by Roseanna White | Aug 5, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays
In spite of my title, we’re going to go a few years earlier. The Mafia (and Chicago) changed a lot once Capone took over. Before that . . . well, it was still mean and nasty. But it had a surprising honor. So today I’m gonna give you a taste of Mafia history.
In Sicily, the government was corrupt. As in, so corrupt that people had to form organizations to protect themselves. That’s how the Mafia started, and that was often the only thing standing between the people and a “law” that would have taken everything from them. When people started emigrating from Sicily to the U.S., their distrust of government came with them (go figure), and so did their ideas to combat it.
Experts insist that the American Mafia is not the Sicilian Mafia. By that, they mean that there was never a central authority in Sicily that ran things in America. But. Those were in the Mafia in Sicily more often than not formed or joined a branch of it on this side of the pond too.
In turn-of-the-century America, everyone just assumed that if you were Italian, you must belong to a gang. Street gangs roamed the cities, usually preying on their own kind. The most prominent of these were the Black Hand and the Camorra. They were . . . er, not very organized. That’s were the Mafia differed. They earned that title of Organized Crime, boy, let me just tell you.
They lived by the rule of Omerta, which basically said that you could kill each other, but woe to anyone who turned another Sicilian in to the authorities. You just didn’t do it. And in those days, another thing you just never did was hit a guy’s family. Family was precious. You could kill the gangster, but his wife and kids had better remain untouched.
That tide started to change in the mid to late 20s . . . which is why I set my Little Italy Trilogy in the earlier half of the decade.
Come back next Wednesday for some more interesting Mafia tidbits!
by Roseanna White | Aug 4, 2009 | What We're Reading
First, let me say that I love Shar MacLaren. Her books are sweet and deep and awesome . . . just like her. =) I’ve emailed her a lot over the years, got to hug her at the ’07 ACFW conference, and (best of all, lol) have had my endorsements appear on or in nearly all of her books. Go, Shar!
Her latest is Maggie Rose, the second in the Daughters of Jacob Kane series. This one takes us to turn-of-the-century New York City, where middle daughter Maggie has gone to volunteer in an orphanage, Sheltering Arms. She knew it would be a lot of work, but she also knows it’s where God called her. What she didn’t expect was Luke Madison, an embittered newspaper reported assigned to write a story about the refuge. He’s the handsomest man she’s ever seen . . . but will anything break through that hardened heart?
Luke’s story is that he lost his aunt, his fiancee, and his fiancee’s mother in a terrible steamboat accident a few months earlier. Ever since then, he’s been burying himself in work, trying to investigate the accident and find those culpable. His boss finally has enough with him neglecting everything else and demands he take a leave of absense, under the guise of writing the article about Sheltering Arms. What Luke finds at the orphanage–aside from the very pretty Miss from Michigan, as he calls her–is a reason. A reason to fight, a reason to work, a reason to be.
They end up going west on one of the Orphan Trains, finding a dose of adventure . . . and of course, falling in love.
This is the second book I’ve read in the last month dealing with the Orphan Trains–amazing, since I think they’re the only two out, LOL. So I was somewhat familiar with the dilemmas of the day and found Shar’s take on it freash and hopeful, as I always do. One thing I really appreciate about her books is that while they have some suspense, it doesn’t overshadow the romance or the story. She never drags it out to make it not resolve until the last page.
Maggie Rose is another must-read from my good friend Shar. Pick it up for a taste of history, a dose of love, and a helping of adventure.
by Roseanna White | Aug 3, 2009 | Modern Mondays
Anyone ever watch Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel? My husband loves it. I enjoy it for the gross-out factor and the interesting places he goes, but David . . . he actually thinks most of this stuff looks good. We’re talking intestines stuffed with . . . stuff. Every kind of creepy-crawly you can imagine . . . things fermented in the ground for three years. Yeah. Yucky.
It occurred to me when watching one night that most of these foods are well capable of scaring normal folks off. Which led to a “mwa ha ha” moment in the book I was working on at the time. My heroine was trying to scare off my hero (to avoid another heartbreak at his hands), so at one point in the story she resorts to a truly bizarre menu that would make Andrew Zimmern proud.
This scene has the distinction of making one of my critique partners question my sanity (waving, Carole), another alternately laugh and ew on every line (that would be Stephanie) and the third put questions like “Are you sure you’re okay??” in the margin (Mary;-). Their reactions just made my mwa ha ha all the louder.
To research, I started on the Bizarre Foods website, went to the forum, and followed the links to the different recipes posted. And let me just tell you, there are some mega weird and disgusting foods posted. Truly disturbing in some cases.
My character settled on an appetizer of dung beetle dip (where we got the line, “Just think of them as peanuts. Really big, crunchy peanuts. With legs.”) followed by a first course of calf-head (cooked with the heart and lungs of course), and the main course–fruit bat soup. Which is bad enough in name . . . just wait until you have to shampoo those little critters before you cook them. (Can’t skin ’em until they’ve stewed for a while.)
Grossed out yet? Yeah, me too, lol. In spite of what people might think when they read that or see the show up on my television, I am the Queen of Boring when it comes to food. I eat my salads with nothing but shredded cheddar and Ranch dressing, my burgers with nothing but ketchup, and mac & cheese still ranks as one of my all-time favorite meals. But hey . . . if we can’t explore new foods in the pages of a book (when our tastebuds are safe from the experience, lol), where can we?
Bon appetite!
by Roseanna White | Jul 31, 2009 | Author Interviews and Guest Posts
It was my first morning at the ACFW conference (after that first night where I met my now-best-friend), and I stood in line for breakfast. I’d left my room early so that I could be gone by the time my 23-month-old daughter woke up (hey, we avoid those “Don’t leave, Mommy!” scenes whenever we can!), but already there was a line outside the banquet hall where we ate.
In front of me stood a lovely woman who turned around and struck up a conversation with another nearby attendee. In typical me-fashion, I more or less twiddled my thumbs and pretended I wasn’t eavesdropping–like I could help it, lol. Then the woman drew out bookmarks for her upcoming release, handed one off to the woman she’d been chatting with, and passed one to me, too, along with a grin. “I’m Julie Lessman,” she said.
I introduced myself and looked at the thick plastic bookmark in my hands. “Nice,” I said in reference to the giveaway. “One my daughter won’t be able to destroy in three seconds.”
Julie laughed and confessed that the printer had messed up, and she’d been concerned about them. We started talking about the book featured on the mark, her debut novel A Passion Most Pure. As the breakfast-line started moving, she asked to pray for me and the other lady beside me. We told her what we were pitching, and she took our hands and prayed then and there for us and our projects.
As we moseyed in to breakfast, I offered to review her novel for her when it came out. I’d been praying that morning that the Lord show me a way to give back at conference, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Especially when Julie gave me a blank look. “I know reviews are important,” she said, “but I’m not sure why.”
Since I’d started the Christian Review of Books a few years before, I was well able to expound on that topic. She further endeared herself by saying, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look really young to be so well versed in the industry.” Is there any quicker way to make a woman your friend? LOL. We chatted all the way into breakfast, I gave her a card . . . and then conference went on. I didn’t see Julie again.
But soon after I got home, I sent an email to her publicist asking for
A Passion Most Pure when it was available. Not long after that, I received an email from Julie asking for
my book,
A Stray Drop of Blood. We emailed back and forth a few times, and when I confessed that I read both CBA and ABA romances, Julie got very excited for my opinion on her novel, since it was a little more risque than CBA usually published. Which made me all the more eager to read it. =)
Since then, Julie and I have formed a unique kind of friendship born of mutual respect and appreciation. As each of her books have come ou
t, I’ve written reviews and raved to everyone I know (I can’t help it–they’re sooooooo good! My sister always threatens to fight me for them when she sees me with Julie’s latest release). She was kind enough to write a review of Stray Drop for me too. We email now and then for updates on each other’s projects, and she assures me she’s praying that my manuscripts find favor with the publishers.
Remembering that lovely woman who prayed for two strangers during the first full day of conference, I don’t doubt it. I have found in Julie an author of amazing talent, yes, but more importantly, a woman of deep faith and such a beautiful, giving spirit.
The third book in Julie’s Daughters of Boston Series hit shelves this summer, and it’s a fantastic “ending” to the saga. (The quotes are earned because her next series will pick up with the remaining O’Connor siblings–I can’t wait!) Check out more information about her books at her
website, and click on the pictures of them for my reviews.
by Roseanna White | Jul 30, 2009 | Thoughtful Thursdays
As I near the end of a manuscript (which I’m doing now), my mind starts moving ahead to the next project. With me, there are always other projects waiting. If someone were to look in my My Docs folder, they may just shake their head. In addition to the three dozen or so “loose” documents, I have folders. One for ABA (containing another few dozen ideas I’ve worked on to some extent or another), and then a folder for each CBA idea I’ve carefully hewn out. Once an idea earns more than one document, i.e. notes as well as a few pages of text, they get a folder. (There are six, at the moment.)
The real challenge? Figuring out what to dedicate my time to. There are the sequels to books currently under consideration. These will obviously have to be written at some point (see, optimism!), but I need to wait to see what sells first. There are the off-the-wall ideas that often form in a flurry of “what if”s throughout a single day, spurred by who-knows-what. (Like, what’s something my friend Stephanie [YA writer] and I could work on together that we could pitch to Andy Meisenheimer of Zondervan [who’s looking for weird stuff and is hilarious about it]? Oh, I know! . . .) There are the ideas that I am totally in love with, but which may be a hard sell.
Part of me says, “Who cares what’s selling now? Don’t write for the trends. Write for the heart.” And part of me says, “Yeah, but Janet (my agent) specifically requested I keep to American-set historicals or else contemporaries. And I trust Janet.”
For instance, I have this awesome idea for a Victorian-era story that must be set in England. I could contort certain aspects of it and make it New England instead, but then I’d lose the identity of my characters. So what do I do? Write it anyway, and hope that my Victorian novel already out there sells by the time I finish it? Wait until I have a relationship with an editor and then say, “Look, I have this idea. What do you think?”
Because the research for this one is going to be daunting. But I not only believe in the story, it occasionally haunts me. (Now being one of those times.) I’ll occasionally pull out the prologue I wrote and read through it, sigh a little, try to feel the characters. Until now they hadn’t been real enough for me to really dive into now. Now though . . . well, yesterday I took that 9 page prologue, ditched it, and wrote a new 5 page one. So I’m kinda in the groove.
I’ve heard non-writers ask writers, “Where do all your ideas come from?” For me, the answer is EVERYTHING. Seriously. I get ideas constantly–just ask my crit partners, who are occasionally treated to rambling emails on my various unpersued projects. The harder question is, “How do you know what to focus on?”
The answer? Prayer. And then I keep an eye open for the pointing of the Lord. A year ago, He showed me pretty clearly it wasn’t time to write this new Victorian (even though I’d just spent $75 on research books). But now it’s time to break out that prayer again. Maybe He’ll say, “It’s time for this one.” Or maybe He’ll show me something else. Maybe another contemporary. Maybe an American historical. Maybe that weird “What if” idea. Who knows?
Either way, it’s an exciting time, this point where one project will be finished and another picked up. A time when you get to see the flower of one project bloomed full and another bud right beside it, still perfect with its closed petals, no blight or flaw upon it.
“What,” you get to wonder, “might you be in a few months?”
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.