Revealing backstory a little at a time
Writers create backstories for many of their characters. It’s one way for them to know the person they’ve created and how they will act and react in a certain way. Some can be detailed, but the author may reveal only a small portion to the reader. In “Impending Love and War,” the character of Olivia Montgomery impacts the hero’s life, but only small parts are revealed by him.
“Impending Love and War” is a historical romance novel available at http://goo.gl/B7lKMs and other distributors in print and ebook format.
Olivia was the daughter of a plantation owner who falls in love with a slave. When she becomes pregnant, she escapes with her slave maid who pretends to be the mother of her son Noah. Olivia marries Grayson Montgomery who fathers Tyler Montgomery, our hero, unaware that Noah is also her son. When he loses his job, he sells her maid and plans to sell Noah, but Olivia confronts him with the truth. He beats her severely and leaves to fetch the sheriff. The boys return home, help her, and escape to western Virginia where she leaves the boys with a Quaker couple, James and Sarah Yoder, and opens up a brothel on the other side of the river for the miners in town. James and Sarah keep Olivia’s relationship to the boys a secret from the townsfolks. When rich plantation owner Cyrus Vandal falls in love with Olivia, he wants to marry her, and she tells him about her son, Tyler, but not Noah having learned her lesson from Grayson. Cyrus has a son the same age, Edward Vandal, who beats Tyler up because he doesn’t want a brother. Noah comes to his rescue, and Olivia calls off the wedding, but Edward makes sure everyone knows Tyler’s mother is a whore. She sends Tyler off to school and college, and he becomes a lawyer. Noah becomes a blacksmith and falls in love with Tess, who is owned by Cyrus, who is also her father. They are married in the Quaker church, but Tess remains a slave. Edward marries Regina Johnston, the daughter of a miner, who lived with the Yoders after she was lost while working in the mines. She’s terrified of the dark. It’s a big social improvement when Regina marries Edward, and she uses Tyler, who is visiting for the summer, to make Edward jealous. This long-standing rivalry becomes a part of the novel’s story. When Reggie’s baby son dies, she can’t stand to have Tess around, who has a baby son. She sends her away to Canada, but Edward finds out and goes after her with chasers, Clyde and Buck Cassell. Noah goes north to find his wife and son. When Edward accuses Noah of being a runaway, Tyler heads for Ohio to get him out of jail. When he arrives, Noah has been released but left a cryptic message for Tyler. He follows the message to the home of Adelaide Thomas where he encounters Courtney Beecher at the start of the story of “Impending Love and War.”
Although backstories can be important and detailed, they can weigh a story down if dropped in at the beginning. The details I’ve shared are revealed a little bit at a time throughout the story. The next time you read “Impending Love and War” look for the references.
Blurb: Cory Beecher didn’t mean to shoot handsome Tyler Montgomery and only kisses him so he doesn’t find the runaway slave in the barn. Abolitionists never considered marrying slave owners, but her world explodes with new found desire when her lips touch his. Can she go through with her carefully crafted plans to marry math instructor Douglas Raymond when her heart longs for another?
Tyler Montgomery needs to find the runaway slaves before his rival Edward Vandal captures them. Although he doesn’t want to involve the fiery and beautiful Miss Beecher, once she kisses him, all his plans unravel. As his rival closes in on the quarry, he hesitates to leave, knowing she’s marrying the wrong man. But what does an unemployed lawyer with questionable parentage have to offer the woman he loves? #romance #historical #Antebellum #slavery
