by: Shehanne Moore
As a huge fan of Shehanne Moore’s spirited, independent female characters in her period romance novels, this book has been long awaited.
“If it is worth having, it is worth waiting for.” –Oscar Wilde
The “Nicking Coat”
Oppressed & beaten by a beastly husband (Baronet Byron Jones), Lady Jones flees. To afford her vagabond lifestyle, she engages in petty thievery, lying, sleeping in forests and dealing with the less than savoury.
As she uses her coat like a tote bag for her nicked loot, I figured a man’s frock coat would have large pockets and the roominess required.
Shehanne – I just love the coat and hat. So her. I do love you calling her coat the ‘nicking coat.’ The woman lived rough for a bit.
Resa – Then one day, she haps upon a deserted cottage; where Gil Wryson haps upon her.
Shehanne – And that was it, but she had to like the wee life she’d set up for herself in Pencliff enough not to bolt and go back to the awfulness of life on the road. AND everything…even the way the mail worked and money worked with regard to banks in these days– all the things that made her life so difficult on the run– fitted..
The Ball & the Gown
In terms of defining what Eternity might wear, I looked at the out going Georgian era and the incoming Regency era.
Resa – I was tortured waiting! Was the ball in, or out? Why did you end up putting the Ball in, and how did it serve the story?
Shey – … Okay Resa, well the simple answer to why I put it in, having decided for her to leave beforehand, is YOU. Yeah, there you go. I thought about the fact that I’ve a ball or a dance/party, or a feast/dance in quite a few books and these are tied with pivotal moments in the plot.
I also thought if she leaves after saying she’s going, then he is going to find it hard to forgive her–they have somehow come together in the planning and prep for this ball. And she has a huge reason to quit while she’s ahead here in terms of news she gets that very day. But then I thought of you and the beautiful gowns you have designed for my ladies down the years and I thought what is a book without a ball and what is a ball without one of your gowns?
Shehanne -I also thought when it comes to Wryson ever forgiving her, when it comes to her thinking, she just might have got something in the bag, with regard to ‘the future?’ Him too. ’Well? That ball then sets up everything in terms of her state of mind as she goes to tackle what she must tackle. It paves the way for how she is only paying half attention to what she really needs to have her eyes fully on because she’s let something into her life she can’t let in.
Shehanne – It let me trowel on a bit of passion and anguish and quite a mess, shall we say, regarding what happens next? Things she feels responsible for, secrets she is going to have to keep, things about herself, she doesn’t know she can overcome. SO yeah, I think sticking to my original plan would have been wishy washy.
Resa – When her ball gown was first spotted in Gonetta’s, before I read on to any description of the gown, I immediately saw the green one in my mind.
Shehanne – OOOOHHHHHH… the one Wryson had to pay from Gonetta’s cos she’d have nicked it otherwise.
Resa – YES, the one Wryson pays for – BUT – it is the image I got in my mind (being a costume designer) before I got to the parts where you describe the gown – a backless cream gown. . Can you believe how different our visions are? What do you think about that?
Shehanne – I think it is great actually that the visions were different. It said to me that you were really picturing her–and green is a noted color she wears. I imagined she was drawn to the shop and it reminded her of past balls, even if the main one she remembers was the night she got pitched into a Turkey oak, after first chucking herself at the man she loved.
--this is backstory before Wryson lands on her doorstep--
It reminded her of not living hand to mouth on the road. So she wandered in and got herself a fitting with the intention of dancing on her own in Dark Falls--which we know she does-- in that gown.
Alas it defied her nicking abilities. But she probably told herself she could maybe nick the dosh. She’s very good at NOT getting things done too. But being her she probably got fitted for more than one.
So it was kind of deliberate on my part not to describe the gown at that point, because she is also capable of going there and nicking some other gown off a rail of made but not paid for gowns.
Resa – I honestly like your gown better. What do you think about that?
Shehanne – What can I say but awwww…. truly, and you know a description can always be changed in a book.
Resa – Well, I am thrilled you had a ball. It is a pivotal bit, and if it was a movie, the big money beauty scene. Of course the carriage bit is the big money stunt scene.
Shehanne – Alas, I always see book scenes as movies. One of my fav freelance regular writing gigs ever was for girl’s comics for DC Thomsons. YOU HAD TO WRITE IN STORYBOARDS. YES!! So many frames per episode, dialogue/thoughts and instructions to the artist only on each frame. Always end with a cliff hanger.
Back in London
Resa – Here are the drawings, for court & carriage! The full skirt outfit would have already been in her closet before she escaped. The other, would be a new dress, the latest Regency fashion.
Shehanne – Yes, I forgot she has a fancy new coat for the court scene, her ‘other’ fellah having had enough of her special one.
Shehanne – It is what I imagined… Fashionable, dressy because she would need to be both and not look like a ragbag.. There is the bit about Billy having taken her famous coat —obvi she left the cottage in that coat and he would have seen to it that she got some decent clothes in London. And yes the first would have been the kind of dress she’d have worn to balls before and during Byron.
Inspirations
Resa – So I was inspired to draw Eternity in a metaphoric sense. I had thought “Hair of flames” because what comes out of her mind and mouth is so fiery, literally, but this came out of me. Did I capture her in that metaphoric sense?
Shehanne – You have captured her perfectly. You always have the sense of my ladies but she’s off the scale in many ways.
She’s wild, she’s free, she’s guarded, she’s bruised, she’s moody, she’s mouthy. She walks tightropes when it comes to functioning. She is her own worst enemy, Above all else she is a survivor and it has been of some horrific things. She is really very difficult and you have amazingly captured all of that. Wryson is of course not in the best of places himself, but even if he was he’d still be emotionally confused by her.
Resa – You recently posted about Mary Eleanor Bowes, the great-great-great-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth the Second. At 11, she was left the richest heiress in England, between 80 and 120 million in today’s terms. Twice married, she was beaten, burned and more by her husbands.
Shehanne – I thought I’d blog a little of some of the inspirations cos I started as I aye do, with no plot just the idea of picking up the woman who makes a very fleeting, at a distance, appearance in “O’Roarke’s Destiny” and setting her in an abandoned house cos I love abandoned houses.
“Suppose she is sitting there and passing herself off as whatever and then Wryson turns up and says it’s his house,” I thought. Then I obvi had to suss it out from there and I also thought at that point of the dreadful hubby and the unhappy countess.
Read about Mary Eleanor Bowes on Shehanne’s blog
Shehanne – Despite a descendant marrying into royalty and giving birth to Elizabeth 2nd, the story is not THAT well known. But it is interesting on so many levels. I primarily used the violent hubby because I needed a reason for Lyon to have a hold on her.
Resa – You built a strong, feisty female character, in a time where women had no rights. It’s inspirational.
Shehanne– You are right re: the lack of rights. I gather that Mary was not sympathized with because of the lovers, because of a lot of things she did and it was something that she actually got a ruling in her favor.
About Shehanne Moore
“I christen all my characters with care. I actually love thinking of what their name is going to be.“
Wryson’s Eternity is available on Amazon. Just click on the book cover and go there!
Shehanne – I did do a play list for the story… it is a bit long, possibly the longest I’ve done for a book play list.
Resa– It’s a fab Play List. If anyone cares to listen just click on the enhanced drawing of Eternity on the right, and it will take you there!
From Shehanne’s Play List!
🌟🌟I have read all of these fab Shehanne Moore Books. 🌟🌟 Just go to an Amazon anywhere, to find them!
Art Gowns 
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