His Brother's Bride is now available in French ~ Nancy M Bell

I am excited to announce the release of His Brother's Bride in the French edition. This is the first title of mine to be translated and released in another language, so I'm a little chuffed. You can click on the cover to see it.

This has been a busy year with His Brother's Bride releasing in March of 2017 and then I was asked to take over the creation of the Manitoba book for this collection. I partnered with Margaret Kyle as my research assistant and go to source of all things Mennonite in southern Manitoba. Landmark Roses is the result of that collaboration and the title released in November of 2017.

Click on the cover for the buy link.

Elsie Nuefeld loves to sit on her porch and watch the children grow in the Mennonite community near Landmark, MB. Returning to the area after moving to Paraguay for a time, Elsie is happy to be living on the wild rose dotted prairie of south-eastern Manitoba. Her granddaughters are growing up and getting married, it's an exciting time. Secure in her long standing marriage to Ike, Elsie is content to observe the community from the sidelines and rejoice in the joys of the young ones. She often walks with her daughters and granddaughters through the graveyard abloom with wild roses and shares the stories of the ancestors sleeping there. It’s important, she feels, for the younger generation to feel connected to those who went before. Elsie hopes when she joins those resting beneath the Landmark roses the tradition of honouring the memory of the forebearers continues.

Then I also had a hand in the New Brunswick title, On A Stormy Primeval Shore. Partnered with Diane Scott Lewis, I served as research assistant and alpha reader for this title. It was a wonderful experience and everyone I contacted for obscure information was very helpful. We are hoping to do some events in New Brunswick this June. On A Stormy Primeval Shore just released on January 1, 2018.

Click on the cover for the buy link.

In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, refuses to marry, then meets the handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must protect his mother who was attacked by an English soldier. He fights to hold on to their property, to keep it from the Loyalists who have flooded the colony, desperate men chased from the south after the American Revolution. In a land fraught with hardship, Amelia and Gilbert struggle to overcome prejudice, political upheaval, while forging a life in a remote country where events seek to destroy their love and lives.

All the titles in this series have been well received and garnered excellent reviews.

And to top it all off, my very first translated work!

until next post, stay well, stay happy, stay healthy

A Bit of Writing Advice - First Comes The Idea #MFRWauthor #Advice #Writing

 

 

For the next who knows how many months, I’ll be sharing writing tips I’ve garnered in my 50 years of being a published author.  The Aries Libra Connection is the first book I published electronically. It’s been retitled, revised, updated and now is published by Books We Love LTD. So now onto one of the things I’ve learned about writing.

 

 

Looking at writing your story from the Idea forward. What happens once that idea forms a seed in your thoughts? The idea can be anything that triggers you to want to write a story. You could read something and decide to from your own take on what you've read. How many stories are the fairy tales we've grown up with? Take Cinderella, Snow White, and a lot of other stories you've read or had read to you. How many tales share the themes of these stories?

 

The idea could be something you see. A couple embracing. A man and a woman quarreling. A child making mischief or being sad. What you see could be something like a milling mob, a merry-go-round, a speeding car. What you see can trigger the idea.

 

What you smell. Think of how you react to cookies baking or the aroma of spicy food.  You could find the scent of a place can trigger an idea. For me this can happen when I enter a hospital. The scents bring memories of my past as a nurse and often triggers an idea for a new story.

 

The idea could spring from something you've touched. A soft fur coat, the rough fabric of jeans. A rock, a bench, a brick. Any of these things could bring an idea to the fore.

 

Taste can also trigger ideas. We've all tasted something we think of as ambrosia or something that makes you ill. So let the ideas form.

 

Sometimes something you hear can trigger a story. The wail of a train at night. The sound of footsteps on the street behind you at night. The cries, screams of someone or even their laughter can form a seed for a story. I’ve had stories that hve come from reading something. Past Betrayals, Past Loves came from two readings. The first is Anna Karenina and the story with the unhappy ending. The other grain came from something I read in a book about Ancient Egypt. In a section on the time of chaos when there was no pharaoh came these words. A battle commander wished to be pharaoh. Mermeshu was his name.

 

But we all have these events in out life and ideas may form but once the idea is there, what comes next.  In the next few weeks, I'll be looking at the elements needed to make the idea into a story. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Some people think only of the five Ws but for me, there's the How. After all, it does have a w in the word.

 

The idea takes root. For me, I take the idea and think about it while falling asleep. Sort of like a bedtime story, Usually after days of this story telling the book begins to take form.

 

I'll be sharing what I've learned and am still learning in the fifty years I've been a published writer.

 

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How cold is it? by J.C. Kavanagh

Award-winning book, The Twisted Climb

I live in Ontario, Canada and in mid-January, it's mind-numbing, nose-curdling, freezer-freezing cold. How cold is that? Well, it's colder than cold. Colder than the North Pole. Maybe the planet Mars. OK, not Mars. The average temperature there is -63 C. But at -39 Celsius where I live, well, that's not too far off the temperature on the red planet. And then, out of the blue, Mother Nature plays the see-saw game. Last week, the temperature here actually rose to +11. PLUS eleven! That's a balmy event, usually referred to as the January 'thaw.' But within 24 hours, the temp reverted back to -25 C. We Canadians take it all in stride, giving credence to the adage of being hearty and hardy folk.




The 'red' planet, Mars with average
temperature of -63 Celsius

The average temp at the North Pole
in January is -10 Celsius

 
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a hardy soul and that I love the outdoors - any temperature, any season. You can find me and my partner, Ian, traipsing around our property in any weather. Actually, the harsher, the better. Yah, that sounds weird but we love extremes. Breathing in that cold fresh air, tinged with the smell of burning wood from our wood stove, is the best perfume money can't buy. We constructed trails on our property and we've recently taken up with snowshoeing. Going through the deep snow is no problem thanks to this footwear. We like to follow the animal tracks - apparently they like to 'walk' the trails too! We have deer, rabbits, wolves, coyotes, fox and even the elusive ermine. One actually scampered to our back window last week and looked rather longingly at the flames in our woodstove.

An ermine (part of the weasel family)

A hungry fox eyeballing the birdfeeder

A funky, snow-covered tree along our trail

Me and Ian being 'hearty and hardy' Canadians, eh?

I'm still working on the sequel to my award-winning book, The Twisted Climb, so I'll keep this blog short and get back to my writing. Stay tuned for the The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends.

Take a moment and do something special today!

 

J.C. Kavanagh
The Twisted Climb
BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll
A novel 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)