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As morbid as it sounds, it would have to be WW 2 time period for me.  Something about that war fascinates me.  The things this country went through at the time.  The things the world went through at the time.

I love the Georgian period, Eloisa!  I set HEATHER AND VELVET and WHISPER OF ROSES there and it was a blast.  One of my favorite reference books of all-time is THE PAGEANT OF GEORGIAN ENGLAND by Elizabeth Burton. 

It has delightful “tabloid” stories in it like the papers printing that one lady had been giving birth to rabbits on a regular basis.

Oh, Teresa, thank you!  I don’t have that one—will get it right away.

and Mina, I know what you mean...there’s something incredibly romantic about WWII--people were fighting a really terrible enemy, clothes were beautifully sewn, and there was great poetry being written.  That’s an eclectic list, but I share your feelings!  I’d like to have been in the Resistance.

Eloisa

With all the horrible things you hear on the news now-a-days… I long for a more innocent time.  But I don’t think that there is any such thing as a more innocent time.

But if I were to be born in a different time and I had to choose today - I would think Elizabeth I’s England.  I am just so facsinated by her right now.

I’ve always been really fascinated with ancient civilizations - the Greeks and Minoans in particular.  And I love the Regency and Georgian periods.  So any of those - as long as I was one of the wealthy upper classes!  Being poor in any of those time periods would have been rough.

Eloisa - do you think the Regency manners were a reaction to the freedom of the Georgian period?  The French court of that time also seems to have been quite, um, fun.  My observation is based purely on reading fiction, by the way!

I am pretty happy where I am, truth to tell. I am astonished over my liking for romance novels, cause when I really think about the periods in history what first comes to my mind are bad teeth, hair-bugs and lacking sanitation, not to talk about the smell of open sewers and unwashed bodies. uck.

but I do like the vikings. I mean, they had a weekly bath-day and women did have a voice, sort of. if they were from an important family etc. and the religion was so much more fun..

I think it well might be, Carolyn.  Obviously, the tighter laces of the Regency period is part of a larger historical sweep moving toward the Victorian period when not only are women not joking about penis size, but they’re covering up the legs of tables with little frills so they don’t have to think “legs!”.  That’s a huge huge change.

And believe me, the French court was matched by the English!

Eloisa

The 1920’s! Women were wild and glamourous, the clothes were fabulous, and the men were rich!

This might be strange also, but I love the Civil War era.  The real life stories of that time are so great.  McClellan marrying A.P. Hill’s fiance, Grant being best man for Longstreet, Hancock and Armistead’s friendship and it’s sad ending at Gettysburg.  The North and South were bound together but also fighting, so fascinating and tragic at the same time.

You must be having a blast, Eloisa! Georgians are so fun! I set the McClairen’s Isle trilogy in the Georgian era just so I could loosen things up--literally and figuratively.

Georgette Heyer actually wrote quite a few of her romance in that time period, POWDER AND PATCH is the one that springs to mind.

For myself, I would want to live in another time period (I have a hygiene jones, I need 8 hours of sleep a night and the thought of not having adequate dental care, as in no novocaine, makes me shudder) but I would love to write an epic political suspense set in the 14th century. SHOGUN GOES TO NORMANDY, that sort of thing..

I would love to have lived in the Regency era, but the Georgian England sounds quite fun, as well.  The Renaissance would’ve been really fun...I could’ve modeled for Botticelli (if I were Italian, at least)!

How about colonial America? It was definitely an exciting time in history, and the fashion was cute.

Ooh, Emily, I’d have to add the Roaring Twenties to my list too! All that glitter, all that jazz...I went to a New Years Eve ball themed after the twenties, and I made a mental note to myself to be a flapper for a Halloween party!

*LOL* The Georgian period does sound like a blast.  (I definitely don’t want to be near any Victorian period--or be a pioneer (I don’t want to work that hard) in the Wild West.)

I thought Regency would be fun.  When I was younger, I always wanted to be around the times of the Crusades.  Lady of the Manor, et al, a la Maid Marion like in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.  (Now, not so much… *LOL*)

I totally agree about WWII.  My dad (who was 53 when I was born) was in WWII, and his stories are all at once dramatic, hysterically funny, and innocent.  Great clothes; sexy men in uniform; and I always wanted to be that nurse on V-J day, the one that got kissed in Times Square.  (So if I was going to pick a period--probably WWII or maybe the glamorous 30s, if I got to live in Hollywood.  Not the 30s from The Grapes of Wrath.) Yeah, 30s or 40s were good decades--young Sinatra; running toilets; gorgeous clothes…

There is something romantic about every period, something to yearn for. Sarah is right though there was never an “innocent time.”

Lucky for me I was born in the right time, health issues being what they are I would not have made it past my 23rd birthday if I had been born even 50 years earlier.  I also have an EXTREME fondness for indoor plumbing.

That being said I think it would have been really cool to have been born around 1900.  That would make make me in my 20s during the Roarin’ 20s.  Between the world wars, before the depression when women FiINALLY got the vote and got rid of the corsets.  Oh, to have been a member of the Algonquin Round Table or at least a fly on the wall listening their acerbic wit.  A favorite quotation “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.” - Dorothy Parker

I like things a little less wild.  I like to read wild, but I don’t think I’d like to live wild!

I’m also fond of my creature comforts (running water, indoor plumbing, bathing every day!) They had all that in the Regency - only if you were extremely rich!  I would vote for Regency, but I would have to be fairly high aristocracy!  Not too high though, cause they had their burdens also, especially women.  So - 1. Regency, 2. Aristocracy, 3. Marrying for love!

That’s not asking too much is it!  I think I’d like a hero like Marcus Westcliff from Lisa Kleypas’ It Happened One Autumn.  That lifestyle would make me very happy indeed as would he!

Oh Eloisa! Do you need a research assistant? I make good coffee! It sounds enthralling!
I’m big on medicine and creature comforts too, ie..running water, indoor toilets.., but just for sheer romance, and drama, I’d definately say WWII..I was not around during that time, but I hear those older songs and I cry!!
I might also go with Carolyn and do the Civil War, lots of bad stuff, but also a very interesting time of our country..

Great topic, Eloisa!  I cannot tell you how many times in my life my friends have told me I was born in the wrong era.  The irony is that I ended up going into a profession that was not around more than 50 or 60 years ago.  Go figure…

I have a fascination with Napoleon so I would have loved to have been born around 1780 or so.  But I also prefer indoor plumbing so I would have to say I’d rather be born about 1935 or so.  To be young during the Golden Age of Hollywood and live through so many enormous changes with music, television and society.  That would have been great.

BTW - I love the book To Dance with Kings (I think that’s it) which is set in the French court in the Georgian period.  It does a great job of showing the decadence and the different ways the times affected people (especially women) of different levels in society.

I’d say there’s no time like the present.  I don’t think I could live without indoor plumbing (and clean water at that...or taking showers every day).  I’ve been to third world countries where indoor plumbing consists of an outside shower in which rain water is caught into a barrel and the toilet was an outhouse behind the house.  I had to pass stalls of cows and step around duck and chicken poop just to get to it.  Yeah...I was chomping at the bit to go home.  So no, I would never want to live in any time but the present.  Heck, I can’t live without my can of coke per day...I’d never make it!!
And then back in those days having kids was like a death defying stunt or something.  No way!!  Have you seen some of the things they passed of as “medicine” back then??!! Ugh!

This topic required some thought.  Since I am a rebel at heart, I might have been a high society London outcast. So if I could choose a time and place in history, I would go to Italy in the mid to late 1800’s.  My family history stories of that time seem peaceful.  Very hard working, but I think I could handle that.

I always ask myself if I would trade places with the heroine of the book I’m currently reading.  Most of the time, the answer is no.  I also think the Wild West era was fascinating.

Great Blog Eloisa! 

I definitely appreciate that I was born during a time of such incredible technological advances, great medical care (with good insurance), dental care, non-messy personal care products, etc., so it would be hard to choose a different time period.

If I could choose to be a differently-packaged person, though, (naturally straight teeth, generally healthy, no physical problems requiring surgery), then I think I would choose to be born in the mid-1920s so I would be of young adult age during WWII. LOVE the clothes and super-polished, “done” hair and make-up, love the entertainment of the time, appreciate the changing role of women as they entered the workforce—all kinds of coolness in that era.

This topic immediately brought to mind a movie ("Kate and Leopold") and a book (the name of which I can’t remember, grr) that handled time travel in different ways. I didn’t like “K&L” because Meg Ryan’s character would never, I feel, have really “fit” in Leopold’s time. She was too used to independence, modern personal care products (anyone notice a running theme in what I consider important?), having a career, etc. One of the time-travel romances I read, though, had a modern woman going back in time and staying, but her family was able to visit, bring basic medical stuff, etc. I liked that solution! She was able to have her cake and eat it, too, and isn’t that what we all want?

I think I’m with brownone on this subject.  I like the present with indoor plumbing and electricity just fine. 

If I had to chose though, probably the Victorian period.

I would have to say medeival Scotland, between 1100’s and 1400’s.  Yeah, I know there were wars a plenty back in that day, but, I have always wondered what it would be like to grow up in a time like that.  I think it has to do with me reading so many romance novels set in the time period.  It think of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander when I first read that I thought, how in the world would I feel if I were Claire??!!

PS- Connie, your Maclaren’s Isle trilogy is on my keepers shelf.  Loved them!!

Well, medical care alone makes me say I’ll take this time, thank you.  But if I wasn’t allowed to be born in this time, then I would choose regency IF I were aristocracy and my looks shifted a bit so that I wouldn’t be left on the shelf.  But if I have to take my looks, build, personality, etc, with me, then I’ll take pioneer America. 

If any of you write of women in the US throughout history, I’ll recommend a book that adds an interesting spin (pun intended) on the lives of women, especially, from the first settlers through WWII.  The book is _The Social History of American Knitting_.  It talks about fiber production, weaving and knitting throughout our US history - how the production was a necessary commitment that enabled in part the revolution (we previously got most everything from England), what it took to keep a family in clothing (how a woman was supposed to walk across the prairie but not gain a speck of a tan while knitting just to keep everyone in socks), what nice ladies did visiting each other with their needlework in the pre-civil war south, etc.  This book is what makes me think, assuming I survived infections and childbirth, I could make it in pioneer US.

I am not big fan of the Georgian time for some reason.  HOWEVER, I am looking forward to Eloisa’s book - it might change my perspective.

Lynn

LOL.. I am going to lean towards the indoor plumbing stages...Sign me up for whenever that started. And all the kinks were worked out.......

Eloisa…

I’m not familiar with the Georgian period. For readers like me… do you find yourself “world building” while writing these so that new readers to the era can become immersed in the times and then let the characters take us on a wonderful journey like all of you other books? Is it fun picking out all of the fun details that you will use? The second joke there had me laughing at the computer.

I hope that question made sense… I am so excited about this new series you are writing!

Growing up watching all those wonderful MGM musicals, I wanted to have lived during the ‘40s.  The hairstyles, the shoes, those great resorts, the Big Band sound and those gorgeous gowns. 

Today, I’d have to say Regency as the daughter of a duke, earl or marquis.  No barony for my pedigree. 

I also wouldn’t mind the late 1800s in NYC as a member of the Astor crowd, summering upstate or in Newport.  And if I had to go overseas to marry a duke to save his dukedom, so be it!  But he’d have to be tortured, emotionally crippled by a cruel twist of fate that only my love could heal.

Add me to the Roaring Twenties list - it just sounds like a fun time.  I found some pictures recently of my grandparents during the twenties (that’s when they married) and I love the fashions. 

I used to be a Civil War re-enactor.  It’s an incredibly important and fascinating time in our history, and I loved doing the re-enacting of it.  But I would NOT want to live in it.  Too sad, scary, uncertain of a time.

I have to agree that I like my hygene and medicine but love reading Georgian! It was a great time of achievement and flaunting propriety for nobles so I think it makes for some of the best books. Can’t wait Eloisa!

Teresa - Morgan is a hero among the women I know. He is one of my favorite hero’s of all time but Whisper of Roses is a classic

The Book to Dance With Kings is very good and very different. Hard to describe but I highly recommend it too.

I love now with all it’s medical and technilogical discoveries. 
However, I have always thought I would like to be one of the early 49ers maybe arriving in 47 and getting in on the gold at an early part of the Rush-see Gwen Bristow.  Especially if I could be born with no health problems.
My word is home, and that is where I am the happiest.

ooo Santa… I like your conditions. Sign me up!

Aw, thank you Cara!  I still get the warm fuzzies myself when I think about Morgan

There are reasons why we all convene here together...like minds and all.  I agree with everybody. 

I can’t think about time periods unless I associate them with places, however:

-WWII in North Africa a la Lawrence of Arabia/English Patient.

-regency England...of course (and now Georgian since you made it sound so juicy, Eloisa) and a little later so I could meet Keats in his heyday

-early 1900s in England…to be around the Bloomsbury Set

-Medieval Scotland

-20s in NYC a la Thoroughly Modern Milly

-Paris at the turn of the cent.

-60s in San Fran (for my inner hippy)

-Ming Dynasty China (when was the Pillow Book written??)

-Northern India around 563 bc

A word about hygiene:  it does tend to be a learned, cultural thing.  If you’ve never known it, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to you.  If, however, you were transported (like Claire in Outlander), you’d have a difficult time….but that, too, can be overcome.  I gag.  All the time.  If I look at someone’s greasy hair and get a whiff of oily mystery, I gag.  But I also spent a year abroad and got used to so much, including rampant B.O. 

Back here, however, I gag.  All the time.

I am laughing so hard right now.  Do you gag?  lol

All the time.

When people snarf their snot, I gag.

And yesterday, I made the mistake of watching a taped Anthony Bourdain show. 

He ate warthog anus. 

I was on the floor retching.

Had to cut open a lemon to sniff before I ‘cast up my accounts.”

DO NOT WATCH the last half of Anthony Bourdain in Namibia, I’m warning you.

I think I would have liked to have seen medieval England.  After all if I’d lived then I could have lived in Lippincott Manor which was owned by my ancesters so at least I know I wouldn’t have been a peasent.

Wirdald,
At the end of my time-travel book TOUCH OF ENCHANTMENT, I have my modern-day heroine asking her family to visit the Middle Ages where she’s headed and to bring--diapers, cream rinse, antiobiotics, toilet paper, aspirin, chocolate, soap...oh, and tampons of course! 

What can I say?  I’m a creature of convenience! 

I agree with everyone about the hygiene aspect.  I am so accustomed to my conveniences.  However, if I could have a time machine and could travel back and forth, I’d love to see medieval England/Wales.  Ah, the castles and such.  And from what I’ve learned of my geneology <sp>, I would have been on the upper rungs of society, so that wouldn’t have been too bad. 

I would have loved to have met Shakespeare and Jane Austen, so I’d like to go back to their eras.  The American Revolution.  The WWII era. 

We look back and think of all of our technological and medical advances.  I wonder what someone living a hundred or so years in the future will think about 2007?

J.P.- “snarf their snot” UGGG! I hate this too! I broke up with a guy, because he did this.

How could I forget the Bloomsbury’s? Yes, indeed, lurve Ms. Virginia Woolf!! Good one!

Live? Not so much...but for a two week vacation I’ve always wanted to experience San Francisco during the gold rush. Just in the city, not in the gritty reality of the fields...too much wet denim (shudder). But those were some wild days of excess I would like to have seen.

I agree with Cara! I would gladly live in the Georgian period if a man like Morgan Macdonnell was mine! (Swoon)

J. Perry, you are too funny!  You do have a point about hygiene and how you could overcome a less than ideal situation.  I, too, lived abroad for two years and became accustomed to people’s lack of deoderant use!  Now I can’t stand it, though.

I love Elizabethan England, the Regency period and would love to have been swept off my feet by some braw Highland laird.  *Sigh*.  Of course, these would only be acceptable if I was a member of the aristocracy.

I’d go for several times--Regency England, Roaring 20’s, The 50’s.

As mentioned above I’d still have to have some modern things, internet being one of them lol

I love the Regency period and most definitely would have loved to have been a very understanding Duke’s daughter but I adore the Georgian Era.  All I can think about is “The 3 Musketeers” and King Louis’ Court. 

The best Georgian books (Lady Notorious, Tempting Fortune, Something Wicked, Secrets of the Night & Devilsh) are Jo Beverley’s Malloren Family.  Especially the Marquess of Rothgar.  Ohhh, what a sexy man with his high heels, mechanical toys and fingers full of rings.

Teresa said, “It has delightful “tabloid” stories in it like the papers printing that one lady had been giving birth to rabbits on a regular basis.”

It’s nice to know some things never change.

Great blog, Eloisa! I, too, wrote an Georgian—PRICELESS. The interesting thing is that many readers (and I’d say most) have the impression that England was always the proper place it was in the Nineteenth Century. In fact, my editor (who was educated and really brilliant) objected to some of the informalities I’d brought to light. To set the stage, I had to add a page with BITS OF WISDOM FROM EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND, and included bawdy songs and sayings…
One night as I came from the play
I met a fair maid by the way;
She had rosy cheeks and a dimpled chin
And a hole to put poor Robin in.
--traditional English song

I came of age in the 60s. I think I lived through my “interesting times,” so I would not want to have been born in a different age. Also, as Connie, J and others have said, I like my mod cons to much to willingly forfeit them. If time-travel weere an option, I would choose 5th century Athens and a brief span as an Aspasia-like character. I have been fascinated by Aspasia and Pericles since I read The Immortal Marriage by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton when I was an undergrad. My second choice would be to join Connie’s Lily and Avery in late 19th-century England. I’d love to be a suffragist and maybe Avery has a like-mineded friend. Maybe I could learn the end of Francesca’s story too.

Eloisa, I do love the Georgian period. Heyer’s Duke of Avon always seems the quintessential Georgian hero to me.

A Georgian book Eloisa - I can’t wait for that

Ohhh, do I have to pick one time period?
- Regency (how could I not, although could I specify that someone as wonderful as Mayne sweeps me off my feet please)

- Georgian (I’ve always been in love with Anthony Andrews’ Scarlet Pimpernel)

- Medieval

- WWII (does anyone watch Foyle’s War?)

I wonder how my immune system would cope?

orannia

The 1900’s for me.  Or the WWII time period.  I think I would hate wearing a corset.  I like the time that “King Kong” (the new one) is set in.  Was that at the begining of the Depression?  It doesn’t matter if I am rich or poor.  I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have to work.  Naomi Watts is so beautiful in that film.  Can I just be her?

I’ve read books set in the Georgian period in the past, but the bawdiness & less-than-proper behavior somehow escaped me.  It makes me want to go & re-read a few books.

As for me, I would definitely go with the Regency period.  I’ve been drawn to the period for quite a few years now, even though I’m still fascinated with well-written piratical romances; however, the true lives of pirates were just horrible.

I have such a passionate love for history that I don’t think I could pick just one era to be born in. I would want to be reborn all the time just so I could experience everything!!

I’m a history glutton, hehe

Correction:  The Pillow Book was written about court life in 11th Century Japan.  I thought China (yeah, found the damn book finally).

Sei Shonagon writes so beautifully. 
Here’s a sampling.

“Elegant Things:
A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs
Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl.
A rosary of rock crystal
Wisteria blossoms. Plum blossoms covered with snow.
A pretty child eating strawberries.”

“Unsuitable Things:
A woman with ugly hair wearing a robe of white damask.
Hollyhock worn in frizzled hair.
Ugly handwriting on red paper....”

She describes her world with such detail, I want to go there.

J. you crack me up!!!!!!!!

For me, it would have to be Victorian England or the 50’s in the US

I love long skirts. During highschool at the height of the mini skirt era my friends and I started wearing maxi skirts. I loved the feel of those long, full skirts. Just when the nuns shed their long habits, we started wearing them!!!!!!

and I always wanted to be a “June Cleever” kinda woman. Loved the full-skirted shirt dress with pearls and heels. A little apron to wear while cooking. What a riot.

Hey, my word verification is once53.
Yup, I was.

Yay, J. Perry Stone! I have loved Sei Shonagon’s works forever! “In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the distant hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them.”

As for what time period, I have always been fascinated by the English Civil War and Restoration period, roughly 1645-1685. To me it is such an oddly modern and American period—a war between religious conservatives (with short hair, hence Roundheads) and a long-haired, aristocratic elite that prides itself on pursuing luxury, pleasure, and sophisticated sins. Red states vs. blue states, almost! But of course as a romance fan I think the culture clash would lead to some great romantic fireworks!

PS Teresa, those Elizabeth Burton books are the best research material ever! She did one for the Stuart dynasty also.

Hey Larry, I love that “sophisticated sins”! It just sounds decadent. I think I’m going to make a post it note to remind myself what fun it is reading (therefore hopefully writing) about “sophisticated sins”!

I’m happy right where I am. . . I’d love to visit the Regency, but I’m too nuts and strange to ever have fit in any other time period. . . here, you can get away with a certain amount of nuttiness. LOL

That and there are no space shuttles in any other time period.

Lois

I agree with everyone about the modern conveniences- medicine, indoor plumbing, feminine hygiene products, etc.  I like now a lot.  But I also like:

The fifties because of those pretty dresses Debbie Reynolds always wore.

Regency (if I was high society) because of the fashion and...I really like the rules- think of Lydia in Lorraine Heath’s LOVE WITH A SCANDALOUS LORD. 

Revolutionary America, or rather, right after, because it’s so intriguing and amazing to me how our government was formed.

Isn’t she amazing, Larry?  I love this one too.

“Things That are Near Though Distant:
Paradise
The course of a boat
Relations between and man and a woman.”

J - .....this warrents a phone call!!

BTW, the passages are so beautiful.  Are her books diaries or written in stream of consciousness.

And if we are talking to authors, I’d love to sit at the Round Table at The Algonquin in NYC, anywhere with Virginia Woolf, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis so I can listen in on their conversations and Oscar Wilde because I want to know what really made him tick.

I’m happy right where I am. although I find 19th century England fascinating, I might have found it rather an uncomfortable place to live in, especially since I’m Indian. India itself is rather a pain for women at about any other time but right now. I would have loved to meet my ancestors from other time periods, though. I always envied the multi-generational get togethers on Charmed with all the ghosts for that reason!
I have noticed a lot of dowagers littering Regency romance bemoaning the mealymouthedness of the current generation!

Anybody read Connie Willis? She wrote a couple of books about historians running around the past doing academic research. I’d kill to do that!

i honestly think i’d be pretty satisfied with anything but where i am…

i love regency and georgian england.  and greece.  and rome. and ancient egypt.  and just about everything!  oh! and scotland--definitley before the rising.  i just think that other periods in history are so much more romantic than the one we live in…

but that’s just me…

Okay...although I would NEVER want to actually live in any other time than the present...I think it would be kinda cool to check out the Crystal Palace…

I always thought living in the Regency period would have been nice; but with my luck I would probably would have been the chamber, or scullery maid. After I saw “Ann of Green Gables” I thought now that is the time period for me.  Living by the ocean, people cared about their neighbors, and I could still wear a long dress, and the men were dashing!

Regency for me. I would love to go to a country house party. Of course it goes without saying that I would have to be very high on the social scale and miraculously possessing an abundance of modern conveniences perhaps delivered by Tardis.

Mmm in fact now that I have brought the Tardis into it I would really love to be in 12th Century England to see a tourney and all those knights. It goes without saying that they would all be vying for my favour doesn’t it?

Anyone remember Dangerous Liaison ? I wanna be in France in that period because the women are extremely powerful. And I am not referring to the “legal” and “decent” women only but also to the courtesan.

Viva le grande coquette

Austenforever—Dangerous LIaisons IS in the Georgian era, I think!  Powerful women--definitely.

I just read over everyone’s comments (alas, I actually had to teach yesterday), and I think I can sum them up as:  we collectively have a gorgeous ability to imagine other cultures/times.  And collectively we have a lot of anxiety about leaving an era that includes personal products and ceramic toilets!! *g*

LauraT… I’m not doing all that much world building—not more than I normally do.  I prefer to let the details just play themselves out as they would if you were born in the Georgian period.  So in my second book, my heroine has a huge problem with her hair--all those curls, frizz, feathers, powder--you can imagine!  So it’s a world-building moment, I suppose, because the reader suddenly realizes what it was like to be carrying all that hair around, but it comes out of the plot and the circumstances of my heroine’s life.

Well, that’s the idea anyway!

It was so much fun to read everyone’s ideas—thank you all!
Eloisa

Dear Eloisa,

I was reading your behind the scenes book signing with Nora Roberts and notice that you have move the town of Boonsboro, MD to WV.

gina

For me, it’s either pre-revolutionary France, or early pioneering days in Canada. I think sometimes that I am a very ordinary woman. I have no desire to be an aristocrat, or a princess, anything like that. Instead, I’d rather be an ordinary woman with a kind, hardworking husband, children underfoot, and plenty of handcrafted work to do - crochet, knit, sewing, cooking, making candles… being able to look around my house with satisfaction and say “we have a good life here because i’ve made it so with my own two hands”

Of course, I do a lot of that now, but there is also so much pressure to not just be a wife and mother, but to also hold down a lucrative job, drive a good car, buy fancy curtains instead of sewing your own plain ones, etc etc. I’m a throwback, what can I say.

I love my mod-cons too much to stray too far in the past.  They didn’t have conditioner back then and my fly-aways would have driven me mad in a matter of weeks.  Can’t imagine using a chamber pot or going for a week without a bath.  Apparently perfume was use liberally to mask the BO, which wouldn’t work for me since I am allergic.  I will stick to my time, thank you very much.

I love the regency/Georgian periods, and although I’m told I supposedly descend from Spanish aristrocracy (what back who the heck knows when), I would probably have ended up as a tweeny or cook or maid back then. 

My favorite time period is the 1930’ and 40’s.  I love the lifestyle the movies depict back then (well, most of the lifestyle).  And the clothes - gorgeous.

Teresa said:
“At the end of my time-travel book TOUCH OF ENCHANTMENT, I have my modern-day heroine asking her family to visit the Middle Ages where she’s headed and to bring--diapers, cream rinse, antiobiotics, toilet paper, aspirin, chocolate, soap...oh, and tampons of course!”

That’s the one I was thinking of! And she wore bunny slippers or something and turned flaming arrows into flowers?

Now I feel sheepish that I didn’t automatically remember that it was a Squawker’s book. Well, this year I’m doing the Excel worksheet to keep track of what I read, and I think I’ll make a new one for books I read in the past and need to put on a “desert isle” list.

Lots o’ Squawker books will be turning up on that list!

I’m too dependant on the all the modern things we have today to actually wish to be born in a different time.  I wouldn’t mind visting though. 
I would love to visit ancient Egypt since for as long as I can remeber I’ve been fascinated by that time.  Even learned to read hieroglyphics.  Also wouldn’t mind visiting the Regency period, I love the fashion.