of my pysche. I suppose it's something to do with the image of approaching old age that I equate with winter. Or maybe it's just that I hate being cold.

At my signing in Houston the other night one of the audience asked, "Do you have a thing about rain?" and she said that my characters always complain of being cold or wet or both. So I guess I must channel my own feelings into Molly and Georgie.  I grew up in a big drafty house where the wind whistled down the corridors so I do relate to Georgie and Castle Rannoch. And I love sunshine and warmth. Perhaps there was a tad too much of both for the past few days, but I'd rather be hot than cold.

The audience suggested that someone would be doing their PhD thesis some day on the leitmotif of rain in Rhys Bowen's novels. So I wondered how you felt about weather. Does it affect you much? Do you love seasons? Do you even like rain? And what about weather in books? Is it important to you?

I'm off to get ready for my big launch party at Book Passage tonight. I'm bringing French goodies (not naughty ones but different cheeses and a truffle pate as well as madeleines and meringes and of course lots of champagne) I'll get John to take pictures.

Non-royal blood?

Things happen to me, especially at conventions. Especially in LA. Last year I was at Left Coast Crime and the Starbucks person didn't put the lid on my coffee properly resulting in a brown tsunami over my leather jacket and white turtleneck.

Today I'm at RT convention.... in LA again. Before my morning presentation Hollywood icon Bill Link lost control of his motorized scooter. It careened at me, trapping me between him and the table. Result was a cut arm that bled over my white linen pants. We tried getting out the blood with milk, which worked quite well, but I then had a round dubious-looking stain as I stepped up to the podium in front of 250 people.

I'm beginning to think I am doomed. No wonder I identify so strongly with my character, Lady Georgie. Accidents always happen to her when she wants to make a good impression. Wait a minute--perhaps the accidents that happen to her have already happened to me

At least I have a good supply of disasters for future Georgie books.
Keep your fingers crossed for this afternoon when I get an award for best historical mystery for Royal Blood that I don't trip, fall, stab myself or spill coffee.....

What's Next for Georgie?

I'm nearly done with the next Molly book, so naturally my attention is turning to Georgie and what is up for her.
She has been abroad for the past two books, so I think it's time to bring her back to England, don't you? And with the King's Speech doing so frightfully well (as she would say) I'm wondering whether I can do something with Georgie that ties in to that branch of the royals.
Any suggestions on what you'd like to see happening to Georgie next?

And speaking of royal weddings--I am seriously bummed. The royal wedding will happen when I am on the East coast for a convention. I won't even get to watch the whole thing. Not fair. John will record it back at home and I'll watch it later but it's not the same.