Unbridled Books Holiday Cheer: Day 2

Tuesday 28 December, 2010 By 3 Comments

Unbridled Books asked authors to share who they would like to have dinner with or to share favourite recipes and over the next few days I will be sharing four of these with my readers.  Two authors I have read, reviewed and highly recommend and the other author I anxiously looking forward to reading.

Today’s submission is from Joyce Hinnefeld, author of In Hovering Flight and Stranger Here Below.

This pumpkin pie recipe was my mom’s; I copied it years ago, from a tattered index card in one of her overstuffed recipe boxes. It’s a little different from other pumpkin pies I’ve tasted–has a more custard-like consistency, less heavy on the pumpkin pulp–and it’s been a hit with friends and family at Thanksgiving and other dinners for a long time.

Of course, to make it as good as possible, you need a nice homemade crust like the one my mom always made. I’ve discovered that it’s very similar to the King Arthur Flour traditional pie crust recipe http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pie-crust-recipe

In her earliest pie-baking days, I believe my mom used lard (the real thing; she grew up on a farm), but I remember her using Crisco shortening, exclusively. Now, when I make the crust, I use half shortening and half butter.

I also cook fresh pumpkin for the filling instead of using the canned stuff. It’s really time consuming, yes, but it’s become a nice tradition in our household; we use as much as possible of the pumpkins we buy for Halloween this way (and one year we even used one that appeared in our little garden, apparently growing from some seeds that were in the compost we’d spread in the spring). I steam chunks of the pumpkin flesh and then puree them; if you do this, though, you also have to remember to boil the pureed pulp for quite a while, to cook out as much of the liquid as possible (if you skip this step, you’ll have the runny pies I had one year). Be sure to extract the seeds and then mix them with a bit of vegetable oil and salt and roast them in a warm oven for an hour and half or so. Remember, too, that you can do this part ahead of time and freeze the pureed pumpkin until you’re ready to make pies.

Or, you can buy canned pumpkin! That really works fine too.

Here are the recipes:

Joyce’s Mom’s Pie Crust

1 c. flour
1/2 c. shortening
3/4 t. salt
1/4 c. ice cold water

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut half the shortening into the flour, until it resembles coarse meal. Add rest of shortening and again using pastry blender or two knives, cut into the mixture until it resembles peas. Add water a little at a time, carefully mixing it into the flour-shortening mixture with a fork, lifting and lightly stirring, until it can be formed into a ball. Don’t handle it any more than absolutely necessary, or it may become tough. With floured rolling pin, roll out on a floured surface.

This makes one nine-inch shell, for a single pumpkin pie.

Joyce’s Mom’s Pumpkin Pie

2 eggs
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 1/4-1 1/2 c. pureed pumpkin or canned pumpkin
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. allspice
1/8 t. ginger
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
1 1/2 c. milk (Use one 13-oz. can evaporated milk and finish measure with regular milk.)

Beat eggs. Continue beating while adding sugar. Mix in pumpkin, spices, and salt. Last, add the milk and vanilla. Pour into a 9-inch unbaked pie shell; sprinkle top with additional cinnamon. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake until firm (about 30 minutes or a little longer).

Joyce Hinnefeld is an award-winning writer and author of In Hovering Flight and Stranger Here Below published by Unbridled Books.


Title: In Hovering Flight
Author: Joyce Hinnefeld
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Publication Date: August 25, 2009
Paperpack: 288 pages
ISBN: 978-1932961898
Genre: Fiction

My review maybe read here.


Title: Stranger Here Below
Author: Joyce Hinnefeld
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Publication Date: September 28, 2010
Hardcover: 288 pages
ISBN: 978-1609530044
Genre: Fiction

My review may be read here.

My sincere gratitude to Unbridled Books as well as author Joyce Hinnefeld for allowing me to share this Holiday Cheer with my readers.

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Unbridled Books Holiday Cheer: Day 1

Monday 27 December, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Unbridled Books asked authors to share who they would like to have dinner with or to share favourite recipes and over the next few days I will be sharing four of these with my readers. Two authors I have read, reviewed and highly recommend and the other author I anxiously looking forward to reading.

Today’s submission is from Jason Quinn Malott, author of The Evolution of Shadows and my review of his brilliant novel may be read here.

Jason Quinn Malott on which author he’d invite to Christmas dinner.

Generally, I try to hide during Christmas. I find it tedious and miserable; marred by a severe loss of faith and an incredible disillusionment at people’s inability to let Christmas be Christmas but instead to make it a social, and political, cudgel. No matter how much I try to withdraw from it, my mother still asks me what I want for Christmas. “Nothing” is not an acceptable answer. My late father, thankfully, managed on occasion to humor me and give me nothing. So, in an attempt to gently stop it all, I began providing my mother with a list of impossible things. At first, it was a book contract. Then, once the book contract came along on its own, I asked for the film rights to sell (still on the list, Mr. Darren Aronofsky, or Mr. Ang Lee). I also throw in the tantalizing object just out of financial reach, like an iPad, or Adobe InDesign, or a new digital SLR camera. This year, I’m adding a New Year’s Eve dinner with Michael Ondaatje to my list of impossible things. Every year I reread all or part of his novels, and would love to talk with him about those, new projects, and how to have a long career as a writer.

Jason Quinn Malott is the publisher of the online literary journal The Project for a New Mythology. The Evolution of Shadows is his first novel.

Title: The Evolution of Shadows
Author: Jason Quinn Malott
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Publication Date: October 30, 2009
Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 978-1932961843
Genre: Fiction

My review of Jason’s brilliant novel may be read here.

My sincere gratitude to Unbridled Books as well as author Jason Quinn Malott for allowing me to share this Holiday Cheer with my readers.

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Susanna Kearsley Guest Blogger, Author of The Winter Sea

Thursday 2 December, 2010 By 1 Comment

Why I Made My Heroine a Writer

First of all, Jennifer, thank you so much for inviting me here as your guest. This is my first-ever blog tour, and it’s nice to be starting in such a friendly place.

Your question is also a good one. The classic advice writers get is to write what we know, but in my case I don’t often write about writers. It’s true the heroine of my very first novel was a writer, and the heroine of my thriller was a journalist, which is sort of the same thing, but she spent most of the book in constant peril and was on the run too much to stop and write.

In between I’ve had an actress, a receptionist, a literary agent, a shopkeeper, and a finds supervisor on an archaeological dig, and it’s always been interesting choosing and researching jobs for my heroines. But when I came to write Carrie McClelland, the modern-day woman who narrates the The Winter Sea, I knew she had to somehow bind the contemporary and historical threads of the storyline together, and because I didn’t want to send her back in time herself, I had to find some other way to let her function as a conduit between the present and the past.

I’ve had a fascination with the concept of genetic memory since I first discussed it with a woman I met travelling through Cornwall twenty years ago, and I thought it might be an interesting way for Carrie to connect with the events of 1708 – to simply let her “remember” what her ancestor had lived through in the Jacobite intrigues.

Inherited memories, I thought, if they did exist, must be held somewhere deep in the subconscious – the same place that drives my own writing. So if I made Carrie a writer, like me, she’d be accessing her own subconscious all the time, unknowingly, while writing, and the memories might believably get mixed in with the story she’d created.

I saw, too, how letting Carrie be a writer helped the plot in other ways. For one thing, I could structure the past story as a book within a book, to give it shape and keep things somewhat less confusing. And if Carrie were a writer, I could let her have a few of the adventures I’d had doing research for my books – the things that hadn’t had a place in any other book I’d written. I could give her the 50p coin meter I’d had myself when I’d lived in my old house in Wales, and my challenging Aga as well, and a village of people all ready to help and take care of her.

There are so many people who’ve helped me to research my own books, but even the ones whom I thank in my author’s notes still remain faceless to readers, so it was especially nice to be able to give a few of them a place in The Winter Sea, and to show just how important they are to the work that I do.

I wouldn’t want to make every heroine of mine a writer, because I do so love learning about other people’s professions, and weaving that new knowledge into my novels. But in choosing to let Carrie be a writer, I believe I made the right choice for this book. I can’t imagine any other job she could have done that would have served the story quite so well, or shown me that it doesn’t hurt, from time to time, to take the ancient rule to heart and write about the things we know.


THE WINTER SEA BY SUSANNA KEARSLEY – IN STORES DECEMBER 2010
History has all but forgotten…

In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown.

Now, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn that story into her next bestselling novel. Settling herself in the shadow of Slains Castle, she creates a heroine named for one of her own ancestors and starts to write.

But when she discovers her novel is more fact than fiction, Carrie wonders if she might be dealing with ancestral memory, making her the only living person who knows the truth—the ultimate betrayal—that happened all those years ago, and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her…

About the Author
After studying politics and international development at University, Susanna Kearsley worked as a museum curator before turning her hand to writing. Winner of the UK’s Catherine Cookson Fiction prize, Susanna Kearsley’s writing has been compared to Mary Stewart, Daphne DuMaurier, and Diana Gabaldon. Her books have been translated into several languages, selected for the Mystery Guild, condensed for Reader’s Digest, and optioned for film. The Winter Sea was a finalist for both a RITA award and the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year Award, and is a nominee for Best Historical Fiction in the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Awareds. She lives in Canada, near the shores of Lake Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.susannakearsley.com/.

My review of The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley may be read here.

My sincere thanks to Susanna Kearsley  and Sourcebooks for making this author post possible.

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Interview With Author Helen Hollick, Author of The Forever Queen

Wednesday 10 November, 2010 By 3 Comments

1. Did you always want to be a writer?
HH: Yes, I was scribbling stories when I was thirteen. If not writing I was reading. Characters, whether in books or my own made up ones, were my best friends. I was a lonely, shy child; I felt happy and secure in the world of Imagination.

2. You have a few different series out in publication, all of differing topics. How did you decide to write about these historical topics?
HH: The Arthurian novels, The Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy (The Kingmaking, Pendragon’s Banner, and Shadow of the King), I wrote because I wanted to tell the story of Arthur as it might have really happened. No magic or fantasy, no Merlin, Lancelot, or holy grail. Just Arthur as a post-Roman warlord who had to fight hard for his kingdom – and twice as hard to keep it.

I Am The Chosen King (coming to the US in March 2011; first published in 2004 and Harold the King in the UK) I wrote for a similar reason; I wanted to put the record straight about the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. I stripped the history of Norman propaganda and wrote the story from the English point of view – King Harold’s.  The first incorrect fact I uncovered while researching was that Duke William of Normandy had no right to the English throne whatsoever, and Harold was not killed by an arrow in the eye during the Battle of Hastings.

I started on The Forever Queen after finishing Harold/Chosen King, even though the story comes first chronologically. Queen Emma was the mother of King Edward the Confessor and therefore involved in Harold’s life.  I was so fascinated by her I decide to write her story as well.

My other series is the Sea Witch Voyages – pirate based historical adventure.  Sharp blended with Indiana Jones at sea.  All good fun and a cracking treasure chest of a read.

3. How long does it typically take you to complete a book?
HH: It took me ten years to write what eventually became The Kingmaking and half of Pendragon’s Banner, but I was only writing now and then; evenings, weekends, lunch hour. Harold/Chosen King and the original English edition of Forever Queen took me about two or three years to research and write.

Sea Witch I wrote in two months – non-stop, except for a break on Christmas day

4. Do you have a specific schedule you keep to when writing?
HH: I would like to show off and say “Yes of course,” but I’m nowhere near disciplined enough. I do try to answer e-mails, chat on Twitter and Facebook in the mornings, then I will usually update one of my several blogs, break for lunch, and then start work. I write better of an evening – and I’m an owl not a lark. I stay up late

5. Where do you get your inspiration or ideas for your books?
HH: I have a theory that at night because most people are asleep there is more spare Imagination to go round. LOL

Historical novels, of course, spark their own creativity, either through the events of the past or curiosity about the people themselves.  I came up with the idea for the Sea Witch Voyages because I was interested enough in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie to find out more about the reality of pirates – which led to me walking along a beach in the drizzling rain thinking up an entire plot.  I sat on a rock, looked up – and there was my Jesamiah Acorne.  Was he imagined?  Did I really see him?  Who knows.  He’s real enough to me now!

6. What do you think it takes to make a good story?
HH: I suppose it depends on what you particularly like. Some people avidly read horror – I hate horror (have enough nightmares as it is, thank you). I’m not keen on romance either. Whatever the genre, though, a well written novel should immediately take you into the story, the characters and action, intrigue, or historical drama sucking you in and holding you fast until the last page. For a good read the characters must be real, they must come alive; be the reader’s friend, lover, hero, heroine, or enemy. That last page should leave a feeling of regret that you’ve finished – and send you looking for another tale by the same author or in the same series.

7. Of all your books, which is your favorite? Why?
HH: Unfair question LOL – that’s like asking a mother which one of her brood of children does she love the most! The Kingmaking is a favourite because it was my first novel.  Harold the King is a favourite because I am the most proud of it. The Forever Queen is special because it is the first of my books to start doing very well in the US and Sea Witch is my best favourite because I loved writing every single word of it and I adore my pirate, Jesamiah..

8. Which of your characters would you most/least to invite to dinner, and why?
HH: Jesamiah – but then he’d drink all my rum and I’d have to make sure he had a bath first (pirate)!  I think Queen Emma was a fascinating woman so I would like to invite her – but her first husband Æthelred was a tedious bore.  He can stay away.

9. What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?
HH: Well I suppose it has to be two things. One; that I can write. I was hopeless at school and no one had much faith in me.  I thought writers were clever people who had University degrees and things, I barely scraped through three basic exams. So to discover that I actually do have a gifted talent for telling a good story is still a wonder to me.  The second thing is that I would never have dreamed that through my writing I could meet so many lovely people – some only via the Internet, others in person. You are all fabulous, thank you.

10. Is there anything you would like readers to know that you have not previously been asked about before?
HH: Perhaps a practical answer here. Many of your readers will also be hopeful writers, and many novice writers want to write novels because they think they will make money from their books. I’m afraid that is wishful thinking. The majority of authors earn enough to pay a few everyday bills, maybe help out with the mortgage if they are lucky, but as a regular income? Forget it. If you are self or independently published the chances are you may just about cover your costs; don’t expect much else. The big money-earner authors are few and far between – although it’s those writers we hear about most.

If you want to write, do it for the love of writing, not for the financial reward.  That way, you will achieve your dream

THE FOREVER QUEEN BY HELEN HOLLICK – IN STORES NOVEMBER 2010
What kind of woman becomes the wife of two kings, and the mother of two more?

Saxon England, 1002. Not only is Æthelred a failure as King, but his young bride, Emma of Normandy, soon discovers he is even worse as a husband. When the Danish Vikings, led by Swein Forkbeard and his son, Cnut, cause a maelstrom of chaos, Emma, as Queen, must take control if the Kingdom—and her crown—are to be salvaged. Smarter than history remembers, and stronger than the foreign invaders who threaten England’s shores, Emma risks everything on a gamble that could either fulfill her ambitions and dreams or destroy her completely.

Emma, the Queen of Saxon England, comes to life through the exquisite writing of Helen Hollick, who shows in this epic tale how one of the most compelling and vivid heroines in English history stood tall through a turbulent fifty-year reign of proud determination, tragic despair, and triumph over treachery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Hollick lives in northeast London with her husband, daughter and a variety of pets, which include several horses, cats and two dogs. She has two major interests: Roman / Saxon Britain and the Golden Age of Piracy–the early eighteenth century.  Sourcebooks Landmark will release the next chapter on Helen’s 1066 saga, I Am the Chosen King, in Spring 2011. For more information, please visit http://www.helenhollick.net/.

Thank you Helen for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to answer questions for readers of my blog. I definitely would enjoy having dinner with Jesamiah. Fancy all the main characters meeting, now that would be an extremely entertaining dinner party!

I have been fortunate enough to read all of Helen Hollick’s books UK and US versions and look forward to further releases from her. My review of her US released title The Forever Queen may be read here.

My sincere gratitude to Sourcebooks for making all of this possible.

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Guest Author Sharon Lathan-Author of In The Arms of Mr. Darcy

Thursday 28 October, 2010 By 7 Comments

Embracing a Time of Change

In the early days when I began writing about Mr. Darcy and his new bride, the former Elizabeth Bennet, my focus was centered on presenting them as a newly married couple and their fledgling life at Pemberley. Research primarily delved into the daily activities normal for the Regency Era, social mores, and estate management. Along the way I gradually found myself becoming intrigued by the era in a broader sense, moving past fashion and etiquette to politics and history.

History has fascinated me since high school. All history! Which means that I have tended to flip from culture to culture and century to century without deeply investigating a single one. Fortunately, the more I learned about these decades encompassing the latter part of the eighteenth century and first portions of the nineteenth I realized how interesting it was. I was hooked!

Largely my excitement was piqued by the Industrial Revolution that was in full swing and the rapid changes occurring in England. Wars had raged for a long while, the upsets resulting in economic, political, and social instability. A rising middle class gained power and disturbed the established supremacy of the aristocracy and gentry class. Social reform rose out of the ashes of war and the increasing poverty of the lower class. Educated, inventive, forward-thinking men turned to science for answers. Modernization of industry, improvement in medical care, efficient enhancements to daily life, and standardized law enforcement are only a few of the areas radically transformed during this time period.

Some commentators theorize that one of the reasons Society held to such strict standards of conduct with rules and regulations stringently dictated was due to the disintegration of these standards! More and more of the aristocrats and landed gentry were faced with the dilemma of their wealth and prestige diminishing as a result of economic decline and an emerging tradesman class buying land and involving themselves in politics. The government reacted to these threats in the status quo by passing repressive laws to favor the higher class and resist all change, not that the effort succeeded for long and by 1820 the “Age of Reform” truly took hold.

Burke’s Peerage records, “…almost all the Landed Gentry families of eighteenth century Origin are founded on commerce,” and goes on to say that many were granted baronetcies. In referring to the first half of the nineteenth century Burke then states that, “the dynasties founded by successful industrialists generally rose to the peerage or baronetage,” seemingly bypassing a mere gentleman of the land altogether!

Lines were beginning to blur. Indeed the structural classes would hold for a long while yet to come, but the grey areas were creeping in.

Could a man of Mr. Darcy’s class be involved in aspects of trade or commerce? Documentation exists showing numerous incidences of men in the gentry investing in industries such as steel, textile mills, and shipping. I decided to create a Mr. Darcy who was wise enough to see the turning tide and embraced the opportunities to diversify his wealth. I made him into a man intrigued by new inventions and the ingenuity of brilliant men. My Mr. Darcy is a man grounded in his ancestry, proud of his heritage, and in love with his estate lands while also looking to the future with an open mind to the possibilities and not afraid to risk innovative ideas. Personally I find this man very exciting to write about! And of course I hope you find him exciting to read about.

IN THE ARMS OF MR. DARCY BY SHARON LATHAN—IN STORES OCTOBER 2010

If only everyone could be as happy as they are…

Darcy and Elizabeth are as much in love as ever—even more so as their relationship matures. Their passion inspires everyone around them, and as winter turns to spring, romance blossoms around them.

Confirmed bachelor Richard Fitzwilliam sets his sights on a seemingly unattainable, beautiful widow; Georgiana Darcy learns to flirt outrageously; the very flighty Kitty Bennet develops her first crush, and Caroline Bingley meets her match.

But the path of true love never does run smooth, and Elizabeth and Darcy are kept busy navigating their friends and loved ones through the inevitable separations, misunderstandings, misgivings, and lovers’ quarrels to reach their own happily ever afters…

About the Author
Sharon Lathan is the author of the bestselling Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley, and My Dearest Mr. Darcy. In addition to her writing, she works as a Registered Nurse in a Neonatal ICU. She resides with her family in Hanford, California in the sunny San Joaquin Valley. For more information, please visit www.sharonlathan.net, as well as the two group blogs Sharon contributes to: www.austenauthors.com and www.casablancaauthors.blogspot.com.

Thank you Sharon for taking time out of your busy schedule to write an article for my blog and my readers.  I have been fortunate to be able to read and review Sharon Lathan’s novels.  My review of In the Arms of Mr. Darcy may be read here.  My sincere thank you to Sourcebooks for making this post possible.

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Guest Author Abigail Reynolds Author of Mr. Darcy’s Obsession

Thursday 14 October, 2010 By 1 Comment

I write Pride and Prejudice variations. I take an imaginary plot outline of Pride and Prejudice – and, having read it at least 50 times, I can do this in my sleep – and I give it a little twist. Same beginning, same scenario, same brilliant characters Jane Austen wrote, but then I throw a monkey wrench in the works. Sometimes it’s an event, sometimes it’s something a character says, sometimes it’s nothing more than a change in the weather, but it’s always something that makes the plot take a new direction.

Variations are relatively new to the publishing world, though they’ve been available online on fanfiction sites for some time. That’s where I started writing them, with no intention of publishing them. I wasn’t by any means the first, and there have been many others since, several of whom will be published this year. I think of it as a new subgenre of Austen-related fiction.

Why do I choose to rethink Austen? First I’ll start out by excluding possible reasons. It’s not because I think I can do a better job of it than Jane Austen. That’s impossible. It’s not because I think Austen’s novels needed more intimate scenes. They don’t; they’re perfect as is. It’s not even because I think my books can create new insights into Pride & Prejudice, though I hope sometimes they do.

It’s much more basic than that. Jane Austen wrote about characters and a world that fascinates me, but she only wrote six books, and sometimes I want more. Since Jane isn’t likely to be producing any posthumous works, the only way to get more is to write it. The internet played a big role, too. I started writing an Austen variation for fun, but I posted it on the internet in case anybody was interested in reading it. Astonishingly, there were lots of people who not only read it, but asked for more. Suddenly I was writing variation after variation, posting them online in serial form, until one day the publishing world caught up to the fact that lots of people wanted more Jane Austen.

There are lots of books for which I’d love to write variations, but unfortunately for me, most of them are still under copyright. It would be great fun to write another Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, or another book set in a favorite fictional universe like the ones by Robin McKinley or Kate Elliott, but even if it weren’t illegal, I’d be reluctant to touch, even privately, the characters of a living author. Mind you, there are thousands of people writing variations on just those stories, calling them fan fiction and posting them on the internet, but they can’t be published. As for other books in the public domain, well, those would remain on my hard drive because no one would ever want to read them! Oh, the variations I could write on War and Peace, which for some reason has gotten the reputation as the Brussels sprouts of classic literature, but which is actually quite a nail-biter if you understand the time and the style. My publisher won’t even accept a variation on Jane Austen’s Persuasion, so I think Tolstoy is clear out of the ballpark!

Thanks for inviting me to blog here today! And if you also think there’s never enough Jane Austen, I hope you’ll give Mr. Darcy’s Obsession a try. I think you’ll like it!

MR. DARCY’S OBSESSION BY ABIGAIL REYNOLDS—IN STORES OCTOBER 2010
The more he tries to stay away from her, the more his obsession grows…

“[Reynolds] has creatively blended a classic love story with a saucy romance novel.” —Austenprose
“Developed so well that it made the age-old storyline new and fresh…Her writing gripped my attention and did not let go.”—The Romance Studio
“The style and wit of Ms. Austen are compellingly replicated…spellbinding. Kudos to Ms. Reynolds!” —A Reader’s Respite
In this Pride and Prejudice variation, Elizabeth is called away before Darcy proposes for the first time and Darcy decides to find a more suitable wife. But when Darcy encounters Elizabeth living in London after the death of her father, he can’t fight his desire to see and speak with her again…and again and again. But now that her circumstances have made her even more unsuitable, will Darcy be able to let go of all his long held pride to marry a woman who, though she is beneath his station, is the only woman capable of winning his heart?

About the Author
Abigail Reynolds is a physician and a lifelong Jane Austen enthusiast. She began writing the Pride and Prejudice Variations series in 2001, and encouragement from fellow Austen fans convinced her to continue asking “What if…?” She lives with her husband and two teenage children in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, please visit http://www.pemberleyvariations.com/ or http://www.austenauthors.com/.

Thank you Abigail for taking time out of your busy schedule to write on my blog. If you do get permission to do a version of Austen’s Persuasion, I will be first in line. Now your choice of Tolstoy does intrigue me, as I am devoted to Russian Literature.

My review of Mr. Darcy’s Obsession.   My sincere thank you to Sourcebooks for making this post possible.

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Guest Author Elizabeth Chadwick Author of For the King’s Favor

Thursday 9 September, 2010 By 1 Comment

What Writers have influenced my work?

Thank you very much for inviting me onto your blog to talk about the authors who have been my influences as a writer of historical fiction.

My very early influences were actually visual in the form of films and TV programmes.  My first attempt at written fiction (I had been telling myself stories verbally since I could talk) was inspired by a TV series titled The Six Wives of Henry VIII and starred Keith Michelle as volatile monarch.  I gave that one up as the school holidays ended but the following year, was stirred to write my second novel when I fell in love with a tall, dark handsome knight in a series about a crusader knight.  So the inspiration to begin writing, came from visual media.

But once on the path, I began to explore historical fiction in detail. My first influence would have to be Mary Stewart and the first two novels in her Arthurian series.  The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills.  I was enchanted by her use of language, her fey feel for the past, which made it both other-worldly and immediate, and the whole exciting story of Merlin’s boyhood.  I felt as if it could really have happened.  If you were to ask me to name authors I wanted to emulate, Mary Stewart would be near the top of the list.

My next influence was Roberta Gellis.  I read several of her novels from the library and went on to buy my own copies. Knight’s Honour.  The Sword and the Swan.  Bond of Blood. But it was her stunning Roselynde Chronicles that became one of my early guiding lights, especially the first two – Roselynde and Alinor.  Her characters were of their time, but they had immediacy and the story telling, set against a believable historical backdrop was superb. Her hero Ian de Vipont became one of my all time favourite romantic historical heroes.  He was so beautiful in appearance that in the hands of a less skilled author he could have been a cardboard cutout, but Roberta Gellis made him so real, that he stepped out of the book and into my room.  As a reader I loved her work and from a writer’s perspective she showed me that it was possible to write intelligent historical romance with characters who were of their time and place.

Another of my influences was the late, great Dorothy Dunnett, who received an award from the Queen for services to literature.  Whenever I felt I needed to raise my game or my enthusiasm was flagging, I would turn to Dunnett to fire me up.  Her style is that of a broad canvas worked in detail and steeped in period knowledge.  Dunnett’s use of language is second to none, and she is in a league of her own.  Delving into her work, I always felt lifted up and refreshed.  Her six book Scottish Renaissance epic about Francis Crawford of Lymond, beginning with The Game of Kings is firmly welded to my keeper shelf.  Dorothy Dunnett taught me to play with language and also gave a master class in how to cut facets into characters so that they had depth from all angles.

Sharon Kay Penman is another author who has taught me a great deal, especially from her second novel Here Be Dragons.  I had already read The Sunne in Splendor, and as a result had become fascinated as a reader by Richard III.  After reading Sharon’s novel, I must have devoured every novel about him I could find.  However, as a writer, Here Be Dragons was the important one to me.  If Roberta Gellis had shown me the way to write intelligent historical romance,  Here Be Dragons was a master class in how to write historical fiction about real people and make it riveting while maintaining the historical accuracy.  I was blown away by this tale of King John’s daughter and her marriage to a Welsh prince.

Other authors whom I count among my influences because of their ability to tell a story and at the same time immerse the reader in the period include Ellis Peters with her Brother Cadfael series of medieval mysteries.  I never read them for the whodunit element, but always for the characters and the glimpses of daily life in a medieval town.  From Ellis Peters, I learned all about utilising the small details of daily life. From authors Judith Merkle Riley and Grace Ingram, I learned about injecting humour into stories, both with joyous directness and in more subtle ways.

With all of these authors, I never deliberately set out to analyse and learn.  It was more by a process of readerly osmosis that I absorbed the lessons as I enjoyed their books.  All of them remain some of my favourite authors today and I owe them a debt of gratitude for helping to illuminate the path to my own particular road.  Thank you all!

Title: For the King’s Favor
Author: Elizabeth Chadwick
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: September 7, 2010
Paperback: 544 pages
ISBN: 978-1402244490
Genre: Historical Fiction

A bittersweet tale of love, loss, and the power of royalty…

A captivating story of a mother’s love stretched to breaking and a knight determined to rebuild his life with the royal mistress, For the King’s Favor is Elizabeth Chadwick at her best. Based on a true story never before told and impeccably researched, this is a testament to the power of sacrifice and the strength of love. When Roger Bigod, heir to the powerful earldom of Norfolk, arrives at court to settle an inheritance, he meets Ida de Tosney, young mistress to King Henry II. In Roger, Ida sees a chance for lasting love, but their decision to marry carries an agonizing price. It’s a breathtaking novel of making choices, not giving up, and coping with the terrible shifting whims of the king.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Elizabeth Chadwick lives near Nottingham with her husband and two sons.  She is the author of 18 historical novels, including The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, A Place Beyond Courage, Lords of the White Castle, Shadows and Strongholds, the Winter Mantle, and the Falcons of Montabard, four of which have been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Awards. Much of her research is carried out as a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with the emphasis on accurately re-creating the past. She won a Betty Trask Award for The Wild Hunt, her first novel. For more information, please visit http://www.elizabethchadwick.com/.

My sincere gratitude to Elizabeth Chadwick for taking time out of her busy schedule to post and to Sourcebooks for making this guest author post a reality.

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Loucinda McGary Guest Blog, author of The Wild Irish Sea

Tuesday 20 July, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Exotic Settings

Everyone who knows me, or who has looked at my website or one of my blogs, knows I’m a travel fanatic. I’m always on the go to some new place foreign, domestic, or sailing off on yet another cruise (sixteen so far with number seventeen booked for November). I’ve always had the yen to see new and exotic locations, but my dream finally started to come true in the mid 1990s when my DH overcame his twenty year fear of flying.

Once he cleared that not-inconsiderable hurtle, we became a pair of traveling fools! At last count, we have visited 47 states and 32 foreign countries. I believe that travel broadens a person’s outlook in a way that few things can. I’ve discovered fun and fascinating things in almost every place I’ve ever visited, and almost everywhere I’ve been I have met lovely, friendly people.

Before I became the traveling fool, I loved to read books with exotic settings and enough lush details that I felt I was right there with the characters. Mary Stewart was one of my favorite authors who was a master at this. Whether you were on a Greek Island or a cottage in the English countryside, you were right there experiencing the sights, smells, and feel of the flora, fauna, views, and everything else surrounding the characters. Diana Gabaldon is another author whose settings are so real I feel like I’ve been in the Scottish highlands, or onboard a wooden sailing ship, or in a log cabin.

When I decided to seriously commit myself to writing with the intent to publish, I wanted my novels to have settings that put the reader firmly in the place with my characters. Fortunately, by then I’d been to a lot of wonderful places and soaked up plenty of experiences that I could draw upon for authenticity in my writing. But one thing I never know is what will come in handy, or turn up in my prose. For example, the childhood home of my hero in The Wild Sight was actually the house where my DH’s grandmother was born and raised. It still remains in the family and I remember the first time I saw it, I kept thinking about raising ten children in two rooms and a loft with no running water or electricity!

Here’s a peek at the house as I described it in an opening chapter of The Wild Sight:

“…Rylie looked around the room, which was dominated by an enormous stone fireplace that had once served for both cooking and warmth. She peeked through the open doorway into the adjoining room, where the same fireplace had a second hearth. …

“Cold seeped from the flat gray stones of the floor through the rubber soles of her sneakers, a testament to the uncomfortable reality Donovan had mentioned earlier….

“…He motioned to a steep set of stairs build into the wall behind the front door. ‘My sister and I slept in the loft, same as my mother and her sister had done… The roof was thatch when my mum and Aunt Fee were little, but my grandfather replaced it with tin.’”
© Loucinda McGary, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2008

I’ve always thought Venice was one of the most unique, atmospheric, and romantic cities in the world. It was a no-brainer for me to set one of my books in such an exotic but at the same time recognizable location. I’ve only visited Venice once, but it was a very memorable three days. I always keep travel journals where ever I go along with photographs. So even though it had been several years since I’d been in Venice, when I sat down to write, after a few hours of pouring over my photos and journal entries, I was instantly transported back. Here’s a scene from the book that eventually became The Treasures of Venice based on a late night walk my DH and I took through the streets of La Serenissima:

“It was eerily dark out on the street… Mist hung in wet wispy spirals over the water, and deeper shadows pooled in the darkness beside buildings. The chilly dampness distorted sounds so that the creaking of wood and slapping of water seemed to come from living entities….

“Sam followed as Keirnan snaked his way down a tight path right next to the water. The four and five story buildings on either side of the minor canal blotted out all light….

“Another diminutive bridge, this one with iron railings, arched up next to them where another canal intersected the one they followed. Instead of crossing, Keirnan crawled down next to the footings, then motioned her to join him.… A pale light filtered down from a second story window to reveal a profusion of orange peels and cigarette butts floating in the nearly motionless canal…. Sam scooted slightly to one side and noticed the building had a yawning mouth of black water where the first floor would have been.”
© Loucinda McGary, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2009

Sometimes places that aren’t actually in the location I’m writing about fit into the story so beautifully that I take ‘artistic license and put them in anyway. This was the case with my current release The Wild Irish Sea. When the hero and heroine discover a sea cave being used by a colony of seals, I remembered a couple of visits I’d paid to Sea Lion Caves on the Oregon coast and was inspired to include my impressions (especially of the smell!) even if the actual cave was far away from the Irish coast:

“Nearly overcome by the stench, Amber followed Kevin inside the cave without further protest. After climbing down and around a pointy sentinel of rock, they were out of the rain. She heaved a sigh of relief and almost choked on the over-powering odor.
“They scrambled over a few more jutting rocks onto a stone ledge. A large pool of water spread below, and on the sandy shore opposite their perch lolled dozens of seals…. More than half seemed to be babies and the cave echoed with their cries.
“Trying not to breathe too deeply, she leaned an elbow against an upright boulder and surveyed the interior. The shelf where they stood appeared to be the only flat spot on their side of the rocky cavern, and it looked too high for the sea lions in the pool to climb up.”
© Loucinda McGary, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2010

So whether it’s a tiny cottage in the Irish countryside, a Venetian canal, or a mysterious sea cave full of seals, I hope I’ve given you some insight into the way I use my travels to create exotic settings for my books.

THE WILD IRISH SEA BY LOUCINDA MCGARY – IN STORES JULY 2010

Title: The Wild Irish Sea
Author: Loucinda McGary
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: July 6, 2010
Paperback: 320 pages
ISBN: 978-1402226717
Genre: Fiction, Romance

Drawn to a force he can’t resist…
Former police officer Kevin Hennessey is running from his past—choosing to battle smugglers instead of dealing with his personal demons. When a desperate, rain-drenched American woman appears on his doorstep with wild tales of danger, Kevin is drawn to helping her, despite his reservations…

She never saw him coming…
Amber O’Neill knew without a doubt that her brother was in mortal danger. Rushing heedlessly to the rocky shores of Ireland, Amber was stunned to find her rescue mission derailed by a gorgeous, but deeply flawed Irishman…

The tumultuous sea, the intertwined fates of the coastal villagers, and unearthly tales of a hidden selkie prince bring Kevin and Amber together in a connection of mind, body, and soul that neither can deny…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Loucinda McGary took early retirement from her managerial career to pursue her twin passions of travel and writing. She sets her novels in some of the fascinating places she has visited. She was a finalist in the 2006 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest in Romantic Suspense with the manuscript that eventually became her second novel, The Treasures of Venice. Her first book, The Wild Sight won the Best First Book category in the More Than Magic contest. She lives in Sacramento, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.loucindamcgary.com/ .

My gratitude to Loucinda McGary for taking time to guest post and to Sourcebooks for making the guest post possible.

My review of The Wild Irish Sea by Loucinda McGary can be located here.

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Guest Author: Deborah Noyes

Thursday 10 June, 2010 By 1 Comment

Pixie-Led: The Lure of Lore

I’m learning that one of my favorite themes to explore in a narrative is narrative, story in its own right, which for me includes the literature of childhood: fairy tales, fantasy, myths, and folklore.
Many of my books, especially my first historical novel, Angel and Apostle, are conversations with other writers.

But even in a novel like Captivity, which doesn’t owe its existence to favorite books or authors (though it nods to William Blake and Walt Whitman), I’m often lured down paths that point to story in all its forms, from nursery rhymes to ghost lore.

Clara Gill, one of the two protagonists of Captivity, is science-minded, a skeptic, but she’s an artist, too. The influence of tales and their tellers on her worldview shows through her rational exterior. “The best stories belong to childhood,” admits Clara, who grew up on her housemaid’s tales of changelings and other faerie mischief, even as her surrogate uncle, Sir Artemus Lever, taught her the myths of classical Greece and Rome.

At one point Artemus equates Clara with his namesake. To the ancient Greeks, he confides, Artemus was goddess of the hunt and the animals, “a wild thing who begged her father never to make her marry… who would traipse through the forest with her lop-eared hounds and never answer to a soul.”

When Clara first meets Will Cross, the unsuitable (and doomed) object of her young affections, she claims to “know this moment in her own story. She’s being pixie-led into a wood where he’ll feed her treats with lovely long fingers and she’ll forget her name and how to get home again, for perfectly virtuous and otherwise clever girls are led astray in just this way and ruined daily…”

In middle age, Clara finds herself narrating the myth of the prophetic old sea god, Proteus, in her sketchbook. Proteus shifted shape to elude those who would have him tell their futures, and to reveal him, Clara, a zoological artist, furiously draws creature after creature. The god takes many forms, but she outlasts him, and Proteus must finally show himself. “And so appears, like a wolf loping out of a fog, a man’s face. Not the gnarled old sea god — eyes sunk in their webs of flesh, the stained ivory of a foot-long beard — but a beloved face unfurling against her will, frightening for its likeness.” The face belongs to young Will Cross, who belongs in Clara’s past, not her future.

Even the traditional ballad Will cites (we know it today as “Scarborough Fair”) is a play on British faerie lore, about an elfin prince who invites a maiden to more or less achieve the impossible, teasing, “and then you will be a true a lover of mine.”

These are only a handful of the stories within the story, but for me, tales, myths, and folklore — together with history — act as narrative fuel. I stray down those paths gladly.

~ Deborah Noyes

About the Author:

Angel and Apostle is Deborah Noyes’ first novel. Her short fiction and reviews have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Boston Sunday Globe, Seventeen, The Washington Post Book World, The Chicago Sun-Times, Stories, The Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, The Bloomsbury Review, Boston Review, and other publications. She has also written and edited numerous books for children and young adults, including the award-winning teen anthology Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales.

My sincere gratitude to author Deborah Noyes for taking the time to write a post for my blog. I also would like to thank Unbridled Books for making this post a possibility.

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5 Tips For Using Your Slow Cooker by Guest Author Phyllis Pellman Good

Wednesday 19 May, 2010 By 2 Comments

5 Tips for Using Your Slow Cooker: A Friendly Year-Round Appliance
by Phyllis Pellman Good
Author of Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook: Revised & Updated: 700 Great Slow Cooker Recipes

1. What to buy

A good standard size for a household of four is a 4-quart slow cooker. If you often cook for more, or you like to prepare sizable roasts, turkey breasts, or chicken legs and thighs, you’ll want a 6-quart cooker.

For parties or buffets a 1½ to 2-quart size works well for dips and snacks.
Cookers which allow you to program “On,” the length of the cooking time, and “Off,” are convenient. If your model doesn’t include that feature, you might want to get a digital appliance timer, which gives you that option. Make sure the timer is adequate for the electrical flow that your cooker demands.

A baking insert, a cooking rack, a temperature probe, and an insulated carrying tote are all useful additions offered with some models. Or you can buy some of them separately by going to the manufacturers’ websites.

2. Learn to know your slow cooker

Some newer slow cookers cook at a very high temperature. You can check the temperature of your slow cooker this way:
Place 2 quarts of water in your slow cooker.
Cover. Heat on Low 8 hours.
Lift the lid. Immediately check the water temp with an accurate thermometer.
The temperature of the water should be 185°F. If the temperature is higher, foods may overcook and you should reduce the overall cooking time. If the temperature is lower, your foods will probably not reach a safe temperature quickly enough, and the cooker should be discarded.

3. Maximizing what a slow cooker does best

Slow cookers tend to work best when they’re ⅔ full. You many need to increase the cooking time if you’ve exceeded that amount, or reduce it if you’ve put in less than that.
Cut the hard veggies going into your cooker into chunks of about equal size. In other words, make your potato and carrot pieces about the same size. Then they’ll be done cooking at nearly the same time. Softer veggies, like bell peppers and zucchini, cook faster, so they don’t need to be cut as small. But again, keep them similar in size to each other so they finish together.
Because raw vegetables are notoriously tough customers in a slow cooker, layer them over the bottom and around the sides of the cooker, as much as possible. That puts them in more direct contact with the heat.

There are consequences to lifting the lid on your slow cooker while it’s cooking. To compensate for the lost heat, you should plan to add 15-20 minutes of cooking time for each time the lid was lifted off.On the other hand, moisture gathers in a slow cooker as it works. To allow that to cook off, or to thicken the cooking juices, take the lid off during the last half hour of cooking time.

Use only the amount of liquid called for in a recipe. In contrast to an oven or a stovetop, a slow cooker tends to draw juices out of food and then harbor it.Of course, if you sense that the food in your cooker is drying out, or browning excessively before it finishes cooking, you may want to add ½ cup of warm liquid to the cooker.

Important variables to remember that don’t show up in recipes:

  • The fuller your slow cooker, the longer it will take its contents to cook.
  • The more densely packed the cooker’s contents are, the longer they will take to cook.
  • The larger the chunks of meat or vegetables, the more time they will need to cook.

4. Debunking the myths

Slow cookers are a handy year-round appliance. They don’t heat up a kitchen in warm weather. They allow you to escape to the pool or lake or lawn or gardens — so why not let them work for you when it’s hot outdoors. A slow cooker fixes dinner while you’re at your child’s soccer game, too.So don’t limit its usefulness. Remember the dozens of recipes-beyond-beef-stew in this collection!

One more thing — a slow cooker provides a wonderful alternative if your oven is full — no matter the season.

You can overdo food in a slow cooker. If you’re tempted to stretch a recipe’s 6-hour stated cooking time to 8 or 10 hours, you may be disappointed in your dinner. Yes, these cookers work their magic using slow, moist heat. Yes, many dishes cook a long time. But these outfits have their limits.For example, chicken can overcook in a slow cooker. Especially boneless, skinless breasts. But legs and thighs aren’t immune either. Once they go past the falling-off-the-bone stage, they are prone to move on to deeply dry.

Cooked pasta and sour cream do best if added late in the cooking process, ideally 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time if the cooker is on high; 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time if it’s on low.

5. Safety

A working slow cooker gets hot on the outside — and I mean the outer electrical unit as well as the inner vessel. Make sure that curious and unsuspecting children or adults don’t grab hold of either part. Use oven mitts when lifting any part of a hot cooker.

To prevent a slow cooker from bubbling over, either when its sitting still on a counter, or when its traveling to a carry-in dinner, fill the cooker only ⅔ full.If you’re going to exceed that limit, pull out your second slow cooker (what — you have only one?!) and divide the contents between them.

The above is an excerpt from the book Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook: Revised & Updated: 700 Great Slow Cooker Recipes by Phyllis Pellman Good. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Reprinted from Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook. © by Good Books (www.GoodBooks.com ). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2010 Phyllis Pellman Good, author of Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook: Revised & Updated: 700 Great Slow Cooker Recipes

Author Bio:

Phyllis Pellman Good is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold nearly 10 million copies.

Good’s cookbooks have also appeared on the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. She is the author of Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly: Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker; Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites: Comforting Slow- Cooker Recipes; Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining: Slow-Cooker Favorites for all the Year Round, and Fix-It and Forget-It Diabetic Cookbook: Slow-Cooker Favorites to Include Everyone (with the American Diabetes Association), all in the series.

She and her husband, Merle, live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

For more information about Phyllis Pellman Good, visit www.Fix-ItandForget-It.com and www.facebook.com/fixitandforgetit .

My gratitude to FSB Associates for providing this article from author Phyllis Pellman Good.

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