Guest Post: The Surprises of the Real Claude Monet by Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude & Camille

Today The Tome Traveller's Weblog is pleased to welcome Stephanie Cowell! Stephanie is the author of the new historical fiction novel Claude & Camille, which tells the story of Claude Monet and his beloved wife, Camille. Since Stephanie has a background in art, I wondered if she had uncovered anything in her research for this novel that really surprised her about the life of Monet, or changed her previous feelings about him and his art.

Stephanie Cowell

Well, yes, I was utterly surprised through a great deal of my research.

I think most people have generalized conceptions of the great artists of history. Shakespeare looked like a marble bust. The Bronte sisters ran around the moors. Van Gogh loved sunflowers and cut off his ear. Monet was always old, pot-bellied, bearded and painted water lilies….and so on. We don’t have time to really know things in depth; life is just too vast. We pass a lovely engagement calendar with a Japanese bridge and we think “Monet!” We suppose he might have married someone. But until we know more he is a lovely coffee mug or a mouse pad.

I first encountered the person I began to think of rather intimately as Claude in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum called The Origins of Impressionism. This exhibition had gathered together paintings of the 1860s by the several young men who would be known years later as impressionists. Most were in their twenties. I was struck how very young Claude was and, when I decided to write about him, I began to collect what books I could on his life. At the same time I found a portrait of him by a friend when he was twenty-five and was very startled. This was no pot-bellied old fellow; this was a hot-headed, impatient, drop-dead gorgeous young guy. He might have been a gypsy. He reminded me of Johnny Depp when young.

And so I became fascinated with the young man who would become the old man. But what was he like? Each writer saw him differently. He was very poor then and some people saw him as cold and opportunistic, and others as charming and the best friend in the world. Fortunately, a diary recently discovered written by one of his older friends portrayed him as very charming. I could not make a hero from a man I could not love. (And no, he was not easy to be married to, as tender and caring as he could be; the painting always was first. It was in his blood like something wild in him.)

What I realized in studying his very difficult, impoverished life on his 20s and 30s was what a long road it was to the water lily paintings. He did not begin those really until his 60s and he was chasing light with his paintbrush for a long time before that. To many people these garden paintings of bridges and flowers and willows are blissfully serene and we suppose the man who created them was serene as well. That is not true. He was serene only when he felt his painting went well. It was his endless restless search for light and color which created the serenity he left us in his garden and his works. “The work sometimes knows more than the artist,” my mentor Madeleine L’Engle used to tell us.

In his very last months of life, old and sick and sitting in his garden chair, having finished his great water lily panels which now hang in the Paris Orangerie, I think he knew serenity. I think then he knew he had accomplished the reason of his life, that he had fulfilled his purpose. It was a journey of almost seventy years. I am quite awed to consider how faithfully he pursued his vision of painting air and light no matter what his difficulties and how much of it he left to us.

Thank you so much for a fascinating guest post, Stephanie! I am so glad you decided to explore the early life of Monet, your utterly absorbing novel was the result!

For more information, be sure to visit Stephanie's website. And come back tomorrow to read my review of Claude & Camille!

Guest Post: In the Shadow of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt, author of Daughters of the Witching Hill

Today I have the pleasure of hosting Mary Sharratt, author of the excellent historical novel Daughters of the Witching Hill. I'm curious to know how being an American living abroad has shaped her writing and her choice of subject material. Welcome, Mary, and thank you so much for joining us!

People always tell aspiring writers to write what they know. What I know is travel: from landscape to landscape, country to county. The experience of otherness and strange homecomings in unfamiliar places. My writing has been shaped indelibly by my life as an eternal expat. Wanderlust infected me from an early age. I have been a traveler—and a foreigner—nearly my entire adult life.

Born and raised in Minnesota, I studied German in college. Later I married a Belgian. From the age of twenty-three onward I have lived in Belgium, Austria, and Germany. Then in 2002 we moved to the Pendle region in Lancashire, Northern England. It wasn’t long before the wild moorland cast its spell on me.

The back of our house looks out on Pendle Hill, famous throughout the world as the place where George Fox received his ecstatic vision that moved him to find the Quaker religion in 1652. Fewer people know that this region is also steeped in its lore of the Pendle Witches of 1612, the real people at the heart of my novel, Daughters of the Witching Hill.

When I moved to the region, I knew nothing of these Lancashire witches but was haunted by the images of witches I saw everywhere I went: on pub signs, private houses, sign posts, and even an entire fleet of commuter buses going into Manchester. At first I assumed that these witches were creatures of folklore and fairy tale. But then I became spellbound by their true and heartbreaking story.

In 1612, seven women and two men from Pendle Forest were hanged for witchcraft at Lancaster. But the most notorious of the accused, Elizabeth Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cheated the hangman by dying in prison before she came to trial.

This is what the court clerk, Thomas Potts, had to say about her in A Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster:

She was a very old woman, about the age of Foure-score yeares, and had been a Witch for fiftie yeares. Shee dwelt in the Forrest of Pendle, a vast place, fitte for her profession: What shee committed in her time, no man knowes. . . . Shee was a generall agent for the Devill in all these partes: no man escaped her, or her Furies.

Mary Sharratt

Bess was a cunning woman and healer of longstanding repute and had practiced her craft for decades before anyone dared to interfere with her or stand in her way. I believe she was so frightening to her enemies because she was a woman who embraced her power wholeheartedly.

Once I learned her story, I had to write a novel about her. Other novels have been written about the Pendle Witches, but the ones I’ve read don’t portray the witches in a very good light. I wanted to give the story back to Bess, give this woman what her world denied her—her own voice.

It meant a great deal to me to inhabit the same landscape as my heroine—her saga unfolded almost literally in my backyard. Researching this book wasn’t a mere exercise of reading books, then typing sentences into my computer. To do justice to these real people, I had to go out into the land—literally walk in my characters’ footsteps. Using the Ordinance Survey Map, I located the site of Malkin Tower, once home to Bess and her family. Now only the foundations remain. I board my horse near Read Hall, once home to Roger Nowell, the witchfinder and prosecuting magistrate responsible for sending the Pendle Witches to their deaths. Every weekend, I walked or rode my chestnut mare down the tracks of Pendle Forest. Quietening myself, I learned to listen, to allow Bess’s voice to well up from the land. Her passion, her tale enveloped me.

As a writer, I am obsessed with history and place, how the true stories of our ancestors haunt the living landscape. No one in Pendle can remain untouched by the witches’ legacy. I hope you will be as moved by their story as I am.



Be sure to come back Tuesday for my review of Daughters of the Witching Hill and to enter the drawing to win your own copy! And visit Mary's website for more information about her and all of her books.

Guest Post: Karen White, author of The Girl on Legare Street

Today The Tome Traveller's Weblog welcomes author Karen White! I enjoy Karen's books so much (see my review of The Lost Hours here). Her most recent book is The Girl on Legare Street, sequel to The House on Tradd Street. Thank you for joining us, Karen!

People are surprised when I tell them that my life isn’t glamorous. Sure, my eleventh novel hit bookstores in November and even managed to reach the New York Times extended list, and my publisher is already working on a major book tour for the release of book #12 in May, and I just bought the cutest, most impractical yet expensive shoes just to wear on TV interviews. But at the moment, I’m dressed like a homeless woman because I’m in “just finished a book and now I’ve got to get into the holidays” mode, I’ve been yelled at twice by each resident teenager (not including the one “You can’t make me!” from the 16-year-old male child regarding his haircut appointment later this afternoon), I’m sitting on a bed covered with three loads of unfolded laundry and umpteen unwrapped presents and wrapping paper, and I’m thinking I need to take the dog to the vet tomorrow because he’s chewing on his leg which means he has another skin infection.

See what I mean?

Sure, I get lots of fan mail—my favorite part of this job—but all I have to do is glance up at the sticky kitchen counters, the shoes, text books, and sports apparatus scattered liberally around the house like pepper on scrambled eggs, and I’m back to the reality of my non-glamorous life.
I don’t want to burst anybody’s fantasy bubble, but I feel a dire need to set the record straight. I recently signed a two-book contract for the continuation of my Tradd Street mystery series, but the books are going to come out two years apart because I simply couldn’t fathom keeping up with writing two books a year and having a life, glamorous or otherwise. When I mentioned this at a book club, the readers—and I love them all!—were up in arms that they would have to wait so long between installments. I told them if I could get the two teenagers, husband, guinea pig and dog to move in with them for a year, I might be able to write a bit faster. Oddly enough, I didn’t have any takers.

Yesterday, as I was cleaning dog vomit from the back seat of my car, I found myself wondering why I make my life so crazy. Why do I have to write? Couldn’t I just keep to a leisurely schedule of a book every five years or so? The answer is easy: no. Writing isn’t just something I do—it’s who I am. When I get a story snagged in my brain, I’m compelled to write it—even if it means carting my laptop to the carpool line, the horse barn, the football field or the laundry room to get it written.

In my November book, The Girl on Legare Street, the protagonist, Melanie Middleton, is forced to reunite with her mother 33 years after her mother abandoned her. There are so many hurts and misunderstandings in their relationship until Melanie discovers the real reason why her mother left her all those years ago. But that’s more than three decades lost to both of them, decades of stories Melanie and her mother never shared with each other. And in all that time, Melanie relegated her mother to her past, as if she’d never existed and her stories didn’t matter.
I don’t want to be like Melanie; I want to experience life and all its stories—good and bad—then put them down onto the pages of books to share with others. Even if it means getting less sleep than I should, and sometimes picking my children up from school at 3:30 in the afternoon still wearing the pajamas I wore when I dropped them off.

My life might not be glamorous, but it’s mine, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Besides, my children won’t be teenagers forever, and before long I’ll have a quiet, orderly life and house, and they’ll be calling me and telling me how wonderful I am and asking for my advice about life. And if that doesn’t happen, then I’ll just have to write them into my books so I can bend them to my will. Hey, I’m the writer and in my world, fantasies happen.

For more information about Karen and all of her books, please visit her website. Merry Christmas!

Guest Post: Sallie Day, author of The Palace of Strange Girls (and BBAW Giveaway #1!)

Today I want to welcome Sallie Day, author of The Palace of Strange Girls! I recently received this book and my review is not finished yet, so here is the synopsis from the publisher:

Blackpool, England, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth, just out of the hospital, this means struggling to fill in her 'I-Spy' book and avoiding her mother Ruth's eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth's strict rules.

But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruth's husband, Jack, is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isn't the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack's wartime past that could destroy his marriage.

As Helen is tempted outside the safe confines of her mother's stern edicts with dramatic consequences, an unexpected encounter inspires Beth to forge her own path. Over the holiday week, all four Singletons must struggle to find their place in the shifting world of promenade amusements, illicit sex, and stilted afternoon teas in this touching and evocative novel.

I'm so excited to have Sallie here today to tell us a little bit about what inspired her book! Welcome, Sallie!!

The idea for the novel sprang from an impromptu trip back to the Lancashire mill town where I was born. During my long absence everything was so changed as to be unrecognizable. The smoking mill chimneys that had once dominated the skyline were no longer standing and Clean Air legislation of the 70s had put an end to the blanket of smog which used to percolate down into the dirty cobbled streets and terraced houses.

I decided on impulse to go on a walk around the mill area of the town (cotton mills, originally dependent on water power were sited beside fast flowing streams and later weaving sheds were built by the canal and within easy reach of rail / road links. The canal tow path had once passed the backs of several weaving sheds but now all the mills were demolished. Only one mill remained standing, and a passing local told me that even this was due for demolition the following week.

I stood and looked at the weaving shed I had known as a child when my father worked there as a manager. Soon I was lost in memories of the late fifties and sixties when the town was busily engaged in importing cotton from Africa and America and exporting finished cotton goods to the rest of the world. From this memory came more - where we lived, what we wore and our annual holidays in Blackpool.

I was still a small child 1959 and so there was a great deal of background reading to do for the novel - and this in turn inspired more and more memories, all bursting to be set down in writing. However I didn’t want to write a biography. I wanted to write a novel. Fiction is an altogether different beast and requires imagination added to a taste for drama.

Jack Singleton may have begun life as a portrait of my father but very soon he became a character in his own right with an exciting war record, and, in the face of an undemonstrative wife, a weakness for a pretty face. My father was very straight laced in comparison! Nevertheless some of the characters were real - Connie was based on a waitress whom I worked with for the whole of one summer. Other characters, among them Tiger Woman and Cora, were total invention. I had no idea where the story would lead me. I put the Singleton family in a relatively plush hotel and stood back to see what they might do next.

I was prepared to take a back seat where the plot was concerned and content to ‘go with the flow’. Each chapter contained some new discovery, not all of them pleasant. I was saddened by Beth’s isolation and illness but I was downright horrified by Jack’s one night stand with an underage waitress. In the end the novel seemed to have written itself - as if it had been there in my subconscious all the time just waiting for an opportunity to surface!

Thank you so much for joining me here today and giving us a peek at the story behind the story!! I'm always interested in the author's inspiration. In celebration of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I have five copies to give away, courtesy of Hachette. To enter, just leave me a comment here that includes your email address. The winners will be drawn at random and must have a US or Canada mailing address (no PO Boxes). Enter thru midnight eastern on September 18.

There are many giveaways going on this week to celebrate BBAW, I myself will have several more posted as the week goes on. Be sure to check out the complete list at the BBAW website by clicking any of the BBAW links in this post or the button in the upper left corner.

Guest Post: Elizabeth Chadwick, author of The Greatest Knight (Plus, of course, a Giveaway!)

Today I am thrilled to welcome Elizabeth Chadwick, one of my favorite Historical Fiction writers (I've read just about all of her fantastic books)! Her new book, The Greatest Knight, has just been released and I was curious to know a little bit about her writing process. It is quite a lot of work, as you will see. Welcome, Elizabeth and thank you for joining me!

Thank you for inviting me to your blog, I’m delighted to be here.

Last year I signed a new contract to write two historical novels, each of around 160,000 words. With the security of the done deal in place, all I had to do was put those words on the page. If only it were so simple! Here, below, is the anatomy of what it takes for me to write a historical novel.

First of all, I choose my subject. I will usually decide this while writing the previous work. As I was finishing Shadows and Strongholds, I knew that two books on William Marshal would be my next project. I read up as much as I could about him so that when the time came, I would be ready to begin.

Still researching, I write a study of the main characters, a 20 page synopsis, a shorter synopsis, a back of the novel blurb and a shout line. These are all preliminaries that will help with the writing process later on. They help me to pin-point my focus and they deepen my knowledge and awareness at the same time. I write the first three chapters and polish them hard.

I send the above material to my agent and editor for comment and approval and then begin writing in earnest. I do the research and the writing alongside each other. I never look back when writing a first draft, but forge on to the end. It’s a bit like doing a painting starting with a rough black and white pencil sketch. Each layer lays on colour and defines and refines.

Once the first draft is finished, I go back to the beginning and work on the second draft. This is where the bulk of the work is done and where the most alterations occur. I probably cut around 10% of the wordage at this stage. While all this is being done at my PC, I am still researching. This doesn’t just involve reading. It includes visiting locations and taking photographs, it involves working with my re-enactment society and finding out about medieval history in a ‘hands on’ sort of way. So for example, I know how to spin wool and cook medieval recipes. I’ve worn a mail shirt and a jousting helm and know what a sword feels like in my hand. The first draft and the above preparation probably take up about 9 months of the 16 month process.

I print out the second draft and read it as if it’s an ordinary book. Instead of looking across at the PC screen, I am looking down at the written word, and that makes a difference to the part of the brain in use and helps build an extra layer into the editing process. I make notes in pen on the manuscript. This is now draft 3 and will take about 3 months.

I transfer the pen alterations to the PC and read through again – draft 4. I print out again and read the manuscript aloud to my long suffering husband! This again is a different way of absorbing the story and shows up things such as favourite phrases and repetitions that need pruning. It’s also good for getting a sense of pace, and since my listener is a man, I can gauge if I have the male mindset right! This will add another month to the schedule.

Returning to the PC, I key in any alterations noticed while reading aloud and read the manuscript again a final time (takes around a fortnight). I then send the manuscript electronically to my agent and editor. The waiting begins! If all is well, we go to the production process which will take around 9 months to a year and will involve two more read-throughs from me. During this time, I will already be hard at work on the next novel!

I work 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year, but I don’t always work 8 hour days. Sometimes it’s less, occasionally it’s more. I probably work about 5 hours a day on the novel itself, and several hours a week on peripheral things such as blogs, answering reader letters, keeping in touch on forums, making movie trailers for the novels etc. It is more than a full time job!

I forgot to mention that one of my inspirations while writing is music. I love modern rock, folk-rock, grunge, and hard-edged pop. I listen to music while away from my writing, and the emotional words and resonances in songs sink into my subconscious and help when writing scenes. I provide a soundtrack each time I hand a novel in – my agent and editor expect it now! The Greatest Knight soundtrack has around 25 songs including Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright, Everybody Knows by Don Henley, and Bring me to Life by Evanescence.

One of the most surprising things that I found out while writing the greatest knight is a small, but telling detail. I discovered that they had clear, sparkling wine like champagne. I do know that at the court of Henry II, the wine was reported to have the consistency of mud and that people filtered it through their teeth, shuddering, so I was fascinated to read in a primary source research book that at the other end of the scale there were wines that were ‘clear, soft on the palate and sparkling.’ I’ll raise a toast to that, and a completed manuscript!

About the Author
Elizabeth Chadwick lives near Nottingham with her husband and two sons. She is the author of 17 historical novels, including Lords of the White Castle, Shadows and Strongholds, A Place Beyond Courage, The Scarlet Lion, The Winter Mantle, and the Falcons of Montebard, four of which have been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Awards. Much of her research is carried out as a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with the emphasis on accurately re-creating the past. She won a Betty Trask Award for The Wild Hunt, her first novel.

I have two copies of The Greatest Knight to give away, courtesy of Sourcebooks (thank you, Danielle!!) To enter, just leave me a comment here. The winners will be drawn at random and must have a US mailing address. Enter thru midnight eastern on September 19 (that's my birthday!). Below are some ways for you to earn extra entries. Please leave ONE comment for each thing you choose to do. You can combine your comments together if you like but please do not leave multiple comments for the same extra thing (for example, one comment if you fave at Technorati or subscribe via Feedburner, not three). Thank you for visiting and entering!!

+1 become a follower (current followers automatically included)
+1 tweet giveaway on twitter or blog about it
+3 fave this blog at Technorati (click on the little green box on the left sidebar)
+3 new Feedburner subscribers

Guest Post: Michelle Moran (and Cleopatra's Daughter Givaway)!!

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming one of my favorite authors, Michelle Moran! I'm so excited to have you here today, Michelle, and am sooooo looking forward to the publication of Cleopatra's Daughter (coming up on September 15)! I'm interested to know what gave you the idea that became your new book...

It began with a dive. Not the kind of dive that people take into swimming pools, but the kind where you squeeze yourself into a wetsuit and wonder just how tasty your rump must appear to passing sharks now that it looks exactly like an elephant seal. My husband and I had taken a trip to Egypt, and at the suggestion of a friend, we decided to go to Alexandria and do a dive to see the remains of Cleopatra’s underwater city. Let it be known that I had never done an underwater dive before, so after four days with an instructor (and countless questions: Will there be sharks? How about jellyfish? If there is an earthquake, what happens underwater?) we were ready for the real thing.

We drove to the Eastern Harbor in Alexandria. Dozens of other divers were already there, waiting to see what sort of magic lay beneath the waves. I wondered if the real thing could possibly live up to all of the guides and brochures selling this underwater city, lost for thousands of years until now. Then we did the dive, and it was every bit as magical as everyone had promised. You can see the rocks which once formed Marc Antony’s summer palace, come face to face with Cleopatra’s towering sphinx, and take your time floating above ten thousand ancient artifacts, including obelisks, statues, and countless amphorae. By the time we had surfaced, I was Cleopatra-obsessed. I wanted to know what had happened to her city once she and Marc Antony had committed suicide. Where did all of its people go? Were they allowed to remain or were they killed by the Romans? What about her four children?

It was this last question which surprised me the most. I had always believed that all of Cleopatra’s children had been murdered. But the Roman conqueror Octavian had actually spared the three she bore to Marc Antony: her six-year-old son, Ptolemy, and her ten-year-old twins, Alexander and Selene. As soon as I learned that Octavian had taken the three of them for his Triumph in Rome, I knew at once I had my next book. This is how all of my novels seem to begin – with a journey, then an adventure, and finally, enormous amounts of research for what I hope is an exciting story.

I, for one, am grateful for all of your hard work, Michelle, since it means another of your books for us! Thank you so much for joining me here today. And we have great news for my readers, too. Michelle will send a signed copy of Cleopatra's Daughter to the winner of my drawing! To enter, just leave a comment here that includes your email address. This contest will be open WORLDWIDE and the winner will be drawn at random. You can enter until midnight eastern on September 14. If you blog or tweet about this giveaway, become a follower thru Google or Feedburner, or fave at Tecnorati, I'll give you an extra entry for each one. (Anyone who already does any of those will get the extra entries too, just mention them in your comment). Best of luck everyone and, as always, thank you for visiting and commenting!!

Michelle is holding some great contests to celebrate the publication of Cleopatra's Daughter. Check out her Digging for Cleopatra's Daughter contest by clicking on the link. And she has a special contest for teens (they can win a $250 gift certificate!), click here for details.

The Strangely Beautiful Haunted London Blog Tour day 7 (Plus a Giveaway!)

A big welcome today to Leanna Renee Hieber, author of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Percy Parker!! I just started her book and I already love it. I am thrilled to be included in the Haunted London Blog Tour! London is one of my favorite cities and my husband and I always visit Cleopatra's Needle when we go there! Welcome, Leanna...

From the Back Cover:
"What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Considering how few of Queen Victoria’s Londoners knew of it, the great Romanesque fortress was dreadfully imposing, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met the powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadow, the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She knew simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow-white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gifts. But this arched stone doorway offered a portal to a new life, an education far from the convent—and an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death…"

Thank you, dear Tome Traveller, for asking me to haunt your blog today, I’m thrilled to be here at such a gorgeous site as this.

Today our Haunted Tour leads us to Cleopatra’s Needle – Victoria Embankment, WC 2

For those of you just joining us, the purpose of this Haunted tour is to celebrate the release of my Gothic Victorian Fantasy Romance debut, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. This Tour will introduce you to some of the real, documented London haunts who “ghost-star” in my book. When Professor Alexi Rychman and his Guard of spectral police make their rounds, it is to any number of London phantasms. Since these characters are familiar to The Guard, I don’t get to tell their full story in the book, but here on the tour I can give them their due. Leave a comment and you’ll be entered to win a signed copy of the novel, first in the Strangely Beautiful series!

Cleopatra’s Needle at Victoria Embankment, WC2

The obelisk known as “Cleopatra’s Needle” first towered outside the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, having been erected by Pharaoh Thotmes III in 1450, BC. It was moved to Alexandria in 14 BC, then becoming “Cleopatra’s Needle” as it was brought to London in 1878 where it has stood a tall sentry on the banks of the River Thames. More suicides happen near this obelisk than at any other spot along the river. The dark granite itself seems to moan. Londoners out for a foggy night’s stroll along Embankment have seen shadowy figures hurl themselves towards the river but no sound or splash is heard.

I used the Embankment area in what has now become a deleted scene! This is Exclusive Content!

Deleted scene from The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker:

Later in the evening, Alexi felt far too restless to return to Hampstead, knowing he would only pace about his vast estate. He longed to walk dim city streets instead.

Something dank hung in the air as he made his way towards the Thames; a moisture beyond English climate alone. An elder wetness clung to his fine black clothes and impeded his lungs like a toxicant.

Dread filled him as he passed immaculately coiffed ladies and gentlemen, glittering in finery and laughing lightly as they drifted out of the Savoy, just three blocks from where a small child stood shivering on a church stoop, asking two pence for the dirty handkerchief he held in his dirtier hand. Alexi felt sure the boy was far more attune to what London had become than those who flitted about in their hansom cabs, intentionally ignorant of those who peered out from the shadows…

Those accustomed to the great city’s darknesses, surely, were the people who felt the same ugly wet air that Alexi breathed, the same cloying anxiety that still caused one to glance twice and jump at abrupt noises.

Dark eyes staring out over the water from an Embankment parapet, Alexi watched the countless spirits float over the river that had seen more woe in its days than he cared to imagine. The dim, wavering luminescence of the dead gave the Thames the odd quality of a silent ocean, the dead like lapping whitecaps atop the water. They were all looking at him. They all, perhaps, expected something of him.

The finely tuned instrument inside Alexi’s blood that alerted him to specific spectral disturbance was at a loss. The feeling he’d had of late was an unknown and dangerous variable. A man of order, though The Grand Work defied conventional reason, there was an odd science to it that he relished. But his instrument was clouded by a heavy foreboding, a helpless inevitability that something terrible was coming and he had no way to stop it.

The Professor didn’t need another handkerchief but he bought the sullied one from the disheveled child anyway. Looking down on the boy, framed in the shadows of a gothic arch, guarded by a vacant-faced stone saint who could do nothing at the sign of trouble, Alexi was greatly saddened. There was something in the child’s eyes that knew as well as he did that the nights were ripe for terrors.

I’m indebted to Richard Jones, founder of the fabulous Discovery Walks of London and author of the fantastic compendium “Haunted London” and “Walking Haunted London” published by Barnes & Noble Books, a main resource for my research. Visit him at http://www.haunted-london.com/. Come visit me at http://www.leannareneehieber.com/ to find out more about The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and follow along on the rest of the Haunted London Blog tour! I hope you’ll also pick up the book and love it as much as I loved writing it! Be sure to comment to be entered to win a signed copy!

To enter, just leave me a comment here with the title of your favorite classic ghost story. This will be a short giveaway, enter thru midnight eastern time on September 4th (My Mom's birthday, Happy Birthday, Mom!!). Winner will be drawn at random and must have a US mailing address. (FYI-For those of you who read or have read the book, Leanna is hosting a great contest on her website - enter here through Sept. 16). Good luck everyone! And a big thank you to Leanna for stopping by today!

Guest Post: Judi Fennell, author of In Over Her Head

Today I would like to welcome Judi Fennell, author of In Over Her Head. Check back tomorrow for my review of her book. Welcome, Judi and thanks so much for joining us today!

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Thank you so much for having me, Carey!
　
Since this is the Tome Traveller's blog, I figured I'd talk about traveling. Whether to actual places, or through books, traveling is, indeed the spice of life.
　
All the books I read growing up took me to wonderful places. Starting with the fairy tales and their castles, then I zipped through all of the Oz books - you want to talk about traveling! - then on to the Doctor Doolittle books... ah, to go to the moon on the back of a lunar moth, or travel under the sea in the great pink sea snail!
　
Then there were the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Bobbsey Twins books which took you to secret staircases or old mills.
　
Books are such great (and inexpensive) ways to travel!
　
So, when it came time for me to place my story, In Over Her Head, I chose the Jersey Shore. Not exotic. It doesn't have white sand beaches, or crystalline blue water, but it's close to home, we go there every year on vacation and it's the shore. For those of us who grew up in this area, the Jersey Shore combines the great memories of our childhood, the traditional fare of funnel cake and pizza and donuts and popcorn on the boardwalk, as well as the wonderfully relaxing atmosphere of living at the beach. And I got to take a couple of research trips while I was working on my Mer stories - can't complain about that.
　
I also had to come up with a place to put Atlantis. Now, if you've ever studied the North Atlantic on Google earth, you'll notice that there's not much there off the coast of the US. Until you hit Bermuda.
　
I've never been to Bermuda. I'd like to go to Bermuda, but have never been, and, sadly, we couldn't work that into our budget for my research. So I did the next best thing and traveled there via the internet. I am so thankful for the people who take underwater videos when they're scuba diving or snorkeling - all the beauty and fun of actually doing that without the expense or fear of sharks (which is a big fear for me...). There are so many photos of the caves beneath Bermuda, and a lot of video that I could build my Atlantis sitting in my office chair.
　
Then I had to build a castle in the Caribbean. Now, I've been to the Caribbean, but, I got to tell ya, I've never seen an underwater castle. :) So, once again, I went back to the internet (memory doesn't serve as well once you get past a certain age...). Again, thank you to all the people who post their scuba experiences so I could get the descriptions down and create the pink castle that's there...now.
　
They followed Carlos around a half-submerged, rusting plane fuselage to Ceto's home. Or should she say, palace? Erica almost forgot they were heading into the depths of a figurative Hell because Ceto's home was every bit as gorgeous as Atlantis.

Sunlight filtered through the water, twinkling on the pink conch shells lining the walls. Slabs of black-veined white marble supported an abalone portico roof, all its iridescent colors sparkling through the wakes of hundreds of neon fish darting to and fro in an even prettier garden than the one by the gates.

Midnight parrot fish tended manicured coral topiaries. Floating overhead like vines on an invisible pergola, swaths of sea grasses provided the perfect hide-and-seek locale for schools of tropical fish. Octopi draped over ionic columns like living statues, their colors changing with every shoal of fish that swam by. Black, double volcanic-rock doors loomed twenty feet high in front of them.

"That's it?" Why was she whispering?

Reel nodded and gripped her arms. "Listen. Whatever I say, just go with it, okay? This isn't the time to try to work things out for yourself. Don't be a hero. Just follow my lead. Got it? Oh, and whatever you do, don't take that actinia off your ear."

"Why?" She crossed her arms.
　
"Because I lied to my mother."

Freakin' great. Just what she needed right now. "You? Lied? Hard to believe. So, what's the big secret and what does your mother have to do with this?"

"Let's just say that Ceto has tried for more than friendly neighbor status between us, and it's been a bit dicey to keep her at arms' length."

"And you're telling me this now because...?"

The black doors swung open toward them. "Look, just whatever you do, don't take off the actinia." He dropped one of her arms and turned back to face the doorway as the barracudas fanned out behind them. "Let's do this."

© Judi Fennell, Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2009

Someday, hopefully, I'll get to Bermuda. I'm also playing with ideas for more Mer stories - if there is a book 4 it will take place in the South Pacific. Again, I've been to Hawaii (close), but it was a while ago, so I'll be relying on the internet.
　
I have to tell you, though, that while the travel through books was enough when I was younger, nowadays I want to see these places. Preferably before I write about them.
　
Hmmm... maybe I could set one in Spain, since I did live there in college. I'll have to work on it.
　
And in keeping with the travel theme, I'd like to let everyone know that I'm having a giveaway on my website, www.JudiFennell.com for 3 readers to win a romantic beach getaway. Two in Ocean City NJ at the Atlantis Inn (www.AtlantisInn.com) Bed & Breakfast, and the other at the Hibiscus House (www.HibiscusHouse.com) Bed & Breakfast in West Palm Beach, FL.
　
About The Author:
Judi Fennell has had her nose in a book and her head in some celestial realm all her life, including those early years when her mom would exhort her to "get outside!" instead of watching Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie on television. So she did--right into Dad's hammock with her Nancy Drew books.
　
These days she's more likely to have her nose in her laptop and her head (and the rest of her body) at her favorite bookstore, but she's still reading, whether it be her latest manuscript or friends' books.
　
A three-time finalist in online contests, Judi has enjoyed the reader feedback she's received and would love to hear what you think about her Mer series. Check out her website at www.JudiFennell.com for excerpts, reviews and fun pictures from reader and writer conferences, and the chance to "dive in" to her stories.

I spent years curled up on the couch with every book I could get my hands on, so I knew Judi would be a kindred spirit when I read that her Mom used to holler "Go outside," just like my Mom! And she just proved it by totally understanding that the name of my blog is a combination of the joy of visiting anytime/anywhere through the book in your hand and the excitement of actual travel to see the fantastic places you have read about (the real ones, anyway).

Thank you so much for that wonderful post, Judi! It was a pleasure having you here!

Laurie R. King Guest Post--Welcome, Laurie!!

I got home late last night from five fantastic, sunny days in London (not one drop of rain, can you believe it?). We just about walked our feet off, did a lot of book shopping and had an interesting visit to the London Book Fair...my first trade show experience. (More about that later).

Now I would love to welcome one of my favorite authors, Laurie R. King! Laurie is the mind behind the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell mystery series, the contemporary Kate Martinelli mystery series and several stand alone novels, as well. She is a New York Times bestselling author, read one of her books and you will immediately see why!

Her latest novel, The Language of Bees, will be released on April 29. An excerpt, schedule of appearances, contests, and lots more can be found at www.LaurieRKing.com.

Welcome Laurie! I'm thrilled about this guest post because it concerns a subject near and dear to me...travelling!

You want to know why writers set their stories in exotic places around the world? Different writers will give you different answers, but basically, they boil down to three reasons:

1. Doing so gives you an excuse to do travel that you want to do anyway. Not only are readers impressed with the effort of all that scrupulous research, if you set a book in a place you’ve travelled, you can write it off as a business expense. You don’t even have to figure out what percentage is business and what pleasure, because it’s all research. All of it. And it’s hard work. Every minute of it. I go for a drink in a pub? I’m taking notes all the while. I swear.

2. If you are getting bored with your characters, you can either begin killing them off, or you can send them somewhere. And since you only have so many characters and since people tend to get attached to them, it’s much preferable just to pile them on a plane—or, in the case of historical fiction, a boat. However, you don’t want to send them on a cruise with good champagne and a stack of new hardback fiction beside their deck chair. No, you want to give them a really rotten time of it. The kind of trip that gets written up in books with titles like "There and Survived" or "100 of the World’s Worst Journeys": fleas, disgusting local foodstuffs, awful weather, solitude and sickness, maybe a robbery or a brief arrest—all grist for the fictional mill.

After Dartmoor, the Sinai desert in January, and an English country house, I vowed that I would let my poor character, Mary Russell, go to someplace warm. So I sent her to India. Except it turned out to be January, and she was in the foothills of the Himalayas. But after that she went to California, where it’s nice and warm, right? Just not in San Francisco. And now in The Language of Bees when it’s August and she’s back in Sussex and the summer is glorious—until she has to go to the Orkneys, and she climbs into an aeroplane (this is 1924, right?) with nothing but a bit of glass between her and a storm.

Poor Russell might be happier if I did simply put her out of her misery.

3. The places themselves have some appeal for the books. Barry Eisler writes about an assassin who works a lot in southeast Asia, so clearly his books incorporate the milieu of that part of the world. Lee Child’s hero wanders across the US, coming to the rescue of a series of damsels. And in my books, particularly the Russell and Holmes series, they often set out for someplace that demands their services. O Jerusalem would only make sense in Palestine; The Game requires that they be in Twenties India. In both cases, the setting defines the book and what the characters are doing—becomes, in essence, a character itself.

And besides, it means I can write off that travel…

Thanks so much for stopping by today, Laurie! I can't wait to read the tenth installment in the Holmes/Russell series....

Guest Post: Helen Hollick, author of The Kingmaking (Pendragon's Banner, Book One)

I am absolutely thrilled to have Helen Hollick here today for a guest post. She has been one of my favorite authors since I first read the Pendragon's Banner trilogy back in the mid 1990s. I am having a hard time believing that it has been about fifteen years! The best thing about the re-release of this great series by Sourcebooks is that it gives me a happy reason to read them again. I remembered that I loved them, but I had forgotten WHY. Now I can put it into words and my review will be up a bit later today.

Now, I would like to welcome Helen!! My question to her was:

Has your writing process changed since the first edition of The Kingmaking was published in 1994?

Gosh, yes!

I suppose (I hope!) my writing has matured, and I now have the confidence to think of myself as a professional author (albeit one on a level of prosperity similar to the proverbial Church Mouse).

One of the most difficult things for new writers (and established writers?) to do is sing praises of their work. It is so hard to not appear to boast, and then there is always that nagging little voice saying, "But what if people are just being nice? What if my book is really a load of rubbish?"

Believe me, it takes a lot of confidence to shove that voice aside, and it never fully vanishes.

Every so often something happens to rock my confidence (yes even after having 8 books published) and I start thinking that maybe I am not a good writer after all.

Having said that, on the whole I know that my books are good. I am proud of what I have written. Therefore, I will blow my own trumpet as and where I can. After all, no one else is going to tootle it for me.

My writing style has improved, I think; there are things I know now that I wish I’d known back in 1993 when I was first accepted by William Heinemann here in the UK. Little things, maybe, but they can make such a difference to a good read.

Not starting sentences/paragraphs with a character’s name for instance - looking down a page in the first edition of The Kingmaking you would find lines starting like this:

Arthur walked into the room…
Arthur took a sip of wine…
Arthur mounted his horse and cantered away…
How much better to write:
Walking into the room, Arthur….
The wine tasted rich and fruity. Taking another sip, Arthur…
Mounting, and kicking his horse into a canter, Arthur…

Going self publish with my latest adventure/fantasy pirate-based series has taught me to take more notice of the editing process. With William Heinemann the editing was undertaken by the Publishing House, though of course it was still up to me to proof read, make corrections etc.

I very much relied on Heinemann to edit the original Kingmaking, however. By the third book, Shadow of the King, I had found the confidence to protest at any changes I did not approve of. A copy editor had totally altered my style of writing. Where I had written a sentence of dialogue to make it sound as if the character is in the past - "Shall I not?" for instance, she had altered it to "I shall not." I was very indignant about that.

I was also extremely angry that when The Kingmaking was originally published in the US the wrong file had been sent. The uncorrected proof. It was this file they printed from., but by the time I found out it was already too late, the books were printed. I gave up counting the errors at 360. One I will never forget is Arthur’s "bread stubbled chin." It should have been beard stubbled, of course. To this day I picture Arthur with croutons on his face.

(Just have to break in for one second here to say that I READ that edition and, the story was so engrossing, I never noticed any mistakes!)

If you want to write, editing is so important. Not just for the checking of spelling, punctuation, continuity, but for the plot, the idea. You, as the writer, know perfectly well what is happening and why because all the information is in your head. Your reader can only go on what you have written, however. And if what you have written does not make sense… you are scuppered. A good editor will spot the problem.

I cannot remember who said this, but it is a terrific quote: "When I wrote that only God and I knew what I meant. Now only God knows."

I also have the confidence to delete whole passages. For that first Kingmaking I would agonise over taking out one word. Now if my instinct tells me something is not right, out it comes – even if it is a whole page or a whole chapter. In fact my first draft of Sea Witch started about 50 pages before where it starts now. I realised that for this type of book I had to get straight into the action, not ponder on my hero’s early childhood as I had with The Kingmaking. So I hit the delete button for what had been about a month’s worth of work.

Without sounding big-headed, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the proof of this Sourcebooks edition of The Kingmaking. I am not saying it is perfect – there are bound to be one or two missed typing errors, and maybe on reading it you decide the story is not your cup of tea, which is fair enough. It would be a dull old world if we all liked to read the same things, but I enjoyed the read. I fell in love with Arthur all over again – and cried at the sad bits. And there were one or two passages that I had to go and check in the original version, for truly I did not remember writing such thrilling stuff.

Did I really write that? Gosh!

Thank you, Helen! I'm always fascinated to hear about the writing process. I'm so glad to have had you here today!! What an honor, and a thrill, for me.

Be sure to visit Helen's website and come back later today for my review....

Guest Post: Cody McFadyen, Author of The Darker Side

I recently started making the rounds of the various conventions and author gatherings that are available for thriller writers. This has included speaking on panels, doing the occasional interview, but most importantly, meeting other authors.

What did I find? That I should have been doing all of this from the start.

Writing is not, by default, a social activity. It’s not a team sport. There are aspects of writing that can’t be done without others, of course. My family puts up with me when I’m writing; they’re patient with my distance, my distraction, and my general inaccessibility. My agent gives me encouragement when I’m drowning in self-doubt about the current project, helps talk me away from the ledge, so to speak. My editors take what I give them and then make me turn it into the best book it can be.

But the day to day act of sitting down and making the words appear? That’s just you and you and no one else. For me, it is a doubt-fueled activity that goes something like this (starting with a Monday): I wake up and I realize that it’s a new week, and that it’s now time to start writing again. I think about this for some time. Maybe an hour. The dread builds. I have a cup of coffee, and I read (but do not answer) my email. I read three or four news sites, to make sure I’m up on world events. I have another cup of coffee. I think, again, about writing. I feel pretty sure that the writing I did last week sucks, bad. I consider going back to fix the writing I did last week, but decide that I’m using that as an excuse to not do new writing. I go and check the Amazon rankings on my previously published books and wonder what I’m going to do to make a living when this job goes belly-up. I finally sit down in my easy-chair with my laptop. I stare at the page for a while, and then I begin to type. The first few sentences are like pulling teeth. I consider that, in this moment, I’d almost rather be set on fire than write. I force myself to continue. Somewhere in there, the ball gets rolling, and for a few hours, there is no effort, everything is easy, and I enjoy myself, doing this, like nothing else there is.

Then, I break for lunch. I relax, watch some TV, get out of the groove. I return to my office no longer in ‘the zone’ and the morning process begins again. And this is pretty much how it goes, day to day, until the current novel is complete. Once the novel is finished, I give myself a day or two to wallow in self-doubt, to contemplate just how bad it’s going to be for my career when it comes out and everyone finally sees what a fraud I am. Then I dive into the rewrites, and that’s usually where I start to entertain the possibility that I don’t completely suck. I might be able to continue fooling everyone on this whole writing thing. I see my own weaknesses during a rewrite, but I also see my own strengths. I fix things, polish things, and get to a point where I feel I’ve written the best book I can. I send it off to my agent, who reassures me that I won’t be a laughing stock when I show it to my editor. I do, finally and with great trepidation, send it to my editor. I sit on pins and needles, waiting to be told that I have, at last, written a real stinker. I wait for that call to come, the one that will be filled with long, uncomfortable pauses, silences where my editor is searching for ways to break it to me gently that the book will have to be re-written from scratch.

Instead, of course, I get a collection of notes (sometimes more, sometimes less) written in a concise, insightful, and helpful manner, that point out to me different ways the book could become better. My relief is palpable. I’m able to start sleeping again. I fix the book, we go back and forth on it, and finally get to the point where everyone agrees it’s ready to be released to the public… and that’s another story entirely. I give myself a few weeks, or a few months, and then it’s time to start the next book.

What is the point of all this, particularly in relation to my opening statement? Writing is a solitary act. For that reason, it’s far, far too easy to become disconnected from the reality of publishing, which is anything but solitary. It can all seem so cerebral, something that happens in an internal universe and no other. That’s why you have to get out there, right from the start. Meet other authors, meet the critics, and most important - meet the readers. They don’t even have to be your readers. That’s not important in the beginning. But get out there and make the connection between your days and nights of madness and that end-point-reality of your book in someone’s hands.

It will open your eyes, I promise you. I made the mistake of being a little too ivory-tower at the beginning of my career. Not from snobbishness, but because I was intimidated. I didn’t really feel that I belonged. I should have gotten over it, and I’m glad, now, that I finally have.

Because I found out one key thing, an encouragement that it all boils down to: everyone is waiting for a next good book to read. People are reading reviews and searching bookstores and coming to these conventions because they love to read and are on the hunt for more. They’re not out there looking for reasons to hate what you write – they’re out there hoping you’re going to give them something good. It’s a subtle difference in emphasis, but it was the world to me.

I’m just wrapping up my fourth book. My third novel, The Darker Side, will be out by the time anyone reads this. I write thrillers that I put a lot of myself into – maybe too much, sometimes. I’m not sure I know any more about writing than I did when I started, but realizing the above, that people are out there hoping for a good book, has helped me immeasurably. It’s encouraged me in some of my basic approaches to writing: do what feels right, leave it all on the table with every book, finish every story you start. For any writers out there reading this who need their own encouragement, think about that. Focus on the truth that more people want you to write a good book than want you to fail.

I’m headed back to the easy chair now; it’s revision time.

Thanks, Cody for a fantastic guest post! You're right, we are so happy with a good book! As soon as we finish one, we need another one. Good thing there are so many great writers out there, we would be lost without you! I'm just grateful that there are people willing to put themselves through the pain of publishing a book so that we can enjoy it.

My review will be up on October 22, my date for review on the Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tour.