Alice Drake!!

So happy my fifth book is now available in Kindle and paperback versions from Amazon! As I wrote in my last blog post, this story is really exciting as it draws from some of my own personal experiences. I must once again thank Marti Hilderbrand for her incredible artwork for the cover. She is an enormous blessing to me and my covers would be awful without her. link I hope everyone will share the link with friends, family, and casual acquaintances! I need all the advertising I can get. Let me show you the lovely picture from the cover.

Fifth book on the horizon!

I am so excited to announce the upcoming 5th novel, Alice Drake. This one was a lot of fun to write as my main character travels to South America. I drew on my own experience of having lived in Bolivia for a few years. I could hear the mosquitoes sing as I wrote of her jaunts through the jungle. My father and I once took a boat trip down a tributary of the Amazon river called Mamore. For eleven days we floated (and sometimes got stuck because of low water). We were actually riding on a barge tied to a boat. We hung our hammocks to racks of lumber and prayed that our mosquito nets would do their job. Of the millions and millions of mosquitoes we saw and heard on the river, only a few daredevils reached us. They penetrated a canvas hammock, sleeping bag, and clothing to draw our blood. There were horrible days, as in when my father came down with dengue fever from those horrid mosquitoes. There were incredible moments: looking into an inlet as the sun was just rising and seeing a flock of flamingos take flight, watching fresh water dolphins play in the river beside our boat, trying to visually measure caiman on the banks that were said to be more than 3 meters, and many, many more. So how does this fit with a mid-nineteenth century novel? It was an age of exploration, not for the purpose of claiming new territory, but for science and anthropology. To be sure, some non-science came out of this period. The opinions of a few men were chalked down as perfect science to explain away a perfect God. However, I believe there were those who just wanted to learn. To see nature beyond their own culture and go where few had gone. My character's parents are such people. They explore the world with awe and wonder and with no motives to prove anyone's scientific point of view. Not to mention the fact that I am quite sure mosquitoes were just as much a menace then and they are today. bzzzzzzzz

Research

I've been reading more lately. I like to read other authors of historical "clean" fiction. Sometimes I'm shocked at what passes for clean. I always think, "would I want my teenage daughter to read this?" Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes, absolutely not! Other times I am so bored by the extra filler in the book I would not recommend it to anyone. There is such a prevalent, and publisher promoted, idea that a novel should be somewhere north of 200 pages. This is ridiculous! You end up with a story chock full of adjectives and too much unnecessary detail. I don't like the feeling of wading through a heap of adjectives to finally arrive at the actual story. I recently read Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho" all the way through. So much wordage was spent describing grass that was simply being passed in a coach, that I was tempted to skim. I persevered and read the entire book. Whew. I feel so accomplished. Ok, not really. I do realize that my books are short. But then, I have always been a firm believer in concise speech and writing. I want to deliver a story with plenty of detail, but not an abundance of "snow" as we called it in university. I would love to hear what my readers think! I was told recently that someone special to me didn't like one of my books, but loved another. Such is authorship. I would absolutely love to have ideas and opinions given to me! Please share the links for my books. They make wonderful inexpensive gifts!

Reading

Beth Fordham came out last month! I've been contemplating ways to promote my books. I'm coming up empty, quite frankly. I do not have an agent, and can't afford what it costs to have others promote my books. The struggles of the modern author! I am still writing, proofing, and dreaming, however. I love writing. I have always been half in my own imagination and half in the real world. In my dreams I live in mid-nineteenth century and mucking about the country villages of England looking for fabulous stories. Of course, I draw from my love of Jane Austen, but her stories were set half a century before mine. 1850-60s were incredible years of innovation. Industrial advancement was exploding in factories, mining, transportation, and communication. It was an exciting time. Instead of taking a week in a coach to cross the country, it was a matter of a day in trains. Wars were being waged in fashion, the ever present dispute over wool, cotton, and silk. Steam ships brought news of the entire world in much less time than before. Travel across the continents became accessible to a much broader range of social ranks. Lovely! So, I sit contemplating my eighth book. hmmmmm. As a joke, I've begun to write a post-apocalyptic novel. Not my genre! Oh well! The story was in my head 2 mornings ago. So I will spill it on paper and see where it goes. Beth Fordham LINK.

Coming soon! Beth Fordham. She is the oldest of 6 siblings and comes from a small island off the coast of England. Will she be confined to the suitors on the island, or will she marry far and away better than she had dared to dream? This story has mystery, attempted murder, blessings, and much more! I'm excited to share this book with my readers. Once again, my dear friend Marti Hilderbrand provided the exquisite artwork for the cover. It is so very beautiful, it makes me sigh.

Just to share a little of my creative process: I do a ton of research for each book. (Especially since I can't afford to travel to my preferred locations). Once I have done the research, I pick and choose truthful and historical facts to use in my stories. I also add a lot of, well, fiction. These are my stories, after all. I move towns around to suit my story. I suppose literal geographers could get offended at my fictional geography, but again, it's fiction. When I include historical events, they are true to the date which I am writing about. I've just finished my 7th manuscript and it is absolutely loaded with industrial revolutions in that period. It's quite exciting!


So, I will give you a piece of Beth here:

     Near four o'clock in the afternoon the following day, Milford Cummings rode his rather short pony down the road toward the Fordham's cottage. He was not an imposition to the beast since he was fence rail thin and very tall. He wore a tall hat, even though no one else on this side of the island did. His nose in the air, he nudged his mount to quicken her pace. When he arrived at the cottage, Frank appeared to take the reins of Milford's horse. “Thank you,” he said in a condescending tone. He tugged on his coat and waistcoat and proceeded to the door.

      Out of respect for her parents, Beth had dressed in her light blue Sunday muslin and arranged her hair neatly. Even though she would appear outwardly compliant, she had every intention of turning this Romeo away as well. She knew too much of him to do otherwise. He was a known flirt with everything female in the parish and it had even been whispered about that he was more than just flirtatious with women from Walney to Oxford. He gave her the shivers every Sunday when he would purposefully gaze from her head to toes. He had no chosen profession, other than the educated son of a clergyman. She could not, would not, spend the rest of her life with him.

New book coming!

My life continues to be really busy and publishing another book has been on the back burner. However, now I am happy to say that I finished re-painting my entire house and have taken some time to ready my next book for publishing! I'm excited about this one. It was actually the very first novel I wrote in the Victorian historical romance genre. I have had it sitting in the computer for a couple of years fermenting. I say fermenting because I believed it to be lacking something major in the plot (and it was a bit too short). So, I published two other novels that I had deemed ready while I stewed over what to add to this one. Recently, it finally came to me and I excitedly added in the bits this book needed. I am really happy with it now and hope my readers will be as well.

 Let me give you a summary: Cathrine was born into a poor family, or so she thinks. After becoming an orphan, she is subjected to a life of a servant. She is given a different role of servant when she is forced to become the companion of a wealthy girl her own age. For ten years she lives a life of constant reminder that she is well beneath her employer's family. Strange and amazing things begin to happen in her life and in the end she is overwhelmed with acceptance, love, and happiness.
  I must once again thank my dear friend, Marti Hilderbrand, who does absolutely gorgeous drawings for my book covers. She is so talented and I feel the love from each of her drawings. I love that I can describe the character of my new book and she defines the person perfectly with her pencil. Thank you, dearie!! As a sneak peek, I am going to share the cover here!

Please share the links for this blog and also the links for my other two books! I need your help!

What I'm doing

My days have been so busy the past three weeks. Not only have been touching up the paint on our entire house, but I've also been working on my sixth novel. Add to this that I am finishing the sixth week of an online course from the University of Sheffield in England called Literature of the English Country House. It's been fascinating! I don't earn any credit for the course and it was free. Each week they covered a different aspect of country houses and how they are depicted and influential in classic literature. For my own writing it has been enlightening. I love studying the history of some of the famous country houses of England. Well, I shan't bore you with more about my class.

This is Chatsworth House, the believed inspiration for Pemberley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I do believe that house would inspire most anyone. The truth is that a miniscule fraction of society could afford a house like this. Even the nobility who lived there earned extra cash by the tours which Jane wrote about in her book. For the moment, though, we can enjoy the serene situation of this house and enjoy nineteenth century literature! 
Here's a reminder to share the links for my books and recommend them if you have read them!