Friday 30 September 2016

First Sentence Friday: HEYC Ch 14

Her Endearing Young Charms
Chapter Fourteen: Alexander blinked at Merrybelle. What did she say?

Okay, so that's two sentences. I'm cheating.


On sale now in ebook and paperback from Amazon.com and wherever all good ebooks are sold.

______________________
Her Grace wishes she could share the whole book with you. Oh wait. She can. Go buy my books.

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Ch 6

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Chapter 6

James couldn’t get away from St. Mary’s soon enough. While the village’s derision of him wasn’t news, the vicar’s opinion was a surprise.

Don't be afraid of change in your life. Change happens because it needed to happen. For good or ill, change brings an opportunity for personal growth.

You are guaranteed XP when change enters your life. Take advantage of it and level up.

_____________

Get The White Feather now from Amazon or your favourite ebook retailer. If life's getting you down, grab a book and escape for a few hours. You'll feel better for it.

Out now from The Wild Rose Press.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press

Friday 23 September 2016

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Ch 5

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Chapter 5

The next morning James woke with the impression of being watched.

The White Feather is suitable for book clubs. A list of questions for book club discussion is available on request. Also, if you order your copies directly from The Wild Rose Press, a discount is available. Contact Lisa for more information on book club discounts.

Get The White Feather now from Amazon or your favourite ebook retailer.

Out now from The Wild Rose Press.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press

First Sentence Friday: HEYC Ch 13

Her Endearing Young Charms
Chapter Thirteen: As they rode back, Alexander was grateful for the silent company of the others.

So glad Spring is here. Looking forward to the warm weather.


On sale now in ebook and paperback from Amazon.com and wherever all good ebooks are sold.

______________________
Her Grace will take weeks to get the cold out of her bones.

Thursday 22 September 2016

Thursday Interview: Rebecca Laffar-Smith

Y'all welcome Western Australian author Rebecca Laffar-Smith to Romance Spinners. Her official biography reads:

"An author; a publisher; a mother. Rebecca loves bringing the joy of reading to children, exploring magical words of wonder and darkness, and fairy tales of happily ever after romance. As you can imagine, that leaves her torn between her three passions. She writes science fiction and fantasy under the name Rebecca Laffar-Smith, romance under the name Serenity Bly, children's books under the name Bec J. Smith, and publishes books for children with language and literacy difficulties at Aulexic."

Today we're having a bit of a chat about the genres we like and the importance of reading for everyone. If you have a reluctant reader with literacy difficulties, consider having a look at her P.I. Penguin series.

_____________________________________

HWK: You're known for writing SFF but I hear you've got a secret soft spot for Romance. What is it about this genre that you like?
RLS: I've always been a devourer of romance. I'm a big fan of Mills & Boon and in my twenties I imagined joining the ranks to pen some of their Sweet, or Sexy, or Temptation lines. I love to read romance, when I'm experiencing a physical and emotional low due to my Bipolar, because they're written in a way that isn't too demanding for the reader. They're light but powerfully emotional and that sense that love conquers all is uplifting. It brightens the mood and sometimes I need that, especially because my SFF writing is usually pretty dark and emotionally fraught.

Having said that, the first attempts I made into writing Romance in my twenties were absolutely terrible. I probably didn't have enough emotional maturity or experience with love and loss and even heartbreak to be able to write a convincing happily ever after. My characters didn't have much life and body. Thankfully, the writing I've done over the years has helped significantly but I'm still only just exploring the genre again as a writer.

And to be honest, a lot of what I like about it as a writer is the strength of the market and the emotionally rewarding writing experience. When I'm writing SFF I find I get into the grit of what I'm working on. It can be emotionally draining, and I find myself dragged into the darkness with my characters. Writing Romance does the opposite, it pulls me up out of that hole and makes life a lot more fun and shiny. Obviously there are stages of the writing where I'm dealing with conflict, but there's always a sense of destiny in the story where I know things will turn out for the best in the end. When I'm writing SFF I don't have the confidence of that certainty.

And that same confidence and certainty is true for being able to find readers. The romance market is huge and ravenous. As a romance reader myself I know I can power through about four romances in the time it takes me to read one SFF. So I can go to market with a romance and be relatively confident it will find readers where are SFF is often a lot more hit and miss. I have to hope that my kind of SFF appeals within a niche of the SFF market and because it takes longer to write and requires more emotional and physical investment in its production it can feel good to break that up with the occasional romance where I know I'll find readers who love the story. Romance readers are a lot less critical in reviews so long as you satisfy the key emotions.

HWK: I also love Pride & Prejudice. You explore Elizabeth & Darcy's first married Christmas in your novella "Christmas at Rosings". What is it about the Darcy/de Bourgh family dynamics that caught your imagination?
RLS: Lady Catherine is a monster. As an antagonist she was an obvious choice, especially because Darcy's loyalty is something to really play upon. Of course he loves his aunt and he has been raised to respect, even admire her. Elizabeth's standing in that dynamic is shaky at best. She doesn't have the breeding to give her any sort of status in Lady Catherine's eyes and it's easy to let Darcy's past respect for his aunt clash with his still emerging loyalty to his new wife. Their relationship, having had a rocky beginning, is easily shaken by the foibles of their past.

I think that's very true of relationships. The things that tear couples apart or make it hard for them to come together in the beginning, will continue to rock the foundations of that relationship. They'll continue to be tested by them, and it takes work to strengthen the foundation to withstand that kind of ongoing turmoil. I liked the idea of building that stronger foundation with Darcy and Elizabeth because I always felt like they didn't have enough strength to keep their relationship together after the final declarations in Pride and Prejudice. 

HWK: You've got works in several genres. What makes you want to explore different ones instead of focusing on a single genre or age group?
RLS: Well, the children's books surprised me. I honestly never imagined myself a children's book author and it was only the homeschooling I was doing with my son that lead me down that path. Now I can't imagine not working in children's fiction but I'm still always drawn back to SFF which is my first passion. And somehow, even in my SFF there is a degree of Romance. I think love is such a central theme in life that we find it in every genre.

These days, because I'm working so much with my publishing house I don't have as much time to write as I need and I try to keep my focus to just those three genres, Children's, SFF, and Romance. As I said before, the SFF tends to be heavy writing so it's time consuming and emotionally taxing. I tend to think of Romance writing as a palate cleanser. It's a way to declutter those dark thoughts and emotions so that I can come back to the other work with a clearer head.

Of course, having said that, I can tend to have a short attention span and just love to flit from project to project. I let the ideas lead me and sometimes those ideas take me outside of what I've already done. I love to challenge myself to keep growing and developing as a writer so I'll throw myself down the rabbit holes of wild ideas and see where they take me. Thankfully, for now at least, they've gravitated around just three genres, but I'm not ruling out someday exploring crime, and I definitely know I have some non-fiction waiting in the wings, although I'm fairly confident that I won't go near thriller or literary fiction.

HWK: You've been doing a fair bit of work with Aulexic, an imprint that brings interest-appropriate books to readers with literary acquisition difficulties. How did you identify the hook (simple language, advanced ideas) as a successful gateway into reading for this particular literacy group?
RLS: I tend to focus on what has worked in my own experience and in the experiences of those I've talked to directly. It's not particularly scientific, although I have done a lot of research into the science of learning disabilities and language acquisition, I find anecdotal evidence tends to hold greater weight in that we can see it's effect directly on the people that matter. Especially in situations where the science doesn't hold up to what I've seen in the real world.

In this case, our family has first hand experience. I'm dyslexic, my mother is dyslexic, and my son is both dyslexic and autistic. So we're very familiar with language and literacy challenges. Aulexic began as a homeschool project to make books that would entice my son to want to read. He had become disenchanted with books when he was attending school. He had been forced to read boring school readers that had no story or substance but were a jumble of words on the page so he had begun to assume that all reading was pointless. We had to find a way to convince him that reading can be powerful and fun.
I knew that, as a dyslexic myself, the only time I read is when I'm absolutely interested in the material or I'm gaining a particular benefit from the information or communication. And I know a lot of non-dyslexic adults who are like that too. If it's not gripping our attention, we'll put it down and walk away. Today, children have even more choice when it comes to reading or not and we need books and resources that give them a reason to want to read.

Then, of course, we take the ideas of compelling, interesting, and story-rich concepts even further by incorporating aspects of layout and formatting that improve readability for all readers, but have shown particular improvement for dyslexics. And I like to incorporate a degree of reality, logic, and science in our books so that they'll appeal to autistic children as well.

HWK: A friend is visiting you next week and bringing a guest who's a scientist. However, they have warned you that their guest can be a talker. What kind of scientist do you hope they're not?
RLS: Wow, that's actually a hard question because I tend to be fascinated by everything. I could tell you I'd love to talk with people in genetics, space flight & astronomy, and psychology. I don't know that there is any particular science I wouldn't find interesting but I might not be too keen to spend an evening with someone who talked incessantly about bugs. Entomology, while interesting, can send shivers down my spine because I'm not a fan of insects.

In fact, I think I've found one I would like to avoid, a Melittologist! They study bees and I'm deathly allergic to bees. Just thinking about them gives me anxiety attacks so spending a whole evening talking about them would put me off my food and make for a very unpleasant evening. Although, even having said that, the insatiable curiosity of my brain wants to learn more so while it would be physically taxing because of my emotional response to the subject matter I think I'd still find the evening mentally stimulating and interesting.

HWK: Preach it! If you could convince the world of *anything*, what would it be?
RLS: Possibility is infinite.

These three words have such broad reaching implications in every area of our existence. I believe that the potential for every individual is limited only by their dreams. You can achieve anything you decide to set out to achieve. It will take hard work and patience, but if you truly believe in what you set out to do and continue working toward that goal, eventually you'll accomplish it.

That then of course extends to things like space flight, time travel, extraterrestrial life, genetics, metaphysics, longevity of life and health, even love. I believe anything and everything is possible. Scientifically it may require adjusting some of our commonly held beliefs or changing the rules, but we've been proving that even that is possible, especially when you consider the vastness of our universe. We've only just scratched the surface on what we think we know and we're having to adjust that view all the time.

So yes, I'm preaching, "Possibility is infinite."

HWK: Thank yo so much for joining us on Romance Spinners.

____________________________

Interested in Rebecca Laffar-Smith's books? Get your copy now:  Romance | Science Fiction/Fantasy | Children's

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Over on The Wild Rose Press blog...

Today I am featured on The Wild Rose Press blog: The Origin of Silver War Badges

On the back of every Silver War Badge is a Roman numeral explaining the reason for discharge under King's Regulations. These range from dishonourable to regular to heroic.

Which one do you think James Cowper from The White Feather was discharged under?


(i) References on enlistment being unsatisfactory.
(ii) Having been irregularly enlisted.
(iii) Not likely to become an efficient soldier.
(iv) Having been claimed as an apprentice.
(v) Having claimed it on payment of £10 within three months of his attestation.
(vi) Having made a mis-statement as to age on enlistment.
(vii) Having been claimed for wife desertion.
(viii) Having made a false answer on attestation.
(ix) Unfitted for the duties of the corps.
(x) Having been convicted by the civil power of_____, or of an offence committed before enlistment.
(xi) For misconduct.
(xii) Having been sentenced to penal servitude.
(xiii) Having been sentenced to be discharged with ignominy.
(xiv) At his own request, on payment of _____ under Article 1130 (i), Pay Warrant.
(xv) Free, after ____ years' service under Article 1130 (ii), Pay Warrant.
(xvi) No longer physically fit for war service.
(xvii) Surplus to military requirements (having suffered impairment since entry into the service).
(xviii) At his own request after 18 years' service (with a view to pension under the Pay Warrant).
(xix) For the benefit of the public service after 18 years' service (with a view to pension under the Pay Warrant).
(xx) Inefficiency after 18 years' service (with a view to pension under the Pay Warrant).
(xxi) The termination of his ____ period of engagement.
(xxii) With less than 21 years' service towards engagement, but with 21 or more years' service towards pension.
(xxiii) Having claimed discharge after three months' notice.
(xxiv) Having reached the age for discharge.
(xxv) His services being no longer required.
(xxvi) Surplus to military requirements (Not having suffered impairment since entry into the service).
(xxvii) At his own request after 21 (or more) years' service (with a view to pension under the Pay Warrant).
(xxviii) After 21 (or more) years' qualifying service for pension, and with 5 (or more) years' service as warrant officer (with a view to pension under the Pay Warrant).
(xxviv) On demobilization.
(source: Wikipedia)

____________________________________
Her Grace is thankful the KRs were not printed on the front of the badge. That would have meant more trouble.

Friday 16 September 2016

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Ch 4

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Chapter 4

Just like that, the ghost disappeared. No warning, no fading away, no last words.

Okay, I cheated. That's two sentences.

In The White Feather (and many of my other books), items can hold magic. How much is influenced by the material.

Iron is anathema to magic. It simply cannot hold it and in many traditions, can even negate magic.

Iron is even strong enough to kill stars.

Young stars are formed when a cloud of hydrogen collapses under its own gravitational weight and starts thermonuclear fusion. The hydrogen of a star fuses together into helium. When all the hydrogen is used up. the star undergoes a helium flash and starts fusing helium. Then it gradually works its way through the Periodic table until it gets to FE (iron). Iron does not undergo thermonuclear fusion the way the lighter elements do. When a star reaches iron stage, it pretty much blasts away its outer shell, leaving a slowly cooling core of iron. This is how many stars die.

As for elements heavier than iron (such as gold and uranium), these are create when certain types of stars go supernova. the powerful blast of a supernova fuses some iron into the heaver elements.

Interesting note: the shockwave of a supernova can trigger star formation in a nearby nebula (cloud of hydrogen). Circle of life.

Love astronomy? So do I.

Get The White Feather now from Amazon or your favourite ebook retailer.

Out now from The Wild Rose Press.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press

First Sentence Friday: HEYC Ch 12

Her Endearing Young Charms
Chapter Twelve: Throughout the day, Alexander heard his various relations arrive, their carriages rattling on the stones outside.

Happy Book Birthday, The White Feather. Grab a copy and celebrate.


On sale now in ebook and paperback from Amazon.com and wherever all good ebooks are sold.

______________________
Her Grace loves a good ghost story.

Wednesday 14 September 2016

Happy Book Birthday, The White Feather


The White Feather
14 September 2016

The White Feather is out today! Have you got your copy yet?

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press | GoodReads


Crippled by a fear of firearms, James Cowper is rejected by the draft during the Great War. For this, the villagers mark him as a cowardly pariah. Cruelly shamed by them, James attempts a desperate deed by the tombstone of the village's most famous lady, Georgia Palmerton, also known as the Stoweham Ghost.

A hundred years ago, a romantic rival cursed Georgia Palmerton. Since then, she's wandered in phantom form, naked and alone, watching generations grow up, marry, live, and die. Georgia could be restored back to life, if someone had the courage to help her.

Freeing Georgia from physical death is a simple matter. Freeing James from social death is altogether more challenging, especially when he is asked to give up everything he's ever known. Now that the ghost and the pariah have found each other, will love and courage be enough to save them both?




___________________________________________
Her Grace asks that after you've read The White Feather, please leave an honest review on Amazon, GoodReads or wherever you purchased your copy. This helps more than you know.

Friday 9 September 2016

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Ch 3

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Chapter 3

Several painful hours later, a contrite and tear stained James Cowper made his way through the grounds of Stoweham House to the wall that separated the far garden from the older part of St. Mary’s cemetery.

Acrostic jewelry is when a secret message is encoded in the gemstones set in the piece.

For example, a ring could be set with the following stones.

Hematite
Onyx
Peridot
Emerald

or 

Lapis
Opal
Vermeil (garnet)
Emerald

An acrostic ring makes a subtle appearance in The White Feather. Do you know what message it spells?

Pre-order from Amazon or your favourite ebook retailer.

Out 14 Sept 2016 from The Wild Rose Press.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press

First Sentence Fridays: HEYC Ch 11

Her Endearing Young Charms
Chapter Eleven: Alexander's father slipped away in the still of the night.

Are you in a book club? Consider my title "The White Feather" for your next book selection. Discounts available for bulk purchases of "The White Feather" from The Wild Rose Press.


On sale now in ebook and paperback from Amazon.com and wherever all good ebooks are sold.

______________________
Her Grace also has Book Club questions available for download.

Tuesday 6 September 2016

The Pattern of a Scarf

A couple of years ago I hand-crocheted a Doctor Who Scarf for a friend for Christmas. I wanted to get it as patternally accurate as possible, so I had a look online. (Okay, the original scarf was knitted, not crocheted, but I am not as fast a knitter as I am a crocheter. Sosumi.)

I found not one, but several patterns, as The Doctor had a couple of incarnations of scarves (as well as bodies).

Turns out the pattern of scarf I wanted has a name: Acheson Hero.  (Who knew?)

Costume designer James Acheson (oh, I get it...) wanted a scarf for the Fourth Doctor. He handed a bunch of wool (yarn) to knitter Begonia Pope, who went to town.  Result: a twenty-foot scarf.

To look at the Acheson Hero scarf, it's hard to see if there's a pattern. It's like Begonia started knitting and lost count. Is the Acheson Hero pattern completely random?  Seem so.

This year I came across the remaining skeins of yarn. I thought, why not make a mini-version of the scarf for myself? I started off wanting to be true to the pattern, but in the end, I just started measuring out random lengths. I tried to keep the colour sequence as true to the Acheson Hero pattern, but in the end, just gave up as I ran out of yarn, spoons and firetrucks.

As I hooked and looped my new scarf, it was an ideal time to think. What if there is a pattern to the Acheson Hero, but it's not one we can quantify mathematically?  Why are there fifty-six rows of Yarn Colour 165 (bottle-fed baby poop) and only ten of Yarn Colour 113 (breast-fed baby poop)?

Then I wondered: what if the pattern of the scarf is the pattern of Begonia's life? Surely she didn't just sit down and crank out twenty feet of scarfy goodness in one sitting. If she's like every other woman I know, she's got a life, probably a husband, few kids, a dog... what if she fit this scarf-making in between everything else she had to do? What if the number of rows is the amount of time she had to work on that one section? See, she could have knit up six rows of one colour, repeat until out of yarn. But she didn't.

What if she used only a single colour per sitting? She'd knit and knit in that one colour until she ran out of time. Then the next time she picked up her needles, she swapped to another colour. What colour to choose? Maybe whatever matched her mood, or maybe whatever she laid her hands on reaching blindly into her yarn bag.

I'm thinking that row of ten was waiting for a pot to boil on the stove. That row of twenty, her waiting for the bus. The row of forty-four? In church on Sunday. The row of 56? Waiting at the doctor office. Row of eight? Kids' naptime (not long enough).

If this is her pattern, you can see where her life is busy and where her life is quieter.

Maybe instead of trying to follow her pattern, I should have followed her pattern and included colours to mark time for my own life.


__________________________
Her Grace has one little leftover ball of yellow yarn (100% Aussie wool) and she's not sure what to do with it.


← This spot right here: early bedtime.





← Right here: suppertime.





← Here: picking kids up from school.



← I hope someone read the paper to her while she knit.



← I also hope someone told her what a good job she did.

Friday 2 September 2016

First Sentence Friday: HEYC Ch 10

Her Endearing Young Charms
Chapter Ten: Alexander's father slipped away in the still of the night.

Do you like Ghost love stories set in WWI?


On sale now in ebook and paperback from Amazon.com and wherever all good ebooks are sold.

______________________
Her Grace knows of a book you may like.

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Ch 2

First Sentence Friday - The White Feather Chapter 2

A loud noise rumbling through his splitting headache brought James to consciousness.

Crippled by a fear of firearms, James Cowper is rejected by the draft during the Great War. For this, the villagers mark him as a cowardly pariah. Cruelly shamed by them, James attempts a desperate deed by the tombstone of the village's most famous lady, Georgia Palmerton, also known as the Stoweham Ghost.

A hundred years ago, a romantic rival cursed Georgia Palmerton. Since then, she's wandered in phantom form, naked and alone, watching generations grow up, marry, live, and die. Georgia could be restored back to life, if someone had the courage to help her.

Freeing Georgia from physical death is a simple matter. Freeing James from social death is altogether more challenging, especially when he is asked to give up everything he's ever known. Now that the ghost and the pariah have found each other, will love and courage be enough to save them both?


Pre-order from Amazon or your favourite ebook retailer.

Out 14 Sept 2016 from The Wild Rose Press.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | KoboBooks | The Wild Rose Press