Lindsay Townsend's Blog, page 21

Romance of the Everyday

When it comes to writing romance, I am in love with the everyday. Again and again, I actively seek out fiction and romance that deals with so-called ‘ordinary’ people.

Why?

Because to me a hero or heroine is more striving and heroic if they win through after many trials and adventures with their own skills, wit and effort, not because they happen to be born into a class or position.

Because a hero is more beautiful to me if he is not massively handsome but that feeling, true emotion for the heroine, makes him ‘pretty’. (I also like this theme the other way round – I love the part in Jane Eyre where the heroine goes down to breakfast after accepting Mr Rochester’s proposal and she looks, even to herself, glowing and pretty, ‘truly pretty’ as Mr R tells her.)

Because if the hero or heroine has tons of money or special powers that they can use at the snap of their languid fingers, where is the tension?

Skill impresses me and has a poetry of its own. Watch anyone who is really good at something – a potter with a wheel, a farrier, a shepherd, a dustman dealing with wheelie bins – and there is an elegance, a romance. I love to celebrate skill in the romances I write and I always have my warrior have a gentler skill as well as their fighting. (I don’t admire a fighter who can do nothing but battle, because how can such a person create a life and a relationship if they only destroy?) A warrior as strong protector, yes, a warrior fighting for kudos, OK, but a warrior who is a glory-junkie and no more? No thanks.

We live in a complex world and I like to write romances that reflect this and celebrate whose who heal, who create, who build, who make.

So I write about knights but mainly younger sons, who have to make their own way and who don’t have everything handed to them – I do this in A Knight's Enchantment and A Knight's Captive - and knights who are scarred or grieving and must find another path to live their lives  - I do this in  To Touch the Knight, A Knight's Vow and The Snow Bride.




I write about foresters and dairy maids (Midsummer Maid), slave girls and scribes (Flavia's Secret), serfs and peasants (To Touch the Knight, The Lord and Eleanor) bull-leapers and kings of small, rural kingdoms where the king helps with the harvest and is also a healer (Bronze Lightning).

In all these, I try to weave the everyday into the stories, those special everyday moments – the first kiss, the ‘I love you’ time, the recognition that this person is ‘the one’, the moment when my hero and heroine meet again, feeling a happy glow, even if they’ve only been apart for a moment. 

We all have times when the world shimmers about us and we feel apart from the hurly-burly, when we step into our own magic world with those we care about.

Everyday but special. That’s what I love to write about and read about.

Writers, do you have stories that show and feature ‘everyday’ heroes and heroines? If so, please mention them with details  in the comments section of this blog. 

Five-star review for 'The Lord and Eleanor'

TwoLips Reviews have given my 'The Lord and Eleanor' a five-star review and made it a Recommended Read, which is a pleasant way to start a Sunday morning! Read it here or on my The Lord and Eleanor page.

Two new covers for two new books

I have two lovely new covers for two new books, both forthcoming this year from Muse It Up Publishing. The first is for a medieval romance novella, Midsummer Maid, and I love what Deliah Stephen has produced for this story.


The second is for a full-length historical mystery, the first of a series, The Widow of Bath Mysteries. The cover artist C.K. Volnek has really captured my heroine, Alyson, and I'm thrilled with the results.

I can't wait now for these books to come out!

'The Lord and Eleanor' - now on Amazon Kindle and at ARe

My latest medieval historical romance, 'The Lord and Eleanor' is now on Amazon Kindle and at All Romance Ebooks.

Amazon

Amazon UK

All Romance Ebooks: ARe

'The Lord and Eleanor': a new medieval

I have a new knight story appearing on April 19th. The Lord and Eleanor is set in medieval Oxfordshire and the hero, Richard, is a knight and lord of the local manor and surrounding lands. Eleanor is his former bondswoman, a serf, who is now free. The social gulf between them is huge, so can love flourish between them?   I really enjoyed writing this novella and I hope others will enjoy it. It's going to be an Ellora's Cave ebook, part of their mainstream romance Blush line.

'Flavia's Secret' now out as an audiobook

If you enjoy listening to historical romance, you may be interested that my ancient Roman romance, 'Flavia's Secret,' has been issued today as an audiobook from AudioLark.

Here's the blurb:

The price of Flavia's freedom may be her death.
A slave in Roman-controlled Aquae Sulis (modern Bath), Flavia knows her tender-hearted mistress meant to free her and her other slaves, but when she passes away suddenly, the chance for freedom looks like it's slipping away.

Flavia takes matters into her own hands. As a scribe, it's easy for her to forge a note in her mistress' hand.

But when a new master arrives, Marcus Brucetus, a charismatic, widowed officer toughened in the forests of Germania, Flavia is afraid she's gone too far. If her deception is found out, all the slaves may die.

When Marcus Brucetus takes over the villa, the last thing he expects is to fall in love with a slave. Still mourning his wife and daughter, he has too much respect for himself and for Flavia to force himself on her.

He must free the scribe, as her deceased owner wished, but as the wild mid-winter festival of Saturnalia approaches, and a new danger lurks, he finds it increasingly hard to let her go.

If he does, will she freely choose to stay with him? Or will she be stolen away from him before she can even make the choice?

You can buy the audiobook here:
http://www.audiolark.com/books/flavias-secret/

...and here are details of the ebook and print book:
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net/2008/04/flavias-secret.html

Inspired by Fairy Tales

I've always loved fairy tales: African fairy stories, Old Peter's Russian tales, Grimm's fairy tales and the western classics – Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Goose Girl, The Frog Prince. The themes of love, sacrifice, keeping promises (the theme of the Frog prince) transformation (in The Goose Girl and Cinderella) justice (again in Cinderella) are epic to me and timeless, worthy of exploration in romances and modern stories.

Cinderella, the story of selfless devotion rewarded, is a popular theme for many romance stories, with the 'prince' often an Italian or Arab billionaire who sweeps in to transform the heroine's drab, oppressed life. I'm sure there are romances to be written about the ugly sisters, too – positive stories where they grow from their petty spitefulness and obsession over balls and dances into generous, complete women, who also find love. That element of the happily ever after and the unexpected is strong in both fairy tales and in romance and both appeal to me greatly.

Fairy tales can also be epic, dealing with issues of life and death. Look at Gerda and her determination to win her brother out of enchantment in The Snow Queen. Look at Sleeping Beauty, where the prince rescues the princess from the 'death' of endless sleep.


Recently I did my own 'take' on Sleeping Beauty in my 'A Christmas Sleeping Beauty'. I made it a story of transformation for both my heroine, Rosie, and the prince Orlando, who starts as a very arrogant and selfish young man who needs to learn to love and cherish. I didn't want my Rosie to be passive, simply waiting to be woken, so she is active in the story both through her dreams and through her speaking directly to the hero in a letter. I also added more urgency by making it a ticking clock story – Orlando must wake Rosie in three days or he loses his chance forever.

The story of Beauty and the Beast has thrilled me since I was a child, with its dark and menacing beginning, the terrifying beast and Beauty's courage and love for her father and ultimately for the beast. I was inspired by these basic tenets to write my own medieval version of Beauty and the Beast in my 'The Snow Bride'. Magnus, the hero, has been hideously scarred by war and looks like a beast. He considers himself unworthy of love. Elfrida, my heroine, is also an outsider since she is a white witch, but she willingly sacrifices herself (as Beauty does in the fairy story) because of love, in her case her love for her younger sister, Christina, for whom she feels responsible. When she and Magnus encounter each other, I made it that they could not understand each other at first, to add to the mystery and dread – is Magnus as ugly in soul as in body? They must learn to trust each other, despite appearances, and come to love (just as in the original fairy tale).


I also added other fairy tale elements to 'The Snow Bride': magic, darkness, the idea of three (a common motif in fairy tales) spirits in the forest and more. Perhaps in the darker elements of my forest I was inspired by that other old fairy story – Red Riding Hood.

How about you? What inspires you in your reading or writing?

Two Lips Reviews gives 'The Snow Bride' 5 Lips & a Recommended Read!

I'm thrilled by this latest review of 'The Snow Bride' from Mac at TwoLips Reviews:

I was completely enraptured by The Snow Bride. It's the best story I've read in quite some time. Ms. Lindsay Townsend creates scenery so vibrant I thought I could touch the mistletoe and freeze from the cold. Magnus became a beautiful knight in spite of his scarred face and maimed body as I saw him through the eyes of the heroine. His spirit of kindness and self-sacrifice made me believe he had a heart as big as the sky. I fell in love with him.

The heroine Ms. Townsend created was the kind of woman who could heal a broken heart and mend a wound with her unusual abiding kindness and devotion. She had a steel spine and courage but wisdom enough to listen to the voice of reason. The Snow Bride has everything a reader could ever want in a story: romance, intrigue, redemption and adventure. Ms. Townsend's wonderful book, The Snow Bride is not to be missed. I could turn around and read it all over again. - Mac

(Five Lips, Recommended Read)

Warm Up Your Winter II - The Snow Bride is out at Amazon

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Now out at Bookstrand Publishing 2011
Order here.

Now out at Amazon, too!
Buy the ebook:

Amazon Kindle (US)
Amazon Kindle (UK)
Bookstrand


Read Chapter One

Here is another new excerpt to tempt you:

Elfrida stirred sluggishly, unable to remember where she was. Her back ached, and the rest of her body burned. She opened her eyes and sat up with a jerk, thinking of Christina.


Her head felt to be bobbing like an acorn cup in a stream, and her vision swam. As she tried to swing her legs, her sense of dizzy falling increased, becoming worse as she closed her eyes. She lashed out in the darkness, her flailing hands and feet connecting with straw, dusty hay, and ancient pelts.

"Christina?" she hissed, listening intently and praying now that the monster had brought her to the same place it had taken her sister.

She heard nothing but her own breath, and when she held that, nothing at all.

"Christina?" Fearing to reach out in this blackness that was more than night and dreading what she might find, Elfrida forced herself to stretch her arms. She trailed her fingers out into the ghastly void, tracing the unseen world with trembling hands.

Her body shook more than her hands, but she ignored the shuddering of her limbs, closed her eyes like a blind man, and searched.

She lay on a pallet, she realized, full of crackling, dry grass. When she scented and tasted the air, there was no blood. She did not share the space with grisly corpses.

I am alone and unfettered. Now her heart had stopped thudding in her ears, she listened again, hearing no one else. Chanting a charm to see in the dark, she tried again to shift her feet.

Light spilled into her eyes like scalding milk as a door opened and a massive figure lurched across the threshold. Elfrida launched herself at freedom, hurling a fistful of straw at the looming beast and ducking out for the light.

She fell instead, her legs buckling, her last sight that of softly falling snow.



* * * *



Magnus gathered the woman before she pitched facedown into the snow, returning her swiftly to the rough bed within the hut. Her tiny, bird-boned form terrified him. Clutching her was like ripping a fragile wood anemone up from its roots.

And she had fought him, wind-flower or not. She had charged at him.

"I wish, lass, that you would listen to me. I am not the Forest Grendel, nor have wish to be, nor ever have been."

Just as earlier, in the clearing where he had first come upon her, a brilliant shock of life and color in a white, dead world, the woman gave no sign of hearing. She was cold again, freezing, while in his arms she had steamed with fever. He tugged off his cloak and bundled her into it, then piled his firewood and kindling onto the bare hearth.

A few strikes of his flints and he had a fire. He set snow to melt in the helmet he was using as a cauldron. He swept more dusty hay up from the floor and, sneezing, packed it round the still little figure.

No beast on two or four legs would hunt tonight, so that was one worry less. Finding this lean-to hut in the forest had been a godsend, but it would be cold.

Magnus went back out into the snow and led his horse into the hut, spreading what feed he had brought with him. He kept the door shut with his saddle, rubbed the palfrey down with the bay's own horse blanket, and looked about for a lantern.

There was none, just as there were no buckets, nor wooden bowls hanging from the eaves. But, abandoned as it surely had been, the place was well roofed, and no snow swirled in through the wood and wattle walls. Whistling, Magnus dug through his pack and found a flask of ale, some hard cheese, two wizened apples, and a chunk of dark rye bread. He spoke softly to his horse, then looked again at the woman.

She was breathing steadily now, and her lips and cheeks had more color. By the glittering, rising fire he saw her as he had first in the forest clearing, an elf-child of beauty and grace, a willing sacrifice to the monster. Kneeling beside her, he longed to stroke her vivid red hair and kiss the small dimple in her chin. In sleep she had the calm, flawless face of a Madonna of Outremer and the bright locks of a Magdalene.

He had guessed who she was—the witch of the three villages, the good witch driven to desperation. Coming upon her in that snowfield, tied between two trees like a crucified child of fairy, his temper had been a black storm against the villagers for sparing their skins by flaying hers. Then he had seen her face, recognized that wild, stark, sunken-cheeked grief, seen the loose bonds and the terrible "feast," and had understood.

Another young woman has been taken by the beast, someone you love.

She—Elfrida, that was her name, he remembered it now—Elfrida was either very foolish or very powerful, to offer herself as bait.

4.5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies for 'The Snow Bride'

Good reviews are coming in for The Snow Bride. The latest is a 4.5 Blue Ribbon one from Romance Junkies:

A magical read, THE SNOW BRIDE is an intriguing, passionate historical romance that will keep you up late into the night, avidly turning pages to see what happens next. Magnus and Elfrida are two ideally suited people. They put others first before themselves and are able to see the hidden qualities in people. Although Christina was described as being beautiful, I did not like her as much as I liked Elfrida. She seems a little selfish to me. Despite a language barrier, Magnus and Elfrida were able to overcome it, with a language they claimed as their own. Packed with dreams, curses, magic, kidnapped brides, mystery, humor, complex characters, clever banter and true love, this story is a wonderful escape into the land of witches, knights and forever after love. I absolutely enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more works by talented author Lindsay Townsend. - 4.5 Blue Ribbons.

Available now for all ebook formats from Bookstrand.