Jay Amberg's Blog, page 10

The Healer’s Daughters blog tour: guest post at Mystery Suspense Review

[image error]Mystery Suspense Reviews hosted my second guest post. This time, I describe how settings necessarily become characters in my novels.

The Healer’s Daughters is set in the Aegean area of Turkey. The current market town of Bergama, where much of the action takes place, is built on the ruins of Pergamon, the Hellenistic city that twenty-five centuries ago was the artistic and cultural rival of Athens. The city’s healing center, the Aesklepion, drives the plot and informs the themes. Indeed, my impetus for writing The Healer’s Daughters had everything to do with my falling in love with the Aegean area—both the incredible light and the rich cultural heritage. The Healer’s Daughters features a map and drawings of the setting. I have also been posting photos at jayamberg.wordpress.com/blog.

The setting is always integral to any novel I write. In fact, each setting serves as an important character. In Doubloon, for instance, the story focuses on treasure divers who live and work in the Florida Keys. The story’s climax includes a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. In America’s Fool, the interplay between the glitz of Las Vegas and the stark beauty of the surrounding Nevada desert is absolutely critical to the story. Bone Box is set around ancient Ephesus and Ayasuluk Hill where the layers of civilization—a Selçuk Turkish fortress set above the ruins of a Christian cathedral above a working mosque above an extraordinarily preserved Roman city above an even older pagan temple—are all clearly visible. Anyone can stand there and actually see thousands of years of Western civilization. Each year, tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims visit the nearby site of the house of Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, who likely fled there with John the Apostle. All of these sites pervade the novel.

In each book, the characters are strongly influenced by the place where they grew up and the area in which they are living out their lives. We are all, in a deep sense, shaped by the settings in which we find ourselves—and this needs to be as authentic with fictional characters as it is with each of us.

The Healer’s Daughters blog tour: guest post at Rockin’ Book Reviews

Rockin’ Book Reviews hosted a guest post on the blog tour yesterday. Here is my article wherein I discuss the three years of research involved in The Healer’s Daughters.

Research is integral to every novel I write. Normally, I spend a year researching, a year writing, and a year editing. With The Healer’s Daughters, I was teaching in İzmir, Turkey near the Aegean coast. I did not go to Turkey planning to write another novel, but living in the Aegean area stoked my energy. As I traveled in the region, the story began to form in my mind. I was particularly taken by Bergama, a Turkish market town built on the ruins of Pergamon, an ancient Hellenistic city that was the artistic and cultural rival of Athens.

The tremendous advantage of doing research while living in İzmir was that I could imagine a scene and then visit the site. It is much easier for me to see and hear my characters if I am in a place where they would be. In Istanbul, for example, I could write a scene’s dialogue while at the Süleymaniye Mosque or Gülhane Park just outside of Topkapı Palace. I could sit on the bench where the characters sat while they argued. I was also able to interview archeologists in the field. Scholars and other experts gladly shared their time and their knowledge about the coastal Aegean area from Ephesus to Troy. Friends I made took me to villages so that I could meet local people.

Because I was living in Turkey, the research for The Healer’s Daughters stretched into the year of writing and even into the editing phase. The research included reading texts like Pergamon, A Hellenistic Capital and The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire. I also, as I mentioned, visited quite a few sites and talked with many people. Some of those conversations still continue even though the novel has gone to print.

The research was sometimes difficult and at times no fun at all (I fell off a mountain and broke a rib), but there was always an underlying sense of joy because of the people I met and the places I visited. Everyone with whom I spoke was not only informative but also amicable. My experiences in Turkey definitely enhanced the authenticity of The Healer’s Daughters.

The Healer’s Daughters blog tour: Working Mommy Journal review

[image error]Thanks to Working Mommy Journal for the first review on the blog tour:

“This novel had an excellent pace and the plot was incredible. I have never read a book like this before and it kept me engaged throughout the whole novel. I loved how we had glimpses of the past that connected to the present and even had meaning and guidance for our future. It is a truly special novel that you will not want to put down.”

Read the whole review and enter the giveaway here.

Enter to win free books and an Amazon gift card

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As part of my iRead blog tour, starting today, I am giving away free copies of The Healer’s Daughters. One winner will also receive a $25 Amazon gift card. You can enter to win here.

Please follow along on the tour, here.

The Healer’s Daughters, illustration 3, house in Bergama

The next illustration in The Healer’s Daughters is a beautiful glimpse of Bergama, and an important house. Also, the iRead blog tour begins today! Check back for re-posts and follow along here.

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The Healer’s Daughters, the veiled woman

Unlike Elif, the woman in Raqqa is cut off from her community. Here we meet her for the first time in The Healer’s Daughters.

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iRead Book Tours presents: The Healer’s Daughters

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Beginning next week, The Healer’s Daughters will be on tour thanks to iRead. This is a new and exciting experience for me; I’ve written several guest posts and interviews for the tour, discussing research, process, characters, and more. I hope you will join us at each stop. You can enter a giveaway to win free copies of the book, both digital and paperback, as well as a $25 Amazon gift card. Visit iRead for the full tour schedule.

The Healer’s Daughters, Elif’s dance

Elif is a pivotal character in The Healer’s Daughters. Through dance and chants, her women’s circle attempts to ground themselves beyond grief.

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The Healer’s Daughters, illustration 2, the cable car

The second illustration in The Healer’s Daughters is of the acropolis cable car, in which nine-year-old Mehmet Suner and his grandfather are riding. Thanks to Jonathan Smith for his stunning work.

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SPR review, The Healer’s Daughters

[image error]“A complex and gripping novel. Tying together ancient cultural beliefs, insightful flashbacks, mystical practices, and enough treasure-hunting to satisfy a Clive Cussler fan, this tangled tale is difficult to put down both for its originality and skillful storytelling. The Healer’s Daughters is unpredictable throughout, as are the core characters, making this book a genuinely innovative pleasure that will appeal to a wide breadth of genre fans.”

Read the full review here. Thank you, Self-Publishing Review.