Historical Romance Retreat

I’m at the Historical Romance Retreat at the Westgate Hotel in San Diego this week!

I arrived on Tuesday for the Dragonblade Publishing dinner for all its authors attending the Retreat.

Wednesday was Registration and a Welcome Party.

Yesterday was the official Day One of activities. In the morning there was a Regency Harvest Fair where I got to play lots of Regency games like Spillikins, Bean Bag Toss (got all three on the first three tosses), coin toss, Sailor’s Dice (I won a huge amount of chocolate coins and then lost them all on one throw), Duck Pond, Book Cover Bingo, Matching Game, and Pin the Clothes on the Lovers. Lots of fun dressed in my Regency day dress and bonnet.

Afterward, I attended a workshop on Real Life Fight Scenes which was very entertaining and informative.

Then in the afternoon, I got to do a reading from my upcoming release Yule Be Mine, book 3 of my Welwyn Marriage Wager series.

In the late afternoon we enjoyed the HRR tradition of Afternoon Tea, with an Edgar Allen Poe-esque theme: A Murder of Crows. Delicious tea, served with all the finger sandwiches and sugary desserts you could want.

And last night was The Widow’s Soiree–a Victorian party with the hostess in mourning (or is she?) and everyone trying to dish on all the rumors and scandals swirling around about just how her husband died. The most fun was said he was having an affair with a chambermaid who was also having an affair with a footman. The footman found out about the other man and killed him by hitting him over the head with a full chamberpot!