The pages of the Parlor in House of High Spirits are not necessarily all Mayfair Witches-related. I have many interests, some of which might have elements in common with the Mayfair Witches, the Vampire Chronicles, or other subjects Anne Rice wrote about in her novels. Some might contribute to an aspect of how fans engage with or are inspired by works of fiction, their settings, characters, or even actual historical events and people fiction literature has been inspired by or based upon.

As with the rest of the Mayfair Witches Parlor website, you will find fan art here, but you will NOT find fan fiction here.

Some topics have obvious links, whereas others might not have obvious links. Engaging with the works of Anne Rice can take fans and critics alike in surprising directions because her work blended so much together to create compelling stories and characters. Anne Rice's work survives her, and her literary legacy is poised to live on for generations to come.

Here also is a section that I've set aside to discuss other works and topics that interest me in their own right. They are not necessarily Mayfair Witches or Anne Rice-related at all, but simply topics I enjoy researching and discussing. They are not necessarily all "supernatural" or "paranormal", either. Many of these works are inspired by real life events, people and places. The more we learn about those inspirations, the better we understand how even fictional works can and have made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the world of the past and the world we live in today.

To open this section, let's take a look at something that we might not pay much attention to. This could best be described as the influence of what we see and hear of popular culture--for example, a movie that has details somewhat similar to details in a novel we are reading for the first time--on how we see a literary scene in our minds. One that is described in words and in some detail--but without images. Often, the author does base fictional places on actual places. When we read that novel, though, we don't always know that. So, how do we form those mental images as we're reading? Perhaps we start with what we know.

I thought it would be fun to start this section with a fun overview of one particularly yummy example of how images described on a page first began to form in my mind as I read a romance novel for the very first time...

Back to The Bookshelf

The Genre of Historical Romance Novels

One of the most successful genres in publishing is romance novels. The term "romance novel" can mean different things. One way of distinguishing genres within genres is by terms like "historical romance" or "contemporary romance". In recent years, more and more LGBTQ romances are being published in the mainstream, like Christopher Rice's Sapphire Cove series.

In the early years of the Internet, a new way of publishing romances emerged in the form of Ellora's Cave, which published books electronically only at first, but did branch out into paperback publishing. Started by an author who wrote under the name Jaid Black, Ellora's Cave specialized in yet another genre within the larger genre of romance novels: romantica. The idea was a blend of romance and erotica for a fan base that was largely female. Ellora's Cave could possibly have been one of the first to bring books to readers in electronic form on a fairly large scale. Certainly, romance and erotica were not considered the same thing in terms of genre. Romantica sought to change all of that.

But what of the origins of the romance novels often referred to as "bodice rippers"?

Back to The Bookshelf

Bodice Ripping and Other Romantic Gestures

The bodice-ripper style of romance novels began in the early 1970's with the publication of a novel called The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Published in 1972 by Avon, the novel had quite a struggle to finally make it to print. To be fair, novels usually do. But Kathleen Woodiwiss had something different.

Initially, Woodiwiss sent her novel to a number of publishing houses that typically published novels in hardcover first. Having no luck, she decided to try her luck with paperback publishing houses. An editor at Avon, Nancy Coffey, changed all of that. The novel was long but very descriptive in setting the atmosphere of the characters. Today, writing a love story about a woman whose soulmate first made her acquaintance by...force...would definitely be offensive. This means of making a woman admit her "love" because she won't do it on her own is certainly a huge factor in why this genre of romance became known as "bodice ripper".

Another author considered a pioneer of this genre of romance is Rosemary Rogers. Reportedly, Rogers' adult daughter found a manuscript of a romance novel her mother had written in her mother's desk drawer. After reading it, she encouraged her mother to publish the novel. Rogers did, and that novel was called Sweet Savage Love.

Back to The Bookshelf

Enter Laurie McBain

Then, along came a young woman named Laurie McBain. Having read The Flame and the Flower, McBain would look and look for other romance novels like that of Kathleen Woodiwiss's novel. Frustrated that she could not find other novels like it, McBain decided that she would just write some herself. In 1975, at age 26, Laurie McBain published her first novel through Avon, Devil's Desire. Set in Regency England, the novel showed the in-depth research into places, time periods and history that would characterize the rest of the novels McBain would publish over the following ten years.

Laurie McBain would also find inspiration in some of her own family history when she wrote and published her next novel in 1977, Moonstruck Madness. Set in 18th century Scotland and England, the novel opened with the heroine, Sabrina Verrick, and the real Battle of Culloden Moor. Although Sabrina Verrick and her family were nobility, they were impoverished thanks to her father, and Sabrina, to support her brother and sister, took to dressing up as a highwayman, "Bonnie Charlie", who robbed the wealthy in their carriages as they traveled through the countryside.

In 1979, Laurie McBain would publish the novel Tears of Gold. This novel had an impoverished Irish woman who became the target of a revenge plot that would follow her to San Francisco and New Orleans in the 19th century at the time of the California Gold Rush. This would be one of only two of McBain's novels to be set in the United States from beginning to end.

The only other novel by Laurie McBain to be set in the United States was her final novel, When the Splendor Falls, published by Avon in 1985. It is an interesting choice of settings and plots because it has some moments where it's almost like reading Gone With the Wind.

The novel is indeed set to span the Civil War in its entirety. It opens on Travers Hill in Virginia, and (spoiler alert) concludes in New Mexico. This is the novel that, for whatever reason, was the last novel Laurie McBain published. One can almost imagine this novel being something of a sendoff in the form of a tribute to Gone With the Wind.

There was only one other single title published by Laurie McBain other than the ones already referenced here. That novel was Wild Bells to the Wild Sky, published by Avon in 1983.

The novel was set in Elizabethan England primarily, but also in the Caribbean. Actual historical people, including Elizabeth I and even William Shakespeare himself, appear in the novel. This, I think, was one of Laurie McBain's best novels. As I read it, there were little things here and there that reminded me of the novel McBain published in 1980, Chance the Winds of Fortune.

Back to The Bookshelf

Winter Break Heats Up

This is the part where I explain that Chance the Winds of Fortune, which is a sequel to Moonstruck Madness, was the first romance novel I ever read. At age 13. Which is what happens when teens are thrilled to be able to sleep in over the Christmas break.

Or stay up late after their parents have gone to bed, leaving them to finally satisfy their curiosity about that book under the coffee table that had been there for months.

I admit I was pretty pleased with myself for being able to interpret the somewhat flowery way love scenes were written. At that time, I always had a book I was reading with me, and this was no exception. Except I usually flipped the book over onto its cover so others wouldn't see it and flip. One class I had was, I think, a way for the teacher to just tell us all to shut up and read a book, but make sure we log how many pages we read--of our own books. I thought the teacher would have something to say about my book being this romance novel, but that didn't happen. Probably the teacher didn't care what we read as long as it wasn't something like Penthouse Forum.

Chance the Winds of Fortune was set in 1769-1770, and went from England to Charles Town, South Carolina (it was not called Charleston until a bit later, which is mentioned in a footnote on the first page of the novel), and to the Caribbean.
The story follows the abduction of Rhea Claire, whose mother was the main character in Moonstruck Madness, falling in love with the Duke of Camareigh and becoming the Duchess.

Camareigh?

The description of Camareigh, the family home of the Dominicks, is one I often tried to picture in my head, it was so well described. As I got older, I began to wonder if Laurie McBain had based her fictional Camareigh on an actual structure. Often, when authors base a fictional location on an actual location, those locations tend to be extremely well described, right down to finer details. This is something I tend to enjoy, which is seeing if these well described places were indeed based on actual places. Even at that age (maybe I'll go over Mystery Mansion one of these days). But at that time, those details had yet to jump out at me.

And this is where things get interesting.

Sometimes, I think whatever else we watch or find entertaining at the time might influence how we envision what a location in a novel might look like. Or there might be another reason, like the way I envisioned the inside of the Mayfair house when I first read the novels. For some weird reason, I couldn't help thinking of it as looking like a rental we lived in when I was very young. Perhaps it was because it was in that rental that I saw what seemed to be a ghost one night.

Either a ghost, or I rudely interrupted a burglary with my need for a drink of water in the middle of the night.

Back to The Bookshelf

High Spirits on the Emerald Isle

Right: Poster for High Spirits (1988, Tri-Star/Palace Productions). More image credits to come.

Well, around the time I read that first romance novel, I also saw this cute movie that seems to have been something along the lines of Haunted Honeymoon. Before he directed Interview With the Vampire, Neil Jordan directed a movie called High Spirits.

The film, which stars Steve Guttenberg, Daryl Hannah and Peter O'Toole (yep), is set in Ireland. Specifically, a decrepit old castle the owners had fallen behind on mortgage payments for. Castle Plunkett was being operated (barely, if at all) as a hotel, and Peter Plunkett (O'Toole), whose first name is not "D**k", nor is his last name "Face", is in a very tight spot.

The mortgage holder has threatened to foreclose on the old castle and have it moved from Ireland to Malibu, California for a theme park. In a traditionally ineffective way, Peter Plunkett told the mortgage holder that "I shall take this check, which I'm holding in my hand (it was actually a tumbler of booze), and ferry it across the water to New England. That's how much I care!"

The hotel, Peter Plunkett claimed, was in tip top condition, but only if you count having bowls and pots and pans everywhere to catch the rainwater leaking into the castle. Coincidentally, the exterior shots were filmed at Dromore Castle in Limerick, Ireland. The castle, a relatively new structure, was built in the 19th century. Unfortunately, it was not occupied for very long. When it was built, there had apparently been murals or designs painted directly onto walls and/or ceilings. But when it rained...

The water almost immediately ruined the art. When the castle appeared in this film as a location, the true condition of Castle Plunkett is highlighted by this very same type of water leakage problem.

In the film, however, it was Peter Plunkett's mother (Liz Smith, left), who helpfully interrupted the conversation between Plunkett and the mortgage holder. She did this by picking up another phone and demanding, "WHAT postal strike?!" Plunkett's mother even more helpfully intervened in the aftermath of the phone conversation, which did not end well. How?

By informing her son in a very distraught manner that his father was so worried about the state of things that he was tearing his hair out. Say what now? And so was his grandmother, his mother would have him know. Hah?

After reminding his mother that both were dead, and his mother retorting that they were still upset, Peter Plunkett suddenly had an idea.

Ghosts.

Well, of course. An old, decrepit castle in Ireland is haunted. Of course, it won't be in the best of condition, right? But ghosts. People love the idea of visiting a place rumored to be haunted, don't they? The more ghosts, the more types of supernatural phenomena, the better, right? As long as they're able to leave at the end of the visit. They can always catch up on sleep at home, can't they?

So if "the one thing we won't promise is a good night's sleep", no problem! Right?

Hmmm.

That depends.

Back to The Bookshelf

"Haunting" the Hotel

Of course, the present owner and his staff don't actually believe Castle Plunkett is haunted. And there is no way to tell by the preparations being made for the arrival of a busload of Americans who booked a vacation in the crumbling old castle-turned-hotel specifically because of the alleged hauntings. The guests include a priest about to take his final vows, a woman on a retreat from her most recent failed relationship, a family of five, the father a parapsychologist who makes it VERY clear he thinks this is going to turn out to be "the most pitiful sham", and a couple on their second honeymoon.

This would be Jack Crawford (Steve Guttenberg) and his wife, Sharon (Beverly D'Angelo). This is not a happy couple, it is made very clear from the moment they first appear on their flight (on Pan Am). She's got her sleeping mask on, Valium consumed, and is annoyed that Jack's toast includes a reference to the Loch Ness monster as part of her homeland. "That's Scotland, Jack," she says--right before he accidentally spills a bit of the champagne he'd just poured onto her lap.

You have to wonder how this couple ever made it as far as a second honeymoon when the marriage clearly has bigger problems than Nessie.

So, HOW did THIS movie have any influence on how I might envision anything in a romance novel? It's already more like Haunted Honeymoon. Well, as it happens, unbeknownst to Peter Plunkett despite his mother's protestations, Castle Plunkett really is haunted.

As the guests are being served a hot meal that consists of dishes that all contain the word "whiting" in their names, they are seated in a suitably dusty dining room full of cobwebs. While the parapsychologist answered his childrens' demands to see these ghosts by telling them they weren't going to see any, and demanding to know if the wine was some kind of "whiting Bordeaux", Jack Crawford was distracted.

He was gazing up at what was an old painting on the wall. In it was a beautiful young woman and her white horse, standing across the water from Castle Plunkett. When Jack asked who this was, Peter Plunkett answered in an uncharacteristically grave voice.

"Mary Plunkett," he announced, and the rest of the guests turned to see what he was looking at. Plunkett told his guests that this was his cousin, and prefaced it with with several greats and then grand. She had died right at Castle Plunkett 200 years earlier, prompting a smart remark from Sharon Crawford.

"She couldn't take the whiting, either?"

Not only did Peter Plunkett get away with scolding her for the remark; he also gave the guests the first bit of factual information about the castle's history.

"She was murdered. On her wedding night. By the hand of her newly wedded husband."

Back to The Bookshelf

A Beautiful Ghost

Right: Jack Crawford and Peter Plunkett in the sea-themed bar of Castle Plunkett (yes, that's a mermaid cutout on the stage).

Very romantic, isn't it?

I didn't think so, either.

Long story short, after the fake haunting theatrics all went south, Jack Crawford (who had learned the real reason for the "second honeymoon" he and his wife were on) and Peter Plunkett decided to get very drunk in the room designed to look something like Adventureland. Afterward, Jack was the first to discover the castle truly was haunted. Because that's what happens when you get so drunk, you go blundering into the wrong room.

It is from here on out that I began to get my first idea of what some of the settings in Chance the Winds of Fortune might have looked like. Well, it was the room Jack had stumbled into. It looked like it could have at one point been as opulent as Mrs. Plunkett's quarters were. She was first seen in the beginning of the film, sitting in bed, on the phone and demanding to know who Peter was calling. Between the two, I somehow managed to scare up a frame of reference for settings suited to a lavish romance novel despite exactly NONE of the book having been set in Ireland.

This is because this is the point in the movie that we see the actual ghosts haunting Castle Plunkett. Mary Plunkett (Daryl Hannah), the subject of the painting in the dining room, and her newly wedded husband, Martin Brogan (Liam Neeson), who killed her.

Simply put, here was a character onscreen who was about the closest I had seen to fitting the description of the main female character in Chance the Winds of Fortune, Rhea Claire Dominick. Oddly, she's described in the novel as having blond hair, but the model on the cover of the novel has more red hair. The timeline of the movie, however, and the set of Mary Plunkett's bridal chamber, would have dated to roughly twenty years after the events in the novel. However, for someone who was not yet familiar with smaller details in historical dramas that would authenticate time periods more precisely, that was close enough.

So, it isn't hard to imagine that for a while, these details in this funny movie would be how I would envision the world Rhea Claire Dominick inhabited before her dramatic abduction and eventual escape, only to end up on the Sea Dragon, bound for that first love scene in a romance novel I had ever read. The problem is, the rest of the Dominick home, which was actually a domicile for a duke, otherwise did NOT fit the description of the rest of Castle Plunkett. It wasn't even a castle.

At that age, I was lucky my only other frame of reference wasn't children's fiction.

Back to The Bookshelf

Detour: Romance and the Caribbean

The Caribbean has always been a favorite for romance, and it's easy to romanticize it despite the fact that its history is often anything but romantic. However, it's not as if romance novelists ignored the actual history of the places they set their novels in. Historical fiction and historical romances work well because it is that history that helps drive the action of the story. It is woven into the lives of their fictional characters to the point where you have to wonder if these types of unions really were possible, that they could indeed have happened. That's what makes them stand out, though. These were the types of unions that were NOT supposed to happen, and yet, they did. They were unusual, yes. But were they unlikely?

This was a matter Laurie McBain approached very well, actually. I had not known she'd written a sequel to this naughty little gem I had chanced upon at such a young age until I was at work one day, and found in a paperback bin employees would pass along novels they were done with in case others wanted them. After work, I took it home with me, parked myself somewhere, and read it. From the beginning, Dark Before the Rising Sun, its cover using the same couple as the previous novel, addressed this issue. Posting banns, which at the time the novels were set in were required in England, issues of title and class, issues of reputations damaged despite events occurring due to no fault of the victim, consequences of choices made in the face of those events...

Nope, not finished...

Back to The Bookshelf