Romancing the Genres: falsely accuse

MARGARET TANNER'S TAKE ON COLLABORATION

Collaboration. – The dictionary defines this as:

Working together or working with another.

To co-operate with an enemy of one’s country.

I have collaborated.

I have worked with other authors on a Western anthology (Rawhide ‘N Roses), where there were fourteen of us who each supplied a short story.

I have also worked with good friend and fellow author, Susan Horsnell in a short story collection, Colonial and Cowboys.

Donning my erotic romance persona, as KC Vixen, I collaborated with two other erotic romance writers, Lacey Roberts and Victoria Hanson. We each supplied a novella for this boxed collection, A Feast of Erotica, so it can be seen that I have collaborated a few times.

Thankfully, I have never been put in the position of having to co-operate with an enemy of my country.

Now, forgetting the strict dictionary version, there are variations on collaboration in my opinion.

I have found that many of the characters in my novels collaborate with others, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil.

Two female workers may collaborate to try and have something done about a fellow worker who may have sexually harassed them. We all know the type, the guy who accidentally brushes our breast, stands too close to us in the elevator and is always making smutty jokes when no-one else is around.

Then there are the criminals who plan a bank robbery together, working for weeks on the layout of the bank, the personnel required, which bank to hit, getaway cars, somewhere to stash the cash until the heat is off etc. This planning might take weeks before the deed is done. Surely that is collaboration.

In my latest novel, Falsely Accused, the hero, Jake Smith, is convicted of a crime he did not commit. His aristocratic father wants to get rid of him, so with the help of paid criminals, the father has Jake framed for a murder he did not commit. In my mind, the father collaborated with these men by planning his son’s demise with their help.

So, in my humble opinion, there are many shades of Collaboration.

FALSELY ACCUSED

On board the convict ship taking them to the penal colony of

Australia

, Maryanne Watson and Jake Smith meet and fall in love, but Jake hides a terrible secret that will take him to the gallows if it ever comes out.
On arrival in Sydney the lovers are separated. Maryanne is sent to work for the lecherous Captain Fitzhugh. After he attacks her she flees into the wilderness and eventually meets up with Jake who has escaped from a chain gang. They set up home in a hidden valley and Maryanne falls pregnant. Will Jake come out of hiding to protect his fledgling family? And how can love triumph over such crushing odds?