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Featuring reviews, author biographies, and special features, Romance Reviews is meant to be a guide to romantic reading - to help you select a good book to read, to help steer you away from a book that might be a disappointment. These reviews consist of mysteries and other works of fiction, not just romance, but there will always be some romance included in each story. A new edition will appear the first of each month.
Edith was born in Brooklyn and lived there for one whole month. She says, "I was bred in Queens, and the 'burbs' of New York City." Edith graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a degree in creative writing and theater. She wanted to be a playwright. "Ha. Easier for a woman to become a mermaid in those days, I think." She worked for various media, including a radio station and a major motion picture company. She married and went to suburbia, where she had three children. "I met my husband at a huge party," she says. "We talked about nothing, and never stopped until he passed away some years ago. He was a wise man, a good man, a physician, a dog lover and an excellent father to our three kids. I am now a widow, but my memories of him keep me warm at night." Her oldest son, Michael, has been a social worker and artist in New York City. Edith says, "Mike does his own thing. He paints, he does Social Work, and claims to be a Freegan."
Her daughter, Susie, is a comedy writer and performer who works in television. Edith says, "You might catch her being a 'talking head' on CNN and truTV comedy news shows. She works for truTV, too, and performs in New York City, when she has the time. Her blogspot is: www.felberfrolics.blogspot.com and www.dumbasablog.com ."
"My byline in those days was 'Edith Felber,' she tells us. "In fact, I pubbed a novel last year: Queen of Shadows - a 'real' Historical, under the name Edith Felber." When she started writing novels professionally, she wrote three: one romance, one science fiction/fantasy and one mystery. "Everyone liked the romance, but every editor wanted me to change the ending. You see, I had the villain get the girl. I refused, even though I could have got it published that way. It wasn't until Hilary Ross, at NAL, asked me to put in some extra pages showing exactly why I wanted this ending so badly, that I did so, and at last it was published. It took two years! Oh - the title: The Duke's Wager. It's been reprinted a few times. Seems the readers liked my anti-hero, too."
A born Gemini, it should come as no surprise that Edith also writes under the name of Edith Felber. She says, "I've wandered the centuries in my writing." She also adds, "But I find a change of pace refreshing and hereby urge them (fellow authors) to take a step out too - now and then. Just to taste the different flavors. I live for chocolate, but sometimes . . . a peach is peachy, isn't it? Or is it?"
"Obviously, I love the Regency era, But I've loved investigating and writing all my books." Edith is not content to merely research history thru a book, but visits the sites herself. She wants to get a true feel of how it was, not just read about it. "Each was researched in person as well as in print. I've clambered up castle walls, made a pest of myself in country churchyards and infested dungeons and turrets trying to squirrel out bits of history from underneath the veneers of modern civilization."
"I tried to find traces of Georgian England in modern England so I could write The Wedding, A True Lady and Bound by Love. I studied Olde New York and Gilbert & Sullivan for The Gilded Cage, and then trekked through 19th century music halls in the American West for The Silvery Moon. I even paced a deserted beach on the North Shore of Long Island to find the exact place to bury a pirate alive for my short story, Buried Treasure, in Dashing & Dangerous.
" . . . . . But I just want to assure you: If I wrote it, you can bet I saw it - one way or another!"
Edith explains that at the end of each novel, she always feels rather sad. It's like suffering from post-partum, only without the baby. For the story is done now and she has to say goodbye. She also tells us, "I have more time to write since my kids grew up, but that doesn't mean I write more or faster."
"Tips for upcoming writers? WRITE! No excuses. Just do it. even if you don't feel like it. When you hit your grove, you won't notice Time passing. That means you're in the moment. Go for it." Leisure Time and Hobbies - In her leisure time, Edith enjoys reading, gardening, her dog, "my foundling paraket, my pond fish, and constantly seeking new and better white wine and chocolate. My two new grandbabies: Hugo on the east coast, and Baz on the left coast, don't take up nearly as much of my time as I'd like."
"Apart from romance, I love Fantasy. I worship Terry Pratchett. I wait for books from Lois McMaster Bujould and Diana Wynne Jones - and I don't know them personally. Also I enjoy books by Alexander McCall Smith, the Maggody series by Joan Hess , and many others." Many thanks to: http://www.theromanceclub.com/authors/edithlayton/biography.htm for their helpful information, as well as Edith's own web site at www.edithlayton.com - and Edith herself.
1.The Duke's Wager (Regency)
1. Surrender
to Love
(conclusion to the 'Love' Trilogy) - Penquin
1.A Regency Christmas - "The
Duke's Promise" For instance, I liked the complex plot of Alas, My Love. He is determined to gain acceptance in the ton by wedding one woman, but is attracted to another. His ambitions nearly ruin everything - and then the tables turn. That was good drama. In The Cad, Edith has a heroine with a scar on her face that rules her fate - a flawed beauty, but that's not the entire story - as we soon find out. In The Conquest, a country miss nurses a nobleman back to health and then they part as he goes back to his own world which is quite different from hers. But that doesn't end things between them and it's powerful what happens after that. In The Return of the Earl, Edith has a man return after a cruel 15 years away to claim his title and there is intrigue and mystery throughout the entire story. In To Wed a Stranger, the woman is a real beauty who weds a stranger, but after a glorious wedding night she becomes seriously ill and looses her looks. It is wonderful to see what develops after that. These are just a few of the stories I have read and enjoyed. Each has brought a different twist to the plot - something not expected. Edith Layton always takes a nice story and turns it into something more - an exciting, special kind of story. She's a great historical romance writer and a beautiful, gracious lady. |
Edith Layton
Adam
is a
Edith wrote
Edith has
written trilogies, quartets, and linked books.
Her
Writing -
She has walked
"As
for the Regency era - I've tracked every story so I could see and feel what
my characters might. I've been to Scotland and Wales, taken the Great North
Road and the Brighton one, too. I've tasted the bitter waters at Bath, and
been polite as I could stare in Cheltingham and Harrowgate. I've sighed over
daffodils in the lake District and traipsed from sea to shining sea - Dover
to St. Michael's Mount. I stood in Wellington's London house smiling at the
nude statue of Napoleon (Greatly exaggerated. I'll bet the Iron Duke
smiled, too.) And I looked out from the top of the monument commemorating
the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium (and almost never got down again, I was so
impressed I forgot my terror of heights until it was time to descend!)
Edith
says 
Super
Regencies