Sep
Saturday Salon – Carriages!
This thing smells like pumpkins.
Since the entire Ballroom Team is right now holed up in a magic TARDIS-like carriage complete with disco ball, hot tub, Monty and a smuggled case of Ratafia (thanks, Tessa!), I thought this Saturday Salon would be a good time to think about carriages.
I mean, who doesn’t love carriages? The stuff of Cinderella and newly minted Princesses and period films. They’re all magic in fiction of course…and I’m not just talking about the pumpkin. They’re infinitely larger inside than out–built, in romance at least, to house a very tall, wicked hero, a heroine with skirts that rise marvelously well, and activities that tend to take more space and–well–comfort than any historically accurate 19th Century conveyance really could.
Curricles are the most fun. Ignore the fact that they look like death traps.
But I write fiction, and so historical accuracy on the inside isn’t really necessary.
On the outside, however, I do love the real deal.
I’m very lucky to not only live in New York city, a mere 30 minutes from the Long Island Carriage Museum…which Eric assures me is the nerdiest museum on the Eastern seaboard. The Carriage Museum is awesome. It’s filled with coaches and landaus and curricles…and enough space that you can actually stand next to them and if you’re, say, 6 feet tall, realize that there is no way that you would ever have fit inside one of these things.
Thanks, facts, for getting in the way of fantasy.
This one is very nice, too. As is the life that comes with it, I’m guessing.
It doesn’t change the fact that I still love the things. I love writing carriage scenes — in fact, in my very first book, The Season (an historical romance for teens), the scene that made me the very happiest to write was a carriage scene in which the hero takes the heroine for a ride in his new curricle, and she begs him to let her drive. He doesn’t allow it, of course (because this is pre-romance when he’s still more like an annoying older brother than a heart-stopping love), but I grinned the entire time I was writing it.
Do you have a favorite carriage scene from a novel?
Sep 8, 2012
11:28 am
That was a good scene, Sarah! I always like the older brother type heroes.
I can’t remember a favorite at the moment but maybe as people comment and jog my memory I will.
Sep 8, 2012
11:50 am
I’ve never heard of the Long Island Carriage Museum. Must check it out someday. Thanks Sarah!
One of my favorite carriage scenes is from JQ”s The Duke and I. Simon and Daphne just got married and are on their way to Simon’s estate for the honeymoon. In order not to give in to temptation, he pretends to sleep for three hours. While it doesn’t fool Daphne, she admires the acting effort.
And if memory serves, Miranda had a few great carriage scenes in The Wild Marquis as well as Tessa in AWTBW and One Dance With a Duke.
Sep 8, 2012
2:12 pm
Oh, Sarah, that is one tough question! It seems that every good historical I read has a wonderful carraige scene. Since there are too many that come to mind I’ll have to go with Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington (aka Lady Wistledown) in “Romancing Mister Bridgerton.
Sep 8, 2012
2:22 pm
Sarah, this is like a dream. I am coming to NYC and making you take me to the Long Island Carriage Museum, I vow. Soon.
Carriage scenes are so much fun to write, it’s true! In fact, HOW A LADY WEDS A ROGUE begins *and* ends on carriage scenes.
As for carriage scenes written by other authors, naturally I love Juliana hiding from her drunken pursuer in the carriage that turns out to be Leighton’s. While I do adore a sexy carriage scene (HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY ends on one), some of my favorites are rather more conflictual, like J &L’s encounter, and like Laura Kinsale’s fabulous journey north through the mistral and most of France in THE PRINCE OF MIDNIGHT.
Sep 8, 2012
2:49 pm
I hear carriage and I immediately think of Devil In Winter. Evie and Sebastian’s journey to Scotland? Epic in its awesomeness. Very revealing, in more ways than I can even imagine. I devoured everything. There’s also this scene in Nine Rules when Callie and Ralston get into the topic of love and attraction, and me loving Callie even more for what happened in that ride.
Sep 8, 2012
2:51 pm
Oh, snap. Submitted before mentioning COLIN AND MIN!!! *ahem* Yes. Another display of Awesomeness in Epic proportions. Loooove it. A Week To Be Wicked. Totally lives up to its title, lol.
Sep 8, 2012
2:58 pm
Hi Sarah, I’m with you – I love carriages even wild west stagecoaches are delightful. Every time I’ve been in NYC, I’ve wanted to go on a Central Park carriage ride but it never happens. Perhaps I can get to the carriage museum next time – I don’t suppose they let you get in any, do they? I’d love that even if they don’t move.
In Victoria Vane’s novella, A BREACH OF PROMISE, the hero and heroine spend nearly the entire story in a carriage – he trying to win her over and she trying to ignore him. But when they start working on his estate statements together all kinds of steamy things start to happen. Very sexy carriage ride.
Happy Saturday Everyone!
Oooh, btw, Sarah, hope that tornado didn’t come too close to you. : )
Sep 8, 2012
3:49 pm
I got to visit the Tyrwhitte Drake carriage museum in England years ago and see period carriages and watch how they worked…it was wonderful. Here’s a link if you guys want to take a peek. http://www.museum.maidstone.gov.uk/tyrwhittdrake/
I think carriages are a great setting for naughty bits in romance novels…as most people who’ve read my books have probably noticed, lol.
Thankfully Regency era roads in England were quite good. Otherwise one could hurt oneself, and others.
Gaelen
Sep 8, 2012
4:42 pm
This isn’t a scene that occurs in the actual book of Sense & Sensibility, but I have to admit that I adore the wedding carriage scene at the end of the Emma Thompson movie, where Col. Brandon stands up in the carriage and tosses gold coins to the crowd of well-wishers. So joyful!
Sep 8, 2012
4:44 pm
Tessa wrote good, bad and VERY rememorable carriage scenes in A Week to be Wicked. How Colin’s parents died stayed in my head. I sometimes get my stories mixed up because I read so much. But, I definitely remembered that. Not sure if that is good or bad.
Long Island Carriage Musuem is something I would LOVE to see. It would be a reason to go up to NYC area for. Wonder if they are open during the Christmas season? See Rockafellow Center tree and the Museum in one trip.