Elizabeth Ellen Carter's Blog, page 8

New For Pre-order – A Night of Angels

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My new release Father’s Day is in the anthology A Night of Angels

A Night of Angels

My super secret project I couldn’t talk about until now!

I join a galaxy of superstar Dragonblade authors in this Christmas anthology.

My story, Father’s Day is a reunion story. Hero of Captive of the Corsairs Kit Hardacre meets his long-lost father, Adam who is the hero of my upcoming series The King’s Rogues.

What has kept the two men apart? What can bring them together for Christmas?

It’s out on November 27 but you can pre-order HERE, now!

Here’s an exclusive excerpt

Olivia took one look at Adam and steered him away from Sophia and the Ridgeways, taking a different turning down a path where the formal gardens gave way to a wildflower garden.

“I take it didn’t go well?”

“He got defensive when I asked him what happened after the Pendragon, and he accused me of deserting Constance when she was with child.”

“Give him time to know the truth.”

Adam tucked Olivia’s arm in his.

“I know… The whole thing is just…” Adam shrugged his shoulders, unable to find the right word to describe how he felt.

“He was ten years a captive of the corsairs.”

“I feared as much when we found out all those years ago. At least then I could tell myself he’d died at sea and been spared such a fate – and now, to know the truth…”

“In the years afterwards, he turned his pain into vengeance,” Olivia added. “That’s how he damaged his leg, according to Sophia.”

Adam was helpless to fix the past and he sure as hell didn’t know how to repair the present either. He let go of Olivia’s arm and bent down to pick up a pebble from the path. He hurled it with all the strength he had.

“My son hates me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

He fixed Olivia with an exasperated look which she returned with hands raised in mock surrender. “Have it your way, but we’re all under the same roof until New Years.”

He shrugged a silent apology, which Olivia accepted by taking his hand. They strolled on in quiet reflection, down the path that followed the gully leading to the lake and the little summer house.

“Have you thought of taking him to Ponsnowyth and Kenstec House?” Olivia asked. “He’s come all this way to learn about his mother and who better to show him than the man who knew her best – who loved her as much as anyone could? If he knows, I’m sure he’ll understand. Will you promise me at least that much?”

“We will show him. Together.” said Adam, placing emphasis on the last word.

Olivia squeezed his hand in silent agreement and they continued the walk in silence. His wife had been Constance’s champion when even her father ordered every trace of her erased.

What a hard unbending man – and where did it get him in the end? Adam mused. Squire Denton’s second wife and their daughter moved to London, never to return. The squire himself passed unmourned; his legacy and influence long gone.

His pride, Kenstec House, once the centerpiece of Ponsnowyth was now uninhabited, in the ownership of a distant cousin from Canada who’d been through its doors exactly once.

Had the new owner finished the long-abandoned widow’s walk? Or had it been removed completely and the original roofline restored? Perhaps it would be interesting to go back again after all these years.

Adam looked at his wife in profile. They were dangerous times when they first met and they both nearly lost their lives up there on that widow’s walk. After fourteen years, those memories had been replaced with better ones – filled with laughter, love, home, and family. He wished the same for Kit. He wished the same for all his children.

The sound of giggles and hoots of laughter reached him first. Adam and Olivia emerged from the woods. Thirty yards away was the lake and the summer house, and marching around to it was Kit Hardacre like some kind of enchanted pied piper with Julia, Charlotte, and several of the estate’s children following him..

He paused with Olivia beside him, watching as Kit entertained the children, playing some game he didn’t recognise. There he was – his son in his natural habitat, his face youthful and animated. Adam didn’t move, afraid if he did they would be spotted and the cold bitter wall between them would re-emerge.

He watched his daughters take to this man, who ought to be a stranger to them, as thought they had known him all their lives. Perhaps there was hope for him as well.

 

The post New For Pre-order – A Night of Angels appeared first on EE Carter.

A Legend to Love – Falling in Love, One Legend At A Time

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The Legend To Love Sampler Set – check out the first chapters from the whole set!

Legend To Love

Legend of Love is part of a group of authors who have reimagined legendary stories and legendary lovers in a Regency setting.

The concept was the brainchild of Cora Lee and she features in this quarter’s edition of Love’s Great Adventure magazine which is out today!

To find out the background to her story, you’ll have to grab the magazine which is free to subscribe.

Subscribe to Love’s Great Adventure (it’s free!)

It’s my pleasure to introduce the series. You can check out the stories and some ‘new to you’ authors by picking up the sampler set from your preferred retailer.

A Legend To Love sampler – just 99 cents!

Find out more about the individual stories below.

 

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Elizabeth Ellen Carter
The Promise of the Bells

The Promise of the Bells is based on the legend of Dick Whittington and his Cat.

The Legend:

What appealed to me was the ‘meta’ nature of the story. Dick Whittington was a real historical figure who was, indeed, three times the Lord Mayor of London during the 14th century. He survived the reign of two kings – no mean feat in those days when to be seen too close an ally to one faction meant you were an enemy to another – and was a great philanthropist by endowing St Thomas’ Hospital for unwed mothers.

The children’s legend of Dick Whittington and his cat came more than three hundred years later, first popularlised in the 18th century as a salutary tale of kindness, sacrifice and perseverance and beloved by children and adults ever since.

And the legend has a cat! What’s not to love about a heroic cat!

The Blurb

The Promise of the Bells follows young Richard Whiting who comes from a poor family but he’s given a golden opportunity – to move to London to further his education. On the way there, he is befriended by Lord Ambrose and his young daughter, Catherine ‘Cat’ Swanston, and Richard and Catherine become sweethearts.

In order to make his fortune, Richard is pulled into a different life but the young couple vow beneath the tolling bells of the churches of London to always be there for one another.

Years later, now an up-and-coming barrister, Richard learns that Catherine needs help. Her father is missing, and His Lordship’s business partner refuses to provide any information. It will take Catherine’s bravery and Richard’s legal cunning for there to be a happily ever after…

Pre-order here.

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Aileen Fish
The Lady And Lord Lakewood
The Legend:

My legend is the Lady in the Lake, who was said to possess Excalibur and gave the sword to Arthur to protect Camelot.

I’ve created a prequel of sorts to the Arthurian legend, giving the Earl of Lakewood the duty of protecting young Arthur. I’m having a blast weaving in some of the knights who were connected to Arthur later in life, and interweaving legend with the Regency world.

The Blurb

A man on a quest to save the heir of his dearest friend. A woman in possession of an enchanted weapon. Can they protect the young duke from those who are out to kill him?

Almost from birth, Vivienne has known that one day she would play an important role involving a family heirloom, a sword called Excalibur. Her uncle Merlin says she’ll know what to do when the time comes—but she had no idea the man she waited for would be so handsome, so powerful.

Richard, 5th Earl of Lakewood, must save Arthur, the new young Duke of Camelot, from a woman seeking revenge. Killing Uther, Arthur’s father, wasn’t enough; now she’s after Arthur. A series of mysterious clues leads Lakewood to an even more mysterious woman, Lady Avalon. What role does she play in this battle, and what’s this spell she’s cast on Lakewood’s heart? Her distraction might just lead to his death.

Order here.

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Alanna Lucas
When the Marquess Returns

When the Marquess Returns is based on the legend of Romulus and Remus.

One of my favorite aspects of working on this project—besides getting to work with some amazing authors—was the opportunity to indulge in my fascination with Rome. When deciding on which legend I would choose for A Legend To Love Series, I instantly thought of the tale of Romulus and Remus. There are several slight variations of the legend, but for the purpose of When the Marquess Returns, I followed the most well-known, adding my own twists, and, of course, a Happily Ever After.

The Legend:

In Roman mythology Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were the sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars. According to legend, their story begins even before their conception when Rhea Silvia—the daughter of King Numitor, was forced to become a Vestal Virgin after her uncle, Amulius, overthrew the king.

However, Rhea Silvia soon became pregnant and gave birth to twin sons. Seeing this as a threat, Amulius ordered the infants to be drowned in the Tiber River. But the servant charged with the gruesome task took pity on the infants, placed them into a basket onto the Tiber, where they were carried to safety. They were found by a she-wolf, who suckled them until they were discovered by a shepherd and his wife, Acca Larentia, who raised the boys.

After learning their true identity, Romulus and Remus attacked King Amulius, and restored their grandfather to the throne. On April 21, 753 B.C., the twins decided to found a city on the site where they had been saved as infants. However, they became engaged in a petty quarrel after which it is believed that Romulus killed Remus.

Order here

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Jillian Chantal
Lady Soldier

My story is called Lady Soldier and it’s based on the legend of Hua Mulan, the Chinese woman (dressed as a man) who went to war in lieu of her elderly father. She served for twelve years and was very heroic. There are a number of versions of this tale since it’s been around since 386-536.

The Legend:

I used the version called The Ballad of Hua Mulan as the inspiration for my tale. In that version, as opposed to the Disney one, she has a younger brother and older sister. In the Ballad, her parents support her decision to go to war in her father’s place and she was also already trained in archery and other arts of war before enlisting.

Using that legend as my dropping in point, I diverged from the story somewhat as I wanted to limit the time frame to less than a year and set it in the time of The Peninsular Wars. It was a lot of fun figuring out how she could act heroically and be in the midst of the battles depicted in the story. I also enjoyed creating her two male companions in the regiment.

As this was a romance, I had to find a way to be sure the heroine found her hero and for them to be forced to be around each other. I hope I pulled it off in a way people will enjoy.

I loved the idea of this series since we all have heard so many legends and I knew it would be a challenge to adapt them to the era and make them fresh and new. I knew a lot of the authors of this series before Cora had the idea and knew their work would be excellent. For the ones I wasn’t familiar with, I’ve enjoyed getting to know them and their books. I also love that we cite references to each other’s characters as well. That was super fun to try to figure out a natural way to work them in.

Order here

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Louisa Cornell
Between Duty and the Devil’s Desires

I was pleased and honored to be asked to participate in this Regency romance project. The other participating authors are some of my favorite authors and favorite people in the romance business. And adapting the world’s most romantic legends into Regency romances? What’s not to love!

My novel, Between Duty and the Devil’s Desires, is based on the Tristan and Iseult legend. Most people, whether they love opera or hate it, have heard of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I was fortunate enough to see a performance of the opera at the Bayreuth Festival, which is the venue for which Wagner wrote this opera. A tenor with whom I performed many times in Salzburg sang the role of Tristan, so it was a particular treat to see this ancient love story played out to Wagner’s incredible score.

But the legend of Tristan and Iseult is not a German. The heartbreaking tale made popular in the 12th century was derived from a Celtic legend. There is even a Drustanus Stone in Cornwall with an engraving referring to Drustan, the archetype for Tristan. The story appears in the Welsh triads and in the Mabinogion—11th century compendiums of early Welsh legends and poetry. It is believed the fatal love triangle between King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot is based on these legends.

The Legend:

After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to marry. Along the way, Tristan and Iseult accidentally ingest a love potion and fall in love with each other. (In some versions no love potion is needed, they simply fall in love.)

Upon arrival at his uncle’s castle, Tristan is honor-bound to leave his beloved Iseult to be married to the king. In some versions, King Mark discovers their betrayal and, in a violent rage, mortally wounds Tristan. In other versions, Tristan sails away and eventually marries another woman named Iseult, even as he continues to love Iseult. Whilst saving a young damsel from six knights, Tristan is struck with a poison lance. He asks his squire to send for Iseult, who is known far and wide for her healing powers. He tells the squire to sail back flying white sails if Iseult has agreed to come to his aid, but to fly black sails should she refuse.

As Tristan lays dying, his jealous wife tells him the sails on the horizon are black. Heartbroken, Tristan dies. When Iseult arrives and finds him dead, she drinks poison to join him in eternity.

The Blurb

My story is a bit of a role reversal. My heroine, Miss Elegy Perkins, is the toughest governess in England. She is sent by her cousin, Lady Margaret Vines, to do what several of said cousin’s male relations have been unable to do three times. To secure a payment large enough to fund her secret dream, Elegy must fetch Major Lord Devlin St. George, Earl of Hadley, to finally marry Lady Margaret, to whom he has been betrothed for fourteen years. Do Elegy and Devlin fall in love along the way?

Does Elegy walk away from Devlin to achieve her dream? Does Elegy and Devlin’s romance meet a better fate than that of Tristan and Iseult? I guess readers will have to wait and see.

Order here

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Maggi Andersen
A Gift From A Goddess

I was delighted to have the opportunity to work with a great group of authors on this project. My submission, A Gift From A Goddess, is based on the legend of Pygmalion and Galatea. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play titled Pygmalion. In Shaw’s play, the girl is metaphorically brought to life by two men who teach her to speak like a lady—the goal for their masterpiece is for her to marry and become a duchess. The movie My Fair Lady was based on Shaw’s play, which is one of my favorites. I didn’t want to write a reworking of the play, however, so my story is more about the transformation of love and the mending of hearts by the possible hand of Aphrodite, with an added dash of mystery and suspense. After his wife is murdered, Sculptor, Lord Lewis Chesterton, wants nothing more to do with women or society. But then a new model, Hebe Fenchurch, who has also fallen from grace due to a family scandal, comes to pose for his sculpture of Aphrodite.

The Legend:

The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea is one of the most influential and inspiring ancient Greek myths, and became the main theme for theatrical plays, movies and artistic paintings. Pygmalion was a talented Greek sculptor from Cyprus who had become disenchanted with women and avoided their company. He dedicated himself to his work and soon created Galatea, a beautiful statue of a woman from ivory. As Pygmalion worked on the statue, it became more beautiful to him than any woman that had ever lived or been carved in stone. He found himself applying the strokes of hammer and chisel with increasing affection. When his chisel finally stopped ringing, there stood before him a woman of such perfection that Pygmalion, who had professed his disdain of all females, fell deeply in love.

The goddess of love, Aphrodite took pity on the young sculptor and, when Pygmalion went to her temple to pray, the goddess gave him a sign. As the offering burned on the temple, the flames shot up one, two, three times.

Pygmalion arrived home, wondering what to make of the strange manifestation. When he entered his studio, however, and saw the statue, all other thoughts were banished from his mind. He ran to his statue and embraced it. She was no longer inanimate, but alive. The goddess, Aphrodite, had given life to the statue; whose name was Galatea.

Order here.

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Saralee Etter
Her Wild Irish Rogue

HER WILD IRISH ROGUE is my retelling of the legend of Cuchulainn and Emer of Irish mythology.

The Legend

Cuchulainn (pronounced “Cook-Hullen”) is the mighty warrior hero of the Ulster Cycle, an amazingly good-looking young lad who defeated entire armies with his wild berserker rages. He fell in love with the beautiful daughter of Forgall the Wily, Princess Emer, who possessed the six gifts of womanhood: beauty, voice, sweet speech, needlework, wisdom and chastity. However, she declared she wouldn’t have him until he completed a series of heroic tasks.

So Cuchulainn traveled to the castle of Scatha, where that famous Scottish warrior woman taught him all she knew. When he went back to claim Emer’s hand, her father, Forgall the Wily, sought to defeat his daughter’s suitor. In the end, Forgall was defeated by his own trickery and the two lovers were united.

The Blurb

In HER WILD IRISH ROGUE: After the Battle of Waterloo, Captain Stephen Killian of the Inniskilling Dragoons travels to war-weary Paris, where a typically reckless act of bravery makes the Duke of Wellington notice him. The Duke sends Stephen to Lord Forgall the Wily, Wellington’s spymaster. Can a fierce, outspoken warrior learn the subtle tradecraft of a spy?

Lord Forgall’s most trusted assistant is his beautiful daughter Emma. Her grace and charm wins her the confidence of the rulers and diplomats who have gathered to carve up Napoleon’s former empire. The last person she needs by her side is a hot-headed former cavalryman who is definitely not known for his self-control!

Loving a spy is dangerous business. Trusting a spy is foolhardy. But when a plot to upset the peace talks threatens to re-ignite the turmoil of war, can Killian and Emma join forces to catch the culprits?

Order here

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Sarah Gee Heino
The Rogue of the Greenwood
The Legend

My title is “Rogue of the Greenwood” and my story is based on the Robin Hood legend. Be prepared for some twists, though! My hero is a very reluctant Robin Hood. Local legend says he is the great-great-great-grandson of the famous outlaw, but Robert Locksley refuses to believe that. His own grandfather was a bit of a loose screw who thought that he was the reincarnation of Robin and embarrassed the whole family by prancing about Sherwood in tights and stealing from his neighbors. Robert has returned from war and plans to make the family respectable again, retiring in peace at his family estate. He’s in for a rude awakening—and a few archery lessons from his childhood nemesis, a very fiery Marianne Maidland!

I’ve been having so much fun with this book. I love the Robin Hood legend in all its many incarnations, but I have to say I will always be partial to the Errol Flynn version. (And the Disney version with swashbuckling animals!) I love digging into research, so I can assure you I’ve spent way too much time tracking the history of the legend and studying the evolution of the characters we associate with it today. The Robin Hood character has been around for nearly a thousand years, so you can bet there is more than one “official” version of him.

Luckily, I have a ringer. A very good friend of mine grew up in Nottingham! In fact, one of her relatives was actually the Sheriff of Nottingham for a time! How cool is that? We have spent many hours going through her old photos, souvenirs, maps, and postcards from home. I feel as if I have a bit of an insider’s knowledge of how Sherwood smells, the rugged lands around it, and the enormity of the famous Major Oak where the “real” Robin Hood is reported to have taken shelter with his Merry Men. My friend says you can fit 19 children in the opening at the base of that tree!

I’m really looking forward to all the Legendary Heroes in this series. My author friends have come up with wonderful tweaks and turns for their heroes and heroines. We’ve had fun sharing our ideas with each other and allowing our characters to mingle a bit, making cameos in each other’s books. I can’t wait for readers to get to join in the fun with us!

Sarah’s web site

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Wendy La Capra
His Duchess at Eventide
The Legend

The Legend: of The Return of Odysseus. How I used it: My story, His Duchess at Eventide, is a Regency twist on the Return of Odysseus, with a little more romance and a lot less bloodshed.

Lord Cheverly (my Odysseus) returns from eight years of war, a shipwreck and six years in the captivity of a brutal pirate, in disguise, only to discover his wife is entertaining suitors.

Penelope believes herself a widow, though she sometimes dares to dream. She will do anything to protect her son, including pretending to entertain suitors and enlisting the aid of a mysterious sea captain to discover the suitor’s true intent. When the captain awakens something in Penelope she thought long dead, she begins to suspect he is no stranger. What follows is danger, a little angst and some steamy loving.

I’ve felt so fortunate to be a part of this group of ladies who share a passion for history and whose talent I’ve long-admired.

The Blurb

Lord Cheverley never wanted to go to war, but when he eloped against his father’s wishes, his furious father forced him to choose—either take a naval commission, or have his marriage annulled. Devastated physically and emotionally by seven years of war, a shipwreck and six years in the captivity of a brutal pirate, Cheverley returns to England to find that the courts have declared him dead and his wife is entertaining suitors. Should he demand his rightful place, disrupting his family’s lives, or should he return to sea, seeking vengeance against the pirate? He sets out to find the answer in disguise.

Penelope once believed in love, but then the man who swept her off her feet deserted her, leaving her and her unborn child utterly alone. Now a widow, she will do anything to protect her son, including enlisting the aid of a mysterious sea captain to uncover the true intentions of her devious suitors. When the captain awakens something in Penelope she thought long dead, she begins to suspect he is no stranger. But, as they peel back the layers of a deadly plot, can this broken family heal their wounds in time to save what really matters?

Order here.

The post A Legend to Love – Falling in Love, One Legend At A Time appeared first on EE Carter.

Cover Reveal: Love’s Great Adventure Magazine

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Love’s Great Adventure – September edition. Out on Friday the 14th

Love’s Great Adventure Magazine
September Edition

COVER POINTERS

Main feature

Legends and Lovers

(Legends to Love)

Secondary pointers

Escape to the Country

Aussie authors bring the country to life

(Mindalby)

Twisted Tales

Demelza Carlton brings out the dark side of familiar fairytales

Gloves To Love

Victoria Vane puts the finger on gloves

Interview

The Runaway Groom!

Sasha Cottman tracks down Italy’s most eligible bachelor

Inside

Pack a picnic!
The Lady’s Maid’s Secret Part IV
Heart of the Corsairs puzzles and fun

Subscribe Now (it’s free!)
The Lady’s Maid’s Secret Part 4 Excerpt
(exclusive to Love’s Great Adventure Magazine)

Clever and precocious Rose Reed, the new lady’s maid to the impoverished Lady Pendrick, has discovered a trove of titillating tidbits about her mistress’ so-called friends from the journals of the late maid. Rallied by Rose, Lady Pendrick’s loyal servants have come up with an elaborate scheme to see that justice is done and the Pendrick fortune restored. In this installment, a doctor gets a taste of his own medicine.

Dear Reader,

It is said women are the weaker sex, but I’m not sure that is entirely true. While indeed it is a factual claim that men have the advantage when it comes to physical strength, I would suggest the female is the more cunning of the species.

Take for instance, Lady Winchester, who received a larger slice of the sympathy – not to mention a larger slice of the financial settlement – when she was cruelly set aside by her dyspeptic husband. The man was shunned by all decent families for the shameless flaunting of his mistress. Worse still, Lord Winchester was no longer even welcome in his own club.

Lady Winchester, however, wisely put herself in the hands of Dr. Algernon Mallard, a medical man who seemed to have made a specialty of treating that distressingly common of complaints – female hysteria.

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Cover Reveal: Follow Your Star Home

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The 2018 Bluestocking Belle’s anthology

Bluestocking Belles 2018 Holiday Anthology!
A Fine Chance

San Francisco, 1922

Helen Watson arranged a job for an out-of-work former soldier at her workplace, unaware that she’s the miracle Robert Fairmont needed.

Robert has returned from the Great War a new man with a new name. A job in his father’s factory is the first step toward reconciliation.

Can Helen forgive him for hiding his true or will Robert end up losing his father and his one true love?

All he needs is a fine chance.

Pre-order Now!
Follow Your Star Home: Out November 4
Excerpt from A Fine Chance (Follow Your Star Home)

Bob was gone for nearly two hours, but during that time, she had typed another twelve pages. He returned with a chicken dinner wrapped in foil and insisted she stop and eat while he set up the typewriter opposite, Millie’s typewriter.

She watched him hesitate over the machine a moment, the first few strokes tentative and slow as he double checked each line. By the time he inserted the second page, Bob had set up a slow and steady rhythm.

Helen cleaned her hands before picking up one of the pages and skimming it for errors. She found none.

“The army taught you to type?” she asked returning back to her desk.

“No,” he said, then hesitated. “I taught myself in college.”

Helen’s fingers stumbled over the keys causing a half a dozen of them to jam at the ribbon. She unpicked them one by one.

“You’re a college man?”

Silver-blue eyes peered back at her but Bob said nothing.

“Then what on earth are you doing here in a job that doesn’t even require a high school diploma?”

“For a long time I lost my way. I saw so much death on the battlefields of France. Something in me died also. I wanted to start my life over again.”

“I wish I had known you then,” she whispered.

Bob’s eyes left hers to look at the typewriter once more. “And I’m glad you didn’t. You wouldn’t have liked me much. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t like Marshall Compton. He reminds me too much of the man I was and that’s not a man I want to be.”

Helen waited, hoping Bob would say more. There was so much about him that she didn’t know and she wanted to know everything about the man she was falling in love with.

But he said no more. Instead, conversation was replaced by the steady clack of the typewriter, both his and hers.

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Cover Reveal: Love’s Great Adventure September edition!

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Love’s Great Adventure has a jam-packed edition ready for you on Friday, September 14.

COVER POINTERS

Main feature – Legends and Lovers

Escape to the Country – Aussie authors bring the country to life

Twisted Tales – Demelza Carlton brings out the dark side of familiar fairytales

Historical Fashion with Victoria Vane

Interview with the The Runaway Groom!

Sasha Cottman tracks down the most eligible bachelor

Inside

Pack a picnic! I share great takeaway recipes.
The Lady’s Maid’s Secret Part IV
Heart of the Corsairs puzzles and fun

Have you subscribed yet?

Why not? it’s FREE!

Click here!

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Guilt, So Much Guilt

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I look at my white board and see all the KPIs I’ve set myself.

Yep, I’m an author who treats being an author like being the owner of a small business.

One of the things I’ve got on my KPIs is weekly blogging. And I’ve been failing miserably at it.

Sigh.

I have a good excuse I have three and possibly four new releases in November and I’m hurriedly working to deadline. I can give you a little tease on each of the four titles, but I’m sworn to secrecy on two covers:

Elizabeth’s work schedule!

The Promise of the Bells

A reimagining of the classic legend of Dick Whittington and his cat, set in Regency England. Part of the Legends to Love series. Find out more in next month’s Love’s Great Adventure magazine!

A Fine Chance

(to appear in the 2018 Bluestocking Belles holiday anthology)

Sorry, can’t show you the cover just yet. You’ll have to wait for our cover reveal Facebook party on September 8.

My story is set in 1920s San Francisco.

Live And Let Spy (Book 1 The King’s Rogues)

This is the one I’m not sure about the release date for yet, but I can’t wait to introduce Adam Hardacre and his group of Rogues. If you’d like to know more about this upcoming series, be sure to click this link!
Father’s Day

(to appear in the 2018 Dragonblade Publishing holiday anthology)

Yes, a Christmas story called Father’s Day…

Two characters you love with finally meet – a man who thought he was an orphan and a man who never knew he was a father…

So, for not living up to my KPIs, do you think I might be excused? Or do I have a failing grade?

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Is There A Fraction Too Much Friction In Fiction?

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There was an interesting discussion on one of the author-focused Facebook groups this week on the role of conflict in fiction.

The gist of the article was that, ‘in this age of political polarisation, should authors pedal back on the drama to give readers more of an escapist experience?’

It was an interesting question and even more interesting were the answers.

A rough count by me found 60% of authors thought there was there was too much conflict in fiction and as a result, they were scaling back the angst and were writing ‘lighter’ reads. I’m still not sure what that means.

Other authors were more specific and said they were switching to romantic comedies or writing ‘fluffy’ Regencies.

In the end, what I found striking was all of these authors had different definitions for conflict.

Some saw conflict as being head-to-head arguments between the hero and heroine.
Some saw it as external violence
Others saw it as angst.

One author was dismissive of writing craft books which aspiring authors to keep the conflict rising.

Another said she loved putting her characters through ‘hell’ before they get to their happily ever after.

So, whose right?

Well, it depends on the definition you use for conflict.

Conflict
n. A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.
n. A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.
n. Psychology A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.

All three definitions are correct and all three can be used in fiction to a lesser or a greater degree, depending on the type of story you’re telling.

Indeed, my Heart of the Corsairs series contains all three.

But in fiction, the one conflict you cannot do without is psychological conflict.

Fiction is fabulous. It is the only form of the arts that allows a third party (the reader) an opportunity to witness a character’s thought processes in ‘real time’. We understand what motivates these characters to act – even if we don’t agree with those choices. The decision making process is the conflict. There is no avoiding it.

And since we live in a world where our decisions affect other people as well as ourselves (and vice versa), we also need that second definition of conflict in fiction – especially romance where the focus is on creating, building and strengthening a relationship that will become the Happily Ever After.

That’s why the romance genre matters.

That’s why many popular, long lasting and legendary stories and mythological tales all fall under the banner of Romance.

Romance is the story of the human condition.

We move away from the things which cause us pain (or make us afraid or we know will kill us) and we move toward things which are a higher good – a worthy aspiration (relationships that last a lifetime, a satisfying life with all the good things that really matter) – in other words, a Happily Ever After.

And you can’t do that without cost, without conflict.

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Monday Musings – Trademarks and Trade shows

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I missed last week’s Monday Musings  because I’m trying to get as many words written before I head to the United States on Tuesday. So, here’s what’s been on my mind.

Trademarks

I’ve been thinking a lot about trademarks recently – especially with the magazine and some other ideas I have under the umbrella of Love’s Great Adventure.

In a previous working life, I’ve been down the trademarking route before. It is time consuming, relatively expensive and not a light commitment.

At the moment I’ve been working on the brand value (yes, it’s all very marketing speak, I know).

What do you, the reader, expect to experience when you open up one of my books?

I hope my stories live up to the brand promise implied in Love’s Great Adventure – romance, adventure, authentic historical setting and periods, and a happily ever after (naturally!).

It’s my view that I have to earn that reputation first before I can do something as bold as trademarking my name or my tag line, which brings us too something which has exploded in the publishing world over the the past week.

An American indie author unknown to me, by the name of Faleena Hopkins managed to trademark the wordmark and the stylised word Cocky as it relates to ebooks and print books.

This might have continued to go wholly unremarked upon, except she started sending threatening cease and desist letters to authors who also happened to have the word Cocky in their titles.

Well, the whole imbroglio blew up bigger than Kim Kardashian’s bum – and shows no sign of deflating soon.

There have been all sorts of commentary about it from legal experts, non-legal experts who are good at researching and come up with an unfortunate (for Ms Hopkins) legal precedent, and those who have an interest in typography:

We reached out to the designer on Twitter. He is on vacation, but he very nicely explained that no, she definitely did not have his permission to use the font in a trademark.https://t.co/7lV8xoZoX9

— Courtney!!! Milan

Monday Musings – Romance at the Bottom of the Class… again

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Lowbrow

Merriam-Webster

: of, relating to, or suitable for a person with little taste or intellectual interest

Collins Dictionary

a person who has uncultivated or nonintellectual tastes

Cambridge Dictionary

(of entertainment) not complicated or demanding much intelligence to be understood

Oxford Dictionary

derogatory

A lowbrow person.

Four canonical dictionaries, all in agreement about the definition of lowbrow.

Forgive me for getting on high horse for a moment, but when I see romance novels and their readers tarred with the pejorative brush as lowbrow, I get quite annoyed. (Read: VERY annoyed).

The source of my annoyance was a study promoted by University of Western Sydney and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over the weekend.

The ABC has helpfully called it in the title tag of the web page “Good taste, bad taste? – what your habits reveal about social class.”

The survey takes a very superficial and arbitrary look at reading, watching and listening habits of Australian and does a guestimate of age, sex, class and education qualifications.

Based on my answers I got:

60+ (wrong)
Female (right)
Middle Class (right)
Post doctoral (wrong)

My husband got:

45-59 (right)
Male (right)
Working Class (wrong)
Did not finish secondary school (wrong)

A Facebook friend fared worse:

18-24 (wrong – she’s a mum of three teenage boys)
Male (wrong)
Working Class (wrong)
Vocational qualifications (wrong, she has a STEM degree and is practitioner in the STEM field).

Saturday night’s discussion proved illuminating. A straw poll of Facebook comments in the two places I posted my survey results revealed that 85% were erroneous in some or all categories and only 15% were broadly accurate.

To be honest, I’ve had better accuracy out of a jokey Buzzfeed personality quiz.

If you’re an Australian (which you’ll need to be for the cultural references), try the survey and let me know how you fared in comments.

Although I’m not a statistician, I am familiar with survey methodology and I have a lot of issues with the construction of the survey, and its very clear bias (and I’ll come back to this in a moment).

So, what is this survey in aid of?

Lead investigator on the Australian Cultural Fields project, Professor Tony Bennett (no, not *that* Tony Bennett, although I imagine he’s heard all the jokes – EEC) from the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), says class remains significant in the daily choices and lifestyles of Australians, and that it is critical to the patterns of inequality in contemporary Australia.

“There are very clear connections between the cultural advantages that middle and upper middle class Australians derive from their home backgrounds, their educational successes, their later occupational careers and the cultural tastes they develop that distinguish them from other Australians,” says Professor Bennett.

“The role of culture in the inheritance of inequalities shows that Australia has a long way to go before it can truly be the fair-go country it claims to be.”

Not so fast. There is very strong evidence to suggest that IQ alone is a better predictor of educational and occupational career success than other background variables.

Read about it here, here, here and here.

What is the dominant causal mechanism for the results shown above? Is it that better family environments experienced by affluent children make them more likely to invent later in life? Is it that higher income fathers tend to pass on better genes (e.g., for cognitive ability) to their children? Obviously the explanation has important implications for social policy and for models of how the world works.

The authors of the paper below have access to patent, income, education, and military IQ records in Finland. (All males are subject to conscription.) By looking at brothers who are close in age but differ in IQ score, they can estimate the relative importance of common family environment (such as family income level or parental education level, which affect both brothers) versus the IQ difference itself. Their results suggest that cognitive ability has a stronger effect than shared family environment. Again, if one just looks at probability of invention versus family income or SES (see graph), one might mistakenly conclude that family environment is the main cause of increased likelihood of earning a patent later in life. In fact, higher family SES is also correlated to superior genetic endowments which can be passed on to the children.

It’s worth pointing out that the dataset survey in the Finnish study I linked to above is 350,000 people (out of a national population of 5,542,517 (2018) ). The Australian Cultural Fields survey dataset is based on… 1,200 people (out of a country of 24,772,247 (2018) ).

But let’s leave that aside for researchers to stouch it out in the equivalent of an academic cage match.

The ICS survey… is giving the Australian public the chance to reflect on their personal cultural tastes.

To reflect and repent perhaps? Since the entire premise of the survey is about showing middle and upper class (cultural elites, perhaps? The survey methodology uses the surprising term (see graphic above) but does not define it) have “good taste” in culture and lower and middle class people have “bad taste” in culture and pre-supposes economic disadvantages because of it.

Or specifically, as the University of Western Sydney has it, class difference are measured in whether they enjoy “lowbrow” or “highbrow” entertainments – terms coined, it must be pointed out,  in the US at the height of the now discredited and extremely racist phrenology and eugenics craze that swept the scientific world from the late 19th century and culminated in the Nazi pogroms.

The definitions of lowbrow are defined at the beginning of this post.

And so, what do we have here?

Direct from the ABC, University of Western Sydney survey:

In terms of literature, let’s examine, “Which kinds of books do you like to read for interest or pleasure?”

Genres are ranked from “highbrow” to “lowbrow”.

By whom?

The minuscule sample of 1200 survey respondents?
By the researchers’ own prejudice?
The ‘social and political elites’ which form part of the methodology?

At the bottom of this list is romance – the lowest of the lowbrow…

I’ve written before about the long and venerable history of romance as an overarching literary genre.

Romance gave us the narrative story-telling structure we are familiar with today,

Romance is the imaginative retelling over and over again of the heroic archetype as expounded by Carl Jung. Every author will instantly recognise similarities between the Hero’s journey and the goal, motivation and conflict structure used to guide the plot of a romance novel.

Romance stories are enduring because they cut right to the middle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – Social Belonging which includes intimacy – the love story, the connection of a man and a woman in a life-long union.

Intimacy makes possible to bear the burden of striving for those Physiological needs.

Without Intimacy to share a life, Esteem and Self-Actualisation (such as the pursuits of academia) are pretty lonely aspirations.

And what does it say about the researchers’ attitude to women if one of the most popular fiction genres is cast as the dregs of “lowbrow” literary entertainment.

Readers of romance are predominantly women (but not exclusively) which is not surprising as women (generally, but scientifically speaking,) women are interested in people (and the expression of relationships and intimacy) , men are interested in things.

So who are romance readers really?

Well the University of Western Sydney get one thing right. According to Nielsen, romance readers are younger than the average reader (53% are aged 18-44)

US Romance Readers At A Glance

Age 30-54
College-educated
Relationship Status 59 percent are coupled, 84 percent are women, 16 percent are men
Average Income $55K – which happens to be be above the $52,500 US median average income.

I cannot find any equivalent Australian statistics to provide a direct comparison, although it worth noting the 2017 Macquarie Economics Research Papers Australian Book Readers: Survey Method

Results listed romance as the fourth most popular genre read by Australians. And the avid Australian reading for pleasure are more likely to be female, over 65, tertiary educated, and from an upper socioeconomic bracket.

It rather turns the pathetic and yet still pervasive old stereotype of a romance reader being a desiccated lower class lowbrow spinster on its head, doesn’t it?

One of my Facebook friends described it sadly as the continuation of the “pink ghetto” in which women’s interests and tastes in literature are dismissed as being unserious, light-weight, unintellectual – the very definition of lowbrow, by those of the ‘social and political elite’ feted by the University of Western Sydney.

It’s pathetic and sexist.

So, In the final analysis, it might be suggested that this is:

a survey with flawed premise founded on
deeply flawed methodology that
reaches the rather obvious conclusion that more women than men read and enjoy romance and
states they are stupid (‘low brow’) for doing so.

I hoped for better science from a top Australian university.

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Monday Musings – blogging, books, diversity, magazine, RT

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An occasional feature where I talk about random things running through my head. Mostly stream of consciousness. Sometimes fuelled by red wine…

On Blogging

I have such good intentions when it comes to blogging. So many interesting historical tid-bits to share, but then I get sucked into a rabbit hole of fact, checking, cross linking and research that by the time I write 500 words, four hours has gone.

Then I feel guilty about not blogging and then torn because the time I could spend blogging, I should be spending on writing another book. Argh, it’s a vicious cycle.

I will continue to write the historical features but I’m going to give myself permission to pace myself them a bit more and commit to a regular schedule.

On the Books

Shadow of the Corsairs is with my editor. I hope to have release date news in the next couple of weeks.

I’m so thrilled with my writing schedule. Once I thought I’d only be able to turn in one full length novel and one short story a year, but my writing schedule for this year will see me deliver two full length novels (Shadow of the Corsairs and Live And Let Spy), a short novel (a super secret project that I can’t share with you just yet) and a novella (A Fine Chance – a Bluestocking Belles anthology feature).

I’ve learned so much since writing Moonstone Obsession – my first novel which will have it’s fifth anniversary in October.

On the romance industry

Historical romance mega star Courtney Milan has written a passion-filled piece on what she describes as systematic racism in the publishing industry. She raises some interesting points. Some I agree with, some I don’t.

Since Shadow of the Corsairs is coming up, I’m taking an interest in any discussion about diversity in literature and seemingly endless war on ‘diversity, inclusivity and equity’, whether ‘white’ authors are bad people for writing POCs (or should that be Ps O C? which somehow seems like a worse acronym) or worse people for not including POC in their works.

There is a lot of injustice in this world to be sure. But there have been lots of positive strides made at improving the lives all the world’s population. Since I spend so much time immersed in history, I thought I’d do some contemporary reading, so I’ll looking to start with renowned economist Thomas Sowell’s latest book, Discrimination & Disparities.

On RT Convention

My first big American trip comes up next month the RT Convention in Reno, Nevada. It’s also my first trip to the US and I can’t wait. I’ll get to meet my publisher Kathryn Le Veque and my editor Scott Moreland for the very first time. I’ll be sharing photos and news from the trip in the June edition of Love’s Great Adventure Magazine.

On Love’s Great Adventure

Big plans for the June edition – we’ve got great authors sharing excerpts, research and interviews about their new titles. I’m humbled by the response Duncan and I have received on the mag and I can tell you, we have big plans for 2019.

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