Anne Gracie – The Word Wenches

Heyer Quiz #2

November 17, 2023November 13, 2023 by Anne Gracie

Anne here: Welcome to the new WordWench blog site. We hope you like the new design. Make sure you bookmark it, as the URL has changed. And since the system is new to us all, please be patient while we sort out the kinks.

To start us off with a bang (or a scratching of the head), I’m presenting another quiz — the second Georgette Heyer quiz, where we test your knowledge of her novels. It’s just for fun, and your score doesn’t matter in the least.

Make a note of your answers, check them on the link at the bottom, then come back and tell us how you went, and whether you enjoyed it, found it too hard, too easy or just right.

1) Who said: “I feel an almost overwhelming interest in the methods of daylight abduction employed by the modern youth.” ?
a) The Marquis of Alverstoke
b) The Duke of Avon
c) Miles Calverleigh
d) The Duke of Salford

2). Who is our hero talking about here?
“She blurts out whatever may come into her head; she tumbles from one outrageous escapade into another; she’s happier grooming horses and hobnobbing with stable-hands than going to parties; she’s impertinent; you daren’t catch her eye for fear she should start to giggle; she hasn’t any accomplishments; I never saw anyone with less dignity; she’s abominable, and damnably hot at hand, frank to a fault, and – a darling!”
a) Phoebe Laxton
b) Phoebe Marlowe
c) Tiffany Wield
d) Hero Wantage

3) Who is X in this exchange?
“What do you mean to do when you reach Lacy Manor?” asked X, regarding him in some amusement.
“Wring her neck!” said Z savagely.
“Well, you don’t need my help for that, my dear boy!” said X, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.
a) Lord Sheringham
b) Dominic, the Marquis of Vidal
c) Charles Rivenhall
d) Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy

In My Garden

November 1, 2023October 17, 2023 by Anne Gracie

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew …

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing–
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

That’s from a poem called May Night by Sara Teasdale, but though it’s October, here in Australia, where it's spring, the sentiments are just as apt.

Anne here, in a contemplative mood. It’s a gorgeous time of year — spring and autumn are my two favorite seasons. Here, after several days of rain, the sun has come out and a gentle breeze is wafting the most gorgeous fragrances through my open window.

One of my favorites is lily of the valley with its gorgeous scent. My former neighbor had a huge spreading patch in her otherwise regimented garden, and each spring she'd bring me a bunch that would fill my home with fragrance.

Another favorite is lilac, and I loved the way that every spring the bare branches would bud first with soft green leaves and then vibrant, deliciously scented spikes of flowers. The photo above is of the lilac on my old garden. now sadly gone, but not forgotten.

Tulips

November 1, 2023October 3, 2023 by Anne Gracie

Anne here, and today I’m talking about tulips.

It being spring in my corner of the word, last week I went with friends to a tulip festival up in the Dandenong Mountains, on the outskirts of Melbourne. They’re not very high mountains, but they're beautiful, with many wonderful gardens, as well as lots of gorgeous natural bushland, with tall gum trees and graceful tree ferns. They are also, it seems, the perfect place for growing tulips and other bulbs.

Many of the tulip growers are of Dutch origin. In fact a good friend of mine came out to Australia when he was a small child, along with his tulip growing parents and many older siblings. And what did they do? They started a tulip farm in the Dandenongs. As did many other Dutch migrants. So what is it with the Dutch and tulips?

Tulips originally grew wild in Central Asia, and were first cultivated in Iran (Persia) as early as the 10th century. They became incredibly popular in Turkey in the 16th century, at the time of the Ottoman Empire, when the Sultan demanded cultivation of particular blooms for his pleasure. The name 'tulip' came from the Turkish word for turban. Tulips were treasured, and became a symbol of Ottoman power. You can see tulip images in paintings, ceramics and tiles of the time.

The Accidental Wedding is &1.99

November 1, 2023September 24, 2023 by Anne Gracie

Anne, here, popping in to tell you that the e-book of THE ACCIDENTAL WEDDING is currently $1.99 until September 29, 2023. All About Romance gave it a Desert Island Keeper rating. Season For Romance — Rating: 10 Top PickNight Owl Reviews — Top Pick To read some of the reviews it received, click here: To buy it, here’s a universal link that will take you to your preferred e-book retailer:

What’s wrong with happy endings?

November 1, 2023September 19, 2023 by Anne Gracie

Anne here, having a bit of a rant. There's a strange thing about happy endings — a lot of people think they're rubbish. Not serious. Not real. Unrealistic. Not worth reading. Or watching.

Me, I love happy endings in books and movies. And I get grumpy when I think books or movies are needlessly miserable at the end. Most of my comments below should be preceded by Spoiler Alerts. I'll highlight the book or film titles in bold so you can be warned.

The belief seems to be that tragic or unhappy endings are “real” and therefore “worthy” while happy endings are an easy cop-out. As I writer I can say that it’s a LOT easier to write a story where you make people care about a character, and then kill them off for dramatic effect, leaving the reader gutted. It’s much harder (in my view) to craft a believable happy ending. Nevertheless, the attitude that tragic is better, nobler, cleverer persists.

I remember when I was a kid reading Henry Treece's The Children's Crusade. Boy, was that ever a sad ending. It was a story about the religious crusade made by children in 1212, where hundreds of children left their homes to join a crusade, believing they were sent by Jesus, and that their innocence and righteousness would convert the Muslims. It ended very badly. Many of the children starved and died along the way, some (the lucky ones) returned home, and others were sold into slavery, believing the ships they sailed in were taking them to the Holy Land, instead of which they went straight to the slave markets.

I could cope with that kind of a tragic ending — it was history, after all — and there were important lessons to be learned, though for years I fretted about those children.

But there's a lot of fiction where people die and bad things happen for effect, and a book or a film ends badly simply because the writer thinks it will make for a better, more dramatic ending. Or they think it's "more realistic" — as if happy endings are unrealistic. I say, who needs gloomy so-called "realism"? There's plenty of that in the world we live in, but there's also a lot of happy stuff, and I want us to celebrate that, not push it under the carpet and call it mindless fluff. As people so often do.