by Roseanna White | Nov 21, 2016 | Holidays, Word of the Week
A couple weeks ago, my daughter asked why the animal is called a turkey and if it had anything to do with the country. I, naturally, said, “I don’t think so . . . I’ll look it up.”
Look it up I did–and quickly discovered that I was quite wrong with that “I don’t think so.”
So historically, there are two different birds identified as both guinea fowl and turkey, both from the mid-1500s. The guinea fowl was introduced to Europe from Madagascar via Turkey; the second, the larger North American bird, was domesticated by the Atzecs, introduced to Spain by the conquistadors, and then spread to wider Europe. The two animals were mistakenly thought to be related, and so both were called by both names.
Eventually they realized they were not related . . . and they mistakenly kept the name turkey for the one from North America rather than the one from Africa!
Ever wonder what they call the animal in Turkey? Hindi, which literally means “India”–based on the common-at-the-time misconception that the new world was India.
Poor mis-named critter. 😉 Gobble, gobble!
by Roseanna White | Nov 16, 2016 | Cover Designs
It’s been a while since I’ve gone behind the design, and this week one of my designs just released, so it seems like a great time to feature it. =)
Forgiven is author Carol Ashby’s debut novel–an impeccably researched tale of love in first century Judea. Obviously I was excited to work with Carol, this being one of my favorite genres and settings. And as I worked with her, I quickly discovered that Carol knows her history very well. If you check out her website, you’ll find a TON of extras on the history.
For the cover of this first book in her Light in the Empire Series, she wanted something that showed her Messianic Jewish heroine, her Roman centurion hero, and the distance/tension between the two.
Now, there aren’t a ton of stock photos out there with women in biblical era dress. Trust me. I’ve searched and searched for it. And I wanted to give Carol something very unique for her cover. So rather than go with one of the photos of a woman in a head scarf that I’m seeing on covers everywhere, I actually started here.
Now, there are a lot of things wrong with this photo. Her jewelry. Her makeup. The fact that the sash crosses over her chest. The shoes. The dress has no sleeves. And she’s not wearing a head covering at all.
But thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I could turn her into this:
How? Honestly, it took a lot of work. I started by cleaning the makeup off her face and duplicating some of the folds of the dress to create a v-neck. In this version, I’d also used the fabulous clone-stamp and smudge tools to eliminate the jewelry.
Changing the sash to red, per the author’s instructions, was actually quite easy–red is one of those colors that you can add with a few clicks in Photoshop, but which it’s a pain to try to get rid of.
Of course, our Rachel here needed sleeves too. So I added those by copying and reshaping parts of the dress, and then changing their transparency.
And then the veil. For this, I actually borrowed a veil from a lovely Indian model…
Did a bit of adjusting, of course, and got this:
The only thing left to change was her shoe. It was a pretty simple matter of switching out the original toe —
with one in a sandal.
At this point I was happy with Rachel, and it was time to turn to the hero, Lucius.
Oh. My. Gracious. He was complicated. Why? Because no stock photos have centurion garb right, and the author is a stickler for authenticity (understandably!), so I had to do a LOT of manipulation and combining of photos.
So I started with this guy…
Used the leather bottom part of this guy…
The face of this guy…
And then had to give him a scar from this lovely fellow.
The author actually has a collection of swords and daggers (or her son does, anyway), so she provided the photo of the appropriate weaponry to have at his side.
Putting him all together (and off-setting for correct positioning on the cover), we get this.
Now we had our characters, so it was time to turn to the background. I wanted to keep part of the stone archway Rachel is leaning on–I loved how it framed the cover, and it gave a nice old-world vibe. But to have stone completely behind her as in the original photo was too dark and boring. So I took out that back wall and replaced it with a view of the Galilean countryside.
So here’s our complete picture, minus the words.
For the title, I combined two fonts (Cinzel Decorative and Maphylla) and used a cool design to set it off.
I echoed the design behind the series title up top, added the author name in one of my go-to, favorite fonts (Linux Libertine) and voila!
When it came time to do the full cover, I went RED. It echoed both his cape and her sash, which I loved. I did a fairly simple combination of red with that archway, and framed the text within it.
So here’s the official blurb!
Are some wounds
too deep to forgive?
With a ruthless father who murdered for the family inheritance, Marcus Drusus plans to do the same. In AD 122, Marcus follows his brother Lucius to Judaea and plots to frame a zealot for his older brother’s death. But the plan goes awry, and Lucius is rescued by a Messianic Jewish woman. Her oldest brother is a zealot and a Roman soldier killed her twin, but Rachel still persuades her father Joseph to put his love for Jesus above his anger with Rome and hide Lucius until he heals.
Rachel cares for the enemy, and more than broken bones heal as duty turns to love. Lucius embraces Joseph’s faith in Jesus, but sharing a faith doesn’t heal all wounds. Even before revealed secrets slice open old scars, Joseph wants no Roman son-in-law. With Rachel’s zealot brother suspecting he’s a Roman officer and his own brother planning to kill him when he returns, can Lucius survive long enough to change Joseph’s mind?
Sounds great, doesn’t it? I read little bits and pieces while I was laying out the interior, and let’s just say it’s a book I’m looking forward to purchasing and reading when I have some time!
You can find the digital on Amazon now, and the paperback will be available November 20.
by Roseanna White | Nov 15, 2016 | Giveaways and Contests
Wanted to share some fun, and a chance to win some A-MAZING books.
I’ve teamed up with 55 other authors this month to bring you a pretty fantabulous giveaway featuring inspirational historical fiction. You have
the chance to enter to win all of the books PLUS a Kindle Fire!
This means a chance to read my latest, Giver of Wonders, plus
books from amazing authors like Elizabeth Camden, Tracy Higley, Suzanne
Woods Fisher, Mary Connealy, Leslie Gould, and so many more I can’t
begin to name them all!
Enter the giveaway by clicking here: bit.ly/historical-inspy
by Roseanna White | Nov 14, 2016 | Word of the Week
Quick word of the week today, and musical, since I just finished writing A Song Unheard. 😉
In today’s vernacular, upbeat means “with a positive mood”–but this is a rather modern connotation, only dating back to about 1947. It’s thought to have come from the phrase on the upbeat, which meant “improving, getting better.”
This does indeed come from the musical idea that a conductor’s baton is raised during a given beat in a measure (the denotation which is also rather modern, dating only to 1869)–however this beat in a measure isn’t particularly positive by nature or anything. It gained a “happy” connotation simply because it sounded optimistic. My kind of reasoning, LOL.
by Roseanna White | Nov 10, 2016 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Well, here we are, on the other side of the election. The results are in, the new president is declared, and some less-than-peaceful protests are under way. I have friends who are gloating, friends who are weeping, and friends (the vast majority) who say something along the lines of, “God is in control. He put who He wanted in the White House.”
Um . . . er . . .
This has been rubbing me wrong for months, every time that’s someone’s reaction to the election. I’ve been letting it churn around inside my little head, trying to pinpoint why. But I think it comes down to this:
Free will.
God is in control, yes. God is capable of doing anything, yes. But God also gave us that beautiful free will thing, right? We can’t say, “Well obviously God wanted me to steal that necklace, because He didn’t stop me.” or “Obviously God wanted me to sleep with that guy,” or “Obviously God doesn’t care if I cheat my customers. He’s in control. But I still did it.”
That’s just silly, and everyone knows it. So why do we extend it to the national level?
Most of the quotes I see go back to Romans 13, where Paul tells us that we’re under the authority of our leaders, because all authority comes from God. Well, yes. That means I must honor and respect my president, whoever he or she is. That does not mean that every person who holds an office is the best person to hold an office, or that if I voted them there, I’m not responsible in part for their actions while in said office. Moreover, those who want to read this so strictly ought to have a problem with the very existence of the United States. Those in the Revolution certainly didn’t think they had to kneel before the authority of King George just because he was their God-appointed king.
Here’s the thing: we live in a democratic republic. We vote. That means we, the people, are responsible for the politicians elected to our offices. Us. Not God, any more than He’s responsible for any of our other choices. Inherited monarchies, like those we see in the Bible, are different. And also irrelevant to us today. Because our officials are chosen by our free will.
Does God know who will win? Of course! And sure, everything’s part of His plan. But so, then, is our sin–that doesn’t mean it’s good, doesn’t mean it’s the right way, doesn’t mean it’s what He wants us to do. It’s what He lets us do.
Now, I’m not saying one way or another that this election’s results pleased or displeased God. What I’m saying is that it’s theologically dangerous to assume it pleases Him just because it happened that way.
I’m saying God didn’t put Donald Trump or Barack Obama or George Bush or Bill Clinton in the White House–we did. We, with our free will and our choices. We get the president we ask for.
I’m saying that this win for the Republicans isn’t God giving the country one more chance. And if we think it is, we might just be resting in the wrong authority–we might just be trusting our president-elect to fix things, when he can’t.
We might be shrugging responsibility for change onto his shoulders when it’s ours. WE need to fix this country, from the bottom-up, on our knees, reaching out to our neighbors, teaching our children, redefining the national morality to line up again with the biblical. No president can do that. WE must.
We can’t rest easy now, my friends. We have not won a spiritual victory
with this election–we wouldn’t have, either way it had gone. We’ve just
exercised the democratic process. The spiritual battle is still raging,
as it was before and as it will do after and as it would have done had
Mrs. Clinton won as well.
Yesterday someone shared a prophecy a young pastor had made, which basically said that God told him He was going to use Trump as a trumpet to sound forth and point out evil and corruption. I won’t disagree . . . but we also have to remember that God rarely works as we expect Him to. He has certainly used Trump this election cycle to point out evil and corruption–but not just in the opposition. His behavior has also pointed out corruption within the church, some leaders of which have bent over backwards to defend some pretty indefensible actions this fall. Because of him, I now know that racism and sexism are much more prevalent than I thought. But he wasn’t the one shouting against it.
He’s being a trumpet . . . but are God’s people hearing the right message? Or are we dancing to the battle cry?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.