When the great e-book explosion arrived several years about (around 2011, I think?) I was fortunate to have the rights to a number of my older books that were out of print, and I happily re-released them as e-books. I love that these books are readily available to readers around the world, and at lower prices than the original print editions.
Since e-books took off, though, it's been a lot harder to persuade publishers to revert book rights to authors like me. Imagine fire breathing dragons sitting on a hoard of backlist titles, and they DO NOT WANT TO LET THEM GO!!!
But to my delight, earlier this year I was able to persuade Ballantine to return the three books in my Bride Trilogy because of a hiccup in the original contract. My tagline for the series is:
Three extraordinary women, Three powerful men, Three passionate,unlikely marriages.
When I wrote that, I realized that each of these was a marriage of convenience story, a trope I'm very fond of. My characters have a lot to overcome!
Anne here, hosting our regular monthly feature, What We're Reading, where the wenches and readers talk about the books they've read and enjoyed in the last month.
We start with Pat Rice talking about Sherry Thomas's A Study in Scarlet Women. Pat says: I have always adored Sherry Thomas’s writing, and of course, I cut my teeth on Sherlock Holmes mysteries, so the combination of Sherry Thomas writing about a female Sherlock Holmes was just too tempting. Other than the contrived ending to the mystery —and let’s face it, Sherlock was the King of Contrived—the book is absolutely delicious.
I can’t reveal the shocking opening, but let us say that Charlotte Holmes is a woman of strong spine and beliefs as well as a brilliant mind and regrettably insufficient human experience. There are rough similarities to the Conan Doyle stories, if only in name, but no real attempt to duplicate the other characters. Which is provident, because that leaves room for Charlotte’s enigmatic love interest—a married man who behaves with prudence and respect and is an altogether wonderful hero in his own right.
This isn’t a romance, by any means, but having an unrequited love makes her just a little more human. Highly recommended! (and the next in the series is just out!)
Nicola is next. She says: Whether it was going to see the JaneAusten exhibition in Oxford or all the recent chat there has been in my RNA chapter about Austen’s books, I was inspired to pick up (again) Jane Austen Made Me Do It, the anthology inspired by Jane, her life and her writing. I love the way all the authors in the collection put such a clever and individual spin on their source material and being such a fan of the great Jo Beverley, I particularly enjoyed her lovely story Jane and the Mistletoe Kiss which made me feel very Christmassy!
I had another topic in mind to write about today, but in all honesty nothing seemed as important as the fact that, earlier this week, we lost Miranda Neville.
I’m fairly sure we never met in person, though I’m equally as sure our paths crossed several times at conferences, and we followed each other on Twitter. For writers like me, who spend most of the day all alone in a room, Twitter’s the equivalent of the old office water cooler, where we meet and mingle with our colleagues, share a grumble or a laugh, and get to know each other.
I know there are people who think social media doesn’t allow you to truly know anyone, but if you had followed Miranda this past year, here’s what you’d have learned:
Nicola here. The firefighter is a popular hero – and increasingly heroine – in romantic fiction. It’s easy to see why the trope appeals; fire is an ever-present danger and those who fight it demonstrate courage, compassion for others and even self-sacrifice. To be a firefighter embodies many character ideals. Interestingly it isn’t a character type commonly found in historical fiction which is surprising in a way because fire-fighting has a long and noble history. I’m not going back all the way to Ancient Rome and the first fire brigades in this blog because I mentioned them in a previous blog here. I’m starting this story on 16th October 1834 when the Houses of Parliament in London burned down.
Andrea/Cara here, I’ve recently started working on a new Lady Arianna mystery novel, and after having sent her and Lord Saybrook to Scotland in the last adventure, I decided to head south to the Mediterranean.
More specifically, to a certain island in the Mediterranean—one that will likely ring a bell with aficionados of Regency-era history. (Though there’s a little unexpected excitement along the way.) Elba was home to Napoleon during his first exile from the world stage. But I knew little else about the rugged speck of land in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Which of course meant I needed to do some research.
Oh, joy.Now in the spirit of full disclosure I’ll confess that I have a thing for islands. I love the sense of their being a little world unto themselves. The closeness of water seems to bathe them in a special aura—things always feel calmer and more relaxed on an island. (Yes, yes, I know—an oxymoron when it comes to Napoleon!)
Elba didn’t disappoint. I found it to be a fascinating place, rich in history and natural beauty. Allow me to share some of the highlights of my research . . .
First let’s place it a little more exactly. It’s a mere 6 miles off the coast of Italy, which raised concerns from the start among the Allied leaders at the Congress of Vienna when Napoleon requested it as his place of exile. As the Emperor of Austria wrote to his foreign minister, Prince Metternich, “The important thing is to remove Napoleon from France, and God grant that he may be sent very far away. I do not approve of the choice of the Island of Elba as a residence for Napoleon; they take it from Tuscany, they dispose of what belongs to my family, in favour of foreigners. Besides, Napoleon remains too near to France and to Europe.” Lord Castlereagh of Britain agreed, but Tsar Alexander harped on the need to get Napoleon to abdicate quickly, and so he was grudgingly given the island as his new empire.
Greenland and Vinland: In the Wake of the Vikings 3 By Mary Jo
The harsh lands of Scandinavia produced a hardy race of warriors, explorers, and colonists, and part of the value of our two week September cruise was how much I learned about this part of the world and how it affected history.
The three countries of Scandinavia are Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they directed their attentions in different directions. Swedes tended to head eastward to the Baltic area and Russia. The Danes swept down on the British Isles, and the Norwegians explored ever westward, all the way to North America.
Pat Rice here, asking you to welcome Patricia (Pooks) Burroughs back to tell us about the second book in her dark YA historical fantasy series, The Fury Triad. Set in an alternate magical Regency world, The Dead Shall Live is available for preorder everywhere and will be released Halloween.
At midnight on Samhain, the dead shall roam.
The Dead Shall Livebegins the moment the award-winning dark YA fantasy, This Crumbling Pageant, ends—with two kings but only one throne. Persephone Fury’s Dark powers are finally under control but at a horrific price, and she is married to a man she has long loathed but with whom she shares her Dark burden.
Nevertheless, her beloved Robin has sworn to bring her back from the Dark.
“To unthrone the usurper, return to the cradle of the Fury.”
This mysterious message from within the stronghold of the enemy sends Persephone to Ireland with Vespasian. There, they will finally learn the truth and horror of their shared Dark powers and the prophecy that binds them together.
Death in all its forms is Vespasian’s gift and Persephone’s curse.
How much more of her soul will she have to sacrifice to the Darkness within?
And under the malevolent midnight moon on Samhain, who are the dead that shall live?
So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And music shall untune the sky. John Dryden, 1687
Pat:How much research do you need to write historical fantasy?
Pooks: I'm afraid I do an iceberg of research for every ice cube that shows up in the book, but that's more a matter of how my brain functions than anything that could be deemed scholarly!
For The Dead Shall Live, my husband [the Resident Storm Chaser and Intrepid Pooks-Wrangler] and I spent about a week in the walled medieval town of Youghal [pronounced Yawl] on the southeast coast of Ireland, though material on my time period—Regency—was slim to nonexistent.
Youghal is on the very edge of County Cork [pronounced Cark by the locals] and I was a bit surprised to find out that even many Irish people aren't familiar with it. It's a bit of an undiscovered gem that only now is beginning to develop ways to show its history to advantage. It's part medieval walled town and part Victorian beach resort, though there are now plenty of modern places to stay. We stayed in a self-catering home as our research base.
We were fortunate enough to have a private tour from the official Town Crier [yes, really!], Clifford Winser. He's a font of fabulous info on Youghal's rich history and was particularly helpful on another of my story needs, the time of Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh's connection to Youghal as mayor and recipient of holdings from a grateful Queen was the primary reason I’d chosen Youghal as a setting.
The Fury family’s ancestral patriarch, Bardán Fury, was able to establish wealth and security by assisting any Tudor monarch who happened to be in power. During Elizabeth’s time, that took him back to his native Ireland. Being on the side of the English in Ireland was not the way to win friends and influence people—unless you happened to be in Youghal, an important port that--within the walls, at least--was more English than Irish.
That is the backstory and the mystery that brings Persephone and her inconvenient husband to Youghal over two centuries later, in 1811. By then Youghal was evidently so settled and boring that the local museum, tourist information center and even Clifford didn’t have any specifics to offer. There were no maps of the town in the early 1800s, or drawings.
However, quite unexpectedly, one of my new characters in this book, Akachi Redshanks, had her own connections to Youghal. I had no clue when she exploded into the story [rather literally], that this escaped slave from Barbados would have strong connections to Youghal. I knew she was part Irish and part Igbo, but not that as a busy and important British port, Youghal had shared in the ugly history of slavery. And I hadn't realized that Oliver Cromwell both entered and departed Ireland via Youghal, where he also kept his headquarters during the time he was directing the pillaging of the Irish Catholics to turn their lands over to English landlords using the first of what became to known as the Plantations.
Suddenly Persephone found herself the focus of a threatening narrow-eyed glare.
The other woman tossed the spent gun to the deck and snatched another from her holster, holding Persephone in her sights.
"I got many names. The name my owner give me be Mary." Her luscious lip curled. “Because his wife not like Irish, so I have English name in they house. The name my mam gave me, may holy immaculate mother intercede for her soul, be Brigid, like the saint…."
She took a hip-swaying step closer, and Persephone had to stop herself from backing up.
"But the name I give me my own self, that name be Akachi Redshank. Akachi I make myself to be. Akachi mean the 'hand of god.’” She eyed one of her hands—and the flintlock in it—proudly. “And Redshank, that be for my Irish blood." Her voice was both lyrical and lethal. "And whoever you think you be, fine lady, this ship not going to my Mamo’s cursed home island of Ireland nor my Nne Nne’s cursed home island of Africa. And more? God’s truth, where this ship go, you not be on her."
She spat at Persephone's feet.
Akachi most definitely holds a grudge against Youghal. Ahem.
And, as we strolled along the waterfront, there were some new buildings that could be placed in my approximate time period.
In the late 1700s Youghal had been extended out into the bay so that new docks could be built. The wall that had protected Youghal from invasion by water was history, and now there was a new road traversing where it had separated the town from the mouth of the Blackwater River pouring into the ocean. And on that street--Catharine Street--stands a stretch of row houses that originally would have had businesses on the street level and, most likely, living quarters or storage above. Nobody knew exactly when they were built. Maybe some time between 1810 and 1815? they suggested.
This was both frustrating and liberating.
Those buildings were the beginning of me cutting the apron strings from real history and letting alternate magical history take over. Because as I was strolling down the opposite side of Catharine Street looking at them, I noticed one that had small, carved busts supporting some of the corbels.
I needed a place in Youghal where the Magi would do their business without calling attention to themselves. And there it was—the secret identification that ‘this is it.’
The ruling society in Persephone Fury’s Magi world worship the Greco-Roman pantheon. They first arrived in the British Isles with the Romans, and later in great numbers with the Normans. Those who were in the British Isles to begin with worship the Celtic pantheon.
In Persephone’s Youghal, those buildings were new, but they were there. And those busts? In her world, they were Apollo.
Apollo’s bust could have meant anything in a period when Greek architecture, fashion and art were popular. But on Catherine Street in Persephone’s Youghal, it was the sign that Magi were welcome.
Moving forward, I researched and wrote about a Youghal that is built on all the history at my disposal, but could in no way claim to be as it was in 1811. This meant I no longer had to worry about how much of the wall was still in existence, compared to how much was rebuilt later in the century. I didn’t have to know if those row houses were there yet. I didn’t have to know whether Bold Town still existed on the other side of the walled town—the place where Irish had to live because they weren’t allowed to stay overnight in Youghal, even if they worked there. By 1811 that wasn’t true, but in Persephone’s Youghal it still was.
While I was taking real history and letting it give me new threads to twist, I fell in love with The Collegiate Church of St Mary.
It began as a monastic settlement in c 480, which fit perfectly with the need in my world for a connection that went back to the 6th Century and the time of Myrddin Wyllt, or Merlin the Wild. The church itself is the oldest church in Ireland that has had continuous worship, with the oldest entry in the vestry book being from 1201. It’s a medieval beauty, and alas, ended up being important to my tale. I say alas, because I had to create a little bit of extra magical history to tuck into it, involving an ominously inhabited green Connemara marble tomb commissioned by a cohort of Sir Walter Raleigh’s holding… well, I did say there was a mystery, didn’t I?
Imagine my astonishment when only a couple of weeks ago a 2-minute video clip was posted to Youghal Online revealing what is described as “the green panel tiled floor at St. Mary's Collegiate Church, Youghal,” which is believed to be a tomb. [Oliver Cromwell’s daughter—yes, that Oliver Cromwell—is believed to be buried there, but since they can’t prove anything, they can’t prove it’s not [name redacted to protect mystery], either! [I quickly amended my book to add the green rectangle on the floor that appears after—oh, dear. Well, yes. My apologies but I can’t reveal that, either.
Finally, where but in Ireland could I need a magical road to take my people into Faery, and find actual magical roads—at least one of which is close enough to Youghal for me to include in Persephone’s quest.
Oddly, one of the most fascinating and I am almost certain accidental bits of research and parallelism where real history intersects with my magical world is Persephone’s ancestor’s magic assisting Oliver Cromwell as he destroyed the Irish life forever by confiscating lands to redistribute as boons for the new English landlords and Irish traitors and who sided with Elizabeth I at that time.
I quite sadly identify with Persephone as she begins learning the truth about the ancestor she revered so much, the family history she reveres so much, and the foundation of her very being that culminates on Samhain [Halloween] 1811, under a full moon [yes, there was one that year] with the Great Comet of 1811 in the sky.
You see, my Burroughs genealogy ends with the Burroughs forefather who landed in Baltimore, Maryland in 1787 from Dublin. We haven’t been able to find out anything about him prior to that which is most likely due to the destruction of most census and Church of Ireland baptismal and marriage records when the PRO [Public Records Office] was burned during the Irish Rising in 1922. Not that he would have been recorded in the CoI records or the Catholic records.
Just as in an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” there is a significant detail about that first Burroughs that may tell us more than I wanted to know.
He was Baptist. [Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn't it? A Baptist Irishman walked into a bar... Oh, wait.]
And according to Baptist history, until the mid-19th Century the very, very few Baptists in Ireland were descendants of those who came to Ireland with Oliver Cromwell. Like Persephone, I am coming to terms with the fact that my family was part of the bad guys.
Pat: How much of this research shows up in your material?
Pooks:There are many details, events, or bits of history woven throughout This Crumbling Pageant and The Dead Shall Live. A handful of subjects that influenced the world-building, for example, include Greco-Roman mythology, Celtic mythology, the Reformation in England, Catholic and Anglican history, Arthurian legend, , Georgian medical practices including bone-setting [ouch!] and period approaches to treating adder bites [holy moly!]. and that's off the top of my head.
As someone who is not a poet I was particularly challenged by having to write the 6th Century prophecy that incites all the warring factions in my world, which involved much reading of ancient Welsh literature and its medieval expressions to finally come up with the historical basis for the prophecy, which resulted in me turning Arthurian legend upside down and also writing some new ''secret verses" to an existing work. I love research. I love when it stops me cold in my tracks and I have to work harder to solve a plot snarl. I love it when it feeds me fabulous facts to complicate and enrich my world. I love it when it inspires me to a new twist.
But, here's the thing. I usually drop these details in so lightly they may go unnoticed, or the reader may assume it's part of the fictional world-building. I'll never write historical fiction like those whose knowledge of their era is decades old and soul-deep even though I love to read it. My muse delivers me a wild premise I want to write, and then I have to find the best fit for it in location and/or history. I write stories of passion, adventure, romance and [something] that are set in a location or time period that enhances the tale and fascinates me enough to want to live there for a few years.
Once I'm telling a story, I may not explain why this public building is painted yellow [even though I know it was only yellow for six months in the year of my book and never again] if someone is desperately running past to escape a murderer, but believe it or not, I couldn't write that two sentences of someone running down a real lane in a real Irish town in 1811 until I exhausted all avenues of research in an attempt to make sure it was then the way it is now. [This is actually really hard and sometimes impossible in the setting of The Dead Shall Live, when the local history is rich and bloody but finding out specific details of the town in 1811 was nigh on impossible. , or reference the old folk remedy for adder bite that inspired Vespasian's attempt at a magical remedy for Persephone. I'm a storyteller. Sometimes finding a way to reveal that the hero’s efforts to treat a wound are historically correct without it being awkward wraps me up in knots, so I just don't bother.
But I have to do this kind of research and immerse myself in all of these things because I have to believe the world before I can write about it. Mind you, I am not immersed in all the details and minutiae of all the subjects I mentioned above! I am immersed in the culture I am building that--for sound real world historical reasons--includes all those various elements.
I also have to be fascinated by this world before I can write about it. That's the tougher challenge. So I'll comb through several books about ancient art and ritual in Athens or Rome, remember a countering religious attitude in ancient Wales, and have that 'oh wouldn't that be fun?' moment that will make them collide in a way that is weird or fabulous or horrifying.
I live in hope that the occasional reader will lift eyebrows in surprised recognition when stumbling across one of the wee nuggets that get included.
Pat: What's the fun part about writing historical fantasy?
Pooks: Not only do I get to live in another age, not only do I get to play with magic, but writing in an alternate magical world allows me to stretch my imagination farther and twist my story more unexpectedly. [In other words, as I have blatantly demonstrated, ultimately I get to twist facts to my will!] But don't misinterpret that. For every time I decide a shortcut is in order, there are a half dozen others where I take wicked delight in letting history and facts make my characters work harder or even face doom.
Pat: What do you want us to know about the new book?
Pooks: Well, the first thing I’d like to share is the book trailer. It’s the first one I’ve ever done and I’m proud of it, and it involved a lot of research, as well!
Also I do believe there was more than a bit of “woo woo” in the air when I was desperately looking for some nighttime images of Samhain or Halloween celebrations or cemeteries that were evocatively exciting or moody and could pass for 1811. Tall order, evidently! You would think it not a difficult task, but almost everything I found had special effects wizardry or graphics adding witches and goblins and pumpkins and such. I judiciously cropped a couple of images to eliminate 21st Century ghosts and ghouls and also added a Celtic tombstone to a cemetery so it wouldn’t look so American.
And this is where the “woo woo” comes in.
These images were of a recent Samhain celebration in Youghal, Ireland—the exact location [and date, for that matter, give or take a couple of centuries] of the climactic scenes of The Dead Shall Live.
But they were the copyrighted material of Shane Broderick, a professional photographer in Ireland. Fortunately for me and the last few strands of hair on my head, he graciously allowed me to use the two I needed. [Watch for the horse and the eerily burning torch pics!]
And the music? Well, I am truly delighted to introduce you to Adrian von Ziegler--a gifted Swiss composer [pictured on the right] whose entire works are available for us to hear on youtube or download from Bandcamp. His “Dance With the Trees” is the perfect soundtrack for the video.
And if you want to see the video I created next so that This Crumbling Pageant wouldn’t get jealous? Click here.
Finally—to answer the question, what do I want you to know about The Dead Shall Live?
That it doesn’t stand alone. You really have to read the first book in the series first. But have I got a deal for you? I do! This Crumbling Pageant is available in eBook everywhere for only 99¢ through the end of the year. And The Dead Shall Live is available for preorder for only $3.99 through October 28, when the price will increase to $4.99 for the October 31 book release. I’m grateful to my publisher, Story Spring Publishing, for making both books available for the price of a single book for those who preorder.
Thank you Word Wenches for once again inviting me to guest post and special thanks to Pat Rice for the Q&A! I love the Word Wenches; I love your books; I love your website; and most especially--I love the WordWenches.com readers!
From Pat: I'm here in Southern California where the only signs of autumn tend to be piles of pumpkins at the grocery store and the dropping of prickly sweetgum balls. And I know down-under is going into spring, but you at least experience autumn as Anne tells us, if only on the other end of the year. So this month we asked the wenches what their favorite part of autumn is. My favorite part is pumpkin spice!
Nicola here. Last week I was in Oxford at the Bodleain Library to see the Jane Austen exhibition. I love “The Bod” as it’s known; when you join you have to swear an oath that dates back to when the library was first open to scholars in 1602. Amongst other things you have to promise not to set fire to the place which suggests that those 17th century students were a bit unruly, not unlike some of their modern Oxford counterparts!
The exhibition was quite small, just one room, and I did wonder when I went in whether there was anything new that could be said about Jane Austen or any new slant that could be taken on her life and work. It was titled “Which Jane Austen” and had the theme of “the writer in the world.” So it focussed on objects and writing associated with specific times and places in her life. There was a section on the juvenilia she wrote with other members of her family (in the photo), with her original diaries and notebooks on show. There were features on her time in Bath and her connections to London, with many letters on show. There was a book of recipes Jane’s family used at Chawton House. A particularly interesting section focussed on Jane as a woman writing in a time of war which pointed out that she was one of the first writers from the “home front” giving a domestic view of life for those living through the Napoleonic Wars. It’s always mind-blowing to see original possessions and belongings on display and one of the things that moved me most was a pair of Jane’s spectacles resting on her writing desk! I imagine a lot of us could relate to that!
In a studio next door they were playing extracts from all the different films and TV adaptations of Jane Austen’s books. The idea was that you could sit and draw your own comparisons between the different versions of the story and see how they could be depicted in so many ways. Or, if you were like me, you could admire the houses, the fashions and the different Mr Darcys!
It’s fascinating to fill out the background life and influences of a writer like Jane Austen. She attended the balls and parties we read and write about. She met the people and danced the steps of the country dances. I love the fact that like many writers, she used aspects of the people she knew to inspire the characters in her books. One of the most exciting things that I discovered when researching the history of Ashdown House was a completely unexpected connection between the Craven family and the Austen family. Sir Charles Craven, who was Governor of Carolina between 1711 and 1716 was married to a very beautiful younger woman called Elizabeth Staples. This woman was the grandmother of three of Jane Austen’s closest friends, Martha, Mary and Eliza Lloyd. They regaled Jane with tales of Elizabeth’s private cruelty and vice, and the outrageously scandalous life she led after she was widowed. It’s said that she was the model for Lady Susan Vernon in the book Lady Susan and recent film Love and Friendship. Similarly, John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility was supposedly based on the Earl of Craven of whose morals in keeping his mistress at Ashdown House Jane Austen so clearly disapproved! Willoughby is charming, extravagant and amoral. William Craven was, arguably… well, you guessed it!
The relationship between William Craven and the famous Regency courtesan Harriette Wilson, which was said that been reflected in Sense and Sensibility, was also the inspiration for the story thread involving the courtesan Lavinia Flyte in my own book, House of Shadows. Jane Austen, in writing about the fate of Eliza Williams in Sense and Sensibility was completely aware of the restrictions on the lives of women in Regency England, the balance of power and the way that the wider world worked. She was indeed a “writer in the world.”
Do you think Jane Austen was a writer who reflects the wider world? Do you have a favourite adaptation or a favourite re-imagining of her work? To celebrate the US publication of House of Shadows next week I'm giving away a copy of the book to one commenter between now and midnight Saturday!
All the Wenches are madly busy at the moment, with books to finish and travels to take, so I volunteered to post some of my travel pictures from various places.
Here's a gorgeous display from the Larco Herrara Museum in Lima, Peru.
Our North Atlantic cruise was so interesting that I'm breaking it into three parts. (I could go on much longer, but I'll spare you. <G>) I've already written about Norway, and now I'm writing about some of the wonderful places we visited.
The Mayhem Consultant and I both selected the same cruise from a fat Viking Ocean catalog, and the reason was the itinerary. In the Wake of the Vikings was scheduled to go to all kinds of fascinating places that are hard to get to. I mean, really, how many people do you know who have gone to Greenland who aren't military? Irresistible!
Anne here. Apparently in some parts of the world there is a day called "Boyfriend Day" — I think 3rd October. Despite the fact that I only heard of it this week, I'm pinching it and tweaking the idea and turning it onto "Book Boyfriend Day" instead.
"What is a book boyfriend?" I hear some of you ask? He's a book character that you love. I've had many many book boyfriends so far in my life, and hope to have many more. (Yes, I'm a literary floozy.)
So I've devised a little quiz about some of my book boyfriends. I'll describe them, you make a guess and at the end there's a link to my website where you can check your answers. Then you come back and tell us about some of your own book boyfriends.
I should add that the pictures I've included are NOT hints — none of them are in this quiz. Not all my book boyfriends have been portrayed on the screen. As well, though not all of my book boyfriends are historical, most are. And most of the books they live in were published quite a while ago. GUESS MY BOOK BOYFRIENDS:
1) He's short, he's rather tubby, and though not particularly bright, he has a sweet personality (and a very sweet tooth). He has a lot of good friends and he lives next to a forest.
Joanna here. I was eating a kiwi fruit the other day. It showed up coyly snuggled next to a breakfast sandwich sold to me by the delightful ladies who run the catering and breakfast bar at the Rockfish Gap Community Center. I found myself trying to remember when I’d first seen kiwi. I was young and they showed up in the grocery store one day and my mother, who was a wild woman in her own way, brought them home and figured out how to serve them. They were just mind-bogglingly exotic to me. Furry fruits. I rather distrusted them.
There are many different kinds of kiwi fruits, not just the ones in US supermarkets
Kiwis apparently came from China and were originally called “Chinese gooseberries” as they spread around the world. The Chinese called them "macaque peaches" but that didn't catch on so much. The fruit was popularized in the US by WWII servicemen who’d met them while stationed in New Zealand. And they seem to come to the store from California, not New Zealand. Life is a rich pageant of happenstance, isn't it?
“Hmmm,” I hmmed to myself while I was feeding much of my breakfast sandwich to the dog Mandy but eating all the kiwis, “What did my Georgian and Regency heroine encounter as new and exciting fruit as she went about her adventures?” Kiwis and avocados hadn’t arrived in her world. Apples and apricots and even dates were known from Roman times and before.
Andrea/Cara, musing today on two of my favorite subjects: libraries and museums. And as it so happens, the British Museum in London—an amazingly wonderful institution that always makes my heart go pitty-pat—has a fascinating story in its history that combines the two!
It all begins with Sir Hans Sloane, who donated his vast collections of “interesting stuff” (a true cabinet of curiosities of 71,000 items—you can see one of the drawers below) to King George II and the country in return for £20,000, to be given to heirs. The items included books, coins, prints, drawing and ethnographic artifacts. By an act of parliament, the gift was accepted and established as the British Museum in 1753. It was the first national public museum in the world, and admission was free to “all studious and curious persons.”
Word Wenches is a blog featuring seven authors, plotting in the present, writing about the past. . . and improvising the rest. Authors include Mary Jo Putney, Patricia Rice, Anne Gracie, Susan King aka Susan Fraser King, Nicola Cornick, Andrea Penrose, & Christina Courtenay.
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