Echoes Of The Past

 I am  taking a long hard look at three quotes today. They are related to each other, and to the world I am living in.  The first is from nineteenth century French author Victor Hugo in The Man Who Laughs - 

What is history? An echo of the past in the future. 

I didn't like history class in high school, didn't realize how much I would need the lessons I should have been learning back then later in life. The past often does a good job of predicting the future, and the present. The view can be disturbing, even horrifying, and I don't like horror, either. Nevertheless, I wish I could attend a history class these days. Those lessons would be so much more meaningful now, and help memake decisions about my place in the stream of life.

After I finished writing Unlawful Orders, I started work on another historical I am calling American Sparrow, which has absolutely nothing to do with birds. The real subject matter required me to research Europe during what became known as the interwar years, the twenty year period between the first and second world wars. That gave me an in-depth look at the fall of Germany’s democracy.

That's why I am currenly reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer, a book it only recently occurred to me that I needed.  The book is a look back at the dystopian Nazi Germany.  When I compare the words in the book to what I see when I look around me, I notice how true Mark Twain’s opinion of history was - 

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Often Rhymes

I’m still in the early chapters, and already the parallels between Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and the United States today,   from Hitlers failed coup attempt in a beer hall, to the US Capital on January 6, form something resembing  a real rhyming poem.

The events of today do not exactly repeat that unsavory time in history, but things are building toward a dystopian Maga America.  The Handmaid's Tale is not the only book taking a look at a possible American dystopia. And, in many instances, minorities are already living in one.

After finishing Unlawful Orders, I started work on another historical I am calling American Sparrow, which required me to research Europe during the interwar years, the twenty year period between the first and second world wars. That impressed me in an in-depth look at the fall of Germany’s democracy. 

Studying a democratic society being destroyed from within by a minority of its citizens who shunned the rules of a civilized country and followed a charismatic leader. The leader told them they were great, their defeat in the prior war was a temporary setback, their problems were all due to outsiders, and that by following him, they would return to the glory days.  That lead to the minority, only about 30% of German citizens, destroying the countries democracy and establishing the cult of Hitler and the Third Reich.

The path from the US Civil War, to now involves a longer interwar period and a more established democracy.  But nothing guarantees the American and German poems won't rhyme.  Germany had safeguards that should have protected their democracy, and so do we. Will ours work any better, or is the  “Second verse, same as the first,”  in the words from a song that was popular when I was young. (I'm Henry the Eighth I am by Herman’s Hermits)

In one of his books, Time Enough For Love, Robert Heinlein said, 

“Live and learn, or you don't live long.”  

How much have we learned?  Germany had a highly liberal constitution. Seventy percent of German citizens, the great majority, did not want a dictator. A violent minority, the Nazi party, used democratic freedoms to undermine and topple their democracy.  Can we change the rhyme and rhythm and enable the survival of our democratic country? A question that future history books will answer.

If we have not learned from the mistakes of the past, maybe the future will be able to learn from our mistakes.

The paperback edition of Courage, my middle grade novel, was just released by Quill Tree books.   Courage is available at your local bookstore.

And in Ocober, my middle grade nonfiction book, Unlawful Orders, will be released by Scholastic to join Courage on the shelves.

 

February 2022 Images ... Delsora Lowe

Welcome to the Romancing the Genres February blogs. Our February blog topics are:

 Romantic Gestures 
Treasures vs Stuff 
Is Love All We Need?

I hope you enjoy the photo journey of my family treasures, as well as depictions of what I consider romantic, grand gestures.

Two examples of proposals at the beach – how romantic is this?

You can’t go wrong with a trip to a local winery for a romantic excursion.

Family bible owned by my children’s great, great, great, great grandmother, according to the note written in my grandmother’s hand and found tucked into the bible. Behind the bible is an old coal bucket my grandmother stenciled and turned into a trash can. My grandmother was great at turning “stuff” into family treasures.

My grandmother around age 20-25, early 1900s - she was my treasure, as well as the keeper of family treasures and their history.

The tinsel painting was made by Diana Trask, my great, great grandmother for her SIL, Deborah. Although my name is spelled without the “H”, it seems that the name Debora and Deborah run in the family. On the back is the history of the painting written by my grandmother.

Sweet, romantic gesture of locking thumbs, and another of holding hands and baby shoes. Each tells a story.

Love is all we need, shown in the simplest act of just being together.

Photo Credits:
https://pixabay.com/photos/beach-wedding-happy-couple-sunset-1934732/
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/love-romantic-relationship-together-3581038/  
15162365471578128442wine-grapes-clipart.hi - Google Search
8iE64oria
man and woman holding hands photo – Free Holding hands Image on Unsplash
Wallpaper Couple, Hands, Baby Shoes, Cute, Romance (wallpapermaiden.com)
other photos by Delsora Lowe

Thankful for Learning New Things

 By Courtney Pierce

I’m thankful for many, many things in life, but I have to say that 2021 took “being thankful” to new heights. I’ve lived through turbulent times, not like the atrocities experienced in WW2, but close. Lock downs, censorship, distancing, and tearing apart of the family unit in schools have weighed heavy on my heart. Their slave playbook is trying to rear its ugly head in current events, but it won’t work. We boomers have too much resilience to not overcome adversity. Although we may feel drowned out by yelling, accusations, and downright lies, we have a voice . . . a big voice.

After more than forty years, we’re finally getting to the truth. Some of the nuggets we may not like; others might blow us away. That’s a subject for another blog in about six months. History in the making is still bubbling on the stove. Truth serum. Veritas elixir.

Spring of 2021 sprang forth with an idea when my career industry shut down. No concerts, no Broadway shows, no gathering of entertainment.  I switched gears to work at a local family-owned nursery while I finished my new book. My mother was a commercial organic gardener and got the bug. I learned all the Almanac wisdom from her and my grandmother.  My husband added more. It was a priority for us to create our own sustainable garden.

But after working in a huge commercial nursery that was beloved throughout the entire Flathead Valley, I found my niche. I learned much from dealing with the public . . . not just any public.  Most of the 40-year customers had been coming there to pay top dollar for beauty, walk the aisles with their dogs, talk about their kids, and seek help for what they didn’t know.

Other than getting back into shape at 22,000 steps a day (according to my FitBit), I reveled in working physically hard. Next came listening to the 30-year-experts who gave me plant advice. I drank in every detail of alchemy of our area, trends of varieties, and optimum conditions of our Zone. There’s a lot more to sticking a plant in the ground and expecting it to grow.

I had an epiphany that I’d stumbled into something special and quite personal: the customers.

“Are you looking for annuals that do well in sun or shade? Or would you like perennials that come back every year?”

“What’s your favorite color combination?”

“How much time do you have to water?”

Greenhouse after greenhouse, I zigzagged to show off our thousands of living trophies. These questions were how I got so many physical steps, so many overflowing carts, and so many hugs of thanks. Through our human connection, the customers were thankful, and so was I. I reveled in helping puzzle the plants and baskets into their cars and SUVs. The customers who wanted to plant their gardens, plant by plant, inspired me to spend the time to help them achieve the daily joy of blooms. The joy hung from their porches, graced their raised beds, encircled their mail boxes.

That was the goal . . . the crowning achievement of helping others.  My customers were ecstatic about leaving with their garden transformations of plants. Like me, they wanted to nurture living plants and help them thrive. I had no agenda except to make them happy.

As a writer, I captured that emotion and incorporated into my prose. You can’t make this stuff up. I have to experience the emotion of what I write, even if it’s a fictional story. I was accused once by a boss for being too benevolent. Their negative accusation was a personal badge of honor for me.

Every 25 years or so, we move up one generational seat on the life bus. In my teens, I remember thinking what it would be like to be grown up, taking care of myself, earning my future security, and being “old.” Back then, old age was imagining future life in my sixties. I’ve now arrived at the place that seemed so far away. I’m pretty darned close to the driver seat on the bus. The good news is that I still feel as young as I did in my teens. The only difference is that I have more wisdom from experience . . .  gain and loss, joy and sorrow, enlightenment and disillusionment.

My husband and I, my siblings, and my in-law siblings will soon take over as drivers of the bus, to maneuver through the curves and obstacles of what our current turbulent life has to offer us. We boomers are heartbroken to let go of the generation above us, those who’ve put their heart into investing our generation. If not already, they’ve handed over the wheel of trust to us. We can’t let them down, and we will get through the summits and valleys ahead.

At stake is everything right now, but when we stand tall, we will still have our country, our freedoms, and our sovereignty. Freedom is a precious gift we must hold dear. It can still slip from our fingers when we look the other way or have our voices censored. Our flag is an amazing symbol, along with all those who’ve died to fight for it. We’re not chattel who have to show “papers” to shop, travel, or eat at a restaurant. It’s happening in real time. Check out Australia, New Zealand, France, and the United Kingdom.

We’re at a crossroads of tyranny or freedom. We can’t "unsee" what’s about to put in front of us. We can feel it ramping up.  No more sleeping or blind trust.

In spite of everything that’s happening in the world,  I’m thankful for my family. They hold my spirit in their hands, and I hold theirs.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband and stepdaughter. She writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and Authors of the Flathead. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com 

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Coming in 2022!

When Aubrey Cenderon moves to Montana after the death of her father, the peace and quiet of Big Sky Country becomes complicated with a knock on the door from the sheriff. An injured grizzly bear is on the loose and it must be eliminated before it kills again. The sheriff's insistence that she buy a gun for protection will present Aubrey with some serious soul-searching, because the grizzly-on-the-run is hunting her too . . . for a different reason.

Travel Tale

By Courtney Pierce

Photo: Clash of the Titans

My 13-year-old stepdaughter rebelled about our recent move to Kalispell, Montana. She didn’t want to leave her friends, nor did she want to have to attend a new school. All her insecurities released like the Kraken. She even accused us of “ruining her childhood.” Personally, I love to relocate. It's a chance to explore, meet new friends, and break out of stale routines.

Then I told her what I did in my senior year in high school.

In the summer of 1976, my family moved from New Jersey to Northern California. For most parents, it would be unthinkable to relocate across the country prior to their kids entering their senior year in high school, but mine did without hesitation. My immediate reaction was, “What about my friends? What about my voice coach? What about Prom?” But deep down, I embraced the upside: adventure, new friends, a new voice coach, and prospects for a real boyfriend that didn’t know me through any embarrassing stages of growing up.

Moving allowed me to reinvent myself, wipe the slate clean, so to speak. I could start out as

a young adult, a California girl, just like in the Coke commercialsꟷblond, tan, my toes in the sand. I could experience life with the accompaniment of Beach Boys music.

Ahhh . . . gotta love the teenage imagination. And it only got better.

As a serious vocal student, I immediately won favor with the Performing Arts teachers at my new high school. These relationships also gave me the inside track to making friends. In short order, my new voice teacher presented me with an opportunity to audition for America’s Youth in Concert, a choir and orchestra whose members represented each state of the nation on a summer-long tour of Europe. I figured it was a long shot, but what the heck, so I sent in an audition tape.

My crude recording won me the spot of lyric soprano in the choir, and I would represent the state of California. After graduation, it would be off to Europe for me with my very first passport in hand.

We started the tour in New York's Carnegie Hall, then hopped over the pond to London, France, Austria, and Italy. While it was hard work performing every night, I had a blast. I gobbled up the living history of every city we visited, and I swore I saw the purported ghost that lurks in the circular hallways of London’s Royal Albert Hall. In Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, I imagined the Hunchback hiding out in the bell tower to listen to our performance. In Rome, I sang beneath Michelangelo's amazing painted ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. It was a life-changing experience. It also gave me independence and a work ethic for entering college.

I won’t kid you that the hard work balanced out with a huge amount of fun. At eighteen, my hormones were raging during my free time, especially if those off-hours involved a male foreign accent. By today’s standards, though, I was a goody-two-shoes, though, and I took my responsibility of state representation seriously. 

Forty-three years later, while packing for our move to Montana, I came across my photos and yearbook from that Europe trip, the summer of my life. I ended up sitting on the floor for nearly an hour while I relived so many long-forgotten moments of my younger and suppler days. Even after all this time, I’m still appreciative of the opportunity my parents afforded me.

As if by design, I found out that my stepdaughter’s new school in Montana will be sponsoring a trip to Europe during Spring Break of 2020. I signed her up for one of the twelve spots and surprised her with the news. She squealed like a stuck piglet at the county fair. Her trepidation about the move melted and, suddenly, Kalispell, Montana was a-okay  when attached with a 10-day trip to London. 

But I think it was more than the trip that won her over. My stepdaughter is now focused on the woman she thinks she'll be, not the girl she left behind. The trip will help her get to that place of confidence and independence, just like it did for me. And she's looking at Kalispell, Montana with new eyes, appreciating the beauty that surrounds her.

She skips rocks over the lake and sits with us on the porch

to watch the light-show from a thunderstorm. We gaze at the fiery stars. We run to the front window to marvel at the deer prancing across our driveway and anticipate our first sighting of a mountain lion or grizzly bear. Bald eagles and osprey circle overhead to hunt, and her Dad takes her to fish for bass in the lake while I make dinner.

I watch the two of them glide past the windows. She's going to be just fine.

I’ve come full circle. It's time to pay it forward. The opportunity that was afforded to me, I can now pass along to her. And thank goodness for Brexit, because the £175 that I have in my safe will still buy more than one round of fish and chips and several souvenirs.

Of course, the moving box of travel books had to be opened first. My stepdaughter has been poring through them for all the details of the Crown Jewels, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and chopped-off heads rolling on the dirt floor of the Tower of London. There will be much for her to take in when she goes to go to Oxford, Buckingham Palace, and sees a West End show in Piccadilly Circus.

It makes me squeal with delight, like that happy piglet, to do this for her. I'll never forget those stomach flutters as the plane lowered for a landing in London's Heathrow Airport. I was never the same kid again.

Photo: Micah Brooks

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband, stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Audiobook now Available!

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and

windtreepress.com 

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Available Now!
Book 3 of the
Dushane Sisters
Trilogy

The Dushane Sisters Trilogy concludes with Indigo Legacy, available now. There's love in the air for Olivia and Woody, but will family intrigue get in the way? Ride along for the wild trip that starts in a New York auction house and peaks in a mansion on Boston's Beacon Hill. 

The Dushane sisters finally get to the truth about their mother.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

One Small Step...

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 


Either I’ve been alive a very (very) long time, or history has been moving along pretty fast lately. I remember in history class noting the long times between any events of merit. Not so in my lifetime. I’ve seen the Berlin wall fall. Feared for my brother during the Vietnam War. Watched the once dreaded USSR split into pieces.

Selma isn’t just a movie to me. That march and other acts literally reset my future and changed the lives for many people like me. Then I had to live through the assassination of the man who helped spearhead those changes, Doctor Martin Luther King. That was followed by the assassination of a President and then his brother, a Presidential candidate. All this changed the way we Americans looked at each other.

I’ve seen things happen that people couldn’t even dream of when I was born. A Black man as president of the United States. And pretty soon there will be a Woman President (unless people actually do elect the very scary and unqualified man who preaches hate). I’ve also seen a man walk on the moon. It happened when I was young and full of the glory of science fiction. I’d seen Sputnik, heard President Kennedy vow to have the US lead the race to the moon. I loved him for that alone.

I prayed for Apollo 13 and when Neill Armstrong took his “One small step for man…” I stepped with him. I cried when I watched the Challenger disaster, feeling the same pain that an earlier generation felt when the Hindenburg erupted in flames. Last week I sang along as the lonely Curiosity Rover sang Happy Birthday to itself from its forever home on Mars. I was there for the early pessimism about the Hubble Space Telescope, and now enjoy seeing some of the great pictures it sends us about the reality of the universe we live in.

And I love authors who give me views of possible future realities. I’m not much into the dystopian sub-genre, but I love seeing visions of distant times and worlds that show advancement and an overall positive future. Maybe because too many of the changes I have lived through have been negative.

Nichelle Nichols was my goddess every week from 1966 to 1969. (She still is my goddess for that matter). Zoe Saldano carries the torch well, and I love Uhuru's relationship with Spock in the reboot.  I also love that Star Trek portrays a more positive future, where things get better and the human race evolves. There is no evil Empire of dark side of the force holding us back. That's why I will always be more Star Trek than Star Wars.

As much as I read and watch S/F, for now my own muse insists on remaining in the contemporary realm.  I get my future fix by reading stories Sword and Soul and Afrofuturism stories from authors like Balogun Ojetade, Alicia McCalla, Valjeanne Jeffers and Octavia Butler in books like:

Once Upon a Time in Afrika, a Sword and Soul tale by Balogun Ojetade, is full of magic, gods and demigods. This fairy tale like story tells about a beautiful and badass princess and her father, the king who sets up a tournament that brings on eager suitors, along with an evil war lord out to grab the princess.  Fortunately, the princess is more warrior than wimp, and perfectly capable of picking up her own sword to deal with danger.

 

 

Alicia McCalla mixes West African mythology and Norse mythology in her African Elemental series, to create a story with elements of horror to go along with the science fiction. The heroine is from an African pantheon, the hero a descendent of a Norse god, and they have to accept their calls to become the warriors they are destined to be in order to save their child from a violent predator

 

 

 

Diverse Energies is an anthology of  short fiction. The many stories involve  diverse group of young people - students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers. They are all pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another. (Okay, many of the stories do have a dystopian air to them after all). This is my go-to book when I want a quick fix of the future or of alternate realities

 

 

 

 

FYI - I teach a class to writers called Writing with Diversity.  During the class two of my all time favorite S/F stories for examples of different techniques. Both Babel-17, a novel by Samuel Delany, and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin, provide examples for two of the lessons:  Worldbuilding and Crafting Characters of  Color.

 

Curiosity ‘Pop Ins’ To Earlier Times

By Linda Lovely

In what time and place would I choose to live if I could time travel? That’s the question our blog poses this month.

I can honestly say I wouldn’t want to spend an entire lifetime in any earlier period. For the most part, women in the United States have more freedom now than at any time in history, and I wouldn’t want to give that up. I also can’t imagine being a man. So no permanent time-space relocation for me.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy “popping in” for a few choice years to experience select eras and cultures. My top pop-in choices are all within the geography of the current United States. 

Here they are:

For an idyllic childhood, I might pick life with the Iroquois in Upstate New York in the 1600s. Based on what I’ve read, the Iroquois let their children play, and women actually owned the family property. Life in Hawaii in the 1700s (before the Europeans brought disease and ideas about children being seen and not heard) also sounds rather idyllic. In both times and cultures, I’d have had great fun playing outdoors, and I wouldn't have been stuck in ridiculous clothes I couldn't get dirty.

For my twenties, I might want to land in San Francisco just prior to the 1849 Gold Rush and get caught up in the optimism and excitement of the era. However, the 1920s in Chicago are equally appealing. Of course, I’d be a flapper in the Jazz Age, and I wouldn't be a stranger to speakeasies.

As an octogenarian (hey, I’m not there yet), I think 1969 Anywhere USA would be appropriate. It would be amazing to see the first landing on the moon given that I’d grown up riding in a buggy before the first automobile.

Of course, there are also time periods I definitely would want to avoid. The Civil War (okay any war) and the Great Depression come to mind. Writers, however, embrace such times of societal trauma to add drama and depth to our stories.

FINALIST-Daphne Published
Historical Romantic Suspense

I set LIES: SECRETS CAN KILL, my recent romantic suspense, in 1938 because my mother had told me so many intriguing stories about the challenges everyone—but especially women—faced during this time. That made my heroine’s triumph over evil and injustice all the sweeter. 

While it might be fun to pop-in for the “good times” in history and then pop out again when things get rough, that’s likely not what would happen even if it were possible. The truth is it’s the people we love that make us happy. And, if I found love, friends and family in any era, I wouldn't willingly abandon them to jump to a more prosperous, exciting or peaceful era.

So, I guess I’ll stay right here and leave my historical forays to my books and imagination. How about you?

Learning My Own History: A Lesson for the Reluctant Researcher

Today Romancing the Genres is joined by Farrah Rochon, award-winning author of the popular Holmes Brothers series, hails from a small town just west of New Orleans. She has garnered much acclaim for her New York Sabers football series for Harlequin's Kimani Romance imprint. Farrah was named Shades of Romance Magazine's Best New Author of 2007, and her debut novel, Deliver Me, claimed the prize for Best Multicultural Romance Debut. She has been nominated for the prestigious RITA Award from Romance Writers of America and an RT BOOKReviews Reviewer's Choice Award. She spends way too much money on chocolate and Broadway shows.

Take it away, Farrah:

I love reading historical romance novels, absolutely adore them. But would I ever write one? Heck no. That’s way too much research for a lazy writer like myself. At least, that’s what I always told myself. Too bad my overactive imagination had other plans.

When I developed the story arc for my Bayou Dreams series with Harlequin Kimani Romance, I knew from the very beginning that, even though the series had a contemporary romance setting, the novels would have a strong historical bent. The central idea that drives the first story, A Forever Kind of Love, is the discovery of a stop on the Underground Railroad in one of the buildings on the town’s Main Street. Yes, it’s a fictional town, but in order to make it authentic, much research had to be done.

And that’s when things got interesting…

I knew I was surrounded by history. I live ten minutes from two world-renown antebellum plantation homes that are visited by thousands of history buffs every year. But it wasn’t until I ran across the Louisiana African American Historical Trail (http://www.astorylikenoother.com/) while conducting research for A Forever Kind of Love that I learned of the impact brave African Americans had on many of the sites around me.

Of the three stories in my original plan for the Bayou Dreams series (it has now blossomed into a potential five-book series), the third book, Yours Forever, which will be released this coming Tuesday, February 25, 2014 from Harlequin, has always been the one that I knew would rely most heavily on history. Even though I resisted it because of that very reason, this story is the one I looked most forward to writing. The heroine is a history professor from up north seeking information about her ancestors; the hero is a descendant of the sleepy southern town’s founder. I had the plot I wanted, but had no idea how to make it come to life.

An obscure academic paper written by a Loyola University history student saved my hind. Louisiana Black Women: An Ignored History tells the stories of several brave women of color, women like Marie Bernard Couvent, who helped to establish one of the first schools for black slave children. Once I read Marie’s story, I knew I had the foundation for Yours Forever.

The following scene is from Yours Forever. The story’s hero, Attorney Matthew Gauthier, gives the heroine, Professor Tamryn West, her first look at the newly discovered room on the Underground Railroad:

“I’m going to take Professor West on a short tour of the building so she can see the room that was unearthed last summer. If the attorney representing the school board’s health insurance calls early, please come and get me. It took weeks just to set up this call.”

He held the door open. “After you?” he said to Tamryn.

She slipped past him, then waited for him to lead her down a somewhat narrow paneled hallway. It was obvious that the building was old, but it was also well preserved.

“The room is still the equivalent of an archeological dig site,” Matt called over his shoulder. “It’s been roped off since it was confirmed that it is an actual stop on the Underground Railroad. I doubt I’ll ever get my entire building back.”

“It’s not yours anymore,” Tamryn said.

He stopped and turned. “Whose is it?”

“This type of history belongs to everyone. You can’t claim ownership anymore.”

“But I can pay the property tax on it?”

“Consider it your small part in preserving the past,” she said.

He shook his head, his soft chuckle reverberating in the air around her. “You sure you chose the right field of study, Professor West? Maybe you should have been an attorney.”

“Never once considered law,” she answered. “History is my...passion.” Tamryn’s voice trailed off as she stepped into the darkened room, her eyes trained on the far wall where another door was opened, but cordoned off by several strips of yellow caution tape.

She walked slowly up to the entrance, her lungs constricting as she came upon the tiny room. Tamryn brought trembling fingers to her lips, willing herself to keep it together. She’d vowed she was not going to cry.

But how could she not be overrun with emotion? Her great-great-great-grandmother had likely been in this very room--not as a slave fleeing to the freedom that awaited in the north, but as a conductor, assisting others on the Underground Railroad. Everything she’d uncovered over the years that she’d spent researching Adeline West indicated that she had ushered hundreds of slaves out of this area.

“Are you okay?”

Tamryn jumped at Matthew’s softly struck question. She hastily wiped at the moisture dampening her cheeks as she turned and smiled up at him.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t prepared for how this would affect me.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and hunched her shoulders. “I’ve seen dozens of sites like this, and I’m always overwhelmed.”

Connect with Farrah Rochon:
Website: www.farrahrochon.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/farrahrochonauthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/farrahrochon

Get Yours Forever from Harlequin Kimani Romance:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Heroes and Heroines in History

Hi everyone!
I am YA author B. A. Binns. How can it possibly be August already? But then any time is a good time to talk about heroes and heroines, real and fictional.

I began thinking about this post, I realized every book/hero/heroine that came to mind were historical novels I read during my college years and never forgot.

 I loved Désirée, by Annemarie Selinko. This book made a history hater (myself) actually do independent research on the material it contains. Because most of this unbeleivable story happens to be true. Désirée Clary, a merchants daughter, joins Napoleon's court when her sister marries Napoleon's brother. She is briefly engaged to Napoleon before marrying Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte the son of a tailor who rose throught the army from the rank of private to Marshall of France. Jean-Baptiste eventually became  Charles XIV John, King of Sweden and Norway (no war necessary, he is rich and the country is bankrupt so he buys the throne) then spends years living in fear of a revolution against him (it did happen in France, after all) becoming so paranoid the country does want to force him to abdicate--in favor of his son. Meanwhile Desiree remains in France and they live apart for years before she returns to Sweden to rule at his side.

Seriously, reality is stranger than fiction. 

This book inspired me to do something I never had before, study history of my own free will. The book was filled with real characters,including the title heroine. Maybe it was the idea of real people rising from common society into royalty, fighting real wars and having real loves, successes and sometimes failures, pulled me in.  Where are the Jean-Baptiste's of today?

The French husband and wife team Sergeanne Golon penned the Angelique series, the Harry Potter of my college years. The books followed the fictional Angelique from her childhood to her arranged marriage with Count Joffrey de Peyrac when she was seventeen. They quickly fell deeply in love and had two children before he was unjustly accused of a crime and burned at the stake.  In her twenties, the newly widowed Angelique did whatever it took to protect her children.  From one book to the next we watched her mature, refuse the advances of the king she relt responsible for Joffrey's death, become a diplomat, fight a rebellion, and join forces with a group of religious outcasts.

Then came Book 5, Angelique in Love, where she is reunited with Joffrey.  He had escaped execution, and built a new life as a pirate.  Embittered by his travails,  he wants nothing to do with her or his former life. And yet, once reunited, he can't stay away from her, and in the end love does conquer all. Joffrey is one of my heros because of the way he handled everything life had thrown at him from a childhood that left him with a crippled leg, to his efforts at acquiring knowledge of science and math that served to bring him power and alliances after his excape, to his undying love for Angelique.

The last two books in the series were never translated into English, largely over a disagreement between the author and publisher and the death of Serge Golon, Anne's husband.  I joined a Friends of Angelique fan club, and we kept in contact with Anne, hoping she would complete the series (she has even more adventures inside her head) and arrange for publication in English. A few years ago, after the club president died without ever learning what heppened next, I began learning French.

It was painful, but I completed the series with the now mature Angelique and her two grown sons, settled in Canada and helping Joffrey carve out his own empire with the help of local Indian tribes.  And she now has a set of twins to deal with in her mid-forties. Life goes on. That was the real joy of this hero and heroine, watching them grow up and grow old together, dealing with problems, falling apart and then coming together again, with a love that endured over decades.

Are there any special historical figures (real or fictional) that you have read about? Please comment and share, I'd love to hear ideas for new books.