Plantation Life in South Carolina

Boone Hall - Live Oaks

As part of the research for my latest novel, "Karma Nation," my son Rishi and I traveled across the American South. My previous blogs recorded our explorations of Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta and Charleston. In this blog, I share my impressions of some of the plantations I visited in South Carolina.

We were actually quite surprised at the number of plantations that dotted South Carolina, especially around Charleston. What could be their economic base?

Our visit to a few of them answered our questions. Several plantations have become quite well-known tourist attractions, some remain working plantations, while a few are preserved by non-profit societies, wealthy individuals or as state parks.

Boone Hall was on our list as a must-visit site. USA Today’s #1 plantation, it is dominated by a magnificent colonnaded home form the Antebellum period, situated at the end of a stunning allee of two-hundred-year-old live oaks. The interiors reveal the luxury that country gentlemen of the era lived in. Portraits of the erstwhile inhabitants hung on the walls, expensive furniture filled the rooms and curtains imported from Europe lined the windows. Nine original slave cabins, replete with mementos and displays of the lives of its tenants sit on one side of the mansion. A live theatre show of Gullah culture, a mixture of Creole English and Geechee, practiced by the slaves, is presented during the busy season. It is also a working plantation, well-known for its strawberries and vegetables.

Slave Cabins, Boone Hall

Next, we visited McLeod plantation. The main home, designed in the English Georgian style, it too paid attention to the Lowland slave culture that became prominent in South Carolina. A part of the Charleston County Parks system, it was crowded with school children when we were there. Full of detailed historical notes, along with interpretive tours, it satisfied our curiosity.

Plantations were large communities, villages really, with populations that sometimes reached thousands. Many functions were centralized, such as cooking and clothes-cleaning. The cook-house, attended to by slaves, usually sat behind the main house. So did the wash-house.

Inside the master’s house, a series of rules—a system of apartheid really—allowed white slave-owners and their families to live deeply separated lives, despite being surrounded by a very large number of black slaves. Certain areas of the house, such as the sleeping quarters of the white women, were off-limits to male slaves. Only a select number of slaves were allowed into the main house on a regular basis; most of the field slaves didn’t enter. Slaves had their speech and actions constantly surveilled; only at Church on Sundays were music and speech by slaves allowed. This practice had the effect of eventually pushing Black Churches to the forefront of civil rights movements.

While the plantations today seem idyllic with their flower gardens and sunny weather, it was obviously not pleasant for its inhabitants. While the slaves lived a life of hard work and deprivation, the plantation owners had their issues as well. With constant rumors of slave rebellions and attacks against them, they lived in anxiety. When Spain controlled Florida, escaping American slaves were offered freedom and some joined the Spanish Army to fight against them. In America, the Abolitionist movement became active almost since the birth of the country. Following the Revolutionary War, Northern states abolished slavery, beginning with the 1777 constitution of Vermont, followed by Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation act in 1780. In many ways, it had to be clear to plantation owners that their way of life was not long to last.

Behind the manicured lawns, extensive gardens and brightly painted houses, lay the narratives of a difficult and divisive period in American history. That to me, was the story of our visit to the plantations.

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation"

Published by Books We Love

The Past was a different place...by Sheila Claydon

Hello from Tenerife.
While the UK suffers from low temperatures and biting winds I’m spending time in the sunny Canary Islands where a cloudy day is an event to be commented upon.  In the past I’ve always thought of the islands as a place to truly relax and recharge one’s batteries but my goodness how things have changed. When I first visited this part of the Tenerife coast, more than 25 years ago, it was a tiny fishing village with a couple of weathered shacks on the dusty road opposite the shingle beach. Sitting on rickety chairs we enjoyed meals of grilled squid and salty Canarian potatoes or a paella full of mussels and prawns, all washed down with a light wine or, more often, with Sangria, the true flavour of  these islands. In front of us would be upturned boats spread with drying fishing nets, while across from us sunburned fishermen would smoke and drink before taking to the seas again.

We reached the village by climbing up and over a long hill of scrub interspersed with spiny cacti and tiny pink flowers whose name I never learned, and by the time we sank gratefully into those rickety chairs our sandals would be thick with the yellow dust of the roadside. Now, to get there, we have to drive on smooth black roads through a convoluted mass of one way systems, roundabouts and traffic signals and then circle endlessly looking for somewhere to park our car. There isn’t a single space in the row upon row of parked cars at every kerbside but we eventually find an underground carpark. It leads up into a mall full of shops with the designer names that can be seen in every town, city and airport in most parts of the world.

Eventually we find the sea and the imported yellow sands that now cover the small expanse of shingle from yesteryear and spread out far beyond it. The weathered shacks have long gone of course, and in their place is a long promenade lined with every sort of eaterie, each offering a plethora of choices. Tapas, steak and fries, pizza, full English breakfast, pasta, hot dogs, beef burgers, ice cream, pastries, beer , wine.....food and drink from many cultures and to suit many tastes. Only the sangria remains a constant. And the sunhats we buy from a stall run by a smiling islander have the inevitable ‘made in China’ label.

When we finally choose a place to eat it isn’t so bad. Our table is on a sheltered terrace with a view of the sea and here they still serve grilled squid although not as we remember it. Less succulent with few vegetables it is nevertheless a taste from the past as are the tiny wrinkled potatoes. There is nothing else left of the past though, and as we look up at the hotels and holiday apartments rising in tier upon tier above us up the steep cliffs of the island, we wonder. Is this the price of success...people crowded out of their own villages as more and more tourists fly to the sunshine. We have met people from Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland,  Belgium, Ireland,Wales, Scotland, every part of England, Australia, Vietnam and America, all in the space of a few days, on a tiny rock of an islaand 600 miles off the coast of Morocco.  It’s enough to make the head whirl!

Is it a good thing, this development of sun soaked islands for the mass of tourists who want the sun?Is it right that a tiny, barely inhabited village has been turned into a centre of holiday hedonism?Who am I to say because, while I far prefer the tiny village and the roadside shack, maybe the residents don’t. They may well feel that with tourism making more than a 60% contribution to the island’s economy it’s a change worth making. I certainly hope so.

Before Books We Love began to publish my books I wrote another one that was based in Tenerife...a Tenerife halfway between what it once was and what it is now. It was my first attempt at writing about places I’d visited and it’s success led me to do it again, and again. Reluctant Date is one of those books, set in a tiny Key in the Gulf of Mexico, one of my favourite places in all the world, and one I’m afraid to visit again in case it too has changed.

Lucy Maud Montgomery and Prince Edward Island by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan

 
I started my writing career as a travel writer, researching and writing seven travel books about the attractions, sites, and history along the backroads of Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. While working on them I realized what a beautiful country I live in. Since then I have switched to writing fiction but I still love to travel. 2017 was Canada’s 150^th birthday and to celebrate it my husband and I travelled in a motorhome from our home on Vancouver Island on the Pacific Ocean to Newfoundland on the Atlantic Ocean. The round trip took us nine weeks and we were only able to see about half of the sites and attractions along the roads.
       I have decided to write about the scenery, attractions, and history of my country. This post is about Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The Confederation Bridge connects Borden-Carlton, Prince Edward Island, with the rest of Canada at Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. It is the longest bridge in the world that crosses ice-covered water and was completed in 1997 at a cost of $840 million.

 

 

 

     We paid our toll and drove the bridge over the 12.9 kilometre wide Northumberland Strait. We headed to Green Gables in Cavendish in the Prince Edward Island National Park. One of the most famous writers in the world was from Prince Edward Island. Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874 in New London, PEI. Her ancestors came from Scotland in the 1770s and her grandfathers were members of the provincial legislature for years. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Lucy was 2 and Lucy spent a much of her childhood with her maternal grandparents on the Macneill homestead in Cavendish. Her father moved west in 1887 and remarried. Lucy joined him but felt out of place and soon returned to PEI and her grandparents. She also spent time with her extended family on her mother’s side and her paternal grandfather.
     However, her grandparents weren’t very affectionate and Lucy felt lonely and isolated. This led her to reading an abundant number of books and using her imagination to write her own stories. She started with poetry and journals when she was nine years old and had her first poem, On Cape Le Force, published in the Charlottetown Patriot in November 1890. She started writing short stories in her mid-teens. She first published them in local newspapers then sold them to magazines throughout Canada and the United States.
     Lucy studied to be a teacher and began teaching in a village school in the late 1890s. She was also writing and selling her works so that when her grandfather died in 1898, she was able to leave her teaching position and move in with her grandmother. Between then and 1911 she wrote and sold poems and stories and also worked in the post office on her grandmother’s homestead.
    Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, was published in 1908 and was an instant bestseller. She got her idea from other novels written by women like Little Women and from a story she read about a couple who had arranged to adopt a boy but were sent a girl. The book sold more than 19,000 copies in the first five months and was reprinted ten times in the first year. It is still in print after more than a century. Lucy wrote two sequels, Anne of Green Gables: Anne of Avonlea (1909) and Anne of the Island (1915) plus five more Anne books over her lifetime. She had a total of twenty books, over five hundred short stories, and one book of poetry published before she died in 1942.
     In her private life,  Lucy had many suitors over the years and became secretly engaged to a distant cousin named Edwin Simpson in 1897. This ended with she began a romance with a farmer named Hermann Leard. Leard died in 1899 from influenza and Lucy threw herself into her writing. Lucy married a minister, Ewen Macdonald, after her grandmother died in 1911 and they moved to Ontario where Ewen had a parish. They had two sons, Chester and Stuart, and a third one who was stillborn. They moved to another village in 1926 and then, after Ewen was admitted to a sanatorium in 1934 and he resigned his parish, they moved to Toronto in 1935. Ewen died in 1943.
     The Green Gables House has been restored to match the descriptions in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s books. I toured through the historic site, seeing the exhibits in the Green Gables house and strolling the Haunted Woods and Balsam Hollow trails that were mentioned in her books.

     Prince Edward Island also boasts have Canada’s smallest library. It is one room with shelves of books along the walls and a table and chairs in the centre.

Never Say Never

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Twenty-five years ago, I finished my first novel manuscript. While I often have trouble coming up with titles, this title, To Catch a Fox, appeared on the first page. It came from a mystery novel, The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. Toward the end of the book, Detective Hercule Poirot compares the killer's act of framing someone else for the crime to a fox hunt. “The cruelty that condemned an innocent man to a living death. To catch a fox and put him in a box and never let him go.” My protagonist, Julie Fox, was a woman chased and trapped by a former boyfriend and her own demons.

The Fox Hunt by Alexandre-Francois Desportes

I worked on To Catch a Fox for six years, in the midst of moving from Montreal to Calgary and raising a family. When the manuscript didn't find a publisher, I tucked it away a drawer. It was my practice-novel, I told myself, my learning-to-write process. I was certain the Fox was put to rest for good and was okay with this, I thought.  

The red fox is the main quarry in European and American fox hunts - Julie Fox has long, red hair

I turned my attention to short stories, which require less time to complete than a novel, with the goal of getting something published for my efforts. The plan worked, although the publishing part took  longer than I'd expected. About once a year, I'd get a story accepted by a magazine or anthology or, in one case, for a radio broadcast, the news often arriving at a point when I felt discouraged about writing. In addition to the encouragement and growing publishing resume, I found the short stories useful for experimenting with writing styles, themes and characters. My first attempt at suspense was a short story about a woman on the run to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. 

I wrote my suspense story, Zona Romantica, during a holiday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Another short story, Adjusting the Ashes, inspired my mystery series sleuth, Paula Savard. Like Paula, Ashes heroine, Carol, is an insurance adjuster with two grown up daughters, a broken marriage, and a longing for excitement. In her story, Carol investigates an insurance claim in the Calgary neighbourhood of Ramsay, where Paula lives. Adjusting the Ashes segued into my next writing phase, murder mystery novels. I wrote my first Paula novel, Deadly Fall, revised it, and sent queries to publishers and agents. A few expressed interest, but what would I write while waiting for their decisions? 

Insurance adjusters investigate claims, some of which are suspicious

Out of the blue, a fresh concept for To Catch a Fox leapt from my subconscious mind. Same title, same protagonist Julie Fox, same quest - to search for her mother. But almost everything else changed. The new story would have a suspense structure, with five viewpoint characters, plus a whole new cast of supporting players. Rather than Vancouver and Oregon settings, this story would take place in Calgary and California. Julie no longer travelled alone; she'd have a sidekick, her stepsister with whom she has prickly relationship. The plot and what Julie discovers in the end would be totally different. I wrote the story and revised the first draft before getting a publisher's acceptance for Deadly Fall and continued working on To Catch a Fox during breaks in writing mysteries.    

Who knew the Fox buried in the drawer still had life? If you'd told me fifteen years ago that To Catch a Fox would be published this year, I'd have said, "Impossible!" Strangely, I feel the title suits the new version better than the original, since darker demons and characters now hunt Julie and trap her more ruthlessly. You'd almost think it was meant to be.    

It shows that you can never say never in writing, as in life. 

         

       

       

A Slow News Day? Bring on the Doom Watch Dragons by Karla Stover

                           

                                                   BWLAUTHORS.BLOGSPOT.COM



Western Washington is currently experiencing a period of slow news. The snow storms are over, Seattle's delayed and over-priced tunnel opened but no one seemed to care, and our never-met-a-tax-he-didn't-like governor is last on the list of presidential candidate wanna-bes. And when slow news happens, the media brings out the old tried-and-true, WE'RE DUE FOR AN EARTHQUAKE---A BIG ONE because though "Earthquake Tracker," recorded 3 in the last 20 hours, the biggest only registered a magnitude of 1.6.

Being prepared requires either a backpack full of stuff that never leaves your side--er--back, or separate kits for home, car, and workplace. On the list is coins for phone calls so, apparently it hasn't been updated in a while.

Zhang's seismoscope was a bronze vessel approximately eight feet tall and six feet in diameter, resembling a samovar. "Eight dragons snaked face-down along the outside of the barrel, marking the primary compass directions. In each dragon's mouth was a small bronze ball. Beneath the dragons sat eight bronze toads, with their broad mouths gaping to receive the balls." When the country experienced bad yin and yang ( an earthquake ,) a pendulum inside swung in the direction of the tremor and tilted one of eight horizontal arms which opened the mouth of the appropriate snake. It opened its jaws and dropped its ball into the mouth of the frog beneath.

      


                                                          I vote for the pretty one.

As for preparedness, we have canned goods, pet food, and batteries, and everyone knows the water in the toilet tank is perfectly safe to drink.
  

In the "Olden" Days

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In the “Olden” Days

            I’m sure almost everyone on Facebook has seen the video of two teenagers trying to dial a number on an old rotary style telephone.  For those my age, you probably laughed at their attempts. For those born after the 70s, you may have wondered as those teens did, just how that contraption worked.

            As I watched that video, I thought of other things that had changed over the years, especially in the field of novel writing. I used to go to the library on a regular basis to do research for my novels. I used a card catalog to look up subjects to see if there were any books available. There were encyclopedias and atlases, and row after row of non-fiction books full of facts on anything I needed. If my library didn’t have anything on a particular subject, I could usually get something on inter-library loan, where one library would mail a book to another.  (This worked pretty well except for the time I needed information on indigo and the first book that came in was written in German.)

            Then, once my research was done and my manuscript written, the long process of submission started. With no internet and email, first class letters were sent, always with an SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) for a reply from the publishing company. Unless you were an established author, first a query letter was sent, consisting of a letter of introduction and a synopsis of the story; sometimes a first chapter. If you received a positive reply, you usually sent the first three chapters, again by first class mail and with another SASE. Each submission was followed by anywhere from six or more weeks of waiting. If you received a nod on the first chapters, you submitted the full manuscript and again you waited. The entire process could take up to a year or more, but in the meantime you were working on your next book. Even when a manuscript was accepted, it might not be published for more than a year.

            What a difference technology makes! That old rotary telephone was replaced by a push button model, then a cordless, then a push button cell phone. Even that has been upgraded to a voice activated model so that you can “call grandma” without pushing a single button. (I simply activated the speaker on Google search and asked when the rotary phone was replaced with push buttons – 1963.)

Not only is research information available with the touch of a finger, virtual sites allow an author to “visit” places without leaving their office. I can even visit my library online when looking for a particular subject or book.

The process of manuscript submission has also changed to keep up with the times. Often queries can be made via email. The post office no longer gets my double fees for submission and SASE as a simple attachment is all I need when asked to submit a manuscript whether it is a partial or complete novel. Acceptance time and publication can be quicker so that you don’t have time to work on a new book before the edits on the current one are in your “in” box. (This is not always the case, but as with instantaneous information, things tend to speed up in this century.)

            One thing for me as an author that hasn’t changed is research on my setting. Whenever possible, I visit the setting of my current work. There is nothing better than wandering through a museum of 1850 artifacts, or walking through the streets of Boston soaking up the sounds and smells and feel of history. The feel of salt water spray on my face as a wave breaks gives me words that are hard to conjure while sitting at a desk with snow raging outside. These words help me construct a scene so my reader can also hear the sounds of rebels in Boston defying the British. They can taste the salt on their lips and hear the roar of the waves as our ship careens through a tumultuous storm at sea.

            One of the many benefits of the modern age for you as a reader is you have immediate access to many great books. Whether you love the feel of an actual book in your hands or prefer to read on an ebook reader or your computer, a wonderful world to explore is at your fingertips. All you have to do is visit www.bookswelove.com  for all the adventure, mystery, history or romance you are craving.

Is your first chapter overused or a cliché? by Rita Karnopp

Is your first chapter overused or a cliché?

Chapter 1 is the most important chapter of your book – including the ending.  Agents and editors will be the first to admit – if they don’t care about your characters by page one - five – they toss your book in the ‘not interested’ pile.  Why?

Today’s readers are savvy and know what they want … a book that challenges them.  A book that they can’t put down.  If you kill your character off in the first chapter – will your reader care why they were shot, crushed under a pile of cement, or got their throat slashed?  Yet, this ruse is used way too many times.

How about the cliché plots?  You’re gripping the page as the main character enters the cave.  It smells musty of years past.  She hears growling and points her flashlight and catches a glimpse of a furry animal … Is it a wolf? … or are the fangs, dripping with saliva, larger than real life?  She shudders – then it leaps – your main character jumps, crossing her arms in front of her face … she wakes sitting on her bed - startled from the oh too real dream.  Was it a warning – or premonition?  Give me a break.

Your reader will most definitely feel cheated.  These plots are overused and outdated.  Today’s reader won’t buy it – they’ll close the book or iPad.

Then there’s the prologue that many writers believe sets the story – before you begin reading.  Most agents hate prologues.  Why not grasp your reader on the first page of chapter one?

I’ve always felt a prologue was a cheesy way of giving chunks of the back-story – which would be more effective it this information was weaved into the story as it progresses.

I must be blunt and admit one thing I truly hate is the story that has so much flora and fauna that I forget what my characters are doing.  Set the scene, but don’t go overboard.  Having said that, not enough ‘setting the scene’ leaves the reader wondering what’s going-on around all the dialog.

You need to find a good balance between action and dialog.  Descriptions should be

revealed as a character sees, feels, hears, tastes, and then verbalizes.  The five senses in a good balance of natural movement.

He lost himself in her cool, green, piercing eyes.  He pulled away, concentrating on the red locks that rose above her head with endless twists and twirls until they fell back down in ringlets, caressing her ample bosom.  His breathing increased, and he fought for air . . . blah – blah – blah … you’ve lost the reader for sure.

Another way to get your reader to send your book across the room, hitting the wall with a loud thud is to bore them with ‘little’ things.  Huh?  You know when the characters are doing things that don’t advance the story … but seems to fill the pages . . . but nothing seems to be happening.  Such as staring out the window – thinking.  Leaning against her pillow – lost in thoughts.  She twirled her hair around her finger – staring at the wall.

The clichéd “Once upon a time,” or “In the beginning,” or “It all started when,” can literally be the kiss of death!  Try something more gripping … perhaps something more modern … catch your reader’s attention from the very first couple of lines. 

When I started writing “Atonement” I wanted my reader to know the tone of the book.  I wrote, “He bent her finger back.  All the way back.”  It made me shudder when I wrote it … and I hope that’s the exact reaction my reader experience.

When I start reading a book where there is more telling than showing . . . I won’t continue past the first page.  I want compelling scenes . . . a story that makes me ask what would make her do that or why is he doing that?  The writer must answer all the what, when, where, who and how or I won’t be a happy reader.

In movies as well as books, I hate when it starts out with an introduction; My name is Janet Howell, and I would never have guessed ten years ago that I’d have been the type of woman who would kill her husband.  I'm the sweet, next-door type of girl.  Really?  How more effective would it be using dialog; “I may have wished my husband dead a time or two.  But I didn’t kill him.  I’m just not that type of woman.”

I never fall for the ‘I can’t stand his guts . . . and three pages later they’re falling to the ground in uncontrolled passion

Never . . . never . . . never create a character that has no faults.  She beautiful with no blemishes, speaks flawlessly and has the whitest teeth known to man.  She couldn’t hurt a soul because she’s the sweetheart every man wishes he could marry.  If she is perfect – she can’t change and grow in the story.  There is no real conflict with her … how can there be?  She’s perfect.  Do you know anyone who is perfect?  I sure don’t… and only in a fairytale could she be … except that would be boring, too.

Lastly, let’s discuss the problem with ‘information overload’ on the first page.  The writer is so bent on ‘setting the scene and introducing the character’ they feel the need to bring us up ‘to speed’ with their life to this point.  No.  This is a bad way of eliminating the prologue . . . which I hate anyway.  Feed us this back-story information as the story progresses . . . and we get to know and care about your characters. 

 

Children of Fyre, newest BWL Release from Janet Lane Walters

 

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ISLAND OF FYRE SERIES, BOOK 4

In this return to the Island of Fyre, each of the heros and heroines of the three previous books have children. 

Lorton is the youngest son of the Wizards of Fyre and he has bonded with the yellow dragon. The dragon through the magic of the stones has been rejuvenated and is now green. Dragon sends Lorton to travel to where the Dragons of Fyre are raised.

There he meets Arkon son of the hero and heroine of the Dragons of Fyre. There have been four eggs laid and there must be two young men and two young women found to bond with them. 

On the island where the evil wizards were exiled, Cerene has grown up as little more than a slave. She can use all the fyrestones unlike her father. She learns about the kidnapping of Riara, daughter of the hero and heroine of the Temple of Fyre and vows to save her. 

The four must unite with their dragons and finally destroy the evil.

Solo Writing Retreat by Eileen O'Finlan

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It's time to seriously focus on the sequel to Kelegeen, so I spent the last week of February secluded in a hotel suite in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the sequel will be set, to work undisturbed and undistracted.  I arrived at the Residence Inn in Worcester late on Monday afternoon.  Once I was settled in, I got right to work.  The suite has a great little work area with the most comfortable chair ever – I wish I could have taken it home!

The first hurdle was getting on the Internet.  I was given my WiFi password when I checked in, but getting to a screen that actually asked for it seemed an impossible task.  I finally stumbled upon it, put in the password and I was off and running.  The table is right in front of the windows, so during the day the sunlight helped a lot, which is a good thing since the lighting in the suite left a lot to be desired as did the lack of dish liquid and a frying pan, but I digress. 

I wanted to get as much as I could out of this week, so I made it an early night.  I had not realized just how exhausted I’d been until I tried to wake up the next morning.  Even after my brain woke up, my eyelids refused to open.  I think it was around 11:00 a.m. before I dragged myself out of bed.  Yikes!  Most of the morning already gone before I could even eat breakfast, shower, and dress. 

Assuming, I’d have no problem getting online, I fired up the laptop only to find that I had no Internet connection.  After trying in vain to retrace the steps that finally connected me the night before, I gave up and asked the guy at the Front Desk for help.  He obligingly came to my room and had my laptop online in about two seconds.  For those who don’t know (until then, that included me) when you can’t reconnect to a public WiFi connection, try going to a site called purple.com.  It reroutes your computer to get you back online.  Who knew?  I sure didn’t.  Good thing Front Desk Guy knew.  Thank you Front Desk Guy!

I spent the rest of the day with my eyes glued (not literally – I mean, ouch and yuck!) to Erin’s Daughters in America:  Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century by Hansia R. Diner.  Between reading, note-taking, and checking information online, the afternoon flew by.  I did make a point of ungluing my eyes long enough to walk all the hallways on all four floors of the building just to keep my circulation going.  There was little chance of falling asleep at the desk despite feeling like I could nod off at any minute (still in the extreme exhaustion phase) since the air around the desk felt as icy as if I’d opened the windows.  I hate being cold, but, hey, it kept me awake and working.

I went to bed extra early that night, hoping to make up for my late rising.  It didn’t work.  Well, I did get up a little earlier than the previous morning, like around 10:30.  It dawned on me that I needed this week as much to rest as I did to research and write so I decided to stop mentally berating myself for sleeping late and make the most of the time I was awake. 

When I finally finished Erin’s Daughters, it was time for my tour of the four floors.  I remembered seeing photos of various places in Worcester in the hallways of each floor so this time I took my camera.  Meg, my main character, would have arrived from Ireland on a ship and docked in Boston Harbor, then taken a train to Worcester.  I know the current train station wasn’t built until 1911 so I’ve been trying to figure out where the station would have been in my story.  One picture might have given me a clue.  It’s the outside of a building with the words Boston and Albany – New York – New Haven and Hartford – Boston and Maine engraved in the façade.  Hmmm…could this have been the original station?

Research brings both answers and questions.  The more I find out the more I need to know.  So along with my notes I have a growing list of questions, most of which have to do with the who and where in Worcester in the 1850s. 

After checking the website for the Worcester Historical Museum I found that they have a plethora of information on Worcester in the 19^th century.  I gave them a call, only to find I was speaking with a woman who took the online course in Church History that I just finished teaching.  What were the odds of that?  She informed me that the museum’s archivist is an expert on Irish immigrants in Worcester.  Pay dirt!  I made an appointment to meet with her so the last night of my solo retreat was spent writing out those all-important questions I want to ask her.

Oh, and one more thing – Chapter 1 is well underway.  The sequel has officially begun.

Rosemary Morris talks with Janet Lane Walters by Rosemary Morris

To learn about Janet Lane Walters and Whispers of Yesteryear click on the cover above.

Whispers from Yesteryear by Janet Lane Walters is the novel I most enjoyed reading this year. The tale slips backward and forward from 1755 to July 2017. The past cast long shades over the lives of twin girls in their next reincarnation and those of those they knew in the past. The author led me by the hand through the ups and downs of their lives. Engrossed in the twin’s story I finished reading it in less than twenty-four hours desperate to find out how the havoc wrought by a heartless villain was resolved.

Janet Lane-Walters has been writing and published since the days of the typewriter. She has 30 plus novels and seven novellas plus four non-fiction books published. Janet lives in the scenic Hudson River valley with her husband, a psychiatrist who has no desire to cure her obsession with writing.
She is the mother of four and the grandmother of five with two children expected to arrive soon from China. Janet writes in a number of genres - Romance from sweet to sensual and from contemporary to fantasy and paranormal. She has published cozy mysteries and medical suspense. She also has a number of YA fantasies published.

Blurb
Not the children.” Willow Carey is awakened by the remnants of a dream she hasn’t had for years. Today she is to return to Indian’s Sorrow, a house she inherited from her aunt. The inheritance has caused a rift with her twin sister. Her father and stepmother have died in an accident. Though she doesn’t want to go to Indian’s Sorrow, she must take charge of her young half-sister and brother.
Reid Talbot, a man she once loved lives near the house with his family. Now a widower, he lives with his sons. Learning to trust him again is difficult but he also has dreams.
Together, they must learn the meaning of the dreams before the whispers of yesteryear destroy their newfound happiness.



I hope you enjoy this taste of Whispers of Yesteryear.

Chapter One
July 1755

Willow Who Bends stood at the entrance of the Long House and stared at the sky. Though the sun shone brightly, to the west dark clouds gathered and carried the threat of a storm like the one she felt inside. She knelt beside the father of her spirit. Corn Dreamer had raised her and taught her the ways of healing. She prayed he would wake but feared he wouldn’t. Sorrow rode the beats of her heart and threatened to spill in a rain of tears.
"Corn Dreamer, must you travel to the spirit world and leave this one behind?" Her voice cracked and she caught a breath to still the ache in her throat. "The men have taken the warriors’ path in answer to Waraghuyagey’s call. The-Man-Who-Understands-Great-Things speaks for the redcoats, those men who want our help. What have we to do with the ones who fail to live in harmony with the land?”
Not all the pale-skinned men, she thought. A smile crossed her face. There was one who often stayed in the village and sat at Corn Dreamer’s feet to learn.
Near a moon ago, a message had come for Hair of Fire. He had left the Long House and journeyed west. A shiver crawled up her spine. Was he safe? In these days, danger rode the currents of the air the way carrion birds circled a kill.
She returned to her teacher’s side and pressed her fingers against his wrist. What had made him fall into sleep yet not sleep? Why did his heart flutter like humming bird wings and then slow. She wished for a way to rouse him for he would know the answer.
"Corn Dreamer, spirit father, medicine man, this woman is not ready for you to leave. What can this one do to help?"
She closed her eyes and sought among the things he had taught her. An answer arose. "This one must go into the forest to gather fresh leaves and bark."
From her sleeping place, she lifted a bark basket by the carrying strap and left the Long House. As she stepped outside, she heard the children’s laughter and the voices of the women raised in the growing chant. The sound chased her sorrow.
Across the clearing, her sister sat with the ones too young to work how hard she tried, she never remembered more than the cry.
She stepped from the shower. After pulling on a blue terry cloth robe, she stripped the bed and stuffed the damp sheets in the hamper.
What had triggered the dream? With the thoroughness of a pathologist seeking the cause of death, she examined the past few days and found no incident that could be called a trigger.
As she made the bed, she recalled the first time she’d dreamed. She’d been sixteen. She and her twin had been at Indian’s Sorrow visiting their aunt. Willow had always loved staying there. This time had been different. One memory lodged in her thoughts.
"Willow, come here. This is so neat." Brooke had opened the gate at the side of the garden.
Willow halted at the opening. She looked beyond her sister. "Get away from the edge."
"I’m fine." Brooke leaned forward. "The rocks look like a giant’s teeth. Come see."
"I can’t."
Brooke laughed. "Chicken."
"Something dreadful happened here."
"And I thought I was the one with the imagination and you were the logical one." Brooke spun around. "I love this place. Do you think Aunt Willow will leave it to us? She doesn’t have kids."
"I don’t..." Willow had turned away. She hadn’t
with the women. Though born of the same mother and on the same day, she and Willow by the Stream had been raised at different fires. On the outside, they wore a single face as reflected in a still pond, but their inner natures were different. As the first born, Willow Who Bends had been given to Corn Dreamer to learn about the ways of medicine and the spirit world. Her sister had been raised as a woman of the clan.
She drank in the sight of her sister. Soon Willow by the Stream would take a husband. That was good and right, but the change would further separate their lives.


July 2017
Chapter Two

"Not the children!"
Willow Carey jerked into a sitting position. Her heart thudded in her chest. Waves of terror flooded her thoughts. She gulped deep breaths of air.
She stared at the familiar surroundings and wondered why the bedroom seemed alien. Like a shroud, the sheet had twisted around her legs. She tugged it free. Her sleep shirt, soaked with perspiration, clung to her skin. She shook her head to dislodge the fragments of the nightmare that had awakened her. Terror, grief and rage had followed her into consciousness. What? Why?
Once her heart rate slowed, she reached for the alarm clock. Too late to go back to sleep and too early to get ready for work. As the effects of the adrenaline rush faded, her sense of uneasiness grew.
She hugged her knees. Once again, she had failed but she couldn’t remember who or how.
Moments later, she stood in the shower. Warm water washed away the sour smell of fear. The nightmare wasn’t new. Six years had passed since the last time the cry had jolted her awake. Always the same urgency and the same surge of emotions. No matter how hard she tried, she never remembered more than the cry.
She stepped from the shower. After pulling on a blue terry cloth robe, she stripped the bed and stuffed the damp sheets in the hamper.
What had triggered the dream? With the thoroughness of a pathologist seeking the cause of death, she examined the past few days and found no incident that could be called a trigger.
As she made the bed, she recalled the first time she’d dreamed. She’d been sixteen. She and her twin had been at Indian’s Sorrow visiting their aunt. Willow had always loved staying there. This time had been different. One memory lodged in her thoughts.
"Willow, come here. This is so neat." Brooke had opened the gate at the side of the garden.
Willow halted at the opening. She looked beyond her sister. "Get away from the edge."
"I’m fine." Brooke leaned forward. "The rocks look like a giant’s teeth. Come see."
"I can’t."
Brooke laughed. "Chicken."
"Something dreadful happened here."
"And I thought I was the one with the imagination and you were the logical one." Brooke spun around. "I love this place.”

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