by Roseanna White | Dec 22, 2011 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
This is the last post I’ll have up before Christmas . . . and probably the last before I do a look-back-over-the-year on next Thursday. So first and foremost, I hope each and every one of you has a fantastic Christmas and that 2011 wraps up well for you!
Excitement is building around here! What presents have arrived are all wrapped–but I’m still waiting for the elves–i.e. the mail lady and UPS guy–to deliver a few. Yikes! Cookies enough have been baked to keep us, though we’ll probably make some more over the next week. Our homeschool week is all but done, and we’ve squeezed a full week’s worth of stuff into it. All that’s left is some reading-to-her and two math lessons. Woot! We’re going to celebrate its completion by watching the Christmas Carol movie that came out two years ago, the one with Jim Carrie and computer animation. I hear it’s great. =)
A few highlights for me thus far came from my publishers. The one I still can’t talk about yet sent out gifts to all their authors, and it was just so awesome to get that and realize
I’m one of their authors! =) And then I got an email from my editor at Summerside that included the information that the cover model for
Annapolis isn’t a stock photo or hired model as I had assumed, but the friend of someone at Summerside–so cool! And better still, that the model has read and loved
Annapolis, and her kids are now calling her “Lark.” =) This greatly pleased the folks whose friend she is, and they too are reading and loving the book and referred to me as Summerside’s own Jane Austen. Talk about making my day!
Well, my plans for the day involve getting the house ready to receive guests–and kitties–squeezing in some writing, and tying up any other loose ends so we can enjoy the Christmas break. Over which I’ll hopefully get lots of writing-work done, LOL.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
by Roseanna White | Dec 21, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays
I’ve never written a novel set solely around Christmas. But as I’m contemplating fun holiday stuff I could write about here, I realize that both of my last two books have Christmas on the page.
Love Finds You In Annapolis, Maryland does in fact take place from the end of November through the end of January, so it’s full of Christmasy goodness and many traditions from the day.
If you missed it last year, I blogged about many of these traditions in a post called
Remember When . . . Christmas Was Banned? which also (obviously) touches on how Christmas was not an observed holiday in New England.
In
Annapolis, Christmas was far from banned. Being Anglican–the only church in the city was what came to be renamed the Episcopal church when it became unpopular to name them “church of England”–the city celebrated in the style of Merry Ol’ England. I had a lot of fun writing that chapter too, with mention of wassailing, of the hanging greens, and of the simple gifts they gave each other. (
They certainly didn’t have to check five different online stores for that remote control car their sons really, really wanted and then bite their nails when they saw it wasn’t due to arrive until December 23rd . . .).
When I started writing another Colonial and did all my research, I realized this next one, too, would have to include the Christmas season–though it goes from November to October so certainly doesn’t focus on it. Still, Christmas Day gets a chapter.
When I first realized that both my hero and heroine had been either living in or raised in the parts of New England that would not have observed Christmas, I had a moment of panic. Oh no! They wouldn’t view Christmas like I do!!! How in the world do I capture their thoughts??
As it turns out, their views of the day came naturally to their characters and in fact really helped me form those characters. See, Winter (my heroine) grew up in a Congregationalist home on Long Island that could trace its roots back to the Puritans. In her home, Christmas was a day of quiet reflection. No gifts, no music, no parties.
Now all of a sudden she’s in a home that celebrates–loudly and boisterously. Winter isn’t wowed by it–she’s saddened and disgusted by it, and feels far, far from home. All she wants on this holy day is to close herself into her room, read her Bible, and spend some time in quiet contemplation and prayer, thinking about what it truly means that Jesus came down as a babe.
Instead, she’s forced into an elaborate gown, paraded through a drawing room full of mercenary, shallow socialites concerned only with who got the more expensive gift, and forced to listen to the drunken jolly-making of New York’s elite.
Merry she isn’t. Because she longs for the quiet of communion with the Lord. Much like she does through the rest of the book.
Though I’ve always celebrated and loved Christmas, writing that chapter really helped me understand how a different approach could be precious and beloved.
This year, no matter what
your traditions are, I pray that you observe them with
Joy, share them with your loved ones, and come away with that unmistakable Christmas feeling–the one that says, “God has blessed them, one and all.”
by Roseanna White | Dec 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
It is 1812, and England is awash with enemies. The French that they’ve been fighting for years . . . the renewed conflict in America . . . and now there are even uprisings in the north over the mills. Young widow Lady Lydia Gale knows this, knows that England’s true enemies may be hidden under a fair facade–but still she must do what she can to help those who need it, those to whom her late, unloving husband took the liberty of pledging her support.
And so she ventures to that dark prison in Dartmoor. So she meets with the strangely compelling Frenchman, Christien de Meuse, and obtains his freedom. So she entrusts him with her last belonging of any worth, the last gift her husband sent her.
So the adventure begins.
Lydia never dreamed that a month later, Christien would arrive in her drawing room in London, directly on the heels of a few other questionable personages. Then again, she also never dreamed she would have been approached by someone claiming to be from the Home Office, who would blackmail her into introducing these unsavory gentlemen into London society. For the sake of her family, she must comply. But at what risk to her country–and to her heart?
Laurie Alice Eakes has done it again. With A Necessary Deception she has penned a novel that combines heart-stopping romance with heart-pounding suspense, crafting characters at once strong but consistent with their times, blind in some ways and brilliant in others. These true-to-life characters of Lydia and Christien–not to mention the wonderfully made secondary characters, especially Lydia’s younger sisters–will pull you in from the start and keep you flipping the pages as surely as the espionage and intrigue.
Needless to say, I love this book. I love the cover, so very Regency and elegant. I love the characters, so very real and true. I love the plot, with its questions of who you can trust, whether a man’s place of birth determines his loyalties. And I love the romance, its depth and charm, its scope and breadth. As we watch Christien and Lydia dare to open their hearts, it makes us ask ourselves what we would do if drawn to a man who may just be our nation’s enemy . . . what we would do if we fell for someone whose life may be endangered by our attention. How far we would go to protect our families.
Beautifully written, masterfully crafted, A Necessary Deception is a book for any lover of historical novels, especially those that combine suspense with romance. This is one you don’t want to miss!
by Roseanna White | Dec 19, 2011 | Holidays, Word of the Week
In Old English, Christmas day was called geol (not to be confused with gaol, which is jail–ha ha ha), taken from Old Norse jol. Jol was a heathen feast day, taken over by English so long ago that no one’s sure exactly when it happened. Though we do know that “jolly” comes from jol. 😉
Origianlly, geol, or yule, meant solely Christmas Day. It also happens that there was a cognate, giuli, that was the Anglo-Saxon name for a two-month midwinter season of feasting, so the two got mixed together. When English first borrowed the word, it meant the 12 Day Feast of Christmas–December 25 through January 6, the Epiphany. It was largely replaced by the word Christmas by the eleventh century, except for in Danish-settled parts of England.
Writers, however, revived the word in the 19th century to capture the particular charm of Christmas in Merry Ol’ England. Oh yes, it’s always the writers, LOL.
Yultide (literally yule time or Christmastime) was recorded in the 15th century, and the first written mention of the yule log is from the 17th century and was a ceremonially chosen log (sometimes and entire tree) picked to have an enduring burn for Christmas.
Can you believe there’s less than a week until Christmas?? I hope everyone is enjoying this yuletide season!
~*~
And today I’m on
Go Teen Writers! It was a fun interview, so be sure to check it out to learn what I would do if captured by kidnappers. 😉
by Roseanna White | Dec 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
And the first (of two) winners for the Great ANNAPOLIS Giveaway is . . .
Elaine Marie Cooper!
Congrats, Elaine!!
For those of you who didn’t win this round (and there are a lot of you–we logged around 330 entries into this baby!), keep on entering, because the second drawing will be on February 15, 2012.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, 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, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.