So, with that in mind, this blog page is now called Notes from Victoria. And Notes sounds much more friendly than Blog which to me has always seemed like something from an old horror movie. You know—like The Blog that ate Cleveland or The Blog from the Black Lagoon or Night of the Living Blogs. So we’ll go with Notes.

There’s nothing creepy about Attack of the Killer Notes.

There are 11 novels (15 including the Last Man Standing series) and one novella that directly or indirectly involve the Effington family. One book doesn’t always lead to the next. They can be read in any order or they can be read in order of publication or they can be read in smaller groupings.

The Dowager Duchess of Roxborough, matriarch of the Effington family, has four sons:

The youngest, Harry Effington is married to Grace. Their only child Pandora met and married Lord Trent in THE WEDDING BARGAIN (Book 1).

Phillip Effington (the duke in the original generation) is married to Katherine. Their children are Gillian, who met & married Richard Shelton in THE HUSBAND LIST (Book 2), and Thomas Effington who met & married Marianne Shelton in THE MARRIAGE LESSON (Book 3).

Richard’s sister Jocelyn met & married Rand Beaumont, a member of the ruling family of Avalonia, in THE PRINCE’S BRIDE (Book 4), although the missing royal jewels were never found which led directly to Book 5. Rand’s cousin Tatiana got back with her estranged husband, Matthew Weston (who has three brothers with a lot of potential) in HER HIGHNESS, MY WIFE (Book 5) and the missing jewels were recovered. Tatiana’s brother, Crown Prince Alexei, lost Avalonia to Russian occupation right before WHEN WE MEET AGAIN (Book 10) where he is reunited with Pamela Effington, the niece of the current duke. There is still one royal sibling—Nickolai—wandering free.

Thomas Effington’s good friends (who made their first appearance in THE MARRIAGE LESSON) are Lords Pennington (an only child), who met and married Gwendolyn Townsend in LOVE WITH THE PROPER HUSBAND (Book 6), and Lord Berkley (who has one sister) who met & married Cassandra Effington in THE PURSUIT OF MARRIAGE (Book 8).

Both LOVE WITH THE PROPER HUSBAND and THE PURSUIT OF MARRIAGE include The Ladies Society for the Betterment of the Future of Britain, a group of mothers dedicated to seeing their children married.

The novella, THE TROUBLE WITH CHARLOTTE, (THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY anthology) is the story of a lost love of Lord Pennington’s (LOVE WITH THE PROPER HUSBAND).

The third son of the Dowager Duchess is William Effington who is married to Georgina. Their daughter Delia Effington (Cassandra’s twin sister) met and married Anthony St. Stephens an only child and an orphan, in THE LADY IN QUESTION (Book 7).

A VISIT FROM SIR NICHOLAS ( Book 8 ) is the story of Thomas and Marianne’s (from THE MARRIAGE LESSON) daughter, Elizabeth, and Nicholas Collingsworth. LET IT BE LOVE (Book 11) is the story of Thomas and Marianne’s son Jonathon and leads to a series of four books about his friends—the Last Man Standing series.

Like the rest of the Effington books, the Last Man Standing series can be read in any order but would probably be more fun if read in order. They are: A LITTLE BIT WICKED, WHAT A LADY WANTS, SECRETS OF A PROPER LADY and THE SEDUCTION OF A PROPER GENTLEMAN.

By the way, each of the Last Man Standing books contains a continuing story called Ladies for Tea. I suspect Ladies for Tea will pop up again in some form or another one day.

The last time I made a New Year’s resolution, I resolved not to pretend to remember someone’s name when I didn’t. I decided to just be honest and say, “hey, the face is familiar but for the life of me, I can’t remember your name.” I’m great about remembering faces but I’m dreadful at names. I am so bad at this, that I once forgot the name of one of my favorite relatives of my husband’s who came to one of my book signings. I have known this woman for more than thirty years and I love her but when I went to sign her book—poof—her name was gone. I still shudder to think about it.

This resolution seemed like a good idea. A good, honest, idea. But when it came right down to it—I couldn’t do it. Why? Because I think it’s rude not to remember someone’s name and admitting it to their face just kind of compounds the rudeness. Now, I have been known to be stupid and say things without thinking but I try never to be deliberately rude. At least, if I pretend to remember a name, I can fake it most of the time.

So if we run into one another and I look more emotionally blond than usual, with a vague sort of deer in the headlights look, it’s because, even if you are my best friend and I’ve known you since junior high, I cannot remember your name. The face, however, is familiar.

All this is to explain why I am not going to promise to blog regularly although I am going to try really hard to put something new up here at least once a month. Which does sound like suspiciously like a resolution but it’s not. Nope. No way.

It’s a vague sort of tenuous, we’ll-see-how-it-goes kind of thing. No resolutions, no promises, no commitments, no pressure.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Number 2—I had a great time getting to this point!

I went to San Francisco in 2008, along with 2000 of my closest friends, for the annual Romance Writer of America conference. Between the conference, hanging out with friends I only see once a year and San Francisco (great food, terrific shopping, wonderful sights) I had a fabulous time!

I was the keynote speaker for the conference which was actually fun once I got over my sheer terror. (Although if I had realized I was being shown on huge screens on either side of the stage, the terror would have lingered a lot longer.)

I firmly believe that since, for most of us, the opportunity to speak to 2000 or so people at one time in a huge, cavernous ballroom doesn’t come along very often we should take advantage of it. I used it to talk about all sorts of things including things I think need to change in the world, or things I’ve observed, or things that annoy me, or to offer advice.

For example:

I think the mark of a really good historical movie (like Gone With the Wind or Titanic) is one that makes you forget the facts of history and makes you think just maybe the South will win the Civil War after all. Or the boat won’t sink.

Personally, I think avoidance is always better than outright dishonesty.

Never buy your wedding flowers from a florist who operates out of the back of a bar. I think that’s self explanatory.

I think that there should be background music for real life. Music should swell at appropriate, triumphant moments. How else are you going to tell you’re in real danger—like a shark is about to eat you—without background music.

I like the idea of people having theme songs for their lives. I’ve narrowed mine down to about three. Still Crazy After All These Years seems to fit but I prefer Running Against the Wind (it’s a Paul Simon vs Bob Seeger thing). Mama Mia seems pretty appropriate though because I do tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.

I believe the philosophers of the modern age are songwriters and people who work in advertising. Is there anything more profound than that Sear’s slogan—LIVE LIKE IT’S SUMMER?

I think the differences between men and women are no more clearly defined than they are in four areas—and they all begin with S. Shopping, sports, sex and shoes. The men I know don’t see a need for more than four or five basic pairs. I bring more that that for a weekend.

Just because people look like they’re dead, they’re not necessarily dead. You should always check. Again—self explanatory.

I don’t think “things are closer than they appear” makes any sense at all. When backing up a car, wouldn’t it be much better if “things appear closer than they are”? Couldn’t we all use a little extra space?

Should the definition of a word require you to look up two more words? I don’t think so.

Love what you do. I think if you’re an accountant or a dairy farmer you should love being an accountant or dairy farmer.

Obviously, I have a lot of opinions and I really do tend to think my opinions are, well, the right ones. I’ve always known that about myself. What I didn’t realize, until I started working on this speech, was that my heroines share this trait with me.

Take Kathleen MacDavid, the heroine of Seduction of a Proper Gentleman. She doesn’t believe in silly things like curses or magic. Although the women of her family have long dabbled in magic—with no particular success—she considers herself a rational, practical sort. Someone in her family has to be. Even after her husband’s death when she learns of a family curse she doesn’t believe in such nonsense. But over the years when one suitor after another meets with an untimely end, well, even the most sensible woman can see she might be wrong. So what’s a girl to do but try to break the curse by marrying a man she’s never met? And what are those who believe in magic to do but try to help things along however they can?

That’s how it all begins. Seduction is the last of my Last Man Standing books. The tontine has been decided, the winnings distributed and everyone has lived happily ever after. And another confession—I am going to miss these guys. The hero of Seduction has appeared in six books and I hate to see his story end.

Hopefully, you’ll like it. Of course that’s just my opinion but then my opinion is almost always right!

I have pearls. I can’t remember the last time I wore them but I have them.

The definition of a perfect wife has certainly changed through the years. I know I’m breathing a sigh of relief at that. Until the last half of the twentieth century a woman’s place was in the home and the perfect wife knew that. She took care of all matters regarding her household so that when her husband came home to his castle it was in proper running order with everything well in hand and dinner on the table.

If dinner was on the table when my husband came home, the shock would probably kill him. I’d like to avoid that.

I asked him what he thought the perfect wife was. He looked at me and started laughing. I’m not sure what that means but in my quest for perfection I won’t question it. The Daily Mail Ideal Home Show (now celebrating 100 years—take a look at http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk) conducted a survey for this year’s show that found while cooking was still a skill men appreciated, they think the perfect wife should also have a handle on the family’s finances, be willing to stand up to her spouse and enjoy a drink. Works for me.

Pearls, apparently, are optional.

So, what do you think makes a perfect wife?

Yep, that’s right I am a blog confessor. Not sure why. But maybe the only things I find particularly interesting about myself are those quirks that I generally don’t admit to.

I have in previous blogs confessed that I don’t follow directions which is why when I buy furniture you have to put together yourself inevitably I have a piece left over. But usually it’s small so I don’t worry about it. This particular quirk seems to be universal—at least in my family and among my friends. Years ago, when my kids were little my husband and his friends put up something called an eagle’s nest in the backyard. It was kind of a cross between a treehouse and a fort, Anyway, I remember the guys staring at the completed project and wondering where all those leftover pieces had come from. They figured it didn’t matter—the thing seemed sturdy enough. And yep, it was still standing solidly upright some dozen years later when we moved.

I’m particularly bad at following recipes. After all, if one cup of pureed strawberries in strawberry frosting is good, wouldn’t two cups be even better? And yeah, the taste of the frosting was to die for. Unfortunately, while the frosting looked perfect when I first put it on the cake, after a few minutes the cake rejected it. All the frosting kind of sloughed off the cake to form sugary, pink drifts on the cake plate. And the counter. And the floor. But as I said, it did taste good. And the dogs liked it.

So new confession number one has to do with my cookbook addiction—I have well over 300 cookbooks even when you include the 1971 Grand Diplome week-by-week-learn-to-cook-the-international-Cordon-Bleu-way 72 installment set (although I am missing #3, 4, 7, 16&17—no doubt crucial missing links) as just one, very thick book. Now I have never done the 72 week learn to cook the Cordon Bleu way course, nor did my mother from whom I inherited it, but someday I will. Maybe. At least I know where to find recipes for Ballotine of Duck or Trout Meuniere or Galette Normande should I need them for, I don’t know, a neighborhood pot luck or something.

But my confession isn’t merely that I have never taken on the 72 week course but that the vast majority of cookbooks on my shelves are pretty much untouched. Their pages may have been ruffled through, their full color pictures glanced at but for the most part their recipes are as untouched as any of my virginal heroines. And when I look at those books—one name appears more often than any other. Julia Child of course. Which leads to my second confession.

I suffer from something called Why-didn’t-I-think-of that? Syndrome. It became especially acute when I saw Julie & Julia—a movie based on the true story of Julia Child learning to cook and Julie Powell working her way through Child’s Mastering the Art of French cooking (of which I have more than one copy of volume 1 as well as volume 2) and writing a blog about it. What a brilliant idea! Why didn’t think of it? I know how to read, follow a recipe and cook. I could do that!

And don’t I have a practically complete (and really—what could possibly be so important in installments #3, 4, 7, 16&17 anyway?) 72 week Grand Diplome cooking course? I could certainly do this!

Except…

sigh

First—Julie Powell already did it with Julia Child’s book. Secondly—I found someone else on the internet (who probably has installments #3,4,7, 16 &17) following the course and blogging about it. Third—see paragraph one about my thoughts about blogging on a regular basis. Fourth—while I do enjoy cooking it’s more of a sporadic thing for me rather than a serious commitment (although we did go to a cooking school in Tuscany which wasn’t at all a commitment but rather a lot of fun. And included a great deal of wine tasting). A serious commitment would turn it into work. And finally—I have enough work to do.

So, I think I’ll lie down until the feeling to take on 72 weeks of cooking and blogging passes. Maybe I’ll watch a nice Food Network cake building competition (hmmm—I have books that show me how to do that…). And think about my next book.

And decide where to get takeout for dinner.

I like my heroines to have flaws probably because I have a huge number of flaws. I simply can’t relate to anyone who is perfect in fiction or in life (although I’ve never met anyone who really is perfect just quite a few people who think they are).

I can’t detail all my flaws here, the list would go on forever, so I’ll just talk about one.

I refuse to follow directions.

I love to cook and I’m always trying new recipes but I have a problem accepting that whoever developed the recipe knows more than I do. So sometimes they work, sometimes even my dogs won’t eat the result. I firmly believe if one cup of mashed banana is good, two cups would be fabulous. I went to a cooking school in Italy last year where everything was kind of loosely measured. A dash of this and a handful of that which worked for me. Definitely my kind of cooking! Unfortunately, recreating what we cooked in Italy is a little tricky without measurements.

When I have directions for putting something together—say a piece of furniture—I follow them for a little bit then assume I know what I’m doing and go blithely on my way. Oh, yeah sure, sometimes I have extra parts left over but I think manufacturers always give you extra screws and bolts. Right?

I’m also bad about following directions to get somewhere. I listen to directions for a while then my mind wanders off. I figure as long as I have an address, I can find anything. And I usually do. Okay, sometimes—often—I’m a little late. I’m toying with getting a GPS system but where would be the challenge in that?

This is kind of how I write too. When I wrote The Perfect Wife—my second book—I had no idea where it was going or how I would get there. I wrote things in early chapters that didn’t make sense until later chapters. I still don’t know how it worked out but it did. Now I understand that my writing process is kind of organic. I learn about my characters and my story as I go along. So one action or conflict or twist in the story grows from another. Unfortunately, this means I don’t know where I’m going as often as I do. Avon has just reissued The Perfect Wife with a brilliant new cover and I’ve just finished my 28th ( 6 novellas, 22 novels) story so, while this is not a good way to work, not something I would recommend, I seem to be stuck with it.