20th Century Historical Romance's Allure by Anna Brentwood

What draws me to the time periods in my books? There is no one answer. I am drawn by the characters where they lead, compelled to weave their truths with real history.

Because my first published book percolated years through career and raising a family, I had ample time to develop a passion for research. Getting immersed in the times I write about is one of my greatest pleasures. This makes me a thorough writer but a rather slow one.

Anna Brentwood and her Flapper Collectibles

Even before I know the entire story I want to write; I create a history timeline.

When the story begins and when it will end, place, I note things that may affect my characters life be it local, national, what newspapers they read, music they listen to, popular or not places they might go, people they might see or be influenced by…even weather conditions. 

Early on, pre-internet, my research involved studying and reading countless books and magazines, libraries, museums, eBay, antique shops, correspondence and interviews. Today, while I still study quite a bit, visit museums and talk to people, I rely heavily on the internet and Pinterest.

For example, if I need to know what music people listened to in 1930, I google, YouTube or iTunes it. If I need to see what women wore in 1940, or the kind of hats available to men in the 1920’s, I pull up images from Pinterest or Google images. Instead of having to dig, I can immediately see and describe it from actual visuals.

The Sapphire Songbird Series evolved from one book, The Songbird with Sapphire Eyes (TSSE).

TSSE takes place from 1918 through 1928, through Pre-Prohibition and the roaring 1920’s. It came to me in a series of dreams, so real, so enticing and accurate, it prompted me to investigate and develop a passion for the time and quite a collection of memorabilia.

Mermaid’s Treasure (MT), a prequel, happened differently, from an assignment to develop a story based on my book and incorporating a holiday theme. I didn’t think I had another book in me, but I wrote it in six months to deadline and it follows an object—a brooch with mystical properties that is one of the threads now tying all the characters and books in the series together. It takes place between 1893 to 1921.

MT ties to several countries and cultures and three main, real historical events; the sinking of the Russian battleship, Rusalka, the Decembrists (Russia) and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. Descended from mostly Russian immigrants myself, I was attracted to that idea and country and I plan to revisit this backstory in the future.

My current work-in-progress, Anthony’s Angel (AA) takes place from 1929 through 1949.

Compared to the roaring 1920’s, before researching AA, I considered the 1930’s drab, the 1940’s and the war years dull, but Bee’s Knees, was I a dumb dolly—it is anything but dull.   

AA weaves in characters and situations from both books, history of life at home in Brooklyn, New York during the war years to overseas; the brave men who flew into danger, the ladies who left home to join the workforce. Let me just say, it’s not called the greatest generation for nothing and Rosie the Riveter doesn’t have a monopoly on riveting…

If I have learned anything from the characters that I take these journeys with, human life is brief and every time, every era, every living creature has a unique story to tell. History can repeat itself and that’s not always good, but reading about it and gaining a better understanding, is.

About Anna: Anna Brentwood grew up in Philadelphia amidst a large family of interesting and colorful characters-think Godfather, Yentil, the Sopranos or Meet the Fockers. Her childhood home was noisy; televisions were always on and annoying-at-the-time, neighbors, friends, family and various younger cousins abounded. Her mother forced her to play the piano, pledge a sorority and be a girl scout. As a child, Anna had to hide in the closet to read or she would get in trouble for being anti-social. As a young woman, she had to dodge her mother’s relentless matchmaking attempts and she once sent a potential suitor to the gym where Anna worked out to spy on her.

After graduating University of the Arts where she majored in graphic arts and illustration, she moved to Southern California. Anna enjoyed working in publications in Marina del Rey and Venice and being able to read to her heart’s content in her own studio apartment in Orange County, CA, spending many weekends gorging on chips, diet coke, tuna sandwiches and romance novels.

Anna and spouse at Speakeasy Event

She especially enjoyed meeting and marrying her former Navy Seal, country boy husband of now thirty-six years because not only did he save her from her mother’s diabolical attempts at matchmaking, he gave her two beautiful, now grown up children. They share two amazing grandchildren and several pets and he fulfilled many of her greatest dreams. Anna had a successful career as an illustrator, graphic artist, publications director and more and with her husband’s early encouragement and support, she moved to Oregon with her family and turned her passion for reading into writing. 

For more about Anna Brentwood and her books, go to www.annabrentwood.com or email annabrentwood@ymail.com

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Bees Knees and The Twenties

By Anna Brentwood

People often ask me why I chose to write a story that takes place in the 1920’s, but this story chose me. Hannah, my main character came to me in a series of dreams that over a long period of time, I became compelled to explore and eventually write about.  

What I discovered when researching the 1920’s is a strong respect for my character and her friends, all women who came of age in a world that is as foreign to us today as an alien world on another planet would be.  



Anna Brentwood

The twenties were a time when people lived hard, worked harder, smoked incessantly, drank continuously and got steady doses of heroin, morphine, cocaine and opium in their soft drinks, candy or medicines. People could pretty much get away with murder, and often did. It was a rough, bawdy time where fortunes were lost or made in a single night and criminals became kings. Fashion was innovative, shocking and society’s rules and morals and tastes were being challenged daily.  

City life was very different from country life but life in general was brutally hard, short and contained very few pleasures. Even the standards and luxuries of the very richest of that time pale in comparison to the common luxuries we all take for granted today.  

In The Songbird With Sapphire Eyes, Hannah begins her life on a rural farm in Kansas where all her widowed mother, Emalith does is work. A rainbow in a world of beige, young Hannah yearns for a life that offers more than hard work.   

A young woman's prospects for marriage were restricted to the size of her town or neighborhood. It was common (and not a crime) for girls as young as fifteen to be courted by men twenty, thirty or forty years older. If a girl were a sheltered, so-called respectable girl, her family would have a say in whom she could love or marry. Because there were so many “rules” between family approvals, religious and social orientations, proper methods of meeting, and because men were the ones who had to both initiate and propel courtship, a woman’s choices, especially if she were poor were limited.   

Few learned about the "birds and the bees" factually and garnered the information through gossip, misinformation or supposition witnessing animals mating outdoors or attending funerals of women who died in childbirth. Puberty was shrouded in fear, shame and mystery and when a girl started her menses, there was no such thing as sanitary pads or tampons, and instead rags were bundled and boiled clean and reused. Usually discreetly and G-D Forbid, never discussed openly.  

One of the elderly widows I interviewed had grown up in the country, in a small, rural Oregon town. She’d attended school in a one room schoolhouse and as a young woman began working in a neighboring town as a law clerk. She met a young man studying to be a lawyer and they got engaged. They planned to marry after he finished his studies. She looked forward to finally moving into her own home and starting a family.  

One day after church she attended a cousin’s party. Her male cousin’s friend, a young man new to the area and a Scot was nice but she didn’t think much of him, his dress or his looks and quickly forgot all about him. However, he did not forget about her. With seeming assistance from her cousin, he seemed to pop up everywhere she went with her family. She didn’t think much of it but it wasn’t more than a week or so later that her fiancée suddenly began avoiding her. Soon after that to her utter shock, without explanation he broke off their engagement.  

She was heartbroken, but in those days, a respectable young woman didn’t chase after a man or show up at his home uninvited or demand an explanation.  

Her cousin and his friend in tow started showing up on the pretense of cheering her up. The Scot would sometimes show up alone or at her work. He’d bring flowers, presents and tell her stories that made her laugh. What she didn’t know at the time, but found out many years after she’d been married to her persistent Scot was that he had purposely sabotaged her engagement. While he never would admit the exact details of what he’d done, she suspected he’d either threatened her beau or insinuated something that had humiliated the fiancée.  

Entranced by her romantic courtship, I asked her if she’d “loved” him. Like every single woman of that era I spoke with, she was uncomfortable with the term love. They all would shrug, stammer or  say “I grew to love him…we were married for 60 years…or he was a good man, a good provider, a good father…he didn’t beat me…he wasn’t a drunk but they didn’t think in terms of love.  

All of them could not wait to marry. It was a way out of their parent’s rule and to be on their own. They looked to marriage and having children as a major achievement and this was their definition of success. A good provider was key to all of them. They all defined themselves and their lives by their husband’s financial success and their children. Unlike us today, who seek to match so many different criteria to define ourselves and our relationships, they were much less complicated. They simply sought someone they shared common values with, someone who would treat them kindly and maybe they could grow to love, but mostly they married for security and family. They wanted someone to take care of them and be a good provider.  

When you consider that the average American life expectancy then was age 53 for a man and 54 for a woman and that is only if you survived childhood, maybe there was a good reason they didn't spend years trying to "find" themselves. Or date incessantly to find "Mr. or Mrs. Right."