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Spotlight on Music on the Waters

St Magnus Cathedral, and its organ, play a central part in Music on the Waters, the latest novel from Caroline Warfield. The video above gives the history of the cathedral.

I love stories about two people groping their ineffectual way towards an understanding, and this is a delightful one. The hero is a successful businessman, but hasn’t been quite as successful in understanding his now deceased wife. He needs help with his wild children, especially the daughter who seems increasingly distant. But he is certainly not interested in another meek conventional wife who won’t express an opinion of her own.

Ann appears on the surface to be such a woman, but Alec first sees her when she is playing the organ — can he coax her to be, with him, the vibrant passionate woman she becomes when she plays?

Ann is the daughter of a bullying father, well used to everyone telling her that her thoughts, feelings, tastes, and opinions are wrong. She has learned to hide her appreciation of, and talent for, the music of the great masters. Instead, she teaches and conducts saccharine ballads, while yearning for something more. She has no idea what Alec is up to, but she doesn’t trust it.

The outcome of this romance was never in any real doubt, but the steps and missteps in the developing relationship are wonderfully satisfying, and Warfield has also given us a delightful supporting cast, including a trio of engaging children.

You won’t regret buying this story (for a mere USD99c, or free on KU). Without the twists and the life and death situations of Warfield’s great Children of Empire series or her compelling Christmas Hope, it nonetheless left me with a smile and a warm heart. Perfect comfort reading.

Music on the Waters

Sir Alexander Bradshaw needs a wife, a sensible woman to manage his unruly sons and sullen daughter. No suitable candidates appear, however, and Alec resigns himself to spend another long, dark Orkney winter companionless. When an acquaintance suggests a music teacher might occupy his daughter, he embraces the idea.

Ann Dunwood travels to Orkney for the opportunity to play the Kirkwall organ. For the beauty of the instrument, Ann endures the conservative choir members who wish to perform the most banal of hymns; she’s done it before. She knows how to fade into the shadows and keep to her place.

When he happens upon Ann in the cathedral, Alec is enchanted by the woman at the keyboard, who fills the room with a Bach fugue. Yet, when the music ends, the object of his fascination turns into a demure mouse. Alec determines to reignite the passion he glimpsed in her and fill his home with music.

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Please help! Vote for Unkept Promises for a RONE Award

Unkept Promises has been nominated for a RONE Award

Please help!

The RONEs are run by InD’tale Magazine, and books go through three rounds.

Round 1 is to be reviewed by one of the magazine’s readers and get a star rating of 4.5 or higher.

Round 2 is reader voting — that’s the stage we’re up to. Voting for my category is open until 26th April (in whatever time zone they publish). Here’s the link: https://indtale.com/rone-awards-week-two-april-20-26

The books with the most votes go to industry professionals for Round 3, to determine the very best book in the indie and small published world.

Help me get to the next round?

To vote, you need to be registered on the Ind’Tale website, but it’s easy to register, and the monthly magazine is full of book news and reviews, and free.

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Tea with the Countess of Sutton

Sophia came to the door of the heir’s wing, and was conducted to Eleanor’s private sitting room by Aldridge’s major domo. Haverford had been upset, when he returned from his convalescence in Kent, to discover that the sister of his protege had married the son of his bitter enemy. But his one attempt to suggest that the Earl of Hythe should cast his sister off for her messalliance had been met with a cold stare, and had nearly cost him the boy’s political support. After that, he gave the new Countess a frost nod when they met, and otherwise pretended that she did not exist.

Even so, Eleanor saw no reason to rub his nose in her continued meetings with the darling girl, and so she had suggested the more circuitous route. What Haverford did not see would not annoy him.

The duchess rose to give Sophia a hug. “You are looking well, my dear. I was concerned when you had to leave the garden party early.”

Sophia blushed. “I am generally well, Aunt Eleanor. But I become very tired, these days. I am told it will be easier in a month or two. For a short time.”

She looked down at the hands in her lap, a small smile playing around her lips.

“Sophia! How wonderful! You are with child? When do you expect the happy event?” Eleanor couldn’t be better pleased. How lovely for this much loved god daughter, who had suffered much from the loss of two betrothals and had resigned herself to becoming an old maid before Viscount Elfingham, now the Earl of Sutton, saw what a treasure she was.

And how lovely for James. The father, not the son. Well, the son too, of course. He must be very proud of his wife and thrilled to be becoming a father. But James, through the marriage of his son, had secured the duchy as he desired. Eleanor beamed, and set about a cross examination of Sophia’s health and wellbeing.

Sophia is the heroine of To Wed a Proper Lady.

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Podcasts on Historical Romance

Hello, household bubble dwellers. Missing book club and those chats at work about your favourite reading? Maybe these podcasts might help:

Interviews with authors of new books in historical fiction, from apple podcasts.

A variety of historical romance podcasts collected by Player FM. Includes some classic books, one on reading steamy romance with your mum, interviews with authors, and a discussion on Outlander.

One that calls itself 20 top romance podcasts you must follow in 2020. It is broader than just historical, but includes Tea & Strumpets, which discusses Regency, and I also see names like Julia Quinn and Sarah Maclean.

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Worried? Read romance

You know how people have been telling you that your reading habits should be a guilty secret? Escapist, they call our beloved romances. Well, guess what. It’s time to escape.

Here’s an article from Australia about reading habits in times of war and worry: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-29/coronavirus-why-we-read-romance-fiction-in-a-crisis/12097592 

Another from the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/09/need-cheering-up-right-now-try-reading-a-romance-novel

And another from the US: https://www.bustle.com/p/readers-turn-to-romance-novels-in-tough-times-coronavirus-is-no-exception-22646783

Some recommendations from one reader: https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a31471225/coronavirus-anxiety-reading-books-help/

And, if you want some suggestions in historical romance, someone has collected their 97 favourites under ‘the best’ label. I’d agree that those I’ve read from this list are all great, and I think I might find a few new ones: https://fictionobsessed.com/romance/best-historical-regency-romance-novels/

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Wounded heroes on WIP Wednesday

Or heroines, for that matter. Or even villains. As writers, we learn to look for the flaws or wounds that prevent our characters from reaching their happy ending. In a compelling story, while there may be external challenges, the internal ones are what gives the story depth and makes it a must read. Think Frodo. Think King Arthur. Think Jo Marsh of Little Women.

If you’re an author and want to play, use the comments to give me an excerpt from your work-in-progress that touches on a character’s wounds. Here’s a piece from To Mend a Proper Lady, the next book in the Mountain King series.

Val left Barrow to his son and horses, and set off to trudge back through the fields to the house, running the last few hundred yards through blinding hail.

Crick, his manservant, fussed over his towel and his bath and his dry clothes, and Val allowed it. This kind of weather was too much like Albuera for Crick’s demons, immersing him back into the confusion and the pain. Val told himself that he kept the old soldier out of compassion. During his worst moments, he feared his motivation was more of a sick desire to have someone around who was worse than him.

By the time Val was warm and dry again, the thunder had started. He sent Crick off to bed. There’d be no more sense out of the poor man tonight, nor much from Val, either. He refused the offer of dinner and shut himself up in his room so no one would see him whimpering like a child.

It was not until the following day, after the thunderstorm had passed, that he remembered the mail, but he couldn’t find it. Mrs Minnich, the housekeeper, remembered that it had been delivered, and thought Crick had taken it, but what happened after that no one knew, least of all Crick. He had got roaring drunk and surfaced late in the day with a bad headache, a worse conscience, and no memory of the previous day at all.

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Tea with a duke

Today’s Monday for Tea post belongs between To Wed a Proper Lady and To Mend the Broken Hearted, and is referred to in A Baron for Becky. It follows on from a post I wrote just over two years ago, from the point of view of the new Duke of Winshire.

Eleanor was tempted to fan herself as she waited. From Aldridge’s expression, he regreted impatiently following the butler to be announced — undoubtedly he expected his mother to be embarrassed at breaking in on three gentlemen in dishabille. In their shirtsleeves, or at least James’s two sons were in their shirtsleeves. Their father — Eleanor’s lips curved — was naked from the waist up, and his knitted pantaloons hugged hips and thighs that made no account of his decades and owed nothing to padding.

As a woman in her fifties, Eleanor came from a bawdier time than this mealy-mouthed generation, and was well accustomed to listening as her contemporaries assessed the bodies of the young men who pranced the drawing and ballrooms of Society. She had never contributed when such conversations turned salacious. She could admire male beauty of form in flesh, stone, or paint, but it left her cold. She was not cold now, and it hadn’t been the younger men who moved her.

The entry of servants with refreshments forced her to compose herself and turn her attention to the purpose of her call. Would James sponsor the bill she intended to propose? She marshalled her arguments, and was cool and composed by the time he entered the room.

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Spotlight on Suffering, Hope, Romance and a new release

 

Eggs are a symbol of hope. Hence the saying about counting chickens before they are hatched.

In much of the Christian world, people are celebrating Easter Sunday, and its message of hope. We’re on Monday here in New Zealand, and I’ve been reflecting overnight about pandemics, lock down, the resurrection, and historical romance. Romance as a genre, in fact. The common thread, I think, is hope.

The message of Easter is that happy ever after is possible. Suffering during the days and nights of pain, but at last comes the dawn of the day of joy. Most religions, I think, have a similar message. Bad stuff happens to good people, but endure. This too shall pass. In the end, it’ll all work out.

As for pandemics, we’ve been here before. You’ve probably heard that the Black Death wiped out a third of the population of England. At the time, they thought it was the end of the world, and it was the end of the world as they knew it. But they replaced it with a one that was in many ways better — no more serfs, for a start. After the 1918 to 1919 flu epidemic, the world bounced into the buoyant and productive years of the 1920s. For each disaster, there is a recovery.

Lock down — being shut into a small space alone or with your nearest and dearest — is going to end. Hope helps us to come through better than before. I’ve decided I’m not in lock down; I’m on a retreat! (Spiritual, writers, or gardeners, it varies according the day and the weather). For children, it is the temporary normal. I strongly suspect that, decades from now people will be telling their children stories of the things they did as children in the Covid-19 lockdown. For many of them, it will sit in their minds as a golden period during which they had the attention of both parents, though I know that isn’t all the story. Some families have been forced to make hard decisions about putting their children with relatives while they continue to work in essential services. Some households are not nice places to be at the best of times. Still, there is always hope for a better tomorrow.

(See the lovely New Zealand series, Inside my bubble, for what New Zealanders are doing on lockdown. This is microbiologist Siouxie Welles, who has become a bit of a media star for her clear, calm, interesting explanations about the pandemic.)

Suffering, leavened with hope, and ending well, is a pretty good description of the romance genre. Without a bit of a challenge, sometime a lot of a challenge, we don’t have a story. But it’s a romance precisely because it promises that things will work out in the end. Personally, I prefer to read books where the stakes are high, and the dangers real. I can enjoy them, knowing that my hero and heroine will fulfill the promise of happy ever after, and their near brushes with disaster make things even better. Romances aren’t the only happy endings, though. Many people find their fulfillment in their jobs, or friendships, or craft, and that, too, can be a happy ever after. Still, romances — and specifically historical romances — are my escapism of choice.

That’s why I’m still launching the first novel in my Mountain King series on Wednesday. I thought about delaying To Wed a Proper Lady when Amazon offered to let people off their usual punishment for not keeping to release dates (usually, if you miss a release date, you can’t do preorder for a full year).  But the world is in lock down, right? Escape is a great idea! You can read more about it and find buy links by clicking on the name, and that page also has a link to the prequel novella Paradise Regained (which is free on most platforms, and will soon be free on Amazon, I hope).

I’ve also written a prequel novella about the Duchess of Haverford, who appears throughout the series. This one isn’t a romance. Eleanor gets her happy ending, but it’s the other kind (although, to be fair, this is only the end of the novella — for the end of her story, you need to read the whole series). You’ll get access to a copy of Paradise Lost if you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, but as a teaser, here is the cover.

All the very best from my household bubble to yours in this time of hope.

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Whistling in the dark

In some interpretations, the pied piper story is about the black plague

There’s nothing funny about a global pandemic, but it’s human nature to make jokes when things are out of control. For half my adult life, my beloved was a paramedic. I have a son-in-law and several other relatives who are police officers. I’ve several relatives in the armed forces. They all share a black humour that helps them deal with carnage and danger.

Now’s a good time to follow their example, so today I have some links to some history-themed plague humour.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/what-shakespeare-actually-did-during-the-plague

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/b/bubonic_plague.asp

And, okay, this one is not humour, but why not? You have to laugh, right? https://www.jetsetter.com/magazine/quarantine-memes/

And if you’d like an academic article on humour in the time of cholera, here’s a couple that are very readable:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996527/

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/plague-humor-is-good-for-you/

Stay safe, out there, folks. As our Prime Minister keeps saying, Stay kind, Stay patient, Stay safe, Stay strong.

We’ve been here before, folks. Not us, personally, but every person on the planet is the descendent of those who survived a previous pandemic. We can do this.