by Roseanna White | Aug 17, 2016 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
Today, for a change of pace, I thought I’d take you on a little virtual pre-tour of the sites of my books–particularly the ones I might get to see next month in England. =)
These first ones are places I won’t see, but which Brook and Justin, Rowena and Brice certainly did. To start our Ladies of the Manor tour, Brook would have arrived in North Yorkshire by steam train . . .
and then gotten her first view (eventually, not from the train, LOL) of Whitby Abbey.
Rowena, on the other hand grew up in a castle built out on a Highland loch…
…before moving to the Sussex countryside near Brighton–and also near the white chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters.
Then we move on to the soon to release A Lady Unrivaled–and the places I get to go! For starters, the oh-so-picturesque Cotswolds villages…
I’ll be spending a few days near here and am so looking forward to it! This is where
A Lady Unrivaled is set almost exclusively, with the exception of two scenes in lovely Paris.
Then we’ll move on, as my stories do, to Cornwall. Next summer, you’ll meet Rosemary Gresham–thief–and Peter Holstein, who makes his home in the Cornish countryside, where I’ll be spending a lovely three days.
At one point in the story they venture to nearby St. Michael’s Mount–which is within sight of where we’ll be staying!
The climax of A Name Unknown, which I just rewrote, takes place in the Cornish coastal countryside, much like this.
We may also take a day trip (maybe) into Wales to visit Cardiff, where the book I’m currently writing, A Song Unheard, will take place. Perhaps we’ll get a peek at Castle Coch (The Red Castle) nearby…
I haven’t determined the setting for the final book in the Shadows Over England series…but my plan is to pick a place I’ve seen and loved during my trip. 😉
And after I get back, you can rest assured that I’ll take you on another tour, using photos I actually took! (Or that my husband did. I’m lousy with a camera.) All these photos were purchased from Shutterstock. 😉
Now back to the real work I go!
by Roseanna White | Jul 27, 2016 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
It was nearly five years ago that Carrie Pagels made mention of “brick tea.” I don’t even remember now how it came up, but I believe she’d purchased some from a local plantation home and was offering it to one of us here at CQ as thanks for helping with a project. Now, I had no idea what in the world she was talking about. And so far as I could tell in my search, she’s never talked to us about it on the blog. So I decided to resurrect the post I’d done 5 years ago that talked about this fun tea and what I learned about it after this arrived in the mail:
The moment I withdrew this brick from its bag, the scent of tea wafted up to me. My daughter, who runs to the kitchen the moment she senses a package being opened, rushed out just then, saw the brown-paper-wrapped block, and said, “What’s that?”
My answer was to hold it out and say, “Smell.”
You should have seen her eyes light up with delight and disbelief as she squealed, “Tea?!”
Tea has been a staple of many societies for centuries. But loose leaf tea is hard to transport, so back in the days of the silk road in Asia, the Chinese discovered that if they use forms to press the tea into standard sized bricks, they can transport them with ease, and the tea lasts through the journey.
This became such a standard that tea bricks could be used as currency, and this was the way most tea was transported for hundreds of years, all the way into the 19th century. So the tea tossed into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party? That was bricks.
Naturally, when something is used so long, for so many purposes, there comes to be a rhyme and reason to each part of it.
I don’t know if you can read the label on this, but if you do, you’ll find its “translation”–what each part of it means.
The front of this particular brick has details that let buyers know that this tea comes from a company managed by more than one person, and is manufactured by Enterprise Company Tea and the Chinese Lee family.
The back of the brick is separated into squares that can be used as currency. One square, for instance, might equal the price of a chicken.
In addition to being brewed, the tea traditionally pressed into bricks can also be eaten. I don’t intend to try that, gotta say.
I thought for sure, five years ago, that I would immediately start breaking bits off and using them. But I didn’t. Because it was so pretty and interesting, my Brick Tea still occupies a place of honor on my hutch. Occasionally I pick it up and smell it. And tell myself that maybe someday I’ll brew myself a cup with some real history.
But mostly, I just love looking at it and knowing what it represents.
by Roseanna White | Jul 13, 2016 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
Sometimes the questions a novelist asks leads to answers a novelist didn’t anticipate.
Today, I had the thought that a character should be flipping a coin into the air. So I headed to Google to determine with British coin my character should be flip in 1914. And ended up with an interesting lesson in coinage.
Being not British, I didn’t realize that there was a fairly huge change to the currency in 1968. These days, they use “decimalization” much like we Americans do, with 100 pence to the pound. But prior to that–so certainly in 1914–there were actually 240 pence to the pound. Twelve pence to a shilling, and 20 shilling to a pound.
I’m not sure how I’ve managed to write so many book with English or British characters and settings without looking this up before! Sheesh!
These are the current coins, of which I imagine I’ll collect a few while in England this fall to add to my foreign currency collection (by which I mean the bowl we’ve tossed Euros, Pesos, Canadian coins, and Bulgarian coins into).
These are not, of course, what my mysterious villain would have been tossing into the air in 1914. No, I think he’d be tossing up a George V florin, worth 2 shillings and nearly an inch in diameter.
Interesting note for Americans who are as ignorant of all this as I was, LOL–each monarch had the coins redesigned with their profile upon ascension. So while Victorian coins would all have had the Queen upon them, all new coins during King George V’s reign, for instance, would have had him. A bit different from our Jefferson nickles and Washington quarters and Lincoln pennies that never change. =)
That concludes your very short lesson in historical British coinage. Now back to the man flipping a florin… 😉
by Roseanna White | Jul 6, 2016 | Remember When Wednesdays
Okay, this isn’t so much a history-themed post as a modern-day rant, LOL.
So, five years ago David and I went to Niagara Falls for our 10th anniversary. It was gorgeous, we had a lovely time, and we said then that we’d take the kids when Rowyn (who was only 3 at the time) was bigger and better able to actually, you know, remember it.
Well, the kids now have their passports, so we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Niagara for the 4th. (Because, you know, nothing says American Independence Day like traveling into Canada, LOL. Seriously, their fireworks over the falls are fantastic! So yes, we and thousands of others went to Canada for the Fourth, LOL.) The kids had a blast and want to make it an annual tradition.
So there we were, absorbing this grandeur. As we stood there on the Canadian side and looked out over the Horseshoe Falls, David said, “Can you imagine being the first European to see this?”
I, of course, put on an over-the-top accent and said, “I say! What a smashing good waterfall!”
David added, “Back up, back up! I think maybe we shouldn’t send the boats down that!”
We being us, this went on for a while, the kids ignoring us while we pretended we were explorers of old seeing this for the first time, with no one else around.
But oh, there were other people around. And on this trip, they were both driving me nuts and making me sad.
Selfies. Selfies were the bane of the trip. Not for us–we didn’t even get out our cell phones. But oh. My. Gracious.
People were so busy trying to get a selfie of themselves in front of the Falls that they weren’t actually looking at the falls! This was especially noticeable on the Maid of the Mist boat ride that takes you up to it. Where, you know, if you don’t actually look when the boat is going by, you miss it. But instead of seeing this amazing scene, at least half of the people on this boat had their backs to it. Their arms out. Often extended with a selfie-stick. Shoving the rest of us against the wall so that they could smile at their smart phone.
They would rather have taken a picture of themselves in front of something beautiful than to see something beautiful.
Eventually, of course, they turned around . . . with their phones still up. So they could video it. Which meant that they were staring at their four-inch screens rather than the actual sight.
I’m not saying “Don’t take pictures.” Not at all! I obviously adore a good photograph–hence my use of one up top. But for goodness sake, don’t miss the thing you came to see so that your phone can see it! Get a picture, then put the dang thing away, will you, world? Have a little courtesy for the thousands of people around you instead of shoving your way by them so you’re in prime selfie-taking position. Take the time to soak it all in. Ask questions. Be silly. Make way for the little kid straining up on tiptoe to try to see.
See. See this beauty of God’s creation instead of the screen of your cell phone. Actually enjoy the place you are. Be the place you are. You don’t live in your phone (though many of you seem to. Ahem). You live here. With those people you just shoved aside. You want to remember it? It won’t be by adding another photo to the thousands-huge camera roll. It’ll be by being fully in that moment while you’re there.
Back in the day before cameras, much less cell phones, people could still make memories. They made them by being. By living. By experiencing.
What did those explorers think when they first saw them? Or the people who traveled to it in the Colonial days, when it was already a destination? What would it have been like for them?
Interestingly, largely the same as it is for us. This sight you have the opportunity to behold is a sight enjoyed by people for centuries. There’s a kind of magic in that, isn’t there? Let’s live that. Let’s absorb it. Let’s be part of the wonder. Cuz our cell phones really don’t care. But the people around us? They do. Let’s be people, instead of just selfie sticks, eh?
End rant. 😉
by Roseanna White | Jun 22, 2016 | Giveaways and Contests, Remember When Wednesdays
It’s time for the June tea party at Colonial Quills! We just realized my April release, The Reluctant Duchess, hadn’t been featured in one yet, so I got in on the fun. =)
The main action will take place on the CQ blog, where we’re virtually dining at the Jefferson Hotel. Just head over there to leave comments for the participating authors, which will enter you in the many giveaways!
THEN . . . come chat with us live on Facebook! The Facebook party will run from 5-8, and I’ll be kicking it off at 5:00 on the dot. Bring your questions, comments, and silly statements, along with a picture of what you’ll be wearing to our virtual tea party. (I’ll be hunting up my tea gown for the day too!)
Hope to see you around the Colonial Quills sites today!
by Roseanna White | Jun 15, 2016 | Remember When Wednesdays
Sometimes the publishing industry seems a little strange. A Lady Unrivaled is getting it’s final copy edits at Bethany House, in preparation for being sent to press so it can release in September. A Name Unknown is going through its first edits there now. I have turned in my synopsis for approval for the second London Shadows book, A Song Unheard, and am doing research for that one now . . . even though it’s a year and a half before it’ll come out.
As I’m brainstorming characters and plots for this new book that I’ll begin writing soon, I realize that a lot of my planning takes the shape of contradictions or oddities. For instance . . .
In A Lady Unrivaled, my characters are:
A young lady who has always been enamored with romantic tales who . . .
Is afraid to trust her own judgement and fall in love.
A gentleman who is ashamed of his past and determined to be a better man, but who . . .
Will never confess the truth of who he is and his artistic “habits” to anyone.
A ballerina willing to do absolutely anything to hold onto the life she fought to achieve, but who . . .
Can never get her Russian grandmother’s voice out of her head.
Then we have A Name Unknown, where the characters are:
One of London’s best thieves on a mission to steal information from a wealthy gent in Cornwall, but who . . .
Has a sense of justice that insists she fight for someone being wronged, even if she intends to wrong him too.
A best-selling adventure novelist with a heart of gold and an enormous faith, but who . . .
Can’t put a coherent sentence together when speaking and is contemplating changing his name to avoid political fallout.
So now, here I am planning out A Song Unheard. Thus far, my characters are:
A former urchin and current thief who . . .
Is also a violin prodigy, sent into an orchestra to steal from its lead violinist.
The most brilliant cryptanalyst (code breaker) in Europe who . . .
Is only an eleven-year-old girl.
A charming violinist accustomed to smiling at the right people to achieve his aims who . . .
Is nursing a gunshot wound from an attempt to rescue his little sister (see above).
See now, that last one doesn’t come off quite how I want him to, LOL. I’m still figuring out my suave Lukas De Wilde, discovering what makes him ticks and motivates him. The idea of having him be injured actually just came to me the other day–through the book, he’s going to be fighting to save his sister and mother from the German occupation of Belgium. But I had to figure out why he hadn’t done so already.
I rather like the answer that he tried–and failed. And is still feeling the effects of that failure. Effects that will, happily for me but not for him (mwa ha ha ha), also impact his career, in which he’s put his hopes of future success in his endeavors. He has to play, to earn money to go back to Belgium for another rescue attempt. But playing becomes difficult when one has a serious wound in one’s shoulder…
So there you have it–a peek into how story shapes up in my mind around characters . . . and their contradictions.
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.