Meredith Allard's Blog, page 24

Spooktacular Giveaway Hop

[image error]It’s been a few years since I participated in the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop, but now that I’m writing Down Salem Way, the prequel to the Loving Husband Trilogy, it seemed like a good time to give away a few autographed paperback copies of Her Dear and Loving Husband, Book One in the Loving Husband Trilogy. If you love Outlander or A Discovery of Witches, then Her Dear and Loving Husband will be a great read for you. To find out more about the book, check here. Her Dear and Loving Husband is also a great book for Halloween with its vampires, witches, ghosts, and werewolves. Thanks to BookHounds for hosting the blog hop.

This giveaway is open to readers all over the world. Wherever you are, you’re welcome to participate.

Simply do one of the following and you’re entered into the drawing for one of five autographed paperback copies of Her Dear and Loving Husband. The sign up links are located on the right sidebar.

Follow this blog
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To enter the giveaway, add your name and email address into the form below. In the message section, state which of the above options you chose.

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That’s it! Good luck to everyone who entered!

Hop on over to the one of the other participating blogs and see what other great prizes you can win.

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Creative Inspiration: The Victorian Era

There’s a joke I’ve seen on Pinterest, a cartoon of a writer watching TV. The character says, “I’m researching!” to the cynical-looking people standing nearby. For those of us who write fiction, we know that watching TV or movies, listening to music, or going for walks really is research because all of it becomes part of the writing process. Writers, especially fiction writers, need their imagination fueled regularly, and it’s the little things we do, such as stealing an hour here or there to watch a favorite TV show or listen to our favorite music, that help to fill the creative well so that we have a brain full of ideas when we sit down to write.

When it comes time to write, especially if I’m writing an historical story, I try to immerse myself in the time period as much as possible. If I feel as if I’ve traveled back in time, then it’s easier for me to carry my readers along with me on the journey. Here are some of the places I found inspiration while writing my Victorian era story When It Rained at Hembry Castle. My hope is that by reading over my list, others will discover places to find inspiration of their own.

Books

Nonfiction:

 [image error]Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool

How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman (one of my new favorite historians—she lives what she studies)

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes

To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace

Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell

The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill

Fiction:

When reading novels, I look for books written during the era I’m writing about as well as novels written about the era. Other times I’ll find inspiration in a novel that isn’t necessarily set in that time period but there’s something about the story that provides some ideas.

[image error]The Buccaneers and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

I read A LOT of P.G. Wodehouse (but really, can you read too much Wodehouse?)

I read A LOT of Dickens (but really, can you read too much Dickens?)

Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (set in the Tudor era—I know—but she’s such a master of historical fiction I needed to read the books again)

Television and Film

For me, TV and film are the same as fiction—some of what I watch is set in the era, some is not, but all stir my imagination in one way or another.

 Downton Abbey (Surprised, right?)

Upstairs, Downstairs

The miniseries of The Buccaneers

  North and South

  Lark Rise to Candleford

  Cranford

 Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth’s version)

[image error]Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson’s—and Alan Rickman’s—version)

I tried to watch the TV versions of Bleak House and Great Expectations, but to be honest screen adaptations of Dickens’ work rarely thrill me. They get the drama down all right, but you’d never guess Dickens was one of the funniest authors in the English language from the dreariness of the adaptations. I’m doing a little better with Dickensian, if for nothing else but Stephen Rea’s performance as Inspector Bucket.

Keeping Up Appearances—Another Bucket (It’s BooKAY).

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries—this outstanding Australian show is set in the 1920s, but I love Essie Davis’ Phryne Fisher so much I’ll use any excuse to watch it. Phryne Fisher’s clothes are even more fabulous than the costumes on Downton Abbey.

Music

Since my Victorian story is set in the 1870s, people were dancing to waltzes and polkas. Strauss and Chopin were favorite composers, which works well for me since I love to listen to classical music.

[image error]I was also able to find a few mp3s of Victorian-era music. I wasn’t concerned with whether or not these were songs specifically from the 1870s, and the music didn’t necessarily make it into the novel, but I really enjoy listening to music from the general time period while I’m writing. It helps me get into the right frame of mind. Here are a few examples of what I found:

Victorian Dining by Peter Breiner and Don Gillis

Victorian Edwardian by Alexander Faris

Victorian Love Songs by Craig Duncan

If you’re writing historical fiction, I highly recommend listening to music from the era while you write. I find a lot of great songs on Amazon, and if you have Amazon Prime then you can listen to some of the music for free.

Pinterest

I adore Pinterest. For me, Pinterest isn’t social media as much as something I do for fun because I love it so much. When It Rained at Hembry Castle is the first novel I’ve written since I started on Pinterest, so it’s the first time I was able to use pictures from the site to inspire my writing. When I needed to describe the sitting room at Hembry Castle, for example, I simply needed to go onto my research board, find the pin for the photograph I wanted to use as inspiration, and describe what I saw. If you’re writing your novel on Scrivener, you can import those photos directly into your novel file so they’re readily available when you need them.

When I was researching the novel, I created a private board for Hembry Castle because I didn’t want to bombard my followers with my many research pins. Then, when I had everything I needed, I created a public board so people could see the inspiration behind the story. Want to check out the board? It’s here.

Travel

 I had a few things to say about traveling for research purposes in this post. Of course, it’s not always possible to travel, but if you can then do.

London, England: I’ll have more to say about my journeys to London for research purposes in a later post. For now, I’ll say that London is always a good idea.

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Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon: An odd place to travel when researching a novel set in Victorian England, I know. I didn’t actually travel there for that purpose, but when I arrived I found Pittock Mansion, an American, smaller-scale version of an English country house, and Pittock Mansion provided a lot of inspiration for Hembry Castle. In fact, the music room and the library in Hembry Castle were modeled after rooms in Pittock Mansion.

This is just the short list of places where I found inspiration for my Victorian historical novel. I hope you’ve discovered a few ideas for places you might seek inspiration for your own historical stories, whichever era they’re set in.

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Charles Dickens Meets Downton Abbey

Here’s the interview I did for Many Books about my experience writing When It Rained at Hembry Castle. Enjoy!

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Meredith Allard fell in love with Charles Dickens’ work when she was in college and after watching every Downton Abbey episode multiple times, she decided to create a work inspired by her favorite author and TV show. When it Rained at Hembry Castle is the perfect marriage between the humor and mystery of Dickens’ work and the upstairs/downstairs world of the English aristocrats. Allard tells us more about what made her want to write a book set in the Victorian era, how she makes her characters come to life and how Hembry Castle has been brewing in her mind for 20 years.








Please give us a short introduction to When it Rained at Hembry Castle

When It Rained at Hembry Castle is set in Victorian England in 1870. It’s the story of American Daphne Meriwether, the granddaughter of the Earl of Staton. When the Earl dies, Daphne and her father Frederick return to England. It’s a challenge for Daphne, learning to live in the upstairs/downstairs world of her father’s family. And she may fall in love with the aspiring writer Edward Ellis while she’s there. Of course, obstacles get in their way. Hembry Castle is a love story at heart, though it has an interesting cast of characters who make life interesting for Edward and Daphne.

Why Victorian England? What fascinates you about this time period?

I fell in love with the novels of Charles Dickens and the Victorian era when I was in college and I always wanted to write a book set during this time. The Victorian era is interesting because it’s a time that is both historical and yet in some ways it feels modern. I love learning about history, and writing historical fiction is a great way for me to do that.

Did it require a lot of research to keep your novel historically correct? Which part of the research did you find the most interesting?

This was one historical novel that I didn’t have to do a ton of research for because I already had a lot of knowledge about the Victorian period from reading Dickens and other books about the era. I did double check everything I wrote, but since I knew where to look for the information that made it a shorter process than usual for me. I was able to travel to London twice as part of my research, and I absolutely loved that. London is a great city. In fact, I’ve walked many of Edward’s walks through the city. I think being able to visit and see the places for myself make the story much more realistic.

What, would you say, makes the English aristocrats so interesting to read about?

When It Rained at Hembry Castle was partially inspired by Downton Abbey, and the popularity of Downton Abbey is largely based on the curiosity people have about the upstairs/downstairs world of English aristocrats. In America, the upstairs/downstairs world is not part of our culture the way it is in Britain, and I think that accounts for the fascination about that lifestyle. It’s an introduction to a world we knew nothing about.

Privilege and class division are recurring themes in When it Rained at Hembry Castle. Why?

Since Downton Abbey was such a big influence on Hembry Castle, it seemed appropriate that privilege and class division should play a part in the story. My love for all things Dickens also inspired the novel, and privilege and class division are often themes in his stories. While I love watching Downton Abbey and am fascinated by the lifestyle of the upper classes, I can’t imagine ever having to live according to such arbitrary rules and regulations. Daphne represents the way I would look at that lifestyle if I were thrust into that world—with a sense of detachment and maybe some humor about it all. The fact that Daphne falls in love with the butler’s grandson when her grandmother means for her to marry a duke allowed me to probe a bit deeper into class division.

How did you manage to describe England’s countryside and other locations in your book so vividly?

Partially it was through reading, partially it was through photographs on Pinterest, but mainly it was my imagination. I was able to picture the scenery in my mind’s eye and I did my best to describe what I saw. And watching every episode of Downton Abbey many times helped!

Which classic author do you admire the most?

Charles Dickens, if you haven’t already figured that out. I read Dickens for the first time in college and knew that that’s what I wanted to do—write stories that were entire worlds unto themselves. I love his sense of humor, his spot-on observations, his way of pointing out things that were wrong in his world, many of which are still wrong in our world today. He’s the smartest, funniest writer I’ve ever read. Dickens has been the biggest influence in my own writing.

When it Rained at Hembry Castle contains many hilarious scenes. Why do you find it important to use humor in your writing?

This goes back to my love for Dickens. Dickens was a hilarious writer, and from him I learned that if you’re going to write truthfully about people then you have to include the light as well as the dark. People are funny. We do and say funny things all the time (sometimes without meaning to do so—which makes it even funnier). And besides, a sense of humor goes a long way in making a story fun to read.

Your book has a very Downton Abbey feel to it. Was that intentional? Are you a Downton Abbey fan yourself?

I love Downton Abbey and it was absolutely intentional to include the upstairs/downstairs feel of the show. In fact, Downton Abbey gave me an angle from which to tell the story. I came up with the original idea for Hembry Castle about 20 years ago (no joke) when I decided I wanted to write a story set in Victorian England about a writer who would be loosely based on a young Charles Dickens. I went on to write other novels and kept the Victorian story on the back burner for years. After I fell in love with Downton Abbey I realized that I could take elements from that TV show and use it to bring my Victorian story to life.

What are some tricks you use to create such believable characters?

Mainly, I use my imagination. It took me longer to write Hembry Castle than I thought it would because it took me some time to get to know all the characters. I can’t write about a character until I get a sense of his or her personality. Hembry Castle has a larger cast of characters than I usually write about, and it took me some time to get them all straight in my head. Really, it’s about not thinking too much during the first draft, allowing the characters to materialize in front of me, and then writing down what I see. Sometimes I’ll put a favorite actor in the “part” of that character and imagine that actor acting out the scenes. That helps me get a sense of cadence when the character speaks, the types of movements the character might do, and so on. But really, it all boils down to allowing my imagination freedom.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

Writing is my most obvious superpower, but when I’m not writing I love to read. I also love to cook, and I just started art journaling, which I really enjoy.

Where can our readers discover more of your work or interact with you?

The best place to find me online is my website, www.meredithallard.com. I’m also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authormeredithallard/. My favorite social media is Pinterest, and you can find me at https://www.pinterest.com/meredithallard/. I could stay on that all day!

When It Rained at Hembry Castle:






Missing Downton Abbey? Read When It Rained at Hembry Castle. A lush historical novel set in Victorian England, When It Rained at Hembry Castle is the story of an aristocratic family, secrets that dare not be told, and the wonder of falling in love.






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Viva Las Vegas; Or, God Bless Us Every One

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I’m not a ranter. This blog is about my books, my writing, and my researching, as are my Facebook and Twitter feeds. I post photos of books and Halloween decorations on Pinterest. I have my political opinions, certainly, but I vent those opinions in my fiction. From my main man Dickens I’ve learned that you can tell a great story and still make a political point or two (or three). My fiction is quite political (see The Loving Husband Trilogy or That You Are Here if you don’t believe me), but I’ve always kept that aspect under wraps. The deeper themes are there if readers care to dig; otherwise, readers are getting entertaining stories with characters they want to know better and plot twists and turns with maybe some romance (and a vampire) along the way. But today I have something else to say.

I have been a proud Las Vegas resident for 14 years. I taught in the Clark County School District for 11 years. I have spent the past three years getting my PhD from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a goal I will complete this coming May. UNLV is just miles from the Las Vegas Strip and Mandalay Bay where the worst mass shooting in U.S. history took place. I was at home while the shooting was taking place, probably in bed reading, which is where I spent most Sunday nights, or most of my nights in general (party animal that I am). I admit I’m not a big news-watching person. Since the current resident of the White House took office, I watch the news enough to make sure that the world was where I left it when I went to bed the night before, and I have a general sense of what’s happening, but otherwise I’ve been so busy reading and writing and PhD-ing that I haven’t had time to be a news junkie. When I woke up Monday morning I checked my phone, saw an odd message from the emergency services at UNLV saying that the campus was open and to expect heavier traffic than normal. I’m not sure why the alarm in my head didn’t go off when I read that. I’m so used to seeing odd messages from here, there, and everywhere. Just two months ago I was on campus speaking to one of my professors when the university was locked down due to a shooting near the library. That time, no one had been hurt, so I just shrugged it off. This morning it wasn’t until my mother, also a Las Vegas resident, told me about the events at Mandalay Bay that I understood how serious it was. And then I realized that the world was not where I left it when I went to bed the night before. I did become a news junkie and watched CNN all day. It was like a nightmare, seeing this hotel, just miles from my home, a place I’ve visited many times, become a war zone, and for no reason at all. Let me rephrase that. I’m sure the shooter had his reasons. As I’m writing this no motive has been found, but there’s always a reason, even if he didn’t share that reason with anyone, although I’m sure more will be discovered as the days pass.

I wonder if as a society we ever pass the point of no return. I wonder if things ever get so bad that there’s nothing left to be done and we just have to accept that this is the way we have to live now, looking over our shoulders, wondering who is there, why they’re there, and what they’re planning on doing while they’re there. I wonder how one man can be so disturbed that he could premeditate this attack on peaceable Americans out for a fun night listening to country music on the Las Vegas Strip, and then I wonder at the selfless heroics at the scene of the tragedy with the courageous first responders, the off duty police, and the medical personnel. Family members and friends shielded each other, and strangers pulled strangers to safety and did their best to tend to the wounded.

But how can this be? How can we scream at each other on Facebook and Twitter for having different political opinions and then pull someone we’ve never met out of the path of a bone shattering bullet? How can we bark at someone at the coffee shop (where some angry man poked me in the shoulder and yelled at me for jumping ahead of him in line when it was the coffee shop manager who told me to join her so she could refund my money) and then use our bodies to shield others from danger? Why does it take a tragedy for us to recognize the humanity in each other? Why does it take madness, murder, and mayhem for us to realize that everyone is a story, and every story is valuable?

Not that long ago strangers held the door of the restaurant or grocery store open for whoever was behind them. It still happens sometimes, but not as much. Not that long ago strangers smiled at each other, said good morning, hello, how are you? What happened? I have had this discussion often with some teacher friends of mine. We like to blame technology, how we’re all spending so much time behind blue-toned screens that we don’t recognize the importance of flesh and bone human beings (I write this with with due irony noting that I am, of course, writing this behind a blue-toned computer screen; but writers get a pass, or at least a small one, I think). We can blame the weaknesses in our society on a lack of education, a lack of jobs, a lack of medical care, and, most importantly, a lack of concern about us ordinary folks from those who are supposed to be representing us in the Congress, the Senate, and the Oval Office. Hey, remember us? We’re the ones struggling to make ends meet, sitting for five hours in the doctor’s office waiting for decent medical care, seeking to educate our children and ourselves in order to find our own little slice of that pie that used to be called the American Dream. Does the American Dream even exist anymore? As a former K-12 teacher and a current university instructor, I wonder if the younger people coming up see themselves doing better than their parents, which is what I believed I would do, and which is what I did.

Then I wonder how racism is connected to this dis-ease. Racism has always existed, but never in my lifetime have I seen people so proudly displaying their bigotry. When I was a kid my Jewish mother told me that she was glad that our last name was Allard because no one could tell we were Jewish. That’s silly, I said. No one cares about that stuff anymore. My mother explained that we had lost relatives during the Holocaust, but at 10 I didn’t understand. Who cares if we’re Jewish? Today, sadly, I understand her point. And yet again, from the ashes (or the shit in this case) rises the phoenix, and there are more people protesting the haters than there are haters. But where does such hate stem from in the land of the free and the home of the brave? I know enough about American history to understand that this country has never been the land of the free, but I had some hopes that it was the home of the brave. It’s a hope I hold onto. We see flashes of bravery in the men and women who protest for human rights, and we saw it right here in Vegas in the angels who protected and cared for others. Has this anger always been there, hidden deep and dark in our collective psyche, only to lately be released, like an outraged genie in a bottle suddenly loosed to wield fury and frustration? And why, dear friends, why is it that the angry ones with orange faces and pointing fingers, or the friends of the angry ones with orange faces and pointing fingers, get all the attention while those of us who struggle through, day by day, the ones who believe in live and let live, the ones making the best lives we can for ourselves in the rubble of what used to be the American dream, are left nameless and voiceless in the shadows?

Sometimes people struggle so much they go off the deep end. I don’t know if the shooter had any of this in mind (whatever he had of a mind), but I do think it’s all connected somehow. People lose hope, and they don’t see change coming, or they perceive that too much change is happening, and they think things are getting worse. For the first time in my 48 years, I don’t see my country improving. I see it in decline. For whatever sins America has, I used to feel like at least we were moving in the right direction. The slaves, though it took a bloody war to do it, were freed. The Civil Rights Movement happened. The Women’s Rights Movement happened. The Gay Rights Movement happened. Can our problems now really stem from what they’re saying on the news? Is it a backlash because all people are gaining their independence?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Here’s the thing: there is not a limited amount of life, liberty, and happiness. The Creator is limitless, and because our Creator is limitless our unalienable rights are limitless. Because I as an American woman have my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that doesn’t mean that any other American citizen has less of a right. But nothing is handed to us, dear friends. If we want our pursuit of happiness, we must work for it. Pointing fingers at others gets us nowhere. Believe me. I’ve tried. Whatever I have, I’ve worked hard for, and no one could have gotten it for me but me. Perhaps it’s because some people feel so hopeless at the state of things that they no longer feel the drive to try, and pointing at others and saying it’s their fault is the only thing we can do to make ourselves feel better.

So where do we go from here? We could hope our government figures out a way to keep Americans safer, but they’re too busy politickin’ to care that Americans are dying. This has always been a country of the people and their idealism. For all of our faults, we still have the greatest ideals of any country in the world. You can still be anyone born anywhere and rise as far as your hard work allows you. It might be harder now, but it can be done. So rather than relying on a broken government that cares for nothing but playing games and pointing fingers, we must rely on each other. We keep pressing forward. We peaceably protest. We write our Congressmen and Congresswomen and our Senators and our local government entities. We remember that the worst thing we can do to someone begging for attention is to ignore them. That’s harder in the Internet age where it’s so easy to respond, but the old fashioned method of ignoring is still best.

I wonder what the world would be like if we lived in that place of helping instead of hurting. Sometimes people ask how the Creator could allow such things to happen. My argument has always been that it’s not the Creator who does such things—it’s disturbed people. The outpouring of love, help, support, caring, and donations you see after a tragedy—that’s where you find the Creator. What would our world look like if we lived in that place—that place of love we continue to see after the tragedy in my hometown of Las Vegas or that place of help and concern we saw in Texas and Florida? And while we’re in a charitable mood, let’s not forget our brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico who still desperately need our help.

We must remain idealistic. It is possible for us to look at each other, smile, and help each other every day. It shouldn’t take a tragedy to get us to acknowledge the humanity in each other. But we have to make a conscious effort to make things better. A change is gonna come, dear friends. Whether that change is good, bad, or indifferent is up to us.

Which is all I have to say. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, every one!”

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Researching the Victorian Era

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I have an odd habit of writing historical fiction set in eras I know little or nothing about. I came up with story ideas about the Salem Witch Trials, the Trail of Tears, Biblical Jerusalem, New York City and Washington, D.C. during the woman’s suffrage movement, and the American Civil War, and for each of those stories I had to learn about the history to write the novel. I don’t mind when it happens that way, though. I’ve always been fascinated with history, and I enjoy learning about the past. I often get ideas for the plot from my research, so the research helps to make my novel even richer than it might have been without the historical background.

When It Rained at Hembry Castle was a different experience. Due to  my love for Dickens and my own research on the Victorian era, I was writing about a time I was familiar with. When I began writing Hembry Castle I realized that I could include aspects of my favorite TV show, Downton Abbey, to bring the story to life. The hero of Hembry Castle, the aspiring young writer Edward Ellis, became the focal point of the story, along with his love, Daphne Meriwether, but then I decided to include upstairs and downstairs elements of life during the Victorian era as well.

In order to write this novel, I started with the author I know best—Dickens. Of course, I’ve read all his novels, many more than once, some more than twice, so I started with the one I knew had the most in common with the story I had in mind for Hembry—Our Mutual Friend. From there, I went back to a few favorite books about the Victorian era—What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool and The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders. I had read those books previously but reread them for a refresher course. While reading about the Victorian era, I discovered a new favorite historian, Ruth Goodman, who impressed me with the fact that she doesn’t just talk about Victorian clothing, she makes it and wears it. She’s tried out many elements of living in the Victorian era, which gives her work that much more authority. Her book, How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life, is a must read for anyone interested in life during the Victorian period. I also read The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes. Edward Ellis is loosely based on a young Charles Dickens, but I didn’t need to read anything specifically for that since I’ve read pretty much every biography about Dickens. It was nice to be able to use information I had in my head for a change.

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I realized that I needed to learn more about what the upstairs/downstairs world looked like in the 1870s. To my surprise, it wasn’t so different from the way it’s portrayed in Downton Abbey, which begins in 1912. While I picked up a lot about manor house living from watching Downton, as many fans of the show have, I felt I needed more specifics so I read Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson. I gleaned some great information from that book, and it provided good background for me so I could see how the country house servant evolved over the years. The upstairs/downstairs world isn’t part of our culture in America the way it is in England, and I wonder if that accounts for Americans’ fascination with Downton Abbey—it’s a glimpse into a lifestyle we weren’t familiar with.

The way I research historical fiction has changed a lot over the years. I used to do months of research before I ever started writing. Now I do a few weeks worth of preliminary research to get a feel for the era, and then I start writing. As I write, I get a sense of what information I need so I know exactly what to look for. As I was writing, I realized that if Edward was a political journalist then he would know politics. I needed to figure out the political climate of the time, but it wasn’t too hard since I knew what I was looking for—events in British politics in 1870. I remember learning about Gladstone and Disraeli in a history class about Victorian Britain, and it was nice being able to put that knowledge to use as well.

Through the writing process I realized that I needed information about Victorian etiquette. There were such specific rules for every aspect of life, and since part of Daphne’s struggle is to learn to live in this upstairs/downstairs world, she had to learn those rules. I found The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill, which was written for Americans during the Victorian era, but after a little digging I discovered that the rules were the same in Britain so I used that book as my primary reference. The etiquette seems so antiquated now. I had a lot of fun writing those scenes because Daphne is rather amused by her grandmother’s nitpicking about how her manners aren’t refined enough for English society.

I was lucky enough to be able to visit England twice for research as I was writing When It Rained at Hembry Castle. Most of the London locations in the story were chosen because they were places I’ve visited myself so I had seen what I was describing. I stood on the Victoria Embankment near the Houses of Parliament watching the Thames roll as Edward is wont to do. I’ve taken some of Edward’s walks through the city. Many of the buildings are different (I’m pretty sure the The Gherkin wasn’t around in 1870), yet some of the buildings are the same, which is amazing to me. Here in Las Vegas buildings are imploded if they’re more than 20 years old.

In many ways, researching When It Rained at Hembry Castle was the easiest work I’ve done so far as an historical novelist because it was set in a time I was already familiar with. It’s always magical to me when I start to see how I can take this knowledge of history and weave it into the story I have in mind. What is even more amazing is when the history leads the story in directions I had never considered before. That, for me, is the joy of writing historical fiction.

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Character Inspiration: Sarah Alexander and Elizabeth Wentworth

[image error]Fans of the Loving Husband Trilogy are familiar with Elizabeth, the greatest love of James Wentworth’s life. She is the woman he sees across the dining room table in Salem Village in 1692, and her beauty and warmth capture his heart forever. But where did the idea for Elizabeth come from? And who came first, Elizabeth or James’ future love, Sarah Alexander?

To answer the second question first, trying to figure out who came first, Elizabeth or Sarah, is like a chicken and the egg question. On the one hand, you think the chicken had to come first because how can you have an egg without a chicken to lay it, but then you think it had to be the egg because where would a chicken come from if there wasn’t an egg to hatch from? You can’t have Sarah without Elizabeth. They’re too intertwined. Chronologically, Elizabeth was first since she married James in 1691, and James and Sarah married in 2011.

Writing the novel was more complex than following the chronology. My initial concept for Her Dear & Loving Husband was for it to be a completely modern novel. In my mind, Sarah came first. The bigger story that includes the Salem Witch Trials didn’t come to me until I decided where to set the novel. Once I decided to set the story in Salem and include the witch trials, then Elizabeth appeared. Are Sarah and Elizabeth exactly the same? Not quite. Obviously, they share similarities, but Elizabeth lives in the late 17th century; Sarah lives during our times. The differences between them are the differences you might expect from people who live in different centuries.

Sarah was easier to conceptualize since she’s a modern woman. I can’t say that there was any one major inspiration for Sarah. For most of the characters I write, I imagine a favorite actor in the “role” of the character, which gives me a sense of mannerisms and speech cadence. For example, for John Wentworth, James’ father, I imagined one of my all-time favorite actors, Sir Patrick Stewart, as John, which gave me a very clear vision of how John would sound as he spoke, what he looked like, and how he acted. I didn’t have a particular actress in mind for either Sarah or Elizabeth. They were completely figments of my imagination, which can work as well since I can allow my imagination to run wild. While we’re on the subject, I didn’t have a specific actor in mind for James. Every other character in Her Dear & Loving Husband had a well-known actor in the “roles.” Call it my Loving Husband dream team. But the three leads—James, Sarah, and Elizabeth—were all from my own imaginings.

[image error]Elizabeth is more of a mystery in Her Dear & Loving Husband. We see her in snippets throughout the novel, and we have some sense of her personality, and we see how close she and James are so that we undertand why James was so devastated by her loss during the witch hunts. But we don’t learn a lot about her. She’s there in the background, a shadow that haunts both James and Sarah, but by the end she’s relegated to her role as a memory. My inspiration for writing Down Salem Way came from the fact that I felt like there was more to explore about James and Elizabeth’s experiences in Salem in 1692. I wanted to know Elizabeth better. I wanted to see more of James and Elizabeth together, happy, content in their lives together, and I wanted to examine how it all fell apart, through no fault of their own.

Character inspiration can come from anywhere. It can come from books, movies, TV shows, music, people you know, favorite actors, or your imagination. My imagination was my main tool for creating both Elizabeth and Sarah. What I’ve learned from this experience is that you can go home again—at least when you’re writing fiction. I wanted to explore Elizabeth a little more, and now I’m able to do that through writing Down Salem Way.

You can see the first sneak peek of Down Salem Way here. It’s written diary-style from James’ point of view. I’m enjoying writing as James. It’s time he had his chance to share his side of what happened in 1692.

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Sneak Peek: Prologue, Down Salem Way

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20 December 1691

My life has only just begun. Is that not odd? I am nine-and-twenty years old and did not know who or what or why I was until I met my Elizabeth.

How did I know she was the one for me? In truth, I cannot say, but knew I did from the instant I saw her. Twas but three months ago, over the supper table where we were gathered with friends from the Village where Elizabeth and her father and sister had recently arrived from England. I noticed her the moments I walked in I saw her floating gracefully about the simple wooden cabin, making sure everyone’s mugs and bellies were full, caring for her younger sister, tending to her father. And then our eyes met and my life on earth made sense to me. I wanted to know Elizabeth, and when I discovered that she wanted to know me, I knew why I was brought forth on this earth—to love and cherish this woman.

I am not a religious man. I believe in God, I believe in His mercy, but I do not believe our lives are predestined, mapped out for us before we are born. I do not believe we have to forgo earthly joys in pursuit of some unknown Paradise in a mysterious afterworld. I believe we make our own fortunes through our work, our families, our friends, and elsewhere. I can devote my heart and soul to my wife and still do good and be good to those I love on earth and those I love in heaven. I listen to Reverend Noyes in the meeting house on a Sunday and his brimstone and hellfire sermons do not prompt my piety. There is a lot of brimstone and hellfire here in Salem, but I let it pass over me. If this is what others believe, that is all and well, but I believe in a God of compassion.

I’m certain I sound like an old married man though I have been married but this week past. Though my father is one of the wealthiest men in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, my wife is a farmer’s daughter, and she decided that our wedding would be a simple affair with family and a few friends. My wife, beautiful no matter her clothing, looked ethereal in the brown silk that matched the brown silk of the wisps of her hair that fell from her coif and the brown silk of her soft eyes. My father presented us with the best food and drink money could buy—spiced hard cider, fish chowder, stewed oysters, parsley-flavored mussels, roasted game birds, red pickled eggs, succotash stew, bearberry jelly, rye bread, maple syrup candy, nutmeats, my wife’s bride cake, and my father’s favorite, the Indian pudding with dried plums and West Indian molasses.

For myself I was all of nerves, trembling and stumbling, not from fear but from disbelief that Elizabeth Jones was about to become my wife. I forgot to tidy my hair or my clothing prior to the wedding, and I’m sure I looked like a rumpled roll of bedding tossed from the last ship to dock from England. I had to run to my own wedding, smiling, happy, impatient to create a life with the woman I love. It has been cold this December, but Elizabeth decided we would be married after the harvest months so that my father-in-law, a farmer, and our other friends from the Village could join in our joy. The magistrate recited the vows. My wife and I exchanged rings. My father bought us the rings, for, though rings are unpopular here where any earthly adornment is considered vain, he says that the thin bands represent eternity, which is as long as I shall love my wife.

“I shall never leave you ever,” I said to my blushing bride, and she promised me the same. My father brought us to our new two-story, two-gable house, one of the larger homes in Salem Town, his wedding present to us. When Elizabeth and I were finally alone, I was tongue tied. I had been dreaming of this moment from the very first time I saw her, but there I was in the great room staring into the kitchen where she appeared to be examining the larger cauldron hanging from the center of the hearth. I thought if she spoke first then she might alleviate the awkwardness. Finally, I laughed, and she laughed, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where I’m supposed to be, in my beautiful home with my beautiful wife, and there was nowhere else in the world for me.

As I sit here looking through the diamond panes into the fading daylight I see my Elizabeth sitting in her chair by the heat of the hearth, her feet up on the tapestry-covered stool, a book in her lap, the flickering flames illuminating her peach-like complexion, her lips parted as if she had bitten into berries that stained her full mouth red, her dark curls falling down her back, her hair loose since it is just we two in the privacy of our home, her thin linen shift covered by a shawl to protect her from the cold that still filtered between the diamond panes of the windows. She looks from her book to me and smiles, and I know that all is well in the world. As I write this she stands, places her book on the chair she had been sitting on, and walks to me. She is placing her warm hands on my shoulders, and with the knuckles of her thumbs and forefingers presses the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders into submission. I exhale and lean back into her kneading hands, allowing the relief they bring me body and soul.

I thank God every night for this woman. Who am I to have such good fortune? Tonight, I, James Wentworth, am a content man, a joyous man, a grateful man with my loving, radiant wife beside me.

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5 Books to Read if You Love Fantasy Romance

[image error]One of the fun things about reading is that once we discover a new genre we love we go on the hunt to find similar books. Since I love historical fiction, it’s relatively easy to find more to read since I’m interested in most eras of history. I love novels set everywhere from Ancient Greece to the Jazz Age. As an author, I’ve written books set in Biblical Jerusalem, the American Civil War, World War I and the women’s suffrage movement, the Salem Witch Trials, the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the Japanese-American internments during World War II, and the Victorian Era. It’s fair to say I have varied tastes as a reader and writer of historical fiction.

Fantasy romances were another matter. After I wrote the Loving Husband Trilogy I stayed away from other fantasy romances because I felt like I needed to extend my horizons as a reader and a writer. Then recently I discovered Outlander (novel and TV show), and I fell in love with the fantasy romance genre all over again. Like any other reader, I scrambled to find other books that gave me that same magical, historical, romantic feel.

Here are five books for lovers of fantasy romance:

[image error]Outlander—As you probably already guessed, Outlander is at the top of my list. Outlander has everything I love—fascinating historical descriptions of 18th century Scotland, a fast-moving plot, a genuine love story, and a hunky male lead. There are eight books so far in the series, and as of this writing I’ve read the first two. All of the books are at the top of my TBR pile, and I’m looking forward to reading them all. Definitely start with Outlander. It really does set the tone for the overall story.
[image error]A Discovery of Witches—This was published around the same time Her Dear and Loving Husband came out, and I think I was afraid to read it because it sounded similar in many ways to my own story of a vampire professor. I’m glad I finally picked it up. I’m nearly finished reading A Discovery of Witches, and I’m ready for Book Two. This first book in the All Souls Trilogy also talks about history (how can you have a conversation between a witch historian and a vampire professor without discussing the past?), but my understanding is that in Book Two there’s a time travel element where Matthew and Diana visit Matthew’s past. Like Outlander, there’s history, magic, and a great romance in A Discovery of Witches.
[image error]The Time Traveler’s Wife—Here’s another romance with the mystery of time travel. This is a story of a great love that continues despite the many obstacles in Henry and Clare’s way (it’s hard when the man you love suddenly disappears). But Henry and Clare are committed to each other, and in a way the problems associated with Henry’s time traveling only serve to strengthen their love.
T[image error]he Mists of Avalon—I read this last year, and I absolutely loved it. It is a magical retelling of the story of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and it’s told from the women’s point of view. While there are romances (this is based on the legends of the Knights of the Rount Table after all), the emphasis here is on the magic of the faery world, the priestesses of Avalon, and the emergence of Christianity. This is part of a series, and though I’ve only read The Mists of Avalon, there are other books to enjoy if you love the first one.
[image error]Her Dear & Loving Husband—You didn’t think I’d leave my own James and Sarah off this list, did you? The fantasy in this book, and in the whole Loving Husband Trilogy, comes from the magic of vampires, witches, werewolves, and ghosts. The romance, of course, is between vampire James Wentworth and human Sarah Alexander, and their love spans more than 300 years. There’s also history thrown in through accounts of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. I talked in this post about how I see my books as romantic rather than romances, but if you’re into heartwarming love stories, then Her Dear & Loving Husband may be right up your alley.

I said this was going to be a list of five books to read, but each of the novels on this list is part of a series, so there’s actually many books here to help you quench your thirst for more fantasy romance.

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Watching the Witch Trials: The Crucible and Three Sovereigns for Sarah

To get into the flow of life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony while I’m writing Down Salem Way, I just rewatched The Crucible, which is a story I love. When I was teaching American literature, one of my favorite lessons was when we read and watched Miller’s work because there’s such depth to the story and it provided much for us to think and talk about. When I rewatched The Crucible, it was helpful seeing the period costumes, the wooden houses, the horse-drawn carriages, and the farming because it helps me visualize what I’m writing about.

[image error]It’s important to remember that Miller’s play is an allegory where the witch hunts represent the finger-pointing madness of McCarthyism where no one was safe from accusations of Communism. For anyone familiar with the events of the Salem Witch Trials, it’s easy to say that The Crucible is more fiction than fact. However, the point of the play is not to illuminate the real-life events of the witch hunts but to make a point about how easily we turn against each other when it suits our purposes. The names of those involved in the witch hunts are true and the general events are based on fact; the specifics of the play, however, not so much. Abigail Williams was 11, John Proctor in his 60s, and I feel  confident saying that he looked nothing like Daniel Day-Lewis. To know about the Salem Witch Trials and allow for the way it’s presented in The Crucible, you have to accept Miller’s story for what it is—a parable about how vulnerable we are to our own weaknesses. Miller was a master at dialogue—there is not one word out of place—and Proctor’s speech at the end (where he cannot sign a false confession) sums up perfectly why so many of those convicted of witchcraft wouldn’t falsely confess despite the fact that confession would save their lives.

[image error]If you use Amazon , you’re familiar with those lists of “If you like this, you’ll like this…” Sometimes I find those lists annoying, but the day I watched The Crucible another title popped onto my TV screen—Three Sovereigns for Sarah. I wasn’t familiar with this movie starring Vanessa Redgrave, but in a way the 1985 film is the perfect companion piece to The Crucible since Three Sovereigns for Sarah is also about the Salem Witch Trials. The main difference is that Three Sovereigns is based more on factual accounts; in fact, much of the dialogue in the film comes directly from transcripts from the trials in 1692. Three Sovereigns is about three sisters caught up in the horror of the witch hunts—Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, and Sarah Cloyse (played by Redgrave). Rebecca and Mary are hung after their witchcraft convictions, while Sarah survives, barely, because she was jailed away from the others due to the prisons in Salem and Boston overflowing with suspected and convicted witches. Twenty years later, seeking to clear her sisters’ names, Sarah is given three sovereigns, one for each sister, meant to appease her loss under such tragic circumstances.

Watching the film version of The Crucible does give a sense of life in Salem in 1692, but really I watch The Crucible for the pinpoint perfect dialogue and the message within the story (and, yes, for Daniel Day-Lewis). Watching Three Sovereigns for Sarah gives a more accurate account of what really happened during the witch hunts. As someone currently writing about the Salem Witch Trials, both The Crucible and Three Sovereigns have played a role in helping me bring Salem in 1692 to life.

[image error]On the literary side, I’ve downloaded The Scarlet Letter, the classic from Nathaniel

Hawthorne (a descendant of Salem Witch Trial magistrate John Hathorne, Nathaniel having added the w to the spelling of his surname to avoid a direct connection to his decidedly unsympathetic ancestor). The Scarlet Letter is not about the witch hunts, but it is about life in Puritanical Massachusetts, which will also help me get a feel for the time. I’ve also discovered a documentary about the Salem Witch Trials from the History Channel, and I’m looking forward to the new perspective that will bring.

I look at it this way: I get to watch TV and read classic literature and call it work.

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Excerpt: Chapter 3, Her Dear and Loving Husband

CHAPTER 3

J[image error]ames Wentworth arrived on the campus of Salem State College a half an hour after dark. He parked his black Ford Explorer in the parking lot off Loring Avenue near the Central Campus and walked past the Admissions Office and the bookstore, stepping out of the way of a student speeding toward the bike path. After he walked into the library he paused by the door to watch the young people studying at the tables, searching the stacks, hunching over the computers, so raw and fresh they still had that new-car smell. They had so much ahead of them, James mused. The world was exciting to them, adventures waiting to be had, dreams to be discovered, loves to be found and lost and lost and found. The students in the library were naïve, yes, but that would be tempered by experience and learning. Some of them thought they already knew everything they would ever need to know, but James had compassion for them. We think we know it all, but we never do, no matter how long we live.

Class that night was lively. These students had opinions and they liked discussing and debating, which kept the energy high. There is no worse class than when there were thirty silent students who wanted nothing more than to listen to the professor speak for fifty minutes and leave. That night’s class was an independent study seminar where the students chose which work of literature they would focus on. Usually, James found, the young people were predictable in their choices—Dickens, Shakespeare, Twain, Thoreau—but that term the students were more creative. One was studying Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray about the cursed man who never ages, a story James thought of often. He was amused by the choice, and curious.

“Why The Picture of Dorian Gray?” he asked.

“Staying young forever?” Kendall said. “How cool is that? I mean, don’t you want your hair to stay blond, Professor? You want to turn old and gray?”

James shook his head. “On the outside Dorian stayed young-looking and fresh-seeming, but on the inside he became decrepit in ways no one would guess. His physical body didn’t age, but the catch was, as the years passed, he grew more depraved and detached from human decency.” James looked at Kendall, a Junior about twenty years of age, her sandy-brown hair slung back in a ponytail, wearing a blue and orange Salem State College t-shirt with the Viking logo. Her expression hadn’t changed.

“Dorian looked young, Professor Wentworth. Isn’t that all that matters?”

“A youthful appearance is certainly valued in our society, but don’t you think there could be problems always looking the same while you grew in knowledge and experience?”

“But looking young forever would keep me out of the plastic surgeon’s office.”

“Fair enough,” James said.

“I mean, my sister is twenty-five, and she’s already getting Botox.”

James sighed as he surveyed the classroom, admiring the bright, fresh faces, and he wondered how many others were convinced they looked old when they were oh so very young. He scanned the list in his hand and his eyes grew wide. He pressed his wire-rimmed eyeglasses against his nose as he looked at Trisha, sitting front and center, a bright student, one of his hardest workers, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at her choice. He wouldn’t have guessed it of her.

“Why did you choose Bram Stoker’s Dracula?” he asked.

“Because I love that genre,” Trisha said. “I love the idea that there are supernatural beings so extraordinary out there walking unnoticed among us. Since we’re not looking for them we don’t see them, and when we do see them it might be too late.”

“Do you believe in vampires?” he asked.

“Of course not. That’s silly.”

“Yes,” he said. “That is very silly.”

“Besides, even if there were really vampires no one would believe it. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

“You’re right. Let’s hope we never have to find out.”

Levon Jackson, another bright student, an ice hockey player touted as a potential NHL draft, patted Trisha’s shoulder and shouted a loud “Amen!”

James sat on the edge of the instructor’s desk at the front of the room. Levon was one of his favorites that term, in two of his classes, and the young man so rarely shared without raising his hand. Though James insisted from the first day that students didn’t need to raise their hands, this was college, not kindergarten, Levon was always respectful, polite, waiting for James’ attention before he spoke.

“Amen to what, Levon?” James asked.

“Amen to let’s hope we never have to find out. Who wants to learn there’s some nasty old vamp lurking around somewhere?”

“There’s nothing to find out,” said Jeremy, who had aspirations of doctoral school at Harvard. “Who wants to waste time on make-believe?”

“Vampires could be real,” Kendall said. As other students laughed and hissed, she turned her scrunched face to the class. “Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

“How can something be dead and alive at the same time?” Jeremy asked.

“I’m not saying it’s true,” Kendall said. “I’m just saying it’s possible.”

Levon slapped his large hands over his ears, his palms flat against his head. “I don’t want to hear any more about vampires!” James couldn’t tell if he was joking.

Jeremy smirked. “You must cover your ears a lot, Levon. Everyone everywhere is talking about vampires. Vampire movies. Vampire television shows. Vampire books.” Jeremy’s fingers went to his temples and he shook his head from side to side. “I am so damn sick of vampires.”

James watched his students with a mixture of amusement and caution. He didn’t want to stifle the conversation, and he wouldn’t quell their questioning, but he didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken. Levon turned his desk so he could look Jeremy in the eye. He wasn’t intimidating, James noted, only serious.

“My pastor says there are evil spirits, minions of Satan, all around us, especially at night. He says they seek innocent souls to prey on, and if we’re not careful the evil will consume us.” Levon looked around the room, one student at a time, without a hint of sarcasm. “I know there’s evil in the world. Maybe it’s ghosts. Maybe it’s witches. Maybe it’s vampires. Maybe it’s the Devil himself. Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it, and I don’t want it anywhere near me. Evil like that needs to be destroyed.”

“Do you really believe that?” Jeremy asked.

“I do.”

The students argued amongst each other, some louder than others. They were so caught up in their opinions they didn’t notice as James moved from the desk to the window. He unhooked the latch and pushed the glass up, letting in a cool blast of air, the combined scent of the salty sea and the storm dropping soon. Suddenly, the shouting voices stopped. James heard the silence, but he didn’t turn around. He watched the tree leaves sigh and weave from their branches. He watched the moon hanging in wait overhead. He wasn’t trying to be dramatic. He was waiting for the right words to come.

“That could be dangerous,” he said finally, “making judgments and deciding where, or if, others have the right to live.” He was talking to no one in particular, to the windowpane, the trees, the night breeze, his own furrowed brow. “People have lost their lives because of such judgments.”

“What that is, Professor, is a loaf of bullshit,” said Jeremy.

The class laughed.

“It isn’t,” said Levon. “I don’t want anything to do with any vampires. I don’t want to see anything about them. I don’t want to hear anything about them. They’re evil.”

Silence fell over the class again. James turned from the window and saw twenty-five oh so very young faces waiting for him to make sense of it all. That was how class often went. James offered some topic of discussion based on their reading, the students would discuss, or argue, and then James would share some insight that tied the pieces together. Then the students left with some new knowledge that hopefully they’d remember, some lesson they’d carry all their lives, or at least until the next midterm. James wished they would take more responsibility for forming their own opinions, but he was the professor, after all, the one with the college degrees paid to profess his knowledge to classes of impressionable minds. But that night the class had a different feel. He didn’t know if the students could sense the shift, but he could. For the first time, he didn’t know what to say.

Timothy Wolfe, a dark-haired, pale-skinned student, stood up in the back of the class, a flash of anger in his black eyes. James gave Timothy a warning glance, but Timothy didn’t seem to see him. Rather, James guessed from Timothy’s glint, that he was being ignored.

“Why do you assume vampires are evil?” Timothy asked.

The other students turned around, surprised, as if they had never noticed Timothy before. And they probably hadn’t. He was always so quiet, never answering a question or offering an opinion, staking out his usual seat in the back near the door, bolting as soon as James dismissed them. James stood back, his arms crossed over his chest, watching Timothy’s every move as the boy walked toward Levon, the ice hockey goalie, looking like David challenging Goliath.

“Timothy…” James said, caution in his tone.

Timothy jabbed a frustrated finger in Levon’s direction. “I mean, if vampires were real, which they’re not, but if they were, everyone thinks they’d be evil. But not everyone is the same.”

“There can’t be any such thing as a nice vampire,” Levon said. “They’re bloodthirsty, angry devils who’d suck the life right out of you. Who knows how many people they’d kill. Probably one a night.” Levon stood, his athlete’s physique towering over Timothy, who looked too small, too fragile. “Vampires are the way they are, and they all belong in one category: villain.”

James looked at Levon. For the first time that night he was annoyed with the young man. “You don’t believe that people, human or otherwise, can overcome their violent tendencies?”

“I don’t.”

“No matter how much they want to change? No matter how resolved they are? Are we victims of some predetermined destiny? I knew some people who thought that way once. They weren’t a pleasant group to live around.”

“I think if you’re mean you’re mean and if you’re not you’re not.”

“You’ve been watching too many horror movies,” Jeremy said. He didn’t try to hide his disdain. He closed his textbook and shut down his notebook computer. He looked at the time, at the door, at the window. Then he began texting on his cell phone. James didn’t stop him.

“If I knew a hot vampire like Edward or Bill I’d give them as much of my blood as they wanted,” Trisha said. She giggled, and so did the girls sitting next to her. “They could bite me anytime.”

James looked at the clock on the wall. “Time’s up,” he said. “See you next week.”

As the others filtered single file from the classroom, Levon turned to James. “No hard feelings, Doctor Wentworth?”

“Of course not, Levon.”

Levon smiled, a flash of white brilliance, and he extended his hand. James stepped behind the instructor’s desk, sliding his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers.

“I’m sorry,” James said. “I have a cold and I don’t want you to get sick. You have a big game tomorrow night.”

Levon pointed out his folded arm instead. “All right, elbow bump.”

James laughed, and they touched elbows.

“Good luck tomorrow night,” James said.

“You coming to the game?”

“I’d love to but I can’t. Midterms coming up, you know. Maybe next time.”

“You need to get out more. I never see you out with the other professors, and I never see you around town. You never go to the games. Are you married?”

James was startled by the suddenness of the question, and he tried to set his expression. He didn’t want Levon to see how shocked he was, but the look on Levon’s face told him he had not been quick enough.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Levon said. “I was just wondering if you had anyone waiting for you at home.”

“Not anymore.”

“Too bad. You’re a youngish guy, what, about fifty?”

James shook his head. “You young people think everyone older than you is fifty. I’m thirty, Levon.”

“All right, thirty, even better. From the way the girls giggle about you, you must be okay. They all have a crush on you.”

“They do not.”

“They do.” Levon threw his backpack over one shoulder. “You should find a friend before it’s too late, Doctor Wentworth, you know, a nice lady. That’s all I’m saying.”

James sat on the edge of a student desk, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the young man in front of him.

“You’re right,” James said, laughing, like the fact that he kept so much to himself was the biggest joke in the world. “Not about finding a nice lady. I did that once. I mean about getting to a game. I’ll come soon. I promise.”

Levon seemed satisfied with that answer. As Levon left the classroom, James saw Timothy loitering outside. By the time James stepped over to talk to him, Timothy had disappeared. James looked down the hallway and heard the boy’s quick-time steps crossing the pavement of College Drive. He knew he would have to talk to Timothy about that, again, soon. It didn’t help anything to have him disappearing like a slight-of-hand trick. James went back into the classroom, packed up his book bag, and left campus, not as quickly as Timothy, but fast enough. It had been a long night.

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