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Fun Facts about Wicked Little Secrets


Happy Thursday! We just have to hang in for one more day until the weekend.

Today I’m recycling a blog post that I wrote for the blog tour of my book Wicked Little Secrets. Unfortunately, it was never posted, so I’m putting it here. It’s just a listing of fun facts about Wicked Little Secrets. Enjoy!

1.The hero, Lord Dashiell, has a penchant for collecting ancient Greek and Roman goddesses.

Dashiell wasn’t concerned with Lily’s threatened throat, but the bust of his precious gray-eyed goddess Athena that Lily held over her head. “Lily, take several deep breaths and think about what you are doing. Three thousand years ago, some craftsman put his soul into creating Athena. The soil of Greece has preserved her all this time. Her history is far greater than this tiny misunderstanding.”
“How philosophical of you,” Lily said, a wicked grin spread over her mouth and she dropped Athena, letting the goddess of wisdom shatter on the floor.



2. The heroine’s name “Vivienne” appeared when MS Word auto-corrected my mistype of “Vivian.”

3. The story features many animals, including a disgruntled pug and a cockatoo that only says “I love you” and dislikes men. 

4.  I did a great deal of research on the names of Victorian medicines to come up with historically accurate names such as

Dr. Philpot’s Wonderful Nerve Tonic for Ailing and Suffering Ladies. Soothing Menses, Hysteria, and Other Female Complaints."



 5. I researched that Zulu shields were made from cowhide.

He snatched a black and white spotted Zulu shield from the stairwell and covered himself. “I… I didn’t know you were coming.” He tried to sound casual.
Meanwhile, Lily had seized a porcelain clock from the Chinese writing desk and hurled it at his temple. He raised his shield, and the timepiece bounced off cowhide and smashed on the railing, raining tiny metal parts onto the floor.

 6. The physical description of Angelica Fontaine, a villainous madam, was inspired by old theatrical and black and white movie photographs.


Gloria Swanson






7.  My friend read aloud the lines of cockney dialogue while I transcribed them. I read aloud the Irish dialogue.

8. The lewd caricatures in the book were based on illustrations by Regency artist Thomas Rowlandson.



9. I despise gun research, so I made my husband research all the guns and ancient weaponry in the story.

“Do you think I’m afraid of your gun? Woman, I’ve had a kris, zhanmadao, blunderbuss, basilisk, scimitar, and 24-barrel Belgian mariette pointed at me.”

10.     I had a blast tracking down old slang terms to write an amusing trial record for Old Bailey. 

Maxwell Cain: So Mrs. STONEGATE comes out and tells yon prisoner to hop the twig. Yon prisoner lugs the su-pouch’s strummel real hard. I tries to tip, but the dimber–mort gives me a floorer in the twiddle-dwiddles, and when I was down she wallups me in me lobb. So I—
Judge Bertis: Enough of this low, thievish cant.


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It's Not Easy Being Good...
Vivacious Vivienne Taylor has finally won her family's approval by getting engaged to the wealthy and upright John Vandergrift. But when threatened by a vicious blackmail scheme, it is to her childhood friend that Vivienne turns; the deliciously wicked Viscount Dashiell.

When Being Wicked is so Much More Exciting...

Lord Dashiell promised himself long ago that his friendship with Vivienne would be the one relationship with a woman that he wouldn't ruin. He agrees to help her just to keep the little hothead safe, but soon finds that Vivienne has grown up to be very, very dangerous to all of Dash's best intentions.


You can learn more about Susanna Ives’ work at:





Comments

  1. Looks like your research was a lot of fun! Great stuff!

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  3. Love learning all of this research! It's so much fun to find out what authors had to look up. Now I know where to go when I have a question on Zulu shields.

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    1. Thanks! Maybe the Casablanca authors should do a collective blog post titled "Weird stuff we've researched.”

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  4. How cool is this?! Thank you for the great post :)

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  5. Too funny, Susanna! Your post gave me a smile. I already have your book and am hoping for some breathing room to read it in a couple of weeks. Now after reading your post I can't wait to curl up with this story. :-D

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    1. Gina, you are so kind. But don't worry about my book, get your wonderful stories written. I'm waiting for your book Meet the Earl at Midnight to arrive! It will be such a treat after all these deadlines.

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  6. What a fun list, Susanna! All those historical details made Wicked Little Secrets so vivid and delightful. And that's great that you got MS Word to lend you a heroine's name. I had no idea it could be so helpful. :)

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    1. Thanks! Hahaha! MS Word makes all sorts of suggestions to me. It takes pity on my poor spelling.

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  7. Oh I love this post and of course LOVE this book. Somebody recommended it yesterday on a Vicky Dreiling FB post and a few of us tried very hard not to spoil anything but we all agreed the hero in the brothel towards the end of the book needs to be seen in person. We tried to figure out an actor who could pull it off and came up with Robert Downey Jr even if he is a bit "mature" in age for the role.
    I loved all the names of the medicines in the book. My mom used to collect old medicine tins, bottles and boxes. She decorated my brother's and my bathroom with them. The tins and boxes were on the wall above the toilet and are guy friends always would comment on having interesting things to read and look at while they stood there. There were certainly some interesting "medicines" out there.

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    1. Hi, Sarah!

      OMG! Robert Downey Jr. would be perfect. He could totally pull off that “that” scene and still be sexy as sin. Wow. I’m glad I didn’t have him in my mind while I was writing WLS, else it would have been an erotica novella :)

      Those medicines were a riot. I like your mother’s idea of decorating the bathrooms with them. In fact, my mother and I researched the medicines together. She has such a great sense of humor.

      I’m so glad you stopped by today! Have a wonderful weekend filled with lovely books.

      Take care,
      Susanna

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