Historical Romance Novel Revives Victorian Sensation Fiction
Online, July 23, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Author Wendy Tardieu has written a novel that harkens back to a genre that spawned the modern TV series: Victorian Serial Fiction. Drawing on the influences of the 1800s' most successful Sensation authors such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, she incorporates the common themes of deception, intrigue, inheritance law and betrayal. Tardieu even writes the entire novel in the sophisticated, decorated language of the old British serials. But, she adds one thing that would have been forbidden in 1860 - love scenes.
Victorian Sensastion Fiction was a highly popular suspense genre that gave Charles Dickens his serial empire, its authors using mastery of the language to keep large audiences rushing to the news stands for their next dose of goosebumps. Literary scholars argue that this type of fiction lack substance. Tardieu defends the genre by saying, "there is just as much artistry in appealing to the visceral as there is in appealing to the cerebral."
A graduate of the University of Central Florida's MFA Creative Writing program where she studied Victorian literature, Tardieu advocates for the romance genre as a worthy member of the literary canon. "Finding a respectable niche for our most widely read genre is important to authors and readers alike, as well as students of fiction," she said. 'The Beaumont Rose', her debut novel, seeks to offer not only the sensuous content enjoyed by the mainstream romance market, but also a backdrop of Victorian England with a smart, humorous and intellectual voice that caters to the literary as well as the commercial palate.
Wendy Tardieu is author of two romance novels. She teaches Composition at Valencia College and lives in Orlando, Florida with her husband and two sons. 'The Beaumont Rose' is available on Amazon.com.
