Readers Corner

SHARING SOME of our FAVORITE MOMENTS

with our READERS

RoseMarie received THE RENEGADE RANCHER from me on Thursday at the RT 2015 convention. She came by the book fair to tell me she loved it. (And to get some more books.) Can't tell you what a great feeling that gives an author !!

~Angi

PAT & ELAINE mean so much to me. They come by almost every book signing. Elaine made me a Texas Tea Towel that I use when I sign. Pat gives me the cutest tape dispensers ever! So Nice !!

~Angi

What would we do without avid readers and reviewers like Janet Rodman and Kimberly Rocha? Met these two wonderful women at the RT Convention and had a great time hanging out. Kim recently guest blogged on GLIAS. Janet is also a fan, and I aspire to be one of her top "beach" reads this summer. 

~E.E.

Hey, I'm an avid reader, too, and what a thrill it is to connect with one of my favorite authors, Sharon Sala. She received the 2014 RT Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense. Congratulations, Sharon!

~E.E.

Mutual fans having fun dressing up for a Historical Meet and Greet during the Readers and Writers Roundup in Dallas, following the RT Convention. E.E. Burke and Cindy Nord.

Supporting each other as authors and friends. I visited Lara & Angi's booksigning last February.

It's always great to get emails and letters. One this month was from a teenage boy's mom who saw the book in his stack from TLA and "borrowed" it and loved it. Then there was a lovely note from a volunteer bookseller in South Carolina who was sorting ARCs for her boss and saw the book and couldn't help but read it. She made me some cute homemade bookmarks. Very sweet. I treasure them.

~Kathleen

Being stopped by a reader because they recognize your name is a thrill and a half. It's such a boost !!

~Liz

One corner of the GIANT BOOKFAIR last week in Dallas.

ANGI & SUPER FAN SHARI

HAVE YOU EVER MET ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS? 

OR WRITTEN A FAN LETTER?

Happy Book BIRTHday Bash with Prizes!

How Should We Celebrate the Birth of a Book?

 

Bear in mind, a book gestates longer than it takes to make a baby elephant. Many traditionally published books take more than two years from conception to birth. This one took four years.


It is very much like a birth. There is the euphoria of the first seed of an idea that eventually grows and changes under the pains of revision and rewrites until it is kneaded and baked enough to emerge screaming and blinking into the public eye.

This baby book garnered a lovely New York Times Sunday Book Review,
“A School for Unusual Girls, by Kathleen Baldwin, is enticing from the first sentence. . . Baldwin has an ear for period dialogue as she draws us into this world of sharp, smart young ladies who are actually being trained and deployed for the British war effort by the mysterious headmistress, Miss Stranje.
It’s speculative historical fiction, with a trace of steampunk inventiveness. . . Swoony moments abound."

I say let's throw a Party! Complete with cake and prizes!

Let's start with cake... What kind? I couldn't get enough people on facebook to commit. So let's start by playing a game with survey monkey called Select-A-Cake.

Here are your choices:

Elegant Chocolate

Fancy Layer Cake

Cake Ball Lollipops

Cupcakes with Sprinkles

Create your own user feedback survey

And now for door Prizes... 

You could WIN one of two $25 Amazon gift cards or one of two eBook copies of A School for Unusual Girls to 4 lucky rafflecopter participants. How do you like those odds? 

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Get Lost On The High Seas

Think you know pirates? Think again. Bestselling author Regan Walker joins us today as a guest blogger. She'll share her latest historical romance, To Tame The Wind, and give us some fascinating facts about Privateers, a very special kind of pirate.

Buy Today

“A sea adventure like no other, a riveting romance!”

Paris 1782 -- AN INNOCENT IS TAKEN

All Claire Donet knew was the world inside the convent walls in Saint-Denis. She had no idea her beloved papa was a pirate. But when he seized Simon Powell's schooner, the English privateer decided to take the one thing his enemy held most dear... her.

A BATTLE IS JOINED

The waters between France and England roil with the clashes of Claire's father and her captor as the last year of the American Revolution rages on the sea, spies lurk in Paris and Claire’s passion for the English captain rises.

The Role of Privateers in the American Revolutionary War

by Regan Walker

There is something about the idea of privateers that stirs my blood. It has all the excitement and danger of piracy on the high seas, but with a significant difference: the privateers, armed merchant ships, operated with government sanction, or “Letters of Marque,” that allowed the private vessel to act under color of law.

Privateers were a large part of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), privateers acting for their respective governments—American, British and French, among others—seized thousands of ships, sometimes the same ship more than once!

Pictured above is the American privateer brig, the General Montgomery, engaged in action with the British merchant vessel, the Millern, which it captured off Ireland in July 1777. The prize was sent to America but later re-captured by the British.

At the time the Colonies declared their independence, the Continental Navy had only 31 ships (that number later increased to 64). But the sea fighting ability of the young country vastly increased as Congress issued Letters of Marque to nearly 1,700 American privateers.

The first privateer in the war might have been the American brig Reprisal, which on November 29, 1776, sailed into the port of Lorient in Brittany with Benjamin Franklin on board and two British prize ships in tow. The British protested, of course, and the owners of the seized vessels sought compensation. Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in Paris called Benjamin Franklin “a dangerous Engine” and voiced his suspicions the American statesman was on some “secret Commission from Congress.” He was.

The French response in allowing the American captain to sell his prizes in France was a tacit recognition of the young country’s independence. Franklin must have been delighted for he was there to solicit French aid. Responding to the sale of the two prize ships, the Public Advertiser, a London newspaper said,

Is not this acknowledging the American Privateer’s Commission? And is not that an Acknowledgement of the Independency of America?

Indeed it was, and it would not be the last such acknowledgement. The privateers were crucial to gaining recognition of the legitimacy of America’s war against Britain.

In my newest novel, To Tame the Wind, the hero, Captain Simon Powell, is a British privateer who captures the daughter of a French pirate turned privateer in order to regain his seized ship and his crew. Ben Franklin is a character who issued the French captain his Letter of Marque.

In fact, during the war, Franklin issued Letters of Marque to three ships: the Black Prince, the Black Princess, and the Fear Not. During a 15-month period in 1779-1780, these three ships captured 114 prizes. One of the reasons Ben Franklin sought these prizes was to use the captured British crews to ransom American seamen languishing in British prisons.

American privateers captured over 10,000 British seamen, keeping them out of the British Navy. In 1777, George Washington's armies totaled about 11,000 men. At the same time there were 11,000 privateers at sea intercepting British shipping in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and even between Ireland and England. Together, the Continental Navy and privateers captured 16,000 British prisoners, a substantial contribution in comparison with the 15,000 prisoners taken by the entire Continental Army before the surrender at Yorktown.

Meet Regan

Bestselling author Regan Walker loved to write stories as a child, particularly those about adventure-loving girls, but by the time she got to college more serious pursuits were encouraged. One of her professors suggested a career in law, and she took that path. Years of serving clients in private practice and several stints in high levels of government gave her a love of international travel and a feel for the demands of the “Crown.” Hence her romance novels often involve a demanding sovereign who taps his subjects for “special assignments.” Each of her novels features real history and real historic figures. And, of course, adventure and love. 

Regan lives in San Diego with her golden retriever, Link, who she says inspires her every day to relax and smell the roses.

Regan’s Website

Blog

Twitter: @RegansReview 

Facebook

Goodreads

Today Regan is giving away a copy of her first book in the series, Racing With The Wind, to one lucky commenter. 

What most fascinates you about pirates, or life on the high seas?

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DEBUT AUTHOR MARY LAWRENCE

THE ALCHEMIST’S DAUGHTER

Bianca Goddard Mysteries, book 1

Kensington Books

Plague always threatens Tudor London, but when a merchant ship arrives in port and is quickly quarantined, rumors and outbreaks of pestilence rapidly spread. Bianca, the daughter of an infamous alchemist, earns her living making medicines. When her friend seeks help for painful abdominal cramps and suddenly dies, Bianca is accused of murder.

As she struggles to prove her innocence, she uncovers a connection between her friend’s wealthy suitor and the quarantined ship. Bianca must stay one step ahead of the constable as she pieces together the evidence that will ultimately acquit her of murder and prevent London from succumbing to the plague.

Read a Little, Buy the Book

MARY LAWRENCE grew up in southern Indiana, the youngest of four, from a medical family. I attended Butler University in Indianapolis and majored in chemistry and zoology, then transferred to a specialized program at Indiana University.  My first job was at a hospital in Portland, Maine, and except for a brief detour to western Massachusetts, I’ve called Maine home.

I began writing while working in hospitals and being a single parent. Writing was a great escape and an endless challenge. My recent book deal has come after years of learning the craft. I’m awed by those who have sailed through and published with a minimum of effort—it certainly wasn’t true for me.

For a while, I wrote indexes for books to supplement my income and that was as close as I came to the publishing world. In 2007, a lifelong love of gardening led to farming. My husband and I bought 7 acres west of Portland and built our own reproduction saltbox. We grow a variety of fruit for sale locally.

In 2010, on a whim, I entered a manuscript in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Contest and made the finals. That year, I also finaled in the Young Adult Novel Discovery Contest and won the Celtic Heart’s Golden Claddagh in historical romance.

I still work in cytology in a hospital north of Boston; I farm, and in particular, I adore time with my grandchildren.

THE ALCHEMY Q&A

ANGI: How often to you get lost in a story?

MARY: Every time I write I get lost in my story, but I try to get lost in someone else’s story for a couple of hours before I go to bed.

ANGI: What’s your favorite cartoon character?

MARY: Daffy Duck. I relate to his over the top anxiety, insecurity and feigned bluster. 

ANGI: What’s the first book you remember reading? 

MARY: I remember reading a Dr. Seuss book, but his drawings scared me as a child. I think the first chapter book that I adored was The Boxcar Children. They were so clever. They survived by their wits and pulled together—great lessons for young children.

ANGI: Who’s your favorite villain?

MARY: It’s a toss-up between Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) in House of Cards and Cat Woman from the 60s Batman series. 

ANGI: Benedict Cumberbatch or Chris Pine?

MARY: B.C. I had to google Chris Pine. I am a huge Sherlock fan. Cumberbatch has a great sense of humor and has that charming balance between being confident and self-effacing.

ANGI: Would you rather be in a Fairy Tale or Action Adventure?

MARY: Definitely Fairy Tale! I prefer magic and imagination over being chased by aliens or folks wielding pitchforks.

ANGI: What is your best wish come true?

MARY: Watching my son parent two healthy, fun children and being proud of them all.  

 

ANGI: What’s your favorite rerun on television?

MARY: The Avengers. I wanted to be Emma Peel growing up. 

ANGI’S GOTTA ASK: Okay, I admit, I had to look up what cytology was.  Can you let our readers know what it is and what’s the most fascinating thing you’ve studied?

MARY’S GOTTA ANSWER:  Cytology is the study of cell morphology. It is microscope work where we look for cellular abnormalities that might indicate precancerous changes or the presence of cancer. Before I went into this field I thought cancer was one entity. The reality is far different. Cancer presents in an endless number of ways. Research and treatment is ever evolving trying to address the complexity of the disease. I think for me this realization is similar to looking into outer space and knowing I can’t begin to fathom how deep it is.  

FIND MARY:

Contact    Website    Facebook      Twitter @Mel59Lawrence   

Goodreads    Pintrest   

UP NEXT for MARY:

DEATH OF AN ALCHEMIST

Bianca Goddard Mystery, book # 2

February 2016

Stymied in her efforts to create a medicine for the Sweating Sickness, Bianca seeks the advice of a noted alchemist. Ferris Stannum has just discovered the Elixir of Life, the mythical potion of immortality. Stannum, caught up in his discovery, dismisses lenders who come calling. The next day, the alchemist is found dead.

The coroner rules his death from natural cause, but Bianca has her doubts. His missing alchemy journal and a blood-stained pillow rouse her suspicions.

As Bianca pursues answers to Stannum’s untimely death, John falls ill from the Sweating Sickness. Her focus turns to saving John and when the missing journal unexpectedly turns up, a cure is within her grasp. However, possession of the journal comes at great peril. The body of a second alchemist is found and a threat is made on her life.

Bianca enters into a twisted world of treachery and deceit where the quest for immortality becomes a matter of life and death, not only for John, but for herself.

MARY is giving away 1 signed copy of The Alchemist’s Daughter (must be 18 to enter—because of content, North America Readers)

Note: COMMENTERS are encouraged to leave a contact email address to speed the prize notification process. Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to North America addresses only unless specifically mentioned in the post. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Winners of drawings are responsible for checking this site in a timely manner. If prizes are not claimed in a timely manner, the author may not have a prize available. Get Lost In A Story cannot be responsible for an author's failure to mail the listed prize. GLIAS does not automatically pass email addresses to guest authors unless the commenter publicly posts their email address.

ANGI'S back on the 27th with

PHYLLIS BOURNE

UP NEXT ON GLIAS:  Edith Maxwell

~Angi Morgan

Get Lost on Goodreads, Facebook

or @GetLostInAStory  #GetLostStories

GIVEAWAY CLOSES, MONDAY, 5-18

ENTER EVERYDAY

Mary & I are attending the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Dallas. We hope you can find us. Be assured that we’ll be answering comments as soon as we have internet.

MARY WANTS TO KNOW: Are you more likely to buy a book because of its cover, the author, the jacket blurb, the first sentence, the last sentence, awards won, or because of a recommendation from a friend or blog?

Get Lost in a Story with Mystery Author Edith Maxwell

Get Lost in a Story Readers, I’d like to introduce to you today the prolific, best-selling Edith Maxwell.  She’s here to tell us about her latest release, FARMED AND DANGEROUS. Now if that title doesn’t have your curiosity piqued, check out the blurb . . .

ABOUT FARMED AND DANGEROUS

Snow is piling up in Westbury, Massachusetts, and Cam Flaherty’s organic farm has managed to survive the harsh New England winter. Unfortunately murder seems to be the crop in season…

Cam is finding the New Year just as hectic as the old one. Her sometimes rocky relationship with Chef Jake Ericsson is in a deep freeze, she’s struggling to provide the promised amount of food to the subscribers in her first winter CSA, and her new greenhouse might just collapse from the weight of the snow. Supplying fresh ingredients for a dinner at the local assisted living facility seems like the least of her worries—until one of the elderly residents dies after eating some of her produce.

Cantankerous Bev Montgomery had a lot of enemies, from an unscrupulous real estate developer who coveted her land to an aggrieved care provider fed up with her verbal abuse. But while the motives in this case may be plentiful, the trail of poisoned produce leads straight back to Cam. Not even her budding romance with police detective Pete Pappas will keep him from investigating her.

As the suspects gather, a blizzard buries the scene of the crime under a blanket of snow, leaving Cam stranded in the dark with a killer who gives new meaning to the phrase “dead of winter.”

Please welcome Edith Maxwell!

DONNELL:  Edith, welcome.  I’ve known about your books for a few years now, and it’s no exaggeration you’re prolific. You have a Quaker Midwife series and a Local Food series as well. What is that makes mystery so appealing to you?

EDITH: Thanks so much for having me, Donnell! I’m delighted to be here. I also have a Country Store Mysteries series coming out in late October under the pen name Maddie Day, which is set in the hill country of southern Indiana, and my Lauren Rousseau series from Barking Rain Press, written as Tace Baker, featuring a Quaker linguistics professor solving crimes north of Boston. 

I love reading mysteries of the traditional/cozy sort, and it just made sense to write what I love to read. It’s an interesting challenge to make the puzzle work in each book, and hopefully to surprise the reader.

DONNELL:  One of my greatest fears is that I’ll invite someone to dinner and something I make won’t agree with them.  But for something edible to kill them? What were you thinking in Farmed and Dangerous killing off an elderly resident?

EDITH: <laughing> The book takes place in the dead of winter (no pun intended) and I wanted to set it at the assisted living residence where my farmer’s great uncle lives. Having a resident die after eating food Cam grew ups the stakes for her to solve the crime, especially since Cam and the victim had been known to have conflict in the recent past. With amateur sleuths, authors need to keep finding a reason for them to jump into what, in reality, is the job of the police, not the average citizen.

DONNELL:  You also educate readers in an entertaining way about organic food.  Is this your background? Are you an avid gardener?

EDITH:  I am an avid organic gardener, and I owned and operated a small certified-organic farm twenty years ago, so I know that world pretty well. Nobody used the term locavore back then, but my customers all wanted locally grown organic food. I love being back in the farming community again, except now I don’t have to do all the hard work! As it turns out, my 26-year-old son has become a permaculture farmer and he worked on a nearby organic farm the last two summers. He’s my chicken consultant, for example, and updates me on current growing practices.

DONNELL:  Where will we find you when you’re not writing?

EDITH:  In the summer I’m often outside in my vegetable or flower gardens. Year round you can also find me cooking, on the couch reading, or out at our local screening room watching indy films with my beau. I have a busy summer coming up, with visits to libraries, farmers’ markets, and bookstores, as well as two writers’ retreats. I’d like to get back to a previous hobby of quilting, something I learned from my mother and grandmother, but right now three multi-book contracts don’t quite leave time for that. I’m very happy with my decision of two years ago to leave the day job writing software documentation and focus on writing fiction full time.

DONNELL:  Your reviews state that you’re great at establishing quirky characters. Where do they come from – are they completely made up?  Give us an example of your favorite?

EDITH:  It’s so fun inventing people. I’ll often include a quirk from one or more real person in a character, but in general they are made up. In Farmed and Dangerous a local apple farmer is also a former opera star, so he goes around singing bits of arias. I knew someone like that long ago, and just had to include that trait in Richard Broadhurst.  I will say that my dear mother never got to read any of my books because she passed away three years ago. So in this new book, I included her as Great-Uncle Albert’s new girlfriend, Marilyn Muller. She’s Mommy, right down to the embroidered sweatshirts, Velcro tennis, and beating everyone at Scrabble. But her character on the page has already morphed into drinking wine and using an iPhone, things my mother never touched. Characters really do have a life of their own, whether totally imaginary or based in part on a real person.

DONNELL:   Is it fun for you to write the antagonist? Do you have a favorite bad guy?

EDITH: I don’t have as much fun writing antagonists over the course of the book. I try to include a human side, because nobody (well, almost nobody) is all bad. But I struggle to show them being malicious, partly because I don’t run into that many bad guys in my life. I hope I’ve done a good job. It’s different during the climax scene – then I kind of enjoy making the villain as wicked as possible. Please don’t try to psychoanalyze me for this!

DONNELL:  What comes next for Edith Maxwell?

EDITH: Flipped for Murder (written as Maddie Day) comes out from Kensington Publishing at the end of October. My first historical mystery featuring Quaker midwife Rose Carroll, Delivering the Truth, will be out next April from Midnight Ink. I’ve turned in the fourth Local Foods mystery, Murder Most Fowl, am revising the second Country Store mystery, and have just started writing the second Quaker Midwife mystery. I’m way busy but I’m living my dream, and I love it.

DONNELL: Edith, now it’s time for you to ask the reader a question.

EDITH: I’m happy to give away a signed copy of Farmed and Dangerous to a commenter. Readers – How do you feel about local or organic food? Do you have a favorite local farm stand, farmers’ market, or CSA (farm share program), or are you in a city and just feel lucky to find vegetables at the supermarket?

Bio and links:

Agatha-nominated and Amazon-bestselling author Edith Maxwell writes four murder mystery series, most with recipes, as well as award-winning short stories.

Farmed and Dangerous is the latest in Maxwell's Local Foods Mysteries series (Kensington Publishing). The latest book in the Lauren Rousseau mysteries, under the pseudonym Tace Baker (Barking Rain Press), is Bluffing is Murder. Maxwell’s Country Store Mysteries, written as Maddie Day (also from Kensington), will debut with Flipped for Murder in November, 2015. Her Quaker Midwife Mysteries series features Quaker midwife Rose Carroll solving mysteries in 1888 Amesbury with John Greenleaf Whittier’s help, and will debut in March, 2016 with Delivering the Truth.

A fourth-generation Californian, Maxwell lives in an antique house north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs every weekday with the other Wicked Cozy Authors (http://wickedcozyauthors.com), and you can find her at www.edithmaxwell.com, @edithmaxwell, on Pinterest and Instagram, and at www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor.

 http://www.amazon.com/Farmed-Dangerous-Local-Foods-Mystery/dp/0758284675/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/farmed-and-dangerous-edith-maxwell/1120058499