Showing posts with label #New Brunswick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #New Brunswick. Show all posts

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Revising and Rounding Out my New Brunswick Brides Book, by Diane Scott Lewis

 


To purchase, On a Stormy Primeval Shore: Click

Four years after the first publication, my Canadian Brides book is undergoing revision, and now released in Audio. I need to purchase this format and listen to how my story is expressed.

When a professional reviewer mentioned the bad guys were one dimensional, after praising the rest of the novel, I knew what needed to be done.
I'd go through it and add dimension to all the side characters, especially the villains.
It was actually an enjoyable process. What drove this or that person to behave the way they did? What makes a person turn to crime instead of traveling the straight and narrow? A cruel childhood, an abusive parent, nothing but failure or loss in their later life?
Of course, a character can experience all of this and still turn out fine. But others turn bitter.

My main villain needed several life changing experiences, and a turn to alcohol, which intensifies his feelings of persecution and need for revenge.


I gave other characters a boost to show their hopes, wishes, and a glimpse of their backgrounds and motivations.

Woven into this is the history of the province of New Brunswick. A wild land my heroine, Amelia, travels to in the late eighteenth century to marry a man picked out by her father; but she finds love with someone else. A most inappropriate man.




Gilbert is French Acadian, scorned by the 'entitled' British. The Acadians were slaughtered and burned out when England took over the colony. Or deported elsewhere.

The Deportation of the Acadians by Henri Beau


Will Gilbert remain bitter, or assimilate with the changes? His love for Amelia will cause problems all around.

The Canadian Historical Brides is a wonderful series, showing the history, the romance, the struggles, of all the provinces at different times. The divergent people who settled in Canada. 
All great reads. Find them HERE.

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

To find out more about her and her books:  DianeScottLewis


Sunday, June 21, 2020

New Brunswick—a surprising history


When I was asked to contribute to the Canadian Historical Brides series, with the stellar help of Nancy Bell, I was given the province of New Brunswick. I bought a book on the province’s history. I decided to set my story in the eighteenth century, a period I enjoy writing in, and picked the year 1784. From the book I learned that was the year the huge colony of Nova Scotia was divided in two, the western part to be called New Brunswick. This was my first surprise. 

Why the break? After the Revolutionary War, the numerous people who’d remained loyal to King George III had their property confiscated and risked arrest. Thousands of these Loyalists escaped north, into Canada, and the western portion of Nova Scotia. The colony swelled with a disgruntled population who needed land. They demanded their own colony, another capital.

I wanted to toss my characters into this morass, everything changing.

The Coming of the Loyalists by Henry Sandham
Nancy sent me several websites with old maps, documents on the settling of the Loyalists, so much to work in, or leave out.

Then I came across the history of the Acadian Expulsion, the original French settlers when the area was known as New France. Entire villages were slaughtered when the British took over. I just had to delve deeper into that period, and have an Acadian character, one whose mother lived through the expulsion.

Maliseet man
Of course, I couldn’t ignore the First People who were there when the French arrived, mainly the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes. Every layer of settlement, wars, massacres, needed to be worked in without overloading the story.

The biggest challenge was to fit in my fictional characters with actual historical personages, the history timeline, and the extreme hardships of this as yet untamed wilderness.

I hope my novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, a "Night Owl Romance Top Pick", will intrigue readers about New Brunswick and its varied history.

Purchase this book and my other novels at BWL
For more info on me and my books, check out my website: Dianescottlewis

Diane Scott Lewis lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty puppy.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

The Bay of Fundy by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey




http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan

I started my writing career as a travel writer, researching and writing seven travel books about the attractions, sites, and history along the backroads of Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. While working on them I realized what a beautiful country I live in. Since then I have switched to writing fiction but I still love to travel. 2017 was Canada’s 150th birthday and to celebrate it my husband, Mike, and I travelled in a motorhome from our home on Vancouver Island on the Pacific Ocean to Newfoundland on the Atlantic Ocean. The round trip took us nine weeks and we were only able to see about half of the sites and attractions along the roads.

Today I’d like to describe our stop at the Bay of Fundy situated between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The Bay has the highest tides in the world and was formally designated one of North America’s seven wonders of nature in February, 2014. (The others are Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Mount McKinley, the Everglades, and Yosemite National Park).
 
 
 
 
 

       From Moncton, NB, we drove south on Route 114 to Hopewell Cape and the Hopewell Rocks arriving in the afternoon. It was low tide so after we paid, Mike accepted the cart ride offered while I decided to walk the trail to the Rocks. I arrived at a viewpoint overlooking the ocean floor and the reddish rock structures.  Mike and I took the stairway down to the floor and wandered out among the tall formations. The ground was surprisingly solid with a few muddy areas.

       The Hopewell Rocks were originally a massive mountain range that was older than the Appalachians and bigger than the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Over millions of years the range wore down and after the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age, water seeping through cracks in the cliffs eroded the sedimentary and sandstone and separated the Rocks from the cliffs. The incoming and outgoing tides have eroded the base of the rocks at a faster rate than the tops and that has caused their unusual shapes. Those shapes and the vegetation growing on top have given the formations their nickname of the Flower Pot Rocks.
 
 
 

       Due to the tides the Rocks are covered in water twice a day. Some visitors are able to see the high and low tides in one day but since the next high tide would be at night, Mike and I found a place to camp and returned to the Rocks the next morning. There is approximately six hours between low and high tide and the entrance fee covers a return visit to enable visitors to see the Rocks during both tides.

       Again, Mike took his ride and I walked. I reached the viewpoint and the change was astonishing. Just the tops of some of the rocks showed, the rest being under water. The tides can reach a height of 16 metres (52ft), which is as high as a four story building, twice a day. I walked down part of the stairs but the rest was blocked off to the public because they were under water. High tide is a good time to take a kayak tour and three kayakers were paddling around the formations.
 

 
       Seeing all the water and the partial formations, it was hard to believe that just the day before I had walked on the floor of the bay. It was an amazing experience.


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