HISTORICAL ROMANCE - MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH IT

WHY DOES MARGARET TANNER WRITE  AUSTRALIAN HISTORICAL ROMANCE?

There is nothing more gratifying than a well researched historical romance novel. Nothing worse than a historical novel filled with historical errors, either. To write historical romance novels I feel that you must have a love of history, as well as a love of romance. You must be passionate about your subject.

 

Like the heroines in my novels, my forebears left their native shores in sailing ships to forge a new life in the untamed frontiers of colonial Australia. They battled bushfires, hardship and the tyranny of distance in an inhospitable and savage land, where only the tough and resilient would survive. They not only survived but prospered in ways that would not have been possible for them had they stayed in Europe.

 I would like to think I display the same tenacity. My goals are a little different from those of my forbears. I want to succeed in the publishing world.

I received my baptism of fire on the literary field of battle at an early age. I have known the highs (winning awards and having my books published), but also known the lows of the volatile publishing world. Publishing company closures, an opportunity for one of my novels to be turned into a film, only to be thwarted at the last minute by government funding cuts, and writing friends dropping off because they couldn’t get published and gave up the struggle.

 I am a fourth generation Australian. We are a tough, resilient people, and we have fought hard to find our place in the world.   We have beautiful scenery, unique wild life, and a bloodied convict history.

 

I admire heroines who are resourceful, not afraid to fight for her family and the man she loves. I want my readers to be cheering for her, willing her to obtain her goals, to overcome the obstacles put in her way by rugged frontier men who think they only want a wife to beget sons.  A chance for revenge.  To consolidate their fortunes. That love is for fools.  Oh, the victory for the reader when these tough, ruthless men succumb to the heroine’s bravery and beauty, and are prepared to risk all, even their lives to claim her.

 

Then there are the brave young men who sailed thousands of miles across the sea in World War 1 to fight for mother England, the birth country of their parents and grandparents. I also wanted to write about the wives and sweethearts who often waited in vain for their loved ones to return. Who were there to nurture the returning heroes, heal their broken bodies and tormented souls.

 This is why I write historical romance, even if it means trawling through dusty books in the library, haunting every historical site on the internet, badgering elderly relatives, and risking snake-bite by clambering around overgrown cemeteries.

 

Falsely Accused, the winner of the historical section of the Easy Chair Best Book Award, is one such book.

 

1820’s England. Visiting from America, Jake Smith is betrayed by a member of the aristocracy. Convicted for a crime he did not commit, he is exiled to the penal colony of Australia. Jake carries a dark secret that will send him to the gallows if it ever comes out.

On board the convict ship he meets and falls in love with Maryanne Watson.   

Escaping their captors in Australia, the lovers set up home in a hidden valley and Maryanne becomes pregnant.  With a price on his head, will Jake come out of hiding to protect his fledgling family? And how can love triumph over such crushing odds?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falsely-Accused-Margaret-Tanner-ebook/dp/B00LEXEVES/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1432889303&sr=8-1&keywords=falsely+accused+-+kindle

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES#reader_B00LEXEVES

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-falselyaccused-1869092-153.html

 

 

 

FALSELY ACCUSED - NEW RELEASE - MARGARET TANNER

FALSELY ACCUSED - PROMO - MARGARET TANNER
My latest release from Books We Love, is Falsely Accused. Several years ago it was published with a title of Savage Utopia, but it has now been revised and has a lovely new cover from the talented Michelle Lee.
This book is set in the 1820's, against a background of the transportation of convicted felons from England to the penal colony of Australia.
It is available on Amazon

BLURB:

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?

EXCERPT:

Maryanne woke up with a throbbing headache. Her vision was blurred and her throat felt so dry and scratchy, no sound would come out. Vaguely she remembered liquid being forced past her lips, noise, the movement of a carriage and the words “seven years”.
Where did that vile smell come from? She tried to focus her eyes but couldn’t. Her bed felt cold and hard. Suddenly memories came flooding back, Fiona’s death and Sarah attacking her with a knife. Her body twitched with the shock of remembrance. She had been found guilty of assaulting her stepmother, and was sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of Australia. To be incarcerated there for seven years.
Maryanne still felt hazy about the happenings of the last few weeks, except the final verdict. Seven years incarceration might as well be life, because few people ever returned from exile. The authorities called her a vicious mad woman, and would not listen to her version of what Silas and Sarah had done to Fiona.
“You awake now?”
“What?” She blinked several times in quick succession trying to clear the haze from her eyes. “Where am I?” The question sounded like hers, but the low guttural voice didn’t.
“Newgate prison. I’m Libby.”
A young woman’s face came into focus, a woman with flaming red hair that even the dirt and dinginess around them could not hide.
“They brought you here from the insane asylum, said you tried to murder your stepmother.”
“She deserved to die, both of them did. It was an accident; we were fighting over the knife and…”
“You won’t last long on the convict hulks, my pretty.” A toothless old crone leered at her.
“Shut your mouth, you dirty old hag.” Libby shoved the woman away, and the old thing cackled loudly.
“What does she mean?”
Shivering uncontrollably, Maryanne glanced around. She lay slumped against a slimy wall, and her clothes looked as filthy as those of twenty or so other women in this dungeon cell. Her hair, like scattered rats tails, straggled about her shoulders, and she gave a shudder of revulsion because she must smell as dreadful as everyone else.
“What’s your name?” Libby asked, with a slight Irish brogue.
“Maryanne Watson. I want to get out of here, I’m innocent.”
“Stay where you are,” Libby hissed fiercely. “Don’t attract attention to yourself. Everyone in Newgate says they’re innocent.”
“But I am, I am,” she babbled, trying to get control of herself. Why wouldn’t anyone believe her? The slap on her cheek, little more than a tap, instantly stopped her anguished flow of words.
“Do you want to stay alive, Maryanne Watson?”
“Yes, doesn’t everyone?”
“Well, say nothing to attract attention to yourself. Some of these women would kill you, just like that.” Libby snapped her fingers next to Maryanne’s ear. “The turnkeys won’t save you either, here or on the hulks. They only have one use for women.”
Bile surging into Maryanne’s mouth tasted foul and bitter. Her flesh crawled with terror and she clenched her teeth to stop herself from becoming hysterical.

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