GIVEAWAY ENDS FRIDAY DEC. 21!
FEATURE AND GIVEAWAY!  Summary:
Spring, 1768. The Southern frontier is a treacherous wilderness inhabited by the powerful Cherokee people. In Charlestown, South Carolina, twenty –five year-old Quincy MacFadden receives news from beyond the grave: her cousin, a man she’d believed long dead, is alive—held captive by the Shawnee Indians. Unmarried, bookish, and plagued by visions of the future, Quinn is a woman out of place … and this is the opportunity for which she’s been longing.
Determined to save two lives, her cousin’s and her own, Quinn travels the rugged Cherokee Path into the South Carolina Blue Ridge. But in order to rescue her cousin, Quinn must trust an enigmatic half-Cherokee tracker whose loyalties may life elsewhere. As translator to the British army, Jack Wolf walks a perilous line between a King he hates and a homeland he loves.
When Jack is ordered to negotiate for Indian loyalty in the Revolution to come, the pair must decide: obey the Crown, or commit treason ….
How I Know Katherine Scott Crawford:I am, as many of you will know, with a historical romance book review group called Romantic Historical Fiction Lovers, and when I saw this book was coming out I jumped at the opportunity to read and review it. After all, my books are also set partially in the Keowee Valley, and I was hoping she could teach me along the way. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I loved the book. One of my #1 recommendations for this Christmas. Thank you so much for being here, Katherine! Excerpt:
Prologue
My story begins before the fall, in that Indian summer time when the hills are tipped with oncoming gold, and the light hangs just above the trees, dotting the Blue Ridge with gilded freckles. The mornings and the evenings are cool, but it is the mornings I remember most: waking before the men, wrapping a shawl around my shoulders and slipping out through the fields, the dry grass crunching beneath my boots. Drifting down from Tomassee Knob the mist would spread over the Keowee Valley in a great, rivering pool of gray, the sun rising in the east flecking the horses’ breath—suspended in the air before their nostrils—with slivers of shine. It was then the whole world was quiet, no crows eating my corn, the peacefulness not even broken by the bay of some wolf on the ridge, calling to the still-lit moon in the western sky. The whole world was silent then, and the Blue Ridge breathed beneath the deep purple earth. I thought I could feel it, a great heart beating in the wilderness.
He came to me in the morning. I had crossed the north fields and made my way to the creek at the edge of the forest to check on the last of the Solomon’s Seals I’d watched cling to the embankment in the final days of summer. Ferns reaching the height of my elbows billowed out from the ground, spreading for what looked like miles. The smell of sap emanated from fallen pines where woodpeckers searched for tiny bugs and snakes lay still in the cool undergrowth. Every once in a while a squirrel or rabbit leapt from its camouflaged hiding place, skirting the path I walked.
Coals from a recent fire smoldered black in a pile a few yards from a bend in the creek, and I looked up and farther into the woods, wondering if a Cherokee scout or perhaps a trapper had decided to take his rest on our land. But the woods were eerily still, and not a bird sang nor cricket chirped. There was no movement except for the creek itself, bubbling up against a tiny dam made by runaway branches, cane and weeds. My eyes came to rest across the creek on shadows at the bottom of an enormous oak. Suddenly, the shadows shifted, and the shape of a man stepped forward, seeming to emerge seamlessly from the trunk, his feet making no sound in the leaves.
The breath caught in a knot in my throat, and I placed a hand there, the other fumbling in my skirts for the lady’s flintlock I’d been given. He walked closer, still without sound, and stood watching me from the edge of the creek bed. I pulled the pistol from its hold, pointing it unsteadily at the stranger.
"Come no closer,” I ordered, the words tumbling awkwardly off my tongue and echoing softly in the small dip of valley.
He raised his head, eyes emerging from beneath the brim of a battered farmer’s hat. Across that creek they looked as green to me as moss growing on boulders in the water. His hair was long, the fawn color of a well-worn leather saddle, and the ends were tipped with the same pale blond that streaked through the rest, like he’d dipped his head in white paint. He looked like a white man turned savage, with his moccasin-laced boots and dirty, fringed deerskin shirt, a beaded strap crossing his chest, holding a hatchet and musket on his back. He did not speak, just looked at me from under that hat, shadows cast high on his cheekbones and the solid line of his jaw. The creek gurgling and my breathing were the only sounds. Soon, I knew, the settlement would awake, and the animals would need to be fed, the horses let to pasture.
Surely someone would notice I was missing.
It was the first time he had come to me, but it would not be the last. And though my story ends with him, he did not cause it to begin. I did that, on a midsummer day in the year of our Lord 1768, in the twenty-fifth year of my youth.  Author:
Katherine Scott Crawford was born and raised in the blue hills of the South Carolina Upcountry, the history and setting of which inspired Keowee Valley. Winner of a North Carolina Arts Award, she is a former newspaper reporter and outdoor educator, a college English teacher, and an avid hiker. She lives with her family in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she tries to resist the siren call of her passport as she works on her next novel. Visit her website at www.katherinescottcrawford.com for more information, or to connect with her via Facebook and at her blog, The Writing Scott.
 #1 GRAND PRIZE:
Kaki Warner's acclaimed trilogy: THE RUNAWAY BRIDES—three strong-willed women headed West in search of new lives. But when their train is stranded in a dying Colorado mining town, they get more than they bargained for…and find love where they least expect it.
 GRAND PRIZE #2:
"Lightning paced, innovative, topical … and most of all, frightening."
-- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author
FEATURE AND GIVEAWAY! Today's featured book is:  Summary:
A passion for humanity drives Rona Altrows’s Key In Lock. The people in these entertaining yet poignant stories wrestle with self-doubt, ethical dilemmas, money problems, health issues. Yet somehow they survive and sometimes they even thrive. Key In Lock also marks the return of Irene, beloved manager-in-all-but-name of Marjorie’s Lingerie introduced in A Run On Hose. This time Irene takes on issues as diverse as dating later in life, the effect of childlessness on a person’s psyche, stress incontinence, and the love rituals of banana slugs. Irene also brings us tales of her youth in the days of the polio epidemic and Vincent Price horror movies.
How I Know Rona Altrows:Once upon a time I wrote my very first book. I was so proud of it and so amazed that I'd actually done it that I forced it down the throats of all my friends and family members. Bless their hearts, they all congratulated me on a job well done. One day I spied a free Writers In Residence programme being offered at the Calgary Public Library. Shaking from head to toe, I brought in my twenty-five first pages and left them there for Rona Altrows, the Resident Author, to read. This was my first experience with a real, live author. The following week I went in to meet with her, and she absolutely amazed me. Yes, she liked the book, telling me "You've got it, kid," but she also smoothly and patiently (and compassionately) taught me the basics of editing a book, making it something people don't just set aside. Rona has always been a mentor to me, though she is humble about that label. She's a very enthusiastic supporter and promoter of aspiring and little known authors, she's an author of unique, eye-opening, poignant tales, and best of all, she's my friend. Thanks for being a part of this, Rona! Excerpt:
A man needs a certain amount of intercourse. You can stay at the rubbing-pressing-groping stage for only so long. You may be able to stretch it out for months, which is how it’s been going with Raymond and me. When you are in your sixties, like we are, you like to extend everything out, move at a more relaxed pace, as though that will convince the Grim Reaper not to rush.
It’s not as if he’s said so in words, but through the way he acts, Raymond has shown me how he would like the scene to unfold; he’ll be ready any time I am. And to be fair to him, I can’t hold out forever. I mean, he has been patient, a gentleman—no pushing or insisting. But at some point, no matter how sweet a guy is, or how old, only penetration will do. I’m in a jam now. He’s great company, a fine man, and easy on the eyes, but I’ll never love him. What’s more—and this is the part that scares me right now—there’s something I don’t want him to know. If we keep seeing each other, there’s a chance he’ll learn my secret; if we go all the way, he’ll find out for sure. Can I live with that?
So I’ve given myself a deadline. Tonight. We’re going out to a movie, and then he’ll drive me back to my apartment for a drink. By then, I’ll have made up my mind.
Right now I’m still doing the back and forth. We humans would probably be better off if we were built more like banana slugs. In her university classes, my young friend Julie learns how animals go about their business. She knows I am curious and tells me the juiciest stuff, like the slugs’ story. She talks about how they court for hours, which is like years for them, and how they snack on each other’s slime before sex. But to me, the best part is the location of the genitals, not too far from the head. With that anatomy, I figure there’s a good chance that they use their heads when it comes to deciding about sex. Not like us. All that distance between the brain and the other place leads to nothing but trouble. Bad matches, heartache, aggravation—I’ll bet those are not major problems among the slugs.
And there’s another thing slugs have got on us—mucus. In slug sex, there is an exchange of mucus, which is what I will need more of if I am going to take that next step with Raymond. Not mucus exactly, but lubricant.  Author:
Rona Altrows was born and raised in Montreal and lives in Calgary, Canada. She is the author of two books of short stories, A Run On Hose and Key in Lock and is currently writing a book of flash fiction. She has received the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and the Brenda Strathern Prize for her fiction and has been a finalist for the Howard O'Hagan Award for Short Fiction. Altrows's work has appeared in many Canadian and American magazines and ezines. With Naomi K. Lewis, she is co-editor of Shy, an anthology in which 39 writers reflect on their own shyness. Shy will be publshed in fall, 2013 by the University of Alberta Press.
And two fantastic additional Christmas presents:  #1 GRAND PRIZE:
Kaki Warner's acclaimed trilogy: THE RUNAWAY BRIDES—three strong-willed women headed West in search of new lives. But when their train is stranded in a dying Colorado mining town, they get more than they bargained for…and find love where they least expect it.
 "Lightning paced, innovative, topical … and most of all, frightening."
-- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author
FEATURE AND GIVEAWAY!
and now for something completely different ... Today's featured book is:  Summary:
"So as near as I could tell the end of the world began roughly about the time that Billy Carver’s butt rang for Santa Claus about halfway through the War of 1812."
Sixteen year old Briar Gamble is having a bad day.
It started with the cell phones singing for Santa Claus.
Then came the tanks and the storm troopers.
The Black Masks, in their black fish bowl sunglasses.
And then along came Captain Albino.
The shooting started shortly after that.
Like I said - Briar Gamble is having a REALLY bad day.
And it's about to get a whole lot worse.
How I Know Steve Vernon:
I've only met Steve once face to face, but online he's everywhere! He's written so many books and has been brilliant in his local marketing of them. The ones I really like are his Real Life ghost stories - Nova Scotia is full of ghosts and he's tracked them all down. So much fun. Steve is constantly keeping NS authors up to date on our facebook pages, sharing important facts and sites for us all, so we can learn. Thank you so much, Steve, for being here today, and for letting us sample your fun new book! Excerpt:
Chapter One – How Does High School Suck, Let Me Count the Ways
So as near as I could tell the end of the world began roughly about the time that Billy Carver’s butt rang - about halfway through the War of 1812.
All right – so his butt didn’t really ring – but the brand new cell phone that he was carrying in his butt pocket went off awfully sudden and unexpected.
It was absolutely the weirdest ring tone that I had ever heard – kind of like a crossbred mix tape of rap-music-gargling and stained-church-glass-yodeling but I recognized the tune right off.
There wasn’t a kid on the planet who didn’t know that tune.
The tune was Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.
You know – better not pout and checking his list twice, watching when we’re sleeping – which is really kind of creepy when you stop and think about some fat old bearded man peeping at kids in their Sponge Bob Square Pants pajamas – not to mention that whole bit about rooty-toot-toot and rummy-tum-tum.
Whatever the heck that meant.
In any case, that was the tune that Billy Carver’s butt was playing - which – when you think about it is a pretty weird tune to hear playing in the middle of the month of May – even if it was coming from a free butt-covered cell phone – which each of us had been given by a guy in a pair of fish bowl sunglasses.
Which I’ll tell you about in just a little bit.
Right now we are talking about Billy Carver’s butt.
Mind you – I was not looking at Billy Carver’s butt when his cell phone rang.
That’d be just weird.
Maybe not as weird as Santa Claus peeping – but weird just the same.
What I was actually looking at – the same way as I had looked at it for five days a week and nine months of the year for the last entire decade - was the classroom wall clock.
In fact, as far as I can calculate I have been sitting here for about a hundred years or so – give or take a glacial millennium - just waiting for that lunch bell to ring – even though I knew that we had thirty-two minutes and twenty-one and a half seconds before the lunch bell was actually supposed to ring.
It turns out that lunch bell wasn’t ever going to ring.
Not in the way that I expected it to.
Not unless you count the way that it rang when it hit the floor later that morning after being shot from off of the gymnasium wall by one of Captain Albino’s headphone-wearing stormtroopers.
But I’ll tell you about that a little bit later on too.
You don’t want to rush into the end of the world.
You want to take your time.
But first - I really ought to introduce myself before we get much further into this story.
My name is Briar Gamble – and if you want to know the complete honest truth – I have been waiting for a bell of some sort to go off for the last ten years or so – ever since that first horrible day when Dad had looked up from his Pac Man coffee mug in the middle of a Bugs Bunny cartoon that I had seen at least fifteen times before and had said those thirteen terrible words to me – “Well Briar, I guess you are old enough to go to school now.”
That was way back in grade primary – but even then I knew that there were about thirty million other places in the known and unknown galaxy that I would rather be living in than sitting here in some funky old classroom listening to one teacher or another spouting off about algebra, grammar and the War of 1812.
I just didn’t belong here.
I knew that – even back in grade primary.
I knew that before the first homework assignment got handed out – and forgotten.
I knew that before the first bully had ever wedgied my underwear up about three degrees beyond the pooping zone.
I knew that like I knew my very own name.
Which was Briar Gamble – in case you weren’t reading too closely, seven paragraphs back. My Dad said that he and Mom had named me after a weed – on account of the way I had sprouted up where I wasn’t supposed to be – whatever that was supposed to mean.
That guy sitting across from me? That little fellow, with his hair poked up like a hay stack that can’t spell “comb” if his life depended on it and that freckly bent up nose, slightly running? That’s my buddy Jemmy Daniels. His real name is Jeremiah but we all call him Jemmy on account of Jeremiah has about three too many syllables. Jemmy is my best friend – which is another way of saying that his head had been swirly-dunked nearly as often in the boy’s room toilet bowl as I had been – by Billy Carver and his so-called friends.
Jemmy had one short-coming.
Jemmy actually liked going to school.
Which was weird.
I don’t really know why I hated going to school so very much. I always have. It was like I was born hating it.
Nearly everyone else in the school seemed to be getting along all right – or else maybe they just took a while to catch on to the fact that school just plain sucked – but I knew that school sucked and high school sucked even worse than that.
I knew it just as soon as somebody first tried to teach me poetry.
Which was way worse than the War of 1812.
 Author:
Steve Vernon is a long-time Halifax resident with seven regional books and about a truckload of e-books available on Kindle and Kobo and other varied formats. You take a look in the dictionary under storyteller – you’ll most likely see a picture of this man, in place of a definition. That’s right, Steve Vernon has successfully broken into every dictionary publishing company in the world and committed acts of self-aggrandizing vandalism. Or that’s his story anyway – and what else might you expect? Steve Vernon is a storyteller. The man was born with a campfire burning at his feet. The word "boring" does not exist in this man's vocabulary - unless he's maybe talking about termites or ice augers.
And two fantastic additional Christmas presents:  #1 GRAND PRIZE:
Kaki Warner's acclaimed trilogy: THE RUNAWAY BRIDES—three strong-willed women headed West in search of new lives. But when their train is stranded in a dying Colorado mining town, they get more than they bargained for…and find love where they least expect it.
 GRAND PRIZE #2:
"Lightning paced, innovative, topical … and most of all, frightening."
-- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author
Check out these previously posted features, because you can enter to win these books all the way until December 21! - December 3 - Joanna BourneFEATURE AND GIVEAWAY! Today's featured book is:  Summary:
Book #3 of the Kate Lange thriller series
She is obsessed with tattoos.
He is obsessed with her.
When a body is found on the outskirts of Halifax, rumors run wild about the victim’s identity. But tattoo artist Kenzie Sloane knows exactly who she is. They share a tattoo… and a decade-old secret.
Lawyer Kate Lange remembers Kenzie Sloane. The former wild child was part of the same crowd that attracted her little sister, Imogen, before her death. Now Kenzie needs her help. And Kate needs answers.
But there are others who know about the tattoo and its history. And one of them is watching Kenzie’s every move, waiting for the perfect moment to fulfill a dark promise that had been inked in her skin.
How I Know Pamela Callow:
Actually, I don't. Other than messaging each other through facebook and emails, we don't know each other at all. But I intend to change that in the very near future. Pamela Callow is something of a celebrity up here in Nova Scotia. I see her books all over the place. She writes intrigue set right here in our province. I'm so honoured to have her here on this promotion! Thanks for everything, Pamela, including today's giveaway AND the fantastic three book Grand Prize! Excerpt:
Flushed with triumph at finding sarracenia purpurea -- also known as the purple pitcher plant – Rebecca Chen crouched above the surprisingly clear and shallow water of the peat bog. Bag this last plant and then I’m outta here.
It was a pretty plant, and yet, according to her notes from her biology class, it was a predator, capturing its food in its petals. She plunged her hand into the muck, her fingers scrabbling down the plant’s stem, searching for the root ball. But the stem curved sideways under the dense thicket of hummock. She exhaled, her forehead prickling with sweat.
Further up the slope and beyond the cliffs, lay the outer mouth of the Halifax Harbour. Fog hung over the horizon, a ghostly waterfall hovering over the deep blue of the ocean, but the cooling breeze carrying its afterdamp did not reach her.
With a grunt, she pushed her hand deep into the underside of the hummock. Her fingers hit a rock. The stem appeared to be wrapped around it.
Frig. She sat back on her heels. The peat bogs stretched around her, serene blue pools dotting scrubby hummocks of low-lying shrubs. She had never even been out to Chebucto Head until her biology teacher assigned this lab, and she cursed him when she had missed the class trip and had to find her own way to the peat bogs. After a twenty-five minute drive, she found the road to the headland. It was flanked by a protected nature reserve, but it eventually opened to a cove dotted with houses. They huddled, higgly-piggly, on the granite bedrock cliffs, as if holding their collective breath.
The peat bogs were a twenty-minute hike across the headlands. “Just find the old bunkers,” her teacher had told her. “There are two. The bogs are down the slope. You can’t miss them.”
True enough, after twenty minutes of following a scraggly, muddy path, she spotted the bunkers on a crest of the cliff. There were two: one facing the water, the other offset behind it. The bunkers had been built eighty years ago as the outer battery to defend Halifax Harbour. The lower bunker perched on a slope, its flat, sharp roof appearing crooked against the sky. Tall shrubs and a handful of stunted evergreens grew around the squat concrete boxes. Rather than softening the forbidding exterior of the wartime posts, the dense thicket of shrubs and the lush branches of the evergreens served to emphasize their brutal purpose.
Even in the May sunshine, they were creepy. She veered around them, and headed down hill to the peat bogs. They gleamed in the sun, the area a large, open marsh with a pleasant piney scent. It hadn’t take much time to find the samples for her biology lab.
Until now.
Last lab of the school year, last lab of high school, Rebecca. That knowledge lent extra urgency to her scrabbling. She wrapped her fingers around the rock anchoring what she now viewed as “her” plant. She yanked the rock-and-plant specimen from under the hummock, falling back on her heels. She staggered to her feet, the prize clutched in her hand.
Her butt was soaked from her efforts. Figures.
She unraveled the roots clinging to the rock.
Her fingers froze.
Beneath the plant debris and muck, the rock appeared calcified. And smooth.
God. It felt suspiciously like a bone.
It’s not a bone, Rebecca.
It was a bone. Her heart pounding, Rebecca tore away the roots of the plant. The smooth curve and calcified exterior were obvious now.
It’s just an animal’s bone. Probably a deer.
She peered at the hummock, searching for the hole she had tunneled through the underside.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She couldn’t move.
Couldn’t blink.
Couldn’t scream.
All she could do was stare at the two bulging colorless eyes that pinned her in their malevolent gaze. Then she saw the hooked nose, the gaping smile, the hair floating from the head. Everything tinted the same brownish color.
Horror in sepia wash.
Her brain, at first, couldn’t process what she saw. Finally, her lungs forced her breath out in a gasp. And her brain interpreted the image.
The bulging eyes belonged to a mask. A rubber Halloween mask that someone had thrown into the bog. Her insides liquefied with a warm rush of relief. Then she remembered the cold, smooth length of bone in her palm.
It hadn’t been just a mask she had dislodged. The mask had been on a dead body.
She was holding proof of it.
A scream built in her throat.
The dead body was under the hummock. Under her.
Oh, dear Lord. She was holding a dead body!
She threw the bone into the water, so forcefully that water splashed onto her torso, her face. And into her mouth. An earthy, decayed taste swelled the tasted buds on her tongue. Bog water.
The water had a putrefied body in it.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. With the hand that was filthy with muck.
Muck that contained a dead body.
Her stomach heaved. Vomit flecked her rain boots.
She began to scream.
Excerpt from TATTOOED (MIRA Books, June 2012)
Copyright 2012 by Pamela Callow  Author:
A member of the Nova Scotia bar, Pamela Callow is the internationally published author of the Kate Lange legal thriller series for MIRA Books. RT Book Reviews hailed series lead Kate Lange as a, “…standout character.” DAMAGED, the debut novel of her series, was chosen by Levy Home Entertainment as a “Need to Read” Pick, with Top Ten Bestseller placement in retail stores across North America.
Callow’s critically-acclaimed series has been compared to works by Robin Cook, Tess Gerritsen and John Grisham. She is also a contributor to the International Thriller Writers' bestselling THRILLER 3: LOVE IS MURDER anthology, edited by New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown.
Prior to making writing a career, Pamela Callow worked as a Strategic Services manager for international consulting firm Accenture. She lives in Nova Scotia, along with her husband, two children and a pug. She loves to go for walks (unlike her dog), and drink coffee. Visit www.pamelacallow.com to learn more about her books.
And two fantastic additional Christmas presents:  #1 GRAND PRIZE:
Kaki Warner's acclaimed trilogy: THE RUNAWAY BRIDES—three strong-willed women headed West in search of new lives. But when their train is stranded in a dying Colorado mining town, they get more than they bargained for…and find love where they least expect it.
 GRAND PRIZE #2:
"Lightning paced, innovative, topical … and most of all, frightening."
-- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author
| | I'm SO excited
about this promotion! | | As an author, so much of your success comes from the people around you. Not just your family and close friends, but people you don't know—readers who have spent money and time on your book, and who sometimes give the ultimate hand-up by recommending that book to their friends.
You also learn daily from other authors, people who have been where you are now, people who are standing on that same step with you, and people who are working their way up to it. Everyone has so much to share, and I've been extremely fortunate in that so many of them have chosen to share with me.
So I wanted to give you all the opportunity to get to know some of their work. Every weekday between Dec 3 and Dec 14 I'll share a different book, including an excerpt. Then you can enter to WIN that book ... AND you can enter to win these two Grand Prizes!
Let's start with a special EARLY BIRD entry:  #1 GRAND PRIZE:
Kaki Warner's acclaimed trilogy: THE RUNAWAY BRIDES—three strong-willed women headed West in search of new lives. But when their train is stranded in a dying Colorado mining town, they get more than they bargained for…and find love where they least expect it.
 "Lightning paced, innovative, topical … and most of all, frightening."
-- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author
When I was growing up, I had no interest in history of any kind. Maybe I was just waiting for the right moment—or the right book—to strike me before I realized Historical Fiction was my favourite genre. Now I love to imagine myself faraway and long ago: castles and cloaks, heroes and ladies … hearing the clashing of swords and howling of dying men, hiding in darkened cottages that reek of pig, eating freshly killed meat, bathing once a month if I’m lucky …
Aye, as they say. There’s the rub.
The thing about historical fiction is that it’s based on fact, and the better the writing, the less appealing the time period can seem to be. I mean, back then folks didn’t change into a t-shirt when it was warm, didn’t programme their day around skyping relatives, didn’t check their daytimer to see if lunch would work that day. If they didn’t hunt they didn’t eat. If they didn’t defend their property they found themselves without a roof over their heads. If they didn’t have the stomach for killing, well, they’d fall first.
And yet ... it’s still romantic. Those were the days when men dueled to the death over a woman’s honour, when family was everything, when love was rare and precious, when people laboured over writing exactly the right handwritten note. And from that concept springs Historical Romance.
Technically, Historical Romance has what people call a HEA, or Happily Ever After. That, and it has to include romance. Fortunately for authors like me, those are the only rules, really. Lucky for me because my books don’t step carefully around distasteful subjects, avoiding ugly truths. I write about normal, everyday people who lived back then, the people who had never even felt the luxury of satin with their fingers, whose floors were dirt, who barely traveled farther than their traplines. Because now that I’ve learned so much about history and so many of its little details, I am loathe to hold back and miss out on so much of what made history real—and romantic.
I’m learning about the absence of any kind of rights for women. I’m learning that a child had to grow up awfully fast back then, and I’m learning about slavery—and not the kind of which you’re automatically thinking. Starting in the 17th century, did you know hundreds of thousands of white slaves were brought over to the colonies from Europe? I’m not referring to “indentured servants,” though that was no picnic either. I don’t know why that’s not more widely known fact, but I think it should be. So I include it.
Of course there’s also a point where you have to decide just how detailed you’re going to be. After all, it’s Fiction. Though actual 18th century Highlanders were more often five feet tall and clothed in hair, I’d rather fantasize that my hero is six feet tall, with clean locks flowing neatly by his muscled, hairless shoulders. Oh, and he bathes frequently. When prisoners were left for two days, alone and unfed because their captors doesn’t know what to do with them all (which did happen), how did they fare? Fortunately, my hero managed not only to survive, but to still have the strength to stand up for some of his weaker cellmates. And his heart is consumed with finding the woman he loves, not with the question of where he’s going to find his next meal. Yes, it’s fiction.
(don't worry - I used picture #1 in my mind)
So what is Historical Romance? I think it’s different things to different people. For many, it is the cleaner, “safer” stories told of lives lived in salons, featuring privileged dukes and duchesses and the like. To me it’s knowing history was unkind and only the strong survived. From those survivors, only a few could find love. But that love meant everything to them. It became their purpose, their destiny, and they are determined to beat the odds so they can have their HEA.
How do you look at Historical Romance? Do you prefer to get down and dirty with the common man and the realism of the times, or are you more comfortable with “court” romances?
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