Which Book and Why? by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

I was recently asked which of my books I enjoyed writing the most and why. I had to think about that as each has a place in my heart. My first Regency romance, His Dark Enchantress, was followed by His Ocean Vixen and His Unexpected Muse because my large cast of characters wanted to tell their stories.

The same happened with my second Regency series, Those Regency Belles: Hester Dymock, Charlotte Gray, and Phoebe Fisher. My Edwardian series, The Buxton Chronicles, started with the story of Lord Randolph and Lady Serena Buxton in the novella Cold Gold, followed by On Borrowed Time and Shell Shocked. When I began writing contemporary Western romance, I only intended to write one stand-alone title. Still, there are now three: Loving That Cowboy, Legacy of Love, and Loving Georgia Caldwell.  

 

Each has brought me joy and given me grief. Characters have wandered on stage in scenes where they didn't belong. They were intrusive, nosey, and noisy until I listened to what they were telling me. That might sound strange to non-writers, but any writer will tell you it happens. Sometimes, the only way to further a plot is to sit quietly and let the characters tell their story. Then, it is up to me, the author, to fit all the puzzle pieces together.

Part of that puzzle is the research that each book requires. Even though I had read many Regencies, and still do, when it came to writing my own, I researched each element as it occurred, whether it was the fabric for a lady's dress, a gentleman's cologne, an ornate hot chocolate cup, or the stagecoach timetable from London to Bristol. I did the same for all my books, but Brides of Banff Springs was the one I enjoyed writing the most, as Tilly McCormack was the gutsy kind of heroine I like. I also collaborated on Envy the Wind in the Canadian Historical Brides Collection. The premise for the Collection was that the stories had to be historically accurate and must contain a bride and a sweet romance suitable for readers of age thirteen and upwards.

I made many trips to Banff to delve into the archives in the Whyte Museum, spend time at the hotel, which is now the Fairmont Springs Hotel, and browse the Banff public library shelves. I talked to as many people as I could about the town's history to bring the story of Tilly McCormack to life. I recently discovered that my accountant, a distant relative of one of the real-life characters in the book, has read it several times. 

And that, after all, is what matters. However much I might enjoy my characters and the situations I may put them in, it is always so satisfying to know they matter to the readers, too. You can find all my books here:

 

https://bookswelove.net/chatham-victoria/

Scroll down the page, click on the cover, and choose your market source. Happy reading!

Victoria Chatham

AT BOOKS WE LOVE

 ON FACEBOOK

 MY WEBSITE
 

You can't tickle yourself

Folk wisdom says you can't tickle yourself. That said, my wife walked while I was staring at the computer and laughing. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"Sparky and Wendy's wedding," I replied.

Cocking her head inquisitively, she asked, "Have you added to it since the last rewrite?"

"No. I'm just doing a final pre-publishing read through."

My bride looked troubled. "But you're rereading it for like the one-hundredth time. It still makes you laugh?"

A bit embarrassed, I replied, "Yep."

Shaking her head as if she thought I've lost my mind, she walked away. This is a daily occurrence at our house. It may have something to do with me spending too much time with fictional friends and not getting out of the house much.

The reality of creating fictional characters is that you become connected with them. They become imaginary friends to me, as well as my readers. As friends, they have the ability to make me laugh and cry. Yes, really. The Hulda Packer character in Whistling Pines is a composite of many relatives. You have them, the ones who don't have a filter between their brain and mouth. They say (and do) things that make you cringe. The next week you're laughing while telling your friends about them and the things they've said or done.

My real-life Aunt Hulda had a warning phrase, "I probably shouldn't say this..." Hearing those words, everyone within earshot braced themselves for some politically incorrect, and usually embarrassing proclamation. After Hulda left, we'd look among ourselves, shaking out heads. "I can't believe she said that." Then, we'd laugh.

I've tried to capture the essence of Aunt Hulda's political incorrectness in a variety of the Whistling Pines characters. In "Whistling Wedding", there's a whole plethora of potential verbal landmines stemming from Wendy's out-of-wedlock pregnancy and her impending shotgun wedding to Sparky, the Two Harbors fire chief. 

Having Wendy (an outgoing fireball) and Sparky (a clueless bachelor who's been living with his mother) moving in together next door to my protagonist has provided endless opportunities for more unfiltered utterances as they walk through the minefield of adults living together. Those opportunities range from Wendy's surprise pregnancy, consummated in an unlikely location, to Sparky's mother's insistence that Wendy is a harlot who tricked her son into getting her pregnant. There is a grand array of cringeworthy verbal exchanges.

Add to that, two librarians eager to help solve the mystery that arrives in the form of a puzzle box found inside of a donated piano and we have real Minnesota North Shore history, culture, and Scandinavian humor. 

And yes, I literally laughed out loud as I reread some of the scenes. It's not quite like tickling myself.

I hope my readers find the vignettes funny and entertaining along with an engaging historical mystery revealed by the puzzle box contents.

Check out "Whistling Wedding" at BWL Publishing's home page, B2R, or Amazon. The eBook is available for pre-order with a September 1, release.

Hovey, Dean Whistling Pines series - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

https://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Wedding-Dean-L-Hovey/dp/0228631572

https://books2read.com/Whistling-Wedding

Dean Hovey

Hullo, from your friendly, neighborhood Editor in Chief.

 This is officially my first blog post-- no doubt being used by numerous LLM developers to dumb-down their AI.  

I will post something more substantive in the coming days, but I've too much other BWL business to attend to just at the moment, so this is me jamming my electronic foot in the digital door. 

TTFN,

JD

How not to write a blog..by Sheila Claydon

 

Find my books here

I usually think about my Books We Love blog a week or so before I write it. Will I write about something that has happened in my life since I last blogged, or will it be about writing itself, or about one of my books. Over the years, like the rest of my BWL fellow authors, I have written about many different things. Today, though, is different.

For the very first time I missed my deadline of making sure the blog was ready to post at least one day before its due publication date. My excuse is that having had my son and family who live in Singapore staying for 5 weeks (wonderful), followed by contracting what is referred to as 'the hundred day cough' over here in the UK (horrible and debilitating), my mind was on other things until I saw the date! 

Anyway, here I am, writing this in a hurry so it makes it to the blog site hours, not days late! 

My book The Hollywood Collection was first published in the 1980s under a pseudonym, as were several of my other books,  Bouquet of Thorns, Golden Girl (my first ever book) and Empty Hearts. I was, of course, thrilled, but when, a few years ago the copyright returned to me, I was even more thrilled to discover that I could republish them as Vintage romances with Books We Love. 

I had to re-read them and tweak a few things but they remain much the same, so if you are interested in what life was like in the '60s (Golden Girl) and then through the '70s and '80s, before cell phones, before the Internet, before mass tourism when London and England were quieter places, and when Russia (Empty Hearts) was a very different country, then these books will tell you. The Hollywood Collection imagines a very different America too. 

I worked hard to get my facts right but research was so different then. The National Geographic Magazine was one of my main sources for books set in other countries, as was the local library and newspapers. I also leant heavily on personal experience. Nowadays anything can be discovered at the click of a button, which actually is pretty wonderful. 

Writing the books was different too. Using a portable typewriter to produce a top copy and two flimsies using carbon paper, it took a lot longer. Mistakes had to be painted out with Tippex, or rubbed out with a special typewriter eraser, neither of which produced a very pristine copy, so often retyping was the only option. Then the manuscript had to be printed, loosely secured with an elastic band and boxed up before being sent to the publisher, who might just send it back asking for alterations! It was arduous but worth it if a book was published. Some of my early ones were not!

Re-reading them was fun though. There were so many reminders of my life when I was much, much younger. Nowadays I am vintage too. Hopefully, like my vintage books, I have stood the test of time!

I Am not Btfsplk ... By Helen Henderson

Windmaster  by Helen Henderson
Click the title for purchase information

Conflict is an author’s stock in trade. Our job is to throw roadblocks into their characters’ lives. A number of years ago there was a syndicated comic strip called Li'l Abner. Among the character were Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae. To picture Daisy Mae, picture a peasant shirt and cut-off denim shorts. For a more contemporary example of the costume, think Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazard television series. Another character in Li'l Abner was a small (read short) raggedy figure. The world's worst jinx, Joe Btfsplk had a perpetually dark rain cloud over his head. Misfortune followed him around enough that people would say "if he didn't have bad luck, he would have no luck at all." Not only did the jink apply to Btfsplk, instantaneous bad luck befell anyone in his vicinity.

For many years the standing joke among those who knew me was that the character Btfsplk was based on me. Among the reasons were the successful job interview that resulted in an offer. Only to be rescinded when the company closed the day before I was supposed to start. Or the time I went to work on a happy note expecting to celebrate my birthday with a weekend away, not being able to login to my terminal did not set of any alarm bells. Two of the computer guys liked to lock people out of the computer system just to see how long it took us to hack our way back in. I had already read the pair the riot act and they knew better than to mess with me. All they said when I braced them was to see the company president. Instead of the fun I expected later that day, I was home by noon. Everyone was being laid off as they reported in.

The cloud hanging over my head struck again when I tried riding our pony bareback and fell off. No soft landing for me. I landed on the only rock in the plowed field.

Maybe it was the story reacting to my black cloud that set the tone for Lord Dal's first trip aboard Sea Falcon. Neither officer nor crew had ever encountered the unusual weather they found themselves in. A thick curtain of gray covered the area from white-capped waves to the banner that hung limp from the center mast. Only when the ship crested an especially high swell did the sailor posted to the crow’s nest get a glimpse of the star-studded sky above the haze. For three days and three nights, an unearthly fog kept the Sea Falcon trapped in an endless sea of muted sounds. The miasma absorbed Dal’s magic and resisted his repeated attempts to disperse it. The strange fog also scrambled the magnetic compass, making navigation impossible. No matter to which heading Ellspeth steered Sea Falcon, the haze clung to it.

The final blast of bad luck? The sound of wooden hull scraping against wooden hull. Pirates!

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

 ~Until next month, stay safe and read.   Helen

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack. Find out more about her and her novels on her BWL author page.