VACATIONS - HISTORICAL - MARGARET TANNER

MARGARET TANNER’S FAVOURITE VACATION

I have to say I don’t really have a favourite place for a vacation, anywhere is good for me as long as there is plenty of sun, and I am waited on hand and foot, and have lots of yummy food.

Because I write historical romance, vacations are usually the honeymoon for my hero and heroine, but not always.

In my latest release, Allison’s War, which starts a few months before the commencement of the Great War (1914 – 1918), the vacations are a little different.

The first one belongs to the villain of the piece, Phillip Ashfield, an aristocratic young Englishman, the second one is Allison’s honeymoon, and the third one is Allison’s desperate journey to find her son after Phillip kidnaps him.

PHILLIP

Phillip Ashfield uncrossed his cramped legs and stood up to reach into the overhead luggage compartment. What an imposition, having to manhandle his own luggage.

“Good God, man, when you’re in the colonies you have to look after yourself.” He remembered the advice he’d received from Tony, one of his friends from Eton. How true, the Godforsaken bloody backwater.

If his father hadn’t been so ill, he would have refused point blank to come out to Australia. Had his mother not been so distraught about the old man, he would have ignored her entreaties to visit relatives at the back of beyond.

God, it was hot. The temptation to loosen his collar became almost unendurable. He wore the latest summer fashion for 1914, a three-piece suit with a shaped coat that had a vent down the back. His linen, as always, was the finest money could buy. Neither one helped keep him cool in these temperatures.

TOMMY AND ALLISON

The zoo proved to be much larger than Allison expected. The monkeys and giraffes were her favorites. Tommy insisted they have a ride on the elephant, and as the animal swayed along, they got a wonderful view.

“This is fun,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I like hearing you laugh; it’s such a happy sound.”

“I never knew we could have such an exciting time. Such places we’ve seen! I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s not a dream,” she said.

His teasing smile faded, and his blue eyes burned fiercely. “I’ll never forget, either.”

The bears lumbered around in a concrete pit, and Tommy leaned so far over the edge she worried about him falling in. He laughed loudly at this fear, and several people turned to look at them.

“Tommy, shh, people are staring.”

“I’ll give them something to really talk about.” Quick as a flash he pulled her close and kissed her, and she felt hot all over.

“Well, really, how could a young woman cheapen herself so?” A prim matron with two school-aged children complained to her male companion. “Those young larrikins think they can do what they like, just because they’re in the army.”

Allison’s embarrassment gave way to anger. “I happen to like my husband kissing me. At least he’s man enough to fight for his country.”

ALLISON

At the railway station, Allison spoke to the stationmaster and told him about Paul being taken by an English relative, and he promised to make arrangements about seeing to the livestock on the farm.

What a dreadful journey. She wanted to scream at the train to go faster, and by the time they pulled into Spencer Street station her hands shook and her head ached. A young man helped her off with Daphne’s pram, and then she found herself alone on a platform swarming with people.

The last time she’d stood here was with Tommy, as Jim bid them farewell. She hadn’t known it at the time, but she would never see her brother again. She shivered in the Melbourne dusk, and it wasn’t from cold. Dear God, why wasn’t one of them spared to help? Why did both of them have to die? She closed her eyes, and the noise of busy people was blocked out, replaced by the muffled sounds of marching feet, as ghostly battalions passed by on their way to immortality.

It was too late to find Phillip now; they had to get somewhere to stay, first. The only place she could think of was the hotel where Tommy had taken her for their honeymoon. It was dark when they reached the hotel, and by the light thrown out from the street lamps, it appeared the same as it had in 1914.

ALLISON’S WAR (PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS WILD OATS) – BLURB

In 1916, on the French battlefields, a dying soldier’s confession has the power to ruin the woman he loves.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Allison Waverley has to battle shame, loss and betrayal. Can she overcome the dark secrets in her past and find happiness, or will it always elude her?

http://amzn.com/B00JF4YA9E

 

 

 

 

MY HERO - MARGARET TANNER

AN ORDINARY MAN – MARGARET TANNER’S HERO

I wrote this as a tribute to my late father and his valiant comrades who bled and died for freedom. It inspired me to write my romantic novel, A Mortal Sin, which is out now from Books We Love.

My father always maintained he was ordinary.  Just the kind of man you would pass in the street and not really notice. Slightly stooped; bad posture interlaced with age most would say. Once blond hair was now grey, and his blue eyes were faded and a little watery.

Dad’s pastimes were following the football, growing tomatoes in the back garden, or amusing his grandsons. He considered his only claim to fame was that his tomatoes were the best in the neighbourhood.

In March 1940 Dad felt duty bound to answer his country’s call to war. When the Japanese poured into Malaya he was there as a member of the 2/29^th Battalion of the Australian 8^th Division. The letters he wrote home to his fiancée (later his wife), described the hordes of marauding mosquitoes, scorpions and other horrible, wriggly creatures, who inhabited the jungle.

He told of the pleasure in having real white sheets on the beds in one of their camps, and described the various native villages he had visited.

There was an ever continuing plea for news of home, cakes and other comforts to make life just a little more bearable in such an alien, inhospitable land. Yellowing letters, carefully kept by my mother, worn thin from having been read and re-read, unfolded a tale that the history books never told. Words of love more poignant than if they had been whispered in a romantic, fragrance filled garden, were beautiful in their simplicity as my father had left school after reaching the eighth grade.

Amongst his medals was a silver boomerang bearing the words “I go to return.” It was a good luck charm, and my father wore it throughout the war.  There was magic in the boomerang, the relation who gave it to him was convinced of it. Had not the original owner survived the carnage of the 1^st World War?  Did the good luck charm live up to its name the second time around?

Wounded in action and transferred to the 113^th Australian General Hospital in Singapore, this ordinary man from the country town of Wangaratta was blown out of bed, but survived the Japanese bombs which took the roof off his ward.  The British forces fell back across the causeway into Singapore. Day and night the fires burned.  The bombers came over spreading their destruction. Shattered shops were left to the mercy of looters, bodies rotted in the streets, and packs of marauding dogs gorged themselves with little resistance, as a pall of black smoke hung over Singapore. The bastion of the British Empire, the Gibraltar of the Far East teetered on the brink of surrender.  The giant British guns that might have saved them were embedded in concrete and pointing out to sea, useless to quell the invaders who came over land through the jungle.

All aircraft and ships had departed loaded with civilians, nurses and wounded, and after this desperate flotilla sailed off, those left behind could only await their fate.

In the last terrible days before Singapore capitulated in February 1942, trapping 80,000 Australian and British troops, a small junk braved the might of the Japanese air force and navy, and set off, crammed with wounded.  Only soldiers who were too incapacitated to fight yet could somehow mobilise themselves, were given the opportunity for this one last chance of escape.

With a piece of his back bone shot away, and weakened from attacks of malaria, Dad somehow made it to the wharf, with a rifle and the clothes he stood up in. As they wended their way out of the Singapore harbour, littered with the smouldering debris of dying ships, a Japanese bomber dived low over them, but the pilot obviously had more important targets on his mind than a small overcrowded boat.

They made it to safety, and were eventually transferred to a hospital ship. 

There were no scenes of mad revelry and jubilation when this ship arrived back in Australia.  This son of Wangaratta returned home, unhailed, except for those who loved him most. After his marriage, Dad shifted to the life of Melbourne suburbia and raised three children.

When he died the bugle played the last post, his coffin was draped with the Australian flag.  Old soldiers dropped red poppies into the open grave as a tribute to a fallen comrade.

There were some who wondered what all the fuss was about. After all, wasn’t he just an ordinary man?

My novel, A Mortal Sin, although fictional is well researched, and also has relied on information from my father’s letters and information given to me by my mother and her sisters, and the few things I remember Dad telling us when we were children. 

A MORTAL SIN

Paul Ashfield, an aristocratic Englishman, travels to Australia in search of the birth mother he thinks deserted him.  He meets and falls in love with Daphne Clarke, but after staying with her parents, Paul finds a diary and erroneously believes that he and Daphne share the same mother.  He beats a hasty retreat, believing he has slept with his sister.

Their paths eventually cross again in Singapore where Daphne is a nurse and Paul is in the army. They get married as Singapore teeters on the brink of invasion.  Wrenched apart by the war, each believes the other has died in the bombing. When they meet again, it is in church and, Paul is about to enter into an arranged marriage.

http://www.bookswelove.net/tanner.php

LEGACY - A UNIQUE ORGANIZATION

LEGACY - MARGARET TANNER 
There are certain charities that I will always donate money to, The Red Cross and The Salvation Army, I am sure everyone would have heard of these wonderful organizations and the great work that they do.

The organization that is dearest to my heart you will probably not have heard of.  It is called Legacy. Legacy is dedicated to supporting the widows and children of any Australian service personnel who dies during their war service or after it.  They look after nearly 100,000 widows and close to 2,000 children. Each widow and child is provided with a Legatee, that is a volunteer, usually a veteran or a serving member of the armed forces who will act as a mentor and a friend. A Legatee might have several children and widows that they look out for. It is a voluntary organization that receives no government funding.

Legacy was started after the 1^st World War by returning veterans who wanted to help the widows and children of their fallen comrades.  Most of the widows now are from the 2^nd world war, Korea or Vietnam, but there are younger widows and children joining the Legacy family because of the war in Iraq, Timor and Afghanistan.

I have personal experience of the wonderful work that Legacy does. My late mother was a Legacy Widow, and they were extremely helpful to her. They fought the Veteran Affairs Department on her behalf and made it possible for her receive a War Widow’s pension from the government.  Her Legatee was a returned soldier in his 80’s, and he used to regularly drop in for a chat, and to make sure she didn’t need anything, he also visited her when she was in hospital for no reward, other than the knowledge that he was helping the widow of fallen comrade.

 

My novel, A Rose In No-Man’s Land, published by The Wild Rose Press, is set during the 1^st World War.

Battlefield nurse, Amy Smithfield, falls in love with Captain Mark Tremayne, but he is bound to his dead wife. He can never marry again or tell Amy the truth, unless he wants to risk the gallows for a murder he did not commit.

http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=a+rose+in+no+mans+land&x=21&y=15

http://www.amazon.com/Rose-No-Mans-Land-Margaret-Tanner/dp/1612177859/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371971928&sr=1-1&keywords=a+rose+in+no-man%27s+land

TRAPS AND PITFALLS OF HISTORICAL ROMANCE WRITING

The most important aspect of writing a good historical novel is that you must be passionate about your subject. You might get away without this passion in contemporaries but you won’t in historicals.

Historical accuracy is paramount. Without this, your novel is doomed and so are you.

A friend of mine read a novel from a well known author and found a glaring historical inaccuracy, which should never have been written by the author in the first place. It certainly should have been picked up by the editor, but it wasn’t. My friend has never bought another book from this author because she says, I can’t trust her anymore.

You should always write about an era that you are interested in. I am not into Vikings or Regency, so it would be tedious trying to do the research required for this, and I wouldn’t have the passion about it, and I am sure this would show in my writing.

Research options are many and varied now. The internet (use with caution unless you are certain that the person who posted knows what they are talking about).

Library reference books are a great place to start.

Museums
Cemeteries (as long as you aren’t scared of spiders and snakes).
Quizzing elderly relatives (depending, of course, on which era you are writing about). 2^nd World War, Vietnam, Great Depression – all o.k. because they would have lived during these times.
Reading family diaries and/or letters.
Actually visiting places where your story takes place or somewhere similar is a must, if possible.

I visited an old jail (now a tourist attraction) for my novel, Daring Masquerade, because my heroine was jailed for being a spy. I wanted to see what it was like. The walls were solid bluestone and cold, even on a warm day. The cell was small, and I swear there was a spooky aura about the place. I took a notebook with me and jotted down these feeling as they came to me.

Depending on what you are writing, for your settings I think it is imperative to name some towns or cities near to where your stories are going to be played out.

You must know the area, either by having visited it, or careful research. You need to know what grows there, the terrain, climate etc. I always set most of my stories in Australia in North Eastern Victoria, because I know the area well. Mention a few main towns, but I am never too specific, because you can get easily caught out. (I am talking historical romance here, not a text book on history). I always make up a fake town near a main town or city.

In my novel, Wild Oats, set in 1916, I said the heroine lived at Dixon’s Siding (made up name) i.e. They left the farm at Dixon’s Siding, and after riding for an hour (I am talking horseback here,) reached Wangaratta, which is a major town in the area.

I purposely did not say that Dixon’s Siding was (exactly 10 miles west of Wangaratta at the fork of the Smith/Jones Road, because I didn’t know for sure, that there wasn’t a giant lake there or a massive quarry there in 1916. I probably could have found out with more research, but it wasn’t really necessary.

A little quiz, to show you what I mean.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE STATEMENTS?
From my novel, Lauren's Dilemma
1.30a.m., 25th April 1915. Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey
Danny shivered in the chilly air as he waited on the deck of the troopship. In the darkness he couldn’t see land, even though someone said it was less than three miles away. When his turn came, he climbed down the rope ladder and found himself in an open boat. Excitement surged through him. He had traveled halfway around the world for this moment and was keen to give a good account of himself.

A.    The soldiers landed at 0130 hours, not 1.30a.m. No soldier would say 1.30a.m. The army always uses the 24 hour clock

My work in progress is set in 1854

On arrival at the homestead, Melanie unsaddled the mare and let her loose in the stockyards James had constructed from split logs. Surprising how neglected a house became after being left empty for a few days
Within 5 minutes she had dusted the kitchen and was sitting down having a cup of hot milky tea?

Where did she get the milk?  Not from the refrigerator. She would have had to milk the cow first. The water would have to be boiled on a wood stove? She would have had to light the stove, maybe even cut the wood. (No microwaves in those days).

In my novel, Daring Masquerade set in 1916, the heroine, desperate to find out what has happened to her husband who is missing in action, rings up a family friend who is a Colonel in the army. She punches in the telephone number and anxiously waits for him to pick up the phone.

No, she lives in the country, so she would have contacted the operator, dialled the exchange etc. And she certainly didn’t use a mobile phone. And, on her wedding night, her nightgown was exquisite, a soft, white polyester, lavishly trimmed with lace.

No polyester in those days, it would have been cotton, silk or even satin.

Know the area you are writing about

This is an extreme example, but it does happen. 

England - It was December, the sun streamed down from a cloudless blue sky and Amy felt so hot she didn’t know how she would be able to walk back to the railway station.

Of course, in England in December, it would be winter time. Here in Australia it is summer.

You must be aware of modern language and slang, and don’t use it.

A poor, uneducated person wouldn’t speak the same way as a rich, educated person.

There are lots of traps for the unwary, but historical romance writing is very rewarding and if done correctly, can transport your reader back to another time and place full of daring exploits and handsome, swashbuckling heroes.

My novella, We Never Said I Love You, has just been released by my publisher, Books We Love, and costs 99 cents on Amazon and Smashwords.

Wounded soldier, Adrian Bancroft, has a whirlwind romance with his nurse. A foolish misunderstanding leads to a heated argument and he and Julie part in bitterness.

With the black clouds of war hovering overhead, he returns to the hospital to sort things out with the woman he loves, but Julie has been banished because she is pregnant. Amidst the chaos of wartime London, he begins a desperate search for her.

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AW2RQE/

 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/236009

MEMORIAL DAY - MARGARET TANNER

MEMORIAL DAY – BATTLEFIELD SCENE
Call it blatant self promotion if you will, but I thought as it is only a few days to Memorial Day in the US, I would post a battlefield excerpt from my latest historical romance, Daring Masquerade, which is set during the 1^st World War.
In Australia we remember our war dead, on ANZAC Day, 25^th April and also Remembrance Day/Armistice Day on 11^th November.
ANZAC Day commemorates the landing at Gallipoli in Turkey by The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS) on the 25^TH April, 1915. And the 25^th April is now sacred. It is when we remember the brave men and women who paid the supreme sacrifice in the 1^st World War and in subsequent wars, 2^nd World War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. These battlefields are also stained with American blood, as you would be well aware.

War is a terrible thing, it not only affects the soldier on the battlefield, but also those who are left at home. How many lives have been blighted by war? How many families torn apart? Even after a war ends the consequences are still dire. Young men and women return home, broken in body and mind. Some never recover and carry the scars of their war service for the rest of their lives. This in turn affects their families. I can remember as a child, my father (who saw active service in World War 2) having these terrible nightmares. He would scream out so loudly that he woke up the whole household.My mother who had been engaged to him before he went to war, said that when he returned home, he was not the same man that he was before. Consequently, because of Dad's nightmares, we could never have friends stay overnight, in case Dad had one of his "turns."

DARING MASQUERADE – Out on Kindle from Books We Love Publishing
The third battle for Ypres had begun. The first and second Australian Divisions marched through the ruins of Ypres in Flanders, and fought their way along the Menin Road ridge. Their ultimate destination was Passchendale.

It had been raining steadily, the front had turned into a sea of mud, criss-crossed with miles of concrete German blockhouses. A German arc of machine gun fire dominated the landscape and the casualties were terrible.

Ross despaired of the carnage ever ending. After one battle another always followed. Men died or were wounded; many simply disappeared into the mud.

Reinforcements came and went, followed by more reinforcements. Few old faces were left now.
Increasingly, he feared he might never leave this chamber of horrors and return to Harry at Devil’s Ridge. Never get the chance to utter the words, ‘I love you,’ to his wife.

How much longer could his luck hold out? He had suffered several minor shrapnel wounds that only required a dressing.

On the morning of the fourth of October, 1917, Ross’ unit was sent to Broodseinde Ridge. Forty minutes before the attack, soldiers waiting in the rear a mile behind the line saw white and yellow German flares through the hazy drizzle.

0530 hours.  Heavy trench mortars fell on Ross’s men as they sheltered in shell holes. At 0600 hours, the British artillery barrage opened up and he waited. Another attack—more casualties in this endless saga of death and suffering.

White tapes marked the jump off area. When the signal for attack came, he urged his men on.
“Come on, come on.”

He stood up and started running. Officers led by example, he remembered from training. The men charged forward now, yelling and screaming.

A line of troops rose from some shell holes a little in front of them, and Ross suddenly realized they were Germans mounting a counter attack. Too late to do anything but keep on going.

He did not see where the firing came from, but felt a thud, first in one leg then the other. As he sank to his knees, he felt a bullet slamming into his chest. He toppled forward.  Soldiers ran over him. Boots pressing into his back forced him deeper into the mud.

This is the end. I’ll never see Harry again.

He regained consciousness. It was daylight. How long had he been lying out in no-man’s land? Groggily, he got to his hands and knees. Pain and exhaustion racked his body. Breathing was agony. The landscape see-sawed. Shell fire echoed in his ears.

What’s the use? All I have to do is close my eyes and sink back into the mud and oblivion.

Too tired to fight any more, he started slipping away. His body floated upwards and the pain disappeared.

“Ross, don’t leave me. Fight Ross, fight for me.”

“Harry?” He opened his eyes but he was alone.  Only dead men, twisted and grotesque lay out here in no-man’s land with him.

Did he want to leave Harry a widow at twenty? Never hold his son? Oh, God, he couldn’t die like a dog out here. His body might never be recovered. Harry would wait and mourn, but keep on hoping for years. She would never hear the words ‘I love you,’ fall from his lips. What a bloody fool he had been obsessing over Virginia, instead of letting himself fall in love with Harry. Now it was too late.  She would never know the true depth of his feelings for her. He couldn’t do it to her. He must survive.

http://www.amazon.com/Daring-Masquerade-ebook/dp/B0081CJECY/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTG8&qid=13364772888&sr=1-10