Jane Marlow's Blog
July 16, 2019
RECOMMENDED READ
My latestest book, The Yellow Ticket, follows a prostitute's life in mid-1800s Moscow. During its writing, I found the following book to be invaluable.
Sonia's Daughters
Prostitutes & Their Regulation in Imperial Russia
by Laurie Bernstein
Although Dr. Bernstein is a scholar renowned for her proficiency in Russian history, she penned Sonia's Daughters so that it can be appreciated by academics as well as the lay bookworm. She skillfully guides the reader through the anguish and choicelessness of the ladies-of-the-night as well as the logic and folly of Russia's prostituion laws during the late 1800s.
Sonia's Daughters
Prostitutes & Their Regulation in Imperial Russia
by Laurie Bernstein
Although Dr. Bernstein is a scholar renowned for her proficiency in Russian history, she penned Sonia's Daughters so that it can be appreciated by academics as well as the lay bookworm. She skillfully guides the reader through the anguish and choicelessness of the ladies-of-the-night as well as the logic and folly of Russia's prostituion laws during the late 1800s.

Published on July 16, 2019 06:29
June 9, 2019
3rd Book In Petrovo Series
The Yellow Ticket
Due out July 16

If you read the first book in my Petrovo series, Who Is to Blame?, you might remember Anna, the teenage girl who was banished from the village. In The Yellow Ticket, the homesick 16-year-old finds work as a servant in Moscow. Her employer, however, sees fit to use her as a concubine.
At least until his wife catches him red-handed.
Anna is kicked onto Moscow’s frozen streets, streets filled with forlorn, destitute women just like herself. And the same as them, she has no options except to enter a house of prostitution – a veneer of magenta silk, flaking gold leaf, and faux diamonds.
Her flaxen hair and heart-shaped mouth help her build a sizable clientele, but Anna knows that she (like all prostitutes) faces the age-old perils of disease, pregnancy, and beatings. Anna knows she needs to escape before she loses her life or, perhaps worse, becomes a used-up, painted whore living in the gutter with the cockroaches and worms.
How will she gain the skills necessary to secure respectable employment? Thanks her indomitable spirit she embarks on a most unusual path to a new life.
Pathos & Poignancy Tempered By Humor
Due out July 16

If you read the first book in my Petrovo series, Who Is to Blame?, you might remember Anna, the teenage girl who was banished from the village. In The Yellow Ticket, the homesick 16-year-old finds work as a servant in Moscow. Her employer, however, sees fit to use her as a concubine.
At least until his wife catches him red-handed.
Anna is kicked onto Moscow’s frozen streets, streets filled with forlorn, destitute women just like herself. And the same as them, she has no options except to enter a house of prostitution – a veneer of magenta silk, flaking gold leaf, and faux diamonds.
Her flaxen hair and heart-shaped mouth help her build a sizable clientele, but Anna knows that she (like all prostitutes) faces the age-old perils of disease, pregnancy, and beatings. Anna knows she needs to escape before she loses her life or, perhaps worse, becomes a used-up, painted whore living in the gutter with the cockroaches and worms.
How will she gain the skills necessary to secure respectable employment? Thanks her indomitable spirit she embarks on a most unusual path to a new life.
Pathos & Poignancy Tempered By Humor
Published on June 09, 2019 12:43
June 3, 2019
99¢ Deal from Amazon
Amazon selected Who Is to Blame?
to be featured as a Kindle Monthly Deal
the entire month of June!
Amazon's price for the ebook is 99¢.
Check it out!
Pssst! Pass the Word
to be featured as a Kindle Monthly Deal
the entire month of June!
Amazon's price for the ebook is 99¢.
Check it out!
Pssst! Pass the Word

Published on June 03, 2019 05:22
April 3, 2019
BAD BOY TOLSTORY IN THE CRIMEA

Andrey (the protagonist in How Did I Get Here?) and Lev Tolstoy both served in The Crimea War at the same time. However, the two never crossed paths.
Few people realize that the staunch moralist Tolstoy was notorious for his shenanigans during the War.
In Nov 1854, Tolstoy arrived in the besieged town of Sevastopol as a 26-year-old junior officer in a Russian artillery brigade. During his 10 months in the Crimean War, his fellow officers described him as stubborn, arrogant, a party animal, a skirt chaser, and an observer of people. He played cards - a lot. In his journal, he recorded his nasty gambling habit as well as his fondness for women.
One card game lasted two days and three nights and cost Tolstoy the house on his family's estate - the very house in which he had been born. He wrote, "I'm so disgusting to myself, I'd like to forget about my existence."
Yet he wandered back to the card tables. Two hundred rubles lost on February 8. Another 75 on February 12. Two hundred more in early March.
June 15 - "It's amazing how loathsome I am, how altogether unhappy and repulsive to myself."
July 8 - "I need to accumulate money (1) to pay my debts, (2) to redeem my estate and have the opportunity to free my peasants."
July 17 - "Three rules: (1) Be what I am: (a) a writer by aptitude, (b) an aristocrat by birth. (2) Never speak ill of anyone. (3) Be economical with money."
September 2 - "Lost a clean 1500 rubles."
September 20 - "Lots of pretty girls, and sensuality is tormenting me."
In between bombardments, skirmishes, card games, and trysts, the young officer set his course for becoming a writer by spreading the truth about the senselessness and vanity of war. He penned a series of gritty accounts of the horrors of combat and siege.
The realistic dispatches appeared in The Contemporary (an influential St. Petersburg literary journal) and provided some of the first true-life views of modern battle. Tolstoy vaulted to literary stardom. The articles were later collected as the book Sevastopol Sketches.
Later in life, Tolstory drew heavily on his Crimean experiences while writing what would become his magnum opus, War and Peace. As one of the world's longest novels, the masterpiece took six years to finish and includes 580 characters.
Thank you to R. F. Christian for his unsurpassed translation and interpretation of Tolstoy's personal diaries and letters in Tolstoy's Diaries Volume I .
Published on April 03, 2019 09:39
February 15, 2019
KILL YOUR DARLINGS
According to William Faulkner, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”
“Darlings” are favorite elements of the author, be they fragments, sentences, chapters, plot lines, or characters. But rather than being vital to the story, they’re bland or distracting.
Below is a “darling” I hated to delete from the last chapter of How Did I Get Here?
However, the chapter was too long and contained too much introspection (which usually induces sleepy nodding in the reader). So with a stiff upper lip, I gave the following the axe. Did I make the correct decision?
I had always viewed the fragments of my life as random intersections of time, place, and events. A roll of life’s dice.
Stumbling upon General Tropinin at that precise moment in life, the moment when I needed the exact help that he could offer, was a stroke of good luck that had never before visited me, and most likely, never would again. I regard it as a fluke, similar to sighting a shooting star. Not only does the person need to be outside at night, but he must be looking at the exact right spot at the exact right time. The sky must be cloudless in that spot. And, of course, there must be a falling star. All the forces of nature, coincidence, and good fortune have to be aligned.
“Darlings” are favorite elements of the author, be they fragments, sentences, chapters, plot lines, or characters. But rather than being vital to the story, they’re bland or distracting.
Below is a “darling” I hated to delete from the last chapter of How Did I Get Here?
However, the chapter was too long and contained too much introspection (which usually induces sleepy nodding in the reader). So with a stiff upper lip, I gave the following the axe. Did I make the correct decision?
I had always viewed the fragments of my life as random intersections of time, place, and events. A roll of life’s dice.
Stumbling upon General Tropinin at that precise moment in life, the moment when I needed the exact help that he could offer, was a stroke of good luck that had never before visited me, and most likely, never would again. I regard it as a fluke, similar to sighting a shooting star. Not only does the person need to be outside at night, but he must be looking at the exact right spot at the exact right time. The sky must be cloudless in that spot. And, of course, there must be a falling star. All the forces of nature, coincidence, and good fortune have to be aligned.
Published on February 15, 2019 11:33
TIMELESS RUSSIAN QUOTES
"Power without a nation's confidence is nothing."
~ Catherine the Great
1729 - 1796
~ Catherine the Great
1729 - 1796

Published on February 15, 2019 10:26
February 3, 2019
ANESTHESIA: BELIVE IT OR NOT
The Crimea War saw the advent of routine use of anesthesia in surgery.
Russia as well as the Allies (France, England, and Turkey) were somewhat reluctant to use chloroform because of frequent overdosing. Sometimes the nearly dead man could be brought back to consciousness by shouting his name into his ear and then giving him a large drink of wine. Alcohol (booze) was thought to combat shock and was still routinely used for that purpose in the U.S. Civil War.
Eventually Russia’s supplies of chloroform ran low, and when one patient cried out as surgeons began to cut into his leg without the use of anesthesia, a Russian surgeon punched him in the face.
At least one French soldier refused chloroform when his arm was amputated because he wanted to watch.
Antique Amputation Saw circa 1850
Russia as well as the Allies (France, England, and Turkey) were somewhat reluctant to use chloroform because of frequent overdosing. Sometimes the nearly dead man could be brought back to consciousness by shouting his name into his ear and then giving him a large drink of wine. Alcohol (booze) was thought to combat shock and was still routinely used for that purpose in the U.S. Civil War.
Eventually Russia’s supplies of chloroform ran low, and when one patient cried out as surgeons began to cut into his leg without the use of anesthesia, a Russian surgeon punched him in the face.
At least one French soldier refused chloroform when his arm was amputated because he wanted to watch.
Antique Amputation Saw circa 1850

Published on February 03, 2019 03:47
January 6, 2019
THE PROTAGONIST: SLUMP-SHOULDERED GLOOM
The leading man or woman is the character whose story lies at the novel's core. Ideally, that character should be someone whom the reader can relate to or is cheering to success. I mean, really, who wants to read about losers?
So why did I pick a milksop to write about in How Did I Get Here?
The most interesting event in Andrey's lackluster childhood was a year-long bout with anxiety-induced hiccups. His spiritless teenage years weren’t any better; his notable exploit was hooking up with a neighbor girl in the church bell tower.
What does an author do when faced with a main character who is a cynical, horny, insipid recluse? I was confronted with a protagonist whose childhood resulted in an adult who didn’t engage people (including readers!)
My response was to write the story from a present-tense, first-person point of view, enabling the reader to understand what was going on inside Andrey’s head, which was much more interesting than what his outward persona portrayed. In entering Andrey's thoughts (and enjoying hefty doses of his wry sense of humor), my goal was to keep you, the reader, entertained in the midst of a gruesome war.
So why did I pick a milksop to write about in How Did I Get Here?
The most interesting event in Andrey's lackluster childhood was a year-long bout with anxiety-induced hiccups. His spiritless teenage years weren’t any better; his notable exploit was hooking up with a neighbor girl in the church bell tower.
What does an author do when faced with a main character who is a cynical, horny, insipid recluse? I was confronted with a protagonist whose childhood resulted in an adult who didn’t engage people (including readers!)
My response was to write the story from a present-tense, first-person point of view, enabling the reader to understand what was going on inside Andrey’s head, which was much more interesting than what his outward persona portrayed. In entering Andrey's thoughts (and enjoying hefty doses of his wry sense of humor), my goal was to keep you, the reader, entertained in the midst of a gruesome war.
Published on January 06, 2019 15:22
January 4, 2019
SELECTING A TITLE - NO SMALL TASK
A book title shoulders a heavy load. It should be:
Catchy
Clever
Credible
Memorable
Thought-provoking
Short
Simple
Direct
Unique
Easy to read
Easy to say
For How Did I Get Here?, I came up with the possibilities below, and the publisher made the selection.
Catchy
Clever
Credible
Memorable
Thought-provoking
Short
Simple
Direct
Unique
Easy to read
Easy to say
For How Did I Get Here?, I came up with the possibilities below, and the publisher made the selection.

Published on January 04, 2019 10:21
November 23, 2018
PUBLISHER BRINGS BOOK TO LIFE
Why does the author get so much credit for a book? Yes, the author puts the words on paper, but creating a book requires a synergistic team of professional editors, proof readers, designers, and typesetters, plus gurus in distribution, marketing, accounting, and legal issues. Each and everyone has to cooperate, communicate, and stay on schedule.
How Did I Get Here? materialized into a first-class book only through the hard work of the employees and contractors of Greenleaf Book Group in Austin, Texas. My deepest gratitude goes to every one of them.
Some members of my incredible Greenleaf Book team
(Width 350
How Did I Get Here? materialized into a first-class book only through the hard work of the employees and contractors of Greenleaf Book Group in Austin, Texas. My deepest gratitude goes to every one of them.
Some members of my incredible Greenleaf Book team

Published on November 23, 2018 05:33
Jane Marlow's Blog
My sincere hope is that you find my historical Russian novels to be both entertaining and informative.
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