Cynthia Hamilton's Blog: Reading and Writing, page 3
April 22, 2019
The Story Behind the Story: Soulla Christodoulou The Summer Will Come
As a reader, I was lulled into Soulla Christodoulou’s beautiful, heartbreaking and triumphant novel “The Summer Will Come”, which gives the reader a look into the idyllic life on the tranquil island of Cyprus in the early 1950s. An average day for these islanders wasn’t much changed from what their ancestors’ lives had been like a hundred years earlier. There were some automobiles and a few other modern conveniences, but for the most part, life was simple and life was good.
Though most of the inhabitants from the two separate villages in the story were living one day to the next, with just enough to feed and clothe themselves, they knew down inside that they were happy and loved and part of a larger community that would take care of them. They felt inherently safe and fortunate to have these simple gifts.
This tranquil paradise feels the first waves of turbulence when British soldiers start making arrests of those they feel are a threat to the British Crown. Suddenly, neighbors are being held up as traitors and hauled away to prisons. Others are shot for proudly hanging the flag they love. Life on Cyprus will never be the same; those families who can flee to England are the lucky ones. “The Summer Will Come” tells their stories.
It is my sincere pleasure to share Soulla Christodoulou’s story behind the story:
Hello Cynthia! Thank you so much for inviting me to share my inspiration for “The Summer Will Come” with you and your readers.
The one thing about writing and getting older is I’ve come to appreciate the many enriching experiences in my life which have opened my eyes to new things about me, the people around me and the canvas which is our world.
The seed which influenced the story “The Summer Will Come” came from this realisation and somewhere deep within me.
I saw how uncomfortably the concept of death and the fragility of life had affected me when my mum, having suffered from an illness which lasted over three years finally overcame her ordeal and became well again. During those shared darkest moments, I starkly and painfully realised everything comes to an end and I began to question my life's purpose. What legacy would I leave behind once I was gone? How would people remember me? What is this life all about?
My Greek Cypriot roots and my sense of wonder and inquisitiveness of what came before filled my heart and my mind. What was life like before I was born, why were my parents living in the UK, what experiences made my parents the people they are and ultimately have shaped me and the person I am today?
My pique didn’t stop there and I began asking my mum and dad more and more questions and looked for opportunities to talk to my aunts and uncles and many other people across my Greek Cypriot community here in London.
I listened in awe at their recollections, their tales of escape, of heartache, of leaving behind their loving homeland, their hopes and dreams as they and their parents came to a foreign land with hopes of building a better life for their families. It was these stories and accounts which provided the historical thread and plot twists and turns in “The Summer Will Come”.
In addition, I undertook hours of secondary research. I ploughed through many books, internet sites, photographs, and images. I visited The National Struggle Museum in Nicosia, Cyprus and my pages and pages of notes began to unravel into a story idea.
I have been privileged too in that I have connected with an incredible woman and her family, now living in South Africa, through my Instagram account. It is through her father’s possession of a journal and notes and maps that I gained insight to not only their personal memories, thoughts and emotions and but to those of an EOKA hero. The woman’s father is the brother of the hero Evagoras Pallikarides, whose poem inspired the title of my novel. He was an EOKA recruit, a poet and was honoured as a hero of Cyprus’ 1950s history when he was hanged at the age of nineteen.
One key element ran through all my research and repeated itself again and again; it was determination, resilience, love and passion for traditions and culture that kept people going through their adversity and hardships. One reader commented, “Have you ever wondered what immigrants made of London in that period, coming from beautiful towns and villages to this smog ridden and dirty massive metropolis, but nothing is exaggerated here, our heroes suffer culture shock, family tribulations, but they also find new positives in the new life.”
The story revolves around two families, both Greek Cypriot living in different villages in Cyprus, one a small mountain village and another a coastal village in the south of the island. It is 1953; the year of Queen Elizabeth's coronation and the start of what becomes a momentous period in the island's history; a time of turmoil, political conflict and slaughter of innocent people in the name of Enosis (unity with Greece) and freedom from British rule.
The reader is carried through their trials and the final push which forces them to leave their life, the only life they have ever known, to move to London, England. This is primarily a fiction novel set against some of the key moments in the history of Cyprus in the 1950s. It is a book of hope, new dreams, hardship, determination and overcoming adversity at a time when England too was going through lots of changes. Another reader has commented, “This is a heartfelt, tender story about how history has the power to shape the human experience and how world events can affect the most ordinary of lives. It's about family, loyalty and having the strength and courage to start a new life, far removed from what you know.”
I wrote the novel as a multi-point of view story - a mother and daughter from one family and a father and son from the other family. Elena, the daughter and Christaki, the son are the key main characters in the story. This helps to explore how the story events and situations are perceived by different generations and both female and male voice which allows the reader to get a more rounded experience of all that happens.
I have visited Cyprus many times over, both as a teenager and an adult, and I use the sights and smells of village life as I remember them and as divulged to me through my research, to draw the reader into the setting.
Publishing this book has brought something very special to the book shelves of all those readers interested in Greek Cypriot life and traditions and 1950s Cypriot and British history. Readers have enjoyed strong characters, a well-paced plot with realistic and amazing storytelling. Many readers have cried, laughed and rejoiced with the characters in “The Summer Will Come”. One book blogger commented, “‘The Summer Will Come’ is quite the emotional book to read and I found myself getting very involved in these lives and missing the characters after I had finished reading.”
I hope my future readers do too! Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog Cynthia. It’s been my absolute pleasure.
Where to find Soulla:
Website: https://soulla-author.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/schristodoulou2?l...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soullasays
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/asceducational
Though most of the inhabitants from the two separate villages in the story were living one day to the next, with just enough to feed and clothe themselves, they knew down inside that they were happy and loved and part of a larger community that would take care of them. They felt inherently safe and fortunate to have these simple gifts.
This tranquil paradise feels the first waves of turbulence when British soldiers start making arrests of those they feel are a threat to the British Crown. Suddenly, neighbors are being held up as traitors and hauled away to prisons. Others are shot for proudly hanging the flag they love. Life on Cyprus will never be the same; those families who can flee to England are the lucky ones. “The Summer Will Come” tells their stories.
It is my sincere pleasure to share Soulla Christodoulou’s story behind the story:
Hello Cynthia! Thank you so much for inviting me to share my inspiration for “The Summer Will Come” with you and your readers.
The one thing about writing and getting older is I’ve come to appreciate the many enriching experiences in my life which have opened my eyes to new things about me, the people around me and the canvas which is our world.
The seed which influenced the story “The Summer Will Come” came from this realisation and somewhere deep within me.
I saw how uncomfortably the concept of death and the fragility of life had affected me when my mum, having suffered from an illness which lasted over three years finally overcame her ordeal and became well again. During those shared darkest moments, I starkly and painfully realised everything comes to an end and I began to question my life's purpose. What legacy would I leave behind once I was gone? How would people remember me? What is this life all about?
My Greek Cypriot roots and my sense of wonder and inquisitiveness of what came before filled my heart and my mind. What was life like before I was born, why were my parents living in the UK, what experiences made my parents the people they are and ultimately have shaped me and the person I am today?
My pique didn’t stop there and I began asking my mum and dad more and more questions and looked for opportunities to talk to my aunts and uncles and many other people across my Greek Cypriot community here in London.
I listened in awe at their recollections, their tales of escape, of heartache, of leaving behind their loving homeland, their hopes and dreams as they and their parents came to a foreign land with hopes of building a better life for their families. It was these stories and accounts which provided the historical thread and plot twists and turns in “The Summer Will Come”.
In addition, I undertook hours of secondary research. I ploughed through many books, internet sites, photographs, and images. I visited The National Struggle Museum in Nicosia, Cyprus and my pages and pages of notes began to unravel into a story idea.
I have been privileged too in that I have connected with an incredible woman and her family, now living in South Africa, through my Instagram account. It is through her father’s possession of a journal and notes and maps that I gained insight to not only their personal memories, thoughts and emotions and but to those of an EOKA hero. The woman’s father is the brother of the hero Evagoras Pallikarides, whose poem inspired the title of my novel. He was an EOKA recruit, a poet and was honoured as a hero of Cyprus’ 1950s history when he was hanged at the age of nineteen.
One key element ran through all my research and repeated itself again and again; it was determination, resilience, love and passion for traditions and culture that kept people going through their adversity and hardships. One reader commented, “Have you ever wondered what immigrants made of London in that period, coming from beautiful towns and villages to this smog ridden and dirty massive metropolis, but nothing is exaggerated here, our heroes suffer culture shock, family tribulations, but they also find new positives in the new life.”
The story revolves around two families, both Greek Cypriot living in different villages in Cyprus, one a small mountain village and another a coastal village in the south of the island. It is 1953; the year of Queen Elizabeth's coronation and the start of what becomes a momentous period in the island's history; a time of turmoil, political conflict and slaughter of innocent people in the name of Enosis (unity with Greece) and freedom from British rule.
The reader is carried through their trials and the final push which forces them to leave their life, the only life they have ever known, to move to London, England. This is primarily a fiction novel set against some of the key moments in the history of Cyprus in the 1950s. It is a book of hope, new dreams, hardship, determination and overcoming adversity at a time when England too was going through lots of changes. Another reader has commented, “This is a heartfelt, tender story about how history has the power to shape the human experience and how world events can affect the most ordinary of lives. It's about family, loyalty and having the strength and courage to start a new life, far removed from what you know.”
I wrote the novel as a multi-point of view story - a mother and daughter from one family and a father and son from the other family. Elena, the daughter and Christaki, the son are the key main characters in the story. This helps to explore how the story events and situations are perceived by different generations and both female and male voice which allows the reader to get a more rounded experience of all that happens.
I have visited Cyprus many times over, both as a teenager and an adult, and I use the sights and smells of village life as I remember them and as divulged to me through my research, to draw the reader into the setting.
Publishing this book has brought something very special to the book shelves of all those readers interested in Greek Cypriot life and traditions and 1950s Cypriot and British history. Readers have enjoyed strong characters, a well-paced plot with realistic and amazing storytelling. Many readers have cried, laughed and rejoiced with the characters in “The Summer Will Come”. One book blogger commented, “‘The Summer Will Come’ is quite the emotional book to read and I found myself getting very involved in these lives and missing the characters after I had finished reading.”
I hope my future readers do too! Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog Cynthia. It’s been my absolute pleasure.
Where to find Soulla:
Website: https://soulla-author.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/schristodoulou2?l...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soullasays
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/asceducational
March 12, 2019
The Story Behind the Story: Joan Livingston The Isabel Long Mystery Series
Before I embarked on my first novel 18 years ago, I harkened back to a piece of advice attributed to Ernest Hemingway: "Write about what you know". The author of this week’s guest post is a perfect example of someone who has done just that in her debut series. Her protagonist, Isabel Long, is former journalist, just like her creator. Both draw on Joan’s decades of experience as she creates tangled plots and inserts them into everyday life in the hill country of Western Massachusetts, not coincidently a stomping ground Joan knows very well.
That authenticity rings through in Joan’s writing, giving the reader a real sense of place and confidence that the background given for Isabel’s former profession is accurate, something I really appreciate as a reader. Isabel brings with her a gaggle of supporting characters, quirky individuals who follow an unwritten code of small-town manners, though occasionally they forget the sixth commandment, "Thou shall not kill".
It is my great pleasure to give you Joan Livingston:
Thank you, Cynthia, for this opportunity to tell the ‘story behind the story’ of my Isabel Long Mystery Series.
One day I got it in my head that I wanted to write a mystery. I had already written books for adult and young readers, literary fiction and magical realism, respectively. But it made sense to try this genre as I love a great mystery, especially one that fools me until the end.
So, I sat down, and the pieces came together fast. Extremely fast. That’s how it works for me. Not to sound like a nut job, but ideas come from somewhere. The same goes for the characters and what they do.
Anyway, it made sense that my protagonist, Isabel Long, would tell the story, so I wrote it in first-person, and because I want my readers to feel they are in the middle of the action, also in present tense.
Isabel’s back story: she has just come off a bad year when this series starts with Chasing the Case. Her husband died and she lost her job as a newspaper’s top editor. She is what the French call une femme d’un certain age. Isabel’s bit of a smart ass but she has a caring heart. Yes, I admit there is quite a lot of me in her.
After a year of proper grieving, Isabel is ready for a new life. And that’s when we meet her. She decides to solve a 28-year-old mystery of a woman who went missing in her town of a thousand people. It was Isabel’s first big story as a rookie reporter. She plans to use the tools she relied on as a journalist to solve this case. And Isabel has a ‘Watson’ — her 92-year-old mystery-loving mother who’s come to live with her. My own mother, who is 94, inspired this character.
Isabel also takes a part-time job at the local watering hole, the Rooster, where not only does she find clues for her cases, but a love interest in its owner, Jack.
That case leads her to her second in Redneck’s Revenge, where she solves the mystery of how a junkyard owner died. No, the man wasn’t too drunk to get out of a fire. He was murdered. And Isabel gets free mechanical service from the man’s daughter for solving it.
In the third, Checking the Traps, Isabel is a bit banged up from a car crash in her second case. But though her arm is in a sling because of a broken collarbone, she still pours beer one-handed at the Rooster and takes on a new case. A bad boy drug dealer who terrorized her a bit in her last one, hires her to find out what happened to his half-brother. Did he jump off a bridge known for suicides or was he pushed?
A fourth is in progress. I hadn’t expected to write a series, but here I am.
As a writer, I take what I know and have my way with it. For this series, I used my experiences living in very small towns in New England — think one store, one stoplight, one church, one school, one bar — to create what I believe is an authentic setting. I am familiar with feuds, families, gossipy old men, and secrets. I’ve also spent enough time in country bars, including as a bartender, to know what they are like. As for the characters I’ve created, they are made up although I believe they would be comfortable living in the small towns I’ve created.
I also know what it takes to be a journalist. I have worked over thirty years in the news biz. Like Isabel, I began reporting on the small town where I lived. It was a great opportunity for me to listen to the way people talk and to observe how they behave. The experience also broke a long writer’s block that coincided with birthing and raising six kids. And because Isabel snagged cold case folders on the day she was canned at the newspaper, I get to write news stories in my books.
Oh, about Isabel’s broken collarbone. I had a similar experience when a car hit me while I was a pedestrian in a crosswalk. I was glad to put that injury to good use for this book. Yeah, it was another case of taking what I know, and, well, you can figure the rest.
Checking the Traps, published by Crooked Cat Books, has a March 22 launch. Here’s the link:
https://mybook.to/checkingthetraps
Where to find Joan:
Website: www.joanlivingston.net.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoanLivingstonAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoanLivingston
Instagram: www.Instagram.com/JoanLivingston_Author
That authenticity rings through in Joan’s writing, giving the reader a real sense of place and confidence that the background given for Isabel’s former profession is accurate, something I really appreciate as a reader. Isabel brings with her a gaggle of supporting characters, quirky individuals who follow an unwritten code of small-town manners, though occasionally they forget the sixth commandment, "Thou shall not kill".
It is my great pleasure to give you Joan Livingston:
Thank you, Cynthia, for this opportunity to tell the ‘story behind the story’ of my Isabel Long Mystery Series.
One day I got it in my head that I wanted to write a mystery. I had already written books for adult and young readers, literary fiction and magical realism, respectively. But it made sense to try this genre as I love a great mystery, especially one that fools me until the end.
So, I sat down, and the pieces came together fast. Extremely fast. That’s how it works for me. Not to sound like a nut job, but ideas come from somewhere. The same goes for the characters and what they do.
Anyway, it made sense that my protagonist, Isabel Long, would tell the story, so I wrote it in first-person, and because I want my readers to feel they are in the middle of the action, also in present tense.
Isabel’s back story: she has just come off a bad year when this series starts with Chasing the Case. Her husband died and she lost her job as a newspaper’s top editor. She is what the French call une femme d’un certain age. Isabel’s bit of a smart ass but she has a caring heart. Yes, I admit there is quite a lot of me in her.
After a year of proper grieving, Isabel is ready for a new life. And that’s when we meet her. She decides to solve a 28-year-old mystery of a woman who went missing in her town of a thousand people. It was Isabel’s first big story as a rookie reporter. She plans to use the tools she relied on as a journalist to solve this case. And Isabel has a ‘Watson’ — her 92-year-old mystery-loving mother who’s come to live with her. My own mother, who is 94, inspired this character.
Isabel also takes a part-time job at the local watering hole, the Rooster, where not only does she find clues for her cases, but a love interest in its owner, Jack.
That case leads her to her second in Redneck’s Revenge, where she solves the mystery of how a junkyard owner died. No, the man wasn’t too drunk to get out of a fire. He was murdered. And Isabel gets free mechanical service from the man’s daughter for solving it.
In the third, Checking the Traps, Isabel is a bit banged up from a car crash in her second case. But though her arm is in a sling because of a broken collarbone, she still pours beer one-handed at the Rooster and takes on a new case. A bad boy drug dealer who terrorized her a bit in her last one, hires her to find out what happened to his half-brother. Did he jump off a bridge known for suicides or was he pushed?
A fourth is in progress. I hadn’t expected to write a series, but here I am.
As a writer, I take what I know and have my way with it. For this series, I used my experiences living in very small towns in New England — think one store, one stoplight, one church, one school, one bar — to create what I believe is an authentic setting. I am familiar with feuds, families, gossipy old men, and secrets. I’ve also spent enough time in country bars, including as a bartender, to know what they are like. As for the characters I’ve created, they are made up although I believe they would be comfortable living in the small towns I’ve created.
I also know what it takes to be a journalist. I have worked over thirty years in the news biz. Like Isabel, I began reporting on the small town where I lived. It was a great opportunity for me to listen to the way people talk and to observe how they behave. The experience also broke a long writer’s block that coincided with birthing and raising six kids. And because Isabel snagged cold case folders on the day she was canned at the newspaper, I get to write news stories in my books.
Oh, about Isabel’s broken collarbone. I had a similar experience when a car hit me while I was a pedestrian in a crosswalk. I was glad to put that injury to good use for this book. Yeah, it was another case of taking what I know, and, well, you can figure the rest.
Checking the Traps, published by Crooked Cat Books, has a March 22 launch. Here’s the link:
https://mybook.to/checkingthetraps
Where to find Joan:
Website: www.joanlivingston.net.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoanLivingstonAuthor/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoanLivingston
Instagram: www.Instagram.com/JoanLivingston_Author
February 26, 2019
The Story Behind the Story: Jennifer Irwin "A Dress The Color of the Sky
It would be hard for me to think of a book that affected me on a personal level as much as Jennifer Irwin’s “A Dress the Color of the Sky”. Not only is it about as perfect as book can be in terms of narrative, flow, descriptions and overall story, it reflects a side of society that lurks just below a seemingly placid surface, a vile treachery that somehow manages to exist in every walk of life. Prue’s story is so raw, honest and haunting, it’s impossible to not feel her pain while those closest to her systematically use and abuse her.
But before you get the impression this book is a downer, I can assure you it’s not. In fact, it comes at the reader like a hurricane, flying in the face of decorum while Prue struggles to kick her addiction to sex, her only perceived vehicle to love and affection. As she checks herself into a clinic in Arizona, she takes the first step in reclaiming her marriage and hopefully the self-respect that was taken from her at very young age.
It is my very great pleasure to give you Jennifer Irwin:
I came up with the idea to write A Dress the Color of the Sky when I was in the midst of a divorce from the man I had been married to for nineteen years. There was a tremendous sense of failure brewing inside of me. I yearned for an outlet to deal with the pain of my situation, and coming to grips with the fact that I had failed at the most important commitment of my life.
The combination of the pain of my marriage and my fascination with the details of people’s lives created the perfect storm for me to write my debut novel. I was curious as to why some women choose the right partner and stay married forever, and some don’t. I wondered if there was a correlation between my childhood and the image I had painted in my mind as the perfect partner for me. There was no doubt that my idea of what a husband, and father looked like was skewed. My mother had been married three times, my father, four. By husband number three, it became apparent that my mother’s man picker was broken. One of the men she married was extremely abusive which caused me severe childhood trauma. Another factor also came into play. I am the child of an alcoholic, drug addict. Although my mother was my primary caregiver, my birth father’s addiction took its toll on me during my childhood.
When I was dating my now ex-husband, I had been given the signs that he may have a drinking problem. At one point, due to a variety of circumstances, I took a stand on my happiness and broke up with him. He begged me to take him back and swore off alcohol. With a promise of sobriety, and the innocence of young love, I accepted his promise. My gut told me to call off the wedding after a drunken incident at his bachelor party. There we were at the town hall, my heart screaming not to marry him but when he got on his knees and begged for forgiveness along with the pressure of calling off a wedding at the last minute, I succumbed. We toasted with sparkling water on our wedding day and lived in blissful denial for the first nine years. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that my ex-husband began drinking again but he did. The co-dependent child inside of me reared her ugly head. I came up with a plethora of rules with regard to his drinking, no shots, no hard liquor, the list went on. All of these concepts failed of course. The saddest part of this story for me is that I truly loved my ex-husband but the truth I had to come to grips with was that he never loved me.
So, how did all of this help me write a multi-award winning debut novel that is an Amazon bestseller with near perfect reviews? I spilled my soul onto the pages. What began as a story to heal myself, turned into a venue for me to address many questions and curiosities surrounding me. I had been teaching Pilates for years which helped me learn about various types of women on an intimate level. When Fifty Shades came out, I was fascinated by how the book stimulated so many marriages. I felt as though women had been pegged as not as sexual as men. I witnessed many times what happens when a sexually repressed woman is freed from the chains that bound her. We’ve all heard about the wild years some women have following a divorce. What I concluded was that women are sexual, they’re just more complicated with regards to what turns them on. While my clients got excited about Fifty Shades of Gray (a book I personally could not finish), a variety of men were coming forward as self-proclaimed sex addicts. I pondered as to why there weren’t any women coming forward with the same diagnosis.
After a year of working on my manuscript, I sent my oldest son off to college. There had been quite a few things in the news about the rise in incidents of date rape on college campuses. I wondered about our society and where we were going wrong. Why was a drunk girl raped instead of being taken care of? What could we do about the binge drinking problem and the breakdown of the tried and true buddy system? These were minor factors in my book but something I wanted to address. I take the role of being a mother to three sons very seriously. It is important to me that they deeply respect women. After all, they were primarily raised by me. A few years into writing Dress, the Sandusky trial was all over the news. I struggled with why we hadn’t better protected these kids, and then the gymnasts who had been sexually assaulted by their trusted team physician. All of this forced me to take a deep look at my childhood. There was a part of me that was still wounded from the traumatic incidents that had occurred. I knew that if I didn’t dig deep, seek help, read books, and face my demons, that I would end up in yet another unhealthy relationship.
What I found since releasing Dress is that I’m not alone. Shortly after my book was released, Kelly Oxford tweeted her sexual assault story. She opened up the lines of communication for other women to share their traumatic stories. There was an unparalleled response to her tweet. A woman tweeted every second, millions of women shared their stories, some opened up Twitter accounts to do so. I read through the feed for a few hours until I couldn’t take it anymore. What I learned is that it doesn’t matter what type of trauma you have endured, what matters is how it made you feel, how it affects your sense of self, and how it ruined your chances of engaging in healthy, loving relationships.
I’m not a therapist, nor am I an addiction specialist but I did a lot of research to write this book. I’ll save that for another story but some of my research was on a personal level. Some was to learn more about how others have dealt with healing from their trauma whatever it may be. Since releasing my book, I have received an outpouring of private messages from my readers both male and female. They have shared with me that my book has changed them, helped them, and given them hope. What started as something that I wrote to help me heal, turned out to be a story that seemingly has helped many others.
Where to find Jennifer:
Website: http://jenniferirwinauthor.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenirwinauthor
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2EzNtyP
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jen.irwin
But before you get the impression this book is a downer, I can assure you it’s not. In fact, it comes at the reader like a hurricane, flying in the face of decorum while Prue struggles to kick her addiction to sex, her only perceived vehicle to love and affection. As she checks herself into a clinic in Arizona, she takes the first step in reclaiming her marriage and hopefully the self-respect that was taken from her at very young age.
It is my very great pleasure to give you Jennifer Irwin:
I came up with the idea to write A Dress the Color of the Sky when I was in the midst of a divorce from the man I had been married to for nineteen years. There was a tremendous sense of failure brewing inside of me. I yearned for an outlet to deal with the pain of my situation, and coming to grips with the fact that I had failed at the most important commitment of my life.
The combination of the pain of my marriage and my fascination with the details of people’s lives created the perfect storm for me to write my debut novel. I was curious as to why some women choose the right partner and stay married forever, and some don’t. I wondered if there was a correlation between my childhood and the image I had painted in my mind as the perfect partner for me. There was no doubt that my idea of what a husband, and father looked like was skewed. My mother had been married three times, my father, four. By husband number three, it became apparent that my mother’s man picker was broken. One of the men she married was extremely abusive which caused me severe childhood trauma. Another factor also came into play. I am the child of an alcoholic, drug addict. Although my mother was my primary caregiver, my birth father’s addiction took its toll on me during my childhood.
When I was dating my now ex-husband, I had been given the signs that he may have a drinking problem. At one point, due to a variety of circumstances, I took a stand on my happiness and broke up with him. He begged me to take him back and swore off alcohol. With a promise of sobriety, and the innocence of young love, I accepted his promise. My gut told me to call off the wedding after a drunken incident at his bachelor party. There we were at the town hall, my heart screaming not to marry him but when he got on his knees and begged for forgiveness along with the pressure of calling off a wedding at the last minute, I succumbed. We toasted with sparkling water on our wedding day and lived in blissful denial for the first nine years. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that my ex-husband began drinking again but he did. The co-dependent child inside of me reared her ugly head. I came up with a plethora of rules with regard to his drinking, no shots, no hard liquor, the list went on. All of these concepts failed of course. The saddest part of this story for me is that I truly loved my ex-husband but the truth I had to come to grips with was that he never loved me.
So, how did all of this help me write a multi-award winning debut novel that is an Amazon bestseller with near perfect reviews? I spilled my soul onto the pages. What began as a story to heal myself, turned into a venue for me to address many questions and curiosities surrounding me. I had been teaching Pilates for years which helped me learn about various types of women on an intimate level. When Fifty Shades came out, I was fascinated by how the book stimulated so many marriages. I felt as though women had been pegged as not as sexual as men. I witnessed many times what happens when a sexually repressed woman is freed from the chains that bound her. We’ve all heard about the wild years some women have following a divorce. What I concluded was that women are sexual, they’re just more complicated with regards to what turns them on. While my clients got excited about Fifty Shades of Gray (a book I personally could not finish), a variety of men were coming forward as self-proclaimed sex addicts. I pondered as to why there weren’t any women coming forward with the same diagnosis.
After a year of working on my manuscript, I sent my oldest son off to college. There had been quite a few things in the news about the rise in incidents of date rape on college campuses. I wondered about our society and where we were going wrong. Why was a drunk girl raped instead of being taken care of? What could we do about the binge drinking problem and the breakdown of the tried and true buddy system? These were minor factors in my book but something I wanted to address. I take the role of being a mother to three sons very seriously. It is important to me that they deeply respect women. After all, they were primarily raised by me. A few years into writing Dress, the Sandusky trial was all over the news. I struggled with why we hadn’t better protected these kids, and then the gymnasts who had been sexually assaulted by their trusted team physician. All of this forced me to take a deep look at my childhood. There was a part of me that was still wounded from the traumatic incidents that had occurred. I knew that if I didn’t dig deep, seek help, read books, and face my demons, that I would end up in yet another unhealthy relationship.
What I found since releasing Dress is that I’m not alone. Shortly after my book was released, Kelly Oxford tweeted her sexual assault story. She opened up the lines of communication for other women to share their traumatic stories. There was an unparalleled response to her tweet. A woman tweeted every second, millions of women shared their stories, some opened up Twitter accounts to do so. I read through the feed for a few hours until I couldn’t take it anymore. What I learned is that it doesn’t matter what type of trauma you have endured, what matters is how it made you feel, how it affects your sense of self, and how it ruined your chances of engaging in healthy, loving relationships.
I’m not a therapist, nor am I an addiction specialist but I did a lot of research to write this book. I’ll save that for another story but some of my research was on a personal level. Some was to learn more about how others have dealt with healing from their trauma whatever it may be. Since releasing my book, I have received an outpouring of private messages from my readers both male and female. They have shared with me that my book has changed them, helped them, and given them hope. What started as something that I wrote to help me heal, turned out to be a story that seemingly has helped many others.
Where to find Jennifer:
Website: http://jenniferirwinauthor.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenirwinauthor
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2EzNtyP
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jen.irwin
February 12, 2019
The Story Behind the Story: Nina Romano "The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley
The Story Behind the Story: Nina Romano The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley
There’s a reason readers like myself love Nina Romano’s novels and short stories. With her natural curiosity and lust for life, she is drawn to anything that is special in some way, even if to others it might seem commonplace on the surface. After she’s finished describing it, we know how rich and varied it really is, and it’s anything but commonplace.
Once her curiosity is aroused, she’s relentless in her quest to completely understand what makes a particular person tick. She goes to great lengths to research everything about their era, culture, influences, ideals and struggles. Like a great actor, she has to know how each one of her characters feel and why.
For her latest novel, she turned to her love of the Old West, incorporating some of her favorite topics in “The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley” which will be released on February 21 and is now available for pre-order. It is my great pleasure to share Nina’s Story Behind the Story:
Since I was a young girl, I had a fascination with Westerns and Native American cultures. When my I was about five years-old my father took me to Jones Beach in the summer. There was a teepee set up with a beautiful Indian girl with long black braids in a white buckskin beaded and fringed dress. I just assumed that I was going to grow to become an Indian princess like her, but so far this hasn’t happened. I always wanted to write a Western and there was never any doubt in my mind, that eventually, someday, I would pen a story set in the Old West.
By the time I’d reached high school, my Dad taught me how to string a bow for archery, and the basics of the sport. I continued taking archery courses through my first two years of college. Later on, I took a course in hunting with bow and arrow—the only gal in the class! The pull on the bow string is about fifty-five pounds or more, so you can’t hold it long and must release quickly—you’d better have a good beam on your target. I was able to incorporate my knowledge of archery and utilize it in two different novels, one the Western, The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, release date 2-21-19.
Westerns, a fully-formed genre, offer riveting ways to integrate old ideas. Basically, a good Western novel portrays how deep-rooted traditions still have value and should not be completely forgotten. If you have a compelling plot and characters with strong emotions and motivations, utilizing cause and effect, you’re on the right track.
In order to sound like an authority, I feel it’s important to remain loyal to what has already been accepted as Western literature. To paraphrase the author Frederick W. Boling, as a writer you should be reading everything in whatever genre you’re writing—good and bad alike.
Read for background study purposes, and don’t only read the classics in order to craft your story or novel. I believe Boling is right. I read and continue to read this genre. If I really can’t handle a poorly written book, I usually try to get it in the audio version and listen to it as I tool around town in my car.
Research is a must. I read the history and the geography concerning the regions and the places I’m going to write about. One thing for sure, if you’re writing a Western, you should read these authors: Willa Cather, Jack London, Zane Grey, Larry McMurtry, Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy, E. Annie Proulx, Louis L’Amour and a slew of others. There are many indie Western authors on Twitter: @JullietteDougla9, @chrisderreck1 , @CAASBREY , @TheWhipNovel (by KarenKondazian) , @JohnRosePutnam and many more.
Settings and descriptions play an integral part in devising the Western story. For background, I watched and continue to view Western movies—old and new—classics and pardon the expression—crappola as in B movies or worse! Every decade of Western films! I never know when I’ll see or hear something and become inspired—some little incident, an action, the language used, the type of gun or knife, how scenes were built and envisioned, something that I can transmute to make my own and use in my writing. Movies and film also give me the idea of different angles to use for descriptions.
I love to visit museums and galleries, especially the ones with Western Art. There are many out west, but one of the best is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is in Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s out of the way, but so worthwhile visiting.
I feel it’s a must to become familiar with the setting. I look up maps from the time period I’m concentrating on. It always helps to visit the places I’m writing about because this will lend an air of validity to the writing. I like to be sure of the terminology, dress, language, customs, structures, incidents of the times. I feel it’s okay to use conventional characters–the formulaic gunslinger, the hackneyed saloon girls with a “heart of gold,” and the clichéd sheriffs. In fact, readers want them, but I add my own take to manipulate these characters to make them my own and unique.
One of our great American poets recently passed away, and what she had to say about poetry also goes for the Western and informs my writing style and technique, as I have a background in poetry. Mary Oliver said: “Always remember—the speaker doesn’t do it. The words do it. Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude. The idea must drive the words.” I would also add to that, select vivid nouns.
I try to write scenes that encompass action and dialogue and rely on the five senses. I like to insert tension, problems, conflicts, trouble and/or goals to be achieved. The purpose of dialogue is to reveal character and advance the plot. I write scenes that need another sequential scene to follow for the character’s reaction to a dilemma or where they are compelled to make decisions. I try to beware of too much phonetic spelling and “eye” dialect—it can be off-putting to the reader as it is difficult to follow for long passages. I remember reading Roots by Alex Haley and suffering to get through it, just for that reason—jargon.
There are so many visuals a writer can utilize and these offer riveting ways to integrate long-standing notions. Also these can paint us striking and powerful pictures. These can illustrate how things used to be before the encroaching of modern times in towns and the urbanization of sprawling cities, metropolitan living, etc. Then, too, there are “modern” Westerns, such as Urban Cowboy, The Electric Horseman, Brokeback Mountain, which rely heavily on the traditional past.
What I love about Westerns is finding out how much of the past informs our modern lives and also the future. Western drama embraces masculinity and symbolism. The real achievement, I think, when portraying the old West is to make the scenes as realistic as possible, as if I were actually living in this lawless era.
I consider myself lucky because I fell in love with Cayo Bradley, my cowboy, who is a multi-dimensional character in The Girl Who Loves Cayo Bradley, which will release soon from Prairie Rose Publications. Yes, I was so taken by him that I wrote an entire book of Western poems, Westward: Guided by Starfalls and Moonbows, including a poem dedicated to him, entitled: “Cayo Bradley,” and which will be included in the beginning pages of the novel. I allowed him to invade my psyche, which proved beneficial to knowing him inside and out. I submersed myself in the period in which he lived, and in my mind, still lives in memory. I make sure the characters in my narrative have noble goals, important ambitions and objectives that they will risk seeking, despite the fact that they are flawed individuals.
My novel, The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, is set in 1874 between New Mexico and St. Louis, Missouri, with some scenes or descriptions of earlier occurrences, such as the Battle of Cineguilla. For this novel, I purchased several history books and also books on the Jicarilla Apache Nation including their dictionary, which is not easy to use, I guarantee this!
My husband and I drive from Florida to Utah—we love driving out west. We spend spring, summer, and fall in Utah, a great jumping off place to see Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California, and New Mexico, which we’ve travelled to many times.
In New Mexico, I visited the Santa Fe Library, The Indian Arts and Cultural Museum and The Wheelwright Museum. I was fortunate enough to meet a lovely docent, who was most accessible and gave me handouts about the Jicarilla Indians, the tribe I was writing about. I enjoy talking to people, and in New Mexico that’s just what I did—especially in Santa Fe. I stopped window-shoppers to ask questions. I spoke with the guy who sells newspapers on the street, bartenders, waitresses, shop and café owners—and did I ever glean a great amount of oral history and answers to my many inquiries!
In Grad School at Florida International University, my friend, advisor and mentor, Professor John Dufresne, told me when I first met him that the Universe conspires to bring you all you need to write a novel. I believe this idea of finding everything necessary to complete a book is true. So far, I’ve been blessed since the Universe has never let me down.
Where to find Nina:
Website: http://ninaromano.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ninsthewriter
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2I8s57u
There’s a reason readers like myself love Nina Romano’s novels and short stories. With her natural curiosity and lust for life, she is drawn to anything that is special in some way, even if to others it might seem commonplace on the surface. After she’s finished describing it, we know how rich and varied it really is, and it’s anything but commonplace.
Once her curiosity is aroused, she’s relentless in her quest to completely understand what makes a particular person tick. She goes to great lengths to research everything about their era, culture, influences, ideals and struggles. Like a great actor, she has to know how each one of her characters feel and why.
For her latest novel, she turned to her love of the Old West, incorporating some of her favorite topics in “The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley” which will be released on February 21 and is now available for pre-order. It is my great pleasure to share Nina’s Story Behind the Story:
Since I was a young girl, I had a fascination with Westerns and Native American cultures. When my I was about five years-old my father took me to Jones Beach in the summer. There was a teepee set up with a beautiful Indian girl with long black braids in a white buckskin beaded and fringed dress. I just assumed that I was going to grow to become an Indian princess like her, but so far this hasn’t happened. I always wanted to write a Western and there was never any doubt in my mind, that eventually, someday, I would pen a story set in the Old West.
By the time I’d reached high school, my Dad taught me how to string a bow for archery, and the basics of the sport. I continued taking archery courses through my first two years of college. Later on, I took a course in hunting with bow and arrow—the only gal in the class! The pull on the bow string is about fifty-five pounds or more, so you can’t hold it long and must release quickly—you’d better have a good beam on your target. I was able to incorporate my knowledge of archery and utilize it in two different novels, one the Western, The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, release date 2-21-19.
Westerns, a fully-formed genre, offer riveting ways to integrate old ideas. Basically, a good Western novel portrays how deep-rooted traditions still have value and should not be completely forgotten. If you have a compelling plot and characters with strong emotions and motivations, utilizing cause and effect, you’re on the right track.
In order to sound like an authority, I feel it’s important to remain loyal to what has already been accepted as Western literature. To paraphrase the author Frederick W. Boling, as a writer you should be reading everything in whatever genre you’re writing—good and bad alike.
Read for background study purposes, and don’t only read the classics in order to craft your story or novel. I believe Boling is right. I read and continue to read this genre. If I really can’t handle a poorly written book, I usually try to get it in the audio version and listen to it as I tool around town in my car.
Research is a must. I read the history and the geography concerning the regions and the places I’m going to write about. One thing for sure, if you’re writing a Western, you should read these authors: Willa Cather, Jack London, Zane Grey, Larry McMurtry, Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy, E. Annie Proulx, Louis L’Amour and a slew of others. There are many indie Western authors on Twitter: @JullietteDougla9, @chrisderreck1 , @CAASBREY , @TheWhipNovel (by KarenKondazian) , @JohnRosePutnam and many more.
Settings and descriptions play an integral part in devising the Western story. For background, I watched and continue to view Western movies—old and new—classics and pardon the expression—crappola as in B movies or worse! Every decade of Western films! I never know when I’ll see or hear something and become inspired—some little incident, an action, the language used, the type of gun or knife, how scenes were built and envisioned, something that I can transmute to make my own and use in my writing. Movies and film also give me the idea of different angles to use for descriptions.
I love to visit museums and galleries, especially the ones with Western Art. There are many out west, but one of the best is Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is in Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s out of the way, but so worthwhile visiting.
I feel it’s a must to become familiar with the setting. I look up maps from the time period I’m concentrating on. It always helps to visit the places I’m writing about because this will lend an air of validity to the writing. I like to be sure of the terminology, dress, language, customs, structures, incidents of the times. I feel it’s okay to use conventional characters–the formulaic gunslinger, the hackneyed saloon girls with a “heart of gold,” and the clichéd sheriffs. In fact, readers want them, but I add my own take to manipulate these characters to make them my own and unique.
One of our great American poets recently passed away, and what she had to say about poetry also goes for the Western and informs my writing style and technique, as I have a background in poetry. Mary Oliver said: “Always remember—the speaker doesn’t do it. The words do it. Look for verbs of muscle, adjectives of exactitude. The idea must drive the words.” I would also add to that, select vivid nouns.
I try to write scenes that encompass action and dialogue and rely on the five senses. I like to insert tension, problems, conflicts, trouble and/or goals to be achieved. The purpose of dialogue is to reveal character and advance the plot. I write scenes that need another sequential scene to follow for the character’s reaction to a dilemma or where they are compelled to make decisions. I try to beware of too much phonetic spelling and “eye” dialect—it can be off-putting to the reader as it is difficult to follow for long passages. I remember reading Roots by Alex Haley and suffering to get through it, just for that reason—jargon.
There are so many visuals a writer can utilize and these offer riveting ways to integrate long-standing notions. Also these can paint us striking and powerful pictures. These can illustrate how things used to be before the encroaching of modern times in towns and the urbanization of sprawling cities, metropolitan living, etc. Then, too, there are “modern” Westerns, such as Urban Cowboy, The Electric Horseman, Brokeback Mountain, which rely heavily on the traditional past.
What I love about Westerns is finding out how much of the past informs our modern lives and also the future. Western drama embraces masculinity and symbolism. The real achievement, I think, when portraying the old West is to make the scenes as realistic as possible, as if I were actually living in this lawless era.
I consider myself lucky because I fell in love with Cayo Bradley, my cowboy, who is a multi-dimensional character in The Girl Who Loves Cayo Bradley, which will release soon from Prairie Rose Publications. Yes, I was so taken by him that I wrote an entire book of Western poems, Westward: Guided by Starfalls and Moonbows, including a poem dedicated to him, entitled: “Cayo Bradley,” and which will be included in the beginning pages of the novel. I allowed him to invade my psyche, which proved beneficial to knowing him inside and out. I submersed myself in the period in which he lived, and in my mind, still lives in memory. I make sure the characters in my narrative have noble goals, important ambitions and objectives that they will risk seeking, despite the fact that they are flawed individuals.
My novel, The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley, is set in 1874 between New Mexico and St. Louis, Missouri, with some scenes or descriptions of earlier occurrences, such as the Battle of Cineguilla. For this novel, I purchased several history books and also books on the Jicarilla Apache Nation including their dictionary, which is not easy to use, I guarantee this!
My husband and I drive from Florida to Utah—we love driving out west. We spend spring, summer, and fall in Utah, a great jumping off place to see Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California, and New Mexico, which we’ve travelled to many times.
In New Mexico, I visited the Santa Fe Library, The Indian Arts and Cultural Museum and The Wheelwright Museum. I was fortunate enough to meet a lovely docent, who was most accessible and gave me handouts about the Jicarilla Indians, the tribe I was writing about. I enjoy talking to people, and in New Mexico that’s just what I did—especially in Santa Fe. I stopped window-shoppers to ask questions. I spoke with the guy who sells newspapers on the street, bartenders, waitresses, shop and café owners—and did I ever glean a great amount of oral history and answers to my many inquiries!
In Grad School at Florida International University, my friend, advisor and mentor, Professor John Dufresne, told me when I first met him that the Universe conspires to bring you all you need to write a novel. I believe this idea of finding everything necessary to complete a book is true. So far, I’ve been blessed since the Universe has never let me down.
Where to find Nina:
Website: http://ninaromano.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ninsthewriter
Facebook: https://bit.ly/2I8s57u
January 25, 2019
The Story Behind the Story: Kevin Ansbro "The Fish that Climbed a Tree"
We now live in a world where anyone who yearns to write can publish a book without an agent, a publishing company, a degree in literature or any of the credentials that signify someone has what it takes to tell an engaging story. The result is a tidal wave of authors and a tsunami of books have flooded the literary marketplace. Please don’t get me wrong; I am not disparaging this new breed of author, for in fact I am one of them.
I mention this only to highlight the qualities of this week’s guest post. Kevin Ansbro is of one of those cosmically ordained writers who is gifted with natural storytelling ability. It just oozed out of him from an early age. He won awards for it while in school and has always had a mad love affair with the written word. He’s read all the greats and has studied his craft for many years. When he gets a notion to write a book, he lets it ferment while he continues to examine the premise, then he builds his novel with great care, adding all his favorite literary devices in all the appropriate places. He doesn’t tap dance his way through, hoping no one can see that he’s winging it; he maps out his story, planting epiphanies and plot twists and elements of fantasy, all to great effect. In other words, he’s the old-fashioned sort of writer: he was born with gift.
To Kevin, devices like foreshadowing, allusion, imagery, metaphors, personification, anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, and symbolism are sacred and honoured tools of the trade. He’s a pro, a wordsmith, a conjurer of fantastic worlds that reside side by side with the ordinary world most of us live in.
It is my sincere pleasure to give you author Kevin Ansbro and his story behind his new release, “The Fish That Climbed a Tree”:
Thanks for asking me to appear on your blog, Cynthia. I really appreciate the kind gesture!
As an English literature student, used to reading the sumptuous prose of Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, it puzzled me why mainstream thriller writers didn’t put the same care and flamboyance into their formulaic books. Where was the literary technique, I wondered; the joie de vivre, the descriptive imagery, the wit? So, it was always my intention to write a literary thriller that didn’t just travel from A to B to Zzzz. In went plots, subplots, metaphors, symbolism, foreshadowing and rich imagery. Added to the mix was a dollop of humour and a sprinkling of otherworldliness. The result was my novel The Fish That Climbed a Tree.
The story took me three years to write: the first year scribbled on notepads, which were then pinned to a cork board in chronological and thematic order.
Here is the back page blurb:
“They sat themselves calmly and comfortably at the large dining table as if they were invited guests…”
Following his savage murder in a London vicarage, Reverend Ulysses Drummond embarks on an epic odyssey in the afterlife, wrestling with his conscience and misguidedly spurning the obvious advantages of a free ticket to Paradise. His ten-year-old son, Henry, is left to muddle through life, encountering school bullies, big-hearted benefactors and cold-blooded killers on his passage to adulthood. Will Henry find love, success and happiness in his life – or will he suffer the cruel and agonising death that was foretold?
‘Funny, frightening and touching, this audacious combination of fantasy and real-world evil is a novel like no other. Make sure you don’t miss it!’
—Karen Holmes, editor 2QT
Where to find Kevin:
Website: http://kevinansbro.co.uk/books
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
.Kevin_Ansbro
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinansbro
I mention this only to highlight the qualities of this week’s guest post. Kevin Ansbro is of one of those cosmically ordained writers who is gifted with natural storytelling ability. It just oozed out of him from an early age. He won awards for it while in school and has always had a mad love affair with the written word. He’s read all the greats and has studied his craft for many years. When he gets a notion to write a book, he lets it ferment while he continues to examine the premise, then he builds his novel with great care, adding all his favorite literary devices in all the appropriate places. He doesn’t tap dance his way through, hoping no one can see that he’s winging it; he maps out his story, planting epiphanies and plot twists and elements of fantasy, all to great effect. In other words, he’s the old-fashioned sort of writer: he was born with gift.
To Kevin, devices like foreshadowing, allusion, imagery, metaphors, personification, anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, and symbolism are sacred and honoured tools of the trade. He’s a pro, a wordsmith, a conjurer of fantastic worlds that reside side by side with the ordinary world most of us live in.
It is my sincere pleasure to give you author Kevin Ansbro and his story behind his new release, “The Fish That Climbed a Tree”:
Thanks for asking me to appear on your blog, Cynthia. I really appreciate the kind gesture!
As an English literature student, used to reading the sumptuous prose of Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, it puzzled me why mainstream thriller writers didn’t put the same care and flamboyance into their formulaic books. Where was the literary technique, I wondered; the joie de vivre, the descriptive imagery, the wit? So, it was always my intention to write a literary thriller that didn’t just travel from A to B to Zzzz. In went plots, subplots, metaphors, symbolism, foreshadowing and rich imagery. Added to the mix was a dollop of humour and a sprinkling of otherworldliness. The result was my novel The Fish That Climbed a Tree.
The story took me three years to write: the first year scribbled on notepads, which were then pinned to a cork board in chronological and thematic order.
Here is the back page blurb:
“They sat themselves calmly and comfortably at the large dining table as if they were invited guests…”
Following his savage murder in a London vicarage, Reverend Ulysses Drummond embarks on an epic odyssey in the afterlife, wrestling with his conscience and misguidedly spurning the obvious advantages of a free ticket to Paradise. His ten-year-old son, Henry, is left to muddle through life, encountering school bullies, big-hearted benefactors and cold-blooded killers on his passage to adulthood. Will Henry find love, success and happiness in his life – or will he suffer the cruel and agonising death that was foretold?
‘Funny, frightening and touching, this audacious combination of fantasy and real-world evil is a novel like no other. Make sure you don’t miss it!’
—Karen Holmes, editor 2QT
Where to find Kevin:
Website: http://kevinansbro.co.uk/books
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
.Kevin_Ansbro
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinansbro
January 11, 2019
The Road to Storyville: S.S. Bazinet
There are some writers who bring so much to the table besides good storytelling. You know instinctively they’ve come about their unique perspective the hard way, whether through their own challenging times or through observing the suffering of others. I’m not saying you have to suffer for the sake of writing, but seeing a larger spectrum of human emotions can broaden the scope of your writing.
When I picked up “Dying Takes It Out of You”, I knew right away was in very capable hands. The language was so compelling, it felt more like I was watching a scene unfold before my eyes rather than reading a story. When I saw all the books this author had penned, I realized that if anyone was ever destined to be a writer, it was this woman. So, it came as such a surprise to me to learn how hard she had to struggle to get to the point in her life where she could open the levee and let her wonderful imagination run wild.
Something S.S. Bazinet shared with me has stuck, unseating my trepidation about putting my own books out in the public domain. “I feel that each book that I’ve written has been a gift. Call it my muse, my soul or heart or whatever, I feel like something outside of the ‘ordinary me’ inspired just about every word on every page. So, we’re not promoting ourselves. We’re promoting the gifts we’ve been given—our books.”
Her story of how she finally came to writing makes me realize how many people out there feel the passionate desire to write, yet don’t have the confidence to try. I hope her story will unleash the same kind of magic in others!
It’s my sincerely pleasure to give you S.S. Bazinet’s story of how she became a writer:
When asked about becoming a writer, I had to query the question itself. I suppose that as soon as I was taught to put a pencil to paper, I became a writer. Of course, at that point, I was just a little girl who was being taught to write the alphabet. Still, I think that act of making marks on paper, marks that meant something, had a big impression on me. When I learned to write words, that was another step. It was a very big step.
Learning to read came next. I was taught that those marks on paper could convey a story. And my goodness, I loved stories. Stories opened up entire new worlds, worlds that I’d never known existed. I couldn’t get enough of those new worlds and adventures. I remember being a teenager who was always reading, and my mother being frustrated. I had chores to do, and I was neglecting them. When my mom asked me to do something, I always had an excuse. “Please, Mom, just let me finish this book, and then I’ll dust the furniture.” Mom often let me get away with my excuse. She could be such a sweet person when it came to me and my chores. Maybe she could see how happy I was when I was caught up in my reading.
Much later in life, when I was going through some very difficult times, I turned to stories again. But this time, I wanted to write the stories not just read them. I had so many unhappy feelings inside, and I didn’t know how to deal with them directly. By letting a story unfold on paper, a story about someone else, my feelings were expressed and some of my internal pressures were released.
I wish I could say that writing stories at that time in my life “fixed” something. But it didn’t happen that way. Life and its difficulties continued. However, there were benefits to those early days of writing. I really enjoyed the time I spent with my stories. Those were happy moments of escape. I also contemplated the concept of being a “writer.” Then life went on.
It took many years before I seriously took up the pen again. It took years for me to take a chance on myself. For me, the two things are related.
As I struggled along in life, I didn’t have any confidence in myself. I thought I needed someone else to feel secure. However, as hard as I clung to that belief, life refused to let me think that someone else was going to “save” me from my fears. In fact, the situation I was in demonstrated something very important, even crucial. If I didn’t have faith in myself, my life would get a lot worse. And it did.
At one point, I felt like all the stress and worry I was going through would result in my physical body failing. That’s when I had to make a decision. I had to take a chance on myself or face losing my emotional and physical health.
Thankfully, I decided to take a chance on me. And what a blessing that was. Some might call it grace or perhaps it’s one’s soul essence, but whatever the label, something gave me new strength. Once I gave myself the freedom to let go, my life changed. Little by little, I learned how strong and capable I was.
I began to write again, but it was a start and stop process, especially after I attended a writing class. The instructor took a look at a little story I was writing and practically red-lined the whole thing. I still didn’t have enough of myself to survive that blow. I stopped writing for quite some time. And even when I did try jotting down some stories, my mind was like that instructor, telling me that I wasn’t good enough.
Slowly, I reached another juncture in my life as a writer. I was tired of trying and being shot down by that critical part of myself. That’s when I decided to just have fun with writing. I didn’t care if anyone else thought it was good. I didn’t care what my “inner critic” thought. I surrendered to just enjoying the process.
And that decision was the key to all the books I’ve written and published. When I allowed a deeper part of myself to take over, the heart and soul of who I am, I was inspired to happily continue on my journey as a writer.
Where to find S.S. Bazinet:
Website: http://www.ssbazinet.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SSBazinet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SSBazinet/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/S.-S.-Bazinet/...
When I picked up “Dying Takes It Out of You”, I knew right away was in very capable hands. The language was so compelling, it felt more like I was watching a scene unfold before my eyes rather than reading a story. When I saw all the books this author had penned, I realized that if anyone was ever destined to be a writer, it was this woman. So, it came as such a surprise to me to learn how hard she had to struggle to get to the point in her life where she could open the levee and let her wonderful imagination run wild.
Something S.S. Bazinet shared with me has stuck, unseating my trepidation about putting my own books out in the public domain. “I feel that each book that I’ve written has been a gift. Call it my muse, my soul or heart or whatever, I feel like something outside of the ‘ordinary me’ inspired just about every word on every page. So, we’re not promoting ourselves. We’re promoting the gifts we’ve been given—our books.”
Her story of how she finally came to writing makes me realize how many people out there feel the passionate desire to write, yet don’t have the confidence to try. I hope her story will unleash the same kind of magic in others!
It’s my sincerely pleasure to give you S.S. Bazinet’s story of how she became a writer:
When asked about becoming a writer, I had to query the question itself. I suppose that as soon as I was taught to put a pencil to paper, I became a writer. Of course, at that point, I was just a little girl who was being taught to write the alphabet. Still, I think that act of making marks on paper, marks that meant something, had a big impression on me. When I learned to write words, that was another step. It was a very big step.
Learning to read came next. I was taught that those marks on paper could convey a story. And my goodness, I loved stories. Stories opened up entire new worlds, worlds that I’d never known existed. I couldn’t get enough of those new worlds and adventures. I remember being a teenager who was always reading, and my mother being frustrated. I had chores to do, and I was neglecting them. When my mom asked me to do something, I always had an excuse. “Please, Mom, just let me finish this book, and then I’ll dust the furniture.” Mom often let me get away with my excuse. She could be such a sweet person when it came to me and my chores. Maybe she could see how happy I was when I was caught up in my reading.
Much later in life, when I was going through some very difficult times, I turned to stories again. But this time, I wanted to write the stories not just read them. I had so many unhappy feelings inside, and I didn’t know how to deal with them directly. By letting a story unfold on paper, a story about someone else, my feelings were expressed and some of my internal pressures were released.
I wish I could say that writing stories at that time in my life “fixed” something. But it didn’t happen that way. Life and its difficulties continued. However, there were benefits to those early days of writing. I really enjoyed the time I spent with my stories. Those were happy moments of escape. I also contemplated the concept of being a “writer.” Then life went on.
It took many years before I seriously took up the pen again. It took years for me to take a chance on myself. For me, the two things are related.
As I struggled along in life, I didn’t have any confidence in myself. I thought I needed someone else to feel secure. However, as hard as I clung to that belief, life refused to let me think that someone else was going to “save” me from my fears. In fact, the situation I was in demonstrated something very important, even crucial. If I didn’t have faith in myself, my life would get a lot worse. And it did.
At one point, I felt like all the stress and worry I was going through would result in my physical body failing. That’s when I had to make a decision. I had to take a chance on myself or face losing my emotional and physical health.
Thankfully, I decided to take a chance on me. And what a blessing that was. Some might call it grace or perhaps it’s one’s soul essence, but whatever the label, something gave me new strength. Once I gave myself the freedom to let go, my life changed. Little by little, I learned how strong and capable I was.
I began to write again, but it was a start and stop process, especially after I attended a writing class. The instructor took a look at a little story I was writing and practically red-lined the whole thing. I still didn’t have enough of myself to survive that blow. I stopped writing for quite some time. And even when I did try jotting down some stories, my mind was like that instructor, telling me that I wasn’t good enough.
Slowly, I reached another juncture in my life as a writer. I was tired of trying and being shot down by that critical part of myself. That’s when I decided to just have fun with writing. I didn’t care if anyone else thought it was good. I didn’t care what my “inner critic” thought. I surrendered to just enjoying the process.
And that decision was the key to all the books I’ve written and published. When I allowed a deeper part of myself to take over, the heart and soul of who I am, I was inspired to happily continue on my journey as a writer.
Where to find S.S. Bazinet:
Website: http://www.ssbazinet.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SSBazinet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SSBazinet/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/S.-S.-Bazinet/...
December 3, 2018
The Road to Storyville: How I became a writer
I’ve had several creative outlets over the years that allowed me to envision something that didn’t exist and create it. I painted, sewed, made ceramic pieces and mosaic furniture. Writing was something I never gave a thought to because all the wonderful books I had read convinced me that was a talent I didn’t possess. There was no way I could ever harness what those masters of words and insight drew on to create whole worlds populated by vivid, intriguing characters, possessed of strengths and flaws and humanity, who make us open our eyes and feel what it is to lives outside our own skin.
One of the truths I’ve learned about life is that good can come out of even the worst situations. When I realized the collection of weird symptoms I had been experiencing were starting to become more than mere annoyances, I knew I needed seek help. I went to an internist to find out what was causing the numbness and tingling in my hands and feet. That was the first step in what would become a nine-year odyssey to Name That Ailment. Opening that one door coincided with an avalanche of new symptoms. Every doctor I saw had a new puzzle piece to work with. Every doctor had his own theory of what was wrong with me, but their treatments produced only side effects and no relief.
After two years of chasing answers and a cure, I realized I needed to figure out what I could do if I became bedridden. Coming from that angle, it occurred to me that with a laptop computer, I could write from bed. I conveniently overlooked my conviction that I couldn’t write if my life depended on it.
Once that belief was ignored, I became unencumbered by self-doubt, though I did keep writing a secret until a computer glitch forced me to spill the beans to my husband. Instead of being skeptical, he was very supportive and excited to see what I had come up with. That little spark of encouragement doubled the joy I got from making up characters and throwing them into conflict. It was as if I had stumbled into a writer’s mind and could see what was happening through his or her eyes, just like I always had, except now I was the one creating those scenes.
One year to the day after I started “The Road to Manchac”, I finished it. I have never known such a thrill. I was exhilarated by my accomplishment, absolutely bursting with joy that I had somehow managed to write a book. I had thought up characters and a plot and had taken it all to a satisfying conclusion. I started my second book the same day.
In spite of having that amazing outlet, that cove of respite from the reality of what was going on with my body, my ever-increasing roster of ailments forced me to see over two dozen doctors. Pain and despair led me from one bogus diagnosis to the next. Treatment plans were invariably useless and often added to the pain and aggravation. Writing, being up in my head, remained the place where I could escape my body.
In 2007, I finally got the correct diagnosis: Lyme disease. Actually, what I had now was late-stage Lyme, since it had been allowed to flourish for so long. Crazy new treatments of the “alternative” variety began. They were cumbersome and caused “die-off”, which made me want to die off.
As my condition deteriorated to the point where the pain made me long for extinction, I had to face the fact that writing had become too difficult. That was the lowest point in my life. For months I did only what was required of me, barely making through each painful day. Then just before New Year’s Eve, our friends came to stay with us for the weekend. As my friend regaled me with stories of real estate agents whom we both knew, an entire book flashed through my mind’s eye—along with a title—in a matter of second. “Golden State” became the new lifeline.
I finished that fifth book a year later. I had been reconnected with the pastime that made me feel truly gratified and allowed me to vent all that crazy pent-up jibber-jabber in my head. I found the resolve to wade deeper into the “alternative” approach to finding a cure.
While undergoing treatments more painful than anything I’d gone through before, an idea for another book popped into my head. I got excited about the concept until the reality of what I was courting hit home. It would require delving into all the experiences that had led me to the situation I now found myself in. I would have to write about myself, an idea that was altogether unappealing. I dismissed it and went on to another book.
But the annoying little voice in my head persisted until I finally forced myself to write “Once Upon A Lyme… A Tale of Two Journeys”, the justification being that it might possibly give hope to others suffering from the disease.
The reason for all this is disclosure is to illustrate that good can come from bad and that writing is something everyone is capable of. If you don’t think so, just remember that doubt held me back, and forgetting I couldn’t write has allowed me to complete ten books…and counting! Who knows—maybe someday YOU will be sharing your stories behind the stories!
Until next time,
Warmest regards,
Cynthia
One of the truths I’ve learned about life is that good can come out of even the worst situations. When I realized the collection of weird symptoms I had been experiencing were starting to become more than mere annoyances, I knew I needed seek help. I went to an internist to find out what was causing the numbness and tingling in my hands and feet. That was the first step in what would become a nine-year odyssey to Name That Ailment. Opening that one door coincided with an avalanche of new symptoms. Every doctor I saw had a new puzzle piece to work with. Every doctor had his own theory of what was wrong with me, but their treatments produced only side effects and no relief.
After two years of chasing answers and a cure, I realized I needed to figure out what I could do if I became bedridden. Coming from that angle, it occurred to me that with a laptop computer, I could write from bed. I conveniently overlooked my conviction that I couldn’t write if my life depended on it.
Once that belief was ignored, I became unencumbered by self-doubt, though I did keep writing a secret until a computer glitch forced me to spill the beans to my husband. Instead of being skeptical, he was very supportive and excited to see what I had come up with. That little spark of encouragement doubled the joy I got from making up characters and throwing them into conflict. It was as if I had stumbled into a writer’s mind and could see what was happening through his or her eyes, just like I always had, except now I was the one creating those scenes.
One year to the day after I started “The Road to Manchac”, I finished it. I have never known such a thrill. I was exhilarated by my accomplishment, absolutely bursting with joy that I had somehow managed to write a book. I had thought up characters and a plot and had taken it all to a satisfying conclusion. I started my second book the same day.
In spite of having that amazing outlet, that cove of respite from the reality of what was going on with my body, my ever-increasing roster of ailments forced me to see over two dozen doctors. Pain and despair led me from one bogus diagnosis to the next. Treatment plans were invariably useless and often added to the pain and aggravation. Writing, being up in my head, remained the place where I could escape my body.
In 2007, I finally got the correct diagnosis: Lyme disease. Actually, what I had now was late-stage Lyme, since it had been allowed to flourish for so long. Crazy new treatments of the “alternative” variety began. They were cumbersome and caused “die-off”, which made me want to die off.
As my condition deteriorated to the point where the pain made me long for extinction, I had to face the fact that writing had become too difficult. That was the lowest point in my life. For months I did only what was required of me, barely making through each painful day. Then just before New Year’s Eve, our friends came to stay with us for the weekend. As my friend regaled me with stories of real estate agents whom we both knew, an entire book flashed through my mind’s eye—along with a title—in a matter of second. “Golden State” became the new lifeline.
I finished that fifth book a year later. I had been reconnected with the pastime that made me feel truly gratified and allowed me to vent all that crazy pent-up jibber-jabber in my head. I found the resolve to wade deeper into the “alternative” approach to finding a cure.
While undergoing treatments more painful than anything I’d gone through before, an idea for another book popped into my head. I got excited about the concept until the reality of what I was courting hit home. It would require delving into all the experiences that had led me to the situation I now found myself in. I would have to write about myself, an idea that was altogether unappealing. I dismissed it and went on to another book.
But the annoying little voice in my head persisted until I finally forced myself to write “Once Upon A Lyme… A Tale of Two Journeys”, the justification being that it might possibly give hope to others suffering from the disease.
The reason for all this is disclosure is to illustrate that good can come from bad and that writing is something everyone is capable of. If you don’t think so, just remember that doubt held me back, and forgetting I couldn’t write has allowed me to complete ten books…and counting! Who knows—maybe someday YOU will be sharing your stories behind the stories!
Until next time,
Warmest regards,
Cynthia
November 13, 2018
The Story Behind the Story: Catharine Riggs "What She Gave Away"
It takes confidence as a writer to create irritatingly flawed protagonists whom the reader ultimately roots for. Author Catharine Riggs manages to achieve this feat in her debut novel, “What She Gave Away”. Not only does she walk that tricky path, she slyly coaxes the reader to empathize with the frighteningly conniving Crystal Love and the nearly braindead Kathi Wright, and she does so while weaving back and forth from the present and the past, until we see the connectedness of the two orbits.
I had no trouble visualizing the expertly drawn supporting cast, a colorful and varied assortment of characters who all do their part to facilitate the story to a surprising and satisfying conclusion. It was an added treat for me as a fellow Santa Barbaran to recognize the various locations and the composite of folks I feel sure I’ve encountered over the years. Needless to say, I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!
It’s my pleasure to share with you Catharine’s story behind “What She Gave Away”:
Thank you for the invitation to participate in your blog. I so appreciated your review of WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY, pleased that you enjoyed the shifting narratives and complex characters. Despite their flaws, Crystal and Kathi are near and dear to my heart.
It took me over a decade and two proverbial “books-in-the-drawer” to realize my passion for writing lay in dialogue and voices—first-person, character-driven novels. Quirky individuals who don’t conform to society’s norms. That’s when I finally secured representation with the agent of my dreams and one year later, we sold WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY to Thomas & Mercer in a two-book deal with an option on a third.
As a “seat-of-the-pants” writer, I typically start with voice before plot. A few years ago, I was coming off of a terrible bout with the flu when I attended a four-day scene-writing workshop at UCLA. The first morning, our instructor asked us to create an emotional scene involving a fictional character. In my somewhat fuzzy state, an angry young woman flew onto the page. I read the scene aloud and in response, one of my male classmates insisted no one would ever be interested in a plus-sized, revenge-driven woman. His negative remarks motivated me to craft an entire novel around my newborn character. Crystal began life as the antagonist of WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY but as I grew to understand her, she morphed into one of my two protagonists.
At that point, I had a seed of an idea for a story about a conflicted young woman who returns to Santa Barbara to exact revenge. But for what reason? And who was the recipient of her wrath?
I was a business banker for many years so I decided to set the novel in a fictional community bank rife with unsavory characters and let Crystal get to work. On the surface, banking may appear to be a boring occupation, however any profession involving money lends itself to intrigue; eccentric customers, duplicitous coworkers, greed, fraud, theft, scams and affairs. Combine that with my writer’s penchant to exaggerate and the plot almost wrote itself. I then worked to weave in a realistic depiction of a fictional fraud without getting bogged down in the details.
As for my hapless housewife Kathi, I believe she was born from my earliest fears of the person I might become. I grew up in the wealthy community of Montecito surrounded by women, including my mother, who did not work and had little understanding of their financial affairs. Alcohol was frequently used to numb their ambitions and some of these women lost everything through divorce, rash decisions and/or fraud. With Kathi, I hoped to portray a woman who was manipulated by her husband into making a terrible decision, yet not allow her to be absolved by victimhood. I wanted to force her into the realization she must take responsibility for her choices, as terrible as they might be. I believe this was my way of shaking sense into some of the women of my past; ordering them to grow up, set down the glass, and be accountable for their actions.
Because, in the end, isn’t this why we write fiction? We see a problem, we fictionalize it, we put it down on the page. We create worlds as we would like to see them and give them the endings that satisfy our needs.
Thank you again for including me in your blog. Please note that WHAT SHE NEVER SAID, the second novel in my Santa Barbara Suspense series, will be available in September of 2019. It too is set in Santa Barbara and there’s another juicy secret just waiting to be revealed.
“What She Gave Away” will be on special promo November 19th thru 23rd: https://amzn.to/2PmWphY
Where to find Catharine:
Website: https://www.catharineriggs.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/criggswrite
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catharineriggs
Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/catharineriggs
Amazon Author Page: https://amazon.com/author/catharineriggs
I had no trouble visualizing the expertly drawn supporting cast, a colorful and varied assortment of characters who all do their part to facilitate the story to a surprising and satisfying conclusion. It was an added treat for me as a fellow Santa Barbaran to recognize the various locations and the composite of folks I feel sure I’ve encountered over the years. Needless to say, I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!
It’s my pleasure to share with you Catharine’s story behind “What She Gave Away”:
Thank you for the invitation to participate in your blog. I so appreciated your review of WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY, pleased that you enjoyed the shifting narratives and complex characters. Despite their flaws, Crystal and Kathi are near and dear to my heart.
It took me over a decade and two proverbial “books-in-the-drawer” to realize my passion for writing lay in dialogue and voices—first-person, character-driven novels. Quirky individuals who don’t conform to society’s norms. That’s when I finally secured representation with the agent of my dreams and one year later, we sold WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY to Thomas & Mercer in a two-book deal with an option on a third.
As a “seat-of-the-pants” writer, I typically start with voice before plot. A few years ago, I was coming off of a terrible bout with the flu when I attended a four-day scene-writing workshop at UCLA. The first morning, our instructor asked us to create an emotional scene involving a fictional character. In my somewhat fuzzy state, an angry young woman flew onto the page. I read the scene aloud and in response, one of my male classmates insisted no one would ever be interested in a plus-sized, revenge-driven woman. His negative remarks motivated me to craft an entire novel around my newborn character. Crystal began life as the antagonist of WHAT SHE GAVE AWAY but as I grew to understand her, she morphed into one of my two protagonists.
At that point, I had a seed of an idea for a story about a conflicted young woman who returns to Santa Barbara to exact revenge. But for what reason? And who was the recipient of her wrath?
I was a business banker for many years so I decided to set the novel in a fictional community bank rife with unsavory characters and let Crystal get to work. On the surface, banking may appear to be a boring occupation, however any profession involving money lends itself to intrigue; eccentric customers, duplicitous coworkers, greed, fraud, theft, scams and affairs. Combine that with my writer’s penchant to exaggerate and the plot almost wrote itself. I then worked to weave in a realistic depiction of a fictional fraud without getting bogged down in the details.
As for my hapless housewife Kathi, I believe she was born from my earliest fears of the person I might become. I grew up in the wealthy community of Montecito surrounded by women, including my mother, who did not work and had little understanding of their financial affairs. Alcohol was frequently used to numb their ambitions and some of these women lost everything through divorce, rash decisions and/or fraud. With Kathi, I hoped to portray a woman who was manipulated by her husband into making a terrible decision, yet not allow her to be absolved by victimhood. I wanted to force her into the realization she must take responsibility for her choices, as terrible as they might be. I believe this was my way of shaking sense into some of the women of my past; ordering them to grow up, set down the glass, and be accountable for their actions.
Because, in the end, isn’t this why we write fiction? We see a problem, we fictionalize it, we put it down on the page. We create worlds as we would like to see them and give them the endings that satisfy our needs.
Thank you again for including me in your blog. Please note that WHAT SHE NEVER SAID, the second novel in my Santa Barbara Suspense series, will be available in September of 2019. It too is set in Santa Barbara and there’s another juicy secret just waiting to be revealed.
“What She Gave Away” will be on special promo November 19th thru 23rd: https://amzn.to/2PmWphY
Where to find Catharine:
Website: https://www.catharineriggs.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/criggswrite
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catharineriggs
Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/catharineriggs
Amazon Author Page: https://amazon.com/author/catharineriggs
October 30, 2018
The Story Behind the Story: S.S. Bazinet "Dying Takes It Out of You"
When I started reading “Dying Takes It Out of You” by S.S. Bazinet, I was immediately mesmerized by Dory, the hard as flint protagonist fighting for his life. The opening scene runs at a gallop and we’re right there witnessing it as Dory struggles to break free.
Even though there’s such urgency in the opening chapter, Dory is able to start sharing his complex past as he navigates away from danger, or at least tries to. His thoughts about what is happening to him and all that has shaped him into what he is paint a deep, almost hypnotic portrait of a tortured soul with a cynical yet accepting wisdom that only comes from much suffering.
To say this story and its protagonist are unique is an understatement. Both are raw and rich, insightful and enduring. “Dying” is the first installment in Dory’s saga and I have been assured by the author that Dory is back in residence and demanding to be heard. Music to my ears!
It’s my great pleasure to give you the very creative S.S. Bazinet:
First of all, I want to acknowledge Cynthia Hamilton for recognizing the uniqueness of one of my characters. Her curiosity about Dory, the protagonist in DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, prompted her to ask me to write about the story behind the story. She called Dory intriguing, complex and fascinating. My experience with the character backs up her observation. Dory is unlike any of my other characters.
So let’s start at the beginning. Why did I want to write a dystopian kind of tale in the first place? Perhaps it’s because I have great faith in the human spirit and the courageous heart that can come alive in a crisis. With that in mind, I wondered how a person would handle some impossible situation. As soon as I asked the question, a tale began to unfold!
For the first few pages, I used a third person point of view (POV). It was the point of view I’d used for all my stories. However, before long, I was suddenly writing from a first person POV. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. In fact, I was a little shocked when it happened.
But this incident should have been my first clue that my character, Dory, was a very strong-willed and determined type of individual. Third person point of view wouldn’t do for this guy. I got the feeling that if I was going to write about him, Dory wanted the facts and his feelings expressed in a way that was more of an experience than an account. Once Dory stepped in and began telling his story, everything about the writing intensified.
In a way, Dory explained the origins of his extreme personality when he talked about his relationship with his father. From the time he was just a young boy, he knew that to survive, he had to be as tough as his angry, raging parent.
In the book, Dory says, “I used my toughness to beat my dad at his own game, day in and day out. Our house was a battle zone. The only thing our living room was missing was some barbed wire and craters where the bombs exploded. Just like the air I breathed to live, I needed to make sure my dad didn’t win if there was going to be anything left of me.”
Shortly after I started writing, I stood back and let Dory introduce me to a world that I’d never known, Dory’s world. It was a world of opposites. Dory could behave like a hostile loner, but he also had a very soft side. It was that side of Dory that shared a teddy bear with his frightened brother when they were five-year-olds. It was that side of Dory that painted Madonnas.
Standing back, I think I got more than I bargained for in terms of the courage and staying power of a human being. My story, DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, showed me how a person holds on when the odds are impossible. Even though Dory started out thinking he couldn’t handle the world anymore, even though he thought suicide was the answer, he rallied when it counted. His father didn’t destroy him, and he was going to make sure the virus that invaded his body didn’t win either. At the end of the first book, he hasn’t won the battle. But I can tell he’s waiting in the wings, ready to continue instructing me on what he’s facing now. I’m sensing that book two should be quite the extraordinary adventure for both of us.
I’d also like to comment on what else I’ve learned while writing about Dory and other characters in my vampire series, characters like Arel and William. All of them appear as loners who have separated themselves from the rest of humanity. But I’ve learned compassion for their plight. After being hurt repeatedly and having their hearts beaten to a pulp, they totally withdraw. And it seems to take an extreme circumstance for them to come back to their true selves. For these types of people, love never touches them unless it’s the only thing that’s left.
I’ve also learned that love is the most enduring power. It seems to always be there, outside the walls that people put up. But if given a chance, it flows in and begins to work its magic.
Finally, I want to thank Cynthia for giving me the opportunity to share a little background on my book, DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, and that tough and enduring guy, Dory.
Where to find S.S. Bazinet:
Website: http://www.ssbazinet.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SSBazinet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SSBazinet/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SSBazinet/
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/S.-S.-Bazinet/...
Even though there’s such urgency in the opening chapter, Dory is able to start sharing his complex past as he navigates away from danger, or at least tries to. His thoughts about what is happening to him and all that has shaped him into what he is paint a deep, almost hypnotic portrait of a tortured soul with a cynical yet accepting wisdom that only comes from much suffering.
To say this story and its protagonist are unique is an understatement. Both are raw and rich, insightful and enduring. “Dying” is the first installment in Dory’s saga and I have been assured by the author that Dory is back in residence and demanding to be heard. Music to my ears!
It’s my great pleasure to give you the very creative S.S. Bazinet:
First of all, I want to acknowledge Cynthia Hamilton for recognizing the uniqueness of one of my characters. Her curiosity about Dory, the protagonist in DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, prompted her to ask me to write about the story behind the story. She called Dory intriguing, complex and fascinating. My experience with the character backs up her observation. Dory is unlike any of my other characters.
So let’s start at the beginning. Why did I want to write a dystopian kind of tale in the first place? Perhaps it’s because I have great faith in the human spirit and the courageous heart that can come alive in a crisis. With that in mind, I wondered how a person would handle some impossible situation. As soon as I asked the question, a tale began to unfold!
For the first few pages, I used a third person point of view (POV). It was the point of view I’d used for all my stories. However, before long, I was suddenly writing from a first person POV. It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. In fact, I was a little shocked when it happened.
But this incident should have been my first clue that my character, Dory, was a very strong-willed and determined type of individual. Third person point of view wouldn’t do for this guy. I got the feeling that if I was going to write about him, Dory wanted the facts and his feelings expressed in a way that was more of an experience than an account. Once Dory stepped in and began telling his story, everything about the writing intensified.
In a way, Dory explained the origins of his extreme personality when he talked about his relationship with his father. From the time he was just a young boy, he knew that to survive, he had to be as tough as his angry, raging parent.
In the book, Dory says, “I used my toughness to beat my dad at his own game, day in and day out. Our house was a battle zone. The only thing our living room was missing was some barbed wire and craters where the bombs exploded. Just like the air I breathed to live, I needed to make sure my dad didn’t win if there was going to be anything left of me.”
Shortly after I started writing, I stood back and let Dory introduce me to a world that I’d never known, Dory’s world. It was a world of opposites. Dory could behave like a hostile loner, but he also had a very soft side. It was that side of Dory that shared a teddy bear with his frightened brother when they were five-year-olds. It was that side of Dory that painted Madonnas.
Standing back, I think I got more than I bargained for in terms of the courage and staying power of a human being. My story, DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, showed me how a person holds on when the odds are impossible. Even though Dory started out thinking he couldn’t handle the world anymore, even though he thought suicide was the answer, he rallied when it counted. His father didn’t destroy him, and he was going to make sure the virus that invaded his body didn’t win either. At the end of the first book, he hasn’t won the battle. But I can tell he’s waiting in the wings, ready to continue instructing me on what he’s facing now. I’m sensing that book two should be quite the extraordinary adventure for both of us.
I’d also like to comment on what else I’ve learned while writing about Dory and other characters in my vampire series, characters like Arel and William. All of them appear as loners who have separated themselves from the rest of humanity. But I’ve learned compassion for their plight. After being hurt repeatedly and having their hearts beaten to a pulp, they totally withdraw. And it seems to take an extreme circumstance for them to come back to their true selves. For these types of people, love never touches them unless it’s the only thing that’s left.
I’ve also learned that love is the most enduring power. It seems to always be there, outside the walls that people put up. But if given a chance, it flows in and begins to work its magic.
Finally, I want to thank Cynthia for giving me the opportunity to share a little background on my book, DYING TAKES IT OUT OF YOU, and that tough and enduring guy, Dory.
Where to find S.S. Bazinet:
Website: http://www.ssbazinet.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SSBazinet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SSBazinet/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SSBazinet/
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/S.-S.-Bazinet/...
October 17, 2018
The Story Behind the Story: C.A. Asbrey "The Innocents"
Learning about the past while indulging in my favorite pastime—reading—doubles my pleasure. Good historical novels have now become a predominant presence on my Kindle. “The Innocents”, the first book in a new detective-mystery series by author C.A. Asbrey is a superb example of getting first-rate entertainment while getting an accurate glimpse of life in the mid-1800s.
History doesn’t really come alive for me as much in “history books” the way it does when presented in novel form. I get so much more context from physical descriptions of the time and place when shown through the prism of the characters involved, whether they are based on real people or an amalgamation of personalities culled from a certain era.
I knew nothing about the history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency until I read “The Innocents”. I became so fascinated by Pinkerton Detective Abigail MacKay as she risks her life—and nearly loses it while in pursuit of the counterfeit “Innocents”—that I read up on the history of the longstanding company. It became apparent right away that the author knew what she was writing about. She also has her own background in law enforcement, which gives her writing even more weight.
But there’s no mistaking this first book as weighty historical stuff. It’s alive with the verve of a modern-day action-drama and is seasoned with sly humor and intrigue throughout. “The Innocents” is a super satisfying page turner that left me hankering for more.
It’s my distinct pleasure to give you C.A. Asbrey’s Story Behind “The Innocents”:
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, and in a land far, far away, I joined the police. It was a time of great change in Scotland. The Equal Pay Act in 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 drove changes which were both welcomed and hated by people at the same time. The old policewoman’s department, which dealt with sexual offences, children and female prisoners, was disbanded. Women were suddenly doing full shifts, foot patrols, and everything the men did. There were men who grudged women earning the same as a man, wives who didn’t want their husbands working with women, open discrimination, and a whole set of women who joined the police to work under the old regime and didn’t really want to work like the men. Many of us young people loved it. It was a time of upheaval and almost everything was new to everyone. It has to be said there were many decent and supportive men around too. Like any time of great change, it was both challenging and exhilarating.
Our training sergeant was an engaging lady of great experience, full of tales, anecdotes, and quite an expert on the earliest women in our force. I loved her and was quickly fascinated by all her tales. It got me wondering more about the earliest women in law enforcement. I soon found myself reading more and more about these unsung pioneers. The USA and the UK both employed police women since the early twentieth century, but I wanted to go as far back as I could. I eventually found out that the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the USA was the first to employ women as fully-fledged professionals from 1856. The French did employ women in the Sûreté earlier than this, but they were mostly prostitutes used as honey traps, so I discounted those as professional detectives.
I was slightly shocked that I had never heard of these women, or the work they did, so I read everything I could about them. The first was Kate Warne, rumoured to be a former actress and a widow. Like the rest of the women in her department she was an expert at assuming roles and working undercover. The women were held in the highest esteem by Alan Pinkerton due to their excellent results. They were very successful, and even acted as an armed guard for Abraham Lincoln. The seeds for my heroine, Abigail MacKay, were sown.
Questions and research threw up more and more things to investigate. In the only known picture of Kate Warne she is dressed as a man. Could all that long Victorian hair be concealed under a short wig? The internet answered that one. Cosplay and LARP gave me real-life examples of women with hair down to their bottoms who managed to get it under a short wig. One woman even explains how to pleat her long, thick hair and coil it flat under the cap before putting the short wig on. It absolutely IS possible.
But what about makeup? What disguises were available?
The theatrical make up, used as disguises in the book, began to flourish right around the period the books are set in. Lighting had improved and people could see the flaws in the rudimentary makeup used previously on stages lit by candles.
Greasepaint was invented in the 1860s by Ludwig Leichner, building on the work of Karl Freidrich Baudius (1796–1860) in the 1850s. Lighting also improved costumes and acting techniques. It drove a desire for more natural representations in every area, simply because people could see the stage more clearly. Crepe hair went out and quality wigs came in. Colors were mixed to mimic skin tones and classes in their application were popular in the acting profession. Latex wasn’t invented until 1920, but prior to that rubber was molded applied to a light fabric backing for theatrical use, or on metal for medical prosthetics. When it was the right shape it was expertly painted to look exactly like a nose, dewlap, bald cap, or any other body part. This work influenced the work on prosthetics for the disfigured and disabled, and became more main stream after the First World War. Before them it was only available to the very rich.
The forensics are fascinating to dig into too. I’ve read multiple books on crime from the period as well as actual court transcripts, paying great attention to the methodologies used by the doctors determined to bring murders to book. Some of the details are compellingly gruesome, and it’s a good job I’m not in the least squeamish. I’m also lucky in that I can speak to people who work in the field and know their stuff too.
Many of the tests used back then are basic chemistry, so they are pretty much the same as those carried out today. I like my characters to do the test, and show the reader how they found the results. I also like to reflect the vagaries of 19th century justice. The skills and determination to catch a killer varied from town to town. The status of the victim counted a great deal, as did the social standing of the victim. Sexual offences against the poor went largely ignored, especially if the accused was seen as respectable and the victim wasn’t. In fact, if you were one of the undeserving poor you could count on very little support or assistance from the authorities, no matter what happened to you. In parts of London, at one point, it was even a given that ANY woman out after dark was a prostitute, which meant that many poor women were arrested just walking home from work. This only ended when one plucky shop girl defended her case and dared to challenge the police.
You name it, I researched it, right down to what shades of clothes were available at that time, what stationary they used. How did they copy documents, what technology was invented and in use? What spy techniques did they use, how were these women trained?
Sadly, many of the records on the female Pinkertons were destroyed in a fire, so I had some gaps to fill in. I went to the next best thing—my own experience as a police officer and the training given to the women who worked for British Intelligence.
Some of the most openly misogynistic comments in the book actually happened to me. I certainly cleaned them up a lot, but I figured that as the first group of modern women doing a man’s job, my experience was comparable to my predecessors in the 19th century doing the same thing. Women were protected by a degree of chivalry, but any student of history will tell you that disappeared the minute a woman stepped outside the rule Victorian society dictated for her.
There’s an old adage which tells you to write what you know. My own maiden name was constantly mispronounced and misspelled, so I gave her a name which is always mispronounced in the USA. It works on a few levels. It reinforces her identity as she is introduced to the reader, and is used a plot device to alert the hero when he hears someone pronouncing it correctly in a later book.
I made her Scottish, as I certainly know what it’s like to be Scottish in the USA. I made her dark as it’s actually a very Celtic coloring, despite the stereotype being red hair (which is actually a minority). Think Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta Jones, Aiden Turner; they are all very Celtic and all very dark. And as the man who started the agency was Scottish, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine he’d employ a talented countrywoman.
Any woman doing such work in the 19th century would have been as determined and individual as any of the strong women I met in law enforcement in the 20th century. Possibly even more so, so I was determined to write Abigail as a forceful and intelligent, while keeping her as a woman of her time. Despite working as part of a team, no female police officer is ever a sidekick, or a lesser version, of her male counterpart, contrary to the picture painted in many books and movies. Nor is my detective. She is a fully-trained, skilled investigator and is nobody’s assistant, which is fully borne out in all the writings still available on the female Pinkertons. Just like the real female Pinkertons she goes in to work undercover on her own.
I gave her a formidable opponent in a charismatic criminal who is every bit as clever as she is, and they both find their skill set dovetails perfectly to investigate a murder they both have a vested interest in solving. They are fascinated by one another, but any truce can only ever be fleeting. It’s not long before they are on opposite sides once again as ‘best enemies.’
Over the years the idea percolated, the notion of writing the books got put behind a life, family, career, and everything else that everyone lives through. During all that time I continued to research the period, place, social mores, and people until I was thoroughly marinated in the 19th century. A serious accident suddenly forced me to stop and take stock of my life. I changed my career, and I started writing during my lengthy convalescence. The first draft was terrible, but did seem to have a spark of something worth working on.
It took years before I finally finished The Innocents, and all my research fell into place. My next problem was to find a publisher. I was repeatedly told that “Westerns weren’t selling”. Except, it’s not a Western. It’s set everywhere the Pinkertons worked, and by the fourth book they’ve been coast to coast and even to Europe. It’s 19th century Americana and covers the whole of the USA. Abigail does the kind of work the Female agents did, and goes undercover to get information on crime and criminals on her own. One case is set in the West, and it had to be Wyoming as the territory, and later, the state, has no statute of limitations. That is pertinent to the overall arc of the stories.
I was told that that it “wasn’t Western enough”. I was fine with that as it’s not a Western, but it didn’t help me get published. I was told that the characters didn’t “develop their relationship enough”, which was code for “they didn’t jump straight into bed”. It missed the point that the will-they-won’t-they tension building between the two main characters, and that their status on opposite side of the law, means that it would be out of character for an upright 19th century women to jump into a relationship with a criminal. It’s also part of the dynamic tension of the stories.
Eventually, I got the books published and they are building up a head of steam. Like anything slightly different, people are curious and hesitant, wondering what to compare it to. Each one can be read as a self-contained mystery. They are connected by the growing relationship between the Pinkerton and the charismatic criminal she is sent to bring in, as well as the murderous vendetta against the hero by a criminal enemy. The mysteries are twisty and full of fun, because if there’s one thing I found working in the emergency services, it’s that people laugh in the face of adversity all the time. What can I say? If you love mysteries set in the 19th century, give them a go.
Where to find C.A. Asbrey:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EqOFGz
Website: http://caasbrey.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CAASBREY
https://www.facebook.com/christine.as...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
History doesn’t really come alive for me as much in “history books” the way it does when presented in novel form. I get so much more context from physical descriptions of the time and place when shown through the prism of the characters involved, whether they are based on real people or an amalgamation of personalities culled from a certain era.
I knew nothing about the history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency until I read “The Innocents”. I became so fascinated by Pinkerton Detective Abigail MacKay as she risks her life—and nearly loses it while in pursuit of the counterfeit “Innocents”—that I read up on the history of the longstanding company. It became apparent right away that the author knew what she was writing about. She also has her own background in law enforcement, which gives her writing even more weight.
But there’s no mistaking this first book as weighty historical stuff. It’s alive with the verve of a modern-day action-drama and is seasoned with sly humor and intrigue throughout. “The Innocents” is a super satisfying page turner that left me hankering for more.
It’s my distinct pleasure to give you C.A. Asbrey’s Story Behind “The Innocents”:
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, and in a land far, far away, I joined the police. It was a time of great change in Scotland. The Equal Pay Act in 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 drove changes which were both welcomed and hated by people at the same time. The old policewoman’s department, which dealt with sexual offences, children and female prisoners, was disbanded. Women were suddenly doing full shifts, foot patrols, and everything the men did. There were men who grudged women earning the same as a man, wives who didn’t want their husbands working with women, open discrimination, and a whole set of women who joined the police to work under the old regime and didn’t really want to work like the men. Many of us young people loved it. It was a time of upheaval and almost everything was new to everyone. It has to be said there were many decent and supportive men around too. Like any time of great change, it was both challenging and exhilarating.
Our training sergeant was an engaging lady of great experience, full of tales, anecdotes, and quite an expert on the earliest women in our force. I loved her and was quickly fascinated by all her tales. It got me wondering more about the earliest women in law enforcement. I soon found myself reading more and more about these unsung pioneers. The USA and the UK both employed police women since the early twentieth century, but I wanted to go as far back as I could. I eventually found out that the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the USA was the first to employ women as fully-fledged professionals from 1856. The French did employ women in the Sûreté earlier than this, but they were mostly prostitutes used as honey traps, so I discounted those as professional detectives.
I was slightly shocked that I had never heard of these women, or the work they did, so I read everything I could about them. The first was Kate Warne, rumoured to be a former actress and a widow. Like the rest of the women in her department she was an expert at assuming roles and working undercover. The women were held in the highest esteem by Alan Pinkerton due to their excellent results. They were very successful, and even acted as an armed guard for Abraham Lincoln. The seeds for my heroine, Abigail MacKay, were sown.
Questions and research threw up more and more things to investigate. In the only known picture of Kate Warne she is dressed as a man. Could all that long Victorian hair be concealed under a short wig? The internet answered that one. Cosplay and LARP gave me real-life examples of women with hair down to their bottoms who managed to get it under a short wig. One woman even explains how to pleat her long, thick hair and coil it flat under the cap before putting the short wig on. It absolutely IS possible.
But what about makeup? What disguises were available?
The theatrical make up, used as disguises in the book, began to flourish right around the period the books are set in. Lighting had improved and people could see the flaws in the rudimentary makeup used previously on stages lit by candles.
Greasepaint was invented in the 1860s by Ludwig Leichner, building on the work of Karl Freidrich Baudius (1796–1860) in the 1850s. Lighting also improved costumes and acting techniques. It drove a desire for more natural representations in every area, simply because people could see the stage more clearly. Crepe hair went out and quality wigs came in. Colors were mixed to mimic skin tones and classes in their application were popular in the acting profession. Latex wasn’t invented until 1920, but prior to that rubber was molded applied to a light fabric backing for theatrical use, or on metal for medical prosthetics. When it was the right shape it was expertly painted to look exactly like a nose, dewlap, bald cap, or any other body part. This work influenced the work on prosthetics for the disfigured and disabled, and became more main stream after the First World War. Before them it was only available to the very rich.
The forensics are fascinating to dig into too. I’ve read multiple books on crime from the period as well as actual court transcripts, paying great attention to the methodologies used by the doctors determined to bring murders to book. Some of the details are compellingly gruesome, and it’s a good job I’m not in the least squeamish. I’m also lucky in that I can speak to people who work in the field and know their stuff too.
Many of the tests used back then are basic chemistry, so they are pretty much the same as those carried out today. I like my characters to do the test, and show the reader how they found the results. I also like to reflect the vagaries of 19th century justice. The skills and determination to catch a killer varied from town to town. The status of the victim counted a great deal, as did the social standing of the victim. Sexual offences against the poor went largely ignored, especially if the accused was seen as respectable and the victim wasn’t. In fact, if you were one of the undeserving poor you could count on very little support or assistance from the authorities, no matter what happened to you. In parts of London, at one point, it was even a given that ANY woman out after dark was a prostitute, which meant that many poor women were arrested just walking home from work. This only ended when one plucky shop girl defended her case and dared to challenge the police.
You name it, I researched it, right down to what shades of clothes were available at that time, what stationary they used. How did they copy documents, what technology was invented and in use? What spy techniques did they use, how were these women trained?
Sadly, many of the records on the female Pinkertons were destroyed in a fire, so I had some gaps to fill in. I went to the next best thing—my own experience as a police officer and the training given to the women who worked for British Intelligence.
Some of the most openly misogynistic comments in the book actually happened to me. I certainly cleaned them up a lot, but I figured that as the first group of modern women doing a man’s job, my experience was comparable to my predecessors in the 19th century doing the same thing. Women were protected by a degree of chivalry, but any student of history will tell you that disappeared the minute a woman stepped outside the rule Victorian society dictated for her.
There’s an old adage which tells you to write what you know. My own maiden name was constantly mispronounced and misspelled, so I gave her a name which is always mispronounced in the USA. It works on a few levels. It reinforces her identity as she is introduced to the reader, and is used a plot device to alert the hero when he hears someone pronouncing it correctly in a later book.
I made her Scottish, as I certainly know what it’s like to be Scottish in the USA. I made her dark as it’s actually a very Celtic coloring, despite the stereotype being red hair (which is actually a minority). Think Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta Jones, Aiden Turner; they are all very Celtic and all very dark. And as the man who started the agency was Scottish, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine he’d employ a talented countrywoman.
Any woman doing such work in the 19th century would have been as determined and individual as any of the strong women I met in law enforcement in the 20th century. Possibly even more so, so I was determined to write Abigail as a forceful and intelligent, while keeping her as a woman of her time. Despite working as part of a team, no female police officer is ever a sidekick, or a lesser version, of her male counterpart, contrary to the picture painted in many books and movies. Nor is my detective. She is a fully-trained, skilled investigator and is nobody’s assistant, which is fully borne out in all the writings still available on the female Pinkertons. Just like the real female Pinkertons she goes in to work undercover on her own.
I gave her a formidable opponent in a charismatic criminal who is every bit as clever as she is, and they both find their skill set dovetails perfectly to investigate a murder they both have a vested interest in solving. They are fascinated by one another, but any truce can only ever be fleeting. It’s not long before they are on opposite sides once again as ‘best enemies.’
Over the years the idea percolated, the notion of writing the books got put behind a life, family, career, and everything else that everyone lives through. During all that time I continued to research the period, place, social mores, and people until I was thoroughly marinated in the 19th century. A serious accident suddenly forced me to stop and take stock of my life. I changed my career, and I started writing during my lengthy convalescence. The first draft was terrible, but did seem to have a spark of something worth working on.
It took years before I finally finished The Innocents, and all my research fell into place. My next problem was to find a publisher. I was repeatedly told that “Westerns weren’t selling”. Except, it’s not a Western. It’s set everywhere the Pinkertons worked, and by the fourth book they’ve been coast to coast and even to Europe. It’s 19th century Americana and covers the whole of the USA. Abigail does the kind of work the Female agents did, and goes undercover to get information on crime and criminals on her own. One case is set in the West, and it had to be Wyoming as the territory, and later, the state, has no statute of limitations. That is pertinent to the overall arc of the stories.
I was told that that it “wasn’t Western enough”. I was fine with that as it’s not a Western, but it didn’t help me get published. I was told that the characters didn’t “develop their relationship enough”, which was code for “they didn’t jump straight into bed”. It missed the point that the will-they-won’t-they tension building between the two main characters, and that their status on opposite side of the law, means that it would be out of character for an upright 19th century women to jump into a relationship with a criminal. It’s also part of the dynamic tension of the stories.
Eventually, I got the books published and they are building up a head of steam. Like anything slightly different, people are curious and hesitant, wondering what to compare it to. Each one can be read as a self-contained mystery. They are connected by the growing relationship between the Pinkerton and the charismatic criminal she is sent to bring in, as well as the murderous vendetta against the hero by a criminal enemy. The mysteries are twisty and full of fun, because if there’s one thing I found working in the emergency services, it’s that people laugh in the face of adversity all the time. What can I say? If you love mysteries set in the 19th century, give them a go.
Where to find C.A. Asbrey:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2EqOFGz
Website: http://caasbrey.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CAASBREY
https://www.facebook.com/christine.as...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
