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 Today I’m thrilled to welcome Eva Stachniak, the author of The Winter Palace, to Medieval Bookworm, on the little things that make history come alive for novelists.
Once in a while one comes across a sentence that makes history alive in ways one hasn’t anticipated. As a writer, I find such instances priceless, for they allow me to imagine aspects of my characters’ lives in ways I might have overlooked.
In her Memoirs, which she attempted to write a few times, thus giving the posterity several versions of her early life, Catherine the Great describes a palace fire she witnessed from the safety of her carriage when she was still the Grand Duchess of Russia. The description is quite conventional at first: the burning balustrade, the furniture being hastily carried out, the servants’ desperate attempts to salvage as much as possible, the heat of the burning building becoming more and more impossible to bear. But for me the whole scene becomes truly alive at the moment Catherine writes: “Then I saw a singular thing. It was the astonishing number of rats and mice that descended the staircase in a line, without even really hurrying.”
The image of rodents in single file leaving the burning palace made me think of life in these mice-infested dwellings. What would I see if I were there? Droppings everywhere? Mice scurrying along the walls? Hiding in shoes? Among fire logs? Rats drowning in jugs of cream? I started researching ways people tried to protect themselves from vermin: placing dried rosemary sprigs in their linen drawers, covering food in the pantry with heavy lids, placing bed legs in basins of water.
After a little bit of such digging, I was not surprised to find out that the Winter Palace was a home to over a hundred of palace cats. Catherine’s predecessor, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, I discovered, loved cats and encouraged them to settle in the palace. Some travelers report seeing Elizabeth’s cats dressed in velvet suits, lolling about on her bed. Others complain that the imperial felines were so well-fed that they didn’t even try to catch mice. Soon I collected enough references to the palace cats to begin imagining their traces. There must have been hair on the furniture, smudges left by their whiskers on the window panes. There must have been endearing antics in their favourite spots: by the fireplaces, in the laundry room where fresh linen was kept. They must have claimed their spots on Elizabeth Petrovna’s shoes, or on her bed.
The cats made the Winter Palace vivid in my mind.
 A little more about the author: Eva Stachniak was born in Wroclaw, Poland, and came to Canada in 1981. She has been a radio broadcaster and college English and Humanities lecturer. Her debut novel, Necessary Lies, won the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and her second novel, Garden of Venus, has been translated into seven languages. Her third novel, The Winter Palace, has been published in Canada (Doubleday), US (Bantam) and the UK (Transworld). She lives in Toronto, where she is working on her second historical novel about Catherine the Great, The Empire of the Night.
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for my review of the book!
 I’m delighted to welcome Laurie R. King to Medieval Bookworm today! Laurie is the author of 21 bestselling crime novels, including the historical series featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. I reviewed the first in the series on Wednesday. King’s upcoming novel Pirate King is set in 1924 Lisbon, London, and Morocco.
I met Sherlock Holmes one September morning in 1987, when I sat down with a pad of paper and gave birth to his apprentice.
Strictly speaking, of course, I had encountered Holmes before that. The PBS series with Jeremy Brett was broadcasting, and no doubt I’d read one of the stories in high school, Hound of the Baskervilles, maybe, or The Speckled Band. However, I didn’t really meet the detective until the week both my kids were off at school for the first time, and I wrote the line, “I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him.”
That’s when I realized I had no clue who Sherlock Holmes was.
The next day I got my hands on a two-volume paperback of the four Holmes novels and fifty-six short stories (with small print!) Reading the Conan Doyle stories was a revelation. Sherlock Holmes is a thinking machine, right? And he’s filed in the Young Adult section of the library, because those are boy’s adventure stories, right?
 What I didn’t expect were the humor and passion the stories contain.
Not that both qualities aren’t tucked securely behind the adventure. When Holmes looks at a client (The Red-Headed League) and says, “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing,” the surface meaning at first seems to be that Holmes is demanding a great deal more of himself than normal human beings do. That his list may also be a gentle pulling of Watson’s leg tends to be set aside. But when Watson comes into their shared rooms (in Hound of the Baskervilles) and protests at the quantity of tobacco smoke in the air, Holmes’ reply is definitely snort-worthy: “It is a singular thing, but I find that a concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of thought. I have not pushed it to the length of getting into a box to think, but that is the logical outcome of my convictions.”
Holmes passion was in the stories I read, too. Not so much a passion for women—as Watson says, “all emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced [sic] mind.” And Holmes himself clearly states (Devil’s Foot) “I have never loved, Watson.”
However, the rest of his statement is where a reader begins to doubt this passionless exterior: “…but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act as our lawless lion-hunter had done.” Similarly (Three Garridebs) when Watson is shot, Holmes’ “face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner…’By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.’”
A person who admits that he would be capable of murder is no passionless thinking machine.
 As later generations were to find with the Star Trek character Mr. Spock, passion under iron control (be it anger or eroticism) is far more fascinating than passion freely expressed. Reading the Conan Doyle stories knowing that the man at their center is a man seething with clamped-down passion makes for a very different vision of Sherlock Holmes.
It also opens all kinds of doors when it comes to writing about Holmes’ married life. But perhaps that is a blog post for a different day.
Laurie’s thoughts on Sherlock Holmes, including a chronology of his age, can be found on her web site.
To order a signed copy of the upcoming Pirate King, visit the Poisoned Pen.
 Today I’d like to welcome one of my friends, Josh, who blogs at Fortress of Solitude, with a review of The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming.
In The Trinity Six, Charles Cummings picks up on the tradition of authors such as John le Carre in the genre of Cold War British spy novel. The prime innovation is that rather than using a spy as the main character, Cummings uses a professor of Russian history named Sam Gaddis. Gaddis is an academic trope of sorts in that he is an excellent historian, but down on his luck and in his attempt to extricate himself stumbles upon a quarter century old story that could collapse a government.
But I am getting ahead of myself. One of the most famous spy rings in history was the Magnificent Five. Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, Philby and Cairncross were students at Cambridge in the 1930′s when they were recruited by a professor as spies for Russia. At the time of recruitment they were soldiers in the war against fascism in Europe. Each excelled and took posts in the British government, working against fascism, but also passing information to their Russian masters. In the 1950′s when the Americans began to break encryption patterns from World War II, they caught on to Maclean and Burgess and the ring began to collapse. The last of the Magnificent Five, Blunt was not exposed until 1979. But perhaps these five were not alone; perhaps there was a sixth, and that is the discovery from which all of Gaddis’ adventures stem. One revelation leads to another and Gaddis finds himself unravelling one Cold War mystery after another.
Despite the traditional qualifier that all characters are used fictitiously and the story is a product of the author’s imagination, the situation presented of an immensely popular Russian President who was a mid-ranking officer in the last years of the Cold War, but through brutal suppression of opponents of his reign had transformed into a dictator in all but name, smacks of reality. Perhaps incidental, but Cummings reveals a commentary on the Russian state. All the while The Trinity Six is compelling and an easy read. My only critique is that at one or two points the supposedly coincidental events seem to be a stretch. As such they make the story seem somewhat railroaded, rather than a narrative that actually could happen. But it is not the characters or anything that they do, or even the scenario that is unconvincing. Simply put, there was just one too many coincidences.
Anyone who likes thrillers or spy novels ought to give The Trinity Six a read. Cummings is not yet to the level of le Carre, however the best is yet to come and this is a good place to start.
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At the beginning of Classics Month, Tasha at Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books and I challenged each other to read a book from our specialities. For her I chose Gawain and the Green Knight, a fairly well-known classic of medieval literature. To check out my review of Nadja by Andre Breton, head on over to her blog.
The Hunt in the Forest by Paolo Uccello, c. 1470
I
Gather all and put much thought
to a tale of noble Camelot.
On New Year’s Eve the court did gather
With wine and beer and much blather
Ladies fair and knights bold
Plus Gweneviere and Arthur, we are told
When all at once, what should they see
But a walking, talking Christmas tree!
(Actually it’s a man)
Yes, ’twas a man, but green
hair green, skin green, tongue green
Of great stature and much mass
Even his horse was the color of grass
Everything green, but eyes that were red
Even an idiot could guess where this led
But not Arthur and his patriotic knights
Who thought the green man rather nice
(How stupid are they?)
The Christmas Tree spoke, and offered a game
To anyone brave enough to issue his name
Strike a blow against the green man, and when the time came
A year from the next day, the green man would do the same.
What’s in it for the knights, one might wonder
But Sir Gawain this did not ponder.
He accepted the ax, and the green man knelt
Then to his neck, a fatal blow Wawain dealt.
(He chopped the Christmas Tree’s head off)
The head rolled about, the court watching whence it should land
Dismissing the Green Man, and thinking the matter at an end
Green blood spurted out from the tree
And Gawain anticipated congratulations there’d be
But the Christmas Tree rose from where he sat
And calmly collected his body’s hat
Holding his head, he told Gawain the way to his home
To meet a year from then, and to come alone
After which he left.
II
Despite that Gawain was not too bright,
Even he knew to do what was right
Honor and chivalry demanded
He meet the Christmas Tree and be beheaded
Thus he set out in the morning
Uncertain about where he was going
A year later, and with much apprehension
For a view of reaching the Green Man’s mansion
(Which I’m guessing is in a forest)
But alas our knight knew not left from right
(re: none too bright)
Far and wide our hero did bumble
Searching for Green Man’s Green Chapel.
He was cold, and hungry, and sad to boot
When what should he spy: a moat!
Connected to a grand castle with turrets and flags
And the friendliest host Gawain’d ever had.
Almost TOO friendly.
The man himself was handsome and wealthy
With two others in residence: an old woman quite stealthy,
And a wife so beautiful she left Gawain nonplussed;
They took one look at each other and fell into lust.
Then with Gawain, a bargain the host assayed
That he would go hunting during the day
Upon his return, his catch he would giveth
And Gawain his daily claims would returneth.
Sounds like another sketchy deal to me.
But Gawain, like an idiot, pronounced his agreement
And into more trouble our hero descendeth.
But I shall say no more of Wawain’s toil
For fear that his tale I will spoil
At first I thought this story difficult to read
I did not comprehend the why of the characters’ deeds
But then Gawain met the lady, sorely tempting
And things got MUCH more entertaining.
But who doesn’t like a little romance, right?
Tis clear that this tale is all about pursuit:
of animals, women, and bravery to salute.
For while the host was hunting game,
The hostess was chasing down Gawain
Quite a dilemma for him to be thinking about
But of course not much thinking is done by that clout
Still, there’s a twist that I thought was grand
For in everything, a famous woman has a hand.
Highly recommended!
 Please welcome Nicole from Linus’s Blanket today as she shares a few of the classics that she loves, and why you can enjoy them too!
When Meghan mentioned that she was going to be delving into the classics this month with Tasha from Heidenkind’s Hideaway, I was very excited. Classics are often pushed as bearing a standard among books. They can be used in order to judge whether a person is well-read, and as a means of learning life lessons, problem solving and being able to navigate in the world. I didn’t feel like it helped me accomplish any of those things when I read them as a teen. After having mixed results reading classics in high school and in college, I have been dipping into them a little bit more over the past couple of years.
I have grappled with the issues of whether I find them pleasurable to read, and worthwhile in the sense that they pose relevant thoughts on issues still being examined and debated today, and if they shed any light into issues that I have encountered in my life. While some classics have threads of relevant social issues, others were a far cry from interesting me or readily accessible to read (Frankenstein, Silas Marner, The Scarlett Letter – I’m looking at you). In my search for the good ones, I have found a few that have hit the trifecta for me in terms of being readable, relatable and just plain enjoyable.
Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Lady Audley’s Secret made quite a splash by exploring the idea that a woman could be a serious threat to domesticity and a happy home. Lady Audley has secrets from her husband, and his son Robert Audley suspects her of being a murderess, which was unheard of for women of her social standing at the time. I found this book to be very easy to get into, and I loved the whole who dunnit aspect of the novel. Lady Audley is invested in her happiness and seizes the life that she wants by her own power, even if by nefarious means. It was an interesting to see a plausible rendition of a woman doing this in Victorian times, and even more so being that it was penned by a female author. There is more that I could say about this wonderful novel, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who wants to read it.
The Great Gatsby – I remember reading this in high school, and even with the teacher giving his spiel, I still really had no idea what it was about. The most that I remembered about it was that we watched the movie in class and everyone wore that crazy flapper gear. Reading Gatsby as an adult, I was really able to appreciate the intricacies of the storyline- the class distinctions, the recklessness of the wealthy, and the love that fuels one man’s goals to become wealthy and powerful not understanding that he can never be as his beloved would wish. Even though there were no innocents in this timely story, I have to admit that I felt for Gatsby and the fact that no matter what he did he already wasn’t good enough and would never belong. He went to great lengths to get the love of his life, and it pretty much wrecked his life. This is a great read and it’s easy to relate to unrequited love, and past traumas providing the drive for great achievement.
Pride & Prejudice – I almost didn’t put this on my list because it is such an obvious choice for me (and for many!), but I also felt that to have left it off would be disingenuous. I don’t think that I have read any other book as much as I have read this one. Over the years my readings have changed and whom my sympathies lie with now are different than what they once were (right now I seem to be in Darcy’s camp, and think that Elizabeth was too hard him), but the conversational tone of the novel is so engaging and the themes so absolutely timeless that it is hard to not come back to this again and again. Who can’t sympathize with an overbearing mother, insufferable relatives, and falling in love with someone who doesn’t fit with all of your expectations, much less your families? I think it’s fortunate that in this lovely novel, everything works out in the end (as we all hope that it might in our own lives when we are facing similar situations). Pride and Prejudice is so good, that each time I read it it, I get all caught up again, even though I know exactly what will happen. Isn’t that a riot?
So how about you? Do you agree with any of my choices? What classics do you find to be readable, relatable and enjoyable?
 For today’s guest post, I’ve asked Amelia Grey to share with us how she manages to build the relationship between her hero and heroine. I hope you find her answer as interesting as I do. Stay tuned for giveaway info at the end of the post!
Every writer has a different way to develop the relationship between the hero and heroine. Some plan out the development from start to finish and they know exactly everything that will happen between them before they write the first word of the book. Others allow the relationship to grow spontaneously from the start and never write a word of synopsis or plan any of the story in advance. When I think about this concerning my books, I realize that most of the time I actually do a little of both.
I always start by writing a master plan, which is actually my synopsis, and the development of the romance is a big part of that. Writing a synopsis allows me the time to think through the major events in the hero and heroine’s relationship. To me those major events are the meeting, the first love scene, the break up, and then the makeup. Everything that comes between the meeting and the makeup is what I like to call the courtship.
To me the courtship of the relationship is the part that is spontaneous as I write. That is what I allow to grow and develop as I write the story, and sometimes, I’m astounded at what comes up during the courtship. Let me give you an example from my current book A Marquis To Marry, which is the second book in The Rogues’ Dynasty Series.
First I’ll give you a short, word-for-word excerpt from the original synopsis that I sent to my editor. This will show you how from the beginning how I set up what I call the major events to love story.
The meeting: But then the duchess shows up at his door. She’s not old and she’s not ugly. Susannah Brookfield is Race’s age. She’s beautiful, enchanting and has the most tempting lips he’s ever seen. With her intelligence and wit she intrigues him as no other woman ever has.
Susannah doesn’t care how fast her heart beats when she encounters the Marquis. She can’t allow him to intimidate her with his commanding words or enthrall her with his chiseled good looks and charming smile.
The love scene: Race and Susannah meet again at a party, and Race asks Susannah to dance. The minute their hands touch he knows he wants her in his bed. And he has no doubts he’ll get her there. He senses she is as drawn to him as he is to her, and being a widow she has the freedom to accept him as a lover.
Even though Susannah believes Race is trying to trick her into giving up her claim on the pearls by charming her into his bed, she finds his kisses too persuasive to resist. She surrenders to his skilled seduction and they become lovers.
The break-up: But later, things take a decided turn for the worse when Race discovers the ropes of pearls have been stolen from his home. He automatically assumes Susannah had someone steal them while he was at her house making love to her. With distrust between them, separately they search for the pearls.
The makeup: Race and Susannah’s attraction to each other is maddening and irresistible. Before too long they end up back in each other’s arms.
All of the above was written before I wrote the first sentence of the book. But that gave me a fairly good outline of where in the book I needed the major scenes of the loves story. I had no idea what would happen during what I call the courtship. That is where I let the characters take over and show me what they want to do and say to build their relationship.
When I started writing A Marquis To Marry, I had no idea that in the beginning Race and Susannah would be competitive with each other, but they are. I had no idea that throughout the book Race was going to write Susannah short, informal notes that makes her heart pound with excitement every time she gets one. I had no idea that Race would have to cut a hole through a seven-foot high and three-foot wide hedge to get to Susannah’s house, or that they would attend a boxing match together. I hadn’t planned out any of the little things that would make their relationship grow and thrive.
So now that I’ve shown you how I develop the relationship between the hero and heroine, why don’t you tell me if, when reading a book you can tell what is planned from the beginning, developed spontaneously, or do you think all authors are like me and do a little of both?
A Marquis to Marry, Book Two in the Rogues’ Dynasty Trilogy, In Stores October 2009
Alexander Mitchell Raceworth, the dashing fourth Marquis of Raceworth, is shocked when the alluring young Duchess of Brookfield accuses him of stealing pricelesspearls belonging to her family. Susannah Brookfield is the most beautiful, enchanting woman he has ever met, but despite his attraction, he’s not about to hand over the pearls.
Though suspicion and mistrust drive them apart when the pearls are stolen, Race suggests they pool their resources to recover them. If they do find them, will they finally be able to give in to love, or will the truth of the elusive necklace tear them apart once and for all?
About the Author
Amelia Grey’s awards include the Booksellers Best and the Aspen Gold, and as Gloria Dale Skinner, the coveted Romantic Times Award for Love and Laughter and the prestigious Maggie Award. Her books have been featured in Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs. Happily married for twenty-five years, she lives in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Giveaway Info
Sourcebooks is sponsoring a giveaway for one reader to win a set of Amelia’s current romances in this trilogy, A Duke to Die For (which I reviewed here) and A Marquis to Marry. To enter, leave a comment on this post with an answer to Amelia’s question above before midnight on Monday October 26th. US and Canada only. Good luck! The winner of this contest according to random.org is commenter number twelve, Anita Yancey.
Keira runs a book review blog for readers by readers on romance novels at Love Romance Passion. She’s been reading romance since she was a teenager and began blogging about romance so she could share her passion for her favorite genre. She loves reading paranormal, Regency, historical America, and highlander most of all and completely adores blind and wounded heroes. She’s celebrating her birthday, so give her some love!
My love for historical romances started a little over a decade ago when I found a box of romances in a cabinet in the laundry room. I figured they were hidden back there because I was not suppose to read them so I took just one and carefully closed the doors and raced back to my bedroom where I deposited my treasure under my pillow.
 That book was Gamble by LaVryle Spencer. It took place during the Temperance Movement in the United States. I proceeded to read every novel in that cabinet. Some were Harlequin Presents but a majority of them were full length stand alones by LaVryle Spencer and I loved them best. She wrote some contemporary but my true favorites were the ones set in the past.
I love romance historicals because of Spencer’s writings, but I did not stay with American historicals. I strayed from American historicals because English historical romances were prevalent and easy to find. They still are today!
Go to any book store and you can easily find a Georgian-Victorian period romance. Most of them are Regency, but the three eras are back to back and the transition is not always easily seen. Highlander romance is also very popular right now too and a new favorite of mine. Can you believe that I only started reading them a year ago? I know! Me neither!
I’ve read classics like Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. I’ve a new love for Georgette Heyer romances and the Jane Austen variations that are dominating the market right now. I could go on but simply put: I just love historicals! Why? Three reasons!
Reason #1 – Historical romance opens a window into the past.
I will never live during the time of American expansion to the mid-west, but I can read about it. I will never dance at Almack’s wearing a glittering gown or be presented for a London Season, but I can read about it. Nor will I ever be in a Viking raid, but once again I can read about it and imagine it.
Reason #2 – The element of fantasy.
Not only are historicals filled with facts and information but they also share an element of fantasy. Contemporary romance rarely holds that same element of pure fantasy though both types of romances must start with the big “what if?” Medieval romances for instance are a natural outgrowth of fairy tales. Variations of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast are plenteous in historical romance… contemporary too.
Reason #3 – The passion exposed under the reserved manners.
This is a glorious combination and not something readily found in contemporary romances. Compare the social mores back then to ours today. I love immersing myself in the manners of the past where the smallest touch was worth so much.
But enough about me and why I love historical romances! It’s your turn… tell me why you love historical romances! Which type is your favorite?
 When we first heard about Beach Trip, my mom knew she wanted to read it right away. So she had the first crack at the review copy and here are Carolyn’s thoughts!
Beach Trip is a story of four girls: Mel, a mystery writer living in New York, Sara, an Atlanta attorney, Annie, a successful Nashville businesswoman, and Lola, sweet-tempered and absentminded, who all went to college together. After 23 years they agree to go on a week vacation to Lola’s lavish North Carolina beach house. They go here in an attempt to relive the carefree days of their college years. But as the week wears on and each woman’s hidden story is gradually revealed, these four friends learn that they must inevitably confront their shared past: a failed love affair, a discarded suitor, a betrayal, and a secret that threatens to change their bond, and their lives, forever.
I found Beach Trip to be the kind of book that once you start reading it you don’t want to put it down. All the characters in the book are so real and likeable. I would like to be friends with these woman. Mel, with her strength and her inability to have a lasting relationship probably caused by her dysfunctional childhood. Sara, who is struggling with her son’s autism. Annie, who is struggling with her inappropriate affair with a professor in her college years. Lola, whose her sad life has led to her being kept away from her true love and being controlled by her mother and husband. That’s just to name a few of the many things that happen in these woman’s lives told to us by this wonderful author.
Cathy Holton wrote a terrific book. She gives us so much information about each of these woman. She tells us about them from their childhood up to present time. They all have very complicated and very real lives. In so many books you read, everyone is beautiful and has perfect lives. These women could be any one of us. Their parents weren’t perfect and they themselves all made plenty of mistakes. The all survived through the good and the bad.
The only part I didn’t like about this book was I felt that there was excessive drinking of alcohol. I don’t think you need to get drunk to have a good time or to reconnect with your friends.
I would recommend this book, it is a wonderful read. It is a book about real woman and real lives. Read it with a friend because you will want to discuss it with someone as you’re reading it. It also had a shocking ending, which I loved and never saw coming.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon
 Please welcome Eleanor Bluestein, the author of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, which I reviewed yesterday. Today she’s here to talk about why she chose to write short stories rather than a novel. Please give Eleanor a warm welcome and don’t forget to check out the giveaway at the bottom of this post!
Meghan suggested I discuss why I chose the short story format rather than the novel for this book. I’ve been asked that before, and I realize now that I’ve given only a partial answer.
I started this book after traveling to Bangkok to attend my nephew’s wedding. On that trip, my husband and I toured Thailand and then flew to Cambodia. I hadn’t considered writing fiction set in South East Asia—I was working on a novel at the time—and didn’t even take notes. Writing a novel requires keeping many threads aligned, but soon after returning home, my father became ill, and as the person responsible for his care, I needed and wanted to spend time with him. My attention became scattered and I kept dropping one or another of the novel’s threads, so I decided to try writing short stories instead. My recent travels had been vivid, and when I started the first story, I found myself setting it in South East Asia. This is the answer I’d given to the question and it is accurate as far as it goes.
It’s clear to me now that something else was also at work. Fiction is an invention, and there is some sleight of hand involved in drawing readers into a world the author devises and into characters’ lives and holding them there. Of the ten stories in Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, only one is written from the point of view of an American. The rest are narrated by South East Asians. I would not have thought I could create a world a reader would believe in with such an exotic setting or write from a South East Asian point of view for an entire novel. I would have believed that world and those characters too different from the one I knew, culturally and historically, for the work to feel true. But I was willing to risk that I could pull it off for a short story. I don’t mean that this was conscious—it wasn’t. But it seems obvious, looking back, that I could commit to baby steps, not the entire marathon. One at a time, though, the stories piled up, and finally, I’d run the whole course.
Could I have done this book as a novel? Perhaps. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I ever would have tried. The processing of the travel, the imaginative leap into a world and culture so different from my own, probably would never have occurred. Among the many opportunities my father made possible for me, this, it turns out, was another one.
Thank you, Meghan, for the opportunity to share these thoughts with your readers.
***
Thank you for that great post, Eleanor!
And now, the giveaway! I have one copy of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales to give away to a resident of the US or Canada. To enter:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me either why you’d like to read this book, commenting about Eleanor’s guest post, or recommending me another short story collection, since I liked this one! That is your first entry.
- For another entry, leave a comment on yesterday’s review post after you’ve entered here first. If you already commented, please mention it in your comment here, that still counts.
- For a third or fourth entry, tweet or blog (or both!) about this contest. Make sure to come back with the link in a separate comment so I can count you again.
The contest will end on Wednesday, May 13th. I’ll announce the winner on May 14th. Good luck!
 I loved reading the posts about the Read-A-Thon. What a great idea. I may have to copy you. My TBR pile has migrated from my desk to the floor. Then I had to split it into two stacks (because it kept falling over). It’s out of control. Mostly because I can’t read while I’m writing. Then when I’m on break, I just can’t get caught up. Add that my day job is at a library where I see all the new books, and I may have to buy another bookshelf. Let’s see. Will one fit in the hall?
Well, I’m supposed to be talking about my new book What Would Jane Austen Do? Here’s the blurb: Modern heroine Eleanor Pottinger goes back in time to the Regency where she prevents a duel, helps catch a spy, meets Jane Austen in person, and falls in love with hunky rake Lord Shermont.
Since I’m used to writing in a character’s POV rather than my own, I’m a bit out of my comfort zone. But I’m willing to give it a shot.
I really like reading time travel books so when I starting writing I gravitated toward that sort of paranormal. The heroine can be modern and therefore easy to relate to. There’s a built in opportunity for humor as she struggles to cope with the differences in society. And I can still have the fab hero and can picture him on a horse or ballroom floor without the convoluted plot machinations that it would take to get a modern man in both such places within one book.
All that wonderfulness comes with a price. There are special considerations that writers of other genres don’t have to tackle.
- The device that facilitates the time travel – It should be never be too complicated, and should have the ring of truth, even though we all know it’s impossible. Basically readers are willing to suspend their disbelief and will follow your story just about anywhere unless you cause them to stop. If your device is too complicated, they’ll refuse to invest the interest/time needed to figure it out. The closer you get to simple, the better. (ie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) Do we buy that the children go through the back of an armoire into an alternate reality? Every time.
- The time traveler should not believe what’s happened to him/her too easily – Perversely, if your hero or heroine accepts the obvious right away, we don’t believe it. (After all we know it’s impossible, right?) But if they take too long to believe what’s happened, then they seem… well, not the sharpest quill on the writing desk. (Isn’t it obvious from the surroundings, etc.?)
- The ending – Time travel endings are the most difficult to write because we must not only make the reader believe the heroine and heroine belong together, we have to figure out a way for them to actually be together. Are they both going to stay back in time or both come forward? The reader has suspended their disbelief for the length of the book. The wrong ending not only disappoints readers, in the case of time travels, it seem to really piss them off.
I sincerely hope I did all of the above right in What Would Jane Austen Do? I’m sure you’ll let me know if I didn’t.
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You definitely did! Thank you, Laurie, for a great guest post! You’re very welcome to join our next Read-a-Thon, we’d very much love to have you, and it’s a great way to start going through that pile!
Laurie Brown teaches writing classes at the college level, has presented seminars at conferences all over the country, and has three published romance novels. She has been a Golden Heart finalist twice and has received the Service Award from the Chicago-North Chapter of RWA. She resides in Illinois.
Buy What Would Jane Austen Do? on Amazon, and don’t forget to come back on Friday for my review!
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A little more about the author: Eva Stachniak was born in Wroclaw, Poland, and came to Canada in 1981. She has been a radio broadcaster and college English and Humanities lecturer. Her debut novel, Necessary Lies, won the Amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and her second novel, Garden of Venus, has been translated into seven languages. Her third novel, The Winter Palace, has been published in Canada (Doubleday), US (Bantam) and the UK (Transworld). She lives in Toronto, where she is working on her second historical novel about Catherine the Great, The Empire of the Night.
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