Category Archives: Joanna’s books

Light and Dark, Sunrise and Sunset : Do they matter?

Joanna welcomes longer dayslight and dark, a brick wall under torchlight

Ages ago, I wrote a blog about creating atmosphere with light and shade. You can read it here, if you’re interested. But today’s blog is about more factual aspects of writing: the light and dark that go with the time of day.

I reckon light and dark matter in writing. Yes, they add atmosphere. Think of the magic of twilight over a silent, snowy landscape, for example. But light and dark can also make our writing feel more real to our readers.

What started me thinking about light and dark?
Two things.

First that at the end of January as I’m writing this, the days are getting noticeably longer which is very welcome. I hate it when it’s dark at four in the afternoon. Don’t you?

Second, because of vampires 😉 Continue reading →

Sexy, seductive silk—and sexy, seductive IN silk

Silk is a fabric that delights the eye and, particularly, the sense of touch. Run your fingers over a piece of silk—smooth, luscious, sensuous. And slightly baffling, too, in the way it can be so very tough while seeming so fine and fragile. Colorful threads of Thai silk

Silk seduced me the first time I saw it. I loved the jewel-like colours that the magical fibres can take. The ones shown above will make Thai silk. Aren’t those colours sumptuous? (Which makes me think, in passing, of Sumptuary Laws and the prohibition on the wearing of materials like silk by “inferior persons”. Possibly a topic for a future blog?)

Sewing silk: joys and pitfalls

Paisley pattern silkWhen I was in my teens and early twenties, I made a lot of my own clothes. A friend who was an air stewardess offered to sell me a dress length she’d brought back from Thailand. I couldn’t resist. The silk was mostly ruby and garnet coloured, with a paisley-type pattern, with hints of sapphire and amethyst. Gorgeous. (The pattern was something like the one shown here, only much, much nicer and without the orange.) Continue reading →

Inspirational oddities : objects, costume, places

The oddest things can be inspirational. For me, at least.

chinese screen © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Chinese screen 1825-1865 © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Quite often, it’s objects or artefacts that inspire me. Take this gorgeous Chinese lacquer and embroidered silk screen, for example. It may date from as early as the 1820s and is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection. I found it when I was looking for ways of illustrating a blog about the Regency pelisse, which ladies wore outdoors to keep warm.

Inside, they wore shawls. Houses, back then, tended to be draughty, hence the need for draught screens, like this one. Continue reading →

HIS SILKEN SEDUCTION : In Paperback at Last

His Silken Seduction Paperback Cover

Available from all good bookshops: ISBN 978-0-9957046-2-6  Price: £5.49/$6.99

Also available from your Local Amazon
myBook.to/HSSpbk

Cover Reveal: Star Crossed at Twilight — Paperback out 1st June

cover reveal Star Crossed at Twilight by Joanna Maitland paperback out 1st June 2017

ISBN 978-0-9957046-3-3

An International Cover Story

A Cover Story begins  . . .

cover story -- UK cover of A Regency Invitation 2004

original UK cover 2004

Once upon a time, three writers of Mills & Boon Historicals got together to write a book. The three were Nicola Cornick, Joanna Maitland (me!), and Elizabeth Rolls. This is the cover story of that book of three interlinked novellas —
A Regency Invitation.

This blog is not about how the book was written, though we had great fun doing it, creating three love affairs and two mysteries at our Regency house party. No, this post is about the book’s cover — where it started, how it changed over time, and how different international markets adapted the cover look of A Regency Invitation to suit their readers.

Want to know how the Japanese market presents a romance set in Regency England? You can see it further down. And it may surprise you. Continue reading →

Why go Indie? Joanna Maitland’s answers

This post on Going Indie was originally a guest piece on Sue Moorcroft’s blog. Many thanks to her for letting us repost it here, complete with new thoughts, several months on…

Back in November 2015, I wrote:

Why go indie? At the risk of stating the obvious, I’d say the answer is freedom.

Bigstock 98595416-e1473694998164.jpg

Here’s an example of independent author freedom in action. As originally published, in the Harlequin Undone! series of short ebooks, His Silken Seduction was well under 50 pages. That was the length the line required, so that was the length I wrote. Simples!

Continue reading →