Character Birthday Party Giveaway – Win A Copy of the Historical Fiction Novel, Thwarted Queen

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CECYLEE

Today we are starting the month with a birthday party for the main character in Thwarted Queen and hosting a book giveaway. Cecylee is the apple of her mother’s eye. The seventh daughter, she is the only one left unmarried by 1424, the year she turns nine on May 3, 1424.  Our guest is Cynthia Haggard, author of Thwarted Queen. We will be giving away a copy of Thwarted Queen on May 25.

Happy Birthday

To become eligible to win, all you have to do is ask a question or leave a comment. One lucky reader who comments with their email address is put in a pot to win the book.

• To recap:

•   ask a question or leave a comment
• leave your email address

• optional to subscribe for email updates

• A winner will be picked on May 25, and be notified by email

• The winner of the contest will be announced on this blog

• You will receive a copy of Thwarted Queen, 1 – 2 weeks after the winner is announced

Thwarted Queen Book Tour

About Thwarted Queen

Cecylee is the apple of her mother’s eye. The seventh daughter, she is the only one left unmarried by 1424, the year she turns nine. In her father’s eyes, however, she is merely a valuable pawn in the game of marriage. The Earl of Westmorland plans to marry his youngest daughter to 13-year-old Richard, Duke of York, who is close to the throne. He wants this splendid match to take place so badly, he locks his daughter up.

The event that fuels the narrative is Cecylee’s encounter with Blaybourne, a handsome archer, when she is twenty-six years old. This love affair produces a child (the “One Seed” of Book II), who becomes King Edward IV. But how does a public figure like Cecylee, whose position depends upon the goodwill of her husband, carry off such an affair? The duke could have locked her up, or disposed of this illegitimate son.

But Richard does neither, keeping her firmly by his side as he tries to make his voice heard in the tumultuous years that encompass the end of the Hundred Years War – during which England loses all of her possessions in France – and the opening phase of the Wars of the Roses. He inherits the political mantle of his mentor Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and become’s the people’s champion. The rambunctious Londoners are unhappy that their country has become mired in misrule due to the ineptitude of a King prone to fits of madness. Nor are they better pleased by the attempts of the King’s French wife to maneuver herself into power, especially as she was responsible for England’s losses in France. But can Richard and Cecylee prevail? Everywhere, their enemies lurk in the shadows.

This book is filled with many voices, not least those of the Londoners, who forged their political destiny by engaging in public debate with the powerful aristocrats of the time. By their courageous acts, these fifteenth-century Londoners set the stage for American Democracy.

Purchase your copy of Thwarted Queen.

Follow the tour at Pump Up Your Book.

Excerpt

Richard urged his palfrey into a gallop so that he could catch up with Gloucester, riding east to the city. What is he going to do now, thought Richard, following Gloucester along the Strand towards Saint Paul’s Cathedral. As soon as they got to the churchyard, Gloucester vaulted off his horse, threw his reins to a groom, and mounted the steps of Saint Paul’s Cross.
Richard followed.
The Londoners were enjoying themselves in the spring sunshine, it being that time of day after the main meal when people come out to pay visits, shop, and enjoy a fine afternoon stroll. In one corner of Saint Paul’s churchyard, a number of well-dressed citizens fingered the leather covers and the crisp pages of those new-fangled printed books. There were goldsmiths and silversmiths. There was a woman selling spring flowers. There was even a horse merchant, whose restless charges stamped their feet, tossed their heads, and added a pungent odor to the scene.
Just outside the door of the church stood a group of London merchants. The soft leather of their boots and gloves displayed their wealth, as did the exotic and colorful material of their robes, their jewel-encrusted collars, and the many rings on their fingers. They were outdone only by their wives, who wore as many necklaces, rings, and brooches as possible crammed onto their costumes. Richard bowed to one beldame passing by. She had so much cloth in her headdress, her husband must belong to the clothier’s guild.
As Gloucester arrived at Saint Paul’s Cross, the people immediately began to gather, separating Richard from his mentor. “Good Duke Humphrey!” they shouted. “‘Tis Good Duke Humphrey!”
Gloucester bowed. A tapster from a nearby alehouse ran up to hand him a mug of ale.
He looks years younger, thought Richard, glancing at his friend basking in the approval of the crowd. How ironic that it is the people of England who respect him, not his aristocratic peers.
The crowd gathered around Saint Paul’s Cross, buzzing with excited anticipation as the horses neighed.
“I wonder what he’s got to say,” said the bookseller.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said the flower seller. “Most of them fancy people never bother with the likes of us.”
“Duke Humphrey, he’s good,” said the horse merchant. “He talks to us. Tells us what’s going on.”
“He’s become a champion of good governance,” said a well-dressed gentleman.
Duke Humphrey held up a hand, and the crowd fell silent.
“My friends, I have come here today to tell you about a piece of treachery. Nay, I can scarce believe it myself, and if any of you had told me this, I would think I had had a bad hangover from the night before.”
Some youngsters in the crowd erupted into laughter. Their elders grew watchful and silent.
Richard accepted a tankard of beer and stood by Gloucester. He looked at the faces tilted up before him. They don’t seem overawed, he thought, sipping his beer. This country is not like France, where the common people grovel before the aristocrats. These people seem to know that their voices count for something.
Gloucester raised his hand again. “Would you believe it, but in return for Margaret of Anjou, the Earl of Suffolk negotiated a marriage settlement in which we give away Maine and Anjou to the French.”
The crowd recoiled. “No!” they shouted.
Richard grew uneasy.
“Yes, good people. Yes: I am sorry to tell you so, but there it is.”
“What does this mean for trade, sir?” asked a man, a fashionably dressed woman on his arm.
“You lose the revenues from the counties of Maine and Anjou,” replied Duke Humphrey. “You lose revenues from wine.”
“Is our wine trade going to dry up?” asked one merchant with a red nose.
“Not unless we lose Bordeaux. So far, we are just talking about Maine and Anjou.”
The crowd responded with a harsh bark of laughter.
“But I can tell you,” continued Gloucester, “that the loss of Maine and Anjou means the loss of goodly fruit.”
“No more pears!” exclaimed a young girl with golden hair hanging out from an upstairs window. “But that’s my favorite fruit.” Her high voice sailed over the noise of the crowd.
“No more Anjou pears, madam,” said Gloucester sweeping her a low bow.
“Jacinda, do not shout out of the window. It is not ladylike.” A woman with an elaborate horned headdress appeared and gently pulled the child away. “Please accept my apologies, my lord Duke,” she called down. “She is very free.”
“Do not worry, madam,” said Gloucester bowing again with a flourish. “You have a charming daughter.”
Applause and cheers greeted this remark.
“What about the landowners of Maine and Anjou, my lord?” asked a merchant dressed in fine crimson silk, rubies winking from the collar around his neck. “What about their lands and holdings?”
“A good question.” Gloucester held up his hand to still the whispers and murmurings of the crowd. “They will be obliged to give up their lands. They will be forced to come home with nothing and start afresh.”
The crowd erupted into boos and murmurs, which grew louder. Richard looked at his friend.
“I see you look puzzled, good people,” remarked Gloucester, as the restless crowd grew silent. “Let me spell out the terms of the Treaty of Tours by which our king gained a wife. By this treaty, we give up Maine and Anjou. In return, we get exactly—nothing. That’s right. Nothing. The queen did not even bring a dowry with her. Can you believe it? Can you believe that Suffolk would be so stupid, so asinine, so treacherous, as to throw away something that we gained in a fair fight for nothing in return?”
“No!”
Their roar threw Richard backward. He moved closer to Gloucester. “They’re getting upset,” he hissed.
Gloucester ignored him. “And all for a queen worth not ten marks,” he remarked, holding up his tankard of ale. “I feel personally betrayed.”
“We are betrayed!” roared the crowd. “A queen worth not ten marks!” They turned and hurried down Ludgate Hill in the direction of Westminster, shouting as they went.
“What are they going to do?” asked Richard.
Gloucester chuckled. “They are going to Westminster Palace, to shout insults at the queen.”

Author Cynthia Haggard

About Cynthia Haggard

Born and raised in Surrey, England, CYNTHIA SALLY HAGGARD has lived in the United States for twenty-nine years. She has had four careers: violinist, cognitive scientist, medical writer and novelist. Yes, she is related to H. Rider Haggard, the author of SHE and KING SOLOMONS’S MINES. (H. Rider Haggard was a younger brother of the author’s great-grandfather.) Cynthia Sally Haggard is a member of the Historical Novel Society. You can visit her website at: http://www. spunstories.com/

Fission the Novel – author interview – Tom Weston

Fission Book Tour

Paperback Writer welcomes Tom Weston, author of the historical fiction novel Fission as he virtually tours the blogosphere in December 2011 on his fourth tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Fission

Lise Meitner:
a physicist who never lost her humanity
First they tried to deny her.
Then they tried to destroy her.
But she survived to discover nuclear fission and spark the race for the atomic bomb.
The clue is to be found in her headstone. No, it isn’t the physics. For, as much as I like science, the scribbling of mathematical equations on blackboards and the clicking of Geiger-counters does not make for riveting story-telling. What drew me to the Lise Meitner story is the humanity.
Imagine a story of hate and greed, intrigue and danger, war and destruction, the slaughter of the innocents on a biblical scale and the collapse of empire. And imagine at the centre of it all one little woman, brilliant but shy, victimized but resolute, betrayed but ultimately vindicated. What a story that would make! Well, you don’t have to imagine it, because that is the Lise Meitner story. And I didn’t have to invent any of it . . .
. . . it’s all true.

Interview

Q: Do you work from an outline?

I have a three stage process which I call building the beast; and the first stage is to build the skeleton – This is the outline, and is generally about 20% of the finished novel in terms of word count, but more importantly, 100% of the ideas. When I have the skeleton, I can stand it up, take it for a walk and make it dance. I can see if the beast is complete. I can also see if the beast if flawed. Yes, next I have to put flesh on the beast (the actual writing) and to give it strength and intelligence (the editing), but without a sound underlying skeleton, it’s still not going to walk on its own legs.
Some would argue that such a mechanical approach to writing stifles artistry. I contend that having such a detailed outline actually gives me more freedom during the writing phase to express myself. I have my skeleton. I can now work on the flesh, and heart and lungs. I can now spend my time honing a witty piece of dialogue or a cutting-edge simile. Artists such as Titian and Rembrandt always began by sketching an outline in charcoal on the canvas over which they would begin to paint, usually after several preparatory sketches. I don’t know of any artist that looked at a blank canvas and said, “Hmm, let’s improvise today” – not even the Impressionists. Rembrandt is praised for his use of light and economy of brushstroke – these things determine our opinion of him as a great artist – but it was still having that detailed outline to work from that freed his hand.

 

Q: Biggest Pet Peeve about the writing life.

Proof reading my own work is definitely my least favorite task. I’d like to make this distinction between proof reading and editing, because the editing process is a distinctly creative and rewarding part of the process. But proof reading has me pulling out my hair. In my previous life as a systems consultant, when we were acceptance testing new systems, it was commonly understood that for every bug we found there were 6 more waiting to be discovered. That’s how it is with proofing – just when I think I’ve got them all, I open the book to a random page and discover another error.

 

Q: What’s next for you?

I’m currently wrapped up in the third book of the Alex and Jackie Adventures. It’s called ‘Feathered: being a fairy tale’. This one finds the sisters in Ireland in a story involving Fairies, Vikings and the Book of Kells. I had a great time this summer in Ireland doing the research for the book. As a story teller, there is no better place to be than in a nation of story tellers.

Beyond that, I’m just starting to get the ball rolling on our next animation project. One of the great things about life is the constant surprise. During an earlier book tour, in support of FIRST NIGHT, I wrote a short story called THERE BE MONSTERS! which was then turned into an animated short. I didn’t expect much from it, but it led to a year of Film Festivals and speaking invitations, and proved another way for me to share my stories. So, the sequel to that is on the schedule for 2012. As I said, constant surprise.

 

Q: Who is your favorite author, and why?

I’m never very far away from a P.G. Wodehouse novel; he is the Master. But because his forte was light comedy, people tend to not take him seriously as a writer. Yet as any comedian will tell you, there is an awful amount of hard work that goes into making it look easy. Wodehouse had such a command of language and technique that the effect is transparent to the reader, but he is word perfect.

 

Q: What are a few of your favorite genres and why?

Today, I will instantly pick up anything by Terry Pratchett or Christopher Moore; they are both such a joy to read. Add to that my favorite book, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and people may think, given those names and my own work, that Fantasy is my favorite genre. But it’s not enough just to have magic or supernatural creatures. For me, the best Fantasy is that which is rooted in our own mythology and history; a genre which goes all the way back to Homer and Malory. My reading list alternates between fiction and non-fiction, and between the classics and the contemporary. Great writers can’t be put in a box.

 

Q: Do you have a writer’s studio? Describe it for us and what is the view you see from the window?

I have an office/studio. It’s comfortable, with books, couch, computer, and a window. I live at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, so it is mostly trees and sky. There are few people, but sometimes deer or turkeys. It’s very relaxing. The window is important. I tried writing in a sealed environment – it just doesn’t work; I can’t get the creative juices flowing in an isolated environment, I’m too busy wondering what is happening in the outside world.
Most of my work is done on the PC in the office; I don’t see the point in handwriting only to end up typing it anyway, but I do carry a small notebook around with me, in case I suddenly get an idea or bit of dialogue and the PC is nowhere near.

 

About Tom Weston

Tom Weston’s work includes the fantasy based Alex and Jackie books, First Night and The Elf of Luxembourg. His latest project is Fission, a novel based on the true life story of scientist, Lise Meitner. Prior to its publication in 2011, Fission was serialized online for Tom’s fans. To find out more about Tom and his work, or to read more about Fission, please visit http://tom-weston.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/tom.weston.readers. A portion of all sales of Fission, no matter where purchased, go to the ‘Because I am a GiRL’ campaign by Plan, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children since 1937. Visit PlanUSA at http://www.planusa.org/content1619891 or get involved with your own national/regional Plan office.

The Queen’s Gamble – author interview- Barbara Kyle

Quenn's Gamble Book Tour

Join Barbara Kyle, author of the historical novel, The Queen’s Gamble (Kensington Books, August 30, 2011) as she virtually tours the blogosphere in September on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Barbara Kyle

Barbara Kyle is the author of the Tudor-era “Thornleigh” series of novels, which have been published internationally: The Queen’s Captive, The Queen’s Lady, and The King’s Daughter, praised by Publishers Weekly as “a complex and fast-paced plot, mixing history with vibrant characters.” Her new novel, The Queen’s Gamble, will be released on 30 August 2011.

Barbara previously won acclaim for her contemporary novels under pen name ‘Stephen Kyle’, including Beyond Recall (a Literary Guild Selection), After Shock and The Experiment. Over 400,000 copies of her books have been sold.

Barbara has taught courses for writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and is known for her dynamic workshops for many writers organizations. Her popular series of video workshops “Writing Fiction That Sells” is available through her website. Before becoming an author, Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the U.S.

Visit www.BarbaraKyle.com.

About The Queen’s Gamble

Young Queen Elizabeth I’s path to the throne has been a perilous one, and already she faces a dangerous crisis. French troops have landed in Scotland to quell a rebel Protestant army, and Elizabeth fears that once they are entrenched on the border, they will invade England.

Isabel Thornleigh has returned to London from the New World with her Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, and their young son. Ever the queen’s loyal servant, Isabel is recruited to smuggle money to the Scottish rebels. Yet Elizabeth’s trust only goes so far—Isabel’s son will be the queen’s pampered hostage until she completes her mission. Matters grow worse when Isabel’s husband is engaged as military advisor to the French, putting the couple on opposite sides in a deadly cold war.

Set against a lush, vibrant backdrop peopled with unforgettable characters and historical figures, The Queen’s Gamble is a story of courage, greed, passion, and the high price of loyalty…

 

Author Barbara Kyle

 

Interview

 

Q:  Give us an example of a typical writing day.

 

Early morning, around 7:00, is for answering emails. It’s a joy to hear how my books have touched readers, and hear what they’re up to. I happily reply to each note. This is also the time when I post updates on my Facebook Author Page and post on Twitter. I love Twitter, love checking out the fascinating links that other authors and book-business people post, so I have to cut myself off at 9:00 a.m.

 

The rest of the morning I spend on “fixing” – re-writing — whatever scene I wrote the day before. I enjoy this process and could fix all day, so again I have to cut myself off at noon.

 

The afternoon is the challenging part of the day: it’s for creating the next “bit”. I need that morning of re-writing to build up momentum for the afternoon creating. I strive to write 4 to 5 new pages a day, but I rarely accomplish that. Usually it’s 3 to 3 1/2.

 

Q:  Do you write on a computer or with pen/pencil and paper?

 

Computer, always. I couldn’t read my own handwriting! But I do constantly jot down notes about anything and everything, big and small: from a change of word in a dialogue exchange I’ve written, to a change of the turning point in a whole scene. I keep these hand-written notes in a folder on my desk and continually re-read them, discarding each one as I’ve incorporated the note into the draft.

 

Q:  Do you work from an outline?

Always. I can’t imagine working any other way – it would be like building a house without a blueprint. In fact, the most helpful tip I can offer any emerging writer is: take the time to write an outline. Take a long time. The outline is where the heavy lifting of creation takes place: the invention of your characters and plot. I spend four or five months writing my outlines, while concurrently doing research. (John Grisham says he works for up to six months on his.) I call the outline a Storyline, because as writers we must never forget that we’re telling a story. In the workshops for writers that I give, I love to teach the principles of outlining. I did a video on this subject in my series of online workshops called “Writing Fiction That Sells.” Anyone interested can watch a clip on my website: www.barbarakyle.com.

 

Q:  What’s next for you?

 

I’m working on Book #5 in my Tudor-era “Thornleigh” series. (The Queen’s Gamble is Book #4.) I have a contract with my wonderful publisher, Kensington Books, for three more in this series, so I’m deep into the next one. It features Mary Queen of Scots, at the moment she escapes captivity in Scotland and takes sanctuary in England, naively expecting Queen Elizabeth, who was her cousin, to help her. Little did she know what a crisis her presence would cause Elizabeth.

 

 

Q:  What are a few of your favorite genres and why?

 

I enjoy many genres, from Joanna Trollope’s wonderful domestic dramas to big adventure sagas (last month I re-read James Clavell’s “Shogun”) to historical fiction like David Mitchell’s brilliant “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.”

 

I also enjoy biographies; recently I read a door-stopper bio of Charles Dickens. And I read a lot of non-fiction. I just finished Adam Hochschild’s “To End All Wars,” a stunning and heartbreaking book about the insanity of World War I and the brave Brits who refused to fight and went to jail for it. Hochschild is such a fine writer I’ve just started his “Bury the Chains” about the anti-slavery movement in the 18^th century.

 

 

 

Q:  Time Frame: From start to finish

 

I’m under contract to produce a book a year, so I have to carefully manage my writing time. When I start a new book I work for 4 or 5 months on the outline, while concurrently doing research. As Hemingway famously said, “The first draft of anything is sh*t” so I try to write my first draft as quickly as possible, to just get it done. That takes about 4 more months. Then, the really pleasurable work begins: the second draft. (As I said, I love to fix.)  I spend a month or so on that. Then, the last few weeks before my deadline is for an intense, quick polish. Then I send the manuscript to my superb editor, Audrey LaFehr. After she gives me her notes, I do another draft that incorporates her suggestions – another month or so. The book then goes into production, which takes about 9 months. Then, voila, it’s in the stores – and by that time I’m deep into writing the next book!

 

 

The Paris Wife – Author Interview, Excerpt – Paula McLain

The Paris Wife Virtual Book Tour

Paperback Writer welcomes Paula McLain, author of the historical novel, The Paris Wife. Find out about her typical writing day and what her morning smells like?

About the Author

Paula McLain received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and has been a resident of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She is the author of two collections of poetry, as well as a memoir, Like Family, and a first novel, A Ticket to Ride. She lives in Cleveland with her family. You can visit Paula McLain’s website to learn more about The Paris Wife at www.pariswife.com.

Visit Pauls’ tour page at Pump Up Your Book

Purchase the book at Amazon;

About The Paris Wife

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time—Paris in the twenties—and an extraordinary love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

In Chicago in 1920, Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and finds herself captivated by his good looks, intensity, and passionate desire to write. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group of expatriates that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

But the hard-drinking and fast-living café life does not celebrate traditional notions of family and monogamy. As Hadley struggles with jealousy and self-doubt and Ernest wrestles with his burgeoning writing career, they must confront a deception that could prove the undoing of one of the great romances in literary history.

Welcome to Paperback Writer, Paula and thanks for stopping by on your virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book.

It’s my pleasure to be here.

Q:  Give us an example of a typical writing day.

After my younger kids (4 and 6) are off to school and preschool, and the house smells like waffles and syrup, I usually dig right in by rereading what I’ve done the day before. If I’m not loving that I’ll try to move on anyway, and keep things moving forward. That can be hard, when the first impulse is to delete, delete, delete! I usually work until 2, and then run errands or buzz quickly to the gym before I have to meet my daughter’s bus at 3:30.

Q:  Do you write on a computer or with pen/pencil and paper?

 

I write on a sleek little Mac laptop. I have writer friends who do whole drafts longhand, and I find that beautiful and admirable, but I know it wouldn’t work with my process. I seem to need to do an awful lot of futzing around with sentences, and I just don’t think I have the patience to do that longhand.

Q:  Biggest Pet Peeve about the writing life.

It can be frustrating to work your heart out writing a book, and love it, and want it to have a great life, and then have it land in the world without even the slightest noise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m endlessly grateful to have the career I’ve had, but I’ve gotten many, many royalty statements with numbers in the negative column, and that’s tough.

Q:  Worst rejection you’ve ever received?

When I was between agents and searching like crazy for representation for my first novel, I had an agent (very well known, though I won’t name names) leave me a voicemail rejection saying that she found my characters deeply disturbing, and that they left a bad taste in her mouth. My characters. I wanted to run out into the street!

Q:  Do you have a writer’s studio? Describe it for us and what is the view you see from the window?

My desk is in my living room, surrounded by windows and overlooking a playground where children shriek on the swing set. Was it Joyce Carol Oates who said she liked her desk to face a wall so that her imagination might be more fully engaged? I need windows!

Q:  Time Frame: From start to finish

The first draft came like gangbusters, in seven months or thereabouts. It needed two more drafts, which were a little wilier and more resistant. About two years all told.

Read the Excerpt!

The very first thing he does is fix me with those wonderfully brown eyes and say, “It’s possible I’m too drunk to judge, but you might have something there.”
It’s October 1920 and jazz is everywhere. I don’t know any jazz, so I’m playing Rachmaninoff. I can feel a flush beginning in my cheeks from the hard cider my dear pal Kate Smith has stuffed down me so I’ll relax. I’m getting there, second by second. It starts in my fingers, warm and loose, and moves along my nerves, rounding through me. I haven’t been drunk in over a year–not since my mother fell seriously ill–and I’ve missed the way it comes with its own perfect glove of fog, settling snugly and beautifully over my brain. I don’t want to think and I don’t want to feel, either, unless it’s as simple as this beautiful boy’s knee inches from mine.
The knee is nearly enough on its own, but there’s a whole package of a man attached, tall and lean, with a lot of very dark hair and a dimple in his left cheek you could fall into. His friends call him Hemingstein, Oinbones, Bird, Nesto, Wemedge, anything they can dream up on the spot. He calls Kate Stut or Butstein (not very flattering!), and another fellow Little Fever, and yet another Horney or the Great Horned Article. He seems to know everyone, and everyone seems to know the same jokes and stories. They telegraph punch lines back and forth in code, lightning fast and wisecracking. I can’t keep up, but I don’t mind really. Being near these happy strangers is like a powerful transfusion of good cheer.
When Kate wanders over from the vicinity of the kitchen, he points his perfect chin at me and says, “What should we name our new friend?”
“Hash,” Kate says.
“Hashedad’s better,” he says. “Hasovitch.”
“And you’re Bird?” I ask.
“Wem,” Kate says.
“I’m the fellow who thinks someone should be dancing.” He smiles with everything he’s got, and in very short order, Kate’s brother Kenley has kicked the living room carpet to one side and is manning the Victrola. We throw ourselves into it, dancing our way through a stack of records. He’s not a natural, but his arms and legs are free in their joints, and I can tell that he likes being in his body. He’s not the least shy about moving in on me either. In no time at all our hands are damp and clenched, our cheeks close enough that I can feel the very real heat of him. And that’s when he finally tells me his name is Ernest.
“I’m thinking of giving it away, though. Ernest is so dull, and Hemingway? Who wants a Hemingway?”
Probably every girl between here and Michigan Avenue, I think, looking at my feet to keep from blushing. When I look up again, he has his brown eyes locked on me.
“Well? What do you think? Should I toss it out?”
“Maybe not just yet.”
A slow number starts, and without asking, he reaches for my waist and scoops me toward his body, which is even better up close. His chest is solid and so are his arms. I rest my hands on them lightly as he backs me around the room, past Kenley cranking the Victrola with glee, past Kate giving us a long, curious look. I close my eyes and lean into Ernest, smelling bourbon and soap, tobacco and damp cotton–and everything about this moment is so sharp and lovely, I do something completely out of character and just let myself have it.

Thanks for visiting!

The Sandalwood Tree Virtual Book Tour starring author Elle Newmark

Join Elle Newmark, author of the historical fiction novel, The Sandalwood Tree (Atria), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in March, April and May on her second virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

 

Author Elle Newmark

About Elle Newmark

Elle Newmark is an author whose books are inspired by her ravels. Her work has been published into 16 languages and she lives in the hills north of San Diego with her husband, a retired physician. She has two grown children and five grandchildren.

To find out more about Elle or learn about her books visit http://ellenewmark.com

Visit her tour page at Pump Up Your Book!

Purchase her book at Amazon;

The Sandalwood Tree Virtual Book Tour

About The Sandalwood Tree

From incredible storyteller and nationally bestselling author Elle Newmark comes a rich, sweeping novel that brings to life two love stories, ninety years apart, set against the backdrop of war-torn India.

In 1947, an American anthropologist named Martin Mitchell wins a Fulbright Fellowship to study in India. He travels there with his wife, Evie, and his son, determined to start a new chapter in their lives. Upon the family’s arrival, though, they are forced to stay in a small village due to violence surrounding Britain’s imminent departure from India. It is there, hidden behind a brick wall in their colonial bungalow, that Evie discovers a packet of old letters that tell a strange and compelling story of love and war involving two young Englishwomen who lived in the very same house in 1857.

Drawn to their story, Evie embarks on a mission to uncover what the letters didn’t explain. Her search leads her through the bazaars and temples of India as well as the dying society of the British Raj. Along the way, a dark secret is exposed, and this new and disturbing knowledge creates a wedge between Evie and her husband. Bursting with lavish detail and vivid imagery of Bombay and beyond, The Sandalwood Tree is a powerful story about betrayal, forgiveness, fate, and love.

Book Excerpt

When I found the hidden letters, I had just finished an assault on the kitchen window. I squeezed out the sponge and stood back, squinting with a critical eye. A yellow sari converted to curtains framed the blue sky and distant Himalayan peaks, which were now clearly visible through the spotless window, but the late-afternoon sun spotlighted a dirty brick wall behind the old English cooker. The red brick had been blackened by a century of oily cooking smoke and, just like that, I decided to roll up my sleeves and give it a good scrub. Rashmi, our ayah, deigned to wipe off a table or sweep the floor with a bunch of acacia branches, but I would never ask her to tackle a soot-encrusted wall. A job like that fell well beneath her caste, and she would have quit on the spot.
The university chose that bungalow for us because it had an attached kitchen instead of the usual cookhouse out back. I liked the place as soon as I walked into the little compound full of tangled grass and pipal trees with creepers twisting around their trunks. A low mud-brick wall, overgrown with Himalayan mimosa, circled our compound with its hundred-year-old bungalow and vine-clad verandah, and an old sandalwood tree, with long oval leaves and pregnant red pods, presided over the front of the house. Everything had a weathered, well-used look, and I wondered how many lives had been lived there.

Off to one side of the house, a path bordered by scrappy box-wood led to the godowns for the servants, a dilapidated row of huts, far more of them than we would ever need for our small staff. At the far end of the godowns a derelict stable nestled in a grove of deodars, and Martin talked about using it to park our car during the monsoon. Martin had bought a battered and faded red Packard convertible, which had been new and snazzy in 1935 but had seen twelve monsoons and too many seasons of neglect. Still, the jalopy ran, I had a bicycle, Billy had his Red Flyer wagon, and that’s all we needed.

The remains of the old cookhouse still stood around back, listing under a neem tree, a bare little shack with a dirt floor, one sagging shelf, and a square of mud bricks with a hole in the center for wood or coal. Indians didn’t cook inside colonial houses—a fire precaution and some complicated rules having to do with religion or caste—and it must have been some very unconventional colonials who decided to attach a kitchen to the main house and install
a cooker, bless their hearts.

I hired our servants myself, choosing from a virtual army that lined up for interview. They presented their chits—references— and since most of them couldn’t read English they didn’t realize that the bogus chits they had bought in the bazaar might be signed by Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, or Punch and Judy. The only chit I could be absolutely sure was authentic said, “This is the laziest cook in all India. He strains the milk through his dhoti and
he will rob you blind.”

In the end we had a scandalously small staff—a cook, an ayah, and a dhobi who picked up our laundry once a week in silent anonymity. At first, we’d also had a gardener, a sweeper, and a bearer—a more typical arrangement—but that many servants made me feel superfluous.
I particularly disliked having a bearer, a sort of majordomo who trailed around after me, doing my bidding or passing my orders on to the other servants. I felt helpless as a caricature of a nineteenth-century memsahib, swooning on a daybed. Our bearer had been trained in British households and would wake Martin and me in the morning with a tradition called “bed tea.” The first time I opened my eyes to see a dark, turbaned man standing over me with a tray it scared me out of my wits. He also served our meals and stood behind us while we ate; it felt like sitting in a
restaurant with an eavesdropping waiter, and I was painfully conscious of our conversation and my table manners. I found myself delicately dabbing the corners of my mouth and keeping my spine straight. I could see that Martin felt it, too, and meals became an uncomfortable chore.
I didn’t want “bed tea,” I didn’t want a bearer—always there, always hovering—and I enjoyed feeling useful. So I kept our little house clean and watered the plants on the verandah myself. I liked the natural jungly look around the bungalow, and the notion of having a gardener struck me as absurd. Martin told me the expatriate community was appalled by our lack of servants. I said, “So?”
I kept the cook, Habib, because I didn’t recognize half the things in the market stalls, and since I didn’t speak Hindi, the price of everything would have tripled. I kept Rashmi, our ayah, because I liked her and she spoke English.

When I first met Rashmi, she greeted me with a formal bow, her hands in an attitude of prayer. She said, “Namaste,” and then began giggling and clapping, making her chubby arms jiggle and
her gold bangles jangle. She asked, “From what country are you coming?
I said, “America,” wondering if it was a trick question.
“Oooh, Amerrrica! Verryy nice!” The ruby in her right nostril twinkled.
Rashmi deeply disapproved of a household with so few servants. Whenever she saw me beating a rug or cleaning the bathroom she would hold her cheeks and shake her head, her eyes round and alarmed. “Arey Ram! What madam is doooiiing?” I tried to explain that I liked to keep busy, but Rashmi would stomp around the house mumbling and shaking her head. Once I heard her say, “Amerrrican,” as if it were a diagnosis. She started sweeping up with neatly tied acacia branches and taking out the garbage. I had no idea where she took it, but it seemed to make her happy to do it.

Whenever I thanked Rashmi for something, she would waggle her head pleasantly and say, “My duty it is, madam.” I wished Martin and I could accept our lot so easily.
My beautiful Martin had come home from the war with a shrouded, chaotic underside, wanting everything as neat as an army cot. It was about control, I know that, but he drove me nuts, picking at imaginary lint on my clothing and lining up our shoes side by side on the closet floor, like a row of soldiers snapped to attention. At first I complied and kept everything shipshape, simply because we didn’t need yet another thing to argue about. But I soon discovered that ordering furniture and annihilating dust gave me a fragile sense of control—Martin was on to something there—and I enjoyed imposing my antiseptic standards on India, keeping my little corner of the universe as predictable as gravity. When this altered Martin came home from Germany, straightening books on the shelf and buffing his shoes until they screamed, he often complained of a metallic taste in his mouth, rushing off to brush his teeth five times a day. I didn’t know what he tasted, but I did know he had nightmares. He twitched in his sleep, muttering disjointed bits about “skeletons” and calling out names of people I didn’t know. Some nights he’d shout in his sleep, and I’d spring up, shocked and scared. I’d dry the sweat from his face with the sheet and kiss the palms of his hands while his breathing calmed and my heart slowed. His skin would be clammy and he’d be trembling, and I’d rock him and croon in his ear, “It’s all right. I’m here.”
After a while, when it seemed safe, I’d say, “Sweetheart, talk to me. Please.”
Sometimes he’d talk a little, but only about the language or the landscape or the guys in his platoon. He said it bothered him that German sounded so much like the Yiddish of his grandparents; then he shook his head as if he was trying to understand something.
He told me that Germany was littered with castles and fairy-tale villages, all blasted to hell. He said the soldiers in his platoon were an unlikely bunch thrown together by war, men who would not otherwise have met. Martin, a budding historian, bunked with a fast-talking mechanic from Detroit named Casino. Also in his barracks were an American Indian named William Who Respects Nothing, and a Samoan named Naikelekele, whom the men called
Ukulele. Martin said they were OK guys, but a CPA from Queens named Polanski—Ski to the guys—had the wide slab face and flat blue eyes behind too many of the pogroms mounted against the Jews, and Martin had to keep reminding himself that they were on the same side.
But Ski cheated at cards and had a nascent anti-Semitic streak. Martin said, “Of all the decent guys in that platoon I had to haul Ski back to a field hospital while better men lay dead around us.”

His ambivalence about saving Ski haunted him, but it wasn’t the thing eating at him like acid.
One night, in bed, after having had an extra glass of wine with dinner, Martin knit his fingers behind his head and told me about a mess sergeant from the hills of Appalachia, Pete McCoy, who made a crude liquor with pilfered sugar and yeast and canned peaches. Pete had served an informal apprenticeship at his father’s still, deep in the woods of West Virginia, and in a rare, lighthearted moment, Martin did a skillful imitation. He drawled, “Ah know it ain’t legal.
But mah daddy’s gonna quit soon as he gits a chance.”
I said, “The nightmares aren’t about Pete McCoy’s moonshine.”
“Hey, you didn’t taste that stuff. Burned like a son-of-a-bitch going down.” His voice became abstract. “But sometimes the moonshine was necessary, like when Tommie . . . Well, anyway, McCoy was like the medic who brought the morphine.”
I said, “Who was Tommie?”
Martin looked away. “Ah, you don’t want to hear that stuff.”
“But I do. Talk to me. Please.”
He hesitated, then, “Nah. Go to sleep.” He patted my hand and rolled away.
World War II veterans were icons of heroism, brave liberators, and most of them were glad to leave the ugliness buried under the war rubble and get back to a normal life, or try to. But Martin had come home with invisible wounds, and our normal life was as ruined as the German landscape. I wanted to understand. I’d been begging him to talk for two solid years, but he wouldn’t budge. He wouldn’t let me help him, and I felt worn to a stump from trying.
That business of rolling away from me in bed hurt, but by
the time we got to India, I was doing it, too. I was becoming as frustrated as he was tormented, and we took our pain out on each other. We hid in our respective corners until something brought us out with fists raised.

I couldn’t fix our insides, so I fixed our outside. I prowled around the bungalow searching for dust mites to exterminate, mold to slaughter, and smudges to wipe out. I vanquished dirt and disorder wherever I found it and it helped, a little. The morning I found the letters, I’d filled a pail with hot soapy water and pounced on the sooty bricks behind the old cooker with demented determination. I described foamy circles on the wall with my brush and . . . what? One brick moved. That was odd. Nothing in that house ever rattled or came loose; the British colonials who built the place had expected to rule India forever.

I put the brush down and forced my fingernails into the crumbling mortar around the loose brick, then wiggled it back and forth until it came out far enough for me to get a grip on it. I teased the brick out of the wall and felt a thrill of discovery when I saw, hidden in the wall, a packet of folded papers tied with a faded and bedraggled blue ribbon. That packet reeked of long-lost secrets, and I felt a smile lift one corner of my mouth. I set the blackened brick on the floor and reached in to lift my plunder out of the wall. But on second thought, I went to the sink first to wash the soot from my hands.

With clean, dry hands, I eased the packet out of its hiding place, blew the dust from its crevices, then laid it on the kitchen table and pulled the ribbon loose. When I opened the first sheet, the folds seemed almost to creak with age. Gently now, I smoothed the fragile paper out on the table and it crackled faintly. It was ancient and brittle, the edges wavy and water-stained. It was a letter written on thin, grainy parchment, and feminine handwriting rose and swooped across the page with sharp peaks and curling flourishes. The writing was in English, and the way it had been concealed in the wall hinted at Victorian intrigue.

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Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Read the Excerpt

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Join Diana Gabaldon, author of the historical science-fiction adventure romance novel, Outlander, as she virtually tours the blogosphere February 14th – March 11th on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book.  Diana Gabaldon is the author of the award-winning, #1 NYT-bestselling OUTLANDER novels, described by Salon magazine as “the smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting “Scrooge McDuck” comics.

You can visit Diana online at www.DianaGabaldon.com

Purchase Outlander at Amazon.com

About Outlander

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another…

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon–when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire’s destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life …and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire…and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Read the Excerpt!

Jamie made a fire in a sheltered spot, and sat down next to it. The rain had eased to a faint drizzle that misted the air and spangled my eyelashes with rainbows when I looked at the flames.
He sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally he looked up at me, hands clasped around his knees.
“I said before that I’d not ask ye things ye had no wish to tell me. And I’d not ask ye now; but I must know, for your safety as well as mine.” He paused, hesitating.

“Claire, if you’ve never been honest wi’ me, be so now, for I must know the truth. Claire, are ye a witch?”

I gaped at him. “A witch? You—you can really ask that?” I thought he must be joking. He wasn’t.

He took me by the shoulders and gripped me hard, staring into my eyes as though willing me to answer him.

“I must ask it, Claire! And you must tell me!”

“And if I were?” I asked through dry lips. “If you had thought I were a witch? Would you still have fought for me?”

“I would have gone to the stake with you!” he said violently. “And to hell beyond, if I must. But may the Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul and on yours, tell me the truth!”

The strain of it all caught up with me. I tore myself out of his grasp and ran across the clearing. Not far, only to the edge of the trees; I could not bear the exposure of the open space. I clutched a tree; put my arms around it and dug my fingers hard into the bark, pressed my face to it and shrieked with hysterical laughter.

Jamie’s face, white and shocked, loomed up on the other side of the tree. With the dim realization that what I was doing must sound unnervingly like cackling, I made a terrific effort and stopped. Panting, I stared at him for a moment.

“Yes,” I said, backing away, still heaving with gasps of unhinged laughter. “Yes, I am a witch! To you, I must be. I’ve never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can’t touch me. I can’t catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it’s an enchantment, because you’ve never heard of vaccine, and there’s no other way you can explain it.”

“The things I know—” I stopped backing away and stood still, breathing heavily, trying to control myself. “I know about Jonathan Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he’ll die, I know about what he’s done and what he’ll do, I know about Sandringham because … because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he … he … oh, God!” I felt as though I might be sick, and closed my eyes to shut out the spinning stars overhead.

“And Colum … he thinks I’m a witch, because I know Hamish isn’t his own son. I know … he can’t sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish’s father is … I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn’t be, and…” I was talking faster and faster, trying to keep the vertigo at bay with the sound of my own voice.

“Everything I’ve ever told you about myself was true,” I said, nodding madly as though to reassure myself. “Everything. I haven’t any people, I haven’t any history, because I haven’t happened yet.

“Do you know when I was born?” I asked, looking up. I knew my hair was wild and my eyes staring, and I didn’t care. “On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me?” I demanded, for he was blinking at me unmoving, as though paying no attention to a word I said. “I said nineteen eighteen! Nearly two hundred years from now! Do you hear?”

I was shouting now, and he nodded slowly.

“I hear,” he said softly.

“Yes, you hear!” I blazed. “And you think I’m raving mad. Don’t you? Admit it! That’s what you think. You have to think so, there isn’t any other way you can explain me to yourself. You can’t believe me, you can’t dare to. Oh, Jamie…” I felt my face start to crumple. All this time spent hiding the truth, realizing that I could never tell anyone, and now I realized that I could tell Jamie, my beloved husband, the man I trusted beyond all others, and he wouldn’t—he couldn’t believe me either.

“It was the rocks—the fairy hill. The standing stones. Merlin’s stones. That’s where I came through.” I was gasping, half-sobbing, becoming less coherent by the second. “Once upon a time, but it’s really two hundred years. It’s always two hundred years, in the stories. … But in the stories, the people always get back. I couldn’t get back.” I turned away, staggering, grasping for support. I sank down on a rock, shoulders slumped, and put my head in my hands. There was a long silence in the wood. It went on long enough for the small night birds to recover their courage and start their noises once again, calling to each other with a thin, high zeek! as they hawked for the last insects of the summer.

I looked up at last, thinking that perhaps he had simply risen and left me, overcome by my revelations. He was still there, though, still sitting, hands braced on his knees, head bowed as though in thought.

The hairs on his arms shone stiff as copper wires in the firelight, though, and I realized that they stood erect, like the bristles on a dog. He was afraid of me.

“Jamie,” I said, feeling my heart break with absolute loneliness. “Oh, Jamie.”

I sat down and curled myself into a ball, trying to roll myself around the core of my pain. Nothing mattered any longer, and I sobbed my heart out.

His hands on my shoulders raised me, enough to see his face. Through the haze of tears, I saw the look he wore in battle, of struggle that had passed the point of strain and become calm certainty.

“I believe you,” he said firmly. “I dinna understand it a bit—not yet—but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There’s the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it.” He gave me a gentle shake.

“It doesna matter what it is. You’ve told me. That’s enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You’ll tell me the rest of it later. And I’ll believe you.”

I was still sobbing, unable to grasp what he was telling me. I struggled, trying to pull away, but he gathered me up and held me tightly against himself, pushing my head into the folds of his plaid, and repeating over and over again, “I believe you.”

At last, from sheer exhaustion, I grew calm enough to look up and say, “But you can’t believe me.”

He smiled down at me. His mouth trembled slightly, but he smiled.

“Ye’ll no tell me what I canna do, Sassenach.” He paused a moment. … A long time later, he spoke.

“All right. Tell me now.”

I told him. Told him everything, haltingly but coherently. I felt numb from exhaustion, but content, like a rabbit that has outrun a fox, and found temporary shelter under a log. It isn’t sanctuary, but at least it is respite. And I told him about Frank.

“Frank,” he said softly. “Then he isna dead, after all.”

“He isn’t born.” I felt another small wave of hysteria break against my ribs, but managed to keep myself under control. “Neither am I.”

He stroked and patted me back into silence, making his small murmuring Gaelic sounds.

“When I took ye from Randall at Fort William,” he said suddenly, “you were trying to get back. Back to the stones. And … Frank. That’s why ye left the grove.”

“Yes.”

“And I beat you for it.” His voice was soft with regret.

“You couldn’t know. I couldn’t tell you.” I was beginning to feel very drowsy indeed.

“No, I dinna suppose ye could.” He pulled the plaid closer around me, tucking it gently around my shoulders. “Do ye sleep now, mo duinne. No one shall harm ye; I’m here.”

I burrowed into the warm curve of his shoulder, letting my tired mind fall through the layers of oblivion. I forced myself to the surface long enough to ask, “Do you really believe me, Jamie?”

He sighed, and smiled ruefully down at me.

“Aye, I believe ye, Sassenach. But it would ha’ been a good deal easier if you’d only been a witch.”

Excerpted from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon. Excerpted by permission of Dell, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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West Oversea: A Norse Saga of Mystery, Adventur and Faith – by author Lars Walker

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Join Lars Walker, author of the Christian Norse adventure novel, West Oversea: A Norse Saga of Mystery, Adventure and Faith (Nordskog Publishing, Inc.), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in October on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book.

About Lars Walker

Lars (pronounced Larce) Walker is a native of Kenyon, Minnesota, and lives in Minneapolis. He has worked as a crabmeat packer in Alaska, a radio announcer, a church secretary and an administrative assistant, and is presently librarian and bookstore manager for the schools of the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations in Plymouth, Minnesota. He is the author of four previously published novels, and is the editor of the journal of the Georg Sverdrup Society. Walker says, “I never believed that God gave me whatever gifts I have in order to entertain fellow Christians. I want to confront the world with the claims of Jesus Christ.” His latest release is West Oversea: A Norse Saga of Mystery, Adventure and Faith. Visit Lars online at www.larswalker.com/

 and his blog at www.brandywinebooks.net/

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About West Oversea

In this Viking adventure tale, Erling Skjalgsson valiantly relinquishes his power and lands rather than be dishonorable to his evil brother. Supported by a well-drawn cast of characters, Skjalgsson sets sail for uncharted vistas with Greenland as the ultimate destination. The first leg of their voyage takes them to a newly settled Iceland. A dangerous storm blows the adventurers off-course where they encounter new peril with the wild lands and peoples of North America. Meanwhile, Erling’s Irish priest, Father Aillil, on a quest to rescue his enslaved sister, wrestles with a secret dark power that threatens to destroy them all. West Oversea is set against the historical and dramatic Eleventh century backdrop of a Norway in flux as pagan Norwegians are converted to Christianity—sometimes by force.

Here’s what critics are saying about West Oversea!

“…I found West Oversea to be a worthy continuation of the Erling Saga. The book reads so fast that when it’s done, the reader is left both satisfied with the ending and still longing for the story to continue.” –Darwin Garrison, Fort Wayne, IN “West Oversea is a fantastic book and deserves to be one of many in a long series….This broadly researched Viking adventure is written within a beautifully rich framework. It is like an actor who does not break his character, even when everyone else goes off-script.” –Phil Wade, brandywinebooks.net

Chapter One Excerpt from The Confessions of Catherine De Medici by C.W. Gortner

Click in the cover to purchase this book

Chapter One

I was ten years old when I discovered I might be a witch.

I sat sewing with my aunt Clarice, as sunlight spread across the gallery floor. Outside the window I could hear the splashing of the courtyard fountain, the cries of the vendors in the Via Larga and staccato of horse hooves on the cobblestone streets, and I thought for the hundredth time that I couldn’t stay inside another minute.

“Caterina Romelo de’ Medici, can it be you’ve finished already?”

I looked up. My late father’s sister Clarice de’ Medici y Strozzi regarded me from her chair. I wiped my brow with my sleeve. “It’s so hot in here,” I said. “Can’t I go outside?”

She arched her eyebrow. Even before she said anything, I could have recited her words, so often had she drummed them into my head: “You are the Duchess of Urbino, daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici and his wife, Madeleine de la Tour, who was of noble French blood. How many times must I tell you, you must restrain your impulses in order to prepare for your future?”

I didn’t care about the future. I cared that it was summer and here I was cooped up in the family palazzo forced to study and sew all day, as if I might melt in the sun.

I clapped my embroidery hoop aside. “I’m bored. I want to go home.”

“Florence is your home; it is your birth city,” she replied. “I took you from Rome because you were sick with fever. You’re fortunate you can sit here and argue with me at all.”

“I’m not sick anymore,” I retorted. I hated it when she used my poor health as an excuse. “At least in Rome, Papa Clement let me have my own servants and a pony to ride.”

She regarded me without a hint of the ire that the mention of my papal uncle always roused in her. “That may be but you are here now, in my care, and you will abide by my rules. It’s midafternoon. I’ll not hear of you going outside in this heat.”

“I’ll wear a cap and stay in the shade. Please, Zia Clarice. You can come with me.”

I saw her trying to repress her unwilling smile as she stood. “If your work is satisfactory, we can take a stroll on the loggia before supper.” She came to me, a thin woman in a simple gray gown, her oval face distinguished by her large liquid-black eyes—the Medici eyes, which I had inherited, along with our family’s curly auburn hair and long-fingered hands.

She swiped up my embroidery. Her lips pursed when she heard me giggle. “I suppose you think it’s funny to make the Holy Mother’s face green? Honestly, Caterina; such sacrilege.” She thrust the hoop at me. “Fix it at once. Embroidery is an art, one you must master as well as your other studies. I’ll not have it said that Caterina de’ Medici sews like a peasant.”

I thought it best not to laugh and began picking out the offensive color, while my aunt returned to her seat. She stared off into the distance. I wondered what new trials she planned for me. I did love her but she was forever dwelling on how our family prestige had fallen since the death of my great-grandfather, Lorenzo Il Magnifico; of how Florence had been a center of learning renowned for our Medici patronage, and now we were but illustrious guests in the city we had helped build. It was my responsibility, she said, to restore our family’s glory, as I was the last legitimate descendant of Il Magnifico’s bloodline.

I wondered how she expected me to accomplish such an important task. I’d been orphaned shortly after my birth; I had no sisters or brothers and depended on my papal uncle’s goodwill. When I once mentioned this, my aunt snapped: “Clement VII was born a bastard. He bribed his way to the Holy See, to our great shame. He’s not a true Medici. He has no honor.”

Given his prestige, if he couldn’t restore our family name I didn’t know how she expected me to. Yet she seemed convinced of my destiny, and every month had me dress in my uncomfortable ducal finery and pose for a new portrait, which was then copied into miniatures and dispatched to all the foreign princes who wanted to marry me. I was still too young for wedlock, but she left me no doubt she’d already selected the cathedral, the number of ladies who would attend me—

All of a sudden, my stomach clenched. I dropped my hands to my belly, feeling an unexpected pain. My surroundings distorted, as if the palazzo had plunged underwater. Nausea turned my mouth sour. I came to my feet blindly, hearing my chair crash over. A terrifying darkness overcame me. I felt my mouth open in a soundless scream as the darkness widened like a vast ink stain, swallowing everything around me. I was no longer in the gallery arguing with my aunt; instead, I stood in a desolate place, powerless against a force that seemed to well up from deep inside me . . .

I stand unseen, alone among strangers. They are weeping. I see tears slip down their faces, though I can’t hear their laments. Before me is a curtained bed, draped in black. I know at once something horrible lies upon it, something I should not see. I try to stay back but my feet move me toward it with the slow certainty of a nightmare, compelling me to reach out a spotted, bloated hand I do not recognize as my own, part the curtains, and reveal

“Dio Mio, no!” My cry wrenched from me. I felt my aunt holding me, the frantic caress of her hand on my brow. I had a terrible stomachache and lay sprawled on the floor, my embroidery and tangled yarns strewn beside me.

“Caterina, my child,” my aunt said. “Please, not the fever again . . .”

As the strange sensation of having left my own body began to fade, I forced myself to sit up. “I don’t think it’s the fever,” I said. “I saw something: a man, lying dead on a bed. He was so real, Zia . . . it scared me.”

She stared at me. Then she whispered, “Una visione,” as if it was something she’d long feared. She gave me a fragile smile, reaching out to help me to my feet. “Come, that’s enough for today. Let us go take that walk, si? Tomorrow we’ll visit the Maestro. He’ll know what to do.”

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The truth is, none of us are innocent. We all have sins to confess.

So reveals Catherine de Medici in this brilliantly imagined novel about one of history’s most powerful and controversial women. To some she was the ruthless queen who led France into an era of savage violence. To others she was the passionate savior of the French monarchy. Acclaimed author C. W. Gortner brings Catherine to life in her own voice, allowing us to enter into the intimate world of a woman whose determination to protect her family’s throne and realm plunged her into a lethal struggle for power.

The last legitimate descendant of the illustrious Medici line, Catherine suffers the expulsion of her family from her native Florence and narrowly escapes death at the hands of an enraged mob. While still a teenager, she is betrothed to Henri, son of François I of France, and sent from Italy to an unfamiliar realm where she is overshadowed and humiliated by her husband’s lifelong mistress. Ever resilient, Catherine strives to create a role for herself through her patronage of the famous clairvoyant Nostradamus and her own innate gift as a seer. But in her fortieth year, Catherine is widowed, left alone with six young children as regent of a kingdom torn apart by religious discord and the ambitions of a treacherous nobility.

Relying on her tenacity, wit, and uncanny gift for compromise, Catherine seizes power, intent on securing the throne for her sons. She allies herself with the enigmatic Protestant leader Coligny, with whom she shares an intimate secret, and implacably carves a path toward peace, unaware that her own dark fate looms before her—a fate that, if she is to save France, will demand the sacrifice of her ideals, her reputation, and the passion of her embattled heart.

From the fairy-tale châteaux of the Loire Valley to the battlefields of the wars of religion to the mob-filled streets of Paris, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici is the extraordinary untold journey of one of the most maligned and misunderstood women ever to be queen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

C. W. Gortner, half-Spanish by birth, holds an M.F.A. in writing, with an emphasis on historical studies, from the New College of California and has taught university courses on women of power in the Renaissance. He was raised in Málaga, Spain, and now lives in California. You can find C.W. at his blog, Historical Boys

Acclaimed for his insight into his characters, he travels extensively to research his books. He has slept in a medieval Spanish castle, danced in a Tudor great hall, and explored library archives all over Europe. His debut historical novel The Last Queen gained international praise and has been translated into eight languages to date. His new novel, The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, will be published on May 25, 2010. He is currently at work on The Princess Isabella, his third historical novel, and The Secret Lion, the first book in his Tudor thriller series,The Spymaster Chronicles. You can visit C. W. Gortner’s website at http://c.w.gortner.com/

October Book Pick of the Month – The Lost Diary of Don Juan

Paperback Writer’s pick for the October Book of The Month is The Lost Diary of Don Juan by Douglas Carlton Abrams. As a first time author Douglas Abrams has certainly written an intriguing novel surrounding the life of Don Juan. Having heard, but never really knowing the story of Don Juan this novel leaves nothing to the imagination, from the blood dripping sword fighting, the steamy love making to so many women and the evil forces of the Inquisitioner as he tries to tame the most wanted lover, this novel keeps you on the edge of your seat. I read the 21 page excerpt at the authors website and I can assure you that you won’t be satisfied just reading the excerpt pages and you will find yourself buying the book. You can find it here http://www.lostdiaryofdonjuan.com.

About the Book:
In a time of discovery and decadence, when the gold that poured endlessly into the port of Sevilla devalued money, marriage, and love itself, young Juan Tenorio was abandoned and raised by nuns. He grew up loving and worshipping all women, but a clandestine affair with one of the sisters forces him to leave the Church—and his plans for the priesthood—forever. Juan becomes a spy, as well as the world’s greatest libertine. But far from the heartless seducer that legend recounts, he seeks liberation and redemption as much as personal pleasure and gratification. He begins to keep a diary of his greatest adventures and the arts of passion he has mastered. The most dangerous adventure of all—the irresistible fall into the madness of love with the only woman who could ever make him forget all others—finally compels him to confess everything.

About the Author:
Douglas Carlton Abrams is a former editor at the University of California Press and HarperSanFrancisco. He is the co-author of a number of books on love, sexuality, and spirituality, including books written with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar, and Taoist Master Mantak Chia. He lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife and three children. In his life and work, he is interested in cultivating all aspects of our humanity —body, emotions, mind, and spirit. His goal in writing fiction is to create stories that not only entertain, but also attempt to question, enchant, and transform.

THE LOST DIARY OF DON JUAN VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ’08 will officially begin on September 2, ’08 and end on September 26, ’08. You can visit the Douglas’ tour stops at http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com in September to find out more about him and his new book!
As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author with a recent release or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors’ blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available. The winner will be announced on our main blog at http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.wordpress.com on September 26!

Copper Fire – Author Interview – Suzanne Woods Fisher

Paperback Writer is enjoying a visit from Suzanne Woods Fisher author of the historical fiction novel Copper Fire. Suzanne is sharing with us how she came up with the idea for her book and how she develops her characters.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
On a summer day in 1945, Louisa Gordon receives a telegram from the International Red Cross Tracing Service. Her young cousin, Elisabeth, has just been released from Dachau a concentration camp, and Louisa is her only remaining relative. Determined to go to war-torn Germany to retrieve her cousin, Louisa is also on a mission to discover the whereabouts of Friedrich Mueller, a Nazi sympathizer who fled Copper Springs, Arizona. What Louisa never expected was to meet the man she had once loved and now hated.

Hi Suzanne,

Welcome to Paperback Writer

Thanks for hosting me today!

Will you share with us how you came up with the idea for this book?

Copper Fire is the sequel to Copper Star, picking right up at the very end of World War II. On a summer day in 1945, my main character, Louisa, receives a telegram from the International Red Cross Tracing Service. She discovers that her cousin, Elisabeth, has just been released from Dachau. Louisa is determined to go to Germany to get Elisabeth…and that’s where the story begins.

Do you plan your stories first with an outline or does it come to you as write it?

I have a basic idea of how the story will develop, but the beauty of a computer is that you can cut and paste, expand and contract. There is a point when the story takes on a life of its own.

Do you know the end of the story at the beginning?

It’s not always neat and tidy…but I do know that I want to have my characters to find some redemption at the end. So I try to steer them in that direction.

Do you have a process for developing your characters?

I try not to have too many characters; it can get confusing! Also, that way, each character becomes very distinct. They become so real to me that I can hear their voices! (Uh oh…that sounds like I’m on the brink of insanity, doesn’t it?

It is said that authors write themselves into their characters. Is there any part of you in your characters and what they would be?

I wish I were more like my main character in Copper Star, Louisa, the young resistance worker smuggled out of Germany by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She’s funny, determined, smart… and flawed. And she knows it! She has an ability not to take herself too seriously.

What is your most favorite part about this book?

The character of Elisabeth; she enters the story as a damaged survivor of a concentration camp…but she is a survivor! I love how she is learning to trust again, to open up, to try to become a normal junior high girl…and she just can’t! It’s Louisa (Robert, too) who help her to see how special she is, just as she is.

When in the process of writing your book did you begin to look for a publisher?

Since this was a sequel and the early reviews of Copper Star were so good, and then as it sold well, my editor was very open to a contract. I stayed with the same publishing house for that book, which probably made the entire process easier.

What struggles have you had on the road to being published?
This is an industry in which “no one is looking for you.” Behind every published piece, a writer has a fat file of rejection letters. But, ah, there’s just something about that published piece that makes up for that rejection file!
What has been the best part about being published?
Most favorite part? All of life is material. It’s all grit for the oyster. Least favorite? I still only make a dime an hour. And I still get plenty of rude rejection letters!
What do you want readers to remember and carry with them after reading your novel?

There is always an underlying theme in my stories about the grace of God and how it plays out in our daily lives.

Do you have plans to write another book?
Oh yes! Many!
In late August, Grit from the Oyster: 250 Pearls of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers, will be released from Vintage Spirit. I wrote Grit with three other very talented authors. For the Love of Dogs, a fun novel set in 1969, will release in February 2009. And more exciting news! I am working on three novels for Revell/Baker, as well as a non-fiction book called Amish Peace in an English Life (also with Revell/Baker).

Would you care to share with us how the virtual book tour experience with Pump Up Your Book Promotion has been for you?

 It’s been fantastic! Very well organized, good communication, very helpful. Thank you!

Where can readers find a copy of your book? Amazon, BN.com, or it can ordered from your favorite bookstore, and also at my website: http://www.suzannewoodsfisher.com

Do you have a website for readers to go to?
Find me on-line at Suzanne at http://www.suzannewoodsfisher.com

Thank you, Suzanne, for sharing your book and characters with us today. It has been a pleasure and I hope you have had a successful virtual book tour.

Thank you, for letting me visit!

Copper Fire Virtual Book Tour ’08 officially began on August 4, 2008 and will continues all month. You can visit [name] tour stops at http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com in August to find out more about (his/her) and (his/her) book.

As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author with a recent release or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comment on our authors blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they come available. The winners will be announced on http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com on August 31!

Please leave your comments along the tour stops and join us on August 31 to see if you are a winner.

TAGS: Suzanne Woods Fisher, Copper Fire, historical fiction, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, virtual book tours, virtual blog tour, virtual author tour, book spotlights, book reviews, author interviews,