Words of Our Times

Find my books here

Quarantine, pandemic, social distancing, shelter in place – not all new words, but phrases that have become part of our lives because of the COVID-19 and which will long be associated with 2020.

Throughout the centuries, there have always been phrases that have earmarked a generation. I say “For Pete’s sake” all the time and every time I do, my grandkids ask, “Who’s Pete?” This particular phrase comes from the expression for Christ’s sake. Some people, for religious reasons, don’t want to use the word Christ in a negative way, and, instead, use Pete as an alternative. It originated around 1900. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "for Pete's sake" expresses frustration or annoyance and prompted similar sayings such as "for the love of Pete" in 1906.

Very often, the expressions or sayings don’t make sense literally. I can remember my aunt saying “it’s the cat’s pajamas”. That always made me laugh because of course, cats don’t wear pajamas. That phrase became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s, along with “bee’s knees” and “the cat’s whiskers.” In the 1920s, the word cat was used as a term to describe the unconventional flappers from the jazz era. This was combined with the word pajamas (a relatively new fashion in the 1920s) to form a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable.

I never really thought about pajamas being a fairly modern word as versus nightgown, or nightrail. I do recall once an editor telling me that “shirtwaist” wasn’t the appropriate term for a blouse in the time period I was writing. I’m not sure every reader would catch individual words but as an author I want to be as authentic as possible.

When I was researching “An Interlude”, I wanted a few words that would have been appropriate and used during the roaring twenties. I loved finding “my main squeeze” to indicate a loved one; “hard boiled” to indicate a mean or ruthless man, and the still usable “don’t take any wooden nickels.”

Words and phrases help the reader understand the time period of the novel. For example, when writing historical, an author must be very careful to use phrases that were part of a particular century. You don’t “turn on a light” back in the Middle Ages when candles were used. Simple words also indicate time and place. Does your villain steal an SUV, jalopy, roadster, barouche or wagon? Does “Alexis” turn on the lights when you enter a room, or does your butler? (Although I suppose that is not mutually exclusive.)

All of this is just part of the fascinating research I like to do before I start writing. Having a vocabulary that creates a sense of time for my stories is just as important as knowing what color their hair and eyes are. For a chuckle and to recall some fun phrases from your childhood, visit https://www.bustle.com/articles/25318-88-hilarious-slang-terms-from-the-20th-century-to-sprinkle-through-your-writing-like-youre-putting.

I invite you to explore Books We Love and see how I and other authors use words and phrases in our stories. And in this new time of needing to maintain our personal space and boundaries, know that Books We Love is trying to help by offering a FREE download book every day of the pandemic. Check their website at http://www.bookswelove.com/. They’re also having an April contest, which actually deals with the blog, so check it out.

Barbara Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

http://www.bookswelove.com/romance-authors/baldwin-barbara/

9-1-1 by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

Aside from staying home and eating too much, I've been painting my bathrooms and babysitting my five-year old granddaughter whose parents need to work. Every day, my granddaughter gets virtual homework from her kindergarten teacher, which is really cool, but I've also been teaching her other things, among them how or when to call 9-1-1.

She's known for years how to unlock my phone, so I told her there was a special number to call in case of emergency. Then, I made sure she understood what an emergency was:

- Grand-maman dropping a full gallon of paint from the top of her ladder is a catastrophe, but NOT an emergency.

- Grand-maman falling from the top of her ladder and not being able to get up is an emergency.

 So, what's the first question she asked me: why did they pick THAT number, grand-maman?

Good question, I thought. I did some research and stumbled on an article written on February 16, 2017 in the Smithsonian Magazine about a 9-1-1 festival.

 "On this day in 1968, a phone rang in the police station of Haleyville, Alabama. But unlike all the days before, the caller—Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite, who was not in an emergency situation—didn’t dial the local police number.

He dialed 911, a three-digit number that would go down in local and national history.

The idea for a universal emergency phone number didn’t start in Haleyville, a town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants that was dry until 2010. It started with a 1957 recommendation from the National Association of Fire Chiefs, writes Carla Davis for the Alabama News Center.

Their recommendation was prompted by a serious problem, she writes: before 911, anyone who needed emergency help had to figure out if they needed the fire department, the police, or medical help, and then call the appropriate local number. Not easy to do when someone is bleeding, a baby is being born, or the building’s on fire.

It took more than a decade before the fire chiefs’ recommendation was put into effect, Davis writes. Haleyville came into the picture when the president of the Alabama Telephone Co., an independent telephone company, fought to have his company launch the new system.

The call was picked up at the police station on a special red phone, wrote Hoyt Harwell for the Associated Press on 911’s 25th anniversary in 1993. At the receiving end of the call was Congressman Tom Bevill, Alabama’s longest-serving congressman—who was still in office when Harwell interviewed him 25 years after that first call.

Haleyville still celebrates the event that put it on the map with an annual 911 Festival."

So, why 9-1-1? These are the major reasons why AT&T chose the number 9-1-1 in 1968:

- because it was short & simple
- because it was easy to remember
- because it was quick & easy to dial
- because of the middle 1, which indicated a special number that worked well with the phone systems in place at the time.

That being said, 9-1-1 is an emergency number used mostly in North America (Canada, USA, Mexico). In Europe, you would dial 1-1-2 in case of emergency.  And in Australia, 0-0-0.

Here are some funny and disturbing (and hopefully false) 9-1-1 calls:

Female caller: There are alligators in the river.

9-1-1 operator: Yes ma’am, this is Florida.

Female caller: But my kids play and swim in that river.

9-1-1 operator: Why do you let your kids play and swim in alligator infested waters?

Stay safe. Hugs!
JS

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

Virtual Brainstorming by Eileen O'Finlan

Click here to purchase

Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

COVID-19 has shut down a lot of things, but our imaginations needn't be one of them. In fact, recent personal events show that they may be more active than ever.

Before this virus hit, a group of writers met at my house every Wednesday evening to work on writing projects and offer feedback. For several in the group, those Wednesday nights provided a writing lifeline. I hated having to send out the group text announcing the cancellation of our group until further notice. Even though we're not a huge group (on the rare occasion that everyone is present on the same evening, we total seven), with my 93 year old mother in the house, I couldn't take any chances.

Of course, everyone understood. Several had made the painful decision to stay away even before receiving my text. Being a resilient, resourceful, and most of all, imaginative group it took less than an hour for one member to come up with the idea of a writing round robin. One person would write one page of a story, email it to the next person who would add another page then forward it to the next and so on. After two rounds the story would be complete. It might not add up to something publishable, but it promised to be fun and keep those writing muscles toned. I had to bow out as all my writing time is, of necessity, being devoted to the completion of Erin's Children, the sequel to Kelegeen, though I do look forward to reading the finished product.

My non-involvement in the round robin did not mean complete detachment for me, however. In less than a week, I jumped onto a Zoom meeting with fellow writing group member, Jane Willan. Jane is the author of two cozy mysteries, The Shadow of Death and The Hour of Death, the first two books in her Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn Mystery Series. She's currently working on the third in the series as well as a thriller.

Jane and I are searching for both "tried and true" and "unique and new" methods of marketing our writing, so we decided to focus our Zoom session on brainstorming ideas. (For anyone unfamiliar with Zoom, it is similar to Skype). We started by naming what we're already doing: Twitter and Facebook posts, website, newsletter, blogging, in-person talks and book signings, partaking in giveaways, interviews with bloggers and local papers. Currently, I'm working with an organizer on setting up a blog tour.

Then we started thinking about what we could do that we haven't done yet. Podcasts were the first thing to come to mind. It turns out that if you google podcasts along with your genre, you'll find a plethora from which to choose. We both committed to being interviewed on podcasts.

But why stop there? Jane's husband has a vast supply of audio/visual equipment. Why not start our own podcast? Fellow BWL author, Eileen Charbonneau, and I have been discussing creating a podcast. So the three of us connected on Zoom for our first podcast planning meeting. Fortunately, through the wonders of technology it doesn't matter that Jane and I live in Massachusetts and Eileen Charbonneau lives in Vermont. We don't have to be in the same state or even in the same house to make it happen.

YouTube was another marketing option open for discussion. I have a YouTube channel, though so far I've only put up one clip of me reading an excerpt from Kelegeen. Jane and I decided we could make some more YouTube clips. They don't all have to be book excerpts. The writing life offers plenty of topics for discussion. With my sequel being set in Worcester, a video tour showing the sections of the city where much of the story takes place seems another likely possibility. Jane also has some trailers for her two mysteries. Eileen and I would like to follow her lead and make some for our book(s).

Our brainstorming session didn't end there. We talked about the 19^th century coterie of writers that formed the literati in Concord, Massachusetts – Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne - to name a few. Then we widened the circle of our thoughts to include 19^th century authors throughout New England. Such an abundance! Our region still boasts literary luminaries today. Some, like Steven King, are household names.

We got to thinking about the other authors in our area that we both know personally. Published, yes. Famous, no. This led to a discussion about what it is, besides the obvious (great writing), that makes some authors successful and others whose writing may be just as good or even better, virtually unknown beyond their small circle. 

The answer – marketing! We have to do it ourselves and for most of us it is not our field of expertise. Not even close. If it was we'd be marketers, not authors. Yet in today's world we have no choice. We have to climb that steep learning curve to figure out how to let the world know we're here and we've written awesome books that deserve to be widely read.

But how? This is a question I've been struggling with since the publication of Kelegeen. I sunk a lot of money into an advertising company that has been helping me climb that learning curve for almost two years. “Learn to think like a CEO.” “You are not only an author. You are the CEO of Eileen O'Finlan.” These are mantras they've driven into my brain. They are also concepts completely alien to the way I think. A huge learning curve, indeed.

But I am not alone and that gives me great hope. Eileen Charbonneau remains an amazing mentor for me. Our joint in-person appearances may be on hold for a while, but we are excited about embarking on a new virtual adventure through podcasting. 

Jane and I have committed to working together, mastering the art of branding, learing the ins and outs of marketing, pulling each other up and over that daunting curve so that we can come out on the other side, if not as household names, at least with successful authorial careers. We fully realize it will be a marathon, not a sprint, but we are willing to give it all we've got. If it doesn't happen (but it will – think positive!) it won't be for lack of trying.

Eileen O'Finlan

Jane Willan

Eileen Charbonneau

Baroness Orczy by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover.


Best remembered for her hero, Percy Blakeney, the elusive scarlet pimpernel, Baroness Orczy was born in Tarna Ors, Hungary, on September twenty-third, eighteen hundred and sixty-five to Countess Emma Wass and her Baron Felix Orczy. Her parents frequented the magnificent court of the Austrian Hungarian Empire where the baron was well known as a composer, conductor and friend of famous composers such as Liszt and Wagner.

Until the age of five, when a mob of peasants fired the barn, stables and fields destroying the crops, Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála “Emmuska” Orczy, enjoyed every luxury in her father’s magnificent, ancestral chateaux, which she later described as a rambling farmhouse on the banks of the River Tarna. The baron and his family lived there in magnificent ‘medieval style’. Throughout her life; the exuberant parties, the dancing and the haunting gypsy music lived on in Emmuska’s memory.
After leaving Tarna Ors forever, the Orczys went to Budapest. Subsequently, in fear of a national uprising, the baron moved his family from Hungary to Belgium. Emmuska attended convent schools in Brussels and Paris until, in 1880, the baron settled his family in Wimpole Street, London.

At fifteen years of age, Emmuska not only learned English within six months, but also won a special prize for doing so. Later, she first attended the West London School of Art and then Heatherby’s School of Art, where she met her future husband, Montague Barstow, an illustrator.

Emmuska fell in love with England and regarded it as her spiritual birthplace, her true home. When people referred to her as a foreigner, and said there was nothing English about her, she replied her love was all English, for she loved the country.
Baron Orczy tried hard to develop his daughter’s musical talent but Emmuska chose art, and had the satisfaction of her work being exhibited at The Royal Academy. Later, she turned to writing.

In 1894 Emmuska married Montague and, in her own words, the marriage was ‘happy and joyful’.

The newlyweds enjoyed opera, art exhibitions, concerts and the theatre. Emmuska’s bridegroom was supportive of her and encouraged her to write. In 1895 her translations of Old Hungarian Fairy Tales: The Enchanted Cat, Fairyland’s Beauty and Uletka and The White Lizard, edited with Montague’s help, were published.

Inspired by thrillers she watched on stage, Emmuska wrote mystery and detective stories. The first featured The Old Man in the Corner. For the generous payment of sixty pounds the Royal Magazine published it in 1901. Her stories were an instant hit. Yet, although the public could not get enough of them, she remained dissatisfied.
In her autobiography Emmuska wrote: ‘I felt inside my heart a kind of stirring that the writing of sensational stuff for magazines would not and should not, be the end and aim of my ambition. I wanted to do something more than that. Something big.’

Montague and Emmuska spent 1900 in Paris that, in her ears, echoed with the violence of the French Revolution. Surely, she had found the setting for a magnificent hero to champion the victims of “The Terror”. Unexpectedly, after she and her husband returned to England, it was while waiting for the train that Emmuska saw her most famous hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, dressed in exquisite clothes. She noted the monocle held up in his slender hand, heard both his lazy drawl and his quaint laugh. Emmuska told her husband about the incident and within five weeks had written The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Often, although the first did not apply to Emmuska and Montague, it is as difficult to find true love as it is to get published. A dozen publishers or more rejected The Scarlet Pimpernel. The publishing houses wanted modern, true-life novels. The Scarlet Pimpernel was rejected. Undeterred Emmuska and Montague turned the novel into a play.
The critics did not care for the play, which opened at the New Theatre, London in 1904, but the audiences loved it and it ran for 2,000 performances. As a result, The Scarlet Pimpernel was published and became the blockbuster of its era making it possible for Emmuska and Montague to live in an estate in Kent, have a bustling London home and buy a luxurious villa in Monte Carlo.

A lasting tribute to the baroness is the enduring affection the public has for her brave, romantic hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, master of disguise.


Classic Historical Romances by Rosemary Morris

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

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books One to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

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

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Daddy Long-Legs by Katherine Pym

Buy Here

~*~*~*~

Daddy long-legs cluster

My primary time frame is 17^th century London. It’s difficult to write of it and not go textbook, something I hated as a kid in school. What I’ve learned over my career is to fill a story that resonates with human interest. History does not change, only the names and circumstances, although even then, too much of the past rings the same in the present these days. 

 

But I digress. Spring has sprung and so have the spiders...

 

Take idiocy as a human interest story. Most people don’t like to admit to this, but it happens on an almost daily basis. Husband and I had one of those occasions this last week. 

 

Close Look at Cluster

We have daddy long-legs spiders. Lots of them. Hundreds of them, maybe a thousand (kidding, but not far from). They don’t build cobwebs of gossamer that spread across the house facade as if we were in a terrible fairy tale. No, they cluster in the eaves above our sliding glass door. They foul the clapboard with their poop, fall on our heads as we come and go. It’s creepy and annoying. We can’t sit on the patio because of them. People from miles around hear my screams, night and day as I take our pup out for her potty rituals.

 

Last week, Husband wearied of my constant screeches, my jumping about and shaking the bugs from my hair and down my collar. He marched outside and grabbed the garden hose. Like a soldier ready to forge into battle, he sprayed the spider clusters with steady jets of water.

 

They plopped like giant, wet shaggy balls onto our patio and lay there stunned. In an angry zest of nature, they freaked out, separated into thousands of crawly things with unnatural long legs. They ran up the wall, the sliding glass doors on both sides of the screen, stalked into a window corner and stayed there. Now, no one could come or go at all. Should we open the slider, an arachnid cluster would scurry into our house.

 

On that note, many did find their way into our house, (I know not how because it is a tightly built structure), and settled on the walls of our bedroom. Outside, the entire wall was covered with them, all vibrating up and down as if in a macabre dance.

Macabre dance all over our wall

 

As the days blurred by, they took to their clusters again, but not just one gigantic one. In their mindless fervor for revenge, several clusters evolved, from over the sliding glass door and down the underside of the eaves of our house and patio.

 

Now, we’ll have poop paths that run the full backside of our house.

 

Nightmare!

 

As a human interest story, I hope you felt what I felt, panicked when I did. That’s what I learned from years of writing. Don’t tell these things. Show them so that the reader stands with you, witnesses the horrific skin crawling insect moments that I did.

 

PS… No spiders were harmed in the telling of this tale. 

~*~*~*~*~

Many thanks to Wikicommons Public domain for the pics.

BWL PUBLISHING APRIL NEW RELEASES

BWL PUBLISHING INC. APRIL NEW RELEASES

Find them all at https://bookswelove.net

Maryland plantation heiress Ursula Martin is content with her secluded life in a convent.  Until the bloodiest day of the Civil War brings a downed soldier into her care.
Blinded Rowan Buckley only knows he’s in deep love with the woman who pulled him off the battlefield. His superiors claim she’s a spy. He knows she’s full of secrets, but he’s out to prove that treason is not one of them.
The two negotiate the crucial times of the Battle of Antietam, Gettysburg, and the New York City Draft Riots. Treachery meets them at every crossroad. Will their love survive?

---

Lady Sophie Harrington is not one to abide by society’s strictures. If there’s one thing she knows, it’s that she will not be paraded on the London marriage market in hopes of finding a suitable husband. When a handsome bachelor moves into the neighboring country estate, she thinks her wedding woes are solved - all she has to do is make the man fall in love with her and convince her parents he would make a good match.

Successful barrister Lord Bryce Langdon escapes London to begin a new legal practice in the idylls of Cornwall. However, being the object of desire for two beautiful sisters disrupts his life and distracts him from his true purpose for being there – infiltrate a local smuggler’s ring.

Can Sophie win Bryce’s love? What will she do when she discovers Bryce is not the honorable man he appears to be?

---

Fire Captain Gerry Ormond is launched to national prominence and receives the prestigious Governor General’s Medal of Valor.  He visits his hometown after a twenty-year absence and unwittingly unleashes a killer--a vengeful arsonist with ties to an old murder and theft of a Philippine treasure by a teenage fraternity.  Gerry was one of the frat members.
Karen, his high school sweetheart, ignites a dangerous obsession. Her husband looks good for a recent arson/murder.  Nick Modano, ex-fraternity president, now ruthless drug dealer, is the only other participant in the old crime.  Nick never forgets or forgives Gerry for running out on him during their old crime.
Samantha ‘Sam’ Markham, a crack fire investigator, begins to hound Gerry, believing his past is connected to the present crime wave.  For Gerry, the almost forgotten past has risen from the ooze and taken on a life of its own.  As a man used to chaos control, he is powerless to close the door to his evil past and haunted by a fire dream.  Confessing his old crime will help track down the arsonist but it could destroy him. It’s a tightrope he walks in a town where old friends are now enemies.

---

Martin Parker is a very happily married man, so when his first love, Diane Branden, blows back into town – still a force to be reckoned with – he is not prepared for the fallout. Drawn unwittingly into her carefully spun web, upheaval quickly follows as his world immediately begins to skid sideways.

Newlyweds Kane and Jessica Davidson also feel the roll of thunder as storm clouds continue to gather menacingly over Emerald Valley, heralding a season of trial, turbulence and challenges in this suspense-filled emotional drama.

Storms in the Valley is a cautionary tale, a grim reminder that nothing in life should be taken for granted, and to never underestimate the enduring power of love, personal strength – or trust.




 

Life is tough for a widow with three kids trying to farm on the drought striken 1930’s Manitoba prairie. Even with pressing Mariah’s two young sons, Jonathan and Seth, into helping, the ends never seem to quite meet. Still grieving for her dead husband, Mariah is unprepared for her reaction to a weary man who shows up unexpectedly asking for a drink of water.

One thing leads to another, and soon Jonas becomes a fixture in their lives. At first, Mariah isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Only time would tell.

And here we are in April already. The Coronavirus has kept us locked away for several weeks now. Staying in is not my cup of tea. I'm a people person. I love people, love being around them, talking to them, and really miss them. I especially miss going to church on Sunday and Bible Study on Tuesday. I miss the fellowship of the ladies and studying God's Word. Not that I can't study it at home, I can and I do, but it's not quite the same as sharing with the group, hearing different views and praising God in singing at the end of our study. But we will get through this, and maybe we'll all be better off for it. People are learning what's really important in life. At least I hope they are.
It's a shame so many decided to hoard items - toilet paper of all things - it's not even that kind of virus. Then it was meat and just about everything in the store. I ran in one day and most of the shelves were empty. I couldn't believe it, I actually got the last bag of flour.  Seriously!  Now I understand they're hoarding eggs. Even though we've been told there's plenty of groceries. Yet every day items are flying off the shelves. Oh and don't forget hand sanitizer and alcohol, Clorox Wipes and just about any other cleaning product. Those of us who couldn't get to the stores in the early days were out of luck. Heck, I couldn't even find a loaf of bread yesterday. Barely found one today. And it's not going to get better any time soon. We're shut-in for the month of April.
But enough about people and the virus. As my mother used to say, "This, too, shall pass."
 Time sure has a way of flying by. Easter is just around the corner and before we know it summer will be upon us. That's fine with me. I love summer and hopefully we'll be back to normal by then.
I love all the outdoor activity - cookouts - games - camping.
Well we don't do camping much anymore, Sold our camper when we bought our house, but I really miss it. I know I can borrow one of the kids' tents since they all have campers now. But we're not into tent camping.  Sleeping on the ground isn't for us. Besides, once we get down - no easy feat - getting back up is almost impossible without a solid piece of furniture or something to hold on to.
My son offered us his camper, unfortunately, we don't have a vehicle strong enough to pull it or I'd take it in a heartbeat. Just the right size for us. Although I loved our 36' motor home. But for a weekend camping trip, it would do me just fine.
But there's still plenty of cookouts to enjoy.  Hubby is into smoking meat on the grill and that's always fun, even if it's just the two of us. I look forward to the day we can cookout with our family again.

Entangled Minds: Strange, realistic visions and dreams invade Rebecca Brennan’s mind. When she experiences someone’s pain, she’s determined to find out who shares her mind. Her search leads to a small town filled with Victorian homes and interesting people and puts her life in danger.

Review of Entangled Minds:

Rochelle Weber, Roses & Thorns Reviews

Hooking a reader on the first page is an important tool for a reader, and Ms. Dowell really pulls you in with Becca’s rude awakening in Entangled Minds. Is she linked to a cop? A civilian? Or a killer? Or is she linked to both the shooting victim and the shooter? You’ll have to read the book to find out, because it’s too good to give away any of the plot, except to say Rebecca searches for the town in which this mystery takes place and finds it full of Victorian homes, quirky people, and plenty of suspects—enough to keep even me guessing until the very end. I really did not have the perpetrator anywhere on my list of suspects! If you’ve read my reviews, you know how difficult I usually am to fool. Brava Ms. Dowell.

BWL PUBLISHING INC. APRIL NEW RELEASES

Find them all at https://bookswelove.net

Maryland plantation heiress Ursula Martin is content with her secluded life in a convent.  Until the bloodiest day of the Civil War brings a downed soldier into her care.
Blinded Rowan Buckley only knows he’s in deep love with the woman who pulled him off the battlefield. His superiors claim she’s a spy. He knows she’s full of secrets, but he’s out to prove that treason is not one of them.
The two negotiate the crucial times of the Battle of Antietam, Gettysburg, and the New York City Draft Riots. Treachery meets them at every crossroad. Will their love survive?

---

Lady Sophie Harrington is not one to abide by society’s strictures. If there’s one thing she knows, it’s that she will not be paraded on the London marriage market in hopes of finding a suitable husband. When a handsome bachelor moves into the neighboring country estate, she thinks her wedding woes are solved - all she has to do is make the man fall in love with her and convince her parents he would make a good match.

Successful barrister Lord Bryce Langdon escapes London to begin a new legal practice in the idylls of Cornwall. However, being the object of desire for two beautiful sisters disrupts his life and distracts him from his true purpose for being there – infiltrate a local smuggler’s ring.

Can Sophie win Bryce’s love? What will she do when she discovers Bryce is not the honorable man he appears to be?

---

Fire Captain Gerry Ormond is launched to national prominence and receives the prestigious Governor General’s Medal of Valor.  He visits his hometown after a twenty-year absence and unwittingly unleashes a killer--a vengeful arsonist with ties to an old murder and theft of a Philippine treasure by a teenage fraternity.  Gerry was one of the frat members.
Karen, his high school sweetheart, ignites a dangerous obsession. Her husband looks good for a recent arson/murder.  Nick Modano, ex-fraternity president, now ruthless drug dealer, is the only other participant in the old crime.  Nick never forgets or forgives Gerry for running out on him during their old crime.
Samantha ‘Sam’ Markham, a crack fire investigator, begins to hound Gerry, believing his past is connected to the present crime wave.  For Gerry, the almost forgotten past has risen from the ooze and taken on a life of its own.  As a man used to chaos control, he is powerless to close the door to his evil past and haunted by a fire dream.  Confessing his old crime will help track down the arsonist but it could destroy him. It’s a tightrope he walks in a town where old friends are now enemies.

---

Martin Parker is a very happily married man, so when his first love, Diane Branden, blows back into town – still a force to be reckoned with – he is not prepared for the fallout. Drawn unwittingly into her carefully spun web, upheaval quickly follows as his world immediately begins to skid sideways.

Newlyweds Kane and Jessica Davidson also feel the roll of thunder as storm clouds continue to gather menacingly over Emerald Valley, heralding a season of trial, turbulence and challenges in this suspense-filled emotional drama.

Storms in the Valley is a cautionary tale, a grim reminder that nothing in life should be taken for granted, and to never underestimate the enduring power of love, personal strength – or trust.

Putting the bits together by Priscilla Brown

 

Struggling with a tricky assignment on an island inhabited only by her employer

and a hundred sheep, journalist Jasmine's almost literal lifeline is the sexy ferry deckhand.

 

This contemporary romance set in the Scottish Hebridean islands is available from
Smashwords until 20 April 2020, at US$1.60 

 

https.www.smashwords.com/books/view/1003445

 

 

As well as writing contemporary romantic fiction, my creative interests include working with textiles  (knitting, hand and machine sewing, embroidery, felting). Recently I participated in a workshop creating new cloth by intermingling scraps of any colour, design and texture of fabrics, and adding embellishments such as buttons, ribbons and braids. We worked small on a background fabric of our choice, choosing fragments from a stash we had each brought and from that generously offered by the tutor. We cut and tore, fiddled with shapes and colours and designs, overlapped our pieces or covered a join with a ribbon. When we were satisfied, we carefully removed the bits so we could paste them back. Pasting is not firm enough to last, so we secured our work by embellishing with stitching and embroidery.

 

For me, writing a novel is rather like putting the bits together. These are a few of the "bits" collected in my notebook which eventually found their way into the above story...reversing a car onto a tiny ferry (I had to do this, somewhat daunting especially as it was a rental car, and this became the germ of the story idea)...a smuggler's tunnel (the eighteenth century one I saw was wide enough to roll a barrel through but a smuggler would have to be skinny to use it as a escape route)...an ancient curse (liking the idea of this, I made one up)...a ruined castle...someone dishing the dirt... a shared partiality for fruit and nut chocolate (this came from observing a couple on a train, he feeding her squares of chocolate from the wrapper which I could see).

And then there's the practicalities of building the story. I don't have a complete plot before I start  novel, making much of it up as I go, and I like to check the technological "bits" on the way.

 

Choosing words: is this the most effective word for this situation? Does it convey the appropriate tone and the precise meaning? Is  the spellchecker telling lies about my spelling?

Assembling words into sentences: are the grammar and punctuation correct? Do the words fit with their neighbour words? Does the word order carry an unambiguous message? Any extraneous or repetitious words lurking? Is there a rhythm to the sentence which makes it easy to read?

Combining sentences into paragraphs: sometimes one or only a few sentences are effective in a paragraph, to build tension, or emphasise a plot point, or introduce an important situation. Otherwise, are the sentences relevant to each other, and to the current circumstances? Does the paragraph move the story on?

Placing the paragraphs into chapters:  each needs an attention-grabbing beginning and a cliffhanger ending.

Oh the satisfaction when the "bits" appear to have fitted together, reaching THE END! But of course they haven't all been cooperative. On checking the manuscript, it's likely to find some which don't fit--they may be redundant, at the wrong place in the story, out of character, failing to convey the  overall tone of the writing, simply incorrect...and more. So the revision process begins, manipulating those "bits" until the writing is reader-friendly and the story can be finally wrapped up.  (As I did with the fabric scraps, creating a pretty bangle.)

 

Stay safe, Priscilla

 

 

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Crazy & Yoga

My Historical Novels

Alexander Hamilton & Elizabeth Schuyler, A Master Passion

My grandmother lived through the Spanish Flu. Long ago, when I was a youngster, she told me the scary story of how she'd sat in an upstairs window with her school friends in NYC, all of them watching in fear as body after body was carried from neighboring buildings. 

Bad old days, was her unspoken message: 
Don't worry little granddaughter. Things like that can't happen in these marvelous modern times.

Right as Grandma was about many things, she has proved wrong there. Now my husband and I are isolating; we are hoping and praying for deliverance for our friends and families. We also send our prayers for health and continued strength to our needlessly endangered and overworked health care community. We pray too for the rest  of the world. Each country now shows its true colors in the way it treats its poorest citizens--and many wealthy nations like ours are failing the test.

It would be ironic to drop dead of a heart attack -- instead of the  virus -- over political events an elder recipient of social security can do nothing about. I'll stop venting now and talk yoga instead. 

I've written about Yoga before on this blog. I have tinkered with Yoga since the 1960's. As powerful as Yoga is--this exercise which joins breath with precise movement--I've never been a consistent practitioner.  Of course, that fact alone means that I am exactly the kind of person Yoga was meant for.*  Discipline is as important in yoga as it is in any other exercise--and as it is in writing. That means you have to work out as near to daily as possible. I've been writing daily for years, but best case for me with Yoga has been attending a class twice a week. 

Still, not even that would have been possible for me before the new, sophisticated senior classes, because I'm a skeletal wreck. I don't mean I'm thin. What I mean is that inside I'm badly joined. Tendons are sub-par, misaligned; I have Scoliosis. Maybe I didn't come like that, but that's the way my torso's been since my teens. I have never -- even on my best 110 lb. day--been able to touch my toes. 

As a result, I've had to wait for Yoga's full revelation to arrive in my 70's with the advent of Silver & Fit. The hidden truth is so simple that for years my befuddled Western head wasn't been able to comprehend, but the light has begun to dawn at last. Since the gym closed, I've found I'm able to carry on my practice a bit at home, probably for the first time ever in my life.  

Recently, yoga has been helpful in keeping (what's left of) my sanity, so I'm going to share one of what are called "foundational" poses. It's a simple -- and on the surface, easy -- exercise, but poses are still complicated to explain. Whatever, I'm about to try.

The door opener for me was Mountain Pose, so that's the one I'll use here. It's a great place to start, or even if you never get an inch farther, I think this pose is magnificently powerful in a time when we truly need to BE HERE NOW.* There may not be a future, after all.

The illustration above shows the proper posture. However, the way in which the posture is acquired -- where you actually begin -- is important. So is the breath, but I'll explain that as I go. 

You begin with the feet. My instructor told us to stand hip-width apart, not "together" as above, so I'll add that caveat here. Therefore, your feet are aligned beneath your hips, leaving the natural gap between them. Next, turn your toes ever so slightly outward, just a small bit of angle. Hands are against your sides--as much as your structure allows--with the palm open and facing forward, the thumbs turned out.

After you've got your feet placed, straighten up slowly--perform every move with attention -- and then slowly push your heels together. This push activates your calves, next engages your knees, thighs and then your belly, all of which are all now involved. Once you've engaged the core muscles in the gut, you pause to check that your tailbone is pointed down. 

Naturally, as the tension ascends your body, you will pull your shoulder blades--very gently, please -- together. The breastbone pushes out, and you can help this with a deep breath. For most of us elders, the shoulders won't want to move much, but do what you can. Remember to keep the shoulders down. 

(Digression: Yoga is not about force, which is the very Western notion that your will can overcome muscular deficiency, and that you are not a Jock worthy of the name if you can't push yourself through any pain to perfection in less than a week. This attitude will inevitably end in OW! DAMN! You'll yank something deep inside, have to take a lot of Advil(c) and then just sour grapes quit.) 

Back to Mountain Pose instruction. 

Now take another deep, conscious breath and be certain that you are still looking straight ahead and that all those muscles are still contracted. Don't tilt your head up or down. Keep the thumbs of the hands aimed back. At this point, you can feel your "meat suit" self line up and balance. Imagine your head on a string, the crown gently pulled upward.

Here is where you remain, breathing deeply and slowly, in and out, in and out, for at least eight breaths. You can, if you like, imagine that you are a mountain, plugged into the great energetic being that is our beautiful Planet Earth. Don't forget that you are giving back as well as taking and you'll feel yourself become part of the cycle. Hold Mountain Pose until you find your mind wandering, then stop if you must or continue on to other postures you have a hankering for. 

I hope you will find Mountain Pose as restoring as I do. I return to the endless cleaning of surfaces, newly acquired groceries, etc. feeling refreshed and ready not only for the tasks ahead, but with spirits raised--despite the news. I'm not worrying about a future I cannot control and may not even see. The breathing and the posture re-adjustment helps me keep sane in times which are, frankly, terrifying. Somehow, in the middle of this disaster, we need to remember to keep our humanity and our compassion--both for ourselves and for others. Personally, for me, I've been finding even a little bit of this ancient practice smooths the way. 

~~Juliet Waldron                                     https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/

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*Everybody  IMHO
*Ram Dass