Saturday, May 5, 2018

Getting to Know Rosemary Morris

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After hours, during which I write and deal with writerly matters, gardening provides welcome fresh air and exercise.
A keen organic gardener, apart from ornamental flower, trees and shrubs, I grow a wide variety of vegetables. I also grow herbs which I use for medicinal purposes to make tea – hot or cold peppermint is one of my favourites - and to flavour food.
I utilise the front and back gardens to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit in the style of an English cottage garden. This week I replanted my strawberries in the front garden near them are several rhubarb plants.
Rhubarb, my first crop this year, has flourished. Sometimes, I have a bowl of stewed rhubarb and plain organic yoghurt for breakfast, or a rhubarb crumble or pie for dessert. If the crop is bountiful I make rhubarb chutney.
In the back garden there are raspberry canes, black currant, redcurrant and gooseberry bushes and fruit trees – three dessert apples, a cooking apple, two pear trees, a plum, greengage, damson and peach tree. Blueberries grow in large pots of ericaceous compost. In large containers placed against a wall at the back of the house are a kiwi and a grape vine. (Mind you, when I planted the kiwi I didn’t know it would be seven years before it fruited.)
Every year some crops fail and some flourish. Last year I stored apples and ate the last ones in December. This year, in early spring, heavy snow fell then, after which, apart from four days of very high temperatures, it has been cold, wet and windy. Even during breaks in the unseasonable weather, when the sun shines the wind chills me. An onslaught of overnight rain ripped the blossom from the plum tree, which produced approximately fifty pounds of fruit last year.
The greenhouse is full of plants waiting to be transplanted when the soil is warm, and although seeds will be sown later than usual I hope the garden will reward me. By the end of the year there should be home grown vegetables in the freezer and shelves of homemade jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles on shelves in the cupboard.
As well as being a keen gardener, I am a dedicated vegetarian cook. So, is the hard work worthwhile? Yes, the flavour of organic, homegrown food is superb. The taste of a sun warmed strawberry or tomato is superior to those bought in shops.
A family favourite is my homemade ice cream for which the recipe is quick and easy. I have an ice cream maker but provided the mixture doesn’t become too thick to pour out it can be made in a blender.

Ice Cream

8 ounces of soft fruit e.g. strawberries or ripe mango (which does not grow in England).
6 ounces of sugar
3 quarters of a pint of full fat milk.
A quarter pint of double cream.
Blend the ingredients. Either tip the mixture into a container and freeze it or tip it into the ice cream maker and freeze it when it is ready.

The Pot and Pineapple aka Gunters

In 1757, Italian pastry cook, Domenico Negri had set up business. His Italian style ice cream and water ices soon became popular, and so did his ready-made savoury and sweet confections, such as Cedrati and Bergamet Chips, Naples Divolini, biscuits, marshmallows and other treats.
In 1777 James Gunter became Negri’s business partner and by 1799 he was the sole proprietor the owner in the late eighteenth century his pastries, sweets and ice creams became famous.
By the Regency era, Gunters, a famous confectioner’s shop, opened in Mayfair, on the east side of Berkeley Square 
Famed for sweetmeats, pastries and fruit ices, members of the fashionable beau monde ordered desserts from Gunters to be served at their balls and large parties.
To keep up with the demand there was an enormous ice house underneath his premises, so he was able to offer a wide variety of ice cream which included varieties such as elderflower, orange and lemon and parmesan cheese.
Ladies did not go for a drive with gentlemen in closed carriages, but they could go for one open ones. Respectable females neither dined nor partook of refreshments in hotels, pie shops or patisseries. So, resourceful gentlemen parked their vehicles by the railings in Berkeley Square, and crossed the road to ice cream from Gunter’s. On busy days, waiters dodged the traffic to serve the patrons.
Gunters’ popularity continued in the Victorian period, was patronised by royalty, and supplied the wedding cake for Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Louise.
The end of an era came after the east side of Berkeley Square was demolished between 1936 and 1937.
Gunters moved to Curzon Street and in 1956 the tea shop closed but the catering business continued until 1976.

Ice Buckets and Iced Puddings

The cream custard for iced pudding or ice cream mixture was poured into a container which was placed in a pewter ice bucket filled with pounded ice and salt. After rotating the bucket with a handle for ten minutes, the frozen mixture around the edge of the container was scraped off with a spatula. The process continued until the pudding or ice cream was smooth and firm enough to be put in a mould and put into the ice bucket. To serve, the mould was dipped in warm water to loosen the pudding which was tipped onto a dish.

Sunday’s Child
Heroine’s Born on Different Days of the Week
Book One – Back  Cover

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, returns to England where his father asks him to marry and produce an heir.
To please his father, Tarrant agrees 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 unforgivably brutal treatment she has suffered.
Full of admiration for her beauty and courage Tarrant decides to help Georgianne.
At heart I am a historian, so Sunday’s Child is rich in historical detail.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels
Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels
False Pretences, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child – to be published in July 2018

Mediaeval Novel
Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One



Friday, May 4, 2018

Hangman Jack Ketch by Katherine Pym

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Tyburn Tree

Hangmen have been hated throughout history. After all, they killed people. Some of these men found their calling so appealing, they took their jobs to a new level. Jack Ketch was one of them.

Little is known of the man except he was married to a woman named Katherine. Almost always drunk on and off the job, he was a sadist and an artisan in his field.

He loved torture and knew how to delay death. He’d purposefully botch jobs. When at a hanging, he tied the noose around the victim’s neck so that the knot was awry. Once the prisoner was shoved off the back end of a cart, their necks wouldn’t break and the person would dance the jig while he choked to death. Loved ones would run under the gallows to aide in their deaths or pay Jack to bring a quick end. They hung on the body until the trachea snapped.   

A Gibbet
A Gibbet
Other lucrative perks included: Payment to torture a person. He’d receive monies when he sent corpses to Surgeon’s Hall for dissection. He auctioned off lengths of the noose at a nearby tavern, sell the dead body’s shoes and clothing.

For the dead who committed treason, Ketch quartered them beneath the gallows. When he gibbeted corpses, he’d retreat to his chambers (later called Ketch’s Kitchen) in Newgate Prison, where he parboiled the cadavers then covered them in pitch to keep the flesh from rotting too quickly. These gibbets, a large cage, were hung at crossroads or busy byways as a warning to passersby.  

Ketch was not a good executioner. He preferred other methods than the axe. Maybe, he wasn’t burly enough to wield one, or he did not look handsome as he swung it toward a person’s neck.






Lord Russell saying goodbye
Lord Russell, executed for high treason.
Ketch chopped on Russell’s neck so often, missing his mark or only maiming him, (One stroke hit his shoulder.) that those who watched became incensed by his cruelty. Later, Ketch felt impelled to write an apology.

“'The Apologie of John Ketch, Esquire in vindication of himself as to the execution of the late Lord Russell, 21 July 1683.' Ketch repudiated the charge that he had been given 'twenty guineas the night before that after the first blow my lord should say, "You dog, did I give you ten guineas to use me so inhumanly?..”

This exchange must have thrown off Ketch’s aim, but it does not explain how he could have bungled the execution so badly. John Evelyn who wrote a journal during this time, described the messy affair as done in a ‘butcherly fashion’. 


Duke of Monmouth

When it came to the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, Ketch had not improved his disposition or attempts to make a clean kill.

“At Monmouth's execution, 15 July 1685, Ketch played a prominent part. Monmouth, in his address to him on the scaffold, alluded to his treatment of Russell, and this appears to have totally unnerved him. After three ineffectual blows he threw down the axe with the words, 'I can't do it,' and was only induced to complete his task by the threats of the sheriffs. Sir John Bramston {Autobiog. p. 192) and others confirm the fact that Ketch dealt at least five strokes, and even then, according to Macaulay, he had recourse to a knife to completely sever the head from the trunk (Macaulay, Hist.; Somers Tracts, x. 264-5).”

John Evelyn again at the execution, he wrote that the crowds would have torn Ketch to pieces had he not been guarded.

Ketch not quite getting it right
Ketch died in 1686 or 1687.

~*~*~*~

Thanks to:
Wikicommons, public domain



Hanson, Neil, The Great Fire of London, in that Apocalypic Year, 1666, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NJ USA 2002


Sidney Lee, editor, Dictionary of National Biography, Vol XXXI, Kennett-Lambart, Macmillan and Co. NY, London, 1892


Wednesday, May 2, 2018

P...O...V... by J. S. Marlo


J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page


Way back when I was writing free stories for fun, someone mentioned POV and told me I would need to start paying attention to it if I ever decided to become a real author. To be honest, I didn’t think I would ever become a real author—whatever real meant—but most importantly, I had no idea what POV stood for. Prepositions Or Verbs? Pickles Or Veggies? I had to ask what POV meant. The answer was Point Of View, which didn’t enlighten me at all. For my defense, I write in my second language, but when I tried to translate the answer in French, it didn’t help. So, I begged for the lengthy explanation-for-dummies.

For each scene I write, I was told I needed to step into my hero’s or heroine’s body/mind. I could only see what my heroine saw, so unless she was an alien with eyes behind her head, I couldn’t see the guy behind her clenching or unclenching his fists or ogling her. I could only hear what she heard, so unless she was the Bionic Woman (it was a TV show back when I was many many years younger), she couldn’t hear the other side of a phone conversation someone else was having...then again the man at the other end of the line with the woman beside me at the drug store two days ago was so loud, I overheard everything he said, and I wish I hadn’t. I could only taste what she ate, so I couldn’t say the dish of the guy at the other end of the table was too salty, though if he spitted it out or grimaced, I could venture he didn’t like it for some reason. Obviously my other characters could touch objects my heroine could see, but unless she also touched it, I couldn’t say the guy felt it  was rough, or soft, or clammy, unless he said so. I could only smell something she smelled, and I could only write down her inner thoughts...unless she was a psychic who could read other’s people mind.

It made sense and that sounded easy until I started paying attention to it. If my heroine walked into a room in the dark, a room in which she had never been, I couldn’t describe the room, until she bumped her toes on something and patted the object to figure out what it was. I couldn’t say someone was hiding in the closet with a knife until that someone jumped on her and stabbed her, which meant if I wanted that detail known, I had to write another scene before that one in which the killer stepped into that room and hid in the closet. I couldn't say if my hero liked the kiss if I was in my Heroine’s POV, but I couldn't tell if she enjoyed it if I was in my hero’s POV, though I do tend to write most of my love scenes in my heroine’s POV. In other words, I was forced to think before I wrote, which I ended up finding fascinating.
Before I start writing a scene, I need to determine whose character’s body/mind I’m stepping into. More than once I’ve written the same scene twice, once from one character’s POV and the other from a different character’s POV, then read both aloud to determine which one made greater impact. Two of my novels feature deaf heroines, so it was interesting writing in their POVs. Noises couldn’t startle them. They couldn’t hear snowmobiles, or steps, or voices, or birds singing in the trees, or explosions, but they could feel vibrations. I usually write around 45% in my heroine’s POV, 45% in my hero’s POV, and the last 10% through other character’s POVs. I write romantic suspense, so I like to step into my antagonist’s mind and/or some secondary character’s mind a few times through the story.
When it comes to POV, it seems different publishers have different requirements. Some have very strict rules, like 60% heroine/40% hero/0% other character, while others are more flexible. I’m lucky my publishers are flexible.
As a reader, or a writer, or both, how do you feel about POVs? Do you like stepping into the mind of the antagonist a few times? Or a secondary character? Or do you prefer staying into the heroine’s or hero’s mind the entire story?
Let me know, I’m curious.
JS




 

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