Guest Posts

We’re welcoming Sarah Kennedy, author of The Altarpiece, to the blog today.  I reviewed her novel yesterday (my review) and I really enjoyed it.  Of course the fact that it takes place during the reign of King Henry VIII and has to do with a priory certainly has a lot to do with that but aside from that the book is very well written and engaging.  Today Sarah joins us with a guest post entitled Talking History…

Every writer of historical fiction struggles with dialogue. Historical detail requires research, but it’s not terribly difficult to check up on yourself to make sure that the characters are wearing the right clothes and eating the foods appropriate to the time period. When people talk, though, the words need both to feel accurate and to be readable. Deciding where to modernize grammar, contractions, and syntax without violating the sense of being in the past is tricky—and there’s no key to doing it right.

When I was writing The Altarpiece, which is set in Tudor England, I had a notion of how people might have actually talked. I teach the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and I’ve read a lot of letters, legal documents, and literature from the period. Sometimes the language is surprising—I think of the student in my course on Early English Drama who, when we were acting out The Revenger’s Tragedy, encountered a character who calls his father “dad.” She stopped our in-class acting with a raised hand. “Dad?” she asked. “Did people back then really call their fathers ‘Dad’”? Well, apparently they did, though it seems startlingly modern to us. When Hamlet says, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” he’s speaking in a way that’s both deeply philosophical and completely modern. That is the question, after all, isn’t it? His uncle Claudius, who’s just taken over the throne, stops in the middle of a long speech about a political enemy and says, “So much for him.” It’s very modern-sounding, and if it’s acted right, audiences will burst out laughing. In a more sinister moment, when Othello demands of the villain Iago that he produce “the ocular proof” that Desdemona is “a whore,” audiences are often taken aback by what sounds like language from a recent legal whodunnit.

But readers of Renaissance literature stumble over the contraction “’a” for “he” and syntax like Hotspur’s complaint that a line on a map that gets into his territory “comes me cranking in” to mean “comes moving in on my space.”

Some novelists try to recreate this old diction by sprinkling words like “mayhap” and “’tis” into their dialogue without doing much else to make their characters talk like people from an earlier century. That’s one solution to the problem, though it seems too easy to me. Another is to throw historical diction and syntax to the proverbial winds and have characters talk like contemporary people. Hilary Mantel has chosen this route, and Philippa Gregory does it quite often. These are two very different writers—Mantel more interested in the nuances of character and Gregory more involved in the broad sweep of consequential events—but they have both gained a wide readership, partly, I think, because their dialogue is very readable.

When I started writing dialogue for historical characters, I was writing poetry, which imposes its own demands on dialogue. I was taken to task for inverting syntax in a poem about Biddy Early, the so-called Wise Woman of Clare. Another character said, “Say she’s a witch, / they still will . . . ” and a friend called this “Yoda-speak.” I defended my poem on the grounds that Yoda talks this way because the Star Wars writers and directors were trying to make him seem mythic through old-fashioned dialogue, but I could definitely see her point. I couldn’t, in a novel, just mess around with word order and call that historical dialogue.

I tried writing without contractions. This provided a more formal, removed sound, which to my ear rang a note of something far away in time, but English-speaking people have always used contractions. Without them, the dialogue sounded stilted and odd, especially after 85,000 words. And reading it aloud was impossible. I found myself dropping in contractions—I just couldn’t help it.

Sigh. I finally decided to take a middle road. I began to write in fairly natural modernish English. I say modern-ish because I tried to be faithful to certain expressions of the time without overdoing the antiquey-ness. My characters might say “Forgive me,” but they don’t say “Oh, sorry.” They could say “Maybe we’ll have rain and be saved from the drought,” but they would never say, “I wish we’d get a downpour, and fast, because the fields look so awful.” If they say that something is “awesome,” it had better be an event that inspires the kind of admiration usually reserved for God, and the only things that are “epic” are the works of Homer and Virgil.

I do find that when I read from The Altarpiece, I modernize the contractions even more, and I’ve been asked about this. I explain, as I do to my creative writing students, that listening is in some ways harder than reading. Listeners don’t get a second chance; they can’t go back and reread for clarity, so if there’s anything that needs explaining, it must be done before the reading begins. Dialogue goes by quickly, and I add contractions to let listeners comprehend more easily.

That said, I do get frustrated by writers who drop anachronistic words, references, and attitudes into their historical dialogue. Characters who predate Freud shouldn’t “project” their feelings, and if they are living before Copernicus, they shouldn’t speak trippingly of the earth turning around the sun. Did historical people understand psychology? Of course they did—just read any of Wyatt’s sonnets if you doubt it. Did people understand that the earth was round and not flat? Yes, they did, and Shakespeare puns on the name of the Globe Theatre frequently to link it to both the earth and the human head (where exactly is Hamlet’s “distracted globe”?). But neither Hamlet nor his creator would have talked about the heliocentric universe without enormous anxiety, and they wouldn’t have called it “anxiety.” “Doubt,” perhaps. “Skepticism,” maybe, or even “sin.”

So how does a writer know when to modernize and when to be strictly authentic? With clothing, food, medicine, means of travel, and belief rituals, authenticity is absolutely necessary. How people talk is a different matter. We inhabit two worlds when we open a piece of historical fiction, and we need a way to let our own time give way to that older one. Dialogue can provide that way, because it’s individual and flexible, as well as bound in a particular time and place. It’s the aspect of historical fiction that invites us into the minds and emotions of historical characters—and lets us live, love, suffer, and succeed right along with them.

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About The Altarpiece (from Knox Robinson Publishing)

It is 1535, and in the tumultuous years of King Henry VIII’s break from Rome, the religious houses of England are being seized by force. Twenty-year-old Catherine Havens is a foundling and the adopted daughter of the prioress of the Priory of Mount Grace in a small Yorkshire village. Catherine, like her adoptive mother, has a gift for healing, and she is widely sought and admired for her knowledge.

Catherine’s hopes for a place at court have been dashed by the king’s divorce, and she has reluctantly taken the veil. In the remote North, the nuns enjoy the freedoms unavailable to other women. England is their home, but the times have changed, and now the few remaining nuns dread the arrival of the priory’s new owner, Robert Overton. When the priory’s costly altarpiece goes missing, Catherine and her friend Ann Smith find themselves under increased suspicion.

King Henry VIII’s soldiers have not had their fill of destruction, and when they return to Mount Grace to destroy the priory, Catherine must choose between the sacred calling of her past and the man who may represent her country’s future.

Book one of The Cross and The Crown Series.

Read an excerpt
Buy at Amazon, Amazon Canada, and B&N

About Sarah Kennedy (from Knox Robinson Publishing)

Sarah Kennedy is a professor of English at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia and the author of seven books of poems.

She holds a PhD in Renaissance Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing.

Sarah has received grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts and is currently a contributing editor for Shenandoah.

Sarah will publish a series of novels with Knox Robinson centering around the sixteenth century closure of the monasteries and convents of England by King Henry VIII.

Sarah’s website
Find Sarah on Facebook

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada)

I have one copy of The Altarpiece by Sarah Kennedy to share with my readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• Tweet, share on Facebook, or Tweet for 2 extra entries.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on June 12/13.  Good luck!

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I’m pleased to welcome Corinna Chong, author of Belinda’s Rings to the blog today.  Belinda’s Rings is a coming of age story and I just adore those and simply can’t wait to read this one.  Corinna is joining us with a wonderful guest post on motherhood and her novel and just in time for Mother’s Day too! Enjoy…

My first novel, Belinda’s Rings, begins with a mishap involving a crowded supermarket, a rambunctious toddler named Squid, and a dirty diaper. It opens: “Squid’s got three mothers who can’t spank him.” As you might guess, ‘the joys of motherhood’ represents one of the major themes of my novel.

However, the mothers in this novel are far from conventional. This is the story of a precocious teenager named Grace who must struggle to keep her family together when her mother, Belinda, flies off on a trip to study crop circles in the English countryside. As the much older siblings of their six-year-old brother (nicknamed Squid), Grace and her sister take on a heavy responsibility for his upbringing, toeing the line between the roles of sister and mother.

Grace is not (technically) a mother. Neither am I. But as I was writing this novel, I was interested in exploring the complexities of motherhood – how the meaning of ‘mother’ can transcend strict definitions of ‘child-bearer’ and reflect the emotional and psychological ties between a caregiver and a child. In this book, being a mother is about being tied to a child by an invisible string – one that can be unraveled and pulled, beyond the door of the home, out into the world, tangling itself in trees and telephone poles, stretching across oceans and over mountains. Delicate as silk, but unbreakable. While Belinda might be perceived on the surface as a villain when she effectively abandons her children to live out a frivolous fantasy, her journey in fact becomes as much about her family as it is about herself; indeed, the two cannot be easily separated. And for Grace, even while in the throes of adolescence, her unique bond with her brother becomes a vital part of her self- discovery. The ability, even inescapability, of seeing a child as an extension of oneself, is what truly defines both Grace and Belinda as mothers.

What fascinates me most, however, is the courage that mothers must summon to look across the expanse and see their children so far away, mere dots on the edge of the landscape. As Grace eventually comes to realize,

To a mother, there’s nothing more nerve-wracking than realizing that your kid is an entirely separate person. You don’t even know it, but for the longest time you think of that kid as a part of you, like an extra arm or leg. But really, there’s a space between you and him that you’ll never be able to reach through. A no-man’s land. And that means that no matter what you do, your kid’s life is out of your control.

For Grace as well as Belinda, recognizing this space makes her no less a complete person; rather, she becomes infinitely more complex. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about mothers in writing this novel, it’s that they cannot be reduced, even as they drift further away. Our mothers are like planets, a shade brighter than the stars; they orbit around us always, yet carry on as part of some other, unknowable galaxy.

About Belinda’s Rings

Half-Asian teenager Grace (but she’d prefer it if you called her “Gray” instead) is dead set on becoming a marine biologist rather than being anything like her mother, Belinda. She’d leave that role to her sister Jess instead, who’s a supermom-in-the-making.

Belinda herself is somewhat obsessed as well, by crop circle books and imagery, and abruptly runs out on her family, flying across the Atlantic in order to study the real thing in the English countryside. Grace and her sister are left alone to take care of the house, their rapidly-deteriorating stepfather and their peculiar brother, Squid.

Belinda’s Rings links together the coming of age of a young biracial woman with the mid-life crisis of her mother. With warmth, kindness and a boisterous sense of humour Corinna Chong introduces us to two lovable and thoroughly original female protagonists: persnickety, precocious Grace, and her impractical, impulsive mother Belinda — very different women who nevertheless persistently circle back into each other’s hearts.

Read a Sample
Buy at: Amazon, Amazon Canada, and B&N

About Corinna Chong

Calgary-born Corinna Chong is a writer, editor, and graphic designer based out of Kelowna, B.C. Her writing has appeared in Grain, NoD, Echolocation and The Malahat Review. She currently teaches English Literature at Okanagan College and edits Ryga: A Journal of Provocations.

Stay up to date with Corinna Chong at her website, www.corinnachong.com, and on Facebook. All things NeWest can be found at www.newestpress.com.

Note: The publisher of this Belinda’s Rings, NeWest Press, just had a first-time novelist from their small publishing house win a major literary prize, the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour (for DANCE, GLADYS, DANCE). Check out the story here.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada)

I have one copy of Belinda’s Rings by Corinna Chong to share with my readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries follow my blog.  If you already do let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• Tweet, like on Facebook, or blog this giveaway for 3 entries.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, May 25/13.  Good luck!

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Today I’m pleased to welcome Christina Schwarz, author of The Edge of the Earth to the blog!  Christina is the author of the bestselling Drowning Ruth that had been an Oprah Book Club Pick.  Her newest novel The Edge of the Earth was released on April 2 and I’m actually just listening to it and it is a fantastic tale that I’m really enjoying.  I have always had a fascination with lighthouses and what life must be like living within such isolation so I was automatically drawn to this novel both by its cover and description.  I’m more than half way through listening to it now and it’s difficult to stop as I really want to know what life is going to bring the main character.  You can see my review next Wednesday but in the meantime I’ve got Christina here with a lovely guest post for you all to enjoy and be sure to enter for your chance to win a copy at the end of the post!

The Edge of the Earth feels to me like a return to Drowning Ruth in that it’s set in the past and has a somewhat Gothic feel. Immediately after Drowning Ruth, I felt I’d exhausted my store of words and my supply of the type of scenes that would convey that atmosphere of the past. I had to write a comedy and then a contemporary relationship novel, in part simply to refresh myself. But over those years, the well that contains my excitement in the past and my attraction to people who harbor dark secrets there refilled.

When I’m in the process of choosing the subject for a novel, my first consideration is to find an idea that will sustain me for the two years or more that I know it’ll take me to write a book. I have to feel that the dream I’m entering is so fascinating and full of surprising possibilities that I won’t get tired of thinking about it. For me, the past easily provides that sort endless interest, because you can never know for sure what happened or why.

I picked the end of the nineteenth century specifically, because I wanted a time when the lighthouse at which most of the book is set would be particularly isolated, when the only contact with the outside world would have to come from the sea, and when my characters would have to wait many months even for a letter. I also wanted the freedom of a time when a person without an extremely specialized education could be convinced that he might make a great scientific discovery just by observing and thinking about the world around him. I lucked out in that this also turned out to be a time in which women were beginning to think that perhaps they need not be entirely dependent on men. In fact, that they might require something other than a husband and children to fulfill themselves. This is the period in which Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening and Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, stories that, like mine, explore what happens when a woman feels powerfully that she can’t fit into the form society prescribed by society. Certainly society’s bounds have changed since the end of the nineteenth century, but the notion of having to buck expectations to remain true to oneself is timeless.

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About The Edge of the Earth (from Simon & Schuster)

In 1898, a woman forsakes the comfort of home and family for a love that takes her to a remote lighthouse on the wild coast of California. What she finds at the edge of the earth, hidden between the sea and the fog, will change her life irrevocably.

Trudy, who can argue Kant over dinner and play a respectable portion of Mozart’s Serenade in G major, has been raised to marry her childhood friend and assume a life of bourgeois comfort in Milwaukee. She knows she should be pleased, but she’s restless instead, yearning for something she lacks even the vocabulary to articulate. When she falls in love with enigmatic and ambitious Oskar, she believes she’s found her escape from the banality of her preordained life.

But escape turns out to be more fraught than Trudy had imagined. Alienated from family and friends, the couple moves across the country to take a job at a lighthouse at Point Lucia, California—an unnervingly isolated outcropping, trapped between the ocean and hundreds of miles of inaccessible wilderness. There they meet the light station’s only inhabitants—the formidable and guarded Crawleys. In this unfamiliar place, Trudy will find that nothing is as she might have predicted, especially after she discovers what hides among the rocks.

Gorgeously detailed, swiftly paced, and anchored in the dramatic geography of the remote and eternally mesmerizing Big Sur, The Edge of the Earth is a magical story of secrets and self-transformation, ruses and rebirths. Christina Schwarz, celebrated for her rich evocation of place and vivid, unpredictable characters, has spun another haunting and unforgettable tale.

Reading Group Guide
Buy at: Simon & Schuster, Amazon, Amazon Canada, B&N, and IndieBound

About Christina Schwarz (from Simon & Schuster)

Christina Schwarz is the author of three previous novels, including Oprah Book Club pick Drowning Ruth. Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, she lives in Southern California.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US only)

I have one copy of The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz to share with my US readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries follow my blog.  If you do just let me know and I’ll pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• Tweet, like on Facebook, or Blog this giveaway for 3 entries.

This giveaway is open to US residents only (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, April 27/13.  Good luck!

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Today I have Menna van Praag, author of The House at the End of Hope Street releasing today here at the blog with a really terrific guest post for us to enjoy.  This book sounds absolutely delightful and I can’t wait to delve into my copy plus I love the cover – it’s so pretty!  It is being said that this novel will appeal to fans of Sarah Addison Allen and I’m a huge fan of hers so I’m anxious to see if I may just find myself another favorite author to enjoy.  For now please enjoy Menna’s guest post entitled Life Lessons from Famous Women Who Went Before Us…

Being a writer can be a pretty lonely business. You spend so many hours inside your own head and, instead of chatting to colleagues during coffee breaks, you browse the internet or pace your office trying to solve the latest plot point problem. At least, I do. Once I’m deep into the first draft, the characters provide company and connection of sorts. But, of course, your relationship with them is rather one-sided. They might speak to you while you’re writing Perhaps it was this loneliness that led me to populate my new novel, The House at the End of Hope Street, with the spirits of late, great literary heroines.

As soon as I started researching these women: Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, George Elliot, Beatrix Potter, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Doris Lessing, Agatha Christie . . . I stopped feeling lonely. Their spirits filled my writing room. I started hearing their voices in my head. They visited me with words of wisdom at random moments. I lived with them all for a few years and learned a lot.

It doesn’t matter that women a hundred years ago led such different lives from us, in so many ways, because our similarities are still much greater than our differences. When I was a young writer, just starting out on my journey, I didn’t know any other writers so I read the biographies and quotes of those I admired. Last year I became a mother for the first time and, needing to know how to balance motherhood and writing, I consulted my muses again. It was very enlightening. So much so that now I have a new writing project: 99 Days to Fulfill a Dream. Every day I pick an inspiring quote and write about how it can help you to fulfill any life dream you want to fulfill!

Ten Pearls of Wisdom from Ten Great Women

• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Agatha Christie

Do one thing today that will take you closer to your dream. Write a line or two, for example. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good or not, the only thing that matters is that you do it.

• “Avoid looking forward or backward. Keep looking upward.” — Charlotte Brontë

Don’t think about what you haven’t yet done or how much you have yet to do. Stay in the moment. “Failures” of the past and fears of the future don’t exist – focus on your hopes and inspiration and forget everything else.

• “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” — Virginia Woolf

Don’t add metaphorical glitter and bows in order to shine because you think what you’re doing isn’t enough. People fall in love with something when the heart that created it resonates with their own. You don’t need to dress up your heart.

• “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” — Sylvia Plath

Self-doubt is second-guessing the outside world. It’s assuming that you have to be better and/or different to succeed. But you don’t have to be Shakespeare/Picasso/Mozart/Meryl Streep in order to find your niche in the world. Do what you love and it’s very likely you’ll find others who love what you do.

• “Never complain, never explain.” — Dorothy Parker

While you’re travelling the bumpy road towards your dreams it takes discipline not to complain or explain yourself to others but it’s well worth it. Complaining undermines your passion. Explaining often diminishes your self-belief. To succeed you need all the passion and self-belief you can get!

• “Starting out to make money is the greatest mistake in life. Do what you feel you have a flair for doing and, if you are good enough at it, the money will come.” — Greer Garson

It’s the doing of a thing – not the results it brings – that makes you truly happy, that feeds your soul and sparks up your spirit. So, unless you’d do it anyway for free, don’t do it.

• “We’ve got to believe in our beautiful impossible blueprints.” — Doris Lessing

While pregnant I realised how crazy it is when we don’t believe in ourselves. Because, no matter how impossible your dreams may seem, it can’t come close to the apparent impossibility of creating life. Compared to that, publishing a novel – or whatever you dream of – is simplicity itself!

• “I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.” — Elizabeth Taylor

Courage is the first thing. Without it nothing is possible. With it everything is possible. Things you can’t yet imagine. Being afraid leads to shrunken life, being fearless leads to a magnificent life.

• “Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.” — Daphne du Maurier

To be happy for no reason at all, to be happy with yourself just as you are, is essential. Don’t be fooled into thinking that, if you’re not happy now then fulfilling your dreams will suddenly bring you happiness. It doesn’t work like that.

• “Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.” — Beatrix Potter

Life is hard without faith, achieving your dreams even harder. During those dark nights of the soul, when it seems as though you’ll never succeed, you need a little faith to see you through. Without it, you’ll give up at the first hurdle. With it, you’ll be leaping over the last.

© 2013 Menna van Praag, author of The House at the End of Hope Street

About The House at the End of Hope Street

A magical novel about an enchanted house that offers refuge to women in their time of need

Knocked off-kilter by the Worst Event of Her Life, Alba Ashby finds herself in front of a house in Cambridge, England, that she’s never seen before. There, a beautiful older woman invites her to stay on the house’s usual conditions — she’ll have ninety-nine nights, and no more, to turn her life around. With nothing left to lose, Alba takes a chance and moves in.

She soon discovers that 11 Hope Street is no ordinary house. Past residents have included Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Parker, who have hung around to help newcomers — literally, in talking portraits on the wall. Here Alba begins a journey that will heal her wounds — and maybe even save her life.

The House at the End of Hope Street is a charming, whimsical novel of hope and feminine wisdom that is sure to appeal to fans of bestselling authors Jasper Fforde, Lev Grossman, and especially Sarah Addison Allen.

Buy at Amazon, Amazon Canada, B&N, and IndieBound

About the Author

Menna van Praag, author of The House at the End of Hope Street, is a freelance writer, journalist and Oxford graduate. She is also the author of Men, Money and Chocolate, an international success, already translated into twenty-six languages. She lives in Cambridge, England, with her husband and son.

For more information please visit http://www.mennavanpraag.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada)

I have one copy of The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag to share with my readers.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
• Tweet, like on Facebook, or Blog for 3 entries!

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, April 20/13.  Good luck!

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Let’s all welcome Suzi Davis, author of Sapphire Sun, which I reviewed yesterday (my review) on the blog to Peeking Between the Pages.  I have enjoyed all the books in The Lost Magic Series: Amber Frost, Silver Dew, and Sapphire Sun and I’m hoping there will be at least one more.  Suzi was nice enough to take the time to write up a guest post for us today entitled Just Fiction? …

I am often asked about the inspiration behind The Lost Magic series but it would actually be easier for me to answer with what didn’t inspire me than what did. These books are composites of all the different aspects of my life, dreams, experiences and my over-active imagination. There are certainly aspects of reality intertwined within the story but overall, it’s just my imagination – it’s just fiction. No one seems satisfied with this answer though.

A close friend once announced to me that it was obvious to her that Sebastian “is really” my husband. This made me giggle. It still makes me smile. I couldn’t imagine my husband saying or doing half the things Sebastian does, even though I love them both. But I must admit that the close bond I share with my hubbie (who I’ve been in a relationship with since I was 18!) has certainly influenced parts of The Lost Magic series. The characters in my books represent no one I know specifically and yet everyone I have ever met. There are fragments of myself and all my experiences in every single character in these books. But who “are” these characters in real life? They’re no one. It’s just fiction – right?

People sometimes have difficulty separating real actors from the characters that they play. In this way, I think many people also struggle to separate the real from the imagined in fiction. On some level, mustn’t we all believe that what we are reading might be real? Would we be able to buy into books the way that we do otherwise? The best books are the ones you find yourself emotionally invested in, the books that you dream about, the ones that you wish were real. Or at least, it’s that way for me.

I was once surprised when an acquaintance told me that he wouldn’t read my books because they went against his religious beliefs. Yes, I’m dropping the taboo “R-bomb” in this post but I think it’s an interesting discussion, so hear me out. We all have our different beliefs and I am by no means criticizing another person’s faith or conviction. I wasn’t disappointed in this person but I was surprised. Just because I have written a story about magic, reincarnation, spells, spirits and past lives, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I believe in all these things or that I expect my readers to. It’s fiction. BUT because I hope to have written good fiction, I also hope that my readers can believe these things exist in Gracelynn and Sebastian’s world. I want the possibilities to feel real within the story, inside the books. I want the characters to feel so life-like that people have to assume these characters exist somewhere in the real world. So really, I should be flattered when people assume that there’s more truth to my stories than there is. But, when it comes down to it, the characters and storylines are just fiction, as are some of the concepts and ideas. The emotions though, they can be real. And that is what I hope my readers will enjoy most about my books.

Thank you so much Suzi!  For me stories are supposed to take me away to another place and time and that’s what I love about what you write because that’s exactly what your books do for me!

About Sapphire Sun

You can’t escape the past. You can try to forget but it never truly leaves you. It is a part of who are you are; it has shaped you, it will shape your future. It is the shadow behind you. You can’t outrun it, you can’t hide from it or deny it – the past will always exist. Who you once were is still a part of who you are today. This, I now understand.

My name is Gracelynn Stevenson. I tried to destroy The Lost Magic. I tried to erase the past. I tried to make things go back to the way that they once were. I failed. And now all the happiness I thought I had found, has been lost to the shadows…

Buy at Amazon, Amazon Canada, and Nook

About Suzi Davis

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I am a 28 year old British-born, Canadian writer and artist. I have a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts, a certificate in Special Education Assistance and I am working towards a Masters degree in Educational Psychology. I live in a small town on Vancouver Island (in British Columbia) with my husband and 2 year old son.

I love and live to write. I’ve been writing stories and poetry for as long as I can remember but in recent years my focus has centered on writing Young Adult and Teen novels. This genre allows me to explore such high-interest subject matter as relationships between families, friends, young lovers and more. I have many fond memories of my own teenaged-years and love to delve back into that magical time when every experience is new, fresh, and emotionally charged. I have a specific love of detailing the dynamics of the relationships between my characters and exploring their emotional growth. I am also interested in writing about the supernatural; there is always an added element of magical fantasy to whatever tale I spin.

I feel that my trademark writing style lies within my realistic characters that take on a life of their own beyond the words written on each page. My artistic inclination is evident in the vivid descriptions I provide of the beautiful, natural settings (usually on the West Coast of Canada) in which my stories take place. I try to employ my wit, poetic sensibilities, and sense of humor in my writing to both entertain and intrigue readers, making my novels impossible to put down. My goal is to take readers on an exciting, emotional journey through fast-paced plots full of surprises, twists and turns.

I love to write – there’s nothing I’d rather do, and I think my passion for writing is evident in the high-quality, exciting and endearing stories that I tell. I hope you enjoy what you read and I encourage all of my readers to contact me with any and all opinions, reviews, questions and comments you may have. I find one of the greatest pleasures in writing is connecting with my audience. I will always read every comment I receive and will try my best to respond when and where I can!

Suzi’s website
Suzi on Facebook
Follow Suzi on Twitter

GIVEAWAY DETAILS (US/Canada – eBooks of Complete Series or Paperback of 1st in Series)

You can either choose all three of the eBooks:  Amber Frost, Silver Dew, and Sapphire Sun OR a paperback copy of the first in the series- Amber Frost if you if your name is chosen in this giveaway.  To enter…

• For 1 entry leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
• For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do just let me know so I can pass the entry on to you as well.
• Tweet, Post on Facebook, or Blog for 3 entries.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents and I’ll draw for the winner on Saturday, March 16/13.  Good luck!

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