Was I Supposed To Declare That?

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Was I Supposed To Declare That?

 The main charactor Carol Ainsworth in my newest novel is an undercover detective so when a customer came into my shop and mentioned he was a retired border guard, I was intrigued, especially after he related to me some of his stories. Because as I've discovered in life you can't write something as crazy as some people’s experiences. Fact is indeed stranger than most fiction.

I discovered he had published a book about his adventures in trying to keep our country safe and protected. Man, he had some stories to tell. You are probably all aware that a vehicle can be pulled out of the lineup completely at random, as not everyone follows the rules. Or are actually aware of the rules. (My advice here is make yourself aware of the rules!) Some of the excuses were beyond belief. "What? You didn't ask me to declare that. You should have informed me of everything I need to declare." Which would mean he'd have to spend about four hours going through a raft of books questioning every vehicle’s occupants as to whether they have with them anything that is not allowed to be brought in or is dangerous. Imaging the border queues then, eh?

Drugs are the most likely to be hidden and these people are so smart with their hiding places. They must have to virtually strip the car down to nuts and bolts and re-build it – and then do it all again to get them out! Of course, it’s not only the vehicles they hide them in (and I think you know what I’m getting at!) so if you’re thinking of border guard as a profession, be aware it will involve rubber gloves. They are also asked to help the police track down suspected drug smugglers, as the border guards don't need a search warrant to go through your possessions.

It is also very unwise to present yourself at the border drunk. Especially if you’re the driver. Some so far-gone they can’t stand, some who have attempted to run the border crossing and even some who have presented impromptu “donations”. Sorry dude but you can’t just drive in and pass out in the parking lot. Also, if asked to strip for a search it’s a good idea not to start humming “The Stripper” and trying to entertain the border guard to an “sexy dance routine” complete with flying underwear.

Two of the stories stuck in my mind. The guy who tried to smuggle an older car across the border only to realize he had different plates front and rear. But probably the best (or worst!), and this is where you gotta shake your head in disbelief, was the elderly American couple in the motorhome coming up to visit the "Wilds of Canada, where wild animals and Indians roam freely." Acting on a niggling feeling he asked for a check and found nearly twenty guns and handguns. For self-protection they said! Well after being fined $50 per gun and had them seized, needless to say the holiday came to a very abrupt end and back to America they went. I guess they didn't recon on dealing with the wild and wholly Canadian border guards.

 Sincerely

Frank Talaber

twosoulmates@shaw.ca

Here's two of my Newest reviews for my new novel, The Joining, cover at the top of the page. 

I hate You! My wife who is off on medical leave, won't get out of the bathroom. Can't put your book down. LOL. Bruce W.

I talked to Frank at work and bought four of his novels, all right up my alley, urban Fantasy and Paranormal thrillers. But as we were leaving my girlfriend opened up the copy of The Joining, I had purchased and said, "Stop! You gotta go back I have to buy this book." Frank had hooked her in the first three pages. Well Done.  Joyce Nicholls

Frank Talaber’s Writing Style? He usually responds with: Mix Dan Millman (Way of The Peaceful Warrior) with Charles De Lint (Moonheart) and throw in a mad scattering of Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get The Blues).
PS: He’s better looking than Stephen King (Carrie, The Stand, It, The Shining) and his romantic stuff will have you gasping quicker than Robert James Waller (Bridges Of Madison County).

Or as is often said: You don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps.

To Order This Online

My webpage:

http://twosoulmates.wixsite.com/frankt-author-blog

My Publishers Page:

http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/talaber-frank-paranormal-suspense-romance/

My novels on Amazon are at:  https://www.amazon.com/Frank-Talaber/e/B00UC407R0

https://www.facebook.com/FrankTalaber/

https://www.facebook.com/franktalaberpublishedauthor/ (My facebook short story page)

https://about.me/ftalaber

Twitter: @FrankTalaber

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake Recipe for Fun by J.Q. Rose

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose
Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by J.Q. Rose at BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the BWL Insiders Blog! 

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake Recipe for Fun

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake Recipe for Fun by J.Q. Rose

March is the month of shamrocks and leprechauns. It's also the month of waiting. Waiting for the sun to shine up north, the winter weather to wind down, the March Madness college basketball frenzy to begin, and for that first glimpse of spring to show up in your yard. 

Needless to say Up North in the USA, folks are worn out with the horrible record-breaking snowstorms and floods. (I'm sure many of you reading this post are feeling the same about winter.) So let's have some fun today and bake a cake, a unique chocolate cake.

This cake is extra special because not only is it a tasty cake, but it also makes fudge sauce to top off ice cream so you can enjoy cake AND a hot fudge sundae all-in-one. Now, what's more fun than a hot fudge sundae? My favorite!

Ooey-gooey Hot Fudge Sundae Cake
Courtesy of Starr Roan

How lucky I was to come upon a recipe in my Church Ladies Cookbook. In my experience, all the best tried and true recipes are found in these cookbooks. No bowl or beaters to clean up after putting it together because it is mixed in the pan. Finish the process by pouring hot water over the batter and put the dish in the oven. Yeah, really! 
Caution: Be sure to use a large enough dish and place it on a piece of aluminum foil just in case the sauce boils over out of the pan.

Here's the recipe! Thank you Starr for sharing this in The Fruit of the Spirit Cookbook, Fremont United Methodist Church.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake Recipe

Step 1 in the Recipe

1. Stir the following ingredients together in an ungreased 9 x 9-inch pan.
1 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. cocoa
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Step 2 in the Recipe

2. Add the following ingredients to the pan.
1/2 c. milk
2 T. oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix with a fork until smooth.
Spread evenly in pan. 

Step 3 in the Recipe

3. Mix together 1 c. brown sugar and 2 T. cocoa. Sprinkle over batter.
Pour 1 3/4 c. hot water over batter. Do not stir.

Step 4 Place the cake in the oven and check it as it bakes for 40 minutes.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes. Spoon cake into dishes and top with ice cream. Spoon extra sauce from pan over top.

Ta-dah! Be sure to let it stand for 15 minutes.

I must admit I didn't take a picture of the hot fudge sauce topping on the cake and ice cream. I didn't even think of it until my card-playing group had cleaned their plates!  

Have you made this cake? Did you like it? Do you like chocolate cake? Let me know in the comments below. 

I hope this recipe has added some fun to your March day. 
Thank you for stopping in.

***

Author J.Q. Rose

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose

Piranha Fishing on the Amazon River by Stuart R. West

One click away from mystery, murder and humor.

Continuing our further (mis)adventures in the Amazon Rain Forest...

After another night of sleeplessness, we... Oh. Wait. Did I not tell you the unfortunate sleeping circumstances of our lodgings?

You see, the Heliconia Lodge is very nice, offers great food, and the staff is top-notch. 

But seeing as we're in the jungle, of course, air conditioning is unheard of. Electricity, too, for the most part, which is why the lodge runs off a generator. Naturally it wouldn't make much sense to run it full time, so they turn it off three times a day, usually when I wanted to shower.

(Side note on showering: Our first day at the Heliconia, we kept going out on excursions and each time I'd soak through my clothes. Not by rain, mind you, but sweat. So I kept showering and changing clothes. Six wardrobe changes in one day, I felt like Cher in Vegas. By the next day, I pretty much just gave up on hygiene. Sure, you didn't want to sit downwind of me, but everyone in our group was in the same boat. Literally.).

Anyway, I could live without electricity during the days. We were never in our room anyway. But then they'd power down the generator every night at midnight. The room fans would stop as the entire compound ground down with a dying, monstrous groan: pretty much an alarm clock to jolt me awake. I usually clocked in a solid 45 minutes before the generator stopped.

In bed. NEVER asleep!

Then nature's sound machine took over, keeping me up most of the night. (And the endless sweat, natch. In fact, I've come up with the perfect slogan for the Heliconia Lodge: "At Heliconia, we sweat the hell outta you!")

What does nature's sound machine sound like, you ask? Kinda like this (ahem)...

"OOOH, OOOH, AHHH, EEEK, EEEK, EEEK, OOT, OOT, AHHH, OOOT, HOOO, HOOOO, OOOOOO, EEEK, EEEEK, AIEEEEE..."

You get the drift. Some kind of unidentified bug/animal/monster took to haunting me right outside our room: it sounded like a blacksmith pounding out metal. Also, I was too busy wondering what sort of varmints were scampering around in our dark room to sleep. The horror stories about scorpions, tarantulas, and snakes didn't help.

So. Sleep deprived, missing the wonders of air conditioning and quiet, we wandered once again into the jungle on a medicinal plant trail, great for pharmacists, exhausting for we mere authors. 

Our guide, Antonio, using his version of G.P.S.: "Great Product of Survival"

However, we did something very cool. We planted mango trees in the Amazon jungle in honor of Earth Day. I'll gladly brave the sleepless nights, nocturnal monsters, and near death experiences by visiting again in five years to eat a mango from our tree.

Cool was the order of the day as later we went piranha fishing. Danger's my middle name (not really, not even close).

Time and time again on our trip, we'd been told piranha were good to eat. I'd never realized piranha was an edible fish, just sort of thought of it as an eating fish (remember: movies are my education). I kinda think it might just be practical on the Peruvians' behalf to eat what they have plenty of (otherwise I'm completely baffled by the choice of monkey's head soup). Oddly enough, though, piranha was never offered to us at the lodge. But we were prepared to catch dinner for everyone.

Off we went on our fishing expedition! I warned everyone I was prepared to fall. They all agreed, hardly a shocker. 

Before the fishing trip with happy and high expectations!

Hooks were baited, lines were sunk, and we waited. And waited. And waited, just merrily bob-bob-bobbing along. The blasted piranha kept nibbling at our bait, just eating it. Our buddy fed the piranha a lot (next fisherman: "Man, that's one fat fish.").

Only one of us snagged a piranha (teacher's pet, teacher's pet, teacher's pet!), a small one at that. 

Expectations dashed!

Still, all in all, how very awesome it is to snootily drop into conversation, pinky finger raised, "The other day we were on the Amazon River, fishing for piranha..."

While we're on the subject of sharp toothed critters, check out the second in the Zach and Zora comic mystery series, Murder by Massage. My hapless heroes face all sorts of shark-toothed, crocodile-teared types such as
dancing cops, ex-radical hippy militants, pompous pastors, and a creepy set of "Furries." What're you waiting for? The party's started and it's a blast!

Janet Lane Walters Talks Her Romance Love of Regency - Rosemary Morris #BWLPublishing #Regency #Romance

A Love of Regency with Rosemary Morris

I’m a big reader of Regency Romances and I’ve found Rosemary Morris’s stories great to read. I’ve read everything she’s written but I’ve been reading and reading her days of the week series. When I’m rough drafting a new story, I enjoy rereading stories I’ve read before. Meeting old friends gives me a break from the deep thought that goes into the start of a new story.  Reading these books has kept me on track since they are very different from what I’m writing.

I once thought I’d like to write Regencies and I have one Regency historical written. There were three more books planned but after finishing the one, I knew I didn’t have the stamina for the research for the other ones. I’ve decided to leave that for my favorite Regency writers. Rosemary is one of those. I’m enjoying reading the days of the week stories and those are the ones I’ll speak about here.

Thursday’s Child is the last one of the series I read. In this book, we read about a young woman who is outspoken and naïve. Her charm lies in her innocence and her real caring for others. For her journey, love brings lessons and an understanding of herself and others. The writing allowed me to enter her world and to care about her and the other characters in the book. Indeed, she has far to go.

Here’s the blurb:

On their way to a ball, eighteen-year-old Lady Margaret is reminded by her affectionate brother, the Earl of Saunton, to consider her choice of words before she speaks. Despite his warning, she voices her controversial opinion to Lady Sefton, one of Almack’s lady patronesses, who can advance or ruin a debutante’s reputation. Horrified by her thoughtless indiscretion, Margaret runs from the ballroom into the reception hall where she nearly slips onto the marble floor.

Baron Rochedale, a notorious rake catches her in his arms to prevent her fall. Margaret, whose family expect her to make a splendid marriage, and enigmatic Rochedale, who never reveals his secrets, are immediately attracted to each other, but 
Rochedale never makes advances to unmarried females. 

When Margaret runs out into the street, out of chivalry it seems he must follow the runaway instead of joining his mistress in the ballroom, where anxious mothers would warn their daughters to avoid him. Rochedale’s quixotic impulse leads to complications which force him to question his selfish way of life. Entangled by him in more ways than one, stifled by polite society’s unwritten rules and regulations Margaret is forced to question what is most important to her. 

Sunday’s Child began the series.

Blurb:

Georgianne Whitley’s beloved father and brothers died in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte. While she is grieving for them, she must deal with her unpredictable mother’s sorrow, and her younger sisters’ situation caused by it. Georgianne’s problems increase when the arrogant, wealthy but elderly Earl of Pennington, proposes marriage to her for the sole purpose of being provided with an heir. At first she is tempted by his proposal, but something is not quite right about him. She rejects him not suspecting it will lead to unwelcome repercussions.

Once, Georgianne had wanted to marry an army officer. Now, she decides never to marry ‘a military man’ for fear he will be killed on the battlefield. However, Georgianne still dreams of a happy marriage before unexpected violence forces her to relinquish the chance to participate in a London Season sponsored by her aunt.

Shocked and in pain, Georgianne goes to the inn where her cousin Sarah’s step-brother, Major Tarrant, is staying, while waiting for the blacksmith to return to the village and shoe his horse. Recently, she has been reacquainted with Tarrant—whom she knew when in the nursery—at the vicarage where Sarah lives with her husband Reverend Stanton.

The war in the Iberian Peninsula is nearly at an end so, after his older brother’s death, Tarrant, who was wounded, returned to England where his father asked him to marry and produce an heir. To please his father, Tarrant agreed to marry, but due to a personal tragedy he has decided never to father a child. When Georgianne, arrives at the inn, quixotic Tarrant sympathises with her unhappy situation. Moreover, he is shocked by the unforgivable, brutal treatment she has suffered.

Full of admiration for her beauty and courage Tarrant decides to help Georgianne.

The other books in the series so far are Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child and Wednesday’s Child. If you love Regencies, you’ll find every one of these books a great read. I’ll also be rereading them in the months to come.

And.... ACTION! Generating word movies, by J.C. Kavanagh

VOTED Best Young Adult Book 2018, 

Critters Readers Award

Reading fiction out loud is an art form - but only if you want it to be. You could read the printed word without nuance and without intonation. Yawn. Or you could bring your story to life by embracing the 'actor' within, by proactively taking centre stage. Because reading your book out loud is actually an audition of sorts - an audition to generate credulity and confidence in your story, in the characters and in the details and descriptions of the various settings. Reading out loud triggers the auditory senses, which triggers brain function and hopefully, triggers a sequence of images in the internal playground that is within your mind - images that I call 'word movies.' The writer/speaker is in charge of setting the mood and instilling uniqueness to each character, all by using tone of voice, hand gestures, facial expressions. It's acting out your own novel and generating a word movie.

How exciting is that?

Yeah, it seems that way until you're challenged to read your novel to a group of teenagers. In a classroom.

That's where I'm headed in the next couple of weeks - to 'read' my second novel, The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends, to a group of Grade 8 students. My throat gets dry, my knees knock and I tremble at the thought of 'acting' out my book. Basically, I'm performing my audition of every character and every scene in Darkness Descends. But... I believe in my book. I believe the story. I believe and love/hate the characters. And I believe that a truly good book will draw the reader into the playground-mind of the writer so that they both 'see' the same word movie. If I can keep a group of teenagers engaged, then I'll know my audition was successful.

I hope everyone who's read The Twisted Climb series enjoyed the word movies. I did. I'm proud of the fact they both were voted Best Young Adult Book (The Twisted Climb in 2016 and Darkness Descends in 2018).

Speaking of auditory senses, kudos to authors Jude Pittman and John Widsomkeeper for delivering the first audio-book for BWL Publishing, entitled "Street Justice." You can find the audio book via this link:  http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/pittman-jude-mystery-romance/

TWO Book Signing Events

Come see me on Saturday, March 30 at the Chapters store in Newmarket, Ontario from 1 till 5.
Two weeks later, I'm heading to the Chapters store in Barrie, Ontario (Saturday, April 13). Drop by!

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll

AND

The Twisted Climb,

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

Plantation Life in South Carolina

Boone Hall - Live Oaks

As part of the research for my latest novel, "Karma Nation," my son Rishi and I traveled across the American South. My previous blogs recorded our explorations of Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta and Charleston. In this blog, I share my impressions of some of the plantations I visited in South Carolina.

We were actually quite surprised at the number of plantations that dotted South Carolina, especially around Charleston. What could be their economic base?

Our visit to a few of them answered our questions. Several plantations have become quite well-known tourist attractions, some remain working plantations, while a few are preserved by non-profit societies, wealthy individuals or as state parks.

Boone Hall was on our list as a must-visit site. USA Today’s #1 plantation, it is dominated by a magnificent colonnaded home form the Antebellum period, situated at the end of a stunning allee of two-hundred-year-old live oaks. The interiors reveal the luxury that country gentlemen of the era lived in. Portraits of the erstwhile inhabitants hung on the walls, expensive furniture filled the rooms and curtains imported from Europe lined the windows. Nine original slave cabins, replete with mementos and displays of the lives of its tenants sit on one side of the mansion. A live theatre show of Gullah culture, a mixture of Creole English and Geechee, practiced by the slaves, is presented during the busy season. It is also a working plantation, well-known for its strawberries and vegetables.

Slave Cabins, Boone Hall

Next, we visited McLeod plantation. The main home, designed in the English Georgian style, it too paid attention to the Lowland slave culture that became prominent in South Carolina. A part of the Charleston County Parks system, it was crowded with school children when we were there. Full of detailed historical notes, along with interpretive tours, it satisfied our curiosity.

Plantations were large communities, villages really, with populations that sometimes reached thousands. Many functions were centralized, such as cooking and clothes-cleaning. The cook-house, attended to by slaves, usually sat behind the main house. So did the wash-house.

Inside the master’s house, a series of rules—a system of apartheid really—allowed white slave-owners and their families to live deeply separated lives, despite being surrounded by a very large number of black slaves. Certain areas of the house, such as the sleeping quarters of the white women, were off-limits to male slaves. Only a select number of slaves were allowed into the main house on a regular basis; most of the field slaves didn’t enter. Slaves had their speech and actions constantly surveilled; only at Church on Sundays were music and speech by slaves allowed. This practice had the effect of eventually pushing Black Churches to the forefront of civil rights movements.

While the plantations today seem idyllic with their flower gardens and sunny weather, it was obviously not pleasant for its inhabitants. While the slaves lived a life of hard work and deprivation, the plantation owners had their issues as well. With constant rumors of slave rebellions and attacks against them, they lived in anxiety. When Spain controlled Florida, escaping American slaves were offered freedom and some joined the Spanish Army to fight against them. In America, the Abolitionist movement became active almost since the birth of the country. Following the Revolutionary War, Northern states abolished slavery, beginning with the 1777 constitution of Vermont, followed by Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation act in 1780. In many ways, it had to be clear to plantation owners that their way of life was not long to last.

Behind the manicured lawns, extensive gardens and brightly painted houses, lay the narratives of a difficult and divisive period in American history. That to me, was the story of our visit to the plantations.

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation"

Published by Books We Love

The Past was a different place...by Sheila Claydon

Hello from Tenerife.
While the UK suffers from low temperatures and biting winds I’m spending time in the sunny Canary Islands where a cloudy day is an event to be commented upon.  In the past I’ve always thought of the islands as a place to truly relax and recharge one’s batteries but my goodness how things have changed. When I first visited this part of the Tenerife coast, more than 25 years ago, it was a tiny fishing village with a couple of weathered shacks on the dusty road opposite the shingle beach. Sitting on rickety chairs we enjoyed meals of grilled squid and salty Canarian potatoes or a paella full of mussels and prawns, all washed down with a light wine or, more often, with Sangria, the true flavour of  these islands. In front of us would be upturned boats spread with drying fishing nets, while across from us sunburned fishermen would smoke and drink before taking to the seas again.

We reached the village by climbing up and over a long hill of scrub interspersed with spiny cacti and tiny pink flowers whose name I never learned, and by the time we sank gratefully into those rickety chairs our sandals would be thick with the yellow dust of the roadside. Now, to get there, we have to drive on smooth black roads through a convoluted mass of one way systems, roundabouts and traffic signals and then circle endlessly looking for somewhere to park our car. There isn’t a single space in the row upon row of parked cars at every kerbside but we eventually find an underground carpark. It leads up into a mall full of shops with the designer names that can be seen in every town, city and airport in most parts of the world.

Eventually we find the sea and the imported yellow sands that now cover the small expanse of shingle from yesteryear and spread out far beyond it. The weathered shacks have long gone of course, and in their place is a long promenade lined with every sort of eaterie, each offering a plethora of choices. Tapas, steak and fries, pizza, full English breakfast, pasta, hot dogs, beef burgers, ice cream, pastries, beer , wine.....food and drink from many cultures and to suit many tastes. Only the sangria remains a constant. And the sunhats we buy from a stall run by a smiling islander have the inevitable ‘made in China’ label.

When we finally choose a place to eat it isn’t so bad. Our table is on a sheltered terrace with a view of the sea and here they still serve grilled squid although not as we remember it. Less succulent with few vegetables it is nevertheless a taste from the past as are the tiny wrinkled potatoes. There is nothing else left of the past though, and as we look up at the hotels and holiday apartments rising in tier upon tier above us up the steep cliffs of the island, we wonder. Is this the price of success...people crowded out of their own villages as more and more tourists fly to the sunshine. We have met people from Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland,  Belgium, Ireland,Wales, Scotland, every part of England, Australia, Vietnam and America, all in the space of a few days, on a tiny rock of an islaand 600 miles off the coast of Morocco.  It’s enough to make the head whirl!

Is it a good thing, this development of sun soaked islands for the mass of tourists who want the sun?Is it right that a tiny, barely inhabited village has been turned into a centre of holiday hedonism?Who am I to say because, while I far prefer the tiny village and the roadside shack, maybe the residents don’t. They may well feel that with tourism making more than a 60% contribution to the island’s economy it’s a change worth making. I certainly hope so.

Before Books We Love began to publish my books I wrote another one that was based in Tenerife...a Tenerife halfway between what it once was and what it is now. It was my first attempt at writing about places I’d visited and it’s success led me to do it again, and again. Reluctant Date is one of those books, set in a tiny Key in the Gulf of Mexico, one of my favourite places in all the world, and one I’m afraid to visit again in case it too has changed.

Lucy Maud Montgomery and Prince Edward Island 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 150^th birthday and to celebrate it my husband 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.
       I have decided to write about the scenery, attractions, and history of my country. This post is about Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The Confederation Bridge connects Borden-Carlton, Prince Edward Island, with the rest of Canada at Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. It is the longest bridge in the world that crosses ice-covered water and was completed in 1997 at a cost of $840 million.

 

 

 

     We paid our toll and drove the bridge over the 12.9 kilometre wide Northumberland Strait. We headed to Green Gables in Cavendish in the Prince Edward Island National Park. One of the most famous writers in the world was from Prince Edward Island. Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874 in New London, PEI. Her ancestors came from Scotland in the 1770s and her grandfathers were members of the provincial legislature for years. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Lucy was 2 and Lucy spent a much of her childhood with her maternal grandparents on the Macneill homestead in Cavendish. Her father moved west in 1887 and remarried. Lucy joined him but felt out of place and soon returned to PEI and her grandparents. She also spent time with her extended family on her mother’s side and her paternal grandfather.
     However, her grandparents weren’t very affectionate and Lucy felt lonely and isolated. This led her to reading an abundant number of books and using her imagination to write her own stories. She started with poetry and journals when she was nine years old and had her first poem, On Cape Le Force, published in the Charlottetown Patriot in November 1890. She started writing short stories in her mid-teens. She first published them in local newspapers then sold them to magazines throughout Canada and the United States.
     Lucy studied to be a teacher and began teaching in a village school in the late 1890s. She was also writing and selling her works so that when her grandfather died in 1898, she was able to leave her teaching position and move in with her grandmother. Between then and 1911 she wrote and sold poems and stories and also worked in the post office on her grandmother’s homestead.
    Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, was published in 1908 and was an instant bestseller. She got her idea from other novels written by women like Little Women and from a story she read about a couple who had arranged to adopt a boy but were sent a girl. The book sold more than 19,000 copies in the first five months and was reprinted ten times in the first year. It is still in print after more than a century. Lucy wrote two sequels, Anne of Green Gables: Anne of Avonlea (1909) and Anne of the Island (1915) plus five more Anne books over her lifetime. She had a total of twenty books, over five hundred short stories, and one book of poetry published before she died in 1942.
     In her private life,  Lucy had many suitors over the years and became secretly engaged to a distant cousin named Edwin Simpson in 1897. This ended with she began a romance with a farmer named Hermann Leard. Leard died in 1899 from influenza and Lucy threw herself into her writing. Lucy married a minister, Ewen Macdonald, after her grandmother died in 1911 and they moved to Ontario where Ewen had a parish. They had two sons, Chester and Stuart, and a third one who was stillborn. They moved to another village in 1926 and then, after Ewen was admitted to a sanatorium in 1934 and he resigned his parish, they moved to Toronto in 1935. Ewen died in 1943.
     The Green Gables House has been restored to match the descriptions in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books. I toured through the historic site, seeing the exhibits in the Green Gables house and strolling the Haunted Woods and Balsam Hollow trails that were mentioned in her books.

     Prince Edward Island also boasts have Canada’s smallest library. It is one room with shelves of books along the walls and a table and chairs in the centre.

Never Say Never

Click this link for story details and purchase information.

Twenty-five years ago, I finished my first novel manuscript. While I often have trouble coming up with titles, this title, To Catch a Fox, appeared on the first page. It came from a mystery novel, The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. Toward the end of the book, Detective Hercule Poirot compares the killer's act of framing someone else for the crime to a fox hunt. “The cruelty that condemned an innocent man to a living death. To catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go.” My protagonist, Julie Fox, was a woman chased and trapped by a former boyfriend and her own demons.

The Fox Hunt by Alexandre-Francois Desportes

I worked on To Catch a Fox for six years, in the midst of moving from Montreal to Calgary and raising a family. When the manuscript didn't find a publisher, I tucked it away a drawer. It was my practice-novel, I told myself, my learning-to-write process. I was certain the Fox was put to rest for good and was okay with this, I thought.  

The red fox is the main quarry in European and American fox hunts - Julie Fox has long, red hair

I turned my attention to short stories, which require less time to complete than a novel, with the goal of getting something published for my efforts. The plan worked, although the publishing part took  longer than I'd expected. About once a year, I'd get a story accepted by a magazine or anthology or, in one case, for a radio broadcast, the news often arriving at a point when I felt discouraged about writing. In addition to the encouragement and growing publishing resume, I found the short stories useful for experimenting with writing styles, themes and characters. My first attempt at suspense was a short story about a woman on the run to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 

I wrote my suspense story, Zona Romantica, during a holiday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Another short story, Adjusting the Ashes, inspired my mystery series sleuth, Paula Savard. Like Paula, Ashes heroine, Carol, is an insurance adjuster with two grown up daughters, a broken marriage, and a longing for excitement. In her story, Carol investigates an insurance claim in the Calgary neighbourhood of Ramsay, where Paula lives. Adjusting the Ashes segued into my next writing phase, murder mystery novels. I wrote my first Paula novel, Deadly Fall, revised it, and sent queries to publishers and agents. A few expressed interest, but what would I write while waiting for their decisions? 

Insurance adjusters investigate claims, some of which are suspicious

Out of the blue, a fresh concept for To Catch a Fox leapt from my subconscious mind. Same title, same protagonist Julie Fox, same quest - to search for her mother. But almost everything else changed. The new story would have a suspense structure, with five viewpoint characters, plus a whole new cast of supporting players. Rather than Vancouver and Oregon settings, this story would take place in Calgary and California. Julie no longer travelled alone; she'd have a sidekick, her stepsister with whom she has prickly relationship. The plot and what Julie discovers in the end would be totally different. I wrote the story and revised the first draft before getting a publisher's acceptance for Deadly Fall and continued working on To Catch a Fox during breaks in writing mysteries.    

Who knew the Fox buried in the drawer still had life? If you'd told me fifteen years ago that To Catch a Fox would be published this year, I'd have said, "Impossible!" Strangely, I feel the title suits the new version better than the original, since darker demons and characters now hunt Julie and trap her more ruthlessly. You'd almost think it was meant to be.    

It shows that you can never say never in writing, as in life.