Farida Mestek – Lord Darlington’s Fancy
I want to welcome Farida Mestek today.
Farida Mestek lives in Ukraine, but she adores Regency England, where she spends a great deal of her time. She fell in love with it the moment she saw one of the film productions on TV when she was a child, and her love and fascination grew and solidified with every Jane Austen book that she read and reread time and time again.
Having been writing all of her life, she decided to write Regency-set stories herself. At present she has a long queue of characters who wait most impatiently to have their stories told. Her dream is to build a Regency village, the aim of which would be to provide Regency-lovers from around the world with a veritable Regency lifestyle experience.
Farida when did you start writing?
I guess I have always been writing, whether poems or songs, essays or journals, shorts stories or books. It was always a passion of mine as well as the handy means of dealing with uncertainties and confusions of everyday life and my various emotions.
What inspires you to write?
I’d say that anything at all can inspire me: a word that I like or an interesting idea that I hear and want to explore, an image of something that catches my fancy or a beautiful view that I want to use for a scene in a book.
What do you like about writing?
I like the thrill of creation. I love making things and when I write I can create people and places, I can make events happen. I’m embarking upon a journey with my characters without knowing for sure what is awaiting me at the turn of the page. I always see writing as an equivalent of playing a computer game: you know your final destination but you don’t know how you’ll get there.
What genres do you prefer to write in?
At the moment my preferred genre is Regency, but lately I’ve been contemplating writing a Victorian novel.
What in particular inspired your latest book?
It’s a difficult question, because I don’t have an answer to give. This particular story and its characters caught me completely by surprise. I wasn’t planning on writing it, but I felt oddly compelled to do so. Perhaps, there was something that triggered its creation in my mind, but I can’t imagine what it was and it took me a while to reconcile myself to the fact that I had to work on this story and not the one I had planned to start.
What are your future writing projects?
Well, there are so many… In my Regency line there are about a dozen novels and novellas, both traditional M/F and less traditional M/M, that I intend to complete. The next project that I mean to finish (the one that got bumped out of the way by “Lord Darlington’s Fancy”) is an epistolary M/F Regency from the hero’s point of view.
What are you working on now? Give us a hint 
At the moment I’m doing NaNoWriMo and I’m working on my YA fantasy novel that I’ve been writing on and off for years.
Have you been published before?
Yes, I have. I have three published books at the moment. “Margaret’s Rematch” is a traditional M/F Regency. “A Secret Arrangement” is a non-traditional M/M Regency. “Almendra: A Fairy-Tale” is a fantasy novella. You can find them all on my Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Farida-Mestek/e/B003GKZEFC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Here’s an excerpt of Lord Darlington’s Fancy. The excerpt is very intriguing. One lucky commenter will win a copy of Lord Darlington’s Fancy …don’t forget to add your email address and name to your comment.
Lady Darlington loved her son like she had never loved her husband. However, as that gentleman ceased to exist shortly into their marriage, the lack of warmth on his wife’s part was, quite naturally, attributed to her youth and inexperience. Having married Lord Darlington on account of his wealth and advanced age, Lady Darlington was but fifteen at the time and quite unaware, it appeared, that love was a part of the deal. She never remarried upon her husband’s death, despite many an offer, and, having acquired a solid and extensive knowledge of what love was upon giving birth to a handsome baby boy, was henceforth qualified to lavish her only son with its abundance.
Lady Darlington indulged his every whim and folly and was quite sanguine upon learning he preferred to pursue the intimate company of his own sex. In fact, she gave him free reign to exercise his preferences upon unsuspecting males of the neighborhood. To an extent, she even encouraged him to do so, arranging dinners, parties and all manner of outings, upon the understanding that he would be discreet.
But, in the ardor of passion, Lord Darlington was not known for his circumspection and, while he remained constant in his preference of young men, he was by no means known for the constancy of his feelings to anyone in particular. Considering a wide selection of attractive objects at his disposal, it is no wonder that His Lordship’s fancy wandered from one object to another, in order to keep up with his straying eye.
It came as no surprise that, upon Lord Darlington’s return from the continent, a handsome young man by the name of Colin Fairchild, seventeen of age, who resided nearby, engaged the other man’s interests. The youth was appalled and scandalized at being thus distinguished by the most affluent person of their small parish, not to mention, a man! However, such unpromising view on the matter had little effect on Lord Darlington himself, who intended to court the lad despite his professed aversion to the whole thing.
Where can we find you on the Internet?
Email: faridamestek@yahoo.com
Website/blog: http://faridamestek.blogspot.com/
Thank you for having me here today!
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