The Readers’ Writers: Best-selling author Victoria Alexander – Freeport Journal

Victoria Alexander exemplifies life lived and enjoyed to its fullest. This charismatic lady is a former TV news reporter who viewed all the good and bad this world has to offer, including the time her own husband and other journalists were held hostage by a disturbed man.

Since leaving television, she has seen 16 of her more than two dozen books hit the New York Times, USA Today and/or Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. “The Perfect Wife” was a NYT No. 1 bestseller. In 2009 she was given a Career Achievement Award from RT Bookclub and named Historical Storyteller of the year in 2003.

Victoria’s stories of love, romance and intrigue in bygone eras contain the charm and sometimes quick tongue the author herself possesses. In “The Perfect Mistress,” Victoria unveiled a proper lady who discovers passion is her legacy. But she also introduced some new characters who now have their own story to tell in “His Mistress by Christmas.” Widowed Lady Veronica Simpson seeks the boudoir benefits of marriage without the tedious restrictions. Rogue and explorer Sir Sebastian Hadley-Attwater needs a wife in order to ingratiate himself to his family. Oh, yeah, there’s a collision course if ever there was one.

Q. What prompted you to set your stories in the 1800s?

A. Overall, I think the 19th century is far enough in the past to provide a lovely veneer of romance without being so far in the past that contemporary readers can’t relate to it.

When I first started reading romance, I fell in love with the Regency period in England. For a fiction writer it was a fabulous time. The Napoleonic Wars were raging through much of that period so you have men of great courage and war heroes and all the drama that accompanies countries during wartime. There was a fascinating social system with unmarried women under strict social rules, but those who were married (and had provided an heir) were free to behave almost as they wished. Plus the clothes were gorgeous.

From there, I moved into mid- and now late Victorian. It was a period full of progress and, while fairly civilized, also had great potential for adventure. I think it was a fascinating time to be alive. And I love true stories of Victorian exploration and invention.

Q. How do you consistently create characters unlike the ones in your previous tales?

A. I hate the idea of writing the same story with the same characters over and over, so I put a lot of thought into the stories as well as the characters I create. But honestly, there are so many different facets of people to explore. It’s fun to create a heroine who is firmly a woman of her time and would never think of doing anything improper in one book and then in the next, a heroine who has the means and determination to do exactly as she pleases. My next book (“My Wicked Little Lies”) is about two people who are already married to each other, so I got to explore how and why they would keep secrets from each other.

Trying to make my characters and my stories unique from book to book is a challenge. It means each book is harder to write than the last. As much as I wish it would be easier, I think that’s a good thing. It means I keep working and stretching to write the best book I can.

Q. What one thing do you believe has kept readers coming back to your books?

A. Honestly, I think it’s simple. I write the kind of book I like to read. I want a book that’s going to take me away from real life for a bit and hopefully make me laugh or at least smile. And I think there are a lot of people out there like me. Deep down inside, I’m pretty run-of-the-mill ordinary.

Q. “His Mistress by Christmas” is a bit of a departure for you due to its holiday theme. Will we see more holiday-inspired novels from you?

A. Absolutely! I’m already working on one for next year called “What Happens at Christmas.” I think Christmas is a wonderful time of year to set a story. Aside from the obvious holiday festivities, it is an innately magical time when anything can happen, when miracles happen. And what is more miraculous than falling in love?

Q. Any parting thoughts for your readers?

A. I’ve started a new family series called “Sinful Family Secrets” that centers around the Hadley-Attwater family and their friends and connections. “His Mistress by Christmas” introduces the family, and in the notes section of my website, there’s a section where the matriarch introduces the family. “Meet the Hadley-Attwaters” is in the “Ladies for Tea” format I started in the continuing short story at the end of the “Last Man Standing” books.

I’d also like to thank my readers for liking my work. It’s really a thrill to know that there are people who like what you pour your heart and soul into.

And I should tell them I have a lot more stories left to write!

http://www.victoriaalexander.com/

DA Kentner is an author and journalist. www.kevad.net

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Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’ is a flawed but passionate ode to romance and the cinema

Paramount finally brought Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” before a lot of press (and a lot of guild members) in Los Angeles this afternoon. This after the film showed “unfinished” as a secret screening at the New York Film Festival last month.

Well, this print was “unfinished,” too, actually. One effects shot was still left to be rendered, and closing credits were not yet complete, but by and large, it was finished. And though it’s a flawed piece of work (stemming from a sluggish screenplay and a largely underwhelming lead performance from Asa Butterfield), I found it to be fiercely romantic and inspiringly passionate. I’ll sign off on that most days of the week.

It’s also immaculately crafted, from Dante Ferretti’s jaw-dropping production design (hello, Oscar) to Robert Richardson’s dazzling fluid master shots and foray into 3D to Sandy Powell’s precise-as-always costume design to the complex visual effects work on the piece. The film creates a world and transports you there effortlessly.

It takes a while to build steam. The screenplay isn’t all that organic and seemed to be at odds with itself, desperate to hold its final (moving) act as far away as possible for as long as possible. And Butterfield doesn’t quite settle into the character, though he certainly has moments.

But I didn’t care. I really didn’t. I so enjoyed Scorsese’s mingling of character with his own passion for filmmaking that I couldn’t be bothered with the film’s drawbacks. I was touched by the romance of the piece (expanding on some of the side characters from Brian Selznick’s graphic novel), the love of 1930s Paris and the excitement of that time and place and the reverence for a form that has come to define the man. It’s a movie about the joy of making movies, and I think anyone who’s ever tried their hand at actually doing that will react positively in some way.

Scorsese mentioned in the post-screening QA (moderated by Paul Thomas Anderson) that it was kind of back to square one, though, as the 3D stuff really put a wrench in his normal, refined flow. “But that was what made it fun,” he said. And truly, I think that joy shows up on the screen.

Ben Kingsley is particularly noteworthy for his performance as filmmaker Georges Méliès. The film becomes part-biopic of the man, who is a trailblazer of the cinema and whose creations expanded the limitations of what imagination could bring to the form. And Kingsley is quite moving in how he handles a man who wants to bury his glorious past as the world and tastes have moved on. Therein lies the film’s theme of film preservation, near and dear, of course, to Scorsese’s heart.

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Ultimately it’s a movie about the hunger for adventure, how the movies satisfy that hunger and how rewarding sharing that gift truly is. It won’t be an Oscar powerhouse (since I know you’ve already got those questions ready). No Best Picture or Best Screenplay or anything like that (though I think Kingsley does deserve some consideration). It’ll all be relegated to the below-the-line work, I think, but I’m not really thinking about awards as I write this. I’m thinking about how happy I am that Scorsese was able to make a film like this, for himself. Warts and all, it’s of a piece with that which drives him.

One last note on the 3D. It’s used quite well. I don’t think it was really necessary for the film but at least in the hands of Scorsese it is cinematic and captivating, providing a real sense of space, clock pendulums swinging ominously into the foreground, wisps of steam floating into frame. And it really soars in a few of the longer swift exciting tracking shots.

The QA was largely focused on the crafts of the film, featuring Scorsese, Richardson, Ferretti, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, composer Howard Shore (there is more original music in the film than any Scorsese movie in recent memory) and visual effects supervisor Robert Legato. It was a good perspective to have, given how considerable the below-the-line effort is on the production. I was going to write something up based on their answers, but it seemed to make more sense to offer it up for you here. There aren’t any spoilers, though it’s not really a movie you can spoil, I don’t think.

Have a listen below. You can’t really hear the audience questions toward the end, though. But the answers are all clear enough. I personally liked Scorsese’s closing thoughts on the limits of the form and how we should never be confined by them. How very Méliès.

More on “Hugo” and its particulars in due time.

“Hugo” QA

Download “Hugo” QA as an MP3

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