tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59855008879172212592024-03-13T12:39:07.114-07:00A Bloody Good Read:Where writers and readers of historical thrillers talk shopSam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-7829056533409930002015-03-31T08:43:00.001-07:002015-03-31T09:18:05.013-07:00The Secret to Writing Conflict<span style="font-size: large;"><br />By Nancy Bilyeau<br /><br /><br /> According to what I hear from fellow authors, bloggers, critics and industry wags, book editors are laying down the law: We want more conflict! It’s all about higher stakes now. Drama. Heightened tension. Put your protagonist at greater risk than you ever thought possible. And then ratchet it up <i>again</i>.<br /><br /> To meet the challenge, writers are booking seats at Donald Maass workshops and buying his book, <i>Writing the Breakout Novel,</i> like crazy. One successful mystery-author friend who swears by Maass confided that before she’s done with a book she shuffles all the pages until they’re completely out of sequence and then reads each one to make sure there is conflict on every single page. Other friends plot their books with multi-colored index cards and arrows and circles, making sure to squeeze the drama out of every single moment.<br /><br /> While observing this frenzy, I can’t help but think of Laurence Olivier, who after observing Dustin Hoffman staying up all night so he’d be convincingly exhausted and otherwise punishing himself during filming of <i>Marathon Man,</i> said to him, “My dear boy, why don’t you just try acting?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /> Which is to say, instead of tearing out our hair to generate a book packed with hair-raising challenges worthy of a day at Great Adventure Theme Park, why don’t we create certain kinds of characters and put them in certain kinds of settings that contain <i>inherent </i>conflict? And so it's possible to propel the story forward, and have your main character struggling with obstacles, without needing to visit the dreaded Contrivance Closet.<br /><br />All too often I read novels with likable, easy-to-relate-to protagonists living nice, easy-to-relate-to lives. That’s all well and good—except then it’s tough to generate conflict on every page. The story gets pretty, well, strained.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">May I humbly offer you my thinking in how I came up with the idea for my series. Take from it what you will!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />The first thing I decided was that I wanted to set it in a genuine historical period, Tudor England, to take advantage of my near-lifelong (and without a doubt scary) obsession with the 16th century. It was a tumultuous century. I narrowed it to the reign of Henry VIII, who, among other things, destroyed the monasteries in his quest to break with Rome and make himself head of the Church of England. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br />Because of the policies of Henry VIII, devised by Thomas Cromwell (see <i>Wolf Hall</i>), the kingdom’s monks, friars and nuns were expelled from the monasteries, often with nowhere to go. A fair number of them were none too happy with the destruction of a 1,000-year-old way of life and they objected. Here’s how Henry VIII handled objection: troublesome monks and friars were imprisoned, hanged, starved, decapitated or disemboweled. Sister Elizabeth Barton, who preached defiance to Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn, was hanged and then decapitated. Just to be sure everyone got the message.<br /><br />So the main character of my trilogy? A nun, a fictional nun based on research. Meet Sister Joanna. The Dissolution of the Monasteries took place between 1536 and 1541. The action running through <i>The Crown, The Chalice </i>and<i> The Tapestry </i>begins in May 1537 and ends in December 1541.<br /><br /> Conflict.<br /><br /> Next for me was creating a background for my MC. I could have made her a nun from a nice family, very supportive, no issues with the king. Instead, I put her in a family full of tragedy, a real family from history: the Staffords.<br /><br /> To understand why placing a Stafford in the reign of Henry VIII would generate intense conflict, you need to know a little 15th and 16th century history. I can hear what a few of you are thinking: “Check, please.”<br /><br />No. Stop. We can do this together. It’s really going to be OK.<br /><br />If you watch <i>Game of Thrones</i>, it will be helpful to the conversation. Because George R.R. Martin has more or less admitted that his books are the Wars of the Roses—plus dragons and White Walkers.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Game of Thrones</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />My husband likes to say I am drawn to Faded Glory and The Doomed. I won’t quarrel with him here. The Staffords were my kind of people. Definitely a family that had a hunger for action and a lot of style … but not too much sense.<br /><br /> There were three Stafford dukes of Buckingham and they all died violently. The first one, Humphrey, backed Lancaster over York in the civil war tearing England apart. Henry VI was the head of the House of Lancaster, and no one thought he was a particularly good king. Then Henry VI had a complete nervous breakdown and was, from what we can tell reading the documents, close to catatonic. This is the monarch that Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham, backed!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Humphrey Stafford</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /> The enemy, the earl of Warwick, sent word just before the Battle of Northampton in 1460 that he wanted to speak to the king. Buckingham’s reply: “The earl of Warwick will not come to the King’s presence and if he does, he shall die.” (Your move, GRRM!) In the ensuing battle, the duke of Buckingham died protecting his king, clutching a sword.<br /><br />His grandson, the second duke, is one of the villains of Shakespeare. In <i>Richard III</i>, you’ll remember Buckingham as the king’s right-hand man in getting hold of the princes and shoving them into the Tower of London. Later, according to the play, Buckingham got a case of the guilts and he put together a rebellion against King Richard. It failed, and he was decapitated in 1483.<br /><br />Which brings us to the third duke, the one who appears in flashbacks in my first novel, <i>The Crown</i>. Henry VIII was an insecure king, deeply threatened by wealthy relatives with noble blood. It would have behooved Buckingham to lay low. Instead he lived lavishly and loudly. Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, met the axe in 1521.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Stafford</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In my trilogy, Joanna is the daughter of the duke’s younger brother. She grows up in aristocratic obscurity in Stafford Castle, already beginning to fall into ruin. The family is in disgrace. Just hearing the name “Stafford” is guaranteed to put King Henry VIII in a bad mood. There are two groups of people the Tudor king automatically dislikes. Blood relatives who don’t bend the knee. And people who have taken vows at monastic orders. Joanna Stafford is both!<br /><br />Conflict.<br /><br />When creating her character, I gave Joanna certain “good” qualities—she’s intelligent, loyal and thoughtful. But she’s also impulsive and stubborn, with a hot temper. The sort of woman who is quite capable of getting herself into trouble.<br /><br />Conflict.<br /><br />Finally, I bestowed on Joanna a talent. She is very skilled at weaving tapestries. After the Dominican priory in Dartford has been demolished, she tries to survive in the nearby town of Dartford as a tapestry mistress.<br /><br />Now there is one man known throughout all of mid-16th-century Europe as an impassioned collector of tapestries, a true connoisseur who would pay any amount to get what he wanted. You guessed it: Henry VIII. At the beginning of my third book, Joanna is handed a royal summons in Dartford. She has no choice but to appear at Whitehall to submit herself to a king intrigued by her talent. A king whom she hates and fears<br /><br />And that is the triggering conflict that sets my novel <i>The Tapestry</i> into motion.<br /><br /> -------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nancy Bilyeau is the author of <i>The Crown, The Chalice</i> and <i>The Tapestry</i>. To learn more, go to <a href="http://www.nancybilyeau.com/">www.nancybilyeau.com</a><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </span>Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-21069632272663935232014-09-25T20:01:00.002-07:002014-09-28T17:08:38.339-07:00That sense of "being watched"--how realistic is it in a mystery?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="mw-mmv-source-author"><span class="mw-mmv-author"><a class="extiw" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_van_Dyck" title="en:Anthony van Dyck">Anthony van Dyck</a></span> - <span class="mw-mmv-source">Paris : Gallimard, 1998.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Have you ever had that creepy feeling of being watched? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And then, when you look around, someone really is staring at you? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A strange sensation to be sure. Certainly, this eerie sixth sense is a staple of crime fiction, especially novels of suspense. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">I was thinking about this recently because I read a mystery where the protagonist just <i>knew</i> she was being watched by someone <i>behind</i> her. It actually pulled me out of the story a little bit because I started to wonder about how plausible that sensation actually is. There was no other indication that someone was behind her, except that she <i>sensed </i>him looking at her.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So I began to explore this question, and it turns out there's been some research on: (1) whether people can truly sense when someone is staring at them, and (2) whether they can know when someone is staring at them <i>from behind. </i>(Of course some of these explanations are a little more scientific than others). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, on the more scientific end, there is a phenomenon known as </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/201102/how-you-know-eyes-are-watching-you" target="_blank">gaze detection.</a></span> E</span>ven from a peripheral angle, the brain is always perceiving the positions of other people's heads and bodies and their relative positions to us. The brain will note anomalies, causing us to become alert (or get that chilly sensation). For example, your brain may take note that there is a woman near you who has her feet pointed away from you, but that her head is faced in your direction. Your brain might note this unusual positioning and tip you off, because it is wired to let you know when you are danger.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Apparently, gaze detection also suggests that we may be able to note the whites of another person's eyes even at a distance, so we can perceive when someone is looking at us. So, gaze detection may help explain this phenomenon of being watched. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">However, gaze detection can only account for someone who is staring at us from our <i>periphery</i>. It can not explain someone staring at us from behind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So a more popular explanation is the idea of morphic resonance, </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span> </span><span style="font-size: large;">which contends that: <i>"Natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid
plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all
previous things of their kind, however far away they were and however
long ago they existed," </i>Sheldrake (1988) <span style="font-size: small;">(as quoted by Michael Shermer)</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Say what?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I think Sheldrake means that there is a kind of telepathic vibration among organisms, which seems to somehow explain how people "know" someone is staring at them. This concept is </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">critically examined by <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ruperts-resonance/" target="_blank">Scientific American</a> and discussed by </span></span></span>Morgan Freeman in </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/through-the-wormhole-2-morphic-fields.htm" target="_blank">Through the Wormhole</a>. Not sure I buy this one, but it's certainly imaginitive. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Personally, I think it's more likely that when you get that weird feeling, and you turn around, that the person beside you notices you turn around and ends up meeting your eyes, hence looking like he or she was staring. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, since my mysteries are not supernatural in nature, I wanted to make sure that I had a logical and plausible explanation for any such feelings of super-awareness that I mention in my characters. Did my character spy something out of the ordinary? Was there a movement at the corner of her eye? Did she hear a twig snap, alerting her on some level that someone was behind her?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">But what do you think? Is a little sixth sense okay, or should there be a logical explanation for such feelings? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">And yes, I am looking at you...</span></span><br />
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Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-1937229622599462382014-08-25T05:06:00.000-07:002014-08-25T10:53:15.959-07:00Dominic Selwood: Turning History Into ThrillsBy Nancy Bilyeau<br />
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I learned about the fiction of Dominic Selwood by reading a piece of riveting <em>non</em>fiction--an article in the <em>Daily Telegraph </em>titled "How a Protestant Spin Machine Hid the Truth About the English Reformation." (Read it <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/dominicselwood/100272287/how-a-protestant-spin-machine-hid-the-truth-about-the-english-reformation/">here</a>.) In the nearly 10 years I've been researching England's break from Rome, the backdrop to my historical thrillers, I'd come to many of the same conclusions about Henry VIII and Cromwell's actual agenda as this writer. I "etroduced" myself on twitter, and soon learned that apart from being a historian and former criminal solicitor, Dominic too was writing fiction. His thriller, set in modern times, is called <em>The Sword of Moses.</em><br />
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I downloaded the novel and proceeded to not get much sleep for the next two days. Every spare waking moment, far into the night, I read Dominic's page-turning thriller. First of all, it's extremely well plotted and <em>very</em> scary, with an archaeologist protagonist named Dr. Ava Curzon recruited by American intelligence to find the African militia who've stolen the Ark of the Covenant from its Ethiopian hiding place. In the story, Ava comes up against brutal warlords, devious intelligence officers and modern-day power players who hold beliefs that are ancient and highly dangerous. She must contend with those who seem to believe in the values of the Knights Templar and the Nazis, and others desperate to obtain the most prized relics of all time. Having researched the world of relics for my first novel, <em>The Crown</em>, I know what a pull they can exert on any writer! Dominic's deep knowledge of the Ark and the Bible--and many other topics!-- is put to fascinating use in his book.<br />
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Dominic kindly agreed to subject himself to my questions. I hope you will enjoy getting to know this successful novelist. As of this week, <em>The Sword of Moses</em> ranked No. 4 on amazon U.S. in the list of all bestselling historical thrillers. <br />
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Is it true that your interest in the Crusaders began in childhood, when you explored the island of Cyprus? What was it that most intrigued you?
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</b>In the 1970s, Cyprus was one big, undiscovered, archaeological site. There were no tourists or ticket offices. Not many people visited. So you could just wander freely around classical Greek and Roman temples, medieval castles and churches, and unidentified abandoned ancient buildings near sleepy villages. You would be completely alone, and it was utterly magical. The Greek and Roman remains were always imposing and mysterious. But it was the more intimate Crusader ones that really fired my imagination the most. One I used to visit a lot was Kolossi, a crusader castle where the air and trees were full of cicadas, bees, and the aromas of hot stone, honey, mimosa, and wild rosemary, I can still close my eyes and smell it. What fascinated me then, and still does today, was what it must have felt like for its European inhabitants, to be in the eye of a cultural storm, with so much progress and knowledge coming out of the collision between such radically different civilizations. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gWZcXim8696z6kzs-NysCl41ms4MCKwz2r4VxoRsiHncaiQ5j5Px0nlapbvZEZakgoWEU0KtyIfJQqhMoqWe6GCt4TQLZ1kXhFvf1Ls3X6vRBhRKEIa7JiYNFiYRSnSenIBe3K22XABJ/s1600/Dominic+Selwood_Studio_240x300+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3gWZcXim8696z6kzs-NysCl41ms4MCKwz2r4VxoRsiHncaiQ5j5Px0nlapbvZEZakgoWEU0KtyIfJQqhMoqWe6GCt4TQLZ1kXhFvf1Ls3X6vRBhRKEIa7JiYNFiYRSnSenIBe3K22XABJ/s1600/Dominic+Selwood_Studio_240x300+(1).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dominic Selwood</td></tr>
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Your first book, <em>Knights of the Cloister</em>, was a straight history book on the Knights Templar, and you blog regularly for the <em>Daily Telegraph</em> on quirky history. How much of a change was it to write <em>The Sword of Moses?
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</b>I’ve always been obsessed with the past, and that fuels all my writing. I have to know exactly what things were like, what caused them, and how people felt about it all — whether it’s the rise of Christianity in pagan Rome or the first deployment of chemical nerve agents in World War I. I love the fact my history writing and my fiction are both detective work into the past. The research needed for both is very similar — finding topics that fascinate me then working them into something fun (hopefully!) to read. The big difference, of course, is that straight history is all about solving existing puzzles in our world, whereas writing fiction is about making new puzzles in an imaginary world. They’re both addictive! <br />
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<b>Do you think there are public misconceptions about the Knights Templar, and if so, why do you think they formed?</b><br />
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There are definitely misconceptions about the Knights Templar. For me, the most prominent is when people twist the genuine history to align the Templars with modern groups — like seeing them as new age gurus, extremist fundamentalists, white supremacists, Protestant knights, or any other absurd anachronism. They were a medieval religious order whose values could only ever have come out of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some people willfully distort the history. But on the whole I think the great majority of misconceptions are down to people being misled by writers and TV/film makers who press the Templars into whatever dramatic mould they need for the occasion. <br />
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<b>Were the Knights Templar purely victims of the Pope at the time and the French king, or did they in any way contribute to their downfall?
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</b>That’s a great question. The French king was undoubtedly a vicious, nasty, insincere, and ruthless man. The pope was his puppet — too weak to stand up to him — and the Templars made the tragic mistake of assuming the pope would protect them. The imprisonment and tortures they faced were horrific, and it’s no wonder many of them confessed to the absurd charges the king of France brought in order to destroy their order and steal its wealth. But, at the same time, the broader evidence shows unambiguously that a number of Templars did hold some highly odd beliefs, and they indulged in some deeply peculiar rituals. The king of France was cunning, and he took these small sparks of controversy and famed them up into a raging fire that eventually consumed the whole order.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_L5FpqcU2sYjDr9Qo_SfO8jgb3EGCqvC7k3Nd3r30J4gPptBDZsWz8kwYamjqXmOu4Fzcey5-uL634ACq-C-L-kl3JQhtv6hBP8GreH09P_1qD2vMgmNbpP0c543i_76ZBBOuF_NYPnN/s1600/Temple_mount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_L5FpqcU2sYjDr9Qo_SfO8jgb3EGCqvC7k3Nd3r30J4gPptBDZsWz8kwYamjqXmOu4Fzcey5-uL634ACq-C-L-kl3JQhtv6hBP8GreH09P_1qD2vMgmNbpP0c543i_76ZBBOuF_NYPnN/s1600/Temple_mount.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first headquarters of the Knights Templar, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.</td></tr>
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<b>How would you describe the connection between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons?</b><br />
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The pope closed the Templars down in 1312. But the key thing is that you then have to wait until 1599 for the earliest records from a freemasonic lodge (Lodge of Edinburgh No. 1). That leaves a gap of 287 years, which is about one and a half times longer than the Templars officially existed! There is, sadly, no firm evidence of any historical link spanning this period, but there is enough information in the public domain about Freemasonry to know that there are some striking and unexplained similarities between Freemasonry and the Templars. So I would describe the connection as ‘unproven but tantalizing’!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3A7MYGvKu8qPATQaptCuHQ49vby5CbUh1SJSG8_8K7sOgfnoSG9rvh2Nm2EU5awj1pijyKgmx8zlgKEYTeVH-VzNLurhhZlZzwUgfdWnUs92o0s4ccrvx5RFE6dpSbfNp0WAf9L-i6-FR/s1600/Lodge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3A7MYGvKu8qPATQaptCuHQ49vby5CbUh1SJSG8_8K7sOgfnoSG9rvh2Nm2EU5awj1pijyKgmx8zlgKEYTeVH-VzNLurhhZlZzwUgfdWnUs92o0s4ccrvx5RFE6dpSbfNp0WAf9L-i6-FR/s1600/Lodge.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Lodge of Scotland, Freemasons Hall</td></tr>
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<strong>How did you go about researching <em>The Sword of Moses</em> and what was the most surprising thing you learned?</strong> <br />
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I’m familiar with a lot of the places, organizations, objects, books, and so on covered in The Sword of Moses, so it was more a question of reminding myself of details as I went along, either by walking around locations or double checking the historical facts. Of course, the process is never as clean as you think it will be, as checking up on one fact invariably leads to getting distracted by all sorts of connected facts. The joy is that you never know where these tangents will take you, and often it is to somewhere much more interesting than the place you started! One thing that did really surprise me when I was looking into eugenics for <em>The Sword of Moses</em> was that in the 1910s, no less a person than Sir Winston Churchill (who is still a massive national hero in the UK) was an avid supporter of sterilizing people he called “feeble minded”. Although this kind of racial selection horrifies us now, it is shocking to realize that it was a trendy idea in the early twentieth century. Reading deeply about it was a reminder to me of how society’s values really do change in big ways, often in quite a short period, and also of how selective we are in what we choose to remember about people or events. <br />
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<strong>How do you think working as a barrister informed your thriller writing?</strong>
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There are definite similarities between courtrooms and thrillers. They are both carefully managed dramas in which the ultimate resolution only comes at the end, after running down dozens of blind alleys. My years as a courtroom barrister focused mainly on criminal trials, which regularly ran high on emotion, while getting sidetracked by imperfect information and often outright deceit. In that environment, you learn quickly that people’s motivations for evasion, deception, or silence can often be for reasons that are unconnected to the main focus of the case. I was lucky to have these experiences, as when planning a thriller many characters’ real motives lie unseen and unsuspected, driving the drama and only becoming fully clear at the end. <br />
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What was the inspiration for <em>The Sword of Moses</em>?</strong><br />
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I have always loved adventure stories and history books, above all other genres. When I was growing up, I hoovered up every adventure story I could find. I was at a boys’ boarding school, and I suppose it was a way of dreaming about the tantalizing world beyond the school gates. The masters who ran the school were the generation which fought the Second World War, so the place buzzed with stories and rumours of what they had done in Europe, north Africa, the Middle East, in submarines, fighter planes, and artillery divisions. There was always such a sense of mystery about their prior lives. It was heady stuff for young boys, and, as no TV was allowed, adventure books were endlessly passed around the dormitories. There was also a wonderful quiet, wood-panelled library with old encyclopaedias, where I used to love looking up things I had read about — places, weapons, intelligence services, all of it. For me the two went hand in hand: adventure and history. So, more than anything,<em> The Sword of Moses</em> was inspired by my lifelong love of adventures based on odd, but true, historical facts.<br />
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I was fascinated by the histories of biblical objects of great power. Why do you think these legends and theories have such a hold over us as readers?</strong> <br />
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People usually sacralize objects that have been in contact with what they revere. This is not only true of religious people and relics. For instance, I was wandering around Charles Darwin’s house-museum the other day, and I was struck by how excited people got at being close to his possessions. (I can only imagine what the atmosphere must be like at Gracelands!) The biblical objects in the book — the Ark of the Covenant, the Menorah, and the Spear of Destiny — are some of the most hyper-sacred objects in Jewish and Christian history. In the case of the Ark and the Spear, billions of people believe they have actually touched the divine, which puts them into a supernatural league all of their own. They’re magical objects, really, and I think our collective fascination with them is that, on some level, most of us want magic to be real.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Page from the Morgan Bible, 13th century: David brings the Ark to Jerusalem</td></tr>
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<strong>I found the Middle East sections of <em>The Sword of Moses</em> very evocative. Did you decide from the very beginning to set part of your novel there?</strong> <br />
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In the last decade and a half I have visited the Middle East a lot, and I’ve just moved back to London after living over there for the last few years. In that time I’ve watched how the Middle East has attracted increasing global media coverage because of the terrible wars that have been blighting it. But at the same time, it’s becoming somewhere an increasing number of foreigners live and work, and it’s now on people’s radar in a way it never was in previous decades. So I felt I could legitimately and realistically place Ava into a job in the Middle East, and it’s perfect for her — exactly the sort of place an adventurous kick-ass biblical archaeologist would wind up today. <br />
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<strong>Why were the Nazis—and those who hold similar beliefs since World War Two—so obsessed with the occult?</strong>
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Well, not all Nazis were obsessed with the occult. Hitler was infatuated with certain objects, like the Spear of Destiny. But it was his deputy, Heinrich Himmler, who was the real occult fanatic. As he personally ran the SS as a state within a state, he was free to use the SS as a testing ground for his fantasies. Hence the SS insignia and mythology were infused with his obsessive occultism, as was the Ahnenerbe occult research institute he founded at the secret and mysterious Wewelsberg castle – which will be familiar to anyone who reads <em>The Sword of Moses</em>. Why Himmler’s obsession with the occult was so strong is partly the age he lived in, and partly his own character. Crackpot, and often very dark, esoteric, religious ideas about race circulated wildly in Europe between the wars, and one particular strand, known as ariosophy, came to obsess groups like the Thule Gesellschaft and people like Himmler. Once the war was over, the legacy remained, and has spawned a fascination with trying to understand what it all meant to the Nazis.
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<strong><em>The Sword of Moses</em> is your first novel, and I found the suspense quite intense. How easy was it for you to plot this novel?</strong><br />
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I loved every minute of writing the book, of getting into the characters’ world and seeing the action unfolding. But I think a lot of the fun came because I knew exactly where each scene was going before I started it. When I began the book, I forced myself to plot it out in the minutest detail before I even began the first word of chapter one. Devising the plot felt like simultaneously playing several games of chess (a game I am hopeless at). But it was an amazing thrill when the plot started to come together, and it set me up to just relax and really enjoy the actual writing free from plot worries.
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Tell us about your second novel, please!</strong>
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I cannot say too much, but I am really loving working on it. Ava is back for her next adventure, and she finds herself up against some extremely dangerous people. A lot of action takes place across Europe and the Middle East, and Ava again has to draw on her deep knowledge of biblical mysteries as well as all the mental and physical skills she learned in MI6. It’s going to be just as adrenalin-charged as <em>The Sword of Moses,</em> and I really hope people are going to enjoy it as much!
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To learn more about Dominic Selwood, go to his <a href="http://www.dominicselwood.com/">website</a>.<br />
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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of an award-winning trilogy of historical novels set in 16th century England, the protagonist a Dominican novice. <i>The Crown</i> and <i>The Chalice</i> are on sale in North America, the United Kingdom and Germany.Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-26199366417858584042014-08-03T11:29:00.000-07:002014-08-04T09:29:11.663-07:00Learning What People Think of My Book on AmazonBy Nancy Bilyeau<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It can be tricky writing novels for a mass readership. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Many of us try our best to produce work on a high level. Through multiple drafts we labor on character development,dialogue and setting description, all set to a plot that aims to compel and enthrall. Any historical novel, mystery or no, requires extensive research. And for a significant number of writers, there is also a theme in the work, a message, perhaps even characters, that carry personal meaning.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yet if you are writing a book for a commercial purpose, you have to send it out there and know that there is no possible way it will be universally adored. Writers are sensitive creatures who must grow the thickest skin possible once the book is for sale.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our reaction to reviews on amazon and goodreads is the litmus test. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While there are a few readers reviews that made me wince or grumble, I am honestly grateful for the experience of learning what people think. Taking some slaps on amazon is preferable to the alternative—refusing to read any reviews and growing ossified, determined not to listen to any criticism.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And so as my first novel, <em>The Crown</em>, receives its 231st review on amazon, I want to say thank you to the readers who've taken the time to do this--think of a response, write it, and upload it. My page <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Crown-Nancy-Bilyeau-ebook/dp/B004U7GIQO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The latest review is one of my best since the book was published by Touchstone (S&S) in January 2012, and I'm grateful</span>!<br />
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<span style="margin-right: 5px;"><span class="swSprite s_star_5_0 " title="5.0 out of 5 stars"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.0 out of 5 stars</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="vertical-align: middle;"><b>The Crown</b>, <nobr>August 1, 2014</nobr></span> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AU4MM2KKILYV5/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp"><span style="font-weight: bold;">butterflywriter</span></a> - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AU4MM2KKILYV5/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview">See all my reviews</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="h3color tiny">This review is from: </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Crown-Novel-Nancy-Bilyeau/dp/145162686X/ref=cm_cr_pr_orig_subj">The Crown: A Novel (Paperback)</a></b> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The Crown by author Nancy Bilyeau literally took my breath away as a piece of literary brilliance. I am not huge on historical fiction books that also fit into the genre of thrillers and or mysteries; I usually prefer historical fiction novels that are more centered around the person and their life, the period in which they lived, with a little romance popped in. With this book my forgone conclusion about what I prefer went out the window.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel takes the reader into the world and times of King Henry the eighth and some of the events that lead to a young novice named Joanna and her struggle to fight for the preservation of her way of life as a young postulate nun living under the rules of enclosure; Joanna must do this under blackmail from a Bishop who uses her Father as leeway holding him hostage until Joanna finds an artifact that the bishop believes will change the course of actions that are ripping what he considers to be England's true faith into pieces.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every detail and conversation between characters was written beautifully and made me feel as if I was there with this young nun; The scenery was described beautifully and the characters development through out the book made me relate with the characters and literally made this book an addiction as I got deeper into each chapter. I'd recommend this book highly to anyone who likes historical fiction; Especially Tudor Era genres. </span></div>
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To people like "butterflywriter," I want to say--keep reading! Not just my novels, but as many as you have time for, and keep sharing...<br />
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<br />Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-71792931754344164472014-06-18T03:47:00.001-07:002014-06-18T06:25:32.498-07:00"Strange Gods": A Mystery in East Africa<em>Annamaria Alfieri is the author of 'Strange Gods,' a new novel set in early 20th century British East Africa. This is where 'Out of Africa' and 'White Mischief' later unfolded, a place of great fascination and allure. We asked Annamaria to share some of the history she learned while researching her mystery in this guest post:</em><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdMIxRpw1k2UvBQt4mp1G08AU3-X2jPmeXLVvLD7LEXOKt1j_ZwRKs3QGtrp_goUC9tPlczO2J0Yfz1kbiUNUqexexa1fctQd7n5H7QuSjT1fOaBdgPgx5UJmxTVGcmcEuNEV3ROECAan/s1600/SG+Cover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdMIxRpw1k2UvBQt4mp1G08AU3-X2jPmeXLVvLD7LEXOKt1j_ZwRKs3QGtrp_goUC9tPlczO2J0Yfz1kbiUNUqexexa1fctQd7n5H7QuSjT1fOaBdgPgx5UJmxTVGcmcEuNEV3ROECAan/s1600/SG+Cover.JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The British Are Coming!</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So shouted Paul Revere.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But this is not about those redcoats.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, the Brits
took hegemony over East Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How and
why they came to do that is the geopolitical background for my series of
historical mysteries that begins with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strange Gods</i></b>, which launches on June
24<sup>th</sup>.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story begins not in the territory that is now Kenya, but
off shore, so to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Wanting a more efficient way to move wealth from India to England, Great Britain dug the Suez Canal. Then, to make sure the canal remained open and in their hands, they needed to take hegemony over Egypt. They concluded that to control Egypt, they needed to control the Nile. To control the river, they wanted to take control of its source. As the engineers began to plan and dig the canal, the legendary and </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">somewhat loony explorers Dr. David
Livingstone, Richard Francis Burton, John Speke, and Samuel Baker went out and eventually found Lake Victoria. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But controlling the lake was not so easy. To do so, the Brits needed to keep administrators and troops there, men who needed supplies and the ability to communicate with the outside world. Today, in a Mercedes or a lorry one can drive the 525 miles between the lake and Mombasa on the coast in a day. But a hundred and twenty years ago, they had to go on foot and it took months. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Britain had another great goal in the 19<sup>th</sup>
Century, stamping out slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The area
between the coast and Lake Victoria was notorious for slave caravans—know as
the “Trail of Tears"-- the route where slaves were dragged from the interior to the coast and then shipped to work in the households of Asia Minor and on the sugarcane plantations of what is now Iraq. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">By the 1880’s, the Brits had spent a great deal of blood and
treasure trying to stamp out slavery worldwide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As part of that effort, they succeeded in convincing the Sultan of
Zanzibar—who ruled the coast—to outlaw human trafficking.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the prohibition,
like all prohibitions, brought in the criminal class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contraband always costs more and as profits
soar, the cutthroats always move in and sharpen their blades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British navy managed to stamp out much of
the slave trading in the Indian Ocean ports, but that only went so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The practice had to be halted at the source,
where the slaves were taken, in the hinterlands.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The weapons that Britain thought to use were a European
presence where slaves were captured, the Christian religion, and legitimate
ways to get rich in the territory—through trade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the words of Dr. David Livingstone, what
Britain needed to check the cursed traffic in human flesh was “an open path for
commerce and Christianity.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The dangers and difficulties of transportation from the
coast was a major obstacle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The route
from Mombasa to Kisumu was an oxcart trail. To traverse from the coast
took about three months with most of the party walking, carrying water and
food. Ordinarily around three hundred at a time made the trip, most of them
tribal porters. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Many people died.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So the British decided to build a railroad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But not everyone agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Calling the railroad a “gigantic folly,” Liberals in
Parliament were against the project, saying that Britain had no right to drive
what African’s called the “Iron Snake” through Maasai territory. The
magazine <i>Punch </i>called it “the Lunatic Line.” Politicians and
newspaper editors called it a waste of the taxpayer’s money. Shaky wooden
trestles over enormous chasms, hostile tribes, workers dying of until-then
unknown diseases—much of what transpired seemed to support those against the
idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But from the outset, the railroad had its adherents.
Conservatives saw it as an important salvo in the “Scramble for Africa,”
that Nineteenth Century madness of the European powers to take over whatever
chunks of the African continent they could lay their hegemony on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the argument went, if the Brits didn’t
take it, their rivals—largely that meant Germany—would.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Construction began in 1896. It cost Great Britain’s
taxpayers 55 million pounds sterling or $33 Billion in today’s money.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipWRKWr25gMsIP8Thoq0YzHLsCW75ZPu4y0uMlayMuz6JGqqXimtSDyDW2M3DVs5lblrmljL92alnt4DOYMzMeOf_MEOUx2AsjJCSZ1rPksbayp9SZq5sMCPrWWyVB469FoHDehHPjS82T/s1600/uganda.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipWRKWr25gMsIP8Thoq0YzHLsCW75ZPu4y0uMlayMuz6JGqqXimtSDyDW2M3DVs5lblrmljL92alnt4DOYMzMeOf_MEOUx2AsjJCSZ1rPksbayp9SZq5sMCPrWWyVB469FoHDehHPjS82T/s1600/uganda.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">32,000 Indians were shipped in from the Raj to build
it. 6,724 of them stayed after the work was done and made a life
there—many of their descendants remain today. 2,498 perished during its
construction, largely of diseases, but also by man-eating lions.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once the railway was completed, goods and people could make
the trip in less than two days. And they put in telegraph lines along the
tracks, making communication all but instantaneous. Hooray for modern
technology.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But that was not the end of their trials.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Having built the railroad, they needed to maintain it.
And they had some special problems to deal with in that regard.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For reasons no one could fathom, rhinos would undermine the
tracks, elephants would knock over the telegraph poles, and purloined telegraph
wire became the raw material for many a tribesman’s favorite jewelry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bill for keeping the trains going was
causing great consternation on the home front. The taxpayers were sick of
the expense. What the railroad needed was paying customers.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Though at the equator, the area around a remote station stop
called Nairobi, about halfway along the line, was a mile above sea level and
had a climate the King’s administrators called “healthful.” What a
perfect area for farms. Europeans might be enticed to move in and grow
coffee and sisal, raise cattle, cut and ship rare woods, and so on and so
on. Then, they and their produce would pay to ride the rails. What
a swell idea. And so they did.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Social change in northern Europe coincided with all
this. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Industrialization meant that aristocrats in those countries could
no longer remain rich and privileged just by owning land. But with cheap
labor and unexploited resources in Africa, they could have all the servants and
entitlements of their former life style.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, there
developed an ideal of manhood the proof of which lay in striking off into
uncharted territory and conquering it. Perhaps this happened because
Europe had become too manicured and tame for the available testosterone.
That would be my guess.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After the railway was built, shooting safaris became the
rage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An early visitor to the
Protectorate was Teddy Roosevelt. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The railway was a huge logistical success and became
strategically and economically vital for both Uganda and Kenya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It helped suppress slavery, and it did away
with a lot of suffering by eliminating the need for humans to carry burdens
through such hostile territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also
allowed heavy equipment to be transported inland, giving rise the economic
development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coffee and tea grown in the
East African highlands could be moved to the coast and exported. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For good or evil,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the railroad cemented the British hold on
what soon became the colony of Kenya. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Let me add a personal note: I read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Out of Africa </i>as an adolescent who had never traveled further from
my New Jersey home than the coast of Maine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That book gave me a nostalgic longing for a place I experience only in
my dreams and had no prospects of ever visiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been there now, twice, and each
encounter made me more infatuated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every
description of its majesty, every photo I see—even the sepia ones in the books
of the New York Public Library’s collection, increases the strength of my
attachment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine that many of the
Europeans who went to British East Africa felt much the same.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have taken that infatuation and longing and poured it into
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Strange
Gods.</i></b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you will read my
story and travel with me to there and then.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNVqKAHMUMzAdoTpXyqiH8DYwGEeUbyMq1jCdYwRfKjGIP-W4R56D10gIr932ZNK0g8zp4UOYthru_06cIIA6vXeWYK7Y8oJenNDb5pl9d_x1moVpgFa96DRFqEvHGwGXSPZBJW7oJIjW-/s1600/AAlfieri.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNVqKAHMUMzAdoTpXyqiH8DYwGEeUbyMq1jCdYwRfKjGIP-W4R56D10gIr932ZNK0g8zp4UOYthru_06cIIA6vXeWYK7Y8oJenNDb5pl9d_x1moVpgFa96DRFqEvHGwGXSPZBJW7oJIjW-/s1600/AAlfieri.JPG" height="320" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Annamaria Alfieri</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</span><br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">“Alfieri aims for the audience who loved </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">Out of Africa</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;">, with heartbreaking romance married to a complex mystery.” –</span><b style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><i>Kirkus</i></b></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.annamariaalfieri.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">www.annamariaalfieri.com</span></a><u></u><u></u></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Annamaria Alfieri</span></span></div>
Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-10557535384001791402014-06-01T14:42:00.000-07:002014-11-03T10:26:18.913-08:00A Regency Novel Like No Other: “Of Honest Fame,” by M.M. Bennetts<span style="font-size: large;">By Nancy Bilyeau</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">How do you solve a problem like
Napoleon? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">For many modern novelists and many
more readers, perhaps, the French emperor is not a problem requiring a solution.
Which is, among other things, the point.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Of Honest Fame, by M.M. Bennetts<br />
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;">Strictly speaking, the Regency
Period lasted from 1811 to 1820, the timespan when the mental breakdown of King
George III called for the greater involvement of his oldest son, George, the
Prince of Wales, variably described as a spendthrift, drunkard, lecher and
patron of the arts. Some scholars liberally extend both boundaries so that the
Regency began in 1795 and ended in 1837, the year that Queen Victoria succeeded
her dissolute uncles George IV and William IV to the throne. In which case, it
was a period of truly astonishing literary output: Jane Austen, Sir Walter
Scott, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his second wife, Mary Shelley,
William Blake, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth and John Keats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Overlapping
the time that some of these novels and poems were proudly published, England was at
war, and not just any war. From 1803 to 1815, England allied with Prussia,
Russia, and Austria to fight the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican
officer turned general turned emperor. Roughly 5 million people died during the
Napoleonic Wars, an estimate that includes civilians. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> This was a war of "extreme violence," of atrocities committed against the civilian population. Philip G. Dwyer writes, "The sacking of towns, during which soldiers committed murder and rape in what is often called an 'uncontrolled frenzy,' was part and parcel of 18th century warfare." Yet historians agree that the French armies, greatly hardened in the Revolution, took the frenzy to its most pitiless level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> England was not invaded during these wars, but families were robbed of their young men fighting Napoleon, and the population feared and hated the French emperor and was, to varying degrees, aware of the atrocities committed in Europe, particularly in Spain. England was also riven by poverty, with as much as one-third living close to starvation. Food riots raged. In London, alongside the luxury-driven, gambling-addicted aristocracy, existed squalor and crime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> This is the time and this is the place of M.M. Bennetts' remarkable novel, <em>Of Honest Fame</em>, a companion book to <em>May 1812</em>. Although the story swings wide, to France, Prussia and Scotland, the focus is on England in that same tense, pivotal year of 1812. According to rumor, Napoleon is turning toward Russia. It's only the British Foreign Office's skilled spy network that can learn the truth of France's plans, yet a sadistic French assassin is picking off the spies on their home soil. In the struggle to outwit the assassin—and discover who in London has betrayed them—a group of men are tested as never before. The layers of intrigue reveal themselves slowly, worthy of a John le Carr</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">é</span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> plot, but it's in the rich details of the characters' daily lives that the novel soars. They are soldiers, statesmen and spies, driven by their hatred of the enemy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> No one can blame Jane Austen for not depicting the harshness of war. That was never her brief. Yet to the careful reader, the realities of the Napoleonic Wars do play a key role in Austen fiction. Men who lack the wealth and position of a Mr. Darcy or a Mr. Knightly seek a career in military service, some willingly, others less so. In <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>, the local officers—members of a militia of sorts—are a fatal attraction for the younger Bennett daughters. The deceptive Mr. Wickham is thus introduced:
“But the attention of every young lady was soon caught by a
young man, whom they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance,
walking with an officer on the other side of the way." In <em>Persuasion</em>, Captain Wentworth is desperate for a ship after Anne Elliot rejects him due to his lack of social status.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> Napoleon was defeated, exiled, disgraced. England moved forward, to carve its Empire. Yet Bonaparte is an object of eternal fascination in fiction. He appears in two of the most memorable novels of the modern age. Tolstoy triumphs in his ability to depict a Russian society under strain and then under siege in <em>War and Peace</em>. And in a very different sort of book, it is a letter from an exiled Napoleon that sets the entire plot of Alexandre Dumas' <em>The Count of Monte Cristo</em> into motion.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A painting of Napoleon's retreat from Russia</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> In the novels written in the late 20th and 21st centuries the presence of Napoleon takes interesting shape. Patrick O'Brian and Bernard Cornwell have each produced masterful novels of men fighting the French. But the wars take a background role in most other Regency-era books, that surge of historical fiction and romances that is to some degree inspired by Austen. What complicates it further is that Bonaparte himself stars in a number of historical novels, focusing on his marriages to the calculating Créole Josephine and the stolid Austrian princess Marie-Louise. Even his Bonaparte siblings get a piece of the action.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> <em>Of Honest Fame</em> refuses to flinch from the ugliness of war and its devaluing of human life, the obliterating horror of torture and rape. There are no battles in the book; it is not a "war novel." But each character in the book is molded—if not scarred—by England's grueling conflict with France while retaining his or her innate humanity and need for companionship and love. M.M. Bennetts' book could never be described as romance fiction. And yet it contains a relationship between two outsiders—a rejected and terrified wife and a debauched yet determined spy—that is tremendously moving and quite erotic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> Still, the novel's power is most keenly felt in its descriptive passages. In two sections in particular, a man finds himself in a new place, and the details of what he sees and hears and feels drive home the needs of each character.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> Boy, the youngest and most psychologically damaged of the English spies, tracks Napoleon's army into Prussia with the utmost care:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Running, zigzagging across the abandoned countryside, past the smoke-blackened houses and empty, eerie Gothic churches which sat deserted and silent, discarded like the playthings of some long-dead giant. Dodging the few travelers and fewer carriages by diving into ditches or behind the low walls and hedges to wait, still and alert, for minutes or longer. To wait until the roads were quiet once more. And only then to emerge, and wary, to begin again.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> Another of the spies, Captain George Shuster, seen as the "cream of the officers' mess" but wearier and lonelier than even he may realize, arrives in Scotland:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">He caught sight of the chestnut crest and black mask of a wax-wing. 'Struth, it had been an age since he last walked through a wood like this. Walked, unafraid and unharried, through strands of yew and holly and oak with sunlight dappling the ground and the tree trunks, and underfoot a carpet of wild thyme, garlic and most decaying leaves, their scents crushed together by his boot. Without having to run--crouched over and silent in his breathlessness--wondering when some Frenchie's bullet was going to find its way into the gut or his head. Without fear of stumbling across the corpse of a soldier or a child, half-eaten and decayed. Without listening for the sounds of pursuit or the murmuring of vagabonds or the unnatural silence of waiting bandits. For here there was nought but the incessant callings of the birds--wood pigeons and woodpeckers, robins and thrushes--and the rustling, grunting enthusiasm of Comfit at his heel.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> In moments such as these, <em>Of Honest Fame</em> finds a poetry in the human struggle that no conqueror could ever silence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-size: large;">To learn more about<em> Of Honest Fame</em> and M.M. Bennetts, go </span><a href="http://www.mmbennetts.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></span><br />
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<!--[endif]--></span></span> </span>Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-5890762898695548622014-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:002014-08-03T10:00:36.925-07:00The RT Awards in New Orleans: In Praise of Alligator Po'Boys, Joan of Arc, Voodoo Psychics--and Book Editors!By Nancy Bilyeau<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the axioms of screenwriting is "Come in late, get out early." Following that advice--meaning that writers should focus on the meat of the action and not waste precious time in either setting up or winding down a scene--produces lean, lively scripts. But it's not the best way to approach the</span><a href="https://www.rtconvention.com/"><span style="font-size: large;"> RT Booklovers Convention 2014</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> in New Orleans. I arrived late, exhausted, and I left early, panic-stricken. Still, a week later, I am turning over the experience in my mind, which means it left a mark. A good one. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2H-rKPoPA7cpU3ntiUG5V7Kaa5USM8ghhVpHeL8Qv9AJqDa8nSXO5vC1XD_LRFocmqgKDOIq6lmKMxhFiB-bZDzLLbe-S8WC13rAsZChU0DJb0zYC8253ZW0lvB8_sONz07Ys2fBw0h-/s1600/laura+anderson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2H-rKPoPA7cpU3ntiUG5V7Kaa5USM8ghhVpHeL8Qv9AJqDa8nSXO5vC1XD_LRFocmqgKDOIq6lmKMxhFiB-bZDzLLbe-S8WC13rAsZChU0DJb0zYC8253ZW0lvB8_sONz07Ys2fBw0h-/s1600/laura+anderson.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Tudors Rule! Laura Andersen (<i>The Boleyn King)</i> and I celebrate</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although "RT" stands for </span><a href="http://www.rtbookreviews.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">Romantic Times</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> and the majority of the 2,000-plus attendees of the annual convention are writers, readers and publishers of romance fiction, screenwriting is relevant to this blog post. One of the two reasons I was determined to fly to New Orleans was to moderate a panel on Friday morning called "Stealing Hollywood's Magic: How Screenwriting Techniques Energize Your Writing."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second reason was to collect my first fiction award. To my astonishment and delight, <em>The Chalice, </em>set in 16th century England, won the Best Historical Mystery of 2013 prize. It was one of the highlights of my writing career to grip this award.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But before we get to the pleasure, we have to talk about the pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My original plan was to attend the entire convention, which ran from Tuesday, May 13th, to Sunday, May 18th. But I am the executive editor of </span><a href="http://www.dujour.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">DuJour</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> magazine, and when the production schedule for the summer issue shifted, my travel plans had to shift too. I booked a flight and hotel to arrive on New Orleans on Thursday. I knew I was cutting it close. But I didn't have a choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On Thursday, when I walked my daughter to school, it was cloudy but seemed a typical spring day. A check of the weather forecast revealed a long line of storms stood between the East Coast and Louisiana. Proving the power of denial in the human mind, I decided that some rain couldn't possibly affect my plans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ha.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans, a city I'd never visited before, at 6:30 pm Thursday. I actually touched ground, alone and confused and deeply tired, at 1:30 a.m. Friday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I like to travel, while my husband hates it. The series of flight cancellations and delays I endured on Thursday--some, but not all, caused by weather--confirmed all of his dread of flying and more. The man loves me so he did not gloat but merely commented via email that I could have reached Tokyo in the same stretch of time it took various airlines to deposit me in southern Louisiana.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't reserved in the Marriott, the convention hotel, because it was booked up by the time I made my plans. Instead, I had a room at the W Hotel in the French Quarter. When my cab dropped me in front of the Chartres Street hotel after an endless ride from the airport--we had to reroute from the highway because of construction, which nurtured a growing suspicion that I was hexed--a calm and welcoming hotel employee supplied me with a room card.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nothing could look as good to me as my room that night:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">I'm told that this is a "signature bed" of the W Hotels</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The following morning, I woke up after four hours' sleep, terribly excited. I could tell my fortunes were turning around when I enjoyed a sensational breakfast on the terrace: eggs, sausage, potatoes Lyonnaise, orange juice and biscuit. The coffee...ah, the coffee. Someone said the secret to New Orleans coffee is the chicory? Drinking a pot of it made me think if I was hexed, it had officially lifted.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZJJ8kyO8rIgLPUWI_TDvv9HcSv2AwGXsm3H_Ewcx8b6_bEBPNLSNZ_dvTM86ABdPFEB3Ov7sc1wwR8lkLddHRE0jBghNMxb3d9RZyN47mfK2QsFBAZ60wIg3UMs3WvwV6MOUTULubjrDI/s1600/W+breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZJJ8kyO8rIgLPUWI_TDvv9HcSv2AwGXsm3H_Ewcx8b6_bEBPNLSNZ_dvTM86ABdPFEB3Ov7sc1wwR8lkLddHRE0jBghNMxb3d9RZyN47mfK2QsFBAZ60wIg3UMs3WvwV6MOUTULubjrDI/s1600/W+breakfast.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Breakfast at the W: I could get used to this!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Afterward I rushed to the Marriott Hotel, the official convention destination, to moderate my panel. I've served on a half-dozen panels, from the New York Public Library and Thrillerfest to Historical Novel Society and Bouchercon. I am proud to report that this RT panel gave some <i>very</i> strong value to the writers in the audience. At conferences, some authors tend to promote their books, crack jokes, and offer only vague advice to their audiences, unfortunately. </span><a href="http://www.alexandrasokoloff.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">Alexandra Sokoloff </span></a><span style="font-size: large;">(<i>Blood Moon)</i>, </span><a href="http://planetpooks.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">Patricia Burroughs</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> (<i>This Crumbling Pageant)</i> and </span><a href="http://themisfitchronicles.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">Toni McGee Causey</span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> (the Bobbie Faye series), successful screenwriters and novelists, shared their techniques in plotting with notecards, structuring a suspenseful plot and visual scene building. In fact, you can download Alexandra's incredibly helpful Story Element Checklist from the </span><a href="http://www.screenwritingtricks.com/2014/05/story-elements-checklist-for-generating.html"><span style="font-size: large;">blog </span></a><span style="font-size: large;">she updated same day as our panel. These women went the extra mile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't until the lunch break that I explored New Orleans a bit. Because I have a French last name, people have asked me over the years if I'm from New Orleans, and I always feel as if I'm disappointing them when I say no. (My French Huguenot ancestor, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiou-Stillwell-Perine_House"><span style="font-size: large;">Pierre Billiou</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, settled in 1665 in what was then called New Amsterdam, later New York City.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, at last, I'd made it to the Big Easy. Because I adore exploring historic buildings (especially churches) and experimenting with food, falling in love with the French Quarter was inevitable.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaqW_jcPgVcGgGTDBIqkEWAUtILRwpslf5ovUGfxvO4CmFNVrwB2ZLHf9RheRAqEEeEvpiyr8XKsTf3GzxGgExhvMrZDM1HSvwYTgyavIp9x77ar8h86AS3Ay7VpGsXalWeVDenk8_YKs/s1600/alligator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaqW_jcPgVcGgGTDBIqkEWAUtILRwpslf5ovUGfxvO4CmFNVrwB2ZLHf9RheRAqEEeEvpiyr8XKsTf3GzxGgExhvMrZDM1HSvwYTgyavIp9x77ar8h86AS3Ay7VpGsXalWeVDenk8_YKs/s1600/alligator.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Alligator time!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At lunch with Pooks (Patricia Burroughs), I couldn't resist ordering the alligator po'boy sandwich. (Wouldn't Andrew Zimmern be proud?) In answer to the question "Does it taste like chicken?" the answer is...no. It tastes like alligator--tangier than chicken and a bit tougher.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJfi0D1xOEgYEYS3j7mCLKm_c5w5kq4CubvwW0afxa08B3LNmr36i5G3xatzreaDw_CWc9f6pVMd4MGbE9WVWPZgsEeyzwhMZV4CTlWkLUnvoXTXMB3cpt8rasaxD-tePqbrBWvu-LhA5/s1600/street+corner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJfi0D1xOEgYEYS3j7mCLKm_c5w5kq4CubvwW0afxa08B3LNmr36i5G3xatzreaDw_CWc9f6pVMd4MGbE9WVWPZgsEeyzwhMZV4CTlWkLUnvoXTXMB3cpt8rasaxD-tePqbrBWvu-LhA5/s1600/street+corner.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Chartres Street, French Quarter</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The buildings along Chartres Street exuded a 19th century charm--in a few cases, 18th century. The St. Louis Cathedral off Jackson Square is among the oldest cathedrals in North America: The first church on the site was built in 1718. I liked the statue of an armored Joan of Arc, donated in 1920.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqOvU-67knYuTI4t5EEYK1V-5oVOFe6KucJRjEpskkGStvo1oVxYachUFVsWqalqb5MfYi2xQq1m8xl2GdRnUf3T6UFRLCOUoygygM1iX-tM_75-l2YTnEQc6b1k-BOWtezUYUnSOh84JU/s1600/Joan+of+Arc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqOvU-67knYuTI4t5EEYK1V-5oVOFe6KucJRjEpskkGStvo1oVxYachUFVsWqalqb5MfYi2xQq1m8xl2GdRnUf3T6UFRLCOUoygygM1iX-tM_75-l2YTnEQc6b1k-BOWtezUYUnSOh84JU/s1600/Joan+of+Arc.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">"The Maid of Orleans" statues can be found all over N.O.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Outside the cathedral, interestingly, I faced a long row of psychic booths, set up for tourist business. I've always been fascinated by voodoo (anyone who reads my books knows I'm intrigued by not only churches but prophecy and the magical world). So it was simply not possible to pass by the most colorful booth of all, the one belonging to Fatima, a.k.a. The Bone Lady. She told me she was fifth-generation, trained since childhood in tarot and palm reading. I learned I have a long life line and may come into some money in the next 18 months (good!) but a friend secretly wishes me ill (bad!). I began to doubt Miss Fatima's psychic skills when she said I'm single. Um, no, I've been married 21 years. Things went downhill from there. She ferreted out that I'm worried about a family member and said she could perform a "protective" voodoo cleansing in a private ceremony for an undisclosed amount of money. I guess I wasn't surprised that someone sitting in a booth in the middle of a tourist area would try this sort of manipulation. But it was still a letdown.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Overall, I feel about Miss Fatima as I do about the alligator po'boy: glad I sampled, but I wouldn't repeat the experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The RT folks said I could bring a cheering section of one or two to the awards ceremony, and I asked my friend, fellow historical novelist </span><a href="http://www.judithstarkston.com/"><span style="font-size: large;">Judith Starkston</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, who's written <i>Hand of Fire</i>, a fantastic book about Briseis, the lover of Achilles, to sit with me. The only award winner I knew personally was </span><a href="http://www.lauraandersenbooks.com/boleyn-king.php"><span style="font-size: large;">Laura Andersen</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">, who won Best Historical Novel for the enthralling <i>The Boleyn King</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As Judith and I listened to the award recipients' brief speeches (one minute max, we'd been instructed), it struck me how many of them gave fervent thanks to their editors. And not because the said editor was sitting in the audience--I don't think that was often the case. The relationship between writer and editor is such an important one, and these women wanted to honor it.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZ0ORLnWgZgKmYeNHb-LGSniCA48AfDaP2hD3Mc8HxQsPRTPs_n1WuuCdY9KeUGAFy155_Fl4YXOmIIe-uzk2BiQblxyQGVFzWUD27KpFW5K6OT7xU0dyuIsixyP98a3aNKn1IDhWK71w/s1600/New+Orleans+2.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwZ0ORLnWgZgKmYeNHb-LGSniCA48AfDaP2hD3Mc8HxQsPRTPs_n1WuuCdY9KeUGAFy155_Fl4YXOmIIe-uzk2BiQblxyQGVFzWUD27KpFW5K6OT7xU0dyuIsixyP98a3aNKn1IDhWK71w/s1600/New+Orleans+2.tiff" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">My moment of truth at the RT Awards ceremony</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When my time came to take the stage--I wore stylish flats so I wouldn't pull a Jennifer Lawrence--I told a joke revolving around learning that I'd won the award while waiting for the subway. It came off well. I hope. But then I shifted from silly to sincere, and thanked the editors of <i>The Chalice</i>. Because the book was published simultaneously in North America and the United Kingdom, I had two talented editors on it: Heather Lazare, with Touchstone, and Eleanor Dryden, with Orion. Back in 2012, I told them, "Give me everything you've got--I want this book to be as good as I can make it." And they did. :)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb43Jh9shpl9O5kIWMHrlV9eCO7PYupjq-wNQw_ERPKKoXB2G80QhW4ttZ4USSWYL1lKZOV9wtPbnlAcJ7gM4_Uqb1uPtLB915H02Wy8YoEVdcpyBSaZlkgk9By6-AOolySUlMUhKN1YH8/s1600/award.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb43Jh9shpl9O5kIWMHrlV9eCO7PYupjq-wNQw_ERPKKoXB2G80QhW4ttZ4USSWYL1lKZOV9wtPbnlAcJ7gM4_Uqb1uPtLB915H02Wy8YoEVdcpyBSaZlkgk9By6-AOolySUlMUhKN1YH8/s1600/award.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thanks to Heather and Eleanor--an award!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Because the rates at the W Hotel skyrocket Saturday night, I booked my return flight Saturday afternoon. That meant I had to unfortunately miss the last day and a half of the convention. But also when I selected a 3 pm flight I didn't take into full account the 11 a.m to 2 pm Book Fair, an author signing event that dwarfs any other such signing I'd ever seen.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4Xgg8HFdvXRuJ4BgW0Vxl6fX0KPlY6fspuCwfrzlXZH3aZ0fn5jOGuGhBwN-WtdcX9eUka3DHhkOcMcavDZ5_siE_Ts2s0YZzP2PCzR2yDKNkp5DISz5JojaL7SP4EysElDVGMmcXcIx/s1600/Book_Fair2_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh4Xgg8HFdvXRuJ4BgW0Vxl6fX0KPlY6fspuCwfrzlXZH3aZ0fn5jOGuGhBwN-WtdcX9eUka3DHhkOcMcavDZ5_siE_Ts2s0YZzP2PCzR2yDKNkp5DISz5JojaL7SP4EysElDVGMmcXcIx/s1600/Book_Fair2_0.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When it was time for me to dart out early, I was faced with a half-hour-long checkout line. And, of course, I hadn't allowed enough travel time to the airport in the first place. I missed a flight at Phoenix Airport two years ago. It was a horrible experience, and I did <i>not </i>want miss this one. I'd had a memorable time in New Orleans but I wanted to get home, to be with my husband and kids.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Still, I couldn't bypass the convention checkout line because I had a book to buy. A half-hour earlier I'd introduced myself to an author I've long admired, </span><a href="http://www.barryeisler.com/index.php"><span style="font-size: large;">Barry Eisler</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">. I read <i>The Detachment</i> and was blown away by the pacing, plot twists and character depth. Barry couldn't have been nicer, and I snatched up <i>Graveyard of Memories,</i> his new thriller that goes deeper into the history of the series' protagonist, the enigmatic John Rain. Barry signed it for me--I had to buy this book!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I paid for <i>Graveyard of Memories</i>, ran to the hotel, flagged down a cab (New Yorkers can always find a cab), and, stomach churning, checked the time on my watch every 30 seconds along the way. When we made it the airport with less than an hour left until takeoff, I was fighting back tears. I'd missed that flight from Phoenix to NYC when I cut it this close. How could I do it <i>again?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But as I scrambled to the United Airlines counter, my suitcase flying behind me, a uniformed woman stepped forward and said, "You look upset. What flight are you on?" She didn't flinch when I told her it was the plane to JFK in 45 minutes. She calmly checked me in and directed me to the gate, telling me I'd be fine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"It was nice to see you again," she said in an accent of the Deep South.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"No, this is my first time in New Orleans," I said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">She smiled. "We've met before," she said, without a trace of doubt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't until I was safely on my flight, Barry Eisler's novel in my lap, that I realized she could have been the special connection I'd been hoping for on this trip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">New Orleans, I will be back.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7pRh5mY66aMXR03hSZlG3iWVlf5ZRsbBfANKsdB7MfKDQ72UQQV3QpX7ut2laudL6Zx_ejO7luUL3_DzHmeahA2GXR8_fsTslmB7_Ytw7D3NgUYv48o3EaU0jbFU1cuqu9wLAU3FCGgsU/s1600/riverboat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7pRh5mY66aMXR03hSZlG3iWVlf5ZRsbBfANKsdB7MfKDQ72UQQV3QpX7ut2laudL6Zx_ejO7luUL3_DzHmeahA2GXR8_fsTslmB7_Ytw7D3NgUYv48o3EaU0jbFU1cuqu9wLAU3FCGgsU/s1600/riverboat.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A riverboat on the Mississippi, something I've ALWAYS wanted to see</span><br />
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<br />Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-51626941759381052862013-10-29T04:27:00.000-07:002013-10-29T09:07:55.983-07:00London Treasure Hunt<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By Jeri Westerson<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I’ve titled this post as I did because my newest medieval
mystery, SHADOW OF THE ALCHEMIST, is not only a murder mystery involving a
venerated object, but in the course of that mystery is a massive treasure hunt
all over London. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Readers have been asking for a map of fourteenth century
London, and as promised, there is one in this edition. Since all of the action
of five of the so-far six books in the series takes place in London, I
naturally needed to acquaint myself with its period streets. Unfortunately, the
London I would love to see doesn’t exist anymore. A couple of fires took care
of that, along with some re-planning and reconstruction throughout the ages and
into the present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Maps serve to give me the claustrophobic feel of constricted
alleys and a puzzle of lanes. In fact, one can lay these maps on the Google
Earth version of the present day London and match quite a bit of it. Even some
of the names remain the same. My fictional detective, Crispin Guest, a
disgraced knight turned detective and down on his luck, frequents a tavern to
forget his troubles, which is located on Gutter Lane…a street that still exists
by that name. I love that symmetry!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">But there are still a few locations that can be found in
present day London that can renew one’s sense of time and place. One obvious
structure is the Tower of London. The outer walls and the White Tower within
are relatively the same, sans the murky moat that used to surround it. And
walking under the arches and sharp teeth of the portcullises one can get a true
sense of its medieval origins, if you can ignore the gift shop signs and
colorfully-dressed tourists. It began life as the castle of William the
Conqueror and as a residence of each monarch after him until digs in
Westminster were built. Only later, well after Crispin’s time, did it become
the dreaded place of imprisonment for London’s elite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I could name so many places that no longer exist or have
been changed so radically to its Victorian counterpart that it is almost not
worth the mention. London’s city walls, for instance—the square mile that
delineated ancient London—have been obliterated by “new” buildings from the
Georgian and Victorian periods and our modern time, and it is only with a
helpful handheld guide that you can find its remnants. But a walk into a few
structures might bring the medieval back to mind. The 12<sup>th</sup> century Temple
Church of the Knights Templar on Fleet Street; the 12<sup>th</sup> century
Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great in West Smithfield; the Guildhall, built
between 1411 and 1440, which stands off Gresham and Basinghall streets, served
as the city hall for hundreds of years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Then there is the wonderfully intact Westminster Hall, the
great hall that was part of the medieval Westminster Palace, whose footprint is
now covered by the Parliament buildings. But the hall is as Crispin would have
remembered it, even with its current hammerbeam ceiling, that his king, Richard
II, put in place to replace the columns that used to support it. It is the largest
medieval timber roof in Northern Europe, measuring 68 by 240 feet. It was used
for feasts, great occasions, law courts, religious ceremonies, and
entertainments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">And, of course, Westminster Abbey itself got a brush up of
remodeling in Crispin's day, and looks a bit different than it did. But
remember, the Abbey and the Hall are in what was the City of Westminster, not
the City of London. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QIEH2DdX4J4l33AHsYTzt76orv_o-pkyeA1VTCXC9n-Q5HKbbqvkXZeGcZ3_v4Nz0c-JkFiEjBSpilkbL-9YP5IGT-3tUIlaec-BVGCFZE_YedUrOeTJR6Dy1NWcwKeGYpnIb3fFZe86/s1600/Jeri+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QIEH2DdX4J4l33AHsYTzt76orv_o-pkyeA1VTCXC9n-Q5HKbbqvkXZeGcZ3_v4Nz0c-JkFiEjBSpilkbL-9YP5IGT-3tUIlaec-BVGCFZE_YedUrOeTJR6Dy1NWcwKeGYpnIb3fFZe86/s320/Jeri+photo.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Los Angeles native and award-winning author Jeri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Westerson writes the critically acclaimed Crispin Guest Medieval Noir mysteries. Her brooding protagonist is Crispin Guest, a disgraced knight turned detective on the mean streets of fourteenth century London, encountering thieves, kings, poets, and religious relics. Her books have garnered nominations for the Shamus, the Macavity, the Agatha, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, and the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award. Jeri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">is president of the southern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America and is vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters in Crime. When not writing, Jeri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">dabbles in gourmet cooking, drinks fine wines, eats cheap chocolate, and swoons over anything British.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><a href="http://www.JeriWesterson.com/" target="_blank">www.JeriWesterson.com</a></span></span></div>
Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-48784287508592948762013-06-17T12:37:00.000-07:002013-06-17T12:40:47.825-07:00Interview with Sophie Perinot, author of "The Sister Queens"By Nancy Bilyeau<br />
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This Friday I will be in Florida, attending my first-ever Historical Novel Society conference. I've heard so much about the star-power lunches and dinners (this year the guests of honor will be C.W. Gortner, Steve Berry and Anne Perry!), the costume pageant, and the juicy author panels. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sophie Perinot</td></tr>
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I'm honored to be on a panel with my friend Sophie Perinot, author of the wonderful novel <i>The Sister Queens</i>. Our panel has the awesome title "The Feisty Heroine Sold Into Marriage Who Hates Bear Baiting: Cliches in Historical Fiction and How to Avoid Them." We will try to lay down the law along with Susan Higginbotham and Gillian Bagwell. :)</div>
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To generate more excitement for the conference (and let me tell you, I am already very excited), I've updated an interview I conducted with Sophie that revealed her historical knowledge, creativity and savviness about being published:</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nancy Bilyeau: Your first novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sister Queens</i>—telling the story of Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence, sisters who both became medieval queens—came out in 2012, can you
tell those readers who may not have read it yet a little bit about the book?</b></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Sophie Perinot:</b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> The
Sister Queens</i> is a sister story first and foremost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it is set in the 13th century and the
atmosphere, politics and history are richly detailed and appropriate to that
time but I wanted to focus my novel on that which is timeless—the way our sisters
shape us whether by challenging us or by supporting us. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
I’d like to share the back-cover
blurb if I may because I really think my publisher did a brilliant job of
summing up the novel: </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“Raised together at the 13th Century court
of their father, Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, Marguerite and Eleanor
are separated by royal marriages—but never truly parted. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“Patient, perfect, reticent, and used to
being first, Marguerite becomes Queen of France. Her husband, Louis IX, is
considered the greatest monarch of his age. But he is also a religious zealot
who denies himself all pleasure—including the love and companionship his wife
so desperately craves. Can Marguerite find enough of her sister’s boldness to
grasp her chance for happiness in the guise of forbidden love? </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“Passionate, strong-willed, and stubborn,
Eleanor becomes Queen of England. Her husband, Henry III, is neither as young
nor as dashing as Marguerite’s. But she quickly discovers he is a very good
man…and a very bad king. His failures are bitter disappointments for Eleanor,
who has worked to best her elder sister since childhood. Can Eleanor stop
competing with her sister and value what she has, or will she let it slip
away?” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NB: What was the most exhilarating moment for
you as a debut author? The most humbling?</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b><b>SP:</b> The most exhilarating moment was,
without doubt, my launch day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was able
to lunch with a small group of my fellow members of the Chesapeake Bay Chapter
of the Historical Novel Society including the marvelous Kate Quinn and
Stephanie Dray. Afterwards we walked to the nearest Barnes & Noble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The minute I crossed the threshold I spotted <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sister Queens</i> on the “New Releases”
table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pure bliss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, many pictures were taken. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
The most humbling moment came about
a week later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took my youngest child
to a Barnes & Noble near our home so that he could see my book on the “New
Releases” table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took one look,
shrugged (really) and said something along the lines of, “that’s nice but the
hardback books at the front are displayed standing up.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yeah, that pretty much deflated my ego. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NB: We will both soon be headed to the 2013 North
American Historical Novel Society Conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Can you tell readers a little bit about the topics of the panels you
will be sitting on in Florida?</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b><b>SP:</b> I will be sitting on two
panels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first entitled “Location,
Location, Location” will look at historical settings, their importance as the
foundation of good historical novels, and tricks and tools for building them
credibly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Second is our panel on clichés. It will examine the good, bad and ugly of common clichés in the
genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I expect both panels to be scintillating, so
if any of your blog readers are coming to St Pete’s, I hope they will consider
adding these panels to their list of “must see” sessions.</blockquote>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NB: Is the St. Peterburg HNS Conference your
first?</b> </blockquote>
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<b>SP:</b> No indeed, I am a veteran of North
American conferences, having been at every once since the 2005 inaugural event
in Salt Lake City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I honestly believe my
early HNS conferences—before I had a completed manuscript—were extremely
important in terms of career building/shaping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They really made me think about the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">business
end</b> of writing historical fiction, and gave me the information I needed to
make educated decisions about what I wanted in an agent and what sort of
publication I was seeking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it is
very easy for new writers to write in a “creative bubble” focusing solely on
developing their craft, but authors are actually small business people and the
earlier a novice writer realizes that the better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d recommend attending an HNS Conference to
anyone serious about writing in the genre and to interested readers as well.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family: Garamond;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NB: When you get home from Florida I am sure it
is back to the writerly grindstone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can
you tell us a little bit about what you are working on right now?</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>SP: </b>With pleasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve moved forward a little over 300 years to
16<sup>th</sup> century France where I am hard at work on a novel about
Marguerite de Valois, the youngest daughter Henri II and Catherine de Medici. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Marguerite grew up immersed in the
political and dynastic struggles which consumed France during the Wars of Religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was a witness to and participant in a lot
of fascinating—and sometimes gruesome—history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet she has seldom been explored in fiction, and when she has I am
afraid portrayals of her—as a vain, corrupt wanton—reflect more of the ugly
anti-Valois propaganda of her time than historical reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope to give readers a more balanced and
nuanced view of Marguerite who was not only one of the most beautiful women of
the French Court but also one of the most intelligent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Readers can expect plenty of mother-daughter
conflict between my heroine and her legendary mother, Catherine de Medici, as
well as political and Romantic intrigue involving the likes of the Duc de
Guise, Henri of Navarre, Charles IX of France and the future Henri III. </blockquote>
Thanks for a wonderful interview, Sophie, and see you later this week!<br />
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For more information on The Sister Queens, go to: <a href="http://www.sophieperinot.com/home/">http://www.sophieperinot.com/home/</a><br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-56543717661033514482013-06-13T12:51:00.000-07:002013-06-17T11:37:34.712-07:00Interview with "Shadow on the Crown's" Patricia Bracewell<br />
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One of the frustrations of my new life as a novelist is not having enough time to read for pleasure. Those precious hours I've carved out for my book series must go to writing and reading for research. I used to buy novels on impulse at the bookstore, walk out of libraries with arms aching from the vertical load, and, most recently, download an intriguing title on my kindle. How I miss that kind of voracious reading.</div>
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During a break between my finishing <i>The Chalice</i> and starting my work on <i>The Covenant</i>, I vowed to return to my old life. I bought <i>Shadow on the Crown,</i> the debut novel of Patricia Bracewell. All I knew was that I liked the look of the cover, I'd heard some pleasant buzz about the book on Facebook, and the subject was an 11th century queen named Emma of Normandy. </div>
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From the first page, I was hooked. <i>Shadow on the Crown</i> is a lovely read that kept me turning pages, eager to find out what would happen next. I learned a great deal about a period in English history I'm interested in--the early medieval age--while caring deeply about these characters. Emma, the daughter of a duke of Normandy, became the second wife of King Aethelred of England at the age of fifteen. The novel is about that turbulent marriage, which includes a brief kidnapping by Viking leaders and royal infidelities. Emma is the only queen known to have married successive--and rivalrous--kings of England. Her next marriage will be the subject of Bracewell's follow-up novel.</div>
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Happily, Patricia agreed to an interview on her fascinating novel. She grew up in California, where she taught literature and composition before embarking on her first novel. And, best of all, we will meet in person at the upcoming Historical Novel Society conference, where I will no doubt pepper her with even more questions!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiad068vOnDw5FLivc9vtS8qKiGnQkNdRlExeuw7PyI45NgWUlIgv7t8fdWBNUuR-GsjkCXM9-7bdQi5M8Mc6ZBeudjDEEwYYbxaYjR2_u_wl-qhUSbE9g-fd0sdYNvMIyRgPcXsoEyCw1i/s1600/bracewell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiad068vOnDw5FLivc9vtS8qKiGnQkNdRlExeuw7PyI45NgWUlIgv7t8fdWBNUuR-GsjkCXM9-7bdQi5M8Mc6ZBeudjDEEwYYbxaYjR2_u_wl-qhUSbE9g-fd0sdYNvMIyRgPcXsoEyCw1i/s320/bracewell.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>Nancy Bilyeau: How did you “discover” Emma of Normandy?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>Patricia Bracewell:</b> It happened over a dozen years ago, and it was the first of a
number of fortuitous events. I was noodling about on an on-line history
bulletin board and I ran across Emma’s name mentioned in a series of posts. I
found myself reading about a woman who had been wed to two kings of England and
was the mother of two kings, and because I thought myself fairly knowledgeable
about the names of English queens, I wondered why I had never heard of her. I
started to dig and I grew more and more fascinated. Interestingly, I was never
able to find that internet history board again. (Cue spooky music.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: Although Emma of Normandy has had such an eventful life, she hasn’t
been written about in historical fiction nearly as often as queens like Eleanor
of Aquitaine and Elizabeth Woodville. Why do you think that is? </b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: I think there are two reasons. One is that Emma of Normandy is
not exactly a household name. Graduate students in Anglo-Saxon or Medieval
History will have run into her, but most people have never heard of her. You
can’t write about someone you’ve never heard of. That’s only part of it,
though. Look at Lady Macbeth – one of Emma’s contemporaries. Thanks to
Shakespeare, we all know about her, yet few historical fiction writers have
placed her at the center of a book. Maybe it’s because until recently, the
early medieval period was considered a hard sell. Hopefully that is changing,
but it does raise the question: have there been other novels written about that
Scottish queen, or even about Emma, that no one was willing to publish? We’ll
never know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: How much contemporary documentation is there on Emma’s life?
Were you able to unearth little-known facts on her and the other principals in
the book?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: If one looks only to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle</i>, which is where I began my research, there are only two mentions
of Emma’s name in the period covered by my book. Even the manuscript that Emma
herself commissioned late in her life, called the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Encomium Emmae Regina</i> by scholars, makes no mention of any events
before about A.D. 1013. It doesn’t even mention King Æthelred. Historians have
had to glean information about Emma from charters, from wills, from the records
of gifts made to various churches and from later historians, like 12<sup>th</sup>
century William of Malmesbury who added some juicy rumors to what the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chronicle</i> had to say. So there is very
little contemporary evidence for what her life would have been like. I had to
look at the general knowledge we have about that period, and apply it to an
English queen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: I watched the entire season of “The Vikings” on the History
Channel and I’ve also seen “Thirteenth Warrior” and the 1958 Kirk Douglas/Tony
Curtis film “The Vikings.” The Viking rulers in your book are not as crude and
bloodthirsty as those in films and TV series. Do you think there is some
stereotyping in the depiction of Vikings?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: Yes, and that stereotyping began very early on. What we know of
the Vikings comes from what was written about them by the victims of their
raids – who never had anything good to say about them – and from 13<sup>th</sup>
century Icelandic sagas which are stories meant to glorify deeds of heroism
and, of course, violence. (The History Channel’s “The Vikings” is based on
Ragnar’s Saga.) The Scandinavians had no written history until after the 11<sup>th</sup>
century, so there are no contemporary annals by the Vikings themselves to
balance the perceived image. Historians of late have tried to emphasize the
role of Vikings as traders and explorers, which was significant, as opposed to their
reputation as bloodthirsty raiders. My own story is set toward the very end of
the Viking Age, two hundred years after events depicted in any of the films you
mentioned above, and a great deal happened to the Scandinavian countries in
that time, including Christianization (something that did not happen overnight
or all-at-once, mind you). Where is the truth? Well, not everyone born in Scandinavia
between A.D. 800 and A.D.1100 boarded a ship and went out to savage his
neighbors. That being said, the Viking Age was a brutal time, no matter where
you lived.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: In your study of literature and your teaching career, did you
ever imagine that a medieval queen would be the subject of your first book?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: I did, but the queen’s name was Guinevere. I was completely
entranced by the Arthurian Legend for many years, and I always thought that I
would someday write about the Matter of Britain. I’m only off by about 600
years!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: Did English queens ever have a harder life than during this time
period? I’m thinking of not only Emma but her husband’s first queen.</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘hard life’. As a
queen and peaceweaver, like so many other medieval queens, Emma was a foreigner,
thrust into a court where she had no family or noble allies close at hand to
support her. So yes, it would have been hard for her to make her way in that
world. She would have had to forge those ties from scratch. As for what
happened behind closed doors, between husband and wife when there was nothing
to bind them but the demands of religion and state, historians do not say. It’s
up to the historical novelist to peek behind the bed curtains. Did queens in
later eras have it any better? Ask Ann Boleyn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: For you, what is the line between fiction and fact? Are there
fictional characters in <i>Shadow on the Crown</i>?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: There are fictional characters in the novel, but all of them are
in supporting roles. I created them where necessary to flesh out the story. As
for the line between fiction and fact, I set out to write a story, not history.
Every step of the way I asked myself if what I was imagining was plausible,
given the available facts. Often I had to depend upon conjecture. Historians do
this, as well, but they make certain that any conjectures they make are
specifically identified as such. The novelist doesn’t have that restriction.
The Author’s Note, though, is the place where the writer can discuss any
deviations from known facts, and I think they are almost as much fun to read –
and write – as the stories themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: Your book has a passionate romance in it but it also depicts
rape within marriage. How hard was that to grapple with as an author?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: Any scene that is intensely emotional – whether it is
passionate, violent, or sad – is difficult to write. I struggle with all of
them. Technically they are difficult because you want to portray physical
events that are occurring, and at the same time you want your reader to
experience not just the physical but the emotional turmoil that your viewpoint
character is experiencing. To do that, the writer has to place herself right
there, in that moment – be that character – not just once, but as many times as
it takes to get the balance between the physical and the emotional absolutely
right. It is, quite simply, hard work and emotionally draining.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: Where do you feel historical fiction is headed as a genre?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">PB: I think that depends on us, the writers. The more that we demand
excellence from ourselves and from each other, the better our books will be and
the more recognition we will receive from the literary community. The very fact
that there is now a Walter Scott Prize honoring the best historical fiction
published in the U.K. is an enormous step forward. I’d like to see a similar
prize awarded in the U.S. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><b>NB: Did you see these books as a trilogy from the beginning? How
hard was it to stop where you did?</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">PB: I always conceived Emma’s story as a trilogy, and I always knew
where the first book would end, so stopping wasn’t difficult. I simply turned
around three times and began working on the second book. Now that I’ve finished
what I hope is a decent draft of that second book, I have to admit that the writing
of the final scene this time around was very difficult, and the book ended at a
place not originally of my choosing. I’m learning that a novel sometimes has a
mind of its own. (Cue spooky music again.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Thank you for a wonderful interview!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">To learn more about Patricia and her work, go to: </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"><a href="http://www.patriciabracewell.com/">http://www.patriciabracewell.com</a></span><br />
<br />
Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller The Chalice is now on sale.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWm3ai2pIjVMDjqDqij6da5JIvwsVNMvRpmK-1SO43da8kqLcgw3rg3ZGL2bQI9KB66KFUUz9b-1ZCaAq8P5HiV0ubRDOEAEgTfFGe10GiJ8eFtBI4htkAij-ynD8kUnnkgScEbIZEPJax/s1600/chalice+PDF+IW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWm3ai2pIjVMDjqDqij6da5JIvwsVNMvRpmK-1SO43da8kqLcgw3rg3ZGL2bQI9KB66KFUUz9b-1ZCaAq8P5HiV0ubRDOEAEgTfFGe10GiJ8eFtBI4htkAij-ynD8kUnnkgScEbIZEPJax/s320/chalice+PDF+IW.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On sale $2.99, Kindle and Nook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-44134908217744129342013-04-30T18:26:00.001-07:002013-04-30T18:26:30.221-07:00Help Me Write a Short Story!
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Hi All,<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m in the final stages of rewriting the third Bridget
Hodgson mystery, tentatively called <i>The
Witch-Hunter’s Tale</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitIM7caUc2nVHgHFOpfMDqZ2eX417l54vHlnunyR_t_KeQcaGT-yr0iWP1UNSXVG1l6K2OH-CoVB0gW1JTZLXK5fnpG3VcE2HO1ME3j8p2zjKGiF_J-Mp_n0nA2xJgWU61xL8Z8xZxiTM/s1600/midwife's+tale-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitIM7caUc2nVHgHFOpfMDqZ2eX417l54vHlnunyR_t_KeQcaGT-yr0iWP1UNSXVG1l6K2OH-CoVB0gW1JTZLXK5fnpG3VcE2HO1ME3j8p2zjKGiF_J-Mp_n0nA2xJgWU61xL8Z8xZxiTM/s200/midwife's+tale-2.jpg" width="131" /></a><o:p> </o:p>Once that’s done, I’m going to take a few weeks and try my
hand at short stories. One of the ideas I have is to use these shorts – which will
appear as Kindle Singles – to cast light on other characters or perhaps on Bridget
herself.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have a few ideas rattling around, but I’d love to hear
from you as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So tell me, is there a particular character you’d like to
know more about? Is there some aspect of Bridget’s life that particularly
intrigues you?<o:p></o:p></div>
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At bottom, I need to know this: What question do you want
this short story to answer?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Feel free to answer in the comments section below, by email, or through the “Contact” page on my website. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks in advance!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sam</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<!--EndFragment-->Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-57824378714305982222013-04-23T08:53:00.000-07:002013-04-23T08:53:10.737-07:00Hey, my bloody good read...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthTu3KTyN0QlTrpMKbDYcdAx6N_v7nqZVY0jA6eQDHFXB785duZMlStPd7HkSdPuVlSC1xv2skxRxqwZ-hji8PNLsXunlFIzzdwgOJT6HutNb3yDIQ7Q7y3bj-r9dCOSIGLj7BvoRW2T-/s1600/Murder+at++Rosamund%C2%B9s+Gate+revised+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthTu3KTyN0QlTrpMKbDYcdAx6N_v7nqZVY0jA6eQDHFXB785duZMlStPd7HkSdPuVlSC1xv2skxRxqwZ-hji8PNLsXunlFIzzdwgOJT6HutNb3yDIQ7Q7y3bj-r9dCOSIGLj7BvoRW2T-/s200/Murder+at++Rosamund%C2%B9s+Gate+revised+2.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">...is finally here!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It's been a really long journey...but I'm pleased<span style="font-size: large;"> and humbled to <span style="font-size: large;">finally <span style="font-size: large;">be a published novelist<span style="font-size: large;">, with today's release of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Rosamunds-Gate-Campion-Mysteries/dp/1250007909/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366732163&sr=8-1&keywords=susanna+calkins"><i>A Murder at Rosamund's Gate</i></a><span style="font-size: large;"> (<span style="font-size: large;">S<span style="font-size: large;">t.Martin's Press/Minotaur Bo<span style="font-size: large;">oks). </span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">An<span style="font-size: large;">d to see all those troubling questions which plagued me for so long, finally resolved<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">. </span>Such questions included:<span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">How did <span style="font-size: large;">London communit<span style="font-size: large;">ies monitor <span style="font-size: large;">themse<span style="font-size: large;">lves<span style="font-size: large;">, bef<span style="font-size: large;">ore the rise of a "real" <span style="font-size: large;">pol<span style="font-size: large;">ice force? </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">W<span style="font-size: large;">hat kind <span style="font-size: large;">of e<span style="font-size: large;">vidence could someone use to identify a murderer, <span style="font-size: large;">before <span style="font-size: large;">the birth of modern <span style="font-size: large;">forensics?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">How could an uneducated servant find justice for a mur<span style="font-size: large;">dered friend?</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">And of course, the hardest question of all: Who<span style="font-size: large;">dunnit! The fir<span style="font-size: large;">st draft I wrote, years ago, lacked the murderer. <span style="font-size: large;">So suffice it to<span style="font-size: large;"> say, ove<span style="font-size: large;">r multiple drafts, I hope<span style="font-size: large;">d it would all be reso<span style="font-size: large;">lved! </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: large;">I'm just t<span style="font-size: large;">hrilled that it worked out, and I'm so h<span style="font-size: large;">appy to see my book in print!</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-37158920938686221202013-04-16T21:15:00.000-07:002013-04-16T21:39:01.583-07:00As the launch day approaches...advice from two people who know what they're doing!!!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; height: 444px; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left; width: 296px;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdHeELpZVp5Jz4L52S9v1egDVJhcq7i9l6jDeWiAKZ3EEOGIUOF0EPeHBN3Z1xxzNAgFIceemDd0Cr2AxqWl43xbgvurU71g_pastaUhzJ6UVhQVM1AQ3OoOURE9i18Bo4sONbj-oi1MD/s1600/Hollar-RExWoman(550x780).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdHeELpZVp5Jz4L52S9v1egDVJhcq7i9l6jDeWiAKZ3EEOGIUOF0EPeHBN3Z1xxzNAgFIceemDd0Cr2AxqWl43xbgvurU71g_pastaUhzJ6UVhQVM1AQ3OoOURE9i18Bo4sONbj-oi1MD/s400/Hollar-RExWoman(550x780).jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thank goodness authors no longer have to sing their books</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Since my first novel<span style="font-size: large;">--</span> A Murder at Rosamund's Gate<span style="font-size: large;">--</span>will be released next week, I asked my awesome co-bloggers Nancy Bilyeau and Sa<span style="font-size: large;">m Thomas </span>to share<span style="font-size: large;"> some of their e<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">xperiences <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">and ins<span style="font-size: large;">ights into their book launch and <span style="font-size: large;">that that first week was like, as a publ<span style="font-size: large;">ished novelist. </span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sam's no<span style="font-size: large;">vel</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>, </span> The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery,<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> was rel</span>eased in January, </span>while Nancy's SE<span style="font-size: large;">COND <span style="font-size: large;">novel, </span></span>The Chalice<span style="font-size: large;">, just r<span style="font-size: large;">eleased a few <span style="font-size: large;">weeks ago. So<span style="font-size: large;">, I v<span style="font-size: large;">iew both as <span style="font-size: large;">all-<span style="font-size: large;">knowing pros. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span> </span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: purple;"><b>What was the experience like, for <span style="font-size: large;">each of </span>you, as your release date approached? Were you nervous? Excited? Worried? What (if anything!) do you remember about the release day? Did you do anything special? </b></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="background-color: black;"><b>Sam:</b> </span>The days leading up to the release were far worse than the release itself. So much seemed to be riding on that one day, yet I felt so powerless to do anything about it. Sure I sent out hundreds of postcards to bookstores, libraries, friends, relatives, etc., flogging the book, but even if I had a 100% purchase rate from those - hard to imagine - it couldn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things. At the outset, at least, your book will sell if the publisher decides to put money into marketing. If not, your sales will be modest. Fact. Of. Life. As for the release, it was pretty unspectacular. I went to work, home for dinner, and then to my launch. No champagne, dinner out, or anything like that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nancy: </b> I was very nervous for both books, in a daze really as it came upon me. I was blogging as much as I could. For the second book I posted four blogs or interviews on the actual publication day.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: purple;"><i><b>Describe your first event as a newly published author (book launch). Where did you hold it? Who came? Did it go as you expected?</b></i></span><br /><br /><b>Sam:</b> My local library was nice enough to host the launch, and the woman in charge did a marvelous job on the publicity side of things. Thanks to her, I landed a ten-minute spot on the local NPR, which really goosed my numbers. In the end we had about eighty people show up, only a handful of whom I actually knew! In the end, it went as I'd hoped and expected. I read a little (maybe eight minutes in all) and talked a lot about the history behind the book, for a total of maybe half an hour. Then we had about an hour of Q & A, which was great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nancy: </b> For both <i>The Crown</i> and <i>The Chalice,</i> I had a book launch event within 2 days of the book’s official drop date. For The Crown it was a reading at a large Barnes & Noble, followed by a party. I invited absolutely everyone I knew in New York City, plus there were posters in the window of BN and the publisher did a few things to publicize. About 80 people came. For <i>The Chalice,</i> the reading was at an indie called The Mysterious Bookshop. Wine was served and I signed books. I would say 60- 70 people came. I think the second event was more successful because I feel so much more comfortable talking about my books.</span><style>
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</span><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: purple;"><b>What have you learned about doing author talks/book signings? What works well? What works less well? (I'm eagerly taking notes here! :-)) </b></span></i><br /><br /><b>Sam:</b> Be ready for anything. I've been to signings that turned into formal presentations, and book clubs that did the same thing. Other times, it just becomes a raucous discussion of the book and characters. You can't go in knowing what you want to do. You're just along for the ride.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nancy: </b>For me, I try to talk about the research and the journey of writing a book, and I keep it positive and anecdote-rich. I actually don’t read more than a few minutes. I remember that I need to enlighten and entertain at a reading. I try not to make it too insiderish to other authors, but interesting to a wide spectrum of people.<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>I went to one book event where the author went on and on about how hard it was to be published and how her editors tell her she is no Lee Child, and it didn’t make me excited to read her book. I think that sort of thing is for your writers’ group, not potential readers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="background-color: purple;"><i>What advice about the book release would you offer someone who—say—has her first book coming out next week? </i></span> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Nancy: </b> Blog, post and tweet like crazy the first two weeks. That is key! The first two weeks. And ask friends (like myself) to tweet and post on your book. Because personal recommendations are what counts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Sam:</b> Chill. It'll be anticlimactic. Nothing about your life is going to change except you'll be busier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: purple;"><i>Thanks<span style="font-size: large;">, <span style="font-size: large;">Nancy and Sam! </span></span></i></span> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-7251043511885078642013-03-09T08:04:00.001-08:002013-03-09T08:57:05.363-08:00An intriguing 17th century theft<span style="font-size: large;">This is the kind of little snippet that really intrigues me as a writer, and as a historian. I came across this interesting 17th century advertisement
in the Early English Books. Five valuable books had gone missing--"Lost
or Stolen"--and a relatively large reward had been offered for their return.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxchWN5aCf7MsxZuiGUlCzKzBmvfZV9WaPb3yBsBZFmr9Im_BQqGtPYxoU89EV-TBEJ-q8xm11nE7uFlG_50H63igLXc5xOqL4FHEAEJqMkwrloGAy961o-7wmVIu2pwvAU0tuoJL77O9/s1600/fetchimage.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxchWN5aCf7MsxZuiGUlCzKzBmvfZV9WaPb3yBsBZFmr9Im_BQqGtPYxoU89EV-TBEJ-q8xm11nE7uFlG_50H63igLXc5xOqL4FHEAEJqMkwrloGAy961o-7wmVIu2pwvAU0tuoJL77O9/s400/fetchimage.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early English books tract supplement interim guide ; / E4:2[148] Date 16--?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">Clearly, the books were valuable. Four were bound in
rough calves leather and had clasps. One was in smooth's calves leather
and lettered on the back.<br /><br />But it's the glimpse into the content that intrigues me. Three volumes of <i>Monasticon Anglicanum</i>, also known as <i>The
history of the ancient abbies, and other monasteries, hospitals,
cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales. With divers
French, Irish, and Scotch monasteries formerly relating to England (</i>1693) (You can actually read<span style="color: #f1c232;"><a href="http://archive.org/details/monasticonanglic00dugd" title=""> all three volumes here </a></span>if you like!). <i>Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire</i>. And <i>Camden's Britannia.</i><br /><br />All of them could be viewed as sort of refined travel guides, pointing out the interesting facts and histories of important buildings, ruins, castles, private homes, churches and former monasteries (each was also likely informed by key political and religious tensions of the time, but that's another story.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This fascinates me: who might have taken these books? (I'm sort of discounting the idea they may actually have been lost...what's the fun of that?) A petty thief who m<span style="font-size: large;">ay</span> have wanted to make a few shillings? Maybe. An armchair traveller, sitting in his oak-panelled chair with spindled arms, sipping some Rhenish wine, dreaming of places he'd never been? Perhaps.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Or perhaps, and here's the fun part to conjecture, the books were lifted from the bookstall by a master thief. To get the lay of the land<span style="font-size: large;"> th<span style="font-size: large;">rough<span style="font-size: large;">out Warwickshire.</span></span></span> To understand the best ways to travel. To study escape routes. To look for hidden entrances and egresses. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There's no record as to whether the books found their way back to booksellers Bateman and Brown, but I like to imagine they didn't. <span style="font-size: large;">Maybe s</span>ome seventeenth century rogue (or moll) pulled off the heist of the century...and it<span style="font-size: large;">'s up to me to write tha<span style="font-size: large;">t tale...</span></span></span><br />
<br />
**********************************************************************************<br />
It's less than seven weeks till the launch of my first mystery, <i>A Murder at Rosamund's Gate </i>(Minotaur Books/St.Martin's Press) on April 23, 2013! www.susannacalkins.com <br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span id="goog_165377269"></span><span id="goog_165377270"></span></span></span></span>Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-24067842068581503322013-01-13T17:22:00.000-08:002013-01-14T10:44:38.545-08:00ELLEN MARIE WISEMAN ON 'THE PLUM TREE'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Thank you to Nancy Bilyeau
for inviting me to talk about the research I did for my novel, THE PLUM TREE. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFcTrmnYJ0SoRLT1eHd2hd02a-DEdoB1pE1tjln1LhbEBBnGkLdSeheNpdqNCg9EG77SmRfufQ9ia4dFQQNtt17-T_3nHsP9nGhPi2CXyC_902XQRjjRHdLmTlZuhhgF4a_Gexqw8qYxw8/s1600/ThePlum-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFcTrmnYJ0SoRLT1eHd2hd02a-DEdoB1pE1tjln1LhbEBBnGkLdSeheNpdqNCg9EG77SmRfufQ9ia4dFQQNtt17-T_3nHsP9nGhPi2CXyC_902XQRjjRHdLmTlZuhhgF4a_Gexqw8qYxw8/s320/ThePlum-tree.jpg" width="219" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">When I started working on THE
PLUM TREE, a WWII story about a young German women in love with a Jewish man, I
knew the setting like the back of my hand—a small village in Germany surrounded
by rolling hills, orchards, vineyards and medieval castles. I’d been to Germany
numerous times to visit family and could picture the cobblestone streets and
stepped alleys because I had walked them myself. I could smell the aroma of
pretzels and tortes coming from the village bakery and taste the warm, dark
beer being shared at the corner Krone. I could feel the soft cocoon formed by
sleeping beneath a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deckbed</i> (feather
bedcover) and hear the church bells echoing through the narrow streets. I could
even get a sense of the fear and claustrophobia caused by wartime air raids,
because I’d been inside the bomb shelter where my mother and her family hid in
terror for nights on end. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">My mother grew up in Nazi Germany, the eldest of
five children in a poor, in a working-class family. When I started research for
my novel, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">I asked her to retell the
family stories about WWII so I could take notes, going as far as giving her a
questionnaire about the details of everyday life. Through her answers, I
learned, among other things, how the average German mother kept her children
fed and alive during food shortages—domestic practices like </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">making sugar out sugar beets, bartering beechnuts for cooking oil</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">, using vinegar to preserve what little meat
they had, keeping chickens safe in the attic, and letting a crock of milk sour
on the cellar steps until it was the consistency of pudding, then serving it
with boiled potatoes and salt. My mother remembers waking up to find her
parents in the kitchen making sausage in the middle of the night because it was
illegal to purchase and butcher a pig during the war. They told her they were making
tortes and sent her back to bed. Every resource—wood, pigs, flour, church
bells, iron gates, scrap metal, paper, bones, rags, empty tubes—was to go
towards the war effort. And there were rules about everything, from how often a
person was allowed to bathe, to the list of acceptable baby names. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">When the war started, my grandfather
was drafted and sent to the Russian front. I remember his stories about being
captured and sent a POW camp, the deep snow, the freezing cold, the way the
prisoners would undress and sleep in a huddle, hoping to freeze the lice off
their uniforms. Every morning there would be dead men around the edges of the
group, frozen while they slept. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">Eventually my
grandfather escaped, but for two years, my mother and her family had no idea if
he was dead or alive until he showed up on their doorstep one day.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">During the four years my grandfather was off
fighting, m</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">y grandmother </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">repaired damaged military uniforms to bring in a small income. She
stood in ration lines for hours on end, cooked on a woodstove, made clothes out
of cotton sheets, and put blackout paper over the house windows so the enemy
wouldn’t see their light. Under the cover of night, she put food out for
passing Jewish prisoners and listened to foreign radio broadcasts on an illegal
shortwave—both crimes punishable by death. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.0pt;">My uncles told me about seeing planes being built
in the forest, beneath the canopy of thick trees, and I even had the chance to
talk to an elderly man who was a former SS doctor. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">He showed me his photo album from the war,
pointing out pictures of him standing near Hitler, of him drinking schnapps
with other officers in front of a huge Christmas tree. He showed me a letter
he’d sent to his wife from the Eastern front, and a hand drawn postcard with
the image of a giant officer stepping over mountains into Germany, a bouquet of
roses in his arms. I soon realized he was a doctor on the front lines, not in
the camps, as I had assumed. He recalled the horrible conditions on the
battlefields, operating on the wounded in a tent with mud floors, not having
enough bandages and morphine. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 17.0pt;">In THE PLUM
TREE, Lagerkommandant Grünstein is loosely based on Kurt Gerstein, a real SS
officer who infiltrated the camps so he could witness first-hand what the Nazis
were doing. During my research I found out that Kurt Gerstein tried to tell the
world what was happening, but no one would listen. When the war was over, he
died in a French prison after giving a detailed account of the camps to the
Allies. Twenty days later he was found dead in his cell. Whether he committed
suicide or was murdered by the other SS prisoners remains a mystery. His testimony
provided the Allies with their most detailed account at Nuremburg. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Along
with my family’s history, there were a great many books that were helpful to me
while writing THE PLUM TREE. Among the memoirs that mirrored and expanded on my
family’s stories were: </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">German
Boy </span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The War of our Childhood; Memories of WWII </i>by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memoirs of a 1000-Year-Old Woman</i>
by Gisela R. McBride. I also relied on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frauen:
German Woman Recall the Third Reich</i> by Alison Owings. To understand </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
Allied bombing campaign, which had become a deliberate, explicit policy to
destroy all German cities with populations over 100,000 using a technique
called “carpet bombing”—a strategy that treated whole cities and their civilian
populations as targets for attacks by high explosives and incendiary bombs—</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">I read: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and its
Human Consequences in WWII </i>by Hermann Knell, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII
Bombings of Civilians in Germany and Japan</i> by A.C. Grayling, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fire </i>by Jörg Friedrich. Among the
many horrific air raid stories in these books were </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
firebombing of Hamburg in July 1943, dubbed “Operation Gomorrah” which killed
45,000 civilians, and the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, which killed
135,000 civilians. All of these books include some of the most haunting scenes
I’ve ever read about what was like to be a German civilian during the war. These
books reinforced my belief that this was a story that needed to be told. </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: .5in; tab-stops: 6.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: normal;">To
understand what it was like for civilians and POWs after the war I read:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German
Civilians under Allied Occupation</i> by James Bacque. For information involving
persecution of the Jews and the horror of concentrations camps I read: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night</i> by Elie Wiesel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eyewitness Auschwitz </i>by Filip Müller,
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Will Bear Witness</i> by Victor
Klemperer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: .5in; tab-stops: 6.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-weight: normal;">Although
The Plum Tree is a work of fiction, I strove to be as historically accurate as
possible. For the purpose of plot, Dachau was portrayed as an extermination
camp, while in reality it was categorized as a work camp. Undoubtedly, tens of
thousands of prisoners were murdered, suffered, and died under horrible
conditions at Dachau, but the camp was not set up like Auschwitz and other
extermination camps, which had a deliberate “euthanasia” system for killing
Jews and other undesirables. Also for the purpose of plot, the attempt on
Hitler’s life led by Claus von Stauffenburg was moved from July 1944 to the
fall of 1944.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-88666936677255973682013-01-11T03:06:00.000-08:002013-01-11T03:06:05.259-08:00Win a copy of Midwife's Tale!Sorry for the Internet silence of late, but if you're interested in winning a copy of <The Midwife's Tale> I've got you covered. Click the link below, and you'll be in!
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<h2 style="margin: 0 0 10px !important; padding: 0 !important; font-style: italic; font-size: 20px; line-height: 20px; font-weight: normal; text-align: center; color: #555;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com" target="_new">Goodreads</a> Book Giveaway
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<div style="float: left;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15793166"><img alt="The Midwife's Tale by Sam Thomas" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348002269l/15793166.jpg" title="The Midwife's Tale by Sam Thomas" width="100" /></a>
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<h3 style="margin: 0; padding: 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15793166">The Midwife's Tale</a>
</h3>
<h4 style="margin: 0 0 10px; padding: 0; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">
by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6477737.Sam_Thomas" style="text-decoration: none;">Sam Thomas</a>
</h4>
<div class="giveaway_details">
<p>
Giveaway ends February 09, 2013.
</p>
<p>
See the <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/41793" style="text-decoration: none;">giveaway details</a>
at Goodreads.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/enter_choose_address/41793" class="goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink">Enter to win</a>
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</div><script src="http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/widget/41793" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-13326649815464723482013-01-08T02:02:00.000-08:002013-01-08T02:02:01.164-08:00The Midwife's Tale is now on Sale! (And has a trailer.)True story: I called a bookstore chain of which you have heard and asked when they thought <i>The Midwife's Tale</i> might come in. (My goal was to stop by and sign whatever copies they had.)<br />
<br />
Me: It's called <i>The Midwife's Tale.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Clerk: T-A-L-E?<br />
<br />
*Pause while I imagine the plot of <i>The Midwife's T-A-I-L</i>.*<br />
<br />
Me: Yes, T-A-L-E.<br />
<br />
Anyway, <i>The Midwife's Tale</i> is out today! And here's the Trailer:<br />
<br />
<iframe width="504" height="285" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/isEEnfo0KBg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-65292681212219987562013-01-06T18:30:00.002-08:002013-02-22T03:24:49.140-08:00FROM HOMER TO THE HOBBIT: THE HISTORY OF THE NECROMANCER<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By Nancy Bilyeau</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Vampire. Witch. Zombie. Werewolf. In films, books and TV series, it seems as if the supernatural run the show as never before. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuUjW6QSsOid9QSnHjTgVia6ibGrZGbuUBi4nig0RKHqrf0BUDXTxsifK0D340R9nDhhFfdXNUNSVpEjcynwe_SIy-DKRbdKoiZfgpuNyWBo2JfiYCtQ3nqVsLVSe0yeSKTx9H1LVL3-gv/s1600/dracula2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuUjW6QSsOid9QSnHjTgVia6ibGrZGbuUBi4nig0RKHqrf0BUDXTxsifK0D340R9nDhhFfdXNUNSVpEjcynwe_SIy-DKRbdKoiZfgpuNyWBo2JfiYCtQ3nqVsLVSe0yeSKTx9H1LVL3-gv/s320/dracula2.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I admit to a weakness for Dracula, whether it's in the hands of the one-and-only Bram Stoker, the gifted Elizabeth Kostova (<i>The Historian</i>) or the audacious Francis Ford Coppola in his adaptation (<i>fantastic </i>soundtrack). Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris and Justin Cronin have taken the vampire myth in fascinating directions. And, yes, I admit it: I'm a <i>Twilight </i>mom.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My favorite "modern" witch has to be the determined and erudite Diana Bishop in Deborah Harkness's wonderful novels, <i>A Discovery of Magic</i> and <i>Shadow of Night</i>. She's come a long way from "Double, double, toil & trouble."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So perhaps the modern viewer could be forgiven some cynicism when faced with the latest variety of scary being in <i>The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey:</i> the necromancer. What <i>do</i> we have here? Well, something scary for one. The character of The Necromancer takes up very little screen time (especially considering that the movie is a darn 169 minutes long), but it is used to effect. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/_cGFuCH6ck8/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_cGFuCH6ck8&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_cGFuCH6ck8&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now you see what I mean. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Long ago, I had decided that in my second novel, <i>The Chalice</i>, which revolves around a dangerous prophecy, my protagonist, Joanna Stafford, would come face to face with a necromancer, a person who purports to see into the future using the "dark arts." I plunged into historical research, not knowing what to expect. I was aware of the basic job description of the necromancer: i.e., someone who has special contact with the dead. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQgmMB3xduFEKzVNrrDNt_rrATJC36LVgucZDosG5H-uM8iWaiKTETeh3AqtXhCwdxx7MxBsylMxIKW2zoQ1gVfHSN7nEWQF3V-DjviF0jk7nUIV9UamYtkcNiSmjsbTDQFW0Uq0OcAk2W/s1600/DDnecro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQgmMB3xduFEKzVNrrDNt_rrATJC36LVgucZDosG5H-uM8iWaiKTETeh3AqtXhCwdxx7MxBsylMxIKW2zoQ1gVfHSN7nEWQF3V-DjviF0jk7nUIV9UamYtkcNiSmjsbTDQFW0Uq0OcAk2W/s320/DDnecro.jpg" width="205" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The image flitting through popular culture is that of a mysterious yet charismatic spell caster, as in Dungeons and Dragons.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yet in doing my research, I was shocked to learn that necromancy dates back to antiquity. And just as storytelling that features supernatural creatures such as the vampire tells us something about human fear of aging and sexuality, belief in the necromancer, which shows up in many centuries and many cultures, reveals something of our society's feelings about death and the unknowable future.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The first written references to them were in the 5th century BCE. In ancient Greece necromancers were "evocators of souls," sorcerers who claimed to know how to summon up the spirit of a dead person and, once contacted, glimpse the future. Only they could dissolve the barrier between the living and the dead. Such skills required extensive training; the ceremonies involved drawing circles in the ground, pronouncing incantations, and using such apparatus as water, candles, scepters, swords and wands. Animal sacrifice often played a part in compelling the dead to appear.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In Homer's Odysssey, Book Eleven, Ulysses summons the spirits of dead heroes using the rituals taught him by Circe, knowledgeable of necromantic rites, to learn his fate:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXPUtusvyUtzKaxJc7x8j9bvZUJ7cuSWoD2ZCYjaYZbVXl86vbfmjgZjYaQtPNFspPd-7MF5_TR2z5mmKEYRrGN0AaJV8FKbw8PbCPWKWSVRKxse3wq3OQg7ZN3Xy08lqWtbpVzAMYEvi/s1600/ulysses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXPUtusvyUtzKaxJc7x8j9bvZUJ7cuSWoD2ZCYjaYZbVXl86vbfmjgZjYaQtPNFspPd-7MF5_TR2z5mmKEYRrGN0AaJV8FKbw8PbCPWKWSVRKxse3wq3OQg7ZN3Xy08lqWtbpVzAMYEvi/s320/ulysses.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ulysses journeys to the place of ritual</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"When the sun went down and darkness was over all the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="18"></a>earth, we got into the deep waters of the river Oceanus, where lie the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="19"></a>land and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="20"></a>which the rays of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="21"></a>goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="22"></a>melancholy night. When we got there we beached the ship, took the sheep <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="23"></a>out of her, and went along by the waters of Oceanus till we came to the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="24"></a>place of which Circe had told us.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"I made a drink-offering to all <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="27"></a>the dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="28"></a>and I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying earnestly to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="29"></a>the poor feckless ghosts... When I <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="33"></a>had prayed sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of the two sheep <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="34"></a>and let the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts came trooping <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="35"></a>up from Erebus--brides, young bachelors, old men worn out with toil, maids <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="36"></a>who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had been killed in battle, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="37"></a>with their armour still smirched with blood; they came from every quarter <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="38"></a>and flitted round the trench with a strange kind of screaming sound that <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5985500887917221259" name="39"></a>made me turn pale with fear..."</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is not only Greek culture that yields frightening stories of the dead summoned to tell of the future. In the Old Testament's <i>Book of Samuel,</i> which scholars estimate was first written in 600 BCE, the Woman of Endor clearly has necromancer powers.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">King Saul "had put the mediums and the necromancers from the land," but "when Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly." He went to the woman of Endor in disguise to learn what would happen in his battle with the Philistines. At first, interestingly, she refused.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And Saul said, "Divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name for you." The woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to being about my death? </span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivD-6KLA4cXXLo-xIoNUqY1zLPLHSE4ckRLEXKuFqjl1o4goIJUQBHTdrujNGbcidzCc20oBF9QGxsuKk0jjUABqb_2csQ7I3dOF4oUYTySAEP5a0aPZdKwemX1nR-MwIj7nLRCqqS1N1u/s1600/Witch_of_Endor_(Martynov).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivD-6KLA4cXXLo-xIoNUqY1zLPLHSE4ckRLEXKuFqjl1o4goIJUQBHTdrujNGbcidzCc20oBF9QGxsuKk0jjUABqb_2csQ7I3dOF4oUYTySAEP5a0aPZdKwemX1nR-MwIj7nLRCqqS1N1u/s320/Witch_of_Endor_(Martynov).jpg" width="305" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Saul revealed himself, persisted in his demand for prophecy, saying, "As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Saul may have wished he hadn't pushed so hard. Once the Woman of Endor summoned the dead prophet Samuel, he told the king about the looming battle: "Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines."Sure enough, the next day Saul and his sons perished.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In the centuries of Roman rule, divining the future was more important then ever, whether it was paying visits to oracles, reading the auspices, or seeking out necromancers. Astrology, the white art of prophecy, was all the rage.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When Christianity became the religion of the Empire, and, after the fall of Rome, the popes ruled Christendom, astrology and other pagan practices were officially discouraged. Necromancers were detested above all. The religious authorities did their utmost to stamp them out.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But the dawn of the medieval age was not the end of the necromancers. It was just the beginning.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">(Part Two: The Duchess and the Necromancers appears on English Historical Fiction Authors: <a href="http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-duchess-and-necromancers.html">http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-duchess-and-necromancers.html</a>)</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To learn more about <i>The Chalice</i>—read excerpt chapters, see a Pinterest board, enter a giveaway—go to: <a href="http://nancybilyeau.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-sip-from-chalice.html">http://nancybilyeau.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-sip-from-chalice.html</a></span></div>
<br />Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-39244106731615084512012-12-09T06:39:00.003-08:002012-12-09T06:39:58.778-08:00A Holiday Gift...From the Future!by Sam Thomas<br />
<br />
I know what you're thinking:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsh8Rjar66WXFxOtZQNT2TJABrZU7SgVSTbd2IkRQEftXbSxNnNmouzy36LgCJMEfhdXtntCZZSAZKUs9mJ-LzBiiMpWP5jn009ALc0y-FIwPslUZ66keibpI2slo3v3Xq92VI-QxRCx0/s1600/Post.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsh8Rjar66WXFxOtZQNT2TJABrZU7SgVSTbd2IkRQEftXbSxNnNmouzy36LgCJMEfhdXtntCZZSAZKUs9mJ-LzBiiMpWP5jn009ALc0y-FIwPslUZ66keibpI2slo3v3Xq92VI-QxRCx0/s200/Post.png" width="200" /></a><br />
"I'd like to give copies of THE MIDWIFE'S TALE to <u>all</u> my friends for Christmas, but it doesn't come out until January. What should I do?"<b> </b><br />
<br />
(Okay, <i>you </i>might not have been thinking this, but one person was, and he wrote about it after reading The Puzzle Doctor's <a href="http://classicmystery.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/the-midwifes-tale-by-sam-thomas/">review</a> of my book.)<br />
<br />
Fret not - I've got you covered.<br />
<br />
Send me an email letting me know that you've pre-ordered a copy of <i>The Midwife's Tale</i>, and I'll send you a nifty postcard (shown here) with a picture of the cover and some of the nice things people have said about the book. It's got a nice glossy front, and the back features a bit of the jacket copy, and a blank area where I can write a personal note, or you can write your message.<br />
<br />
Put that in an envelope (which I'll include free of charge!) and you're all set.<br />
<br />
You can reach me through my <a href="http://www.samthomasbooks.com/">webpage</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SThomasBooks">Facebook</a>, or the old fashioned way...you know, <a href="mailto:Samuel.Thomas@ymail.com">email</a>.<br />
<br />
Happy holidays everyone!Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-45661279383686351582012-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:002012-12-06T18:09:29.215-08:00When cases were solved by a corpse’s pointing finger….<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-beBu6Z0yrQHV2S87Bww4ywqJaHhO7aDbrnGSRk-ImDRNMqpiYACsjSiV5ZJDbTXpv8BzKQLz_Jz-lJFAuZ1XVnGYKqRB__JVUeYBYzg67TYxhaz6V0sZXqywd9rty1gE6Sxy_W5wgmXg/s1600/1354773009.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-beBu6Z0yrQHV2S87Bww4ywqJaHhO7aDbrnGSRk-ImDRNMqpiYACsjSiV5ZJDbTXpv8BzKQLz_Jz-lJFAuZ1XVnGYKqRB__JVUeYBYzg67TYxhaz6V0sZXqywd9rty1gE6Sxy_W5wgmXg/s320/1354773009.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Recently I came across the Detective’s Oath, written by
Dorothy Sayers and first administered by G.K. Chesterton, as part of the
initiation ceremony for the <a href="http://www.martinedwardsbooks.com/detectionclub.htm">Lo<span style="font-size: large;">ndon <span style="font-size: large;">De<span style="font-size: large;">tection</span></span></span> Club.</a> The club, convened<span style="font-size: large;"> in</span> 1930,
included the likes of Sayers, Agatha Christie, and a slew of other Golden Age
mystery writers.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The oath was this: “Do you promise that
your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using
those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance
on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo,
Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">While I think we’ve all seen
authors—well-known ones at that—break these principles regularly <i>(after all,
why can’t a ghost solve a crime? Or for that matter, a cat?),</i> there was
something to these expectations that made sense. A reader should be able to
work out whodunit, at least after the fact, to be fair. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">But when I first read the oath, I had
to laugh. All three of us—Nancy Bilyeau,
Sam Thomas, and myself—have situated our mysteries in early modern England, a
time when divine revelation, providence, acts of God (or the Devil, for that
matter) often served as the explanation for most mishaps and misfortune. It would have been so easy—and realistic—to
have our sleuths solve crimes in that fashion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">After all, there are many incidences of
a community “solving” a murder when a corpse’s finger pointed to its murderer.
Or when the corpse’s eyes would open and stare in the direction of the
murderer’s house. There are even
examples of corpses bleeding from the nose or ears, indicating that <span style="font-size: large;">their</span>
murderers w<span style="font-size: large;">ere</span> in the vicinity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes, logic and reason and
evidence would prevail and sometimes…they did not. There are many examples of
superstitions, hearsay, and feelings making their way into court testimony,
especially in ecclesiastical courts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I can’t speak for Nancy and Sam’s
protagonists, of course, but I wanted Lucy Campion, my chambermaid in a <a href="http://www.susannacalkins.com/novels.html"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A Murder at Rosamund's Ga<span style="font-size: large;">te</span></span></i></a>, to be
someone who was resourceful and intelligent, despite having little formal
education. But it wasn’t just about creating a character who would use her wits
and evidence to solve a crime; I wanted her to question how the community
identified murderers in the first place. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">I also wanted Lucy to be someone who
rejects the notion of providence as a means to explain murder. I wanted her to
dismiss the idea that divine revelation could be a reliable way to identify a
murderer—even if that meant challenging the expectations of her community. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’d like to think that Lucy would
approve of the Detective’s Oath, even if everyone around her was convinced that <span style="font-size: large;">the murderer could be d<span style="font-size: large;">is<span style="font-size: large;">covered</span></span> by a corpse<span style="font-size: large;">'s poin<span style="font-size: large;">ting finger.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>But what do you think? If you're a w<span style="font-size: large;">riter, d</span>o you adhere to this oath? Or <span style="font-size: large;">gleefully sto<span style="font-size: large;">mp all over it? If y<span style="font-size: large;">ou're <span style="font-size: large;">a reader, do you<span style="font-size: large;"> mind if the detective doesn't us<span style="font-size: large;">e logic or wits to so<span style="font-size: large;">lve a crime?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span> </div>
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Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-21119763602782734752012-11-26T05:09:00.002-08:002012-11-26T11:15:59.356-08:00Exclusive Cover Reveal: The Chalice (plus a Giveaway!)By Nancy Bilyeau<br />
<br />
<br />
Here, at A Bloody Good Read, a first look at the Touchstone/Simon&Schuster cover for THE CHALICE, the sequel to THE CROWN. This historical thriller continues the adventures of Dominican novice Joanna Stafford in a story that has more twists, higher stakes, and more romance than THE CROWN. As you can see, the mood is EERIE...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLjexgrI-DsH8mNZ1jzfTDWgUufmJj0MRnsfeh2YGZ_NCexrl9dScveXeHHNyHC1KpS2O9ycBR_PsetIyh4SJ8C0AJFT2miVtrVkOPv13dnxLlolkYNOXv0cQVrz1oiNNmYTzgSN9bg4J/s1600/Chalice+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjLjexgrI-DsH8mNZ1jzfTDWgUufmJj0MRnsfeh2YGZ_NCexrl9dScveXeHHNyHC1KpS2O9ycBR_PsetIyh4SJ8C0AJFT2miVtrVkOPv13dnxLlolkYNOXv0cQVrz1oiNNmYTzgSN9bg4J/s320/Chalice+cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
This novel, like "The Crown," is based on careful research into the period in English history when Henry VIII ripped the country away from Rome. We've sent the book to some advance readers, and I'd like to share a quote from C.W. Gortner, who wrote the fascinating historical novel "The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile" as well as the engrossing "The Tudor Secret."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Rarely have the terrors of Henry VIII's reformation been so exciting. Court intrigue, bloody executions, and haunting emotional entanglements create a heady brew of mystery and adventure that sweeps us from the devastation of the ransacked cloisters to the dangerous spy centers of London and the Low Countries, as ex-novice Joanna Stafford fights to save her way of life and fulfill an ancient prophecy, before everything she loves is destroyed." <i>-- C.W. Gortner</i></blockquote>
<br />
I have another advance copy of THE CHALICE to share before its on-sale date in early March. If you'd like one mailed to you, please comment on the cover that the design team at Touchstone/S&S created.<br />
<br />
In the comments to this blog post, tell me what piece of music this cover image evokes for you. And don't forget your email address.<br />
<br />
I will pick the winner on Friday, the same day that Scribd.com posts the first two chapters only of THE CHALICE...:)<br />
<br />Nancy Bilyeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03081147714919653976noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-73831893939204707032012-08-27T22:46:00.001-07:002012-08-28T06:18:15.569-07:00How fast can you travel by horse anyway?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsaOQRKHSAOO_B4DnN01yFDEbBByRuoeVNuq4N919DslYRkEI9XC15VHcqODvMXYluGFdPtcOFpXdQ50VpnBLINecgmXq_1opP9DsJb5dNtKB3Y-5UafrapHcawYN4mY3Kw_5UHklBM8TQ/s1600/Clydesdale-draft-horse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsaOQRKHSAOO_B4DnN01yFDEbBByRuoeVNuq4N919DslYRkEI9XC15VHcqODvMXYluGFdPtcOFpXdQ50VpnBLINecgmXq_1opP9DsJb5dNtKB3Y-5UafrapHcawYN4mY3Kw_5UHklBM8TQ/s320/Clydesdale-draft-horse.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How fast could this horse go?</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While working on my second historical mystery, <a href="http://www.susannacalkins.com/novels.html" style="color: purple;"><i>From the Charred Remains</i></a><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: purple;">,</span> </span>I came across a rather straightforward mystery of my own. How long would it have taken to travel the
fifty-plus mile trek from London to Oxford, by horse and carriage, in the mid
seventeenth-century?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> I have some faint memory of an equation that claimed distance=rate x speed (and even worse memories of trying to apply that equation). I don’t think that equation works, though, when you don’t know the weight of a cart,
the strength of a horse, or the conditions of the roads. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So I had to set some parameters. I needed the cart (wagon, really)
to be able to carry two men and two women, along with two or three barrels or
bags of miscellaneous supplies. I needed
the journey to take less than a day. The
wagon had to be decent, but more serviceable and sturdy, than luxurious. It had
to be capable of traversing 50 or so miles of the muddy, unpaved London Road. Similarly,
the horses had to be from a hearty stock, and affordable for hire by a
journeyman. Not being an equestrian, a farrier, or a blacksmith (okay, let’s
face it, I’m not even sure if I’ve ever even been on a horse), this has been a
truly puzzling question. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So doing a little digging into the <i>Early English Books Online </i>and a few other primary sources, I first learned what kinds of wagons
would have been available to a London tradesman in 1666. Here, I relied mainly
on woodcuts to show me pictures of how tradesmen conveyed goods. Hackney carriages were available for hire, but
those would not likely have been owned by a tradesman. Coaches (Berlins) were just coming
into fashion, out of Germany, but again my tradesman would not have found such
a vehicle suitable to his needs or budget. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30PsGScq2ZRvV3BLiTk9hrNW7FFsZQylfcP7Oqr8PthEA9FR_GshikMHiCEgFEDzASLCIPuw8D2T1InCzP0udSZe-FoL8uewIQeSR0OY1iLR9WfGth685_h231DRb2ecW48nYHvWOUwm6/s1600/markham+horse+2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30PsGScq2ZRvV3BLiTk9hrNW7FFsZQylfcP7Oqr8PthEA9FR_GshikMHiCEgFEDzASLCIPuw8D2T1InCzP0udSZe-FoL8uewIQeSR0OY1iLR9WfGth685_h231DRb2ecW48nYHvWOUwm6/s320/markham+horse+2.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wing / 1917:08 </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for the horses, I looked to Gervase Markham, a
seventeenth-century self-titled “Perfect Horse-man,” who shared his “experienced
secrets” on horse care and training. He mentions some different kinds of horses
(or perhaps more aptly, the services horses can offer), including the “courier,”
the “carter,” the “poulter,” and the “packhorse.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, throughout Markham’s lengthy 200+ pages of advice to the horse-challenged, I
could only find one bit of useful information for my purposes. He says: “In journeying, ride moderately the
first hour or two, but after according to your occasions. Water before you come to your Inn, if you can
possibly; but if you cannot, then give warm water in the Inn, after the Horse
hath fed, and is full cooled within, and outwardly dried.” He then went on to
say something about applying copious amounts of “dog’s grease” to the horse’s
limbs and sinews, but I think I wandered off the page at that point. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then I
needed to find out how fast two horses can even pull a wagon. Throwing my question to the whims of Google yielded
an oft-repeated response: a team can travel 4 miles an hour on paved or
semi-paved roads. Horses can only travel a few hours at a time; so it looks
like my fictional travelers will have to exchange horses several times at
various coaching houses along the way. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">This would mean it would take my travelers 15 hours to
travel from London to Oxford, which is FAR TOO LONG for the purposes of my
story. Yet, I've always been extremely scrupulous in my attention to historical details. So my puzzle has resulted in
another conundrum—bend the facts to fit my story, or bend my story to fit the facts? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: purple;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">What to do? What to do? What would you do?</span></i></div>
Susie Calkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16023173142068702088noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-80985499499186555002012-08-20T19:25:00.000-07:002012-11-14T18:17:12.975-08:00Todd Aken: Ignorant and Unfit for Public Office or Aristotelian Philosopher?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
by Sam Thomas</div>
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<br /></div>
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If you’ve been paying any attention to the news of late, you doubtless heard about Todd Aken, the Republican nominee for Senate candidate from Missouri. In an interview in which he defended his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape, Aken made the remarkable claim that it is extremely rare for a woman who is raped to become pregnant. (Ezra Klein makes the disheartening point that others, mostly pro-life politicians and activists, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/20/rep-todd-akin-is-wrong-about-rape-and-pregnancy-but-hes-not-alone/">agree</a>.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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“If it’s a legitimate rape,” he explained, presumably to any OB/GYNs who might be watching, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To sane people, this smacked of sexism, misogyny, or ignorance. Some lawyer types wondered how a “legitimate” rape might differ from an “illegitimate” rape. And the biologists wondered what “that whole thing” might be. </div>
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<br /></div>
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They might be right, but I’d like to offer a different interpretation of Mr. Aken’s argument. Rather than being misogynistic, grossly ignorant, and manifestly unfit for public office, I think he’s just relying on a somewhat outdated conception of the human body. Aken is a closet Aristotelian. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to Aristotle (and medial experts for over a thousand years after), a woman could not become pregnant if she didn’t have an orgasm. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why? It’s complicated, but kind of fun, and if you trot this out at your next cocktail party, you’ll be awesome.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to ancient and medieval medical thought, there were not two sexes as we now think of it. Yes, there were men and women, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">women were simply imperfect versions of men</i>. They had the same sexual organs as men did, but because women lacked the vital heat inherent in men, these organs were on the inside rather than the outside. </div>
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The vagina? A penis turned outside-in. Ovaries? Testicles, but on the inside. Logically enough, since they had the same organs, both men and women produced the same fluids. Conception took place when male sperm met female sperm.</div>
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This is the “one-sex model” made famous by Thomas Lacquer in his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sex-Gender-Greeks-Freud/dp/0674543556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345514847&sr=8-1&keywords=making+sex">Making Sex</a></i>. </div>
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(Before you disparage this as the stupidest idea ever, it’s worth noting that our obviously true “two sex model” is, in fact, demonstrably false. It ignores individuals who are not clearly male or female, or who have both male and female sexual organs. By some estimates, intersex people are about as common as redheads. See <a href="http://www.uta.edu/english/timothyr/Fausto-Sterling.pdf">this awesome article</a> by Anne Fausto-Sterling.) </div>
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So, if Aristotle (and Aken) are right, in order for conception to take place, both the man and woman must have an orgasm, or else the male and female sperm cannot meet and form a child. And since rape victims do not have orgasms (I think even Aken would agree to this), pregnancy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can’t</i> be the product of rape. The body keeps pregnancy from taking place. QED.</div>
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So, if Aken attended a European university before 1700 or so, we can be pretty sure that he was schooled in the Aristotelian conception of the human body, and then he’s off the hook. </div>
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Let’s check.</div>
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He went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, probably in the 1970s.</div>
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Never mind. I guess he’s just unfit for office. </div>
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Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-24950417018437573752012-08-13T00:00:00.000-07:002012-08-13T00:00:02.771-07:00From the Annals of Awesome Historical Research<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">In other blog posts I have gone on at (too great) length about issues of historical accuracy. I do my best, and feel like the setting of my books is one of my book’s strengths, but I recently found en example of research that boggled my mind.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">For those of you who don’t know him, <a href="http://www.authorstevehamilton.com/">Steve Hamilton</a> has written a number of memorable mysteries, including a series about a former cop <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Alex-McKnight-order/lm/R16E70ZAZIDKIM">Alex McKnight</a>, and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lock-Artist-Novel-ebook/dp/B002ZW7EBE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344804709&sr=8-2&keywords=lock+artist">The Lock Artist</a></i>, a stand-alone novel that won the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Mystery.<i> </i>After reading <i>The Lock Artist</i>, I dove into his earlier novels, starting with <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Paradise-Alex-McKnight-Mysteries/dp/0312969198/ref=la_B000APSRW8_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344804773&sr=1-2">A Cold Day in Paradise</a></i>. (The McKnight series is set in the town of Paradise on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">In Hamilton’s third book, 2001’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hunting-Wind-McKnight-Mystery/dp/0312980264/ref=la_B000APSRW8_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1344804807&sr=1-7">The Hunting Wind</a></i>, McKnight is visited by an old friend with whom he played minor league baseball. Unlike McKnight, Wilkins was called up to the big leagues and pitched briefly for the Detroit Tigers. Here is where things got interesting, at least for me. Wilkins tells McKnight about his trip to The Show:<o:p></o:p></div><blockquote class="tr_bq">In 1971, when I went up to Detroit, there were a few of us who got called up together. You remember Marvin Lane, the outfielder, and Chuck Seelbach, the other pitcher? A couple guys from double-A, too.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"> Do the names Lane and Seelbach ring any bells? Probably not, and if you’re like me, you assumed that Hamilton invented them. I mean he invented the rest of his characters, right? I mean why not make up names? They aren't actually characters, and who in their right minds would research the names of people who don't even appear in the novel?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">I don’t actually know the answer to that last question, but in a tremendously strange coincidence, I <i>do</i> know Chuck Seelbach. After getting off to a great start as a pitcher, Chuck hurt his shoulder, and we now teach history at the same school (<a href="http://www.us.edu/">University School</a> outside Cleveland, OH). <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">This sort of attention to detail raised a variety of questions that I am still trying to figure out. First, given the long odds that anyone would recognize Lane’s and Seelbach’s names, why in the world would Hamilton go to the trouble of digging them up? In this, Hamilton seems to have two possible constituencies. The first of these is his readers, but the number of people who would recognize the names <i>has</i> to be vanishingly small. (I suppose it is possible that Tigers fans might be a bit more in tune with pre-Watergate roster moves, but there can’t be many of them who know that Marvin Lane isn’t a street in Ypsilanti.) </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Then there are the people (not many, I hope) who read that passage and then ran for their copy of </span><i style="line-height: 200%;">Baseball Reference</i><span style="line-height: 200%;"> to see if these people existed. (Looks like they may not have had to go as far as I'd thought. I just checked, and the online version of </span><i style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="http://www.baseballreference.com/">Baseball Reference</a> </i><span style="line-height: 200%;">has been around since 2000. I find that kind of amazing.) In any event, I have to think that the number of people who a) recognized the players; or b) did not recognize the players, but cared enough to look them up is extremely small.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">So we are back to the question, why did Hamilton bother? If it’s not for the readers, who is this detail for? The answer, I think, is that he did it for himself. He wanted to get every possible detail right, so he did the necessary legwork. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">And that’s kind of cool. <o:p></o:p></div>Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5985500887917221259.post-27855095534442689742012-08-06T03:03:00.001-07:002012-08-06T03:03:00.088-07:00How to find a literary agent<div class="MsoNormal">Soon after you sign on with a literary agent (<a href="http://bookpregnant.blogspot.com/2012/06/so-you-found-agent-yay-welcome-to-hell.html">Welcome to Hell</a>, by the way), you will discover that a surprising number of your friends are working on novels as well, and one of the first questions they will have is “How did you find an agent?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NmQ8jS5M3cmMkgv5_XVbpGJC6T8Wr2288hoGQeCE8r7lIP1UaYGj8X978NM9bEuspRy3hxs9-Z-dJr2yQfj8zQzufbWP-Zpi3Ar3lrtNb1iW8iRk-ONFxdMySfREoQNiM5c7WrOeHIU/s1600/X9690.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NmQ8jS5M3cmMkgv5_XVbpGJC6T8Wr2288hoGQeCE8r7lIP1UaYGj8X978NM9bEuspRy3hxs9-Z-dJr2yQfj8zQzufbWP-Zpi3Ar3lrtNb1iW8iRk-ONFxdMySfREoQNiM5c7WrOeHIU/s200/X9690.jpg" width="153" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">And if you’ve done your due diligence (ie. Googled the question), you’ve discovered there are a couple of ways. First, you can have a friend or relative in the business. This, of course, is a disheartening piece of information to unearth because if you had a friend in the business, you wouldn’t have just googled the phrase “How to find a literary agent” would you?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Absent some sort of connection, you’re going to have to claw your way from the slush pile, past an agent’s assistant and into the rarefied realm of Those-Who-Have-Been-Asked-For-A-Partial-or-Full.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The question then becomes, how do I do that? The key here is the cover letter. The good news is that cover letters are really short, so you can rewrite them endlessly. The bad news is that writing a good cover letter is nothing like writing a good novel. I have no doubt that there are hundreds of excellent novels out there, unpublished, because the author can’t write a one-page proposal.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I’ve got below is an annotated and slightly edited version of my own cover letter. I’ll mention at the outset that as letters go, it was pretty effective: I received manuscript requests from over half the agents I queried. (I would venture to say that my letter is better than my novel. Ah, well.) Note that this is formatted for email rather than a paper letter.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p>-------------------------- </o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Josh Getzler<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dear Mr. Getzler,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because of your professed interest in historical mysteries, I think you might like to see my historical mystery, <i>The Midwife’s Tale: A Mystery</i>. <i><span style="color: red;">(Keep your opening brief. Do some quick research on your target agents, and pick ones who like books in your genre. Do NOT over-google agents. It is a waste of time.)</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is 1644, and Parliament’s armies have risen against the King and laid siege to the city of York . Even as the city suffers at the rebels’ hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of rebellion. One of Bridget’s friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted of murdering her husband and – like other mutinous women – is sentenced to be burnt alive. Esther proclaims her innocence and begs Bridget to help clear her name. Bridget believes that her friend has been wrongly convicted, and sets out to find the real killer. <i><span style="color: red;">(In the opening paragraph you have to provide a few things: the setting, the protagonist, and the central drama of your story. Make sure all three of these are compelling. If your reader doesn’t want to spend time with the main character, or in the time and place you have set the story, you are toast.)</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Bridget is joined in her search by a new maidservant, Martha Hawkins, who has fled to York to start a new life. Martha proves a quick study in the delivery room, and Bridget has high hopes for her protégé. But when the two women are attacked in a dark alley, Bridget sees another side of Martha, as she shows herself far more skilled with a knife than any respectable woman ought to be.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To save Esther from the stake, Bridget and Martha must dodge rebel artillery, confront a murderous figure from Martha’s past, and capture a brutal killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. The investigation takes Bridget and Martha from the homes of the city’s most powerful families to the alleyways and brothels of its poorest neighborhoods. As they delve into the life of Esther’s murdered husband, they discover that his ostentatious Puritanism hid a multitude of sins, and that far too often tyranny and treason go hand in hand. <i><span style="color: red;">(Another couple of paragraphs summarizing the book. Do not go too long here, and if it is a mystery/suspense, don’t give away the ending. Your goal is to make the reader want to see more. N.B: If you write a synopsis, that is the place to give away the ending.)</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Midwife’s Tale</i> is a 95,000-word historical mystery, and the first in a potential series set in Revolutionary England. I have a doctorate in history with a focus on early modern England, and have published articles on the history of midwifery in top historical journals including <i>Social History of Medicine</i> and <i>Journal of Social History</i>. <i><span style="color: red;">(Let your prospective agent know how long the book is, and if it is part of a series. In certain genres, publishers want series. If you have any qualifications that make you a good fit for writing this kind of book, mention it here. Think a bit about this – there is probably a reason you chose to write the kind of book that you did.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a part of promoting the book, I would be happy to join in reading group discussions of the book. I can also give public presentations on the history of midwifery, and on the real Bridget Hodgson, who practiced midwifery in York during this period. Thank you for considering my work. I hope to hear from you soon. <i><span style="color: red;">(I’m not sure how effective this was in my case, but if you have a platform from which you can publicize your book – a weekly radio show, for example – this is where to bring it up.)</span><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sam Thomas<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">So that’s it, easy-peasy. Now you shouldn’t have any trouble finding an agent. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sam Thomas is the author of <i>The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery</i> from Minotaur/St.Martin's. Want to pre-order a copy? <a href="http://samthomasbooks.com/buy-the-book.html" target="_blank">Click here</a>. For more on midwifery and childbirth visit his <a href="http://samthomasbooks.com/">website</a>. You can also like him on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sam-Thomas/251592421525018">Facebook </a> and follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/SamThomasBooks">Twitter</a>.</div>Sam Thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03059524216536846003noreply@blogger.com3