Image Courtesy of LisaDaleBooks.com

In a fun break with Za Rules, this month’s recap post is by a guest author who hasn’t read at the Salon–yet! Click on the link and hear what the wonderful Lisa Dale has to say about her Lady Jane’s experience.

And please do mark your calenders to join us on July 5th. We have a jam-packed evening with four guest authors reading from their latest releases: Toni McGee Causey, Dianna Love (returning to the Salon), Colby Hodge AKA Cindy Holby, and yes, me,  Salon Co-Founder, Hope Tarr reading from The Tutor, my July Victorian-set romance.

Otherwise, same time, same place: 7-9 PM at Madame X. Admission is $5 or one gently-used paperback romance novel with net proceeds supporting an end-of-year donation to a New York City women’s charity.

As always, we’ll have author books available for purchase and signing on site, including Maya’s late June release, A Groom of One’s Own.

Cheers,

Hope

Lady Jane’s Salon and I go way back—as a co-founder, I go right back to the beginning,  in fact. I know a lot of the friendly faces in the crowd, the bartender Alex, and all that red. Each monthly salon is another fun get together—until it’s my turn to read. Then I am terribly vexed by two questions: what to wear and which scene to read.

On June 7^th, I’ll be reading from A Groom Of One’s Own.  It’s new, brand new. It’s so hot off  the presses it’s not even off the presses—I need to hold onto one of my ARCs to have something to read from. The book comes out at the end of June but I wanted to give a sneak peek to my salon pals.

So, which scene to read? The one where the heroine, Miss Sophie Harlow, is jilted at the alter? The one where she finds the duke’s list of Desirable Qualities in A Wife? Or the carriage ride scene my critique partner said was perfect?

One thing I do know: I will be reading with a rogue of my own. He’s read at Lady Jane’s before and he’s damn funny. Here’s the proof.

As for what to wear? Definitely something that matches all that red at Madame X.

To the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Columbus Ohio! (My home state! Yes, this is Leanna posting this) Here is our fabulous lineup. If you’re going to be at the awesome RT Con, we hope you will join us Saturday, May 1st, from 7-9pm, for greatness!

Featuring:

DELILAH MARVELLE

An RT Nominee for Best First Historical Romance (Mistress of Pleasure) and Bookseller’s Best Award Delilah Marvelle has a flare for researching all the beautifully naughty things in history.  Her upcoming three book Scandal series with HQN in 2011 will be highlighting history in the hopes of making every reader blush.  For more about Delilah’s naughty research, you can visit her blog www.DelilahMarvelle.blogspot.com or visit her website at www.DelilahMarvelle.com

LINNEA SINCLAIR

Rita, Prism, Pearl and RT Gold Medal winner Linnea Sinclair leads the Sci-Fi Romance world with her Dock Five Universe series. A former news reporter and retired private detective who yearns for more adventure than ‘Hold the presses!’ and stacks of case files can provide. The role of starship captain was her dream long before James T ever uttered “Beam me up!” Writing stories is her way of living that dream. When she’s not tinkering with a recalcitrant sublight drive, you can find her in southwest Florida (winters) or central Ohio (summers) living with her very patient husband and thoroughly spoiled cats.  Visit her at www.linneasinclair.com Upcoming release: Working Title Songs of Love and Death: Tales of Star-Crossed Love, Anthology Release Date: November 16, 2010

SABRINA JEFFRIES 

In the past decade, New York Times bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries has penned 18 Regency romances and five novellas – becoming a regular on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists in the process. New Orleans-born, Thailand-reared, the novelist attributes her success to listening to what peers, her publisher and her own common sense told her she should be writing.  “I write what I enjoy reading:  lighter, sexier historical romances,” Jeffries said, “with more dialogue and more sensuality.” Writing about 19^th-century English life comes naturally.  Not only is Jeffries a lifelong Jane Austen fan, but she has a doctorate in English lit from Tulane (as well as a specialty in Early Modern British literature). Yet the impetus for her stories, Jeffries says, is always “what if” – not what if her hero likes this or that but what if this happened and this happened … what would it do to a person?  “I have stories in my head, and I have to get them out,” Jeffries explained. Her ultimate goal in life would be to have “everybody reading one of my books.” The Truth About Lord Stoneville, which was released in January, is the 29^th book of her entire career.  Her next title will be A Hellion in Her Bed, Book 2 of the Hellions of Halstead Hall series, coming this Fall.  With it, the novelist will have more than 3 million Sabrina Jeffries books in print. Visit her at www.sabrinajeffries.com

And we’ll be back just in time for our May 3rd Salon back in NYC!

May 3rd at Madame X will feature Christina Britton Conroy, Jeri Smith-Ready and myself, Leanna Renee Hieber.

We will see you there!

Huh?  Romance reading series?  Bar? Madame X?  Writers get some strange invitations (I’ll share those stories another time—some of them aren’t internet appropriate), but this sounded pretty weird even by my usual standards.

Upon reflection, it was actually a fairly clever notion, getting together a romance reading series.  Every other literary group seemed to have them.  The poets had their open mike nights (with that strange poet inflection we so mocked in all the writers’ camps I went to as a teen); the mystery writers had their cloak and dagger cabals; the serious Literary writers had their prescribed podia.  Why not romance writers, too?

But, still, reading in a bar?  This was going to work how?  I’d been to bar events before.  They invariably involved a lot of bar and not a lot of event.  I toddled off to that inaugural meeting of Lady Jane’s Salon with a novel in hand—to donate to Maya’s chosen charity, Share the Love—and a whole bundle of serious doubts.

Take crow; roast lightly; chew and swallow.  I am happy to say that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The upstairs lounge of Madame X was packed with a smart crowd of romance writers and readers, many with champagne flutes in hand.  The interior was all red velvet, lush without being louche, with a tiny stage at one end of room.  Perfect for balcony scenes!  Within in a remarkably short while, the crowd was herded to their seats and the reading began.  And it worked.  People listened and laughed and clapped in the right places.  There was no whispering or chatting at the back of the room—there would be time for that during intermission—just genuine interest and appreciation for the people up there on that podium.

In short, Lady Jane’s was a stroke of genius.

Rather than being a one month wonder, Lady Jane’s Salon has grown from month to month, building up a population of both repeat visitors and friends of friends.  Whether writer or reader, everyone is there for the same reason: a shared love of romance fiction.  Basically, we’re all romance nerds at heart.  This makes for very easy interactions and some occasionally rather bizarre conversations.  A recent favorite: “I’m really not attracted to zombies.”

Nowhere else, folks, nowhere else.

I owe Lady Jane’s a personal debt of gratitude, not just for the friendships formed or the warm reception at my reading last year, but because, without Lady Jane’s, I probably wouldn’t be teaching a class at Yale this spring.  One of the readers at the first meeting of Lady Jane’s was Cara Elliott, a fellow Yalie turned romance writer.  During the intermission, we got to talking about the romance scholarship movement, how much we wished there had been classes taking a serious and literary look at romance novels during our undergrad days.  Glasses of wine in hand, we began brainstorming about how we would go about crafting and teaching such a class, a survey of the Regency romance novel from its origins in Austen to its more eccentric offshoots today—and now we’re teaching it.  Thanks, primarily, to Lady Jane’s.

Lady Jane’s has done all of us in the romance writing and reading community a vast service by providing us a place to meet up and, yes, share the love.

I hope you’ll join me on Monday in raising a great big toast to Lady Jane’s Salon and her founders.  Many, many happy returns of the day, Lady Jane!

Thank you to  the lovely Lauren Willig–New York Times Bestselling author and repeat Lady Jane’s Salon reader–for this wonderful blog post! She will be reading from her latest, The Betrayal of The Blood Lily.

Last night, I moseyed on down to Madame X for the July edition of Lady Jane’s Salon.  This reading series has quickly become a must-not miss event here in New York.  It’s hard to believe that no one came up with the idea of hosting a romance reading series in New York until this year! What were we thinking? No matter, thanks to founders Hope Tarr, Ron Hogan, Leanna Renee Hieber and Maya Rodale, Lady Jane’s is here to stay. The wonderful thing about the Lady Jane’s Salon reading series is not only is it a great way to catch up with friends, and also networking, but it also gives the readers a chance to give back by donating gently used books to Share the Love.

Ron Hogan was a delightful comprere for the evening’s festivities. This month’s event was very special because Susie Felber, the daughter of the author Edith Layton who passed away recently, gave a wonderfully funny and touching speech about her mother.  I didn’t think it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time! I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a run on Edith Layton on Amazon.com today after hearing Susie’s memorial to her mother last night.

The next reader was RWA NYC‘s own Dee Davis (who was our author of the year at last year’s Golden Apple Awards).  Dee read from her book A Match Made on Madison.  If you watch Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo, or are a big fan of Sex and the City, you will love this book.  After a brief pause so that we could refresh our drinks (I’m a big fan of the Indecent Proposal), we had two authors whose work I was unfamilliar with, but I can’t wait to read their books, Anthea Lawson and Diana Love.

Again, another fantabulous evening at Lady Jane’s.  If you are in New York the first Monday of the month, you cannot miss this event.

Visit Elizabeth at www.scandalouswoman.blogspot.com or at the next Salon on Monday, August 3rd.

Lady Jane’s Salon returns on Monday, July 6th with more splendid romance authors!

Debut historical author ANTHEA LAWSON will from her RITA nominated work Passionate

Award-winning local author DEE DAVIS will read from A Match Made On Madison

New York Times bestseller DIANA LOVE will read from Whispered Lies

SUSIE FELBER will pay tribute to her her mother, romance novelist EDITH LAYTON.

You already know the details, but here they are again for your convenience:

WHEN: Monday, July 6th, 7-9 PM

WHERE: Madame X, 94 Houston Street (btw LaGuardia and Thompson Streets), New York, NY 10012, 212.539.0808. Nearest subways: F,V,B,D at Lafayette, N, R at Prince Street.

Admission is $5.00 or one gently used romance novel.  Proceeds to benefit Share The Love a nonprofit organization that provides gently used romance novels to groups helping women in transition, such as homeless or domestic violence shelters. Why? Because everyone deserves the pleasure of a good story and a happy ending. Co-sponsors: Share The Love and Ron Hogan of Beatrice.com. Cash bar.

Oh, and some pictures, of course!

Diane Gaston

Amanda McCabe

Wendy Corsi Staub

Marjorie M Liu