Jessica Knauss's Blog, page 52

The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan

The Red Book was hard for me to get into because it starts with the least sympathetic character, then proceeds to introduce a number of characters it's nearly impossible to keep track of, hopping in and out of all their heads like an especially psychologically perceptive housefly. By the tenth page, I had decided that, in spite of my interest in Ivy League culture and love of Boston, I was not the right audience for this book. But I'm not a reader who gives up easily, and I found that by the middle of the book, when we start to see some of the more meaningful revelations, I was well-trained in jumping between the characters' perspectives, and by the end, the technique actually worked in the story's favor. Not a Harvard alum, I've never read a "red book," so was skeptical as to whether the personal essays were realistic, but they served as convenient character guides when I just couldn't figure out who was who otherwise.

I haven't read any of the author's other books, but she does have some clout coming in, and by the time I was three-quarters of the way through, I had decided she had enough psychological depth to carry off what she was trying to do. I ended up really enjoying the way she takes each character and implies big themes about that character's stage in life. I never did sympathize with that first character, Addison. However, her story arc included a really terrible husband who was echoed lightly in one of the others, and both husbands left the picture. That contributed to the satisfying sense that in spite of all the things that have gone so terribly, everybody's going to be just fine. 
This book about Harvard alums will astonish with the incredible range of life experience it manages to pack in, and give book clubs in particular a lot to talk about.

The Red Book will be released in April from Hyperion Voice.

The Tucson Festival of Books

What an exhausting and wonderful weekend it was! Perhaps you saw some of the proceedings on C-SPAN's Book TV this weekend? While those sessions are always informative and often fascinating, they don't really give a good idea of the festival as a whole.

I volunteered as an author escort on Saturday and helped out at the Fireship booth on Sunday. In the first capacity, I got to meet Bonnie Marson, enchanting author of a book soon to come out as a movie, Sleeping with Schubert. I sold a few books of my own at  the Fireship booth, and had a starstruck moment with author Lydia Millet, whose most recent book is Ghost Lights and who, it turns out, lives locally. Who knew!?

I hope to say much more about this, the greatest event in all of Arizona, by Friday. Work has really piled up for me, so wish me luck.

I gave out these cards at the festival. What do you think?
Front side Back side

SSS: Desire for the Enemy

It's a big Sunday!

Daylight Savings is taking place all over the world -- but not where I live, this crazy land, Arizona. (We really don't have any use for it, I understand now, the second time I've gone through this process here.)

The Tucson Festival of Books is in its second day! Come one, come all! Don't miss it! I'll be sure to blog about it as soon as I recover.

And of course, it's Six Sentence Sunday! Thanks for stopping by. These lines don't follow on directly after last week's. In the interim, we've discovered that the husbands are going to survey the lands with the Count, leaving Sancha and Lambra to fend for themselves. Together, the aunt, the sister-in-law, and the nephews go to the inn to get some breakfast.

* * * 

The innkeeper and his wife served day-old white bread, olive oil, and wine they poured out of a skin into two wooden goblets. Lambra took a sip and set her goblet down, only for Gonzalo González to reach across her for it, thoroughly bumping his tempered steel arm against hers. "Excuse me, Aunt."           How had he managed to sit down by her? Doña Lambra closed her eyes to shut out the anger, but in the dark she saw herself naked, in the bridal tent, alone. Who was coming through the door to quench her desire? 

* * *
Hmm. I fear I may be giving away a bit too much about Lambra's mental state here... I really appreciate all your comments. Due to the Book Festival, I probably won't get to visit any sites today, but I'll visit you all at the crack of dawn on Monday. All the great sentences are at SixSunday.com.

Don't Miss This from Spain and a Special Thanks to Lexcade

This week I got a notice in my email about a new book. This happens with increasing frequency as my blog gets more traffic, but this time I took notice because the book is by two Spanish writers and hasn't quite been translated into English yet. Called La estrella (The Star), it's the biggest and best YA book from Spain in 2011. Take a look at the website and trailer and read the first chapter (in a kind of stilted English) here. It looks like the Spanish Hunger Games -- not to say that it isn't original in itself and well deserving of a good translation. If you feel motivated, petition to expedite the English translation right there on the website.

Secondly but no less important, Lexcade awarded me a Liebster award on March 6. Check her out here. I'm flattered that she thinks I deserve some love, but I do feel the need to specify that I am not a romance writer. (If I were, I might get a lot more love in the form of sales, but that's just a guess!) I write medieval historical fiction that takes love and romance as a plot point just the same as the rest of human experience, but I definitely have no special affinity or specialty in the romance arena. Real life is another matter entirely. ;) I also write literary fiction, tending toward magical realism, a genre that confuses most people. I hope to soon have a moment to describe, in a simple and memorable way, exactly what I mean by it.

Thanks!

This weekend is the biggest of the year for Arizona book lovers! The Tucson Festival of Books is here!

Author Prue Phillipson Chats about the Joys of History

Today is the official release of Prue Phillipson's Hearts Restored from Knox Robinson. The author has stopped by to talk about how her love of history comes out in her writing.

JK: Welcome, Prue Phillipson. Hearts Restored seems unusual to me specifically because it is set during the Restoration. Could we start by talking about why you choose to write about the 1600's?


Prue Phillipson: I am fascinated by all periods of British history but of recent years I have become particularly interested in the seventeenth century. In Vengeance Thwarted, published in June 2011, I showed the effect on ordinary people's lives of the Scottish invasion of 1640 and then the Civil War. In the sequel, Hearts Restored, just published and reviewed yesterday on this blog, the restoration of Charles II brought a period of hope and expectation of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately this was soon marred by reverses in the naval war with the Dutch and the dreadful plague and fire in London. The amazing resilience of the human spirit shines through it all and I reflect this in the lives of my characters.
JK: I really appreciated the way you humanized history in Hearts Restored. Is Vengeance Thwarted similar?
PP: These two novels, which will later form part of a trilogy, can be read as distinct stories but they follow the lives of the same family, the Hordens of Horden Hallorden  in Northumberland and cover between them the years 1640 -1665, taking the reader also to North Yorkshire and London.
I love to delve into the different mind-set of a past age, and that's a modern expression – 'mind-set'. Past ages would have no concept of its meaning, but it is there in patterns of thought, customs, and unquestioned values, many of which are strange to twenty-first century minds, like the attitudes toward women and what's expected of them!
JK: How do you find out what past mind-sets were like? 
PP: When I research a period I try to read widely from writers of the day to explore their attitudes and the pattern of their day-to-day living, their work, their pleasures, the whole context of their life. What I gain is an understanding of their beliefs and prejudices but also a realisation that in their relations with others they have similar joys and sorrows to our own and human nature is really the same the world over.
Of course there were wider regional difference then because travel was much slower and there were no ubiquitous media like radio, television, the Internet, Facebook, etc, etc. But what is surprising is how much communication there was and how widely people did travel despite the difficulties. Families were always writing letters but no letter could be carried faster than the pace of a horse or a sailing boat. As a writer of historical novels it is important to remember this and not expect people in remote parts of the country to hear the news instantaneously as we can today.
Besides reading the diaries of people like Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn and the letters of families like the Verneys I also study reputable modern historians, like Antonia Fraser, J.P.Kenyon, Jenny Uglow on the Stuart monarchs, and John Bedford for his marvellous account of the Great Fire of London. I feel I can trust the accuracy of those who have spent years accessing all available sources. I do use the Internet too but one must check the origins of articles and sometimes be wary of facts posted there. I have found variations in little details – like the names of ships lost in a particular battle which I described in Hearts Restored. I found the right answer in Pepys' Diary.
JK: So many disasters! What were the good things that happened during this time? 
PP: Despite so much political turmoil, the seventeenth century saw huge advances in trade all over the world, in science and medicine, agriculture, house-building and eventually in greater tolerance in matters of religion. Meticulous records were kept of contracts, loan transactions, possessions, wills, law suits and a great deal of litigation went on. Merchants had vast ledgers where they traced every commodity they dealt with on land transport and sea voyages to remote destinations. This was particularly important because of the many hazards faced, as the London merchant Clifford Horden finds in Hearts Restored. To escape the plague his wife persuades him to go into the country and leave his deputy to manage the business. Not only does he mismanage it, but Dutch ships sink the merchant's vessels and we see how easy it was to make and lose fortunes rapidly in that period.
JK: How does the story of the Horden continue?
PP: The third novel, Rebels Repentant, continues the tale of the Northumberland Hordens up to 1689. That is in the hands of the publisher now and who knows, I may not be able to say goodbye to many of my characters who go through all three books. I can almost see myself taking the Hordens into the eighteenth century which is also a very enthralling period of history.
JK: Have you ever written about the 1700's?
PP: My publisher has another manuscript of mine, Heir Apparent, set in the eighteenth century during the seven years' war. It tells of a Yorkshire castle and the visiting architect who brings his London-bred daughter with him when he comes to work on a new wing. This leads to romantic turmoil with the young heir! But that is another story, possibly coming out later this year.
JK: Have you always been a historian? Is that what drew you to writing?
PP: Creating characters and seeing how they behave in the situations I put them in is an intensely fascinating process. I have written several novels and a volume of short stories about modern life, available on Amazon, but I find myself more intrigued now with the historical setting for my characters. They can rebel against the mores of their day but not implausibly. There is a limit to how far they can behave outside their time and that is a challenge I enjoy.
I sometimes wonder if it is because I am eighty-three that I am getting more fascinated by history. Perhaps I am more in tune with the English of those days from the Tudors onward than I am with the twenty-first century and its language of new technology. I'll leave my readers to decide! I do consult an etymological dictionary to be as authentic as possible in dialogue and descriptions of places and people. I wouldn't claim never to employ a word that was not in general use at the time but I try, and I also avoid ultra-modern turns of phrase which would jar from seventeenth century lips. On the other hand one does not want to sound too archaic. Fortunately English from the King James Bible onwards has not changed so drastically that it is incomprehensible to the modern ear.
My main aim in writing is to tell a fast-moving story involving deep passions and to depict characters who will live in readers' minds after they have laid down the novel at the end. If I have succeeded with Hearts Restored I am very happy.
JK: As my readers already know, I think you have succeeded in that very well. Congratulations and thank you for being here today. 
Hearts Restored is now available from all the finest book retailers. 

Hearts Restored by Prue Phillipson

It's not often I've seen a book of popular fiction set during the Restoration (England in the 1660's), although I know it was another amazing time of world-changing events, so I was curious to read Hearts Restored by Prue Phillipson. Historical events become important in the lives of the characters in this book, but they aren't dragged along by them. They make decisions with free will, appropriate to the context, and I was happy to bear witness.

The book is structured much like a romantic comedy movie. We meet a cast of very likable characters who, although they are all related in some distant way, come from diverse backgrounds. Meek Eunice has been raised in a harsh Puritan household, the French cousins defend their Catholicism against the onslaught of English varieties of worship, and Daniel comes from a welcoming, harmonious family in the North of England I couldn't help but wish was mine. I especially enjoyed the atmosphere created by Daniel's mother. The frank and open love she bears for her husband and son make her memorably sympathetic.

Daniel narrowly escapes marriage to one of the French cousins, attends Cambridge, and witnesses the horrors of war when he enlists in the royal navy. Eunice must pass through her own life-threatening situations, which I found the most interesting in the book, before reuniting with Daniel. The end of the book is heartfelt and well deserved. While I was reading, I did not realize that this is the second book in a series, it stands alone so well. It's exciting to know there is already another book with some of these characters and at least one more to come.

Overall, Hearts Restored is an enjoyable, light read, especially recommended for readers who want clean romance and to pick up a little history of the 1600's.

Hearts Restored will be released by Knox Robinson Publishing tomorrow, March 8.

SSS: Self-Control

Not to give too much away, but this is what Lambra would like to do to Gonzalo. 
I had my writing group this week, so I'm really geared up to share The Seven Noble Knights of Lara with all of you. Thanks so much for all the comments over these weeks. I visit everyone whose site I can find!

These lines follow on right after last week's.

* * *
She resolved never to accept the González family as her own. She would regain control of her situation, even if it meant deception. "I accept your apologies and the Count of Castile has arranged for there to be no disputes on either side. You have nothing to worry about from me." Justa, Gotina, the other maids, and Little Page had come up to stand beside her. She felt comforted to have as many people with her as her sister-in-law. 

* * *
These lines look a little flat right now, but in the context I thought they worked really well -- what do you think? Lambra is all about quiet composure here. The rage is all under the surface... for now.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Check out the other great sentences here.

Astreya III, The Wanderer's Curse, Out Now!

Yes, the final book in the trilogy is here!

All three books are the perfect mix of unpredictable adventure, edge-of-your-seat suspense, lovable characters, sea lore, and just a touch of magic.

The final book in any series bears the heavy weight of expectations, but Hamilton brings it all to an end that makes sense both logically and emotionally and is better than anyone else could have dreamed up. In this book, we get a glimpse of Matris and learn that a town ruled by women may not be the paradise described. Astreya must race back to the place of his birth in order to prevent the summary slaughter of the Village's inhabitants. Lindey and Astreya learn to deal with the past and plan for the future, and Astreya finally claims his rightful inheritance.

Start with Book I: The Voyage South and follow all the adventures. The landscapes, sailing prowess, and characters will stay with you long after you close the book.

Arizona Centennial Celebration XIII

Did anyone else doubt I could come up with enough pretty pictures to celebrate Arizona all month? This picture makes it easy to show the amazing history and harsh beauty of the place.

Tumacácori Mission, near Tubac, AZ
Happy 100 years, Arizona. I've now lived here longer than I lived in Pennsylvania, and even longer than I lived in England. A Tucsonan colleague of mine says "This place is a black hole. It's easy to get in, but you can't get out." Only time will tell where my husband and I will end up.

Happy Leap Day!

Arizona Centennial Celebration XII

This slightly strange picture of a common sight along Speedway Boulevard is meant to celebrate all the great Mexican food available here. The toreador statue is outside a family-owned establishment that has brought excellent sopapillas to customers for two generations.