Rhys Bowen | Clothes and the Woman

The say that clothes make the man, or the woman in this case. Well, at this moment clothes are making my life a misery.

When I became a full time writer, one of the attractive features of my lifestyle was that I didn’t have to get dressed in the morning. I could work in my sweats or my pjs. I even remember, during my TV days, having a conference call with the head of NBC drama and the set in the Caribbean with me wearing baby doll pajamas and a flannel robe. Thank God the video phone hadn’t been invented.

But when I became a mystery writer I discovered that I was no longer going to be allowed to live like a slob. I was expected to visit bookstores and libraries and go to conventions and look like a writer. In short, I had to create a persona for myself. So the question arose, who am I? I wasn’t quite sure. For years I had been a mom and a person who wrote in her sweats and pjs. Except for a few days each year when I put on my good black suit and went to visit my agent and editor.

At my first mystery conventions I noticed that many of the male writers had their persona down pat. You could spot them at the bar, with their beards and their black leather jackets or rugged-looking sweaters and they might as well have had the words “Hardboiled writer” tattooed across their brows. But it wasn’t quite as easy for me.  I guess I want to look elegant—not to mention royal.

Ah, and here’s the problem. Rhys Bowen and her current sleuth, the penniless royal Lady Georgie, have a lot in common. And one of the things is that clothes are our enemies. They let us down when we most need them. I try to breeze through a revolving door, looking like a successful writer and my scarf or my skirt get trapped in said door, needing a doorman, two bellhops and various guests to extricate me. I once crossed the foyer of an expensive hotel, trying look as if I stayed there every day, and got my heel stuck in the cork flooring. And I really did have Georgie’s brief and disastrous modeling career in my youth, when I was given a garment to put on and put both legs into half a pair of culottes. I only realized this when I tried to totter down the runway, thinking how tight the skirt was, and noticed something flapping beside me.

So now I’m setting out for a book tour of Southern California and Arizona, during which I’ll be signing Heirs and Graces, hosting royal soirees, and I’m anxious. What can I wear that looks royal and won’t let me down?  No scarves to trail, no heels to get caught, that’s for sure.  I’ll be in Scottsdale in August. What won’t look like a crumpled rag in seconds?  I have to wear skirts, of the royal-looking summery variety. The kind that need ironing, and I don’t iron, at least not well. My mother was a champion ironer. She even ironed my father’s underpants. I didn’t inherit that talent.

And I have to carry a hat for those royal tea parties. How does one carry a hat unsquashed? Those real royals have a lady in waiting in attendance with emergency supplies. I could use one, for the times I am about to sip my airline coffee and we hit turbulence or spill ketchup down my white skirt. Any volunteers?

  I guess I’ll stick to water on planes and look fashionably crumpled.

Heirs and Graces

As thirty–fifth in line for the throne, Lady Georgiana Rannoch may not be the most sophisticated young woman, but she knows her table manners. It's forks on the left, knives on the right—not in His Majesty's back?

Here I am thinking the education I received at my posh Swiss finishing school would never come in handy. And while it hasn't landed me a job, or a husband, it has convinced Her Majesty the Queen and the Dowager Duchess to enlist my help. I have been entrusted with grooming Jack Altringham—the Duke's newly discovered heir fresh from the Outback of Australia—for high society.

The upside is I am to live in luxury at one of England's most gorgeous stately homes. But upon arrival at Kingsdowne Place, my dearest Darcy has been sent to fetch Jack, leaving me stuck in a manor full of miscreants?none of whom are too pleased with the discovery of my new ward.

And no sooner has the lad been retrieved than the Duke announces he wants to choose his own heir. With the house in a hubbub over the news, Jack's hunting knife somehow finds its way into the Duke's back. Eyes fall, backs turn, and fingers point to the young heir. As if the rascal wasn't enough of a handful, now he's suspected of murder. Jack may be wild, but I'd bet the crown jewels it wasn't he who killed the Duke?