Welcome Skyla Dawn Cameron to our Blog Tour This Week!

I asked fellow kitty-afficianado Skyla a non-cat related question recently:

You get to go back in time to talk to anyone you want about your latest book. Who do you go to, what do you ask them and what do you think they will tell you?

She had a very interesting repsonse. One that evoked so many images for me I have to read this book. Here's what she had to say:

I thought and thought and thought about this excellent question...and drew a blank. There are people from the past I’d love to talk to, but not about my books—more than likely about theirs. But then I don’t particularly live in reality most of the time, so why do I have to pick a “real” person from the past?



I’d go back just over three hundred years to speak to a seventeen year old Romanian girl named Ana, recently betrayed, killed, and turned into a vampire who, many years later, would be known as Zara Lain—the main character of my current series that begins with Bloodlines (and continued with Hunter this past August, with Lineage coming in February and Exhumed later next year). After awakening early and cannonballing pretty far on the crazy spectrum, she ended up locked in her maker’s basement in the hopes of her getting her back to sanity. Or, at the very least, to keep her from randomly slaughtering innocents for awhile.


I want to go to that basement, before she breaks out and kills a bunch of humans, when she’s angry and hurt and out of her freakin’ mind—and I’d tell her about her life now. True, she’s in the middle of conspiracies and secret societies and the apocalypse and several attempts on her life, which may sound like it all sucks. But I’d go into that basement—with her firmly secured to a chair or something, and maybe a big ol’ set of bars between us, and me armed with a stake and a flamethrower—sit down, set the books out before me, and tell her, “You’re going to be okay.


“Your heart is broken, but it will heal. Your identity is shattered, but you will build a new one. You’ve been betrayed, you will have your bloody revenge, and it won’t fix you, but building and growing and changing will repair some of the damage. You’ll make mistakes, and even when you think you’ve learned from them, you’ll make them again because that’s what everyone does. And that’s okay. You’ll learn to trust again—have faith in people, even some humans. You’ll be in love—maddening, schoolgirl-sighing-dreamily, will-probably-turn-angsty love. You’ll gain a sense of humour about injustices you’ve suffered. You will always get back up when knocked down. You are worth saving, even if you are unable to accept it. You will continue to be betrayed, you will continue to be hurt, and your heart might break again, but you will survive anything and everything, always.


“Ana is dead, but Zara lives on. And she’ll never let you down.”

Actually, I’d tell a whole lot of people that if I could.


I imagine Ana would respond with lots of incoherent ramblings, screaming, and general threats I won’t understand because she doesn’t speak English. But I would have to hope, somewhere, she’d remember it.


Then I’d ask Ana for some details about early eighteenth century Romania because history is not my forte and I keep getting stuck having to write flashback scenes. Ugh.


Thank you for having me, Regan!


About the Author: Award-winning author Skyla Dawn Cameron has been writing approximately forever. Her early storytelling days were spent acting out strange horror/fairy tales with the help of her many dolls, and little has changed except that she now keeps those stories on paper. She signed her first book contract at age twenty-one for River, a unique werewolf tale, which was released to critical and reader praise alike and won her the 2007 EPPIE Award for Best Fantasy. She now has multiple series on the go to keep her busy, which is great for her attention deficit disorder.


Skyla lives in Southern Ontario where she dabbles in art, is an avid gamer, and watches Buffy reruns. She’s naturally brunette, occasionally a redhead, and will probably go blonde again soon. If she ever becomes a grown-up, she wants to run her own pub, as well as become world dictator.


You can find her online at www.skyladawncameron.com, www.twitter.com/skyladawn, www.facebook.com/skyladawncameron


About Bloodlines: If you’re in her way, it sucks to be you.


After three hundred years of unlife, vampire Zara Lain has seemingly done it all, and she's now making a living as a successful thief-turned-assassin. Her newest assignment seems simple enough--kill the aging leader of the O'Connor Coven and his only heir, and she'll have another ten million in the bank.


But in the dangerous world of the supernatural, few things are ever “simple.”


When a massive assault decimates the continent's population of powerful witches and warlocks, and its orchestrator has vampires being hunted down and captured, Zara realizes the tables have turned and now she'll be playing the hero. Forced to join with a smart-mouthed fellow vampire, a demonologist who's also a fan of hers, a recently widowed—and frequently brooding—warlock, and her best friend's mom, Zara's grudgingly willing to do what she can to save the day.


If only people would stop ruining all her outfits.

Catch excerpts, fan art, the series in chronological order, free stories, and more at www.zaralain.com. 

Introducing Sharon Poppen! My Awe-struck Blog Tour Guest this Week!

Hi Regan, I’m so happy to be guest blogging at your site this week. I do love to write, but marketing, not so much. So, when these opportunities to connect with new readers in distant cities and even distant countries come alone, it’s a real treat. This past week has been a busy week for me with setting up book signings, arranging for sales tables at various sales venues and polishing up some workshop presentations that I will be moderating right after the first of the year. But, best of all, I’m finding time each day to ‘play’ with the charcters of The Band, my latest novel in progress. It is book number six in my series of the Farrell family, that debuted in my first novel After the War, Before the Peace. The first book began with the story of four Southern brothers just after the U.S. Civil War and The Band features their great, grandsons in the 1950s who have formed a rock and roll band. I have a seventh book in mind already. I just signed a contract for the first sequel, so I’m hoping readers will want to follow this family from generation to generation. Now, on to some questions from some fellow authors who have been along for this wild Awe-Struck authors blog tour.




Why do you write?

Because I enjoy it. I love playing ‘what if?’. My imagination has always been one of my most valuable treasures. Instead of dreading to have to ‘wait’ for something, I almost look forward to the opportunities when I’m at an airport, doctor’s office, bank line or at the dreaded DMV. My imagination can create a story about almost any of the people I see in those places. Just recently, I noticed a strikingly handsome man sitting alone in a restaurant. He was nervously checking his watch quite frequently and watching the entrance. He looked apprehensive, yet excited. I imagined him as a cheating spouse awaiting his equally cheating paramour to arrive. I had to edit my imagined story when a tall, handsome man arrived. After a warm hug, the man who had been waiting relaxed. The men sat down, but continued to share a smile while holding hands across the table. My dinner date arrived and my attention was diverted, but it had sure been a lot more fun writing my little story, wondering why my date was late. So, like I said, I love the ‘what if?’ possibilities of life.



How long have you been writing?

I started imaging stories as a child, especially when it came to playing paper dolls with my neighborhood girl friends. As I got older, I got busy with life, a husband and kids. After my divorce, I found myself with time on my hands after the kids went to bed. That’s when I started ‘listening’ to my Southern brothers tell me the story of their life after the U.S. civil war. I’d get out the old typewriter and pound out a few paragraphs here and there. I never shared it with anyone. When I was offered early retirement from the communications company I worked for, I took it. Then after a couple of years of 24 hour togetherness with my second husband, I knew I had to either kill him, get a job or go back to school. The first two options were fleeting moments of whimsy, but the school idea hit home. I enrolled in a local junior college and that’s when I began writing seriously. I had a couple of great Lit professors who felt I had some talent and urged me to get busy. My first published piece was a Haiku. I don’t enjoy poetry writing, but working with that genre really helps to learn how to be succinct and precise. So, I guess I’ve been writing seriously for about 15 years now.



What interests and hobbies do you have, aside from writing?

I love going to movies, most genres, except vampires and horror-for-horrors sake. I love to read, long saga type novels and almost always have a book in progress. I love to travel by RV. I don’t care for tours or cruises, but put me in an RV and on a backwoods, two-lane road, a campfire every night and I’m a happy camper. I love playing bunco and a couple times a month I like to head on over to the casino and play some keno.

What’s your goal for the next 5 years, writing career-wise?

I’m love to have all seven books of my After the War, Before the Peace saga become a hugely popular series and maybe even made into a TV mini-series. I’d love to see one of my books on the New York Times bestseller list. And, I’m still waiting for the call from Stephen Spielberg, Ron Howard or Penny Marshall to ask for the rights to film any one of my novels. Tee Hee. I can dream, can’t I?



Author Bio -

Sharon Poppen ( www.sharonpoppen.com ) has won awards from Arizona

Authors Assoc. and National League of American Pen Women. Her western novels

After the War, Before the Peace, Hannah and Abby-Finding More Than Gold are

available at Amazon Books, most web based book sellers and from her website.

Her work has appeared in such publications as A Flasher's Dozen, Desert

Treasures, Skive, Offerings from the Oasis, A Long Story Short, Apollo Lyre

and Laughter Loaf. Her workshops on Journaling, Short Story Writing and

Blogging bring rave reviews. Sharon is a member of Lake Havasu City Writer's

Group.



Book Blurb -

In 1897, Abby Barron, a young Irish-American girl, loses her cousin to a

fire and with him the plans to escape Chicago to search for gold in the Yukon

fields. A want ad for a cook revives the plan and she soon hires on with Paddy

and Tommy, a medicine-show man and his son.

Despite Abby's wanderlust and Tommy's desire to settle down, the two

fall in love. But it's a long road to fulfill Abby's dreams of reaching the Yukon--one

that tests the bonds of love and uncovers long-held family secrets.



Book Excerpt:

Eleven-year-old Liam was sitting at the kitchen table peering over an atlas. He called to his red-headed cousin. “Red, come here. Look.”

With tears in her eyes, Abby made her way over and slid into a chair next to him. The desolate ten-year-old had just lost her mother. The poor, young woman had died of pneumonia.

He reached over and patted her hand. “Abby, don’t cry now.”

She looked up. He never called her Abby; it was always Red. His eyes were a little glassy too, but he managed a smile.

“Look.” He pointed to a map of the world.

“Yes?”

He swept his hand across a centerfold map that spanned two large pages. “All this is out there for us.”

“What do you mean?” She sniffled.

“Well, you know how your Ma always talked about seeing the world.”

“Yes?” Abby started crying again.

“Come on, Abby. Listen.” He reached over and clumsily wiped her tears away with his big, awkward adolescent hands. “I’ve an idea.”

She sniffled and looked with trust into his eyes

“You and me will travel to all the places your Ma used to talk about.”

“How?” Abby was old enough to realize that her Ma had been a dreamer. The Barrons and the Moynahans were lace-curtain, Irish poor. They spent their lives trying to make a mean living; there was no time for frivolous travel. Her mother’s dreams had brought a measure of scorn from many of the neighbors. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of Aunt Kitty and Uncle Maudie, Lord knows where or how Abby and her mother would have lived. An unmarried woman with a child was a pariah in this close-knit Catholic community.

Liam smiled and set his jaw in that determined pose that always preceded his occasional streaks of stubbornness. He spoke to Abby’s eyes in a firm voice. “I don’t know yet.” Abby lowered her head. He lifted her chin and continued. “But, Abby, we’re going to do it. You and me.” His eyes challenged. “Have I ever let you down?”

She shook her head no. Then, despite her misery, she felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You won’t forget?”

He smiled broadly. “Forget you, Red?” He tousled her hair. “Not likely.” He turned and refocused on the atlas. “Come on. Look, here’s New York and here’s Washington where the president lives.” He swept his arm across a blue expanse. “And look here, Paris.” Soon the two of them were engrossed in the atlas and Abby’s healing began. The atlas became their bible over the years. As news events and school topics brought strange and exotic places into their lives, they found them on the map and often added them to their list of future destinations.



Website - www.sharonpoppen.com

Blog Site - http://poppensthoughtsonwritingandstuff.blogspot.com/

Email - poppen@citlink.net





List of Published Novels -

After the War, Before the Peace - Xlibris Publishing

Hannah - Virtual Tales Publishing

Abby-Finding More Than Gold - Awe-Struck Publishing

Welcome to Christine London!

I recently asked Christine one of my favorite questions:

You get to go back in time to talk to anyone you want about your latest book. Who do you go to, what do you ask them and what do you think they will tell you.

What a great question, Regan. Thanks for having me as guest today.

If I were to go back in time involving my work in progress to talk to someone about its theme, I would need to speak with someone who has already died. Perhaps the best person would be a relative as I know them most intimately and could therefore have the deepest interaction. I would ask them to tell me about the aftertime and what things they would have done to make their time here all the more meaningful. But then this is sad as it involves regrets and the past...

 

What I would prefer to have the power to do is to go forward and speak to someone after their passing about what they could have done, should have done to make their life all the richer—to bring love into this brief existence to compliment their already amazing success.

There is a man I know that has all the trapping of earthly success, but has not accepted one special person into his heart to enrich his life far beyond what all his earthly success has already brought him. To speak with him in future time might have the power to help him make better choices today. The power of salvation in this one and only lifetime is much more alluring to me than regrets.

 

My work in progress:

 

One More Day

 

"Cole Phillips was dead.

Four years later his wife Tara is without any answers.

Is a universe that so cruelly tore her husband from her actually capable of bestowing such a gift?

One More Day… "

A tale of the return to life of a man so sorely missed by his widow the power of her will alone causes a rift in the universe, and with it, an opportunity of which other have only dreamed.

It is a universal experience— to lose someone too young, too soon, without a proper goodbye...and the desire to have a few more precious hours together. In One More Day I explore the emotions and strength of love to overcome even the finality of death. What would be discussed, how would one pass the hours if they were given such a gift with the person who had meant the most to them in their life? How can they learn to move on?

And this man who lives now that I might wish to visit in the future hereafter—what would he say? What would I ask hm? What would he tell me?

"Now that you have accolades, success, worldwide travel and have participated in heart pounding activities and wonders most only dream of, what would you most liked to have experienced that you did not?"

 

His answer?

 

"I would allow myself to see what was right in front of me---love. That special person that could have shared all my success through her eyes and mine. My life is not too busy to welcome that kind of intimacy. Life shared, even with insane travel and time constraint IS possible. The richness of this intimacy is so much deeper than the adrenaline of the 'right now' because there are no tomorrows hereafter. And there is nothing more important than grabbing the 'brass ring' here and now."

 

I think that most of us assume we have many more opportunities, many more tomorrows to live our ultimate dream—to love an be loved. To have the gift of being able to speak to someone who does not have the joy of this intimate sharing in his life— in the light of the finality of the hereafter...now that would be profoundly powerful in changing his life—other's lives— here and now.

Leap Of Faith

Awe Struck Publishing

Now Available:

http://tinyurl.com/43w4ho7

Film student Faith Holmes is on an Italian holiday bought and paid for -- a familial inducement to finding an Italian husband. She wants none of it. Boredom and curiosity make for a volatile mix and Faith is lured into the heart of the island of Forio's exclusive international film festival not as guest, but crasher. Hollywood's premiere publicist Hunter Jameson has more than enough on his plate when his client, English film sensation Alex Winslow decides he's departing from the straight and narrow. One American party crasher should be the least of his worries. He has no idea that Alex’s growing feelings for Faith rival his own. The only thing for certain is his life will never be the same.

Bio:

Christine London was born in Chicago, Illinois, but left the long winters of the Midwest as a child to find her roots in the sun and charm of California, both North and South. Her adopted home became Great Britain when she spent a year of college in the east end of London with three male flat mates; one from each country on the main island. Her fascination and love affair with all things British has grown over the years, facilitated by summers spent trading houses.
 

Graduating from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Chris continued with family, teaching, singing in a jazz sextet and running foot races (and winning) before discovering her true passion….the romance and adventure of writing.
It took one Scot to awaken her poetic appreciation of Scotland's natural beauty, and another Scot to ignite her passion for writing. Thank you, gentlemen.

Meet Sue Roebuck! My Next Guest On Our Awe-struck Author Tour!

Hi Regan and thank you so much for having me today on Regan Taylor’s World. It’s great that we’re fellow Awe-Struck authors and I’m so enjoying this blog tour.

You gave me the chance to go back in time and meet one person and then asked who I’d like to meet and what I’d ask him or her about my latest work in progress.

I thought about this for ages because there are just so many people I’d like to speak to who are from the past. I can’t say I need to talk to anyone about my novel “Perfect Score” because although it’s set in the 1960’s and 70’s I was alive then and feel I got information pretty straight (excuse the pun). I currently have two works in progress – one a Novella called Hewhay Hall that will soon be on the market, but that’s a dark thriller. My full-length novel, When the Moon Fails, is set mostly in Portugal and harks back to an era before the Revolution (1974). I wouldn’t mind talking to a revolutionary – especially one who was imprisoned by the Secret Police (PIDE) during the difficult times. But no I won’t go there just yet.

Who I’d really really like to talk to is my Dad.

When I was a kid, my Dad was omniscient, infallible. Just there. Then when I was a hormone-fueled teenager, full of angst, thoughts of boys, and negatives, I didn’t think too much about him at all. Oh dear, that sounds terrible and makes me teary.

Since his death I’ve found out so much about him, yet – at the same time - have so little information. And that’s why I’d love to speak to him now. I want to know just who my father was.

He was only sixteen when the WWII broke out, and – probably by lying about his age – joined the Royal Air Force. Throughout the War, right to the end, he flew on the Lancaster bombers and a Dutch friend of mine who is a Navy officer and who saw my father’s log-books was astounded that he survived so many flying missions.

I do know my father had some hairy times. His Lancaster was caught in enemy fire one night and the wing caught fire. The crew carried knives in their socks because they’d rather kill themselves than be caught. But the pilot had two options – to try and limp to Sweden or to put the plane into a steep dive. He chose the latter and succeeded in extinguishing the fire so they managed to get back to England.

That’s my Dad I’m talking about – I’m so amazed because he was such a quiet, gentle man who never spoke about his experiences. I’ve seen photographs of him in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) – where he went on a troop ship on which conditions were abysmal and which was constantly under threat of being torpedoed. In the sunny photos he looks so happy and relaxed, posing with other officers, leaning against a Jeep and holding a mongoose.

How I’d love to know more about this wonderful man. Perhaps one day I’ll find a way of discovering something and then I’ll write a book about it.

A huge coincidence is that I work with two British women whose fathers were also in Ceylon with the RAF at exactly the same time as my father. But, like me, they’ve lost their fathers and their stories with them.

A friend who is an RAF Wing Commander at the moment with NATO saw my father’s portrait photo taken during the War and in which he’s wearing his uniform. After studying the photo for some time, my friend said, “Those were the boys who really knew how to go through it.”

Now onto literary matters!

“Perfect Score” (http://www.awe-struck.net/books/perfect_score.html) was published first as an e-book in Sept 2010 and then as a trade paperback in May 2010 and has been receiving great reviews.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Spring 1968

The wind blew straight off the frozen prairie and rattled the ill-fitting window panes in his hut. Sam opened one eye. Five am. Don't ask him how he knew. It wasn't the owl hoot, or the coyote yip, or the creek ice splitting, or even the cattle coughing that gave it away because these noises were constant throughout the night. He just knew it was time to get up.

He rolled out from under the warmth of an old moth-eaten wolf pelt and, without bothering to light his paraffin lamp, pulled on jeans and a stiff-with-wear plaid work-shirt. He laced up scruffy, ancient leather boots before finishing it all off with a green wool jacket.

I'll block those holes with creek mud, he thought as the wind whistled through the gaps in the raw-wood plank walls. He put his shoulder to the door. Oil for that too -- maybe Josh Pike had some in the barn.

He'd hardly put his left foot outside when snow seeped through a hole in the boot sole. Standing on one leg, he broke the ice in his ceramic sink, splashed the small amount of water pooled there on his face and drank a handful.

Six hours of shoveling hay and muck, he thought as his boots rang on the iced-up alkali path leading to the main yard. A Canadian goose hooted a teasing honk. Laugh all you want, birdie, Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. At least I'm not up to my butt in freezing water. Just my left foot. His hair blown horizontal, he bent into the biting wind and squinted through stinging hail as three yellow cow dogs rushed up the path, their tails whirling, breath white and freezing on their whiskers.  

"Can't find a darn cow dog when I want one," he'd heard Josh Pike complain the previous day.

"That's because they're always with the boy," Mrs. Pike responded. "Sam."

"But I feed 'em."

"Animals love Sam because he has such a kind face and everyone knows amber eyes make the animals feel lucky."

"Never heard such a load of horse poop in all my life," Josh Pike muttered, his eyes skimming his land.

The Pike place had pretensions to be a ranch but Sam didn't think it quite made it. Divided into three sections: a creek, steep terrain and some disordered pastures lying in a flood plain, the property bordered the much larger Raw Pines ranch next door. Josh Pike told Sam he'd worked the land for twenty years but, as far as Sam could see, with little to show for it except the old man's love for the place which was as rigid as the winter weather: driving stinging snowstorms that stank of rusty nails. And a wind that could blow a calf over.

Three hours later, the range in the distance just visible across the frozen prairie, Sam removed his jacket, hung it on a gate post and pondered his next task.

He took a closer look at the steer lying on its side, kicking its legs and bellowing as if Sam was about to knife it. Can't have been easy forcing your darned head through the rails in the fence, he mentally told it. He rolled his sleeves up, picked up an axe and got to work on the fence rail with several powerful swings, taking care not to jolt the animal's head.

"Cain't you smell that good air?" Josh Pike had clambered onto a section of the fence, unaware or uncaring that he was tossed up a few inches every time the axe hit the rail. He raised his weathered face to the watery sun with all the pleasure and leisure of a sunbather on a distant beach. "Have to punch the bastard to get him in the chute." He nodded at the struggling steer, his words jarring with each blow of the axe. "Yet he done puts his head through the fence happy as a flea. Takes some beatin' huh?"

Sam had no breath for words but Pike continued undeterred. "HBetcha we could show them folks you worked with in Silver Creek a thing or two, eh boy? On how to run a cattle ranch. Betcha learned more up here in this month than you did in the three years you were down there. Eh?" He leaned closer to Sam, his face alight as he waited for Sam's affirmative. "Eh?"

"Near…nearly," Sam gasped, referring to the fence.

With one final massive blow, the axe-head wobbled as it finally split the fence rail. Sam kicked at the steer's rump to encourage it up and watched it skitter back to the herd, still bellowing its woes.

"You reckon you could slaughter beef?"

"If…if I have to."

The old man nodded as if satisfied with the answer. "Make some people weep. So pretty."

Sam rubbed his hand over his face. Like so many conversations in his life, this one made no sense at all. Why was the old man leaping from subject to subject like a demented grasshopper? And what was pretty? The back end of the rapidly retreating steer or a slaughtered cow?

"The view," Josh Pike explained although Sam hadn't voiced his question. The old man nodded at the distant range where the peaks were shining pink like his bald pate. "And you know little guys like us can."

Sam raised his eyes to the gun-metal grey sky above them. Can what? Sam was the first to admit that even on a good day his own mind was at best in total disarray but it wasn't in the chaos Josh Pike's evidently was.

"Cry. Cry at the view." Josh spoke as if explaining to a first grader. "Little guys get away with it. Betcha bawled when you left your family in Silver Creek. Eh?"

Bawled? Cry? Sam stared at the farm owner in disbelief. Sure he'd been sorry to leave -- Silver Creek held all he loved. But cry? Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd cried. When did he last cry? He wracked his brains.

My blog: http://lauracea.blogspot.com

Twitter: @suemonte

Facebook: sueroebuck

Introducing Ann Tracy Marr

Our blog tour continues with my guest this week Ann Tracy Marr.  She writes about one of my absolute favorites -- Merlin! But with a very unique twist. Come and learn a bit more about my friend.

A longtime fan of Regency romance novels, Ann Tracy Marr spends her time dreaming of the perfect world--England's Regency era interwoven with the best of King Arthur's Camelot and Merlin's magic. Ann is a wife, mother, and computer consultant, fixing the stubborn beasts and teaching people how to tame them. Her background includes a college major in English and secretarial work, which she thankfully escaped.

To His Mistress, the third novel in Marr’s Banshee series, will appear in paperback October 25th.

Ann and I talked recently and she greeted me with -- Welcome to another week of kids back in school. Hip hip hooray for freedom. Kick back and relax; the grocery store can wait. You have earned a day of peace and quiet. 

 

I am Ann Tracy Marr, writer of a paranormal Regency romance series, and guest blogger for Regan Taylor today. I hope Regan is taking a break, but I bet she has her fingers tied to the keyboard. Regan has tremendous drive and the talent to back her up… she is a writer to keep track of. This week she is writing Sharon Poppen's blog: http://poppensthoughtsonwritingandstuff.blogspot.com/

The kids will come home eventually, so let’s get down to business. Regan asked me to answer a question: You have the chance to go back in time and meet one person. Who do you go to meet and what do you ask him or her about your latest work in progress? 

 

One person? Only one? Gee, let me think. I could track down Jesus, check if his beard is the way artists portray it, and ask… No, not Jesus. I don’t have the courage to ask him about a Regency romance. If I had written The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I could ask about life, the universe and everything, but the only thing I can ask Jesus is if I deserve to be on the New York Times Bestseller list. He probably wouldn’t answer.

So let’s go with the obvious. Picking any one person to consult about my Regency WIP, I would find Jane Austen and ask her if my plots ring true in Regency reality. Did I make any mistakes? If anyone knows about the Regency, it’s Jane Austen. She wrote Pride and Prejudice; she wore those fantastic long dresses and ate syllabub.

Unfortunately, I have a nagging suspicion that Jane would object vociferously to the paranormal aspect of my Regency romances. You see, in my Regencies, King Arthur is history. Arthur lived, built Camelot, and argued with Merlin. Then he died, Merlin disappeared, and life kept on living. Eventually, life got to the Regency era and while it’s mostly the way Jane Austen lived, there are a few differences in my books.

First, I have a lot more knights roaming around London; they have to sit at the Round Table and do all the things Parliament did for Jane Austen’s Britain because the Round Table rules the Isles. Then again, Jane might not care about knights or the government. She didn’t have anything to do with all those dukes and earls that populate most Regency romances. She mingled with plain Misters and Misses.

Do you suppose Jane would object to men saying “Bloody crystal cave” when they get mad, instead of “Bloody hell”? Because in my paranormal Regency world, people would rather swear to Arthur than to God. For some reason, that is the most obvious manifestation of a change in history. Thinking about it, it would be a waste of a question. Jane would object to any kind of swearing. 

 

I know Jane would approve of Sarah Frampton, the heroine of my next book, Keeper of the Grail. Sarah and Jane have quite a bit in common. Neither is a raving beauty and both do what needs doing to keep their families on an even keel. Of course, Jane’s family is a lot more stable than Sarah’s. Jane’s father isn’t an opium user, her sister isn’t a spoiled brat, and her brother didn’t steal the family’s valuable Fra Angelico painting. And proper Regency Jane would leave finding the painting to the menfolk, rather than looking for it herself, as Sarah does. 

 

Jane would like my hero, Sir Sloane Johnstone, knight or no knight. I can’t imagine anyone disliking Sloane. He’s that kind of guy. And underneath the easy-to-get-along-with exterior, Sloane hides a swashbuckling streak that would give any woman a thrill, Jane included.

You know what? If I could ask Jane Austen a question, I wouldn’t ask her about my WIP. What I really want to know is: 

 

Is it true that people kept a chamber pot in the dining room? Did anyone use it during dinner? Why? 

 

Jane would slam the door in my face.

~~~

Ann Tracy Marr writes award-winning paranormal Regency romances. Her books include: Thwarting Magic, Round Table Magician, and To His Mistress. Her latest, Keeper of the Grail, is in the works. A computer consultant in the Midwest, Marr lives with her husband, two cats, and plots that bounce off the wall. 

 

Visit her at www.anntracymarr.com

Buy her books at http://www.awe-struck.net/authors/ann_tracy_marr.html

My Blog Tour Guest This Week is Jennifer Cloud!

Jennifer and I are co-authors of Her Eyes, due out this fall with Awe-struck. More important she is one of my closest friends and some-time critic partner.

I asked her if she could go back in time to meet someone, anyone, and ask them about her current work in progress who would she go see, what would she ask them and what did she think they would say. Here's what she had to say:

I supposed with that sort of question I should come up with someone cool. Perhaps some long ago writer. Maybe I could talk to Hemingway or Fitzgerald. Catch an early Stephen King for his opinions on my work. Maybe I could talk to Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe.

I guess I could get religious and find out exactly what Jesus would do.

None of those came to mind when I first considered your question.I know this sounds incredibly dorky. The first person who came to mind was my grandmother. She died before ever reading a thing I've written. She was an avid reader too. I remember the wall behind her
bed being filled with books. They were stacked on the floor and went halfway up the wall like some bizarre decor. She read some horror but I seem to remember the old styled romance covers. You know the ones.

They were not so lovingly referred to as bodice rippers. She would fold back the pages and doze off with a book in one hand a a Kool cigarette in the other. She could be frightening when she had that cigarette. The ashes would get horribly long and usually fall before
ever getting close to an ashtray.

My grandmother was awesome. I always wanted to impress her although she never acted like I had to try. She would rent bad B horror VHS tapes for my cousins and myself to watch. She would order pizzas and sit right there with us no matter how bad the movie was.

I would love for her to read some of my work and give me her opinion. I'm sure it wouldn't be an honest one. She was biased when it came to her grandchildren. I would still love to know what she thought. I know she would've told me to go after my dreams.

You can learn more about Jennifer at www.Jennifercloud.com!