Tag Archives: Delilah Marvelle

Happy Birthday Delilah Marvelle!

Hello my dears! We have another ALBTALBS birthday post, and on a holiday too! As you see I convinced the fabulous Delilah Marvelle to come guest with us on her birthday!

Mr. & Mrs. Marvelle

Mr. & Mrs. Marvelle

Every year when my birthday rolls around, I’m always at a loss as to how the year passed so quickly and how I let another year go by without doing all the things I wanted to do. Well…this year, I wasn’t going to let myself get away with it. I had one thing on my bucket list that I wanted to do before I turned 39. I was determined to go to Paris. I’ve had a series of books about the French Revolution rattling around in my brain for some time and knew the only way to really do historical research properly, was to actually go to Paris and experience my research first hand.

Locks Used During the French Revolution

Locks Used During the French Revolution

As it turned out, my husband was not only up for the trip of my dreams but had set aside some money for the trip I’ve been talking about for years. We did it in style. We rented an apartment and stayed for almost three weeks.  We ended up celebrating our 19th year anniversary, too. It was the most amazing trips I’ve ever taken in my life.

Painting from the Louvre

Painting from the Louvre

I approached Paris a little differently than I would have as a tourist. I approached it like a historical romance writer out to get her hands on a butt load of history. In particular, naughty history, as that’s a specialty of mine. My mission? To find anything and everything having to do with not only the French Revolution but my own era of 1830. One of the things I love to do is study paintings of my era. It’s the best way to capture historical detail in the era. My first stop was, of course, the Louvre. After all, it had the largest collection of historical paintings in all of Paris. Over two days, I ended up collecting and chronicling well over 350 paintings in my era and was blown away by historical details I was finding. While everyone was running to see the Mona Lisa, I ran toward paintings everyone was walking past. I did see the Mona Lisa, of course, I just made it my last stop, lol.

Versailles

Mr. Marvelle and I spent every single day wandering through every nook and cranny of historical Paris. It ranged from cemeteries to the sex museum that had historical documents of brothels from my era and of course, any other Parisian sites we passed along the way that included the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and Versailles itself, which was on the outskirts of Paris. My husband, bless his soul, let me drag him around from one area of Paris to the next on my mission of collecting history. His only mission was good food, lol. And we sure as heck found it no matter where we went.  Even the street vendor food was oooo lala and amazing.

Moulin RogueParisian Salad

Needless to say, I got spoiled. And by my next birthday, I have plans to outdo Paris. So what about you?? What’s on your bucket list? And will you be celebrating that bucket list by your birthday? I hope so. For me, it’s a new tradition and I plan on seeing it through every year.

Top of Notre Dame

Top of Notre Dame

I know it’s tough to wish Delilah a happy birthday after she went on such a fantastic trip and we didn’t… but you know, she’s still the birthday girl. 😀 And guess what? She’s also offering one of you a present! Well, two, actually! Two lucky commenters will get a digital copy of her latest release, Romancing Lady Stone.

I know you want to know what’s up for grab, so here’s the cover and info.

Romancing Lady Stone He believes in destiny. She just wants to survive it…

At forty, Lady Cecilia Evangeline Stone thinks she has everything a woman could ever want. A title, a fortune, and four children who make her proud. After a marriage of convenience that was anything but convenient, she has no desire to complicate her life by including a man in it again. When her eldest son announces his engagement to a Russian actress in Saint Petersburg, Cecilia sets out to do what any good mother would do: stop the wedding. Unfortunately, destiny has other plans.

Konstantin Alexie Levin never considered himself to be a villain. In fact, he considers himself to be a Russian gentleman. Having grown up in a refined and well-educated family that embraced criminal life to avoid debtor’s prison, the only thing preventing him from knowing happiness is the rest of the world. Everything changes, however, when Konstantin is given a chance to start life anew and travel to London to collect an unexpected reward for saving a man’s life. To his surprise, he is about to become a hero at midnight to a beautiful aristocrat who desperately needs his help. The problem is…he wants to do more than save Lady Stone. He wants to make the woman his, all his.

WARNING: This book is Rated Double S (Sweaty & Sinful) and contains strong language and sexual content which may cause respectable people to swoon.

Happy birthday Ms. Marvelle! I hope you had a perfectly lovely day, and extra pie and cake for your birthday! Along with excellent food, and no family drama. 😉

Release Day Guest: Delilah Marvelle!

Hi Everyone! So today we have author Delilah Marvelle visiting with us! I put a call out to twitter to help with posts, cuz you know I’ve been so… uh… on top of timely posts, yeah? :X Anyway, she is pretty much the most adorable thing ever and basically I hate her because I will never be so tiny and adorable. Only she’s so nice you can’t really. (I’m having a good day. No I’m not lying. >.>)

So! It’s super exciting though, because Ms. Marvelle has a very shiny new book out today! Isn’t that cover gorgeous?!

Quick question: What does a handkerchief, honey, bees and a woman’s clitoris have in common? Ah…that is the beauty of history. This is why I write historical romance. Some may think that my approach to historical romance is too sexual in nature and that history was primmer in nature than what I portray. One reader even wrote to me, scolding me that dildos were not in existence back in 1830. This bothered me, because our modern way of thinking has a tendency to skew the past. Because…ehm…the oldest dildo is actually 28,000 years old.

So I started my blog, A BIT O’MUSLIN, to re-educate the population of nay-sayers. Getting back to my earlier question, of what a handkerchief, honey, bees and the clitoris have in common, one sexual art many may not know about was the Art of Hiving, which was popular for a short period of time in the Victorian era. It was specifically for virgins who wanted to remain “intact” but wanted to experience ecstasy. (Guess they hadn’t thought of masturbation…)

Curious? Instead of putting history into *my* words, let me guide you into history through an 1873 perspective. Here is the excerpt from Harper’s Bizarre issue from March of 1873 chronicles:

“A table spoon of honey is dabbed on the vagina with a silk handkerchief. The jar containing the bees is then placed under the honeyed canal attracting the insects. I observed this ritual in the back room of a playhouse in Kensington. A young woman, who shall remain nameless as to conceal her good name, prepares to receive the four insects. Sharp stings yield cries of pain and eventually tears. The practice of hiving has been advertised as originating in the Orient as a way to receive pleasure whilst maintaining chastity. Advertisements in newspapers trumpet sayings like “intense ecstasy” and “superior than virile males.” The Archbishop of Canterbury has condemned the craze calling it “Ungodly.” The Queen has made no officially comment, but rumors circulate in taverns that midnight shipments of bee hives have entered Buckingham Palace…”

I have a feeling some dude in the Orient thought it’d be funny to mess with the Brits who were all freakin uptight. It didn’t take long before these circulating advertisements were considered infomercials gone wrong. The fad was quickly deemed a farce and terminated. Imagine that. Curious about Sex Throughout History? Come on, you know you are! I post a new topic every first of the month. Check out my blog at www.DelilahMarvelle.blogspot.com

Ms. Marvelle is giving away one signed copy of Forever and a Day to one lucky commenter, so get to it! Also, I’m totally jealous – I can’t wait to get my hands on this book and read it! (And just for good measure… I’ll post the cover again with the blurb. ;))

Roderick Gideon Tremayne — the recently appointed Duke of Wentworth — never expected to find himself in New York City, tracking down a mysterious map important to his late mother. He certainly never expected to be injured, only to wake up with no memory of who he is. But when he sees the fiery-headed beauty who’s taken it upon herself to rescue him, suddenly his memory is the last thing on his mind.

As the head of New York’s notorious Forty Thieves, Georgia Milton feels responsible for the man who was trying to save her bag from a thief. But she’s not prepared for the fierce passion he ignites within her. When his memory begins to return, her whole world is threatened. Now Roderick must choose between the life he forgot and the life he never knew existed