Characters' Names

I know i've complained about this before but gah!  NAMES! Sometimes I'm sooo tempted to go bananas and leap down the "implausible name route" like Deymien Aztec de Chandon or something.  I've actually started writing today and there i go, tap tap tap - I have the name of the butler and I stick "Mrs XXXX" for the housekeeper because she's not vital - and then I hit the first major male character and GRIND TO A BLOODY HALT.

I go and search for Parish records - and am bombarded with Charles and Edward and George and John -sheesh- all so DULL! Names just drive me bonkers.

Does anyone have any great links?  And no, I don't want baby names sites, I want parish records, or sites with real names!  help help help. Or you may be responsible for me having a Deymien Chandon.  (although that's SO bloody tempting...) I'd like unusual but plausible if you know what I mean.

Living up to its name: The Phoenix

Now that it's been announced I can do it too!  If you haven't read The Phoenix by Ruth Sims then you should, but hold your horses and don't buy the current edition as it's being re-edited, revamped and relaunched with Lethe Press (lethepress) due out February 2009.

I'm really pleased about this, as The Phoenix was one of the first gay historicals I read and I loved it, the characters, the research, the conflict (oh GOD the conflict...)  I'm also thrilled because Lethe is really expanding and taking on the relaunch of three wonderful m/m novels:

A Strong and Sudden Thaw by R W Day (rwday) (and hopefully the sequel which I know that many of you are gagging for)
Dancing in the Dark by Tamara Allen; (girluknow) and
The Phoenix by Ruth Sims.(ruth_sims)

Seeing as how the top best sellers at Linden Bay right now are Lessons in Love by Charlie Cochrane and some book about Frost Fairies by some Greek bloke, I'm not hearing so much of the "there's no market for it" murmurs now, are you?

(no subject)

Thanks to Mykola Dementiuk for this picture. Why isn't Flashman gay, again, please?  LOOK at those legs! Is it wrong of me to want to have a look at those perfect buns? No, of course it isn't. It's annoying, really, because I always wanted to write Flashman fanfic, even before I knew what fanfic was. He and Steerforth were always my favourite people in their respective books-perhaps one day I'll do an expose on what really happened to Steerforth. Drowned? I don't think so... All fake, my dear.



I did a post on Unusual Historicals on their themed month for Social Taboos, about the infamous Mary Anne Clarke.

Still Weebly, still headachey, head full of ringing and purring but I'm slowly getting there. Next time I'm ill, someone insist I go to the doctors, will ya?