MAKE LOVE NOT WAR - MARGARET TANNER

THE TURBULENT SIXTIES - I WAS PART OF IT

At the risk of revealing my age, I have to say the 1960’s was my time. Mini skirts, stilettos (I’ve bunions to prove it), beehive hair dos, I couldn’t quite manage that, although I did tease the life out of my hair and regularly put in coloured rinses, French Plum or Rich Burgundy, were the colours I favoured. I can remember when the Beatles made their first visit out to Australia. A couple of girls I worked with were lucky enough to get tickets to their concerts, (we hated them, of course), they came to work the next days minus their voices, and stayed that way for about a week, because they had screamed so much.

We used manual typewriters in those days. One original and four copies of everything we typed. I don’t know how many blouses I ruined because I got ink on the sleeves from changing the typewriter ribbon or the black stuff off the carbon paper.

During this time the Vietnam War loomed in the background. The Australian government introduced conscription. It was in the form of a ballot, or the death lottery as many called it. All twenty year old males had to register, their birth dates were put into a barrel and a certain number were drawn out, and those young men had to report to the army and subsequently many of them were sent to Vietnam. This of course caused severe bitterness and division in the community, and even though the government denied it, was subject to abuse and unfairness. Rich men kept their sons at university so they didn’t have to go.  Conscientious objectors were thrown into prison. Only sons were called up, yet families with two or three eligible males didn’t have any of their boys called up.

I only had one brother, and I can clearly remember my father (a World War 2 veteran) vowing, that if his son got called up, he would protest on the steps of the parliament with a placard on his back.

 

There were protests marches, anti-war demonstrations, and things often turned violent. Not that I went to any of the protest marches, but a cousin of mine did and got trampled by a police horse. A very turbulent time in our history and I was right in the middle of it.

 
My novel, Make Love Not War, from Books We Love, has been reduced to just 99 cents on Amazon for the month of September.

BLURB:  MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

Make love, not war was the catch cry of the 1960’s. Against a background of anti-war demonstrations, hippies and free love, Caroline’s life is in turmoil. Her soldier brother is on his way to the jungles of Vietnam. She discovers she is pregnant with her wealthy boss’ baby, and her draft dodger friend is on the run and needs her help. 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Love-Not-War-ebook/dp/B0094WQOPU/ref=sr_1_12?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1346642917&sr=1-12&keywords=margaret+tanner

 http://www.bookswelove.net/tanner.php

 

THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF TIME TRAVEL (and of the author who writes about it) by Shirley Martin

     In doing research about Pittsburgh history, I found what an important part the city played in the French and Indian War. (mid 1750s-early 1760s.) I read about Pontiac's Rebellion, an offshoot of the French and Indian War, and how if affected Fort Pitt (present-day Pittsburgh.)  And here, I thought, was a story in the making, "Dream Weaver," a time travel romance. 

     Gwen Emrys has been having recurring dreams of an isolated cabin in the woods and a tall, dark stranger who lives there. She wonders what is causing these dreams. On a hunch, she visits a restored village near her home. And there, she is flung back in time, back to this same isolated cabin. . . and to the tall, dark stranger.

    Christian is as shocked as Gwen when she appears at his doorstep. Where did this oddly-dressed woman come from? When he questions her, she tells him she's from the year 2014. She must be crazy, Christian figures; she's got maggots in her head. Or--she's a spy for the French. He doesn't know which, but he intends to find out.

    Soon, Gwen realizes that she is stuck here in the 18th century for the rest of her life. And soon, she realizes why she was sent back in time--she must save Christian's life in the coming Indian Rebellion. She failed him once before. She can't fail him again. So, "Dream Weaver" also deals with reincarnation.

    It's not easy for a contemporary woman to adjust to life in the 18th century, a hard life on the frontier. But Gwen realizes she has no choice, for by now, she is deeply in love with Christian and can't imagine life without him.

    Much research went into writing "Dream Weaver," especially Pontiac's Rebellion and how it affected Fort Pitt. There are also all the aspects that comprise a historical novel--dress, food, life on the frontier.

    Since Christian is a doctor, I read as much as possible about medicine in the 18th century. In my research, I found that the doctor at Fort Pitt died shortly before the Rebellion,and I found no mention of what doctor replaced him. With much soul-searching and upon the advice of other writers, most notably best-selling author Jo Beverly, I gave the role to Christian.

    While the Indian tribes attacked Fort Pitt, a smallpox epidemic raged there. This is a historical fact that demanded more research. And here I came upon another historical fact--the commandant at Fort Pitt purposely gave the Indians blankets infected with smallpox. Germ warfare in the eighteenth century.

    Despite all the research, "Dream Weaver" was fun to write. I came to care for Gwen and Christian as I have for my other heroines and heroes.

    "Dream Weaver" is available in both ebook and print. Unfortunately, time travel romances are not as popular as they were during their heyday about fifteen years ago. Let's hope their popularity returns.

 

 

This is the link for the ebook and paperback on Amazon:  

http://amzn.com/B006HA3APY

 

Print copies are available by request at all bookstores and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Books A Million.

 

Find Shirley Martin's titles here: http://bookswelove.net/martin.php

Eighteenth Century Women’s Fashion: A Heroine’s Journey -- Kathy Fischer-Brown

“Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us.”-- Virginia Woolf

Linen shift

As a child at the beginning of Lord Esterleigh’s Daughter, the heroine, Anne lives a poor existence with her mother in rural England. Her clothes are simple, made from linen and/or wool that was spun and woven at home or by the local weaver. Throughout the trilogy, her clothes change as her lot in life changes, reflecting her station in life and her views on the world and how she chooses to act.

Stays

In the 18th century, a woman’s clothes, regardless of her status, consisted of over-the-knee stockings knit from linen or wool, and held up by garters. Her basic undergarment was the linen shift, which also served as a nightgown. Stays, stiffened with whalebone or wood, provided support. Pockets were worn suspended around the waist with ribbons or cord under her petticoats, which had slits in the side for access. Skirts were worn in a varying number of layers. Some skirts were sewn or pinned to the bodice, while others were worn interchangeably with bodices or jackets. Bodices were fastened by pinning, sewing or lacing. (Women did not wear buttons until a later period, with some exceptions.) As a practical

Embroidered pocket

necessity, women also wore caps made of linen. Even the youngest children of the period dressed like miniature adults, with little girls squeezed into stays, or "jumps," and smaller versions of the clothing her mother would have worn.
 

While Anne lives with her father, Lord Esterleigh, in London and at his country estate, she wears clothes and dresses her hair in a matter befitting the daughter of a marquess in the late 1760s. Fashion of the English upper class was influenced heavily by what was worn at court. Fabrics included silks, brocades, cotton, velvet, linen, and wool. In this upper crust of society, cloth was often imported and the garment was cut and sewn by dressmakers (not ready-made, hanging on a rack in a shop).

Book Two of the trilogy, Courting the Devil, takes place in

Upper class women

upstate New York under threat of impending war as the northern British army makes its advance from Canada toward Albany. Here, Anne lives a hard life as an indentured servant. As it was in early childhood, her clothing is homemade of linen, wool, or a combination of the two called linsey-woolsey. Cotton fabric was rare in the north. 

For reasons of simple economics, her skirts, like those of many poor women of the era, are worn shorter than their wealthy counterparts. Her shift is made of unbleached linen, much coarser that the same garment she wore as a member of the English aristocracy. Outer skirts, or petticoats, and jackets (with or without sleeves) are dyed with colors found in local plants, berries and tree bark. In winter, she layers her skirts for warmth. Anne wears a linen mob cap that keeps her hair as clean as possible, especially when the weather makes it impossible to bathe. A cap is also vital in helping to keep her hair from catching fire, a common cause of serious injury or death among women of the period.

Wedding gown

Early in the third book, The Partisan’s Wife, Anne and Peter are married at the American encampment during a lull between the two battles we now refer to as Saratoga. White wedding gowns didn’t come into fashion until a much later date. During the colonial and Revolutionary Era, the gown a woman was married in would have been a practical, functional outfit, something she would wear a lot more than once. Anne’s wedding dress is blue (with white stripes), quite old, and made of fine linen. She carries a bouquet of late blooming asters and wood marigolds that would have been found in the area. To round out her bridal attire, she wears a fichu (a neck kerchief worn around the shoulders and tucked into the bodice) of an almost gossamer muslin and a borrowed cap with ribbons embroidered with forget-me-nots.

Cover art by Michelle Lee

Later in the story, while Anne and Peter are in New York, Peter commissions for her two new gowns and purchases the red hooded cloak seen on the cover of the book.

~*~

I wish to thank the good people at the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, Massachusetts for permission to use some of the photos in this article.Other photographs are courtesy of the Jas. Townsend & Son catalog.

CHARACTER OVERLOAD

I recently reviewed a book by an indie author who was a gifted natural story-teller. Her book centered upon a true, long-ago tragedy in a small, tight-knit backwoods town.  Unfortunately, I found the story difficult to follow, because of frequent POV shifts, sometimes as often as every few paragraphs.

 

There was usually a double drop between these shifts, but she also had a habit of changing voice. Sometimes the new POV was first person, sometimes third. Occasionally, I found myself stumbling from first person to third person subjective, followed by bursts of the venerable 18^th Century third person omnipresent. Many of her narrators were unreliable, and there were many, many characters, almost an entire town. Few were well fleshed out. However, each one, Rashomon-like, had a unique piece of information about the pivotal event.

 

As compelling as the story was, I’d have to say "thumbs down." Her tale was interesting and important—and probably remains inflammatory, even years later. People probably still remember where they were on the terrible day when a labor dispute went terribly wrong and police waded into strikers and killed someone.

 

POV shifts are tricky business, even in the hands of more more skillful writers. If I’d been her editor, I know our discussions would have been difficult, because she clearly had problems making a choice about who the main characters were. Although it might have created other difficulties in telling the story, the loss of focus that resulted from all that switching around made my job as a reader far more difficult than any author has a right to ask.  

 

My diagnosis? The story hadn’t jelled when she began to write. In her rush to get the inspiration down, to cover all the bases, she created a huge maze of information and very nearly couldn’t unravel it herself. A novel, (which is, after all, an artificial creation and not reality) needs a core character(s) and a core point of view, a place for a reader to stand among whatever whirligigs of narrative and event the author can contrive. 

 

So, if you are thinking of finally writing “that book,” definitely work out who/what/where/when before you get going. Laying the groundwork, pouring the foundation, you might say, is the place where a writer really ought to start.

 

 

 

 

 

Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels:

 

http://www.julietwaldron.com

http://bookswelove.net/julietwaldron.php

 

THE THRILL OF STARTING A NEW NOVEL by Vijaya Schartz

I just started writing Book 6 in the CURSE OF THE LOST ISLE medieval fantasy romance series, and I am so excited about it. I do not have a title, yet, but I have a plot, and strong characters. This novel is going to take the reader on the greatest adventure of the middle ages, the First Crusade.

The heroine is Melusine's sister Palatina, an erudite with a curious mind. At the end of Book 2, Pagan Queen, she was fifteen, and for making a dreadful mistake, she ended up with a curse, condemned to guard her father's treasure in a secret cave in the Pyrenees... until a knight of her own lineage comes to claim it for a worthy cause. This is definitely a romance despite all the action. I have a yummy hero in chain mail, a shiny French Christian knight, Pierre de Belfort, and I'm already falling in love with him, so I know you ladies will love him, too.

I'm following the historical frame to the letter, since the story of the First Crusade is well known and well documented. Like in the other books, I also rely on the legends to fill the gaps and explain some of the many fantastic feats reported by the historians of the time. Like the other novels, this one will be filled with battles, adventure, intrigue, heroic feats, and deadly villains.

In this book, however, I'm turning the tables on the reader. This is a departure from the previous stories. While Melusine remained stubbornly Pagan despite the religious persecutions, Palatina is more inclined to explore the new Christian faith. For that she will incur the full wrath of the Pagan Goddess.

But I don't want to reveal too much. I should be finished writing in early 2015. That gives you time to catch up with the other books in the Curse of the Lost Isle series.

Latest release from Vijaya Schartz:

Chatelaine of Forez

Curse of the Lost Isle Book 5

Medieval Fantasy Romance

from Books We Love Limited

in kindle:

http://amzn.com/B00I3T9VYG

1028 AD - Afflicted by the ondine curse, Melusine seeks the soul of her lost beloved in the young Artaud of Forez, who reigns over the verdant hills south of Burgundy, on the road of pilgrims, troubadours and merchants. But this dark and brooding Pagan lord is not at all what she expected or even hoped. He knows nothing of their past love, her Fae nature, or her secret curse. Must Melusine seduce and betroth this cold stranger to satisfy the Goddess and redeem her curse?

The gold in the rivers instills greed in the powerful, and many envy the rich Lord of Forez, including his most trusted vassals... even the Bishop of Lyon. When Artaud’s attraction to Melusine makes them the target of a holy hunt, will she find redemption from the curse, or will they burn at the stake?

Each book in the series can be read individually, but if you are like me, you'll want to read them in the right order. Here it is:

Book 1 - Princess of Bretagne http://amzn.com/B007K1EGAM

Book 2 - Pagan Queen http://amzn.com/B007Z8F7IA

Book 3 - Seducing Sigefroi http://amzn.com/B008LW18EG

Book 4 - Lady of Luxembourg http://amzn.com/B00BO0MYX6

Book 5 - Chatelaine of Forez http://amzn.com/B00I3T9VYG

Special edition box set of the first three novels (Curse of the Lost Isle) also available for a bargain price. http://amzn.com/B0091HX7EE

"Well written and factual, the book weaves history with fantasy and magic into a story that I could not put down." 5-stars on Amazon

HAPPY READING!

Vijaya Schartz

http://www.vijayaschartz.com