by Roseanna White | May 3, 2017 | Announcements, Book News, Remember When Wednesdays
First of all, thanks to everyone who commented or contacted me last week in regards to the question of “What book should I talk about in my next Facebook Live chat?” The majority of those who replied requested that our next stop be my biblical fiction, so I’ll go through those four titles in the order in which I wrote them, beginning with…
A Stray Drop of Blood! So next Monday, May 8, that’s the book I’ll be talking about. (My husband says, “Wow, lots to talk about with that one–you might need a two-hour special.” LOL. Don’t worry. I’m sure we can cover it all in the usual less-than-one.
Stray Drop is now in Kindle Unlimited, so if you haven’t read it but are part of that program, you’re doubly in luck! Since quite a few asked for links, here they are:
Now, on to the fun stuff. =) As many of you no doubt saw, I just got home from my 2017 writing retreat! As always, it was a lot of fun to hang out with my best friend/critique partner, Stephanie Morrill, and to just have days on end when I had to think of nothing but story. I arrived in KC on Thursday afternoon, we checked in to the gorgeous apartment we’d rented from HomeAway, and wasted no time in getting all set up.
Of course, we weren’t always at the table (though it made a great standing desk, actually), we also each had our spots on the couch.
Here are a few shots of our work space, the beautifully appointed apartment that made settling in for a weekend of “What, there’s an outside world?” so very easy. (Okay, so we left for food twice. And even took two walks!)
The ever important coffee machines deserved a picture unto themselves, of course…
I ended up with the master bedroom, solely because the other one wasn’t as close to the kitchen, and therefore Stephanie would not be so easily awakened by her crazy morning person roommate who insists upon getting up at 5:30, even when on “vacation”…
We had packed up and were ready to lock the doors behind us when we finally remembered to take a picture of US.
I’d love to give you the blow-by-blow of the retreat, but honestly, it’s pretty boring to report on, LOL. I did so many random Google searches that it occasionally made me laugh (Cockney rhyming slang, teas good for arthritis, how far X in London is from Y [about a hundred times–I’m becoming quite versed in London neighborhoods, which is just weird for this country girl], whether Rolex-founder Hans Wilsdorf had children, etc.), we paused occasionally to share interesting tidbits we were learning/questions we had, and Stephanie is especially awesome about started each meal/walk with the question of, “So where are you in the story now?”
The fellowship and dedicated time is always such a blessing. And it’s so rewarding to see those word counts tick up and up. I started the retreat with a mere 14,537 words in my manuscript (I’d hoped to be so much farther along!), but I ended it with a solid 57,908, which is half of this particular book. For those of you who don’t want to do math, that’s 43,381 words written in 3 full days and 2 travel days.
And I left off at the mid-point climax/twist, so a super fun scene to dive back into! When, of course, I get caught up on the stuff that got ignored while I was gone. (Including some not-fun stuff, like my great-grandmother finally passing away at 102. Funeral is today…)
So another successful retreat, and I came hope with lots of words for our Word of the Week spots, and plenty of things to feature on my Remember When posts too!
by Roseanna White | Apr 5, 2017 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
Confession: when we went to England in September and spent a night in London, I wasn’t happy about it. I’m not a city girl. I don’t enjoy the hustle. Or the bustle. Or the traffic. Or the tall buildings. Or the pace. Or . . . pretty much anything about city life. So my goal was rather to avoid London during the trip, and we did a rather good job of it, but for when an early train to Paris required an overnight stay beforehand.
Which was fine, because I intended to avoid London in my books as much as possible too.
You can imagine my surprise when I realized that my third Shadows Over London book, An Hour Unspent, would not be set anywhere else.
Me: What do you mean, book? I’m your creator! I call the shots!
Book: Mwa ha ha ha.
First I thought, “Oh, I’ll just start it in London like the other two books, then go somewhere else. Somewhere I’ve been. Somewhere beautiful and rural and slower paced.”
My plot disagreed.
So I thought, “Well, I’ll at least take my crew out of London for a while. A nice trip to, say, Devonshire. We passed a lovely day in Devonshire on our way to Cornwall.”
My plot rolled its eyes at me. And just waited for me to realize that this determination to leave London was totally unnecessary and wouldn’t work at all. It would feel tacked-on.
Sigh.
So here I am, a mere 10,000 words into my book, and ready to admit defeat on that score. London is my hero’s world, and my heroine’s too. It’s where they belong. Where all the action needs to take place (well, aside from the end, which will travel to the western front of the war, into France).
Which left me with the problem of learning London. A rather large city to just become familiar with through books, etc. I’m sure I’m nowhere near fluent in its intricacies and details, especially for 1915. But when I realized I had to actually pin down details now about, say, what section of town my characters live in, I quickly thanked the Lord that I’d had the foresight (let’s call it that, shall we, rather than “whim,” which might be more accurate, LOL) to order a couple books on London in general and Edwardian London through photographs.
This one seriously saved my bacon.
This lovely book goes through the city section by section, following the Thames–which means that not only do I learn the quirks and interesting tidbits about each part, I also get a nice idea of which are close to which. It includes fun details like which writers and artists of centuries past made their homes in which part of the city; which neighborhoods Conan Doyle visited as research for Sherlock Holmes’s network of homeless spies; which areas evolved over the decades and became trendy but used to be far different.
Hopefully, with the aid of my, er, well-planned purchases, I’ll pull this off. Even if I am thinking with longing about all those other lovely stories I’ve written, set in Yorkshire and Scotland and Sussex and Cornwall and Wales. And narrowing my eyes at the stubborn Barclay Pearce, who refused to leave the city for more than a few days at the end.
Tyrant.
Speaking of which, I need to go write the scene in which his little sister accuses him of being the same. 😉 I hope everyone’s having a lovely week!
by Roseanna White | Mar 15, 2017 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
Finally, two weeks late, here it is. A bit about my trip to Colonial Williamsburg!
So, Roseanna is an eager beaver when it comes to history. And given that it was Homeschool Days at CW, I figured the place would swarming with other eager families. So me and mine were there when the gates opened (metaphorically), a few minutes after 8 a.m. Got our passes, headed out . . . and quickly saw that while the Group Sales office opened at 8, the rest of the place–er, not so much, LOL. So we wandered around for a good long while until other shops and buildings began to catch up with our day. 😉 Still, that provided a good chance to walk the length of the town and decide what we wanted to fit in.
I decided in short order that I felt very out of place in modern dress and that next time, I wanted to be wearing period garb. And got the distinct impression that next time, I may be coming alone if I insisted on that, LOL. (Well, I could probably convince Xoe to dress up with me. The boys, though…um, no.)
First we toured the gaol (very interesting!) and the capitol. By which point the kids were hungry, so while we waited to the restaurants to open, we also stopped in to see the wigmaker, which was great. The lady working in there knows how to bring the process alive, asking us who would like their head shaved first and trying to sell us on the purchase of one of the more expensive wigs–which cost as much as a team of oxen, FYI.
Our next stop was the milliner and mantua maker (read: dress shop). This was another fun one, where we go to handle fabric and watch as they make hats and dresses and talk about shoes–wondering whether the company that once made shoes for both the king of England and George Washington is still in business (hey, you never know!). Getting in the spirit of things, we inquired about apprenticing our daughter there once she’s twelve.
Insert said eleven-year-old scowling at us like we are not–funny.
We visited the apothecary and had a rousing discussion on the evolution (and not) of the medical field, the uses of certain items back then, and how people today tend to turn their noses up at the old treatments that did little or had terrible side effects (mercury, anyone?), in all actuality, people today still gladly take remedies with terrifying lists of side effects.
Our favorite stops came after lunch. We went to the cabinetmaker’s shop, where the wood worker makes furniture of all kinds. The two boys in the family were highly enthralled–even the nine-year-old who also didn’t want us apprenticing him out yet (sheesh, unambitious children, I’m telling you…). But what he did want was to be able to try this sort of work, so Mama’s now putting out feelers on how to get a kid started in wood working…
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| A harpsichord from the museum, which they did NOT let me play. 😉 |
While the guys were chatting awls and lathes, I went into the outer shop to play the harpsichord with the cabinetmaker’s permission. I’d never actually played one, so that was a real treat! (My husband is now checking out how much these things cost, LOL. Answer: quite a bit. It’s like they’re rare or something these days…) Naturally, I earned the applause of those who came in after us, ahem. 😉 And the kids found the hidden compartments in the desk beside where I played. A marvelous time was had by all.
From there we went to the brickyard, where no one was making bricks because, alas, it’s a summer-only thing. Still, my hubby, from a family of stone masons, had tons of questions for him, and we learned a lot about what brickmaking was back then, and what it is today. They do indeed make all the bricks they use in CW, which is pretty darn cool. And so, as we walked to the Governor’s Palace for our last tour of the day, we were spotting the glazed bricks placed artistically within it and reminding ourselves that those were the sides facing the heat directly when the bricks were fired.
Now, I have a cousin who’s a docent at CW, so she’s the one who gave me a plan of attack for the town, and she offered to meet us for a few minutes when we were done the tour of the palace (thanks, Sierra!). She gave us the tip of the day: go and see the maze.
I’m a history buff. I love wandering around a place like Colonial Williamsburg and learning with every step. My children, however, like just wandering–preferably through something green. So once we found the shrubbery maze (it’s not on the maps!), they really started having fun. Laughter was ringing through the afternoon, and my tired kiddos suddenly had energy. So glad we got that tip!
I got to meet with a writer friend of mine for dinner at a local restaurant (yay for Carrie Fancett Pagels!), and then we all soaked our aching feet in the pool at the hotel.
On day 2, we didn’t head over quite so early–lesson learned–but were still among the first there. We talked for probably half an hour to a groundsman about the state of the modern country (where my kids proved true to form yet again and had a great time doodling in the dirt with a stick…). We walked to the print shop, learned a lot about how that’s done which could be a post in itself (note to self…) and then headed for the museum. We had to get back to WV, preferably before dark, so then called it quits and packed up.
All in all, we had a lovely time, came home with sore feet and legs, learned a lot, and realized that the kids still enjoy the wild exploration above the planned–a note I shall incorporate into future field trips, since they’re supposed to be for them and not for me. 😉
by Roseanna White | Feb 15, 2017 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
This week marked my self-appointed deadline for beginning my next book. I just realized that An Hour Unpsent is not only the third book in the Shadows Over England Series (which begins July 2017), but it will also be my 16th published novel…and my 34th finished novel (we’ll just assume I’ll complete it, LOL). Which means that, assuming I finish writing it before my birthday, it’ll have the distinction of making it so that I’ve written a book for every year I’ve lived. Looking forward to outdoing that number. 😉
But as I began writing, I quickly realized that while I have my plot largely figured out, I had only a vague impression of my characters. Very vague, which is unusual for me lately. Especially given that the hero, Barclay Pearce, has been in both of the first two books of the series. But my only physical descriptions of him are that he’s average looking until he smiles, at which point he’s nearly too-handsome to blend in–and blending in is always his goal.
So last night, I recruited my husband, who pays more attention than I do to all things TV, to help me find the perfect actors to play my characters. Sometimes it’s fun to pretend like I’m a casting director. So here we are. Casting for An Hour Unspent.
First up was finding an actor to play Barclay. After much thumbing through IMDB on his phone and hemming and hawing and joking, he pulled up the Downton cast and said, “What about him?” to Dan Stevens.
Now, I’d watched the first season at Downton, so I knew him as Matthew Crawley…and he wasn’t quite it. But when I looked up his images on his own and saw the photos from the new Beauty and the Beast, I changed my tune.
Yep. This is how I’d been picturing Barclay. Thin face, sandy blond-brown hair. Not given to smiling, though he’s a joker. I hadn’t yet nailed down his eye color, so we’ll just go with Dan’s blue. 😉
But I had even less of a clue about my heroine Evelina, who’s new to the series. I know she’s rather pretty. That she’s a suffragette. Sweet, but also with a backbone of steal and a fierce independent streak. After a bout of polio as a child left her with a limp, she’s had to fight tooth and nail for that independence, too.
So what would she look like? No. Clue. I’m still not 100% sure I’ve nailed it, but . . . well, this morning I was browsing images of English actresses. I honestly hadn’t even chosen a hair color for her, so I had nothing to go on. I was just looking for images that caught my eye and found one of Jane Levy that said, “I am the daughter of clockmaker who’s always running late.” 😉
Something in her expression caught me, so at the moment I’m casting Jane as my Evelina Manning.
Auburn hair and blue eyes? Sure. Why not. 😉 (Interestingly, this will mark my first series where I didn’t have a blond, a brunette, and a redhead as my 3 heroines, LOL.)
So what do you think? Any other suggestions for Barclay, my thief extraordinaire who has patched together a dozen orphans over the years to call his family? For Evelina, my suffragette who sees herself as the only out-of-balance gear in the perfect clockwork of the Manning household?
Regardless, stay tuned for more hints about the story as I get deeper into it!
The challenge:
to steal an hour from Big Ben’s clock
The means:
a distracted clockmaker with a fascination with weaponry
The complication:
the perpetually-late clockmaker’s daughter
who isn’t about to let a little thing like war get in the way of her cause
by Roseanna White | Jan 25, 2017 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
I’m a coffee drinker. Oh, I love tea too, but when the day is new and I make my way out to the kitchen to start my morning, tea doesn’t cut it. It’s coffee who has my affections just then.
When traveling in England last autumn, I quickly learned that where the American culture has leaned heavily toward coffee in recent centuries, the same cannot be said for England. Though you can buy a cup of perked coffee from any restaurant or bakery, it’s not made as often at home–and when it is, it’s usually with a French press, which is lovely, but doesn’t make a whole pot like American families might be accustomed to. Which meant that when I got home, one of the best parts was having my coffee again. 😉
I knew from research, however, that coffee houses were actually all the rage in England of old. They are, in fact, responsible for its ever coming to America. So why did England then become the tea country, and America in love with coffee?
After doing some digging, it seems that the answer is two-fold.
First, England–though tea, hot chocolate, and coffee were all introduced around the same time in England, and hence in America, the East India Company was in the tea business, and they began pushing to make tea king.
This went according to plan in England, but their plans for New World Domination were foiled by the disastrous Stamp Act in the American colonies. Though most of these taxes were repealed, the one on tea remained–which made the Americans, bolstered by their cries of “no taxation without representation,” turn to other sources for tea–and to coffee.
Coffee houses and taverns have existed here since the 1600s, but it was the strife with England that made coffee the choice of many Americans. Which is curious, since the beans were shipped green and often arrived musty and damp and, well, kinda gross. Still, Americans preferred to drink what might be a rather noxious brew rather than buy tea from England.
New York’s first coffee roaster opened in 1793, which led to a rash of such places. Coffee continued to gain dominance in America, though it wasn’t for another hundred and fifty years that they finally turned to quality beans being grown in Central America. They launched a serious ad campaign in the 1950s that revolutionized coffee in America by introducing the “coffee break.” Suddenly coffee was about quality, which led to the rise of such institution as Starbucks.
But the coffee industry we know today–be it trendy or eco-friendly, designer or instant–all has its roots in the American cry for independence. Without that, we’d likely be sitting every morning sipping our tea, as they do in England.
by Roseanna White | Jan 18, 2017 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
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| Photo courtesy of Stephanie’s editor–the first to get her hands on the hardback |
You’ll be seeing more about this book from me in a couple weeks, when it releases. But I had to give y’all a sneak peek now, because there are some extras you can get if you pre-order, and they’re fun enough to make it worth clicking that button a few weeks early. 😉 (You just email your receipt to LostGirl@harpercollins.com and they send you some fun downloads.)
So a couple years ago, my best friend, Stephanie Morrill, (author of The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt Series and The Ellie Sweet Series) said she had an idea for a historical YA.
Insert Roseanna laughing maniacally and saying, “I knew it! I knew you’d come over to the dark side of historicals eventually! Mwa ha ha ha!”
Ahem.
Her idea was set in 1920s Chicago, which is an awesome setting. One which I’d in fact used before in a MS called Mafia Princess which still sits, sad and forlorn, in my folder of finished but unpublished manuscripts. (Sniff, sniff. Be patient, Sabina and Lorenzo–you may yet find your time…) Happy as a clam that my best friend was finally seeing reason and writing historicals, I promptly sent her all my research books, bought her a book on historical fashion for her birthday, and solemnly swore to answer any questions she had on the history in particular or historicals in general, if I could.
The result: The Lost Girl of Astor Street.
I cannot gush enough about this book. This book is awesome. This book is beautiful. This book is fun. I am happy beyond measure that Blink has picked it up, and thoroughly jazzed at this: HARDBACK!!!!!
I’m eagerly awaiting my pre-ordered copy to arrive in February, but in the meantime, I’m gearing up to help promote. So eventually, you’ll see my full review. For now, this from me is on the back cover:
“Morrill delivers a story that has it all – mystery, the mafia, and a heroine you can’t help but root for. If Veronica Mars met the Roaring Twenties, you’d end up with The Lost Girl of Astor Street.” ~ Roseanna White, author of The Lost Heiress
Here’s the official blurb:
When her best friend vanishes without so much
as a good-bye, eighteen-year-old Piper Sail takes on the role of
amateur sleuth in an attempt to solve the mystery of Lydia’s
disappearance. Given that Piper’s tendency has always been to butt heads
with high-society’s expectations of her, it’s no surprise that she
doesn’t give a second thought to searching for answers to Lydia’s
abduction from their privileged neighborhood.
As Piper discovers
that those answers might stem from the corruption strangling 1924
Chicago—and quite possibly lead back to the doors of her affluent
neighborhood—she must decide how deep she’s willing to dig, how much she
should reveal, and if she’s willing to risk her life of privilege for
the sake of the truth.
Perfect for fans of Libba Bray and Anna
Godbersen, Stephanie Morrill’s atmospheric jazz-age mystery will take
readers from the glitzy homes of the elite to the dark underbelly of
1920s Chicago.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.