On the move, Part 2

I'm not sure if I blogged about homes and emigration before, but I certainly blogged ten months ago about moving, and here we go again. We move into our new house next week after about 4 years of being wandering renters -- yay! -- so I thought I'd blog a bit about houses and homes. (BTW, that's Charlie 2 and friend, taken at my son's house in Ottawa. Which is another kind of home.)

Here's the main reason we bought our new house. :)

I care about homes, and thus, so do my characters. in An Unlikely Countess, Cate longs for the home he  could never have because he was a second son. Prudence wants any home that's decent, but as she learns about herself she realizes she's always grieved the loss of her girlhood home. I didn't even notice that Paradise Lost was a running theme until well into the book!

In A Scandalous Countess, which I'm polishing now (out next February) Georgia, Countess of Maybury has lost her homes by being widowed. Because she didn't bear an heir, her cherished homes now belong to the new earl. Lord Dracy, her destiny, joined the navy at thirteen, so his homes have been his ships, but now he's inherited a title and estate he's unwillingly drawn into its preservation. That picture is one I sent to my publisher as a suggestion for Georgia, who's not yet twenty-one. It's from the movie Perfume, and exactly the right look and period.

  In The Demon's Mistress, a novella out again now as an e-book, Lord Vandeiman is the end of his line and desperately wants to save the house that's all that's left of his family, but he's penniless -- until a rich widow offers him a fortune to pose as her betrothed for a while. The picture is Van from the cover of the Three Heroes omnibus.

The Dragon's Bride, to be reissued soon in print, is a little different in that Con has inherited a title and estate he doesn't want, which takes him away from his family home. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that of course at the end he's back in the home he wants. That trilogy, which includes The Demon's Mistress and The Devil's Heiress is all about a place, Hawk in the Vale, beloved to the three heroes born there.

And so it goes. I can't seem to help writing about ancient, rooted homes. Of course it comes with writing about the aristocracy, as aristocratic heroes usually have estates and houses which mean something to them, even if only as a burden of duty to preserve their heritage for future generations.

That is an important aspect of many aristocratic cultures sometimes underestimated by North American writers. It's not unfair for nearly everything to go to the eldest son (though we could easily argue it should be eldest son or daughter!) Looked at over centuries or even millennia, it's the only rational way to go. Cultures that have traditionally divided land between the children have not fared well. Soon no piece of land can support a family.

However, I think my often unconscious focus on home is triggered by being an emigrant. We left England to live in Canada, and lived in four places across that wide country. Emigration is almost always a very dislocating experience. Sometimes it works out well, but when I started reading on line boards for emigrants who want to return home, I realized how distressing many, perhaps most, people find it.

As we stayed in Canada for over 30 years, it wasn't traumatic for me, but the subconscious message of my books seems to be that home matters to me. I'm the same as a reader. I can't stand it when a happy ending doesn't involve a settled home, preferably one where one or more characters have old roots. Perhaps I've always chosen to write aristocratic romances because home has always had power.

Even in my SF story, The Trouble With Heroes.... the completion of that phrase comes at the end -- "...that they want to come home." That's the only reward Dan wants for saving the world, but societies are often uncomfortable with the returning hero, permanently changed by what he or she has had to become to win the fight.

(I apologize for the fact that a lot of my web page needs updating. This buying and renovating a house takes a lot of organizational energy, it would seem!)

How about you? Do you care whether the happy couple have a rooted home at the end of a romance?

Or do you enjoy seeing them head off in search of it, or even on a rootless adventure? ::shudder::

How important is home to you in general?

I'll send a copy of the anthology Irresistible Forces to one commenter. That contains The Trouble With Heroes.... I'll make a random pick from among the most interesting.

Here's a picture of our new living room, waiting for us. And what we started with.

Cheers,

Jo

 

 

Comments

[Lyn S]

You have lovely taste in both decorating and heroes. Enjoy your new nest with the lovely view.

[Isobel Carr]

What a great view! Also love the arches in the house. It has a nice 1920s/1930s vibe (I'm also a big house person, both in real life where I adore my 1916 bungalow and in my books, where the house is really a character in each book).

[Sue Mccormick]

We've lived here in Columbia for 23 years (the longest I have ever lived in one house), so it is my home in the sense that you have blogged about; but in all our moves we have bought the house, which I feel is also a reach for "home" in your sense.
When my granddaughter's husband was given an assignment to a new military post, they had to put their first-bought house on the market. She mourned on Facebook "Why did I ever think I wanted to buy a house?" She cheered up when I returned "Because it is the family disease!"

[MJ]

We sold our family home of 18 years when we moved to Malaysia in 2005. Very traumatic as that's where my daughters grew up and there were lots of good memories. After the 30-hour journey from Houston (and I'm not a good traveler), my lovely husband met me at the KL airport and, sensing my distress, bought me a cup of tea. However, almost the first words out of his mouth were, "So, how does it feel to be homeless?" He knew as soon as he said it, he'd made a BIG mistake. Yes, I did stay instead of hopping on the next flight back to Houston and yes, I have gotten him back for his remark. We built our retirement home near San Antonio while overseas and I also bought another house here in Houston since we still work here. So, now I have TWO homes

[Kate]

I love what you did with this space. Personally, I am rooted to my place. We lived in MN for a year and in that year our home in MI didn't sell. We built the home in MI and decided after dh lost his job in MN to come home. MN never really felt like home. We appreciated so much more what our town has to offer when we came home. I like when a couple has a base that they will continue to come home to. I always picture them there raising their families. Those who travel have to come home on a regular basis.

[Quilt Lady]

Lovely pics. I wish my house looked like that. We have remodeled it many years ago but I think it needs it again. I think a home is very important, it is the heart of living.

[LouisaCornell]

Your new home looks lovely! One can never say too much about a fabulous view!

This topic is near and dear to my heart. As an Air Force brat and later a traveling singer I seldom lived in the same home long. Someone still living in the village in England where we lived for a time just sent me current photos of the house we lived in and I admit I cried when I saw them. We were very happy there.

My father vowed when he retired from the Air Force he would buy my mother a home from which she would never have to move. Forty years later she is STILL in that house and there is something inordinately comforting about visiting her there.

I worked very hard to pay off the mortgage on my five acres. The house is very small and not the one I want but the land is perfect. My nephew is planning the perfect little cottage for me and I hope to be able to build it one day.

I firmly believe the need to find HOME is a part of our souls. Some souls love to wander and their home is within them wherever they go. Others want only to settle in one place, a perfect place for them and never leave it. And some people start out as wanderers and become stayers. That would be me.

[Jo Beverley]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. It's a small house, but just right for us, and I'll have a garden again to putter in.

Interesting about a house as a character, Isobel.I've done that sometimes, but mostly when the house is odd. Sort of gothicky. That's an intriguing distinction between "home", which is more a person's emotion, I think, and "house" which is more objective. Do you think?

Jo

[Jo Beverley]

Sue, until recently we've always owned our houses -- this is our 6th -- and I can't say there's been a huge wrench to leave any of them. I think that's because we've always been heading for a new home, moving straight from one to the next during long distance moves.

I want my characters to be more rooted than that, but perhaps we're ents -- able to put down roots anywhere!

Jo

[Lyn S]

This article about literary houses popped up in my RSS this afternoon. I don't think the Telegraph has got around to adding Jo's new place. She would easily fit in with the others.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatpicturegalleries/8608103/Literary-homes.html?image=1

[Kat]

I love my current home and even though it’s not the grandest home in as far as size and amenities my husband and I have ever owned it’s where my heart lies. I think the ultimate beauty in a home goes far beyond its facade and lies within the emotional and spiritual warmth it provides. BTW love the your decorating choices hope your new family enjoys the new "nest".

[Na S.]

A wonderful home can really balance out a great romance. A home can be more than simply a residence, whether grand and fit for the wealthy or barely standing, a day away from demolition. It can be a place of healing, a place of nostalgia and a place of captured memories. In romances it is not so novel to see a wounded and honoured hero come back home, a place of his roots, a place before he went off to war and endured, acted out unimaginable things. Or a place where a young mother goes for a second chance. Someplace fresh, someone new. It can be a fixer-upper, where for someone it is the resporing of a house's soul. There is a story behind each layer of paint, behind the added room in the back or the fully furnished but never used nursury. A home is many things and its meaning is defined and personalized the characters. Just like I fall in love with characters I also fall in love with their unique homes.

I love a home with history, sculptured and detailed with grace. They are homes with history just waiting for me to give it a story.

[Jenny]

Nice pictures Jo. Looks lovely.
I'm one who needs to know where I am living at any one time. I have moved quite a few times, but I really like to know that I have somewhere to "nest". Even travelling I like to stay in one place at least a couple of nights in a row.
As far as literature is concerned, I like to read that my heroines have a save haven, even if it is only a cottage. I sometimes wonder if the historical heroines, or heroes for that matter, have enough time to carry out all the work without either servants, (or modern day machines). A lot of authors have their servants happy in their work, but as one who hates house work, I wonder how they can be!

[Jo Beverley]

LOL! on the two homes, MJ. I've never had two, and I'm not sure how I'd like moving between. Might try it one day, though.

Kate, that's another aspect, isn't it -- the geographical area. Some really don't suit us, no matter how lovely the house we have there. I'm sure there must be something to do with where we're raised. I was born and raised on the sea front and I'm just not happy away from the sea. Fortunately my husband feels the same way, even though he was born inland. "Inland" in England is never very far!

Jo

[Artemisia]

I have been stuck in Florida for nearly 30 years and I am sick of it. By nature I am a nest-builder and I have moved 9 times since we got here. Now, with my sole remaining family member at the end of life and facing my own old age, I really want to go home, even though I know home is not the same place I left. I have seen this in many of the seniors I have known here: whether from illness, a desire to be nearer younger family members, or economic necessity, a homing instinct takes over, posessions are pared down and packed up, and we head off to the place where we began.

[Jo Beverley]

Louisa, I do hope you get to built your cottage!

I've never felt the desire to have a lot of land, but I do like open, accessibly land nearby. Britain is much better for that than North America because there are always public footpaths.

Lovely post, Na. Homes do say a lot about us, or the characters in a book. The home they want says a lot, too. In The Demon's Mistress, Maria Celestine's home is perfect and modern, built that way by her husband, and to Van that's strange, because he's familiar with old, inherited homes.

In writing historical romance we can forget that people were always building houses, or renovating them, or buying the latest furniture. We can be sure an old house will have old furniture.

Jo

[theo]

Your new home is just beautiful! I could live close to people if I had that kind of view.

I love stories that have the HEA settling in at home. Home is very important to me. When my husband and I got married, I told him that someday, I'd like to move "home" to the land I grew up on. It's not quite two acres, backs to a nature preserve on a dead end street, but is almost in the middle of the city. My quiet little heaven in the midst of the cacophony that is life. When my father passed and the land became mine, the DH found a builder, brought him home and said, "Build your house." And so we did. Took the one I grew up in down and built new on the property.

My characters go 'home' too. Might not be an old house or one that's been in the story throughout, but it's theirs. Just the way it should be.

[Jo Beverley]

Lyn, thanks for the link to the Telegraph article. Some lovely homes there. I'd really like to get some climbing plants on our new house, but there's limited earth right by the house.

Artemesia, where are you from? A lot of emigrants want to return to their home country.

Theo, what a lovely story about your home.

Jo

[Terry Parrish]

We've lived in our home since 1974 and I can't see living any where else. It's not grand or especially modern but it's home. I have a young cousin who told us one time he did'nt know you could have alot of modern stuff in an old house. I assume he thought it did'nt have electricty!

[melanie C Adkins]

YES! Home is important! The only home I ever knew was yanked from under me when I was 12. I was left floundering for years because of it. I think home just cements the family. It does give a families roots a place to grow. I think in books I look for that too. A place they can be comfortable and enjoy...Home!

[Jean M.]

Jo, you & all your responders have made my heart smile. Such wonderful comments about what makes their home, home. I love your view, it makes me want to stop & take a big breath. Coming from the middle of the US, on vacations, we always hurried as fast as we could to get to Colorado with it's beautiful mountains where we pitched a tent to make "home" under the big pine trees with the breezes singing through the branches. I longed for that mountain & big tree feeling. We left houses that we had raised children in, put a lot of "blood & sweat" equity in also,& moved to of all places the California high dessert. Yes, I did have a tiny little twinge when we left, mainly for the people we left behind & yes, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to missing all our "handiwork" all finished & beautiful. But, the house we have now looks out at the San Gabriel Mtns. where we see snow on them & storms coming over the peaks. And someone years ago planted pine trees in our big front yard so we hear the wind in the trees. When we first saw this house, toured it, looked out all the windows, & sliders, I felt that I'd come home. There is nothing like looking at the mountains when you're at the sink working on dinner or washing pots & pans. It's a happy house. And I do love to read about your characters remodeling, restoring, loving their homes & gardens into beauty, too, where they feel that sense of "I'm home..finally home".

[Mia Marlowe]

They say all writers have a "core theme," something that resonates strongly with them and finds its way into all their stories somehow. It sounds as if you've identified yours. You've tapped into the universal longing for home, that place where "when you have to go there, they have to take you in." (Sorry I can't give you the attribution for that quote, but it's not original with me.)

Love your new view!

[Sue]

Jo, I could have written your last comment. I too crave the sea; we have to visit the coast at least once a year which is not easy from Ontario! I lived in Devon for four years, Barnstaple and Plymouth, I love the south west and still have many friends there. The house we have now is a large one built in 1870. We are into our 23rd year here and can't imagine moving. All the best in your new space - where are you and what a view!

[Mina Gerhart]

What a pretty house, I LOVE the arches & the view from the window is cool.
I like where the hero and heroine use the house as a base of operations and still travel/follow their dreams.

Mindy :)
[email protected]

[Laura]

What a beautiful home. You have done wonderful things with it. It looks welcoming and like you'll be happy there.

Congratulations on your new home. May it provide the vessel for many wonderful times for you and your family.

[Jeanne Miro]

Jo,
I've always believed that come is where the heart is. My husband and I built our home 37 years ago in fact he moved us in on the 4th of July,the day after my youngest son was born, so I came home to boxes covering all the counters and nothing put away!

He still gets upset that I don't have an "emotional connection to the house and I have to explain to him that it's the memories it holds of our children growing up here and us growing together as a family that are important not the house itself.

When I'm reading a book what I look for is the relationship between the couple have and the relationship they form in their home at the end of the book not the home itself.

I love love seeing them at the end of the book enjoying the peace inside their home as a place of refuge from the outside world and the relationships they have developed not only within their family but also with the surrounding community. I think that the serenity of a home is determined by the people filling it and not by the contents of luxury of the home.

I love our home for it's warmth and the feeling of welcome it provides dispite it's harvest gold countertops and outdated appliances. The mortgage is paid and the welcome mat is out. Ours is a home of love and joy and the light is always in the window to welcome who ever wants to enter.

When I read a book I want to see the characters enjoy their home for the peace they feel while being there and the contenment and peace they feel residing there.

[Lily]

It is interesting how our lives relate in relation to where we live...I grew up and worked in the Boston area. In 1984 my job moved me to PA. Divorced mother of 5, with 2 teens I bought a home in PA. Eventually 2 other children moved there near me. When I retired 10 yrs later I craved warmer weather and moved to FL. I have lived here for 17 years I have bought and sold several homes in FL. I now feel like I want to go back to where most of my children are. I have 10 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. I have missed something. Never saw any grandchildren grow up. I don't care where I live, If I could sell my home I would go back and find a senior community and live in an apartment, just to be near my family.

[Julee J Adams]

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was sell my parents' home, the one I grew up in, after they passed away. It seriously was like losing an aunt or uncle, it was that traumatic, because they tore down the home to make a parking lot.
The same thing happens to the John Cusack character in "Grosse Point Blank," where he says, "I can never go home again, but at least I'll be able to park there."
The archways are beautiful and they remind me of the ones in my parents' house. Many happy memories there and may you create many happy memories in your new home!

[joanna bourne]

It looks perfectly lovely. How happy I am for you.

And YES!!! I want my characters to someday have a rooted happy home . . .

I was about to say, 'in the country'. Then I realized I want them to have a home that's suited to them. Might be country. Might be city.

I'm reminded of the line out of Yeats -- 'May she live like some green laurel, rooted in one dear perpetual place'.

[Georgia]

What a beautiful view. Enjoy it!

[Cathy Gilleylen Schultz]

When one thinks about it, where we live shapes our lives. I think it's the most important "character" in a story because of that. I often think how different my life would have been if we'd been able to stay where our families lived. It had a profound affect I'm sure on who I've grown to be. The people in this part of the country were so different from where I'd come from (in the USA); the cost of living was so much more; but there have also been compensations like opportunities and a longer history here on the East Coast which makes it a much more interesting place to me.

[Alison]

Home is very special to me - I'd never leave it if I didn't have to earn a living!

[email protected]

[Ramona N]

My sister, at 98 and heading into dementia, one day stood near the door holding a little plastic bag with assorted nonsense in it. I asked her where she was going and she said, "I'm going home." At 92 I have discovered what she meant. Being the last surviving member of a family of 2 parents and 5 siblings, I find there no longer is a "home" to go to. Especially not in Florida!

[Jo Beverley]

Hugs, Ramona. That must be hard.

I still have my sisters, but no connection anymore to the town where I grew up, not even old friends still living there. Mind you, going to boarding school means that my school friends are from Blackpool or scattered around.

I'm in the middle of the move -- slowly getting sorted -- so I'll pick a winner next week.

Jo