I learned on Connie's website that she was featured in a short segment on the news program 48 Hours in 1995. The episode's called Isn't It Romantic? and her segement's called Foreign Affair. See it below.
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
January 9, 2022
January 30, 2021
June 27, 2020
BODICE RIPPER NOVELISTS- Men Masquerading as Women
I know of a few 'female' historical romance authors who wrote in the 70s and 80s who are actually men. Below is information on them though some books listed may not be romance. If anyone has a photo of someone I've got listed but have no photo for, please contact me.
Loves Tender Fury (1976)
Dare to Love (1978)
Love Me, Marietta (1981)
Once More, Miranda (1983)
When Love Commands (1984)
Angel in Scarlet (1986)
The Slipper (1987)
They Call Her Dana (1989)
Falconridge (1990)
Betrayal at Blackcrest (1991)
Come to Castlemoor (1991)
Whisper in the Darkness (1991)
Room Beneath the Stairs (1992)
The Lady of Lyon House (1992)
Midnight at Mallyncourt (1992)
Susannah, Beware (1992) aka Nine Buck's Row
Stranger by the Lake (1993)
Jamintha (1994)
Christina Savage aka Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer
Love`s Wildest Fires (1977)
Dawn Wind (1980)
Tempest (1982)
Hearts of Fire (1984)
Shana Carrol aka Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer
Raven 1978
Live For Love 1984
Paxon Pride 1984
Yellow Rose 1984
Rebels in Love 1984
Reap the Wiild Harvest (1979)
Desire's Legacy (1981)
A Lasting Splendor (1981)
Passion's Heirs (1981)
Destiny's Thunder (1983)
A Heritage of Passion (1983)
The Virginians (1984)
Hester Dark GF 1989-09
The Blackbird's Tale GF 1991-08
A Most Determined Woman GF 1994-05
The Princess of Poor Street GF 1994-05
Street Song GF 1994-05May-1994
When Dreams Come True GF 1994-05
Nellie Wildchild GF 1996-07
Half Hidden GF 1997-04
This Side of Heaven GF 1997-04
Where No Man Cries GF 1997-08
Jessie Gray GF 1997-12
Flower of Scotland GF 1998-03
An Apple from Eden GF 1999-01
Maggie Jordan GF 1999-08
Goodnight, Sweet Prince GF 2000-01
Wild Strawberries GF 2000-11
Forget-Me-Not GF 2001-10
Moonlit Eyes GF 2002-01
Finding Happiness GF 2003-02
Twilight Time GF 2004-01Jan
Little White Lies GF 2005-03
Sweethearts GF 2007-11
Christina Nicholson, aka Christopher Nicole (born 1930)
Christopher Nicole Bio Link
Power and the Passion (1977)
The Savage Sands (1978)
Queen of Paris (1979)
Daughter of the South
Lee Jackson, aka Donald Bain
Stephanie Blake, aka Jack Pearl (cousin to author Donald Bain)
Callie Knight (1970)
Daughter of Destiny (1977)
Flowers of Fire (1977)
Blaze of Passion (1978)
So Wicked My Desire (1979)
Secret Sins (1980)
Wicked Is My Flesh (1980)
Scarlet Kisses (1981)
Unholy Desires (1981)
A Glorious Passion (1982)
Fires of the Heart (1982)
Bride of the Wind (1984)
Texas Lily (1987)
This World Is Mine (1988)
The Devil in My Heart (1990)
Garnet 1978
Rosewood 1979
Coral 1979
-
Tregaron's Daughter (1971)
Stranger at Wildings (1975)
Merlin's Keep (1977)
The Capricorn Stone (1979)
The Long Masquerade (1981)
Heritage of Shadows (1983)
Stormswift (1984)
Golden Urchin (1987)
May 29, 2020
Interesting Old Article and Interview With Male Bodice Ripper Novelists
I came across this old article from the January 1981 edition of Texas Monthly magazine while researching Kerry Newcomb, formerly known as half of the bodice ripper writing duo Christina Savage. I've uploaded the article here. I've typed up the article myself and posted it below, and added links.
"Even though Parris Afton Bonds is an unqualified sucess in the historical romance field, her sales don't come close to those racked up by Texas writer Christina Savage. Savage's first book, Love's Wildest Fires, sold over a million copies, and Dawn Wind came out last spring with a major advertising campaign and printing of 800,000.
Christina Savage is two guys named Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer. Newcomb lives in Dallas, although on the day I met them they were both in the Dallas office, an upstairs apartment in a run-down Oak Lawn house. There was a cockatiel loose in the apartment, and I noticed a desk lamp with an upended colander for a shade. Schaefer sat at a dilapidated desk quietly trimming his nails while Newcomb stalked about the room.
"I grew up in the Mid-Cities," Newcomb said. "Actually I was born at the Gemini Drive-in during Attack of the Crab Monsters. These crab monsters would not only kill people but they'd steal their brains and switch them around." Newcomb went on to talk about Inframan, which I agreed was the classic oriental horror film, and he made an impassioned plea for the John Wayne version of The Alamo.
"When that big, ugly guy comes up to this woman and says, 'Ma'am, ah ain't got nobody ta say good-bye ta. Kin ah say good-bye ta yew?' and then she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses him full on the cheek! Oh, goddam, that was beautiful!"
Newcomb and Schaefer first met at the Dallas Theater Center, where they were both actors and directors. They didn't become a writing team until several years later, after both had tried solitary stints at freelance writing. They worked well together, cranking out horror scripts, PBS documentaries, a slide-tape presentation on the Campfire Girls, and one-minute spots for a governors' conference.
Their first book was a Western. No one wanted to buy it, but it impressed a publisher enough to get them a contract for a slave-plantation novel. Schaefer and Newcomb read Mandingo and Sweet Savage Love and then set to work on Rafe. Since then they've produced, besides the Christina Savage books, action-adventure books like Matanza and suspense novels like Pandora Man. They recently finished the first draft of Yellow Rose, a family saga set during the Texas Revolution that will be published under the name Shana Carrol.
"We got into this," Newcomb explained, "not really liking the genre. We worked at it from the angle of what we could do with these books to make us want to read them. With Dawn Wind we felt secure enough to cut out all the silly characters."
"This new book is unique," Schaefer said, "The couple in Yellow Rose don't even argue that much. It's the only historical romance sage in which the hero is a virgin."
Newcomb and Schaefer write their books in a leapfrog fashion, with Newcomb generally writing the first draft of a chapter and then sending it to Schaefer, who reworks it and sends it back. They work hard and resent being classified as genre writers.
"Dawn Wind," Schaefer said, "will hold its own against ninety percent of the hardback books being published." I had read Dawn Wind and tended to agree. Even though its main male character is named Lion McKenna and it has the usual quota of quivering loins, it also has range and bite. There is an impressive account of the Civil War battle of Manassas, some interesting and complex minor characters, and a concern for topics of more consequence than its characters' unslaked lust.
Even as Newcomb and Schaefer grumbled about how their bodice rippers were not taken seriously, they were making plans to move outside the genre. They had a book in the works called The Ghosts of Elkhorn- which fit into no catagory at all- to be published in hardcover by Viking in early 1982. Meanwhile Dawn Wind, by Christina Savage, was just beginning its brief but prominent shelf life on the racks of every paperback outlet in the country. "Forbidden love," its purple cover said, "dark vengeance, and searing Civil War." Dawn Wind would occupy that position for a few weeks, then it would be supplanted by other books promising stories of secret desires, undreamed-of passions, whispered longings, dark and delicious cravings.
Maybe someday a writer will come along and elevate all this into the realm of lieterature, do for the bodice ripper what Dashiell Hammett did for the detective novel. That's probably a long shot, but would be nice to think that at least some of this squirming and salivating will not be lost to the ages."
________
See related article.
Christina Savage is two guys named Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer. Newcomb lives in Dallas, although on the day I met them they were both in the Dallas office, an upstairs apartment in a run-down Oak Lawn house. There was a cockatiel loose in the apartment, and I noticed a desk lamp with an upended colander for a shade. Schaefer sat at a dilapidated desk quietly trimming his nails while Newcomb stalked about the room.
"I grew up in the Mid-Cities," Newcomb said. "Actually I was born at the Gemini Drive-in during Attack of the Crab Monsters. These crab monsters would not only kill people but they'd steal their brains and switch them around." Newcomb went on to talk about Inframan, which I agreed was the classic oriental horror film, and he made an impassioned plea for the John Wayne version of The Alamo.
"When that big, ugly guy comes up to this woman and says, 'Ma'am, ah ain't got nobody ta say good-bye ta. Kin ah say good-bye ta yew?' and then she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses him full on the cheek! Oh, goddam, that was beautiful!"
Newcomb and Schaefer first met at the Dallas Theater Center, where they were both actors and directors. They didn't become a writing team until several years later, after both had tried solitary stints at freelance writing. They worked well together, cranking out horror scripts, PBS documentaries, a slide-tape presentation on the Campfire Girls, and one-minute spots for a governors' conference.
Their first book was a Western. No one wanted to buy it, but it impressed a publisher enough to get them a contract for a slave-plantation novel. Schaefer and Newcomb read Mandingo and Sweet Savage Love and then set to work on Rafe. Since then they've produced, besides the Christina Savage books, action-adventure books like Matanza and suspense novels like Pandora Man. They recently finished the first draft of Yellow Rose, a family saga set during the Texas Revolution that will be published under the name Shana Carrol.
"We got into this," Newcomb explained, "not really liking the genre. We worked at it from the angle of what we could do with these books to make us want to read them. With Dawn Wind we felt secure enough to cut out all the silly characters."
"This new book is unique," Schaefer said, "The couple in Yellow Rose don't even argue that much. It's the only historical romance sage in which the hero is a virgin."
Newcomb and Schaefer write their books in a leapfrog fashion, with Newcomb generally writing the first draft of a chapter and then sending it to Schaefer, who reworks it and sends it back. They work hard and resent being classified as genre writers.
"Dawn Wind," Schaefer said, "will hold its own against ninety percent of the hardback books being published." I had read Dawn Wind and tended to agree. Even though its main male character is named Lion McKenna and it has the usual quota of quivering loins, it also has range and bite. There is an impressive account of the Civil War battle of Manassas, some interesting and complex minor characters, and a concern for topics of more consequence than its characters' unslaked lust.
Even as Newcomb and Schaefer grumbled about how their bodice rippers were not taken seriously, they were making plans to move outside the genre. They had a book in the works called The Ghosts of Elkhorn- which fit into no catagory at all- to be published in hardcover by Viking in early 1982. Meanwhile Dawn Wind, by Christina Savage, was just beginning its brief but prominent shelf life on the racks of every paperback outlet in the country. "Forbidden love," its purple cover said, "dark vengeance, and searing Civil War." Dawn Wind would occupy that position for a few weeks, then it would be supplanted by other books promising stories of secret desires, undreamed-of passions, whispered longings, dark and delicious cravings.
Maybe someday a writer will come along and elevate all this into the realm of lieterature, do for the bodice ripper what Dashiell Hammett did for the detective novel. That's probably a long shot, but would be nice to think that at least some of this squirming and salivating will not be lost to the ages."
________
See related article.
May 28, 2020
READ STORMFIRE FOR FREE AND LINKS TO DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE NOVEL
The Book Bitches
The Book Binge
Romantic Parvenu
Bookworm 2 Bookworm
GoodReads Reviews
The Book Gourmet
Regan Romance Reviews
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)