Nicola here! Today is St Patrick’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland, and if you’ve read Wench Susan’s post earlier in the week you will already be in the mood to celebrate with a pint of Guinness and some delicious soda bread!
Whilst the harp is the official symbol of Ireland, found everywhere from Guinness glasses to official coinage, the shamrock is another symbol that is as widely recognised and popular. It is said that this little sprig of green was important to the druids and that St Patrick used it to explain the concept of the trinity in his teaching, as it has three leaves.
The original shamrock has been identified as being either the lesser or the white clover, although down the centuries there has been a lot of discussion amongst botanists as to what genus of plant it actually was. Normally it has just the three leaves; if you find one with four then that is especially lucky! References to it in medieval literature refer to beautiful fields of it in flower – there is a story that St Brigid decided to stay in County Kildare when she saw a meadow clothed in glorious shamrock/clover flowers.
Susanna here, still trying to figure out what time zone I'm in, with a Very Large cup of coffee on my writing desk and a Very Happy (if slightly Reproachful) poodle curled up on my lap.
Whilst a number of my fellow Wenches were over the pond at the Romantic Novelists' Association conference, I headed off (alone, I believe?) down to the States, to the Romance Writers of America's National Conference in Denver, Colorado.
I had a grand time. I was going to try to gather everything into a coherent and eloquent post, but several days spent in the glorious company of so many other writers and industry professionals has apparently had an effect on my brain, so this will most likely be a little disjointed (sorry).
Anne here. No, I'm not in Venice (more's the pity) I'm just a wistful virtual tourist heading towards a deadline and chained to my computer, while watching my friends gadding about the world. Pat, Mary Jo and Andrea, after speaking at the RNA conference, are separately and together exploring various corners of the UK — Scotland, England and Ireland, and Susanna is in Denver, Colorado, at the RWA conference. Add to that a number of other friends also overseas and posting glorious photos on FaceBook, and . . . my feet are itchy.
I love travel, but in the last few years the only time I've been away has been work related — conferences usually, with a bit of sight-seeing on the side. So I thought I'd share a story about a trip I made many years ago when I was backpacking solo around the world for almost a year. Travelling alone is not as daring or as foolish as it might sound — I was nervous to start with, but I soon learned that when you're on your own, you meet nice people so much more easily than when you're travelling in a pair. And I was always pretty careful.
Andrea/Cara here, in a traveling state of mind. That's because Pat, Mary Jo and I have been gallivanting around the British Isles after doing the RNA Conference in Leeds, England with Nicola. Since we're on the fly, and summer (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) is the quintessential time for for packing your bags and heading off hither and yon, we thought it would be fun to talk about dream vacations. Where to the Wenches yearn to go? Read on!
Nicola here, with another of my summer historic house travelogues. I finished my latest manuscript a week ago and in traditional fashion celebrated by cleaning the house and doing some ironing. As regular readers of the Wench blog will know, this is the time we all catch up on the thousand and one things that get neglected whilst we are in our writing caves desperately trying to get to The End. Much as a city break in Europe or even a trip to the seaside might sound nice, it’s usually the mundane things that claim our attention, partly because we don’t have energy left for much else but also because we urgently need some clean clothes. However, when my husband tempted me with a visit to one of my favourite historical sites, I felt a lot more enthused for that than for ironing! So it was that on a baking hot day we set off very early in the morning for Northamptonshire and the intriguing Lyveden New Bield.
Lyveden, like so many country houses, occupies an isolated position. It’s set the middle of the glorious Northamptonshire countryside and as you approach, you see what looks like a ruin standing alone in a field. It’s an extraordinary sight. The house was the dream of Sir Thomas Tresham, a Tudor knight who was a staunch Catholic. He was a wealthy landowner who moved in the highest social circles in the county but although he was ruthlessly efficient in managing his estates to produce profit, he was also very extravagant and pursued a lavish lifestyle. It was, however, the heavy fines levied on him for following the Catholic faith that were eventually to lead to his financial downfall.
Since a posse of wenches will be attending the RNA conference in Leeds, England this month, and we’ll be visiting some historical sites while there, I thought I should brush up on the history of Leeds. Various characters in my Unexpected Magic books have passed through Leeds since it was a forerunner in the industrial revolution, which worked right into my scientific Ives’ stories.
I'm not a major mystery reader. I'm not especially interested in puzzle solving, I want interesting, likable characters, and wit is always good. I absolutely do NOT want gory stories and high body counts. In short, I tend to like cozy mysteries if they're well written and have good characters.
So every now and then I go on a cozy mystery binge with some of my favorite authors, so I thought I'd chat a bit about what I've been reading.
Mrs. Pollifax
The oldest series is Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax books, which started in the '70s and went up to 2000, I think. (Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled) Emily Pollifax is a sweet white-haired widow who raises prize geraniums and was really bored with her life. So naturally she went to the CIA and volunteered to work for them. <G>
Apart from a vague recollection of the British protectorate called Bechuanaland becoming the independent nation of Botswana, the country never registered with me until I read the first #1 Ladies Detective Agency book by Alexander McCall Smith. The protagonist, Precious Ramotse, is a mature, "traditionally built" woman with a lot of common sense who solves small mysteries through her understanding of human nature. The series is now up to 18 books.
Susanna here, packing today for more travel—this time to New York, for BookExpo America—so I thought it might be time to consult Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book, to see what advice America’s go-to etiquette expert of the mid-nineteenth century offered young ladies for such situations.
Eliza Leslie, 1844, by Thomas Sully
As always, Miss Eliza Leslie has a chapter tailored to my needs: DEPORTMENT AT A HOTEL, OR AT A LARGE BOARDING-HOUSE.
Perfect. I’ll be staying at a hotel. This chapter is exactly what I need.
Miss Leslie begins by explaining her reasons for tackling this angle of etiquette:
“Now that there is so much travelling in the summer, (and indeed at all seasons,) and so much living in public, to save the trouble and the expense of keeping house in private, it may be well to offer some hints on the propriety of manners that ought to be observed in places where you are always exposed to the inspection and to the remarks of strangers.”
All right, then. I’m ready to better my manners, my pen poised and ready to write down these gems of advice on propriety…
Nicola here, with a post that is part travelogue, part about settings and backgrounds in books.
There’s something about Cornwall, isn’t there. It rivals Scotland in the imagination as a romantic setting for a novel. It's wild, rugged and magical. Perhaps it all started with Daphne Du Maurier and with Winston Graham’s Poldark books and the TV series. I know it did for me. I grew up on the original BBC dramatization of Poldark, though my teenage heart was mostly given to Dr Enys rather than to Ross. When the more recent dramatization came out I felt it couldn’t possibly match the first one but it carved its own niche in our affections as well as raising interest in the ancient skill of scything. And as for Daphne Du Maurier’s books, well, Frenchman’s Creek is still up there on my all-time favourites list, and Jamaica Inn not so far behind. Both Du Maurier and Winston Graham created the atmosphere of historic Cornwall so evocatively that I was desperate to visit (which was neither quick nor easy 40 years ago from Yorkshire!)
A couple of weeks ago the Wenches got to chatting behind the scenes about what places feel like home, and the answers were interesting. In some cases, home is where we were born and raised even if we're not there anymore. In other cases, it's a place one has moved to and then claimed for oneself. It could be a place you've never lived. Here's what the Wenches have to say:
Andrea/Cara: I must not be very adventurous at heart, for I’ve lived in New England all my life. (There were a number of years in New York City, but I always felt I had one foot in the country, as it’s only a hop, skip and jump to the Connecticut border.) Or maybe it’s just I that I feel a great affinity to the stark and simple beauty of the area—the colonial clapboard houses of the old towns, the rugged little harbors, the meandering stone walls, the sense of history around every bend. There’s a quiet, reserved air to this part of the country—a good vibe for an introvert like me.
New Englanders are a pretty taciturn lot, perhaps a vestige of the area’s Puritan heritage, but they are also observant, and given to introspection—think Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickenson. I feel at home here, despite having traveled all over the world. I love the stubborn sense of place, the old-school traditions, the independent spirit. And I love the changing seasons—especially a New England fall, with its bright blaze of colors and crisp apple-scented air.
I like having four seasons, I like when the snow lies on the ground 'deep and crisp and even,' and I don't mind sunny days with sub-freezing temperatures. Nonetheless, a mid- winter break to a warmer place is always welcome, and often that means a Caribbean cruise.
This year's cruise started in Panama, followed the Central American coast north, and visited Cozumel and Key West before ending in Ft. Lauderdale. We chose it because the itinerary included places we'd never been before.
Nicola here. Today I’m doing one of my virtual tours of an English stately home. On Monday, author Anna Campbell and I went on a day trip, as we tend to do when she is over visiting from Australia. This time our destination was Dyrham Park, a seventeenth century house near Bath which looks like a miniature version of Chatsworth House, home of the Duke of Devonshire. Dyrham was built at a very interesting time by a very interesting man: William Blathwayt, who started life as the son of a debt-ridden gentleman and ended a very rich man who made his fortune in the service of several monarchs.
Dyrham was built in the 1690s, when the Stuarts were on the throne but the dynasty had changed direction somewhat after James II was deposed and his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William had become joint King and Queen. William Blathwayt was very much a supporter of King William and he used the new house he was building at Dyrham Park to demonstrate his loyalty.
At a time when most houses were built out of local materials, Dyrham was an “international” house as William Blathwayt was able to use his extensive contacts in England and abroad to provide the raw materials. He ordered marble from Genoa, pine and spruce from Norway, and black walnut and red cedar from North America. In terms of furnishings, William had experienced first hand the fashionable style of the court. He imported a trunk of luxury items from the Netherlands including various printed silks and cottons with exotic designs, fine damask silks and crimson velvets. The interior of the house looks very rich and bright today; in candle light it must have seemed very lustrous and luxurious.
My favourite part of the house was the staircase, which was constructed out of black walnut and red cedar from Virginia and Carolina. Other American timber used in the construction was pine and cypress. It’s astonishing to look at the staircase today and imagine the journey made by those timbers all the way from the rivers of North America across the Atlantic to Bristol and London. The transport caused lots of problems because often the planks 18 – 24 feet in length, were too large for the ships or the captains charged huge fees to transport it! When some of the timber was brought up the Thames from London, the wood had cost £40 and the transport cost £10, an exorbitant sum. However Blathwayt was a rich man and wanted the best for his house – and the best was what he got!
The strong Dutch influence in the house is still visible today in the gilt leather panelling on the walls and the many pieces of Delft ceramics. A number of the paintings are also by Dutch artists including the amazing “A view through the house” by Samuel van Hoogstraten, which captures a moment when a door opens and the viewer sees the world within. I loved this picture and wanted to step into it – or write a story set inside it! Another gorgeous picture was of a cocoa tree and a roasting hit; it illustrates the process of turning cacao into chocolate!
William’s library was the jewel of his house, a sentiment that we could totally endorse! He had a huge collection of books on law, history, religion, geography, politics and philosophy. He also had a number of dictionaries – as a fluent Dutch speaker, which was very rare in England, he was very interested in languages.
The furniture on display in the house still contains a number of items from William Blathwayt’s original 17th century collection, most notably the state bed. This is a towering wooden four poster covered in crimson and gold silk, velvet and satin. Like so many beds from the period it looked very narrow and uncomfortable to me, more a single bed than a double, let alone a king or Queen size. The legend is that was ordered to encourage Queen Anne to come and visit when she was in Bath. Sadly she didn’t call!
King William and Queen Mary were keen gardeners and one of the ways for courtiers to curry favour was by copying their garden style, which Blathwayt did to great effect at Dyrham. Even on a dull day in winter the gardens looked gorgeous, with exotic trees, water cascades and elegant walkways. Blathwayt used both the trees and the statuary to declare his loyalty to the king; there is an orangery at Dyrham full of orange trees, a not particularly subtle tribute to the fact that William III was from the House of Orange! A statue of Hercules also draws comparisons with the king, suggesting that he is a courageous and virtuous hero. There’s nothing like a bit of flattery to ingratiate yourself with the monarch!
My favourite aspect of the garden, though, was the fact that William, a businessman to the last, had declared that the estate must be as self-sufficient as possible when it came to fruit and vegetables. He was quite ahead of his time with this ecological view and grew a range of apples and pear trees for cider and perry production, quince for jam and various other “organic” crops! He came unstuck with the mulberry bush, however, as he had planned to cultivate white mulberries to encourage silkworms but unfortunately he imported the black mulberry instead. It still bears fruit but the silkworms aren’t interested!
Visiting Dyrham Park was gorgeous but I did come away wondering about the concept of demonstrating your loyalty to a person or a cause through the way you decorate your home. Presumably if William Blathwayt had fallen out of favour with the King he would have had to re-decorate his house and re-design his garden!
If you were to design your house or garden as a tribute to a famous person, who would it be? Would you honour them with plants, statues, pictures or something unique and different?
I've loved introducing new readers to my classic Bride trilogy, which had been languishing in obscurity for years. Now the last book, The Bartered Bride, is due to be released as an ebook tomorrow (February 8th).
All three books are marriage of convenience of one sort or another, and The Bartered Bride is no exception. The review from Publishers Weekly said, "(Gavin and Alex's) journey from strangers to spouses to true lovers is utterly authentic." And a long and challenging journey it is!
The story was partially inspired by requests I had for a story about Amy Melbourne, the intrepid young daughter of Catherine Melbourne, heroine of my Fallen Angels book, Shattered Rainbows. Catherine had married a cavalry officer and "followed the drum" through the Peninsular campaigns, caring for her husband, nursing the wounded, and raising her fearless young daughter. Amy played an important role in her mother's story, and readers wanted to see more of her.
So did I, but I had to wait till she grew up, which is why the Bride trilogy is set a little post-Regency. More than that, I knew that if Amy got into trouble anywhere in Britain, her warrior stepfather, Lord Michael Kenyon, would swoop in to save her from harm because that's the kind of man he was. But that would interfere with Amy's own romance. <G>
It took me time to work out her story. Not only did I decide I'd have to send her halfway around the world, but she informed me that "Amy" was too much a little girl's name and she much preferred to be called by her middle name, Alexandra. (Teenagers!) So she became Alex, and after being widowed in Australia, she heads for home with a young daughter of her own. Here's the blurb for the story:
After building a fortune in the exotic East, American adventurer and merchant prince Gavin Elliott sets his sails for London to begin a new life. Then fate intervenes on an infamous island in the East Indies where he discovers an Englishwoman facing degradation and peril. Though saving her may cost Gavin his life, he cannot refuse to help the fierce beauty who touches his heart and soul with her unconquerable spirit.
Alexandra Warren is returning home from Australia as a widow and mother when a pirate attack condemns her to a life of servitude. A miracle arrives in the form of a steely-eyed Yankee captain whose reckless courage wins them freedom and a safe passage home to London. Intimate strangers joined by too many secrets, they slowly begin to heal the past with attraction and tenderness--until an old enemy reaches out to threaten the passionate love Gavin has found with his irresistible bartered bride.
Alex and Gavin's story has lots of adventure, powerful romance, and of course a happy ending, though there were some serious black moments! There's also the opportunity to see Catherine and Michael and other Fallen Angels characters. Here's an excerpt:
Alex had finally dozed off in a corner of the cage, but she jerked upright at the sound of footsteps. Slavery had taught her that changes were seldom for the better, and she’d been frightened ever since guards brought her to the palace to confine her in this triple locked cage in a strange, luxurious chamber.
At first, the dim light of the single lamp showed only the arrival of a tall, intimidating male. Then she recognized the European who’d visited the slave market. She’d begun to wonder if he was a hallucination, but he was real enough—a tall, powerful man with an air of command. Those gray eyes and the fair hair sun-bleached to gold had to be European. Involuntarily she rose and crossed the cage, pressing against the bars as she studied him hungrily. The gaudy uniform wasn’t British—perhaps German or Scandinavian.
She clamped down on her longing by reminding herself that being European didn’t mean he’d help her. Though she had instinctively pleaded for his aid at the market, now that they were face to face she reminded herself that Westerners who frequented the far corners of the world were often adventurers and renegades. Perhaps this one had asked the sultan for the use of the European slave woman.
No matter. Even if his motives were vile, he was her best chance for freedom, and she’d do whatever necessary to ingratiate herself so he’d help her.
The man halted with shock when he saw her. Glad that he probably wasn’t responsible for her presence, she asked, “Do you speak English? Parlez vous Francais?”
“Both,” he replied in English. “How did you come to be in my rooms?”
“I have no idea.” Unable to repress her bitterness, she added, “Slaves aren’t usually told why things happen to them.”
His expression tightened. “I’m sorry—that was a foolish question.”
Though she’d repaired her battered cotton shirt as best she could, she was uncomfortably aware of how her breasts strained against the thin, worn fabric. She was larger than most Island women, and there had been no kebaya her size.
When his gaze reached her breasts, he looked away in embarrassment. She found that reassuring—a man with a sense of the decencies might be more likely to help her.
He stepped into the bedroom and returned with a neatly folded shirt. “Would you like this?”
“Oh, please!” He passed his shirt through the bars and she immediately pulled it over her head. The garment fell almost to her knees. Before rolling up the sleeves, she rubbed her face in the crisp white fabric. “This smells so good. So clean.”
He glanced around the cage, which contained nothing but her and a brass chamber pot. “Do you need anything else? Food or drink?”
She moistened her lips. Not having eaten or drunk since early that morning, she’d spent her first hour in the cage staring longingly across the room at a bowl of fruit on a low table. “Water, please. And then…could I have some fruit?”
“Of course.” He set the fruit bowl on the floor so she could reach through the bars to help herself.
While she peeled and ate a juicy local orange called a jeruk manis, the man collected pillows from a bench and pushed them through the bars. Gratefully she sank onto one. The last months had made her appreciate even the smallest of comforts.
“No water, only rice wine, I’m afraid.” He settled on another pillow outside the cage, holding a bottle and two glasses. “Drink with caution. This has quite a kick.”
“Thank you.” The rice wine went rather well with the banana that she chose, and she welcomed the spreading warmth that unknotted tight muscles. She closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the company of her own kind. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten proper behavior. My name is Alexandra Warren, and I’m English.”
“I’m Gavin Elliott out of Boston, and master of a merchant ship.” He noted her gaze. “Ignore the uniform—it was designed only to dazzle.”
An American? Not quite as good as a fellow Briton, but close enough.
Actually, though Gavin considers himself American, he was born in Scotland, a fact which causes him trouble in this story. Here are several reviewer quotes:
"a story you can't put down"—TheBestReviews.com
"a hero to-die-for" —Suzanne Coleburn
"a finely crafted tale by a mistress of the genre"—Romantic Times, Kathe Robin
Books 1 and 2 of the trilogy, The Wild Child and The China Bride, are also available as e-books. These are some of my most sweeping, adventurous stories, and if you read them, I hope you enjoy the characters and their adventures as much as I enjoyed writing them.
I'll be giving away a free copy of The Bartered Bride to one commentor between now and midnight Thursday. Have you read Gavin and Alex's story? Do you want to?
Mary Jo, ending with her tagline for the Bride Trilogy:
Three extraordinary women, Three powerful men, Three passionate, unlikely marriages.
It is not news that Britain is an island. Not just an island, but part of an archipelago, a wide flung collection of islands including Ireland, the Hebrides that are the wild western fringe of Scotland, Shetland and Orkney away to the north, the Scilly Isles scattered southwest from Cornwall, the yachting Isle of Wight to the south, and many more: there are two major islands, Great Britain and Ireland, some middling sized ones, and over 6000 smaller ones, some not much larger than rocks, but still… (Photo at left from Wikipedia by Jeff Schmaltz, Modis/NASA.)
I'm delighted to have retrieved the rights to my Bride trilogy. Book 1, The Wild Child was released in November, and now book 2, The China Bride is available. Here is the tagline I came up with for the trilogy:
Three extraordinary women, Three powerful men, Three passionate, unlikely marriages.
When I wrote that, I realized that all three are marriages of convenience that become true marriages of the heart. In other words, pure romance!
As a kid, I was always fascinated by the distant, empty spaces on the maps at school, which may be why I've written a number of books where my intrepid British protagonists have adventures in distant lands.
(I've learned I can usually do about three exotic settings in a row before my publisher starts muttering about returning to Britain. <G>)
But China has special resonance for me because I grew up hearing my mother's stories about living in China when she was a girl. Her father was an anatomy professor at the Peking college of medicine, and there are pictures of my mother and her little brother bundled up to ice skate. She also had a marvelous collection of Chinese jewelry, brass ware, rugs, and embroidered Mandarin garments, which stimulated my imagination wonderfully.
Those of you who follow the wenches regularly know that I’m a notorious sun lover. Even though I now live in Southern California, the land of sun, I still love traveling to the southern hemisphere and enjoying the long days of summer while the US is experiencing the short days of winter. Since our son, the ultimate sun-lover, lives in the Philippines, we meet every other year in a warm place none of us have explored. This year, it was New Zealand.
The written history of New Zealand isn’t very long. The country was the last habitable place in the world to be discovered—the Maori didn’t arrive until roughly 1200 AD, after Polynesia became overcrowded. We have only their oral history for that.
The first European to discover NZ was a Dutch explorer in 1642, Abel Tasman. We visited a spectacular national park named after him, right along the western coast with untouched natural beaches, rock formations, and amazing wildlife.
But it wasn’t until Captain James Cook arrived in 1769 that traders began arriving regularly. While the US was fighting a revolution, New Zealand was no more than a lawless trading post, fighting with the local Maori for the valuables they could strip from the land, and destroying flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. (extinct Moa from the Auckland museum)
Not until 1840 did the British establish a government, in cooperation with the Maori. Maybe because New Zealand was established so late in history, it grew at a slower pace and in what I consider to be a more civilized fashion. Agriculture still seems to be the predominant business—no big box stores and sprawling suburbs. They still have real downtowns!
We could barely cover the entire country, much less delve deeply into culture and history, in our spare two weeks. But we did our best! Auckland has a fabulous museum where almost the entire first floor is devoted to Maori artifacts and history. From Auckland, we drove to Hobbiton—in the farmlands south of Matamata. The rolling hills remind me of the Cotswolds. I could have spent far more time there, just as I’ve always wanted to linger in the Cotswolds. The Hobbiton movie set was built on a farm and if you arrive early enough, before the crowds, it’s a little like walking through the movie. You expect Bilbo or Samwise to step out of their homes at any time. The flowers are maintained by the young student employees, and it’s very much like walking through an old English village—except for the hobbit doors!
Ever onwward, we traveled south to Rotorua, home of fascinating hot springs that fill the town with the scent of sulfur when the wind blows the right way. There are several Maori villages there, where local families offer insight into the traditional language, music, and culture. I’m not too much on bathing in hot springs, but the Maori dances are a wonder to behold! (we have some great video, if only I could figure out how to download from an ipad!)
From there, we really should have gone to Christchurch, but due to various road closures, we were directed back to the opposite coast, where we explored the Abel Tasman park mentioned earlier.
Since we’re not athletic, don’t backpack, bicycle, or climb mountains, we spent more time driving through the mountainous south island than actually exploring it. At the last minute, we decided to skip the glaciers and cross back over to historic Christchurch. I could easily have spent a week there, but we were running out of time. So we trotted quickly through the botanical garden, adored the Nor'West Arch Morris Dancers dancers, didn’t have time for the animal reserve, which we really wanted to see. And then we hiked all over the vibrant downtown area, so sadly damaged by the earthquake.
We ended our journey in Queenstown, where we ate decadent chocolates, cooked our steaks on stones, visited a fabulous bird park, and surrendered the car to take a bus tour to pristine Milford Sound, enjoying not driving anywhere for a while.
The best part of the journey, of course, was visiting with our son, but I’d go back in a heartbeat. Is there some part of the world you’d love to visit? Why?
Nicola here! There are many Christmas and New Year traditions that I enjoy. Most involve being cosy and warm, out of the elements, maybe eating special food or chatting with friends in front of the fire. I might even go for a brisk walk with the dog, particularly if it's been snowing. I've already been to the swimming pool in an attempt to start 2018 in a healthy fashion. And yet... Possibly my least favourite way to mark either Christmas or New Year would be by jumping into cold water. Perhaps I'm missing something, though, as every year, more and more people are taking the plunge to celebrate the festive season.
The tradition of "winter swimming", open air swimming in the winter season, has long been associated with Epiphany in countries like Russia and in Eastern Europe but in the UK it has become popular for reasons varying from an extreme hangover cure to raising money for charity. The earliest record of the tradition in England seems to be from 1860 when the Brighton Swimming Club, which comprised a number of tradesmen from the town, met up at 7am every day for a dip in the sea. Apparently they had formed the club two years earlier when they had all decided they wanted to learn to swim, which is rather cute. Many other Christmas and New Year swims were established in the 20th century and have been running for approaching 100 years. Suitable garb these days can be anything from bikinis and mankinis to fancy dress and Santa costumes!
Lidos and open air swimming pools are nothing new, of course, but in the far north (or south) it does take a hardy spirit to embrace them. Whilst the first official lido in England was established in the Regency period at Cleveland Pools in Bath, there is a record of an open air pool at one of Oxford's colleges in the medieval period!
Have you ever celebrated the festive season with a plunge into cold water? Are there traditions like that near where you are? Or have you done something different but equally challenging to welcome in the New Year?
In the way of such things, the Gettysburg battlefield isn't much more than an hour north of me and President Lincoln's train passed a mile or so from my house on his trip to speak at the dedication of the Gettysburg Soldiers National Cemetery in November 1863, yet I'd never made a real in-depth visit to the site.
However, the Mayhem Consultant has, and to celebrate the delivery of my Book That Would Not End, he took me to Gettysburg for an overnight getaway and a proper visit.
The Battle of Gettysburg has been widely studied and written about so I won't go into much detail. The brilliant Confederate General Robert E. Lee wanted to take the war to the north, into Pennsylvania, in hopes of persuading the North ti end the fighting. The town of Gettysburg had ten roads entering it so it was a good place to assemble.
The Union Army of the Potomac was led by General George Meade, who had been in charge for a mere three days when he had to face the Southern invasion. The three day battle was fought all around the town, and was the bloodiest of the Civil War with over 50,000 casualties. The South's brave and futile attack called Pickett's Charge was called "the High Water Mark of the Confederacy" and a spot on the battlefield is designated at such.
Last week, whilst many people in England were getting excited about the first snow of winter, I was heading south to visit the wonderful island of Madeira. Madeira is a Portuguese island off the coast of North Africa and has a lovely sub-tropical climate, which meant that there were lots of colourful plants and trees in flower – and there was also a lot of rain! However, that didn’t dampen the mood as I’d wanted to visit the island for over 40 years since my grandparents first went there when I was a child. I imagine the main town, Funchal, has changed quite a bit since that time but we still found it to be an enchanting place of historical buildings and glorious botanical gardens.
Nicola here! Today I’m musing on book fairs and literary festivals. Ten days ago I had the huge honour and pleasure of being invited to speak at the Sharjah Book Fair in the UAE. Despite the fact that this is the third biggest book fair in the world and has been running for 35 years, I hadn’t heard of it before (my bad) and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Those who had experienced it told me it was a fascinating mixture of a book fair and a literary festival, but I’m so glad I had the chance to see it for myself. It was an amazing experience.
We arrived in Dubai late on a Wednesday evening. As the time difference between the UK and the UAE is 4 hours it was already dark. Seeing Dubai lit up at night had a wow factor though. It reminded me of Las Vegas in terms of the bright lights and sense of excitement. The other thing we quickly learned was that the traffic was appalling. We were stuck in a traffic jam for two hours and apparently it’s always bad except on a Friday morning which most people have as time off work.
Have you checked your bucket list lately? I don’t know that I’ve ever set down an official one, but in my head, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta was on it. And we finally checked it off! For those of you who follow my Facebook page, you’ll know I had a fabulous, magical experience.
We chose to go with a local tour group that could bus us into the balloon grounds and provide us with a VIP tent since the mass ascension starts around 5 AM and the balloon glow is necessarily after dark. Albuquerque’s altitude is over 5000’ so the weather is considerably cooler than here in Southern California. The warm tent was welcome, but it was well worth wrapping in blankets and sipping hot chocolate to walk beneath those magnificent balloons as they heated up and lifted off. Watching their colorful glow drift into the night sky was like watching the stars lift from earth.
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!
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!
As is my unfortunate custom, I hurled a manuscript into email for my editor and a few hours later left on a major vacation: in this case, a flight to Oslo where we would pick up a cruise ship in Bergen and then sail across the North Atlantic to Montreal. Which we’ve done, and it was a great way to recover from deadline panic. We saw many wonderful things, several blogs worth. I napped a lot. <G>
We sailed on a terrific Viking Ocean cruise called In the Wake of the Vikings in a brand new ship called the Viking Sky. (The Mayhem Consultant and I independently picked this itinerary out of a fat Viking catalog. Image above is from the Oslo ship museum.)
The Sky a beautiful ship with wonderful, thoughtful design at every level and I could write a blog about it, but won't because this is not an ad for Viking. <G> But here is a gorgeous horsy piece of artwork from the ship, one of many.
Every now and then a reader writes to tell me that they’ve gone on vacation to one of the settings I’ve used in my books, and have sat where my characters sat or have walked on the same path, and I’m always amazed and incredibly flattered that someone would go to the trouble of doing that.
Not that I don’t understand.
In the spring of 2007, I took a research trip to Greece, for the half-finished sequel to Every Secret Thing (which was coming along fine until the idea for TheWinterSea took over, and since then it’s been puddling along in fits and starts between the other novels…)
My mother came with me, because Greece was somewhere she’d wanted to go nearly all her life, and since we share a love of Mary Stewart's novels—some of the best of which are set in Greece—the trip, for us both, had the air of a pilgrimage.
So on our way from Athens to the island where my story would be set, we detoured north and went to Delphi.
Anne here, dashing in with a very quick blog — I'm at my third conference in four weeks, and have revised a book in between, so I'm time poor and brain-dizzy.
The middle of those conferences was in New Zealand (as any of you who read my Hobbiton post would realize) so today I'm going to give you a quick glimpse of some New Zealand places I visited.( Click on the photos for a larger view)
It was early spring, and I'd only ever visited NZ in the summer, so I kept stopping to take photos of the flowersI kept spotting in people's gardens.
The RWNZ conference was in Rotorua, a site of bubbling hot mud and gushing geysers. The first hint that you're getting close is the smell of sulphur in the air, like rotten egg gas. (All through the conference I kept thinking of a boy called Lynton Hastings, who I went to school with, and who was notorious for concocting bad smells in science class.) So that's what Rotorua smells like. (Below is the view from my hotel.)
Anne here, and I'm just back from my travels. I went first to Brisbane (capital city of the state of Queensland) for the Romance Writers of Australia conference, and then to New Zealand for the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference but I'm blogging today about neither of those events (though I will, once I've unpacked my case and sorted out my thoughts.)
Today it's all about Hobbiton, the "real live" movie set used in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
I first started to read Tolkien when I was fifteen, but never finished The Hobbit. And never read the rest. I tried again as an adult, but again, never finished. I also started to watch The Hobbit on a plane, and again, didn't finish it. So I was definitely the odd person out on the little tour I did. (I had to confess that what drew me to make the tour was my love of little houses. Yes, a deeply frivolous wench, I'm afraid. The tour guide thought so, too.)
Though I'm a lifelong reader of both historical novels and science fiction and fantasy, I somehow managed to miss Marie Brennan's Lady Trent series until I read about the upcoming release of the fifth and last of her series of memoirs written by a distinguished dragon naturalist.
Dragons? Lady Trent? Within the Sanctuary of Wings? Clearly this was something I must investigate! So I cautiously tried the first book, A Natural History of Dragons. And was hooked, big time. I've very grateful that the series was complete when I started to read it!
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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