Writer’s Wednesday with Shehanne Moore
Welcome Shehanne! Wait until you folks see the cover of her book. I posted it below but first she has a question…What Lies Beneath?
Okay, two things. Firstly Jerrie Alexander, thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today, I truly appreciate the kindness of a fantastic lady.
Two, answers on a postcard, what do the following have in common? Apart from being an interesting dinner party combo? Ulysses S Grant, Jack the Ripper, Mary Shelley–author of Frankenstein–and Captain Kydd.
Nope. They never shared star signs, the same disease, middle names, birthplaces, shoes, stockings, medical instruments, or partners. You wouldn’t need to keep the bread knife handy for all of them if you guested at that table. Even Jack only had certain predilections. And Captain Kydd was quite nice when it came to New York church-building. Of course he was probably trying to impress a certain well-heeled widow.
None of them played the ukulele. The bass fiddle neither. Hated soup for the first course, so don’t serve it. Or were related to George Washington…at least I hope not. I don’t want complaints from any of the societies dedicated to his name. Am I tweaking your nerves here?
Okay. The answer is simpler than that. At one time or other they each had an association with a certain city. Mine. Ulysses S. Grant visited it. Mary Shelley stayed in it. William Bury, a Jack the Ripper candidate, didn’t just stay in it, a stone’s throw from where Mary once did and found inspiration for Frankenstein. No, he caused quite a stir, keeping his murdered wife in a box, playing cards and serving sandwiches on it, cut with the murder weapon no less, to his new-found friends. It was a crime for which he was duly hung, there.
A city is nothing, if not rich in inspiration.
Captain Kydd, either the most notorious pirate in the history of pirating, or the most unjustly accused privateer, was a native. 
Before you think this is a oh do come and visit bonnie Scotland, its fourth largest city shout out, it’s not. Come if you want. But let me tell you now, with the exception of the rail bridge, described by President Grant, with true US grandeur as a big bridge for a little city—it was, it fell down shortly afterwards, taking 75 people and a train engine with it–you won’t find a reference to Captain Kydd or the others. 
Not a cold trail of the places they once walked, a brick of the buildings they lived in. A plaque to say they ever did.
It’s just not how Dundee markets itself. It never has, for all the place of these four in history is pretty well assured.
The forgotten history of a town, city, village, place, county, state, whatever, is often the best history of all. For writers it’s a seam worth mining, because you never know what little nugget will result, that you can fling back onto the world stage.
Bridges and trains—well, they may have to wait this time round. But boxes, bodies, places, pirates, are you kidding? I hauled them all on board and gave them a sort of airing in The Unraveling of Lady Fury .
And I’m astonished by the ones I haven’t used. William Wallace, the tree of liberty, Arthur Conan Doyle’s father. The list is pretty endless. And it’s just for one city.
So, next time you’re on a heritage trail of your own backyard, don’t just look at what the tourist promoters want you to see. Get on the magic tour glasses.
Ask yourself, what lies beneath?
Buy links
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Blurb:
Rule One: There will be no kissing. Rule two: There will be no touching…
Widowed Lady Fury Shelton hasn’t lost everything—yet. As long as she produces the heir to the Beaumont dukedom, she just might be able to keep her position. And her secrets. But when the callously irresistible Captain James “Flint” Blackmoore sails back into her life, Lady Fury panics. She must find a way to protect herself—and her future—from the man she’d rather see rotting in hell than sleeping in her bed. If she must bed him to keep her secrets, so be it. But she doesn’t have to like it. A set of firm rules for the bedroom will ensure that nothing goes awry. Because above all else, she must stop herself from wanting the one thing that Flint can never give her. His heart.
Ex-privateer Flint Blackmoore has never been good at following the rules. Now, once again embroiled in a situation with the aptly named Lady Fury, he has no idea why he doesn’t simply do the wise thing and walk away. He knows he’s playing with fire, and that getting involved with her again is more dangerous than anything on the high seas. But he can’t understand why she’s so determined to hate him. He isn’t sure if the secret she keeps will make things harder—or easier—for him, but as the battle in the bedroom heats up, he knows at least one thing. Those silly rules of hers will have to go…
Extract. (Slightly….murderous one.)
Lady Margaret was not one to show her enthusiasm, for Fury in particular. She was hot, she was bothered, and her ruched bonnet was not the thing to wear in this heat. On either side of the ribbon her cheeks drooped so fantastically, Fury marveled she could speak. Although she was not the least surprised it was rudely.
“Things are very different here from in England, Mama.”
“Frankly I don’t care what they are. When in England one should do as in England. And when in Italy, one should do as in England too.”
“Which is why I am so astonished to see you here, Lionel.” It would help matters greatly in terms of what Fury should play here if she just ignored Lady Margaret and proceeded to glean some inkling of what exactly they were doing here together. Or whether they were here together at all. Perhaps it was simple chance, an unlucky throw of the dice, which had somehow caused them to career into one another. “Did you somehow meet Mama here in Genoa? Are you already acquainted?”
“I met her by chance when she disembarked from one of my ships looking for Thomas.”
Did she imagine it, or had the room become stuffier all of a sudden?
“Is he back yet from visiting his father?”
Lady Margaret started up in shock. “His father?”
Lady Margaret swiveled her head. It spun so fast, Fury made a gesture of denial even as Fury expected it to grace the tiled floor, followed by herself. She seemed to stand there forever feeling their eyes feasting upon her. Although, in reality, no more than five seconds passed, during which time she quashed her desperate need to escape. Not to mention the dark contorted images that rose of herself dangling at the end of a rope.
“His Grace has been dead these twenty-three months.”
And didn’t Fury know every blasted moment of it?
“How can Thomas be visiting him?”
