Tag Archives: historical romance

#AuthorInterview: #indie #writer @julidrevezzo discusses #historicalromance, #steampunk, and other #magic delights in #writing #standalones and #novelseries

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Good morning, fellow creatives! While I frantically put together my analysis of Aunt Maria for Witch Week, please welcome the magical Juli D. Revezzo, author of over a dozen novels of magic and love. Tell us a bit about yourself, please!

Hello, I’m Juli D. Revezzo. I write fantasy, fantasy romance, and historical romance. I’ve written The Antique Magic series, including its latest release, The Dragon’s Seamstress, the Celtic Stewards Chronicles, and several historical romances.

Your historical romances, like House of Dark Envy and Courting the Stationmaster’s Daughter, are set in the 18th and 19th centuries. What draws you to the Victorian and Gothic periods? What kind of research do you do to help you prepare for storytelling in the past?

Well, House of Dark Envy and Courting the Stationmaster’s Daughter are both set in the 19th century. My Gothic paranormal romance Lady of the Tarot is set in the 18th century and Fifty Measly Bucks, the 17th. I’ve also written in the Medieval periods–and one in World War II. 🙂 What draws me to the Victorian era, though, is… well, actually, I have a degree in Literature and from my early 20s have been reading Victorian lit through the lit of the mid-to-late 20th century ever since. And most of my biggest influences (sans Moorcock) are the writers of that era. I find the 19th century sense of wonder and drive for exploration particularly inspiring, they let their imaginations run wild (whoever thought we might travel faster than a horse?? Our 19th century ancestors, of course!), and that was for the most part, the birth of the fantasy genre, as well as the birth of women’s rights. So it’s a ready made hotbed of conflict.

Your time-travel novella Fifty Measly Bucks features protagonist Denver being caught up in the Salem Witch Trials. What would you consider to be the ethics of writing about historical figures?

There are none in my novels. Well, no. Not often, I should say. I’ll mention them, but I have a particular aversion to putting words in a real figure’s mouth. I don’t know why; I just always have. So, I write around them. I change names and invent characters to stand in for them. There might be gossip a figure overhears about such and such a real life character, but I always try to corroborate the gossip. If I can’t I don’t use it. The only time I ever have was in House of Dark Envy. My hero corresponds with Tesla (yes, the Tesla) and I struggled with that, until I found the tidbit that said “Tesla wrote hundreds of letters” so….why couldn’t he have correspondence with Felix? 🙂 Fifty Measly Bucks, though, I mentioned the judges and the girls (Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam, Jr.), but extended the period deliberately to push out having to involve the three girls–and made one character a friend of the girls…. I can’t explain much more than that without spoiling it. Everything in the book, though, happens because of that extension.

You recently published the fifth installment to your Antique Magic series, The Dragon’s Seamstress. Congratulations!

Thank you. I hope your readers will love The Dragon’s Seamstress. It was a different assignment for Caitlin and Trevor but I couldn’t resist? Who wouldn’t love having a dragon drop in for help? Its synopsis (because, why not? ;)) is as follows:

Since Caitlin and Trevor vowed to assist the Otherworld and opened their enchanted antique shop, they’ve seen many strange things. But now, someone comes in asking for a mundane item: kitschy “witches” brooms. Has their magical life returned to normal? 

As the couple prepares to host a family gathering, fate intervenes and something they’ve never seen before roars into their life: A creature out of Welsh legend and fantasy: A blundering, somewhat underdeveloped dragon—not at all the type of dragon they ever expected to meet.

Forced to undertake his unique challenge, Caitlin and Trevor are perplexed by his demands, but the magical beast is certain they are the only witches who can help him.  Doing so might unlock an ancient hidden secret. Refusing might destroy them.

This series has a unique episodic feel thanks to the profession of your protagonists Trevor and Caitlin, married owners of an antique shop that attracts gods, ghosts, and more. Earlier this year I discussed the writer’s problem of writing cliffhangers vs. standalones; do you feel having an episodic series is a strong compromise of giving readers more of the heroes they want without leaving them hanging when a book ends? (Gosh, I hope this question makes sense)

If I understand the question correctly, yes. Maybe? I do try to tie up the end of each tale. Caitlin always finds the answer to each client/sellers’ problem/mystery, book to book, but where the “episode” comes in is that their year progresses–or by this point, it’s been five years. 🙂 There’s a progression book to book of Trevor and Caitlin’s ages, their anniversary, the holidays. While there’s also two characters in school and their education advances, the biggest hold over is the Curse that hangs over the heads of Trevor’s family. So the question of why did that thing happen to his brother, sister, and mother casts a long shadow over the series, despite each wrapped-up happy ending. To my longtime readers, I know the answer to that question, and yes, you will be getting it soon.

That’s just a long way of saying, yes having an episodic series is a compromise, but more, I’ve done it because it felt right to continue following Caitlin’s life, in a linear progression. But finding where to cut without a cliffhanger is too much of a nuisance, so I’d rather have a clear end to the manuscript. Otherwise, the five books would still be in my computer, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

You write fantasy and steampunk as well, such as Watchmaker’s Heart. Do you find yourself doing the same kind of research as you do for historical romances, or do you toss history out the window and write the world as you wish? 🙂

A little bit of both. The thing about Steampunk is that it’s the aesthetics of our 19th century with the technology of…well? Star Trek but run on steam. So, as much as you get to have fun coming up with airships, gaslamps, and steampowered cars and weird robotic things, Queen Victoria is always in charge (unless there’s been some coup by we pesky Americans! ;)) and there’s always some 19th century cultural something or ‘nother going on. So, depending on what that cultural something is I want to noodle with, I’ll have to delve into the research lake. In Watchmaker’s Heart it was the mechanics of the underworld, as my hero is an ex-gang member trying to go straight, and I also had to do a little bit into the workings of the House of Commons for another character. With House of Dark Envy, again, that was such a time of technological exploration, and I had a readymade Steampunk feel in the work my hero (and in real life history of the time Tesla) were doing concerning DC and AC power, it was easy to just throw in some goggles and arcing magic Tesla beams. With a book like my faery tale-based/faery godmother story Changeling’s Crown…well, it was a mixture of faery tale setting and real world setting so that was fun to play with. Having castles on one hand, and cars and modern ranches and cell phones on the other. J And Caitlin even dips into the historical through the Antique Magic series, with the psychic trips the things in her antique shop sometimes spring on her. So far, she’s been hit with the prohibition era, the ‘60s,  Civil War battles, (due to a Civil War fort she lives near, and the ghost of Trevor’s ancestor from the 19th century who lives in their house and *cough* helps out more often than not), and the most recently, a glimpse of Medieval Wales.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, Juli! Let’s wrap up with one last craft question. How do you balance making demands on the reader with taking care of the reader?

Critique Partners! In series (like Antique Magic), it gets particularly sticky, as I try to explain as much as I think necessary, but I have to leave it up to my critique partners to let me know if more is needed. And even then, sometimes, we miss. Personally, I see no need to regurgitate the entire story in all books throughout a series; in fact, that bugs me to no end when I read other writers doing it. I’ve skipped more pages, and put more books I read down for that than I have for not understanding something in a series of which I neglected to read from the beginning.

But editors and cps seem to think differently, so I sometimes have to overcompensate to bring them up to speed. I hope I don’t bore the heck out of my longtime readers when they pick up a #x story, doing a recap, but if so, I hope they’ll forgive me. So, how do I balance it? Very carefully and not without pulling my hair out. 😉 So, The Dragon Seamstress, while it can stand alone, being the fifth time I’ve revisited the couple, is very much part of the series. I hope your readers will enjoy them all.

I’m sure they will, Juli, especially when you share of your novellas for FREE! That’s right, folks–you can get the ebook Caitlin’s Book of Shadows for free right now, at this very moment, instantly, today.

Click here to download!

Though their fame became legend, a rumor cropped up about the Fulmer family: Something terrifying stalked Caitlin and her beloved Trevor. Something the bits and pieces she left claimed she had to make sense of. When the curator of their collection finds Caitlin’s long forgotten diary, she wonders will it tell the whole tale? Will it tell why Caitlin seemed so determined to tell the difference between reality and nightmare? Why she thought herself a witch?

What will the holidays hold for Caitlin? Perhaps the answer lies between the lines of her story, one of lessons, struggles, and hopes for each new year.

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For more on Juli and her work, check out her website and Amazon page. You can also sign up for her newsletter here.

~STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK!~

We are diving deep into a world of witchcraft and waltzes, haunting melodies and dissonant sexes.

Blondie is also super excited to share a project she’s working on, and I might just have a spooky surprise or two in store for you before All Hallows’ Eve.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!

#Author #Interviews: #historicalromance #writer @ShehanneMoore discusses #character development, #series #writing, #research, & starting a #smallpress #publisher

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Shehanne Moore is a Scottish born author who writes gritty, witty, more risky than risqué, historical romance, set wherever takes her fancy–stories that detail the best and worst of human behaviour, as opposed to pouts and flounces. To celebrate the new release of two titles under her London Jewel Thieves series, I asked Shey to stop by and talk about how she creates such uniquely engaging characters and thrusts them into situations that promise spectacular fireworks.

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Let’s first begin with what you write—smart, sexy, historical fiction. You delve into various time periods with your books, such as the 9th century in The Viking and the Courtesan and the 19th century in Splendor. What process do you go through when choosing the right century for a story’s setting? That is, if Splendor took place in another century, would it still be the Splendor we know?
Probably not. The stories are influenced by the time, the characters too, although they don’t always abide by the constraints of them. Mind you Splendor would be a shopaholic , running up debts galore in any time because some things are timeless. She’d be having to manage everything too. So I guess a bit of both would be true. I generally stick to the Georgian/Regency period—it’s a sort of genre in own right. BUT I do like to dabble and I do spend time thinking of how I will set a book physically within that period, in terms of imagery etc.. There’s also things that happen when I write.

I mean there was never meant to be a Viking in The Viking and The Courtesan. That was a straight Regency. But then halfway through chapter two, the little voice whispered, ‘You know that Viking story idea you have, the one you’ve never really got the idea for the heroine ‘s goal in? How about you just use it here?’ Much as I want to ignore that little voice, I can’t.

Such a question should mean I ask you about research, too. I know you’re very passionate about your research to keep the period lifestyle true to history.  What’s your process in making the research phase as productive as possible?

You know people think I do a lot of research. I don’t . Too much can kill a story and read like a Wikipedia cut and pastes. At the end of the day I don’t want to know every detail of the time a story is set. I can read a history book for that. I want to read of the things that are universal. The things that stand the test of time. But I have always loved history, especially social history, ever since I can remember. I guess that’s what I have at my fingertips when I write. And of course, I will check a historical timeline detail where it is pertinent to a character, or setting, if I want a certain backdrop.

One thing I love about all your books is that these characters are layered with feeling. They desire, they hate, they aspire, they love, they fear. Your books are so, so much more than the “meet-cute” kinds of romances out there populated by characters with little more than a single quirk each. These characters can get downright wicked, like Devorlane Hawley in Loving Lady Lazuli. How do you bring together both light and dark natures into your characters to keep your stories compelling and un-put-downable?

Now Jean, it’s all right, I won’t set the dudes on you and the check is in the mail. You are way too kind. I just love characters. I want to write about the human condition and let’s face it sometimes it’s downright ugly. Okay, Devorlane Hawley, for example, page one, is not a man you would want to meet. He’s plainly gone to hell in a hand cart, is behaving outrageously and now he’s come into the dukedom because his older, perfect brother is dead, he’s for turfing out his sisters, his late mother’s ward, installing some floozie he’s scoured London to find and setting up a pleasure palace in the ancestral home. By page two/three he’s noticing that his home is nothing like he remembered, it’s a mess, his oldest sister is a drunk and that’s needling at what humanity he has, because it’s plain these years have been hard and the family have regrets. The fact is he’s the family black sheep, the man who made the kind of messes we can all make when we’re young. And that law-abiding, God fearing family let him go down for a crime he never committed, largely for  the sake of peace. By the end of chapter one he’s spotted the woman who did commit that crime and his goal instantly changes. Now he’s becoming the architect of his own doom in many ways.

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No-one’s all bad—I think it’s important to remember that when you write. But we are all flawed in some way, a bundle of contradictions, the sum and substance of our life experiences. That’s what I’m trying to blend. Ultimately underneath everything Devorlane Hawley isn’t a bad man. In some ways he’s man interrupted by his earlier experiences– and what has shaped his life since has been hardship and brutality. So the race is on then to see if he can become the man he could be, or are the flaws going to get in the way. I spend a lot of time peering through my fingers going… I wouldn’t have done that, to my characters when I write. AND I let them drive everything. I seriously never have any idea where a story is going next.

Yet another thing I dig (someday I’ll learn to write questions better), particularly where the  London Jewel Thieves are concerned, is that the series doesn’t just revolve around one heroine; rather, each book focuses on a different character of a group. I love how these different perspectives give us a richer look into their world, as well as fresh looks at characters we’ve met in the other books. Which heroine came to you first? Did she bring all the other thieves with her, or did they start telling you their own stories later on?

Good question. Actually the heroine of a short story I have yet to turn into a full length, came first. The idea was there of the jewel thief gang and being forced into stealing because for one reason or another they’ve fallen into the clutches of the man who runs this gang. BUT Cassidy Armstrong aka Sapphire from Loving Lady Lazuli came first in terms of the writing. Originally it was a standalone but as I wrote it, and I was working the background, I thought of that short story and the whole thing just fell into place. The idea of giving the women the name of a jewel, of the Starkadder Sisterhood, and of setting the books after the gang has broken up. So it’s about them having to find their feet by whatever means and keeping one step ahead when there’s prices on their heads.

Lastly, congratulations on beginning your own small press! I’m so excited to see what Black Wolf Books will bring to readers—your own books, and the books of other authors. You’ve been writing for publishers for a number of years, but now you are both publisher and writer. How would you say your earlier experience prepared you for this change? What’s been the biggest “culture shock,” as it were, with donning the publisher robe?

Thank you so much Jean and ALSO for having me here today AND congrats on your own forthcoming release. Sure to be a rip along read. I have wanted to set up Black Wolf Books for about four years now but life got in the way. But I’m there now. I think the writing industry is in a constant state of flux. When I first subbed back in 2012, you still went the traddy route. Yes there were self published books but not so many, nor the same amount of tools to do it. I mean Amazon makes it so damned easy actually now. I have a lot of experience in the writing business that goes way back before 2012 and I’ve been able to use most of it now.

I think the biggest shock…well learning curve was formatting for ebooks and for paperback. Amazon does make it easy I just got in a flap till I mastered it. I initially paid a formatter for the print version for Splendor. I was too scared to do it, in case I messed it up. But when it came back like a dog’s dinner, I stood at the foot of the mountain and told myself to get up there. That it wasn’t anything like the time I took over the editing and design of a magazine and didn’t know how to draw a text box…

Are you looking for submissions right now? If so, what kind and do you have
any guidelines to share?

Well we are not officially open in that I didn’t want swamped. I wanted to feel my way, get out my books, and the Mr’s book, before dealing with what could be an avalanche. And often I think publishers can take on way too many authors without concentrating on the ones they have. But we already have a signing of a YA author who has a trilogy. So I say to folks, contact me through my blog contact right now. And really so long as it’s good, I’m not laying down all kinds of conditions.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this is that I’ve seen a lot of authors get raw deals, not been able to get a book out cos it’s not fitting the mould, despite having books out. My aim in setting up BWB is to help authors. Believe me, I know how brutal this biz can be.

Lastly lastly I’m hoping you’ll allow the little Hamstah Dudes, that precocious batch of knowledgeable cuties  who share amazing author interviews & writing advice on your site, to come on over for a moment and have the last word, as they’ve been very good and patient all through our chat.

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Many thanks to Shey for sharing her experience and stories with us! And don’t worry, Hamstah Dudes–Blondie’s working on a Halloween picture just for you. Hopefully I can stop by Shey’s site to share it! 🙂

Shehanne still lives in Scotland with her husband Mr Shey. She has two daughters. When not writing intriguing, and of course, sizzling, historical romance, where goals and desires of sassy, unconventional heroines and ruthless men, mean worlds do collide, she fantasizes about cleaning the house, plays the odd musical instrument and loves what in any other country, would not be defined, as hill-walking.

She can also be found at
https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/
@ShehanneMoore
https://pinterest.com/shehanne

After visiting the lovely Lady Shey, I do hope you’ll check out FREE fiction for some weekend reading, or my novel that’s FREE with KindleUnlimited!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!