Author Archive
Welcome to the September 2020 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
Below is another snippet from my paranormal romance novella KITSUNE ENCHANTMENT, scheduled for release on September 23. It’s a follow-up to YOKAI MAGIC but can stand alone. How can a writer of graphic novels and her reclusive artist partner find happiness together when he has a secret life as a fox shapeshifter?
In this excerpt, half-human kitsune Ryo gets cornered by a co-worker who’d accidentally seen him changing into a fox.
This month’s interview showcases romance and women’s fiction author Mona Sedrak.
*****
Interview with Mona Sedrak:
What inspired you to begin writing?
When I was a child, we moved around a lot. In fact, I don’t remember going to the same school or having the same friends year after year. There was a lot of movement and constant change and instability that impacted my world so much that I learned to escape in books. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend on books, but my mother was very wise. She was a librarian for Harvard University and understood the gift of books and reading. She brought home many books for me and she would stop by any yard sale she passed and buy boxes and boxes of books. She didn’t necessarily limit what I read, and therefore, I read everything from engineering textbooks to romance. I learned to love books and the escape they provided. I consumed volumes of books, and she could barely keep up with my voracious appetite to read and learn. By the age of 13, I was reading probably 10 to 12 books a week on every subject under the sun. Nothing bored me. I also found out that I could teach myself anything by reading a book better than anyone could teach me. Then I started journaling and writing short stories, and I discovered that I communicated best through the written word.
As I matured my love for books only increased and my ability to learn on my own was even more pronounced. In my mid-30, I found my voice, first through academic publications–– journal articles and textbooks–– and then fiction. Fiction is my passion and I enjoy creating a world that readers can sink into and forget what is happening in their world. When I write, I too escape into that world, and perhaps that is why my academic life has minimal impact on what I write.
As a tenured professor and college administrator, my academic life is filled with rules, conflict, and stress. I love academia, and I love academic administration, but I have found that I am better as a person if I am able to escape and express myself in a different way through my writing.
What genres do you work in?
When I first started writing professionally, I was published in medical journals, chapters of various medical texts, and I co-authored a pharmacology textbook and an internal medicine review for physician assistant students.
About five years ago, I began writing fiction under a pseudonym and wrote two romance novels. My last two novels, published by The Wild Rose Press, are categorized as mainstream fiction/women’s fiction.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
The very first work of fiction I wrote, which I never published, I completely winged it. I wanted to see if I could write fiction, and once I started the words flowed, and I found that I absolutely loved writing fiction so much more than academic work. As my writing matured, I found that I had to do some significant research and character building before I began writing. I also began outlining the story using software called Scrivener. I can’t say that I outline the novel from beginning to end, but I come pretty close. Sometimes when I start writing I do follow the outline fairly well, but then the characters take over, and they do whatever they want and all that outlining I did goes right out the window. The character development, the world building, and the research is priceless. I know everything about my characters before I begin to write. I even choose pictures from the Internet so I know exactly what my characters look like.
I always know how a story will begin and how it will end. But each and every time I write, the characters take over and run amuck in the middle, and I always have to rein them in and many times I fail. The story unfolds as it wants to, and I go along for the ride.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
Earlier in my writing career I would’ve said that certain authors made a huge impact on my writing. I still think that my writing is influenced by the many, many great authors whose novels I have enjoyed and learned from. However, now I believe life experience has the most impact on my writing. I think I have led an unusual life and have had many experiences that have molded me into the person I am today. There is no escaping from those experiences. Even if I suppressed or attempted to suppress those experiences from the words I write, they would still unconsciously have an impact on my writing.
Beside life experiences, I find people to be very interesting, and their actions and decisions never fail to surprise me. Sometimes hearing or reading a news story will spark an idea. Other times, a story idea comes to fruition just by listening to a conversation or speaking to family and friends. For instance, I was on vacation one year in a tropical location and the woman sitting next to me by the pool said she was waiting for a man she had never met before. Apparently, they had been emailing one another for years but had never spoken or seen each other’s picture. They lived in different countries and over the years, just through writing one another, they fell in love and decided to meet for the first time and get married. Neither knew each other’s age, background or family, or what they look liked. Their entire romance unfolded before my eyes over the next week, and I always thought their story would be a pretty cool prompt.
What academic field do you work in, and how has experience in that form of writing affected your fiction (if it has)?
I started my career as a clinician and then earned a Master’s degree in education, research, and leadership and a doctoral degree in higher education. I entered the world of academia over 20 years ago and taught in graduate health sciences for many years before I entered higher education administration. Several years ago I moved across the country and changed to undergraduate education. I am an Associate Dean at the University of Cincinnati Clermont. I also teach in the undergraduate health professions and still dip my toes in graduate education now and then.
Writing academically is very different than writing fiction. I enjoy writing fiction much more than I ever did writing academically, but I have to say that the experience I have with academic writing has positively impacted my writing on the whole. My experiences in the academic field probably impact my writing now in terms of research. I also watch people much more closely now and notice mannerisms and habits and forms of speech. I often draw from my experience as a clinician as well. As a clinician, the first thing one has to do is be an excellent listener. So, as I people watch I also listen very carefully to what they say and how they say it. My medical background often impacts my writing, and in fact, in my new book, Gravity, one of the main characters is a medical assistant.
What kind of research do you do for your fiction?
I do quite a bit of research before I ever start writing. I like to research as much detail I can about the setting in which the story takes place. Most of the time I can do the research via Internet, but sometimes it requires a visit to the location. After I know exactly where the story will take place, I research restaurants, stores, accents, special words or phrases in that area of the country, temperature and seasons and even architecture of buildings. If I’m going to describe a house or an apartment, I actually search the real estate ads and find a home that fits the story line and the location, and I do a virtual tour as if I was buying the house. Sometimes I take screen pictures so I can appropriately describe each room if need be. If the character is going to travel anywhere, I research time zones, how long a flight would be from one area to another, costs of the flight, etc. and then of course I have to research that setting as well.
I like to be as realistic as possible in my description, painting the picture for the reader. Gravity is mainly set in Florida. I visited Florida on a number of occasions and took many pictures and had many details, even about what time the sun set in a particular month. A reader just told me that they read the book while they were on a beach in Florida and each scene was so well described they felt that they were actually part of the story. So, details do matter quite a bit. While fiction can stretch the reader’s imagination and the writer can go as far as they want in creating their own world, when I write women’s fiction I like to create a realistic world and a realistic story. It would be different if I wrote science fiction or in a different genre.
Do you have any tips for authors wanting to start a newsletter (scheduling, subject matter, etc.)?
Newsletters are an interesting way of reaching readers, but they can also be incredibly annoying if you send too many. I will admit that I have a wonderful personal assistant who handles my newsletters. When I first started writing, I made the mistake of sending out way too many newsletters. Now, I send them seasonally or when something exciting is happening such as the release of a new book, a contest, a sale on my books or awards my books may have received. There are number of platforms that authors can use to build an audience where newsletters can be used. Readers are more likely to open a newsletter if there’s something in it for them such as a giveaway or contest. Telling readers a little bit about yourself, what you’re writing now, and even asking them questions about their opinions on your latest book or if you’re having trouble finding a name for a character or restaurant. Engaging the reader is huge and I tend to do more of that via social media than newsletters.
While I do not manage a blog myself, I am interviewed on quite a few blogs throughout the year. I also use a promo company who I love called N.N. Light. They are wonderful where blogs and getting the word out through social media is concerned and come up with a lot of great ideas such as character interviews, etc. They are also very affordable and you get to know a lot of other writers they work with. Will support one another with retweets and Facebook.
What is your latest-released or soon-forthcoming work?
Gravity was released on July 15, 2020. It is a woman’s fiction novel with strong romantic elements based on the Middle Eastern culture. Even though I am Middle Eastern, I still had to do some research, and actually, it was a harder book to write than other novels I’ve written. Perhaps this was due to me being too close to the subject matter and spending a lot of time making sure I offered a balanced message. This story is about a young Middle Eastern woman, Leila, who was born and raised in the United States, but lived a very sheltered life. She makes a decision which leads to her being shunned by her family, and for the first time in her life she’s alone. She has to learn who she is because she never identified with the American or Middle Eastern culture. The story is complex and has strong cultural elements. After being sheltered for so long, then thrust into the world on her own, Leila must rebuild her life and learn forgiveness, understanding, and tolerance. The story also is about an American man, Aiden, who is a single father of a child with down syndrome. Leila and Aiden come from remarkably different backgrounds and yet they are inexplicably pulled to one another. There are many challenges they have to overcome including each other’s cultural backgrounds and beliefs. At the end of the day, I want readers to understand that while we all may be different, our similarities outweigh our differences. With understanding and tolerance, the world is a better place.
What are you working on now?
At the present time I’m working on two different projects. I’m outlining a family saga which will be a five book series. I love writing about families and strong female characters. This series has a lot of drama, a lot of action, and a lot of twists and turns. I’m also working on a memoir for my family. I’m using StoryWorth to answer questions my children pose to me in story format, and at the end of the year, the stories will be bound into a book. This actually is very time-consuming as I have to dig up pictures and call on family members all over the world for information. I immigrated when I was five years old and many family members moved to other countries. Both projects are a lot of fun, and I often wish I had more time in the day to complete everything I want to do.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
I think aspiring authors are often terrified of putting themselves out there. They keep putting things off day after day, waiting for the perfect story to suddenly pop into their head and the perfect words to magically appear on paper. The thing is, there is no perfect story, and there are no magical words. The best advice I can give an aspiring writer is… Words on paper. Just do it. Sit down, start anywhere, and put words on paper. Once you start, the words will begin to flow. Your first draft will be just that––a draft and nothing more, but you should be proud of yourself because you would have completed an entire novel. Then comes the really hard part. You must share your work with someone. You can’t keep it locked up in your computer or in a notebook. Every writer struggles with sharing their work. We are all terrified of rejection that sometimes we let that fear overcome us, and we forget to visualize what success would be like. The best way to get feedback is to join a writer’s group locally or online. You’ll find that everyone is in the same boat, struggling to write the perfect story. They have the same questions you do about publication, marketing, and promotion and is it all worth it. They wonder if their work is worth anything, and if they should even send it to any publishing company at all or should they self-publish or should they try to find an agent. They have the same exact fears that you do. Therefore, when you join a group you will feel supported so much that the words will flow, and you will find an entire community that will support you through the process, but you must do the hard work. You have to write the words, and you have to share your words. Don’t let fear rule you because you will regret it.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
Social Media Links
Website: Mona Sedrak
Amazon: Amazon
Twitter: Twitter
Facebook: Facebook
Goodreads: Goodreads
Newsletter: Mona Sedrak’s Newsletter
Instagram: Instagram
Bookbub: BookBub
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE OTHER BENNET SISTER, by Janice Hadlow. I’ve always been disappointed that Mary Bennet in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is treated so shabbily by the author. Jane Austen presents the bookish, socially awkward middle sister as a figure of mockery instead of showing her intelligence as worthy of respect. I enjoyed PRIDE AND PROMETHEUS, by John Kessel, which imagines Mary developing a bond with Victor Frankenstein and his creature. Hadlow’s book takes a realistic novel-of-manners approach, writing in a style similar but not identical to Austen’s own and focusing on the same issue central to PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: How can a woman with limited financial resources find her place in society? By her early teens, Mary has internalized her mother’s judgment of her as the plain daughter, a disappointment compared to all her sisters. In Mrs. Bennet’s view, marriage, which depends on beauty, is the only worthwhile goal for a young woman. Mary decides to concentrate on her strengths, music and reading. The pompous statements she interjects into conversations constitute her attempts to win respect for her scholarship. When she realizes her father, who she hopes will recognize her as a kindred spirit, regards her with the same detached amusement as he does the other girls (with the possible exception of Elizabeth), she feels her lack of worth confirmed. When she gets her first pair of spectacles, she’s delighted to be able to read comfortably but doubly convinced of her plainness. The early part of the novel passes rapidly over the events of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, seen through Mary’s eyes as an outsider to her sisters’ dramas. The main story starts after all four of the other girls are married, even Kitty (to a respectable clergyman), and Mr. Bennet dies. After the loss of the family estate, Mary has to depend on Jane and Elizabeth to shelter her. She even returns briefly to their former home as a guest of their friend Charlotte, now Mrs. Collins. Hadlow develops Mr. Collins, the clergyman presented as a buffoon in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, into a rounded character who engages the reader’s sympathy. When Mary turns as a last resort to her mother’s London relatives, the Gardiners, their affection and the example of their happy home life lead her to self-respect and, finally, a love worthy of her, a man who shares her deep enjoyment of literature and philosophy. I did notice one tiny, annoying error that an author this perceptive and intelligent shouldn’t make: She repeatedly refers to the children of Mary’s Aunt Gardiner as Mary’s nieces and nephews, using the correct “cousins” only once that I remember. But on the whole this novel should delight any fan of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF WASPISH WIDOWS, by Olivia Waite. This is the second of Waite’s nineteenth-century lesbian “Feminine Pursuits” romances, following THE LADY’S GUIDE TO CELESTIAL MECHANICS. It’s not exactly a series, since the two books don’t share characters or story elements. Like the earlier novel, this one focuses on female characters working at unusual vocations for women of that era. Penelope Flood, beekeeper in the village of Melliton, has a platonic marriage with a man who’s actually partnered with her brother. The two men spend most of their time away at sea. Agatha Griffin, a widow with a nineteen-year-old son, owns a print shop in London. When a swarm of bees colonizes her warehouse in Melliton, she hires Penelope to deal with them and finds herself reluctant owner of a beehive. Back in London, she corresponds with Penelope about the bees, and soon their letters progress to intimate friendship. While Agatha begins to make regular visits to Melliton, she has to cope with her son’s radical tendencies and the romantic attraction between him and her young female apprentice. Meanwhile, Penelope clashes with the village lady of the manor and the minister of the local parish. The deep affection between the two heroines grows against the background of political unrest catalyzed by the alleged adultery of Queen Caroline. Waite makes the physical, social, and cultural setting come fascinatingly alive. The technology of printing and the lore of honeybees are presented in absorbing detail. Both Agatha and Penelope are strong characters in their own ways. Each hesitates to express her feelings openly, but of course they eventually do. Before they can form a permanent union, though, Agatha has to settle the issues of her London business and her son’s potentially dangerous radicalism, as well as his future with her apprentice. The love scenes between the two heroines are hot, sensual, and deeply emotional. Recommended for fans of unconventional historical romances.
CATALYST, by Sarah Beth Durst. Although the premise of this early-YA novel sounds silly at first glance, it’s a surprisingly good book, with the implications of its fantastic elements seriously explored. Twelve-year-old Zoe finds a lost kitten small enough to fit into her hand. She has a habit of rescuing stray animals of many different species, and after the skunk incident, her parents forbade her to bring home any more of them. The tiny kitten, whom she names Pipsqueak, is easy enough to hide in Zoe’s bedroom—until she grows far beyond normal cat size within a couple of days and starts talking. Zoe has gotten permission to keep the kitten, on strict conditions, but a giant, talking cat is another matter. When her parents wonder where the little kitten has gone, and Pipsqueak grows almost too big for the backyard shed, Zoe and her best friend, Harrison, decide they have to find a way to return her to normal. Zoe writes to Aunt Alecia (her mother’s estranged sister), considered the crackpot of the family, and her aunt invites Zoe to bring the cat to her home for a solution to the problem. So, with the cover-up assistance of Harrison’s teenage girl cousin, Zoe and Harrison embark on an adventurous journey, riding on the kitten, who’s now the size of an elephant. Along the way, they pick up an extraordinary dog and mouse, too. Given the fantasy premise, Zoe’s problems and her relationship with her lively, affectionate family are realistically rendered. The answer to the riddle of Pipsqueak’s transformation is one I would never have guessed.
SURVIVOR SONG, by Paul Tremblay. Horror author Tremblay has written a story of the temporary breakdown of society during a lethal epidemic, presented intimately through the eyes of two women in desperate straits. Its publication at this point has to be an uncanny coincidence, given the length of time required to write a novel, then get it printed and released by a major publisher. The virus in SURVIVOR SONG is a mutated form of rabies with a frightfully short incubation period, often transforming a human victim into a ravening beast in as little as an hour. Like animals (which are also susceptible to the disease), human sufferers have an aversion to water and a compulsion to bite. Although they don’t die and revive, the term “zombie” inevitably occurs to many people, including Natalie, a woman in late pregnancy whose husband is killed by a rabid man before her eyes. She manages to slay the attacker, but not without getting bitten. She seeks help from her best friend, Dr. Ramola Sherman. Together they manage to get to the hospital where Ramola works. There Natalie receives an injection that may prevent her from developing the disease. She needs a transfer to a facility where she can have a caesarian delivery to prevent the baby from getting infected. The plan goes wrong, of course, and the rest of the story (except for the epilogue) is intensely compressed into the brief period while Ramola and Natalie search desperately for a hospital or clinic able to perform the procedure. As Natalie’s condition deteriorates, they struggle with traffic congestion and hysterical crowds, while encountering maddened disease victims, a self-appointed militia cohort, and a pair of teenage boys determined to label the outbreak a zombie apocalypse and react accordingly. Because of the infection’s virulence and rapid development, it proves easy to contain after the initial chaos. As the epilogue, set ten years later, portrays, the world does recover and return to normal. Despite inevitable personal tragedies, the story ends on a mood of hope. The book is told in present tense, which as usual, I consider a pointless distraction, aside from the journal entries Natalie dictates into her phone as a record for her unborn child. In fact, in my opinion their poignant immediacy would come across better if the third-person passages were in the conventional narrative past. Still, the novel’s unrelenting tension gripped me, and the two women are three-dimensional, sympathetic characters. I could even overlook Natalie’s constant use of obscenities, which she herself often remarks upon with disarming humor.
*****
Excerpt from KITSUNE ENCHANTMENT:
When Ryo managed to stop worrying about ContrariCon, his thoughts reverted to the problem of Joel Brady. On the following Wednesday, Ryo’s next day at the office instead of working from home, he tried to stay out of Joel’s path. He succeeded until he left his desk late in the afternoon and headed for the elevator, only to find the corridor blocked by the very man he wanted to avoid.
“Ryo, just who I need to talk to.”
Ryo couldn’t quite make himself shove past Joel. “What for? I’d like to hit the road before the traffic gets bad.”
“Come on, I’m sure you can guess what I want to discuss—what happened last week at your place. I know what you are.”
Ryo’s pulse accelerated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do.” The other man smiled as if inviting him to share a joke. “I saw you change into a fox.”
“Are you kidding or just losing your mind?”
With a glance down the hall, where two women were rounding the corner toward the elevators, Joel said, “You don’t want to talk about this where anybody could hear, do you? Let’s go someplace private.” He clutched Ryo’s arm and steered him toward the nearest vacant conference room.
Ryo let himself be steered, not eager to have his coworker raving on about magical transformations in range of potential witnesses. What can he do to me right here, anyway? Maybe I can convince him he imagined the whole thing…
Leaning against the window frame, he warily watched Joel, who took the seat at the head of the table as if preparing to chair a meeting. “Give it up, Ryo. I wasn’t high on anything. I know what I saw.”
“Sounds like your reality check bounced. You saw me, and then you saw a fox. I don’t know what made you imagine some kind of connection.” He kept his hands relaxed at his side rather than clenched and drew slow breaths to calm himself inwardly as well as outwardly. The last thing I need is to sprout ears or a tail with him staring straight at me.
“We spend most of our waking hours on video games about wizards and monsters. Why shouldn’t I have an open mind about the supernatural?”
“You really believe this?” Ryo tried to echo the other man’s casual tone.
“I’d rather believe you changed into a fox than think I actually have gone crazy.” Joel leaned back in the chair, his gaze fixed on Ryo as if expecting the change to repeat at that very moment. “I’ve been reading up on kitsune. Fascinating stuff, including little details like their favorite foods being tofu and red bean paste. According to the folklore websites, you’ve got some amazing powers.”
“So work them into a game. Which you seem to be confusing with reality.”
Unfortunately, the repeated denial didn’t deflate Joel’s confident manner. “The legends mention a lot of other abilities besides changing shape. Foxfire, invisibility, possession, and a bunch more.”
“If I could turn invisible, the first thing I would’ve done was dodge you.”
As for fox possession, when Ryo had discussed it with his mother, she had warned him as a teenager not to try. “Until you gain much more experience, that would be dangerous for you. It is too easy to lose yourself in the mind of the person you attempt to possess, unless you have a companion to support you—ideally another kitsune.”
“But you’re the only kitsune I know,” he’d said.
“A human partner would do, if you find one you can trust completely.” Her wistful tone gave him the impression she’d never found one, even in marriage.
He had little hope of forming a bond with any such person, and it certainly wouldn’t be Joel. Ryo started toward the door, but Joel stood up to block him.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the August 2020 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
My first novel, werewolf urban fantasy (with romantic elements) SHADOW OF THE BEAST, has been re-released!
Part of the opening scene is below. Jenny returns home one evening when her twin brother is supposed to be babysitting for their little sister.
This month features an interview with multi-subgenre romance author Amber Daulton.
*****
Interview with Amber Daulton:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I read my first romance book when I was 12 after I snuck a Harlequin paperback out of my mom’s bedroom. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I wanted to create my own story about two people having an adventure and falling in love. I wrote with pencil in a spiral-bound notebook and finished that 200-plus page story in about six months.
I published my first book when I was 26, and Lyrical Embrace is now my eleventh book to date. I have about ten more manuscripts on my computer waiting to see the light of day.
What genres do you work in?
I write in a variety of romantic sub-genres, including: contemporary, romantic suspense, historical, western, NA, erotic romance, time travel, and paranormal. Some stories can fit in multiple genres while others fit in only one or two, so I like to keep my options open and my muse flowing to wherever it takes me.
Most romance books nowadays are more than simple love stories. All sorts of plot devices are used, such as: action, danger, mystery, emotional upheaval, and physical trauma, to name a few. If you take away the “falling in love” aspect from a romantic suspense, for example, then you have a suspense/action/thriller story. The romance genre is so widespread that I’ve heard of men reading and enjoying various books without realizing those books are classified as romance.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m a plotter, and I like to outline chapter by chapter. I use pen, paper, and colored pencils, but sometimes I plot in a Word doc. I try to follow my notes exactly, but more often than not, the characters take control and steer my story in another direction. Then I have to get into arguments with my H/h, or even the secondary characters, and force them back into the outline. More often than not, they refuse to get back in line and I have to write what they want.
Heh, it’s a give and a take relationship.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
I think my biggest influence on my writing is my imagination. Several books I’ve written have come from my dreams, and I fill in all the missing pieces and fix plot holes when I’m plotting the story.
When I first started writing back in the late ’90s and 2000s (as a teenager), I was reading books published in the 1980s. The writing styles accepted back then are frowned upon now, but that was how I taught myself to write. I guess you could say it influenced me. I didn’t realize passive voice and head hopping was no longer deemed “correct,” so now I’m crazy strict in writing active and using proper scene breaks when switching character POV.
How did you become involved in the Deerbourne Inn series? How does a “multi-author collaboration of novellas” work, and what are the pros and cons of participating in such a project?
Every few years The Wild Rose Press announces a multi-author series and invites all their authors to join. After I heard about the call, I emailed the series coordinator for details and downloaded a few info files. The submission call lasts about two years—ending in December 2020—so if anyone wants to submit a proposal, do it soon.
All the participating authors are required to write a novella set in the fictional town of Willow Springs, Vermont, and the heat levels range from sweet, sensual, to erotic. Some stories take place in the 1800s (around the town’s founding), and others are set in modern day. The series stock characters include most of the town’s inhabitants, and those secondary characters jump from story to story, so you never know who will show up.
Lyrical Embrace—my first contribution to the Deerbourne Inn series—is about a young woman who is trying to find herself after getting out of a bad relationship. I’m sure a lot of women could relate to her.
The biggest challenge in writing Lyrical Embrace and its soon-to-be-published sequel, Harmony’s Embrace, was hammering out the details with the coordinators and with the other authors writing for the series. Everyone has their own ideas, so we had to work together and tweak descriptions or names to make sure everything flows from one story to the next. The only thing I would do differently next time is to be more direct when asking questions in the series forum.
Please tell us about your time-travel series. Science-fiction time travel or fantasy/magic?
Timeless Honor is book 3 in the Mirrors of Time anthology series in which five authors wrote a story. I enjoyed writing about magic and portals so much that I wrote a second story, Timeless Beginnings, which serves as a prequel for Timeless Honor but is separate from the anthology. Both of my sensual Timeless books are standalones.
In Timeless Honor, Jaye Ramsey goes on vacation with her friends to Bolivia in order to prove to her eccentric grandmother that time travel doesn’t exist. There she finds a time portal in the Salar de Uyuni (the salt flats) and winds up in Georgian England. Never did she expect to fall in love with her grandmother’s brooding first husband, Lord Lucas Kenway, who was accused of killing his wife on their wedding night.
In Timeless Beginnings, Leonora Harris flees her newly wedded husband’s home and loses her way in the woods. After she falls through a portal, she wakes up in 1960s Bolivia. Luckily for her, she meets undercover CIA agent Rodger Ramsey and embraces her new life as a modern woman.
What is your latest-released or soon-forthcoming work?
Arresting Jeremiah, the second installment in the Arresting Onyx series, is in the galley stage with The Wild Rose Press. It picks up where book one, Arresting Mason, ends and should be out in late 2020 or early 2021 (both books are standalones).
The story follows hardnosed parole officer Jim Borden and his obsession Calista Barlow as they stick their noses where they don’t belong and fall deep into the trouble with the criminal organization known as Onyx.
This sexy, dirty-talking romantic suspense series spans five full-length novels and two novellas (I’m currently writing the novellas) with a standalone HEA for each rough-and-tumble hero and their spunky heroines.
What are you working on now?
My plate is definitely full!
Harmony’s Embrace is the follow-up novella to Lyrical Embrace, and it tells the story of how Birley Haynes reunites with his high school sweetheart, Harmony Holdich. I love holiday-themed books, so this MS takes place at Christmastime. It’s currently on submission with my editor.
The first novella in the Arresting Onyx series is book 2.5 and follows a minor character from book one and another minor character from book two. I don’t want to give away too much information right now, but I will say this story promises to be a wild ride.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Make friends with other authors and readers via social media. Don’t be shy. Start a blog even if you aren’t published yet, so you can join blog tours. A tour is a great way to get a free ebook as long as you write a review and post it on your blog. The author’s readers will then come to your blog to read the review. They’ll know YOUR name, and that’s what you want—to get your name out there.
Just keep trying. I know it sounds cliché, but there’s nothing else to do. If you don’t try, you won’t succeed. Period. Keep your hopes up, take rejection letters in stride, and if a publisher or editor gives you feedback on why he/she rejected your work, listen to their feedback. They know what they’re talking about.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
About the Author
Amber Daulton is the author of the romantic-suspense series Arresting Onyx and several standalone novellas. Her books are published through The Wild Rose Press, Books to Go Now, and Daulton Publishing, and are available in ebook, print on demand, audio, and foreign language formats.
She lives in North Carolina with her husband and demanding cats.
Blog – Blog
Website – Website
Amazon Author Page – Amazon
Facebook Author Page – Facebook
Twitter – Twitter
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Pinterest – Pinterest
Goodreads – Goodreads
Instagram – Instagram
Book Bub – Book Bub
LinkedIn – LinkedIn
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE MISQUOTABLE C. S. LEWIS, by William O’Flaherty. Some famous authors are particularly prone to having statements misattributed to them (e.g., Mark Twain). Several times I’ve come across remarks on the internet labeled as quotations from C. S. Lewis and thought, “That doesn’t sound a bit like him.” Either the language or the subject matter sounds too modern for someone who died in 1963, the opinion expressed is one he wouldn’t support, or both. O’Flaherty, owner of the EssentialCSLewis.com website, undertakes the monumental task of compiling online quotations misattributed to Lewis and tracking down the true origins of the lines, if possible, as well as the probable sources of the errors. The four chapters list material under the categories “Not Lewis,” “Almost Lewis” (inexact paraphrases of his actual words), “Not Quite Lewis” (real quotations misapplied out of context), and a short catchall chapter of “Multiple Category Quotations.” This lively and informative book is uniquely valuable for distinguishing real Lewis content from false, however innocent or well-intentioned. The subtitle, “What He Didn’t Say, What He Actually Said, and Why It Matters,” clearly summarizes the author’s theme, that accuracy does matter. Now, when I encounter a faux Lewis quote in the future and want to protest that he never wrote that, I’ll have documentation to back up the claim.
APOCALYPTIC, edited by S. C. Butler and Joshua Palmatier. An anthology of fourteen original stories about the end of the world or, more often, of human civilization. My favorite piece, “Coafield’s Catalog of Available Apocalypse Events,” by Seanan McGuire, isn’t exactly a story, because it has no narrative arc. It comprises a humorous A to Z list of alternatives offered to customers who have “decided to end the human race and possibly the world,” promoted by what appears to be a sort of disaster-scenario catering service. Z, of course, stands for Zombies. The one true end-of-everything story, “Little Armageddons,” by Stephen Blackmore, features a pair of scientists running computer simulation scenarios that all predict the end of the world on a certain date, but from a wildly varying range of causes. In Thomas Vaughn’s quirky “Gut Truck,” the driver of an AI-equipped vehicle dedicated to picking up roadkill gets into trouble when the nano cells in a human corpse accidentally reprogram the truck’s brain. The most moving story, for me, is “Last Letters,” by Leah Ning, about what happens to a girl whose mother disappears on a foraging expedition, leaving the protagonist to fend for herself with only the guidance of the messages left by her mother. The two zombie or quasi-zombie contributions, “Solo Cooking for the Recently Revived,” by Aimee Picchi, and “A Tale of Two Apocalypses,” by Eleftherios Keramydas, are told from the viewpoints of characters recovering from or being infected by the plague. Not surprisingly, quite a few of the tales end unhappily, but others include enough glimmers of hope to keep the anthology from being totally depressing.
SPILLOVER, by David Quammen. This 2012 book explores in depth the phenomenon of zoonoses, disease that pass from animal to human populations, often mutating along the way. Quammen concentrates mostly on the modern era and deals largely but not entirely with viruses. The first chapter tells the story of Hendra, a disease I’d never heard of, discovered in Australia in the 1990s. Other sections discuss malaria, SARS, Ebola, herpes B, Lyme disease, and of course AIDS, among others. The author narrates in detail the progress of medical detectives’ quests for the vectors and reservoir hosts of various deadly infectious agents. He alternates interviews, historical events, and personal anecdotes with general explanations of how infection and epidemiology work, in an entertaining, lucid style. The chapter on AIDS came as a revelation to me, tracing the origin of the disease as we know it back to a single chimp-to-human transmission around 1908, much earlier than previously believed. From there, Quammen follows the progress of the infection from an obscure, localized scourge to its breakout as a worldwide epidemic in the 1980s. My only reservation about the author’s technique comes in this chapter, where he devotes an inordinate number of pages to imaginative accounts of the lives of two hypothetical early human spreaders of the disease. Since the rest of the book appears as cautiously grounded in fact as he could manage, those passages don’t seem to fit. More than once, he refers to scientists’ apprehension of the potential Next Big One—the viral pandemic (probably a coronavirus) that will burst upon the global scene when we’re least prepared. Now that the Next Big One has arrived, this eight-year-old book feels eerily prophetic.
OR WHAT YOU WILL, by Jo Walton. All of Walton’s books or series are different from each other, and this new novel, too, is unique, although it does share an Italian Renaissance background with LENT. The nameless, protean (but always masculine) narrator of OR WHAT YOU WILL is a fictional construct living in the brain of Sylvia, a novelist with terminal cancer, who’s enjoying a final trip to Florence. Or does the narrator have a life of his own rather than being a creation of her mind? Whether or not he existed before she became aware of him in her childhood, his life, as well as his incarnation on the written page, now depends on hers. He went dormant during her young adulthood but revived to rescue her from her stifling, abusive first marriage. Throughout her career, he has been many characters. In the present, the frame narrative portrays his attempt to save her and himself by transporting her into one of her own invented worlds. Naturally, she considers this goal impossible. In the setting of the story nested within the frame, Illyria, a utopian realm centered upon the city of Thalia, a fantasy version of Florence, Sylvia has placed a sequel to Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT. Orsino and Olivia are married to their respective loves from the play. In this world, Orsino is the son of Miranda from THE TEMPEST, who is a magician. Long ago, Illyria made a pact with the gods for their realm to remain at the peak of the Renaissance, with Progress, in the sense of advanced technology, forever barred. Furthermore, people don’t die unless they will to do so or are killed by unexpected violence. Religion consists of a strange yet graceful blend between Catholic Christianity and classical polytheism. Into this world, Sylvia’s tale introduces two young people from Florence of our Earth’s 1847. The plot of the nested story is rather simple and straightforward: Caliban, Miranda’s first husband, erupts into Thalia from his subterranean lair to demand the release of his son, Geryon, blinded and imprisoned in a tower after Orsino wrested the dukedom from him. Orsino and his family must decide how to respond. Character interaction, worldbuilding, and philosophical discourse are more important than the nominal plot. The courteous but never completely reconciled disagreements among the viewpoints of the Illyrians, the visitors from 1847, the narrator, and Sylvia herself provide the thematic core of the novel. Will Sylvia attain an immortality beyond metaphorical survival through her art? Walton offers a fascinating metafictional work grounded in rich sensory detail and Sylvia’s realistically rendered emotional life.
*****
Excerpt from SHADOW OF THE BEAST:
The door creaked as she eased it open. She jumped at the sound.
“Dan? Paula? Where is everybody?” They couldn’t be asleep. Her flaky brother couldn’t have coaxed a twelve-year-old to crash for the night this early. Jenny fumbled for the light switch.
The pole lamp next to the door came on. “Dan, if you’re playing some stupid trick, I’ll kill you.”
No answer.
Her throat tightened. Come on, don’t lose it yet. Maybe he took Paula out someplace and forgot to leave the lights on. He was spacy enough to do that, the way he’d been acting lately. She dropped her things on the nearest end table.
They would’ve left a note. Gone out for burgers, back soon. Jenny scanned the living room, rummaged through the magazines on the coffee table. No sign of a note.
Then she heard—something—from the den, at the other end of the house.
Something—a low, drawn-out rumble of sound. A growl.
Quietly as she could, Jenny slipped off her loafers and tiptoed through the dining room, sidling around the perimeter of the hardwood floor to avoid the squeaky boards in the middle. She edged past the swinging door into the kitchen, her pulse throbbing in her temples.
Her groping hand fell upon the wall phone. What are you waiting for, call 911! She imagined sirens, flashing red lights, a pair of husky policemen barging in. And at the same moment, Dan and Paula strolling up the sidewalk with a video and bag of popcorn.
It’s nothing to get freaked about. A stray dog in the back yard, that’s all.
Leaning against the refrigerator, she felt along the top for the flashlight. She held her breath to listen closer.
Yes—snarls rising to a crescendo. More than one.
Not out back. Inside the house.
Wind rattled the sliding glass door in the den, the one that opened onto the patio.
Shifting the flashlight to her left hand, she dug in a drawer for a butcher knife. Clutching the hilt in an overhand grip, she crept toward the closed door between kitchen and den. Sweat slicked her palms.
She tucked the flashlight under her arm to turn the doorknob. The mingled growls and snarls from the den grew still louder.
A foul smell wrinkled her nose. For a minute she couldn’t place it.
Then it came to her—decayed leaves, wet fur, rank odors. Something that belonged to the night, out there. Not in here. Her leg muscles trembled.
She jerked the door open and clicked on the flashlight.
The glint of red eyes.
She whipped the beam from side to side.
Two pairs of eyes.
The scene hit her in fragments, like scattered puzzle pieces. The familiar shabby furniture. A cushion and afghan from the couch heaped on the floor. A lamp smashed on the floor. The patio door, open.
And in front of it, a huge, shaggy animal. In the quivering flashlight beam, it looked—deformed. A second beast crouched over another heap. Jenny trained the light in that direction.
On the braid rug Paula lay huddled face down, her powder-blue pajamas splotched with dark stains. The growling receded in Jenny’s ears to a uniform roar, like static.
The thing stepped over Paula and slinked toward Jenny. A gleam of pink-tinged spittle drooled from its jaws. Screaming, she dropped the knife and flashlight.
Nausea swelled in her throat. A gray fog thickening in front of her eyes. Flashes of red.
Then, nothing.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the July 2020 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
For anyone who would like to read previous issues of this newsletter, now that the Yahoo group is useless for that purpose, they’re posted on my website here (starting from January 2018):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store:
Barnes and Noble
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
My Goodreads page:
Goodreads
Here’s wishing a festive Independence Day for all my American readers!
I’m thrilled to announce that the Wild Rose Press has accepted my paranormal romance novella “Kitsune Enchantment,” a sequel to “Yokai Magic” (but able to stand on its own). Shannon, a writer of graphic novels, would love a closer relationship with her reclusive artist partner, Ryo, but unknown to her, he’s a fox shapeshifter being stalked by a bungling amateur sorcerer.
An excerpt from the opening scene appears below.
TWILIGHT’S CHANGELINGS, the e-book omnibus of DARK CHANGELING and CHILD OF TWILIGHT, is now available through Draft2Digital from several vendors in addition to Amazon:
And here are the URLs for DEMON’S FALL and VAMPIRE’S TRIBUTE, since I think I listed the wrong ones in last month’s newsletter:
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES, by Grady Hendrix. STEEL MAGNOLIAS crossed with ‘SALEM’S LOT! Protagonist Patricia Campbell lives in an upscale suburban community near Charleston, South Carolina, with her workaholic husband, his senile mother (“Miss Mary”), and their daughter and son, who grow from children to teenagers over the span of the novel. It’s divided into two principal sections, set in 1993 and 1996, with a prologue and epilogue in 1988 and early 1997. I didn’t mind the shift from 1988 to 1993, although such a long gap seems unnecessary, but I found the time-skip between 1993 and 1996 jarring. For a few pages it felt like having to start the book all over and regain lost momentum. Other than that complaint, its construction and engaging style felt nearly perfect. I remember only one small lapse I would have corrected if proofreading the text, a very unusual reaction for me. Patricia’s viewpoint drew me in so deeply that I didn’t even get impatient waiting for the vampire to show up. Her husband treats her like a nonentity, taken for granted as provider of housekeeping services, which he dismisses as easy and unimportant (although essential). Her children become more difficult, naturally, as they get older, and the boy’s preoccupation with Nazi Germany shows no signs of fading. There’s no question of putting her mother-in-law in a “home,” regardless of the burden on Patricia. She finds solace with a small group of friends who read and discuss true crime books. The strangeness begins one night when she comes across an eccentric, crabby neighbor eating a raccoon. When interrupted, the woman bites off one of Patricia’s ears. The woman’s nephew, James Harris, intervenes. Soon thereafter, the aunt dies, and Patricia tries to make a condolence call on the nephew. Finding him apparently dead, she attempts CPR (she’s a former nurse), only for him to spring up, shocked at having his nap cut short. The demented Miss Mary claims to know him from many decades in the past, calling him by a different name. She later dies in a grotesquely gory way. When Patricia begins to suspect the newcomer’s true nature, nobody believes her, even though she has toned down the accusation to a charge of dealing drugs to children (rather than trying to describe what she really witnessed). Mrs. Greene, Black former caretaker for Miss Mary, realizes James is dangerous, but nobody listens to her, any more than to a “mere housewife” with an obvious true-crime obsession. The most gut-wrenching horror of the novel is the way Patricia’s husband and most of her friends dismiss her reported facts and treat her like a deranged attention-seeker, to the point that she half doubts her own perceptions. The reader knows what’s going on, of course, but James wins over Patricia’s son and ingratiates himself with all the neighborhood families, especially the men, who welcome his financial investment advice. James turns out to belong to a different species, maybe its sole survivor, since he gives no indication of knowing anyone else of his kind. Although sunlight pains him, it doesn’t destroy him. He seems practically unkillable, as demonstrated in the gruesome climax when the women unite to dispose of him at last. The story portrays a long, tortuous process of overcoming not only the other women’s understandable disbelief in the paranormal and their suspicions of Patricia’s mental instability, but the barriers of class and race. I have only two quibbles with the novel, one relatively minor and one larger: Why does James hide the body of one victim in his own house? Is this blunder supposed to demonstrate his arrogance, his complacent assumption that nobody would consider investigating him? More importantly, the women’s lifestyles and the dynamics of their marriages feel more like products of the 1950s than the 90s. A book no vampire fan should miss, although it’s often painful to read.
FINAL CUTS, edited by Ellen Datlow. Datlow previously edited a reprint anthology of horror stories about movies, THE CUTTING ROOM. Now she has released a companion anthology of eighteen original works on the same theme, subtitled “New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.” In addition to motion pictures on the big screen, some stories deal with indie films, obscure straight-to-video movies, or digital-only productions. And of course there’s the ever-popular lost movie that may or may not have even existed, until an intrepid researcher unearths the truth. Some distinguished horror authors in the volume include Christopher Golden, Gemma Files, Garth Nix, Brian Hodge, and Kelley Armstrong, among others. At least three of the selections feature snuff films, although one would have been enough for me. My favorite of those is “Exhalation,” by A. C. Wise, in which a protagonist with hyperacute hearing analyzes sounds on death-scene films to help his lifelong friend, a police detective, identify a serial killer. One recurring trope is the interview with a veteran actor or director about a production or celebrity with an ominous secret. Since the theme of the buried past impinging on the present is one of my favorite plot premises, I enjoyed many of these. Of particular interest for vampire fans, “Altered Beast, Altered Me,” by John Langan, traces the history and destructive influence of a ring worn by a succession of actors who played Dracula, beginning with Bela Lugosi. Narrated in the form of e-mails between two writers, the story builds to a satisfying payoff in the Lugosi reminiscence but, for my taste, has a succession of surreal flights of fancy in the middle that go on far too long. The most unusual piece in the book, “The One We Tell Bad Children,” by Laird Barron, takes place in either a post-apocalyptic or an alternate-universe America and centers on a boy captivating his younger siblings with a forbidden magic-lantern show in the absence of their parents. Like all Datlow’s anthologies, FINAL CUTS offers something to entertain almost any horror fan.
GOD AND THE PANDEMIC, by N. T. Wright. This brief (76 pages) but content-dense trade paperback was released earlier than its originally announced July publication date, to my great delight. It expands upon Wright’s essay in TIME magazine about the optimal Christian response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The first chapter, “Where Do We Start?”, touches upon the reactions of early Christians to past epidemics and other disasters. Wright lays out the ancient world’s principal beliefs about such disasters and how we should deal with them. Foremost was the concept that plagues, earthquakes, and other calamities showed that the gods were angry, and humanity should repent and atone. The Stoics maintained, “Everything is programmed to turn out the way it does,” and we simply have to endure it. Epicureans held, “Everything is random,” so we should stop worrying and seek whatever happiness we can find in life. Platonists taught that this world is merely the “shadow” of a higher reality, and we are destined for a better existence after death. Wright points out the modern equivalents of these positions. Some Christian groups hold the first or last position, both of which Wright deconstructs as mistaken. Although occasional passages in the Old Testament do appear to endorse what Wright calls a “vending machine” doctrine of sin and retribution—transgression in, punishment out—many other parts of scripture interrogate or outright contradict this simple approach. Chapters Two through Four of the book cover the Old Testament, Jesus as presented in the Gospels, and relevant texts in the rest of the New Testament. The final chapter asks, “Where Do We Go from Here?” Particularly interesting is Wright’s statement that our response should begin with “lament.” That’s only the beginning, of course, with much more complex discussion to follow. GOD AND THE PANDEMIC presents the lucid, rational, compassionate analysis of the present crisis that one would expect from this author.
THE IRISH ROOTS OF MARGARET MITCHELL’S GONE WITH THE WIND, by David O’Connell. I ordered this unusual little book (published in 1996 by a small press in Georgia) expecting literary criticism or social commentary. Instead, the author has a PhD in French, and the book’s emphasis is biographical and historical. Of course, it’s practically impossible to discuss Irish Americans in the nineteenth century without some degree of social commentary, and O’Connell does analyze issues related to the status of lower-class Irish immigrants versus black slaves. Most of the book, however, deals with how Margaret Mitchell’s Irish Catholic background on her mother’s side is reflected in GONE WITH THE WIND. Since I didn’t know much about Mitchell before reading THE IRISH ROOTS…, most of the information was new to me, presented engagingly by an author who clearly has a warm affection for his subjects (both Mitchell and her novel). I was surprised to learn how much of Scarlett O’Hara’s family history is directly based on Mitchell’s. Also, I hadn’t noticed the extent to which allusions to Catholicism play a continuing role in the story. Although Scarlet as an adult shows no discernible devotion to her religion, she often thinks of it at fraught moments in her life, mainly in the context of realizing how disappointed her mother would be in her behavior. Not that this realization has much concrete effect on Scarlett, usually ending in the familiar refrain, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” O’Connell enhances his discussion of Irish and Catholic culture in the nineteenth-century American South with extended quotations from poems referenced in the novel. Occasionally he makes unwarranted assumptions in connecting historical and fictional threads, such as his confident statement that early drafts of GONE WITH THE WIND (all of which Mitchell destroyed) “must” have contained allusions to a certain well-known priest that were removed before publication, simply because he seems to think Mitchell “should” have referenced that historical figure. Not by any means unbiased, this author shows clear sympathy for the old South. Although certainly not pro-Confederacy, much less pro-slavery or pro-Klan, he makes assertions such as declaring Sherman guilty of “war crimes.” Most oddly, O’Connell devotes a chapter to proving Rhett Butler not only symbolizes but almost literally IS Satan in human form, ignoring the complexity of the character, Rhett’s devotion to little Bonnie, and his genuine, though deeply flawed, love for Scarlett. THE IRISH ROOTS… is inexpensive enough to be a worthwhile purchase for devoted fans of GONE WITH THE WIND.
*****
Excerpt from “Kitsune Enchantment”:
As usual, holding human shape for an entire day in the near-constant presence of other people had strained Ryo’s control. He didn’t bother changing out of the slacks and polo shirt he’d worn to work but hurried out back as soon as he got home. Alone in the tiny yard behind a six-foot, wooden privacy fence, he unlatched the gate so he’d be able to push it open without hands to go for his evening run. At last he allowed himself to relax. His ears lengthened and perked up, pointed and furry. His teeth sharpened into fangs, while a plumed tail sprouted from his backside. He crouched on the ground. A familiar voice shattered his focus.
“Ryo? You back here?” Footsteps paced around the outside of the house. “I rang the bell, but I guess you didn’t hear it. I came by to drop off your courier bag. You must’ve accidentally left it in the office. I don’t live that far out of the way, and I figured you might need it between now and the next time you come in.”
Damn. Joel Brady. Can’t let him see me. Joel occupied the cubicle next to Ryo’s at the company they worked for, Delmarva Game Galaxy. Since Ryo mostly telecommuted and wasn’t scheduled to be on site again for almost a week, he couldn’t deny bringing him the bag was a nice gesture. Still, damned inconvenient timing. Shapeshifting in this sheltered spot had always been safe enough that he’d obviously become complacent. He forced his mouth to form intelligible words. “Thanks. You can leave it on the front porch.”
“What the heck, I’m here now. Let me just give it to you.”
The latch clicked, and the gate started to open. “No need.” Ryo’s voice came out as more of a growl than human language. He struggled to wrench his half-transformed body back into man shape.
“You okay, Ryo? You sound sick.” The gate swung ajar. About the same age and height as Ryo, but huskier, the unwanted visitor had a mop of sandy hair trimmed to just above his collar and wore wire-rimmed glasses. Ryo froze and stared up at him.
The blue eyes behind the glasses widened in shock.
The change swept over Ryo like a gust of wind. His clothes vanished to wherever they went on such occasions. He shrank from man-size to twenty pounds as his face became a muzzle, his hands and feet morphed into paws, and a reddish pelt covered his skin. Stunned, both he and the intruder gaped at each other for a second.
Joel broke the silence. “Good God, this is actually happening. You really turned into a fox.”
Ryo sprinted for the open gate, tripping Joel in the process. The other man dropped the black courier bag and yelled after him, “Hey, wait, I won’t hurt you!”
In blind panic, Ryo rushed around the house with Joel lurching after him. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Joel getting into a car and starting it. Ryo ran up the street, pursued by the vehicle—a two-door compact of some light color, his animal vision couldn’t distinguish exactly what.
After running two blocks through the quiet neighborhood of sixty-year-old houses similar to his own, he gathered his wits enough to think of leaving the street and cutting through yards instead. Can’t go home now. Need a safe place. Where?
He zigzagged under trees and through hedges, abruptly shifted course whenever he hit a fence, put on a burst of speed when a dog barked as he ran past its yard, and skidded to a halt at an intersection with a four-lane road blocked by speeding vehicles. Glancing behind him, he didn’t see Joel’s car. Fragmentary scraps of human thought reminded Ryo to wait until the light changed to let him cross without getting flattened. He imagined drivers and passengers exclaiming to each other, “Wow, look, a fox in broad daylight,” and snapping photos with their phones.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter