Books We Love Insider Blog

Monday, April 10, 2017

SPRING IS FOR LOVERS, BOOKS WE LOVE NEWEST CONTEST

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Pucker UP

TO PURCHASE HEATHER GREENIS' BOOKS CLICK HERE

Last month on the blog I discussed the average attention span. Picking up on that theme, I heard another interesting statistic.

This one has me equally baffled. According to a survey, people are willing to watch a kissing scene for twelve seconds. Now granted, twelve seconds doesn't sound very long, but think about it.

This survey wasn't using a couple having short sweet kisses while talking or giggling. We are referring about a full blown, wet, get the heart pumping kiss.

I challenge you. Set a timer for twelve seconds.

Ready?

Now, imagine watching a couple go at it. Not a couple on the big screen, but an average couple.

One thousand…two thousand.

Keep watching that couple.

You're not even half way there yet.

When you've had enough, how many seconds area left on the timer?

There is a reason the camera angle changes during a 'Hollywood' kissing scene. You've watched the characters in that relationship grow and develop, but still, enough is enough. I think that is why the director uses sheer curtains, a fence, something, anything to add dimension to the scene. Even the character's hands get in the way of the lip lock.

As you can guess, twelve seconds, in my mind, is way too long to watch.

So, back to the 8.5 second attention span. I think during the kiss the viewers mind is wandering for at least 3.5 seconds.

Empowerment shatters traditions and lives. Greed and pride have devastating consequences. Sacrifices must be made. Written on multiple levels, the saga deals with hope, relationships, and giving, set against a background of conflicting values.
Through a series of dreams, modern day couple Keeghan and William follow the triumphs and tragedies of multiple generations of the Donovan family. A chance encounter changes Natasha’s life, forever. In her diary, Natasha writes of her dream, and her hope to escape a horrid dictated future.
Will Natasha's legacy survive an uncertain future?

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Saturday, April 8, 2017

New Releases from Books We Love Authors for Spring 2017

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New releases from Books We Love

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Say What, Now? By Gail Roughton

Visit Gail Roughton at Books We Love, Ltd.

Has it ever crossed your mind that a lot of problems are caused by folks unnecessarily complicating things? We've all got folks in our lives who're masters of that. You know, like the people who, when hanging a picture, first pull out their handy-dandy stud-finder and locate a stud (regardless of whether the picture weighs a few ounces or whether it's in an ornate frame and weighs a ton), and then pull out the tape measure and measure top to bottom and side to side before picking a spot. This was my husband's preferred method when he was younger; nowadays, he's more apt to follow my method of eyeballing the wall, hammering in the nail and hanging the picture. I've always been a "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line" type of gal.

But the prize-winners among the folks who unnecessarily complicate things are English teachers, especially senior high English teachers and college professors. Please let me state here that I have the utmost respect for teachers, truly I do. However, I'm afraid teachers, especially those who teach in the aforementioned upper levels of the educational system, might have a bit too much respect for just how complex and complicated a writer's mind is. We're really not that complicated. What am I talking about?

This. This little diagram is what I'm talking about. We're writers. We're not rocket scientists.We're telling a story. We're not making comments on the inequities of society. Well, we are, but that's because any story we write is, of necessity, reflective of the society in which it's set. In other words, we write what we know because guess what? It's what we know. Unless of course it's science fiction or fantasy. But it's not like we're sending out hidden messages visible only to those who sit and analyze our wondrous words.

For instance, when my youngest son was in college, one particular assignment required him to discuss the significance of Bram Stoker's use of the Three Sisters in Dracula as an allegory for the social inequities in the treatment of women in Victorian society. Or something similarly esoteric to that phraseology, it's been a while. And really. Say what, now?

We're talking about Dracula here. Truly one of the masterpieces of literature. I read it when I was in the eighth grade and I didn't sleep for three nights thereafter. I didn't sleep without a cross and a St. Christopher's medal around my neck for the next ten to fifteen years, either. Was that the effect Bram Stoker was going for? Oh, you betcha it was. Was he disappointed it never crossed my mind that the Three Sisters weren't being treated fairly as equals to the Count, just as women in 19th Century England weren't treated as equals to men? Well, I can't exactly ask him but I really doubt he'd have lost any sleep over it. I think if anybody asked him what was going through his mind when he created the the Three Sisters, he'd say "I was trying to scare the bloody hell out of anybody reading the story." And if anybody asked him for his thought processes in creating such an allegory for the social inequities of his society, his response would be "Say what, now?" In an English accent of course.

Because evil never dies. It just--waits.

I write to entertain. To be honest, I write to entertain myself. That's honestly my primary motive for writing. I've written books widely disparate in style and genre and usually the bottom-line motive is I'm bored and I need some entertainment. That being said, of all my books, The Color of Seven is the one an English teacher would be most apt to find full of hidden allegories and parables and comments on society (not that I think any English teacher would ever be using it in an English class). That's because it spans over a century in time, beginning in the 1880's and extending to the present as it tells the story of a family living in Macon, Georgia in the post-Civil War South. Racism, mixed marriages, and prejudice are all elements of the plot. And then there's the eternal battle of good versus evil, light versus dark thing, I've always been a sucker for that, it gives me the excuse to throw black magic and voodoo and vampires in. I call it my Southern Gothic family saga horror, and my unabashed and unashamed motive in writing same was to scare the hell out of my readers while making them fall in love with some of the characters and totally loathe a few others, which is the pinnacle of success for any writer. (And at the risk of sounding as though I'm tooting my own horn, feedback from readers indicate I was successful in that endeavor, at least with a few folks.)

As to the more serious social issues I admit are an integral part of the background and plot of this book--trust me, I didn't set out to write a novel highlighting those issues. They're in the book because I'm southern, born in 1954. I cut my teeth on Civil War history, I grew up in the 1960's. I never did a lick of research on anything in that book (unless you count copying the street names and business names off an old 1888 map of my hometown of Macon, Georgia which is why the story starts in the 1880's in Macon, Georgia--I wasn't about to waste that treasure) except for the voodoo black magic elements involved. I didn't do any research because I didn't need to. And why not? Because we write what we know, what's already there, burned into our brains and woven into the very fibers of our being. There's not always a hidden agenda.

Therefore, if any English teacher ever did ask a student to discuss the use of vampirism in The Color of Seven as a statement on the post-Civil War dichotomy between the races, trust me--the only appropriate response would be "Say what, now?" Everything doesn't have to be complicated, folks. You know what they say. "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck--it's probably a duck." Enjoy the simple pleasures! (Including a good scare.)

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Writin' With Southern Stylin'!

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

The reign of Queen Anne Stuart, 1702-1714.by Rosemary Morris

Purchase these books written during the riegn of Queen Anne Stuart, and more books by Rosemary Morris by visiting her Books We Love author page: http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary/

I have written three historical romances, with strong themes, set in the reign of Queen Anne Stuart, 1702-1714. Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies and The Captain and The Countess.

When Queen Anne Stuart, niece of Charles II, ruled from 1702 to 1714 attitudes towards children and their education were very different to those in the 21^st century.

Childhood and Education. Gentlewomen

in early 18^th century England.

Little is known about the nursery, in which babies were fed pap instead of either their mother’s or a wet nurse’s milk. To entertain infants, those whose parents could afford them, babies had coral rattles with bells.

Little girls played with dolls, which were called ‘Babies’. An advertisement read: On Saturday, last, being the 12^th instant, there arrived at my House in King Street, Covent Garden, a French Baby for the year 1712. Some dolls were made of wax, but these were the most expensive and so were those in Widow Smith’s raffle, large jointed, dressed Babies. It is possible that, dolls were girls’ only toys.

Although most girls were educated at home some of them attended boarding schools. . In Tangled Love, the heroine’s young sister attends one owned by *Mrs Elizabeth Tutchin in Highgate, where young gentlewomen could be soberly educated and taught all sorts of learning fit for young gentlewomen.

It was considered very important to instil sobriety into pert girls, who probably ogled men, were always on the lookout for a potential husband and flirted with fans. For example: *A fan placed near the heart sent the message “You have won my love.” Hiding the eyes behind the fan. I love you. Twirling the fan in the left hand. We are being watched.

In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, plain sewing and embroidery, town bred pupils were taught to dance, sing and play the virginals, spinet and guitar. Other instruction might include painting on glass, wax work and drawing. They also learned culinary arts - pastry, sweetmeats, sauces and liqueurs.

A clue to country-bred girls’ education is in the dialogue between characters in The Sowrers by Shadwell, from which I quote some snippets.

Priscilla. Did she not bestow good breeding upon you there?

Clara. To see cow’s milk’d, learn to Churn, and make Cheese? (Presumably neither Clara nor the other young ladies were expected to milk a cow.)

Eugene And to learn the top of your skill in Syrrup, Sweetmeats Aqua mirablisi and Snayl Water.

Priscilla. Ay, ay, and ‘twere better for all the Gentlemen in England that wives had no other breeding, but you had Musick and Dancing.

A good housewife was valued. An aunt tells her niece.…she spent her time in better learning than you did. Not in reading flights of battels of Dwarfs and Giants; but in writing out receipts for Broths, Possets, Caudles, and Surfeit Waters; as became a good Country Gentlewoman.

If girls could not learn the art of making pastry at home, particularly for raised pastry, there were the forerunners of Cookery Schools.

Whatever else a gentlewoman’s education lacked it was not dancing. She was taught how to hold her head, heave her breast, and move with her entire body. If she didn’t learn to do so correctly, she was threatened with never finding a husband. A young lady was also expected to learn how to behave at the Tea Table, to present her snuff box and how to place patches on her face to the best advantage.

Poor children could attend Sunday School, where they were taught to read, not for entertainment, but to study the Bible.

At charity schools orphans were trained to wash, iron, clean, sew and knit as well as write and cast accounts. The older girls assisted the housekeeper, and made and mended the children’s clothes. By the time they left they had been trained to become domestic servants and, if they were fortunate, to become good housewives.

*Elizabeth Tuchin’s brother, worked for the Observater.

*The Language of The Fan by Micki Gaffney.

Mediaeval Novel

Yvonne, Lady of Cassio,

set in the turbulent reign of Edward II. Publication date to be announced.

Available as e-publications and paper backs.

Early 18^th century novels by Rosemary Morris

Tangled Love,

Far Beyond Rubies

The Captain and The Countess

Regency novels

False Pretences