Royal Baby--Great Expectations

At this moment I'm doing what the rest of the civilized world is doing--holding my breath and waiting for the arrival of the royal baby. At this point the Duchess of Cambridge has been in labor for about ten hours. Of course we don't know whether she went into hospital at the start of real labor with contractions every few minutes, or if she went in at the first twinge. In which case it could be days.

I'm a little perplexed that all the media still calls her Kate Middleton. I think that is disrespectful and just wrong. Her married name is Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. You wouldn't call other women by their single name after they married, would you?

And everybody has been speculating on the name, sex, weight etc etc. I ran a poll on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor) and I'm going to give an ARC of my upcoming Royal Spyness book, HEIRS AND GRACES to anyone who gets the name completely right. My own prediction is Victoria Mary Diana Elizabeth, OR George Arthur Phillip.

I am inclined to think it will be a girl. And I don't go along with Alexandra, which is the name that most Brits are betting on. Nor do I think it will be Madison, Reagan, Riley or Kylie. or Carol, Kate's mum's name.

So any predictions on when it will arrive? How much it will weigh?

Heirs and Graces, sneak preview Number 3.

It's getting closer, folks. Now only three weeks away. The bookstore appearances are pretty much in place. I'll post them on my website in the next few days. But they will be all over the Bay Area and then in Southern California and Scottsdale, AZ. (Let's hope there is no haboob on that day.... I love using that word!)

So here is a third sneak preview:

            A long silence followed only punctuated by the sound of a grandfather clock, ticking away solemnly somewhere outside in a hallway.

            “Are you with us, Lady Hortense? Will you be our guide?”

            The candle flickered and I felt a cold draft pass over me. I glanced over my shoulder. The door and the curtains were still closed. I thought I detected the faintest of voices whispering “Yessss.”

            “She’s here,” Charlotte said excitedly. “I knew she’d come. Lady Hortense, we’d first like you to find John Altringham for us. You remember your great great grandson who died so bravely in the war? His son is here with us now. Do you see him? He’d like to hear his father’s voice.”

            Again we waited what seemed like an eternity. Then Irene said, “Listen. Someone is laughing.”

            We strained to hear and it sounded indeed like distant laughter, very far away.

            “It’s Ceddy, having a good laugh at our expense,” Julian whispered.

            “That’s not Ceddy’s laugh,” Adrian said.

            “That’s Johnnie,” Charlotte said. “Don’t you remember how he loved to laugh, Irene?”

            “Yes,” Irene whispered. “Johnnie loved to laugh.”

            “Is that you, John?” Charlotte said. “Can you show yourself to us? Can you say something to your son?”

            Again we waited but the laugh faded into silence. “It’s no use. He’s choosing not to speak to us,” Charlotte said. “I can feel he’s here. Maybe what he has to say to Jack is private and he doesn’t wish us to overhear.”

“We could try the Ouija board,” Virginia suggested. “Perhaps he is a voiceless spirit. They are sometimes.”

“We could,” Charlotte picked up the planchette. “Jack put your hand on this with me. And Irene. You are both Johnnie’s relatives. He’ll feel comfortable communicating with you.”

Jack gave me a questioning glance before placing his finger on the little disk..Slowly it started to move across the table. B…. U… G…. G… E… R.” We repeated the letters as the planchette went to them. “O…. F… F..”

“He said ‘bugger off’” Jack said delightedly.

“That definitely sounds like Johnnie,” Irene said. “Always was rude.”

“Anything else you’d like to say, John?” Charlotte asked. But the planchette did not move again.“:Apparently not.”:She looked around the room. “Let us move along then. The problem of Marcel. Spirits from the other side we need your help. Tell us what will happen. Tell us what we should do to stop a stranger from taking over Kingsdowne.”

            She looked at us as she pushed the Ouija board into the middle of the table. “Place one finger each on the planchette,” she said. We did as she commanded.

            “We await you, oh spirits,” she said. Slowly the planchette began to move.

            “D,” we said in unison.

            It shot across the board. “E,” we chimed.

            “A.”

            Suddenly there was a great gust of wind. The curtains billowed out. The candle was blown out and we were plunged into darkness. Irene and Virginia rose to their feet with a cry of fright. I think the Starlings screamed as well. My own heart was hammering in my chest.

“Death,” Charlotte whispered. “It was going to spell out death.”

Second sneak preview of Heirs and Graces

One month to the publication date of Heirs and Graces. So today is sneak preview 2.

And if you come on over to my Facebook page, www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor I'm conducting a poll on who is your favorite Royal Spyness character. You can vote for team Georgie, Team Darcy, Granddad, Belinda, Queenie, Mummy or even Team Fig (Yes, some people have already voted for her).

so enjoy this snippet and you can pre-order on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Then the drive turned a corner and I think I actually gasped. There was the house—an enormous and elegant building of mellowed gray stone, four stories high and beautifully proportioned, surrounded by manicured lawns and formal gardens. In front of the pillared main entrance was an ornamental lake complete with swans. The house was set on a rising slope of  hillside which at this time of year was covered in a carpet of daffodils.  As we came out of the trees the sun appeared from behind the clouds and suddenly the house was perfectly reflected in the lake. My spirit soared. I was going to be staying at this attractive place for the immediate future, with duties no more onerous than teaching a young Australian which fork to use at dinner. For once I could look forward to an enjoyable time ahead.

Sneak Preview of Heirs and Graces.

Heirs and Graces, The Seventh Royal Spyness mystery.
Sneak preview one.

            “Good afternoon, my lady,” the welcoming footman said, bowing. “Her Majesty is expecting you in the Chinese Chippendale room. Allow me to escort you there.”

            Oh crickey. The Chinese Chippendale room. Why couldn’t she have chosen somewhere else? Any other room in the palace would have done. But the Chinese Chippendale room was her favorite, small, intimate and decorated with far too many Chinese vases, priceless porcelain statues and her jade collection. There’s probably something you should know about me: in moments of stress I tend to get a little clumsy. I remember tripping over the footman’s outstretched foot when he bowed to usher me inside once, thus propelling me rather rapidly into the room and nearly butting HM in the stomach. I would be all too capable of turning around and knocking a priceless Ming vase flying.

            Still I put on a brave face as I was escorted up the grand staircase to the piano nobile, where the royal family actually lived and entertained. Along those never-ending richly-carpeted hallways with marble statues frowning down at me from their niches. Then a light tap on a door, the footman stepping inside and saying, “Lady Georgiana, Your Majesty.”

            I stepped past him, carefully avoiding his foot, pushing the door into an unseen table or tripping over a rug.  I stopped in surprise and thought I was seeing double. Two middle aged ladies with identical waved gray hair, upright carriage and lilac tea dresses were sitting on the brocade sofa beside the fireplace. My first thought was that I should have worn a tea dress and the cashmere cardigan was inappropriate, but then one of the ladies held out her hand to me.

            “Georgiana, my dear. How lovely to see you. Come and meet my dear friend.”

Baby naming contest

I'll be giving away advance reading copies of Heirs and Graces to those who get the baby names correct. Come on over to my Facebook page and share your prediction.

www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor

Royal Births

We have two royal births to anticipate in the next few weeks:
William and Kate's baby and Rhys's new Royal Spyness novel, Heirs and Graces. Okay, I admit the former is more important to most of the world and there is great excitement and speculation in Britain.
As with all things the British are betting furiously on it. Name, sex, weight, date of birth.... money is being placed on all of the above.
And so far public wisdom is saying  a girl, seven pounds and called Alexandra.

Okay, well I conducted a poll on my Facebook page and our choice seemed also to favor a girl but the consensus was Mary Diana Victoria Elizabeth and for a boy George Phillip with maybe a David thrown in to seal the Wales connection.

So we'll see if we are smarter than the average Brit.  What do you think?

There were also wicked speculations that since the surname is Wales at the moment it could be Killer Wales or Blue Wales (after North West anything is possible). Gray Wales doesn't sound bad, does it?

And the other royal birth?

Well, Heirs and Graces will be in a store near you or one click away on your Kindle or Nook on August 6th. I'll be posting snippets in the next weeks on this blog. This what bestselling writer Deborah Crombie says about it: "The perfect fix between seasons for Downton Abbey Addicts."

I'll be updating my website, and sending out a newsletter asap.
If you think that I haven't been blogging as much as I should, I have been busy catching up after my trip, blogging on www.jungleredwriters.com with my fellow Jungle Reds, and I update daily on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor
Come on over and LIKE my page to get my daily updates. See you there.  Rhys

Home at last

Sorry I' ve been out of action on this blog. I've been on a cruise and in place where there was no internet (like Egypt). If you want to check on what I've been doing for the past month, please go to my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rhysbowenauthor) where I've posted reports and pictures.

It was an interesting trip for me as I returned to Greece for the first time in 50 years. As a teenager I spent three months going around Greece with a friend, taking local buses, staying in peoples houses. Often we were the only foreigners and were treated as objects of curiosity. In those days Greek women were certainly not allowed out alone and we would be the only females eating in a cafe full of men.

So I was apprehensive about visiting a Greece that now regards tourism as its major money producer. As we approached Mykonos, where Ruth and I spent two glorious weeks long ago, I was delighted to see no high rise hotels, no modern buildings. More souvenire shops, to be sure, but the charm remained. The same for the other islands we visited, except many more houses on Aegina and the deserted little bay where we rented a cottage is now full of up market summer homes.

I was especially worried about Athens as we'd all seen pictures of demonstrations, strikes, upheaval. But it was just as I remembered it (with better roads thanks to the Olympics) with the Parthenon sparkling on the skyline. People were just as friendly and nice as I remembered and nobody seemed too stressed about the poor economy. There were a couple of demonstrations while we were there, but we stayed away. And you can understand why they demonstrate. Salaries are simply not enough to live on.

Above all it's still incredibly beautiful, white buildings, blue sea, towering mountains and good food. What more could one ask?