by Roseanna White | Jun 19, 2017 | Word of the Week
A nice and simple word for this week, as it’s a super busy one!
I don’t know if anyone has seen the recent DQ commercials with the silver cloche over the food, but they inspired a question from daughter, who said, “I thought a cloche was a hat.” The girl comes by this assumption naturally. In my head, cloche equals pretty 20s style hat, end of story. 😉
As it happens, cloche was originally a type of bell-shaped jar (c. 1882); the word is borrowed from the French, where it literally means “bell.” The French was derived from the Latin clocca, of the same meaning.
So both the domed lid and the hat take their name from the bell-shape. The hat–which is seriously the only important use of the word, right??? LOL–dates from 1907.
Don’t forgot to catch my Live Chat on Facebook tonight at 7 EDT! I’ll be chatting about Gwen and Thad and Whispers from the Shadows.
Also–head’s up on a HUGE giveaway coming later this week! The WhiteFire Publishing authors are teaming up on a Scavenger Hunt that will be giving away thousands of dollars worth of prizes! That will start at 9 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, June 22 and will start right here. So mark your calendars!
by Roseanna White | Jun 14, 2017 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
We are book lovers. I am, and I assume you are too, if you’re here reading the blog of a novelist. 😉 We have all dreamed of walking into a room like the library in Beauty and the Beast, right? The idea of all those books in one place . . . it’s bliss. Pure and unmitigated.
But I am a book lover. And my collection regularly outpaces my shelves. Which means I frequently have random stacks of novels in front of the orderly ones. And on the tops of shelves. And occasionally even beside the shelves, if I’m really in need of a new bookcase. I figure I can’t possibly be the only with this problem . . . which led me to wonder what would happen if someone was so bad about it that they’d managed to turn the heaven that is a library into something far different. Something intimidating and chaotic and overwhelming.
This is the library at Kensey Manor in A Name Unknown.
Peter, the hero, is a lover of books. A writer of books. But he comes from a family with a bit of a, er, problem with collecting them, let’s say. His grandfather began the impressive collection, but ran out of shelf space. His father continued it, only adding to the issue without ever resolving it. And Peter . . . Peter has a remarkable ability to untidy something in thirty seconds flat, so don’t expect him to bring order from the bookish chaos.
Yet he needs order enough from the books to find a few specific tomes among them. Which is where Rosemary comes in.
Now, Rosemary isn’t really a librarian, she’s just posing as one. She doesn’t usually even like libraries all that much. So when she sees the chaos . . . she may have been sent running had she not been there for ulterior motives.
I loved the idea of taking something book lovers like us ought to adore, and making it something to dread. Of watching, over the course of the story, this room go from what they call “the cave” into a beautiful chamber that it’s a delight to spend time in. I loved having Rosemary, who isn’t a die-hard book fan, be the one to effect this change, and through doing so, come to love the place.
I loved making the library another character who had to undergo a transformation.
I hope you all are looking forward to meeting this library as much as I’m looking forward to introducing you to it!
by Roseanna White | Jun 12, 2017 | Word of the Week
I featured this word before, but it was 6 years ago, and I know much of my readership has changed. And let’s be honest–coffee deserves to be featured again. Because it’s one of the most beautiful creations in the universe. 😉
The best guess of the awesome
www.etymonline.com is that our word
coffee came from the Italian
caffe, which came the Turkish
kahveh, which in turn came from the Arabic
qahwah. Which, they think, got its name from the
Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where most historians say coffee originated.
God bless those Arabians in Ethiopia!
Coffee was introduced in England by 1650, and within 25 years, over
3,000 coffeehouses dotted the country. (I heard a theory saying that the
English moving from ale to coffee is why there was a great expansion in
their empire, LOL.)
What I didn’t realize is that by 1774 one could use the word coffee to refer to a small meal where the drink was served, much like tea. Who knew?
In my house, we take our coffee very seriously. Since college, my husband and I have used whole beans and ground them fresh every morning. Last Christmas, we splurged on a gorgeous Jura Ena coffee system as a gift for each other. This thing creates the most beautiful, delicious cup of coffee ever, and it makes getting up in the morning something to look forward to.
So I’m going to have another cup. Go sip some in my honor if you’re a coffee drinker! 😉
by Roseanna White | Jun 7, 2017 | Book News, Cover Designs, Word of the Week
It’s always so exciting to get to share a new cover with you!! And I recently received the art for A Song Unheard, so here we go!
First, a bit of background. Where book 1 in the series features a library and books [insert blissful sigh here], my hero and heroine in A Song Unheard are both violinists, so obviously we needed a violin on the cover. That was non-negotiable. 😉 We also needed:
- A girl in her 20s with light brown hair that slips from its chignon when she plays (I gave them Emily Blunt as my inspiration)
- 1914 styling
- A midday room, since all the playing happens in a hotel’s function room, not on a stage
- A bit of mystery 😉
As always, Bethany House did a great job finding a model that fit my description and finding a unique way to put a violin in her hands! Are you ready?
3
. . .
2
. . .
1
. . .
Voila!
I love the soft, warm colors of this cover, and the art deco accents–similar to but different than the ones used on A Name Unknown. And you can just tell from the expression on her face that it’s not the music stand she’s set on watching, can’t you? Yes, this is a woman with an ulterior motive for sure!
Now for the blurb:
Willa Forsythe is both a violin prodigy and top-notch thief, which makes
her the perfect choice for a crucial task at the outset of World War
I–to steal a cypher from a famous violinist currently in Wales.
Lukas
De Wilde has enjoyed the life of fame he’s won–until now, when being
recognized nearly gets him killed. Everyone wants the key to his
father’s work as a cryptologist. And Lukas fears that his mother and
sister, who have vanished in the wake of the German invasion of Belgium,
will pay the price. The only light he finds is meeting the intriguing
Willa Forsythe.
But danger presses in from every side, and Willa
knows what Lukas doesn’t–that she must betray him and find that cypher,
or her own family will pay the price as surely as his has.
Now, for fun, side by side with the first book…
So what do you think? Favorite part of the new cover? How do you think it works with/compares to the first one?
by Roseanna White | Jun 5, 2017 | Announcements, Book News
Popping onto the blog real quick this morning for a few things, then I’m getting to work writing. 😉
First, don’t forget that tonight I’m going to be LIVE on Facebook, chatting about Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland! I’ll start promptly at 7 p.m. EDT and look forward to answering your questions! Next week I’ll begin chatting about the Culper Ring Series, and we’ll finish off the season with A Name Unknown when it releases.
Next, on Wednesday we’re going to be doing a cover reveal for the second book in the Shadows Over England Series!!!! I love a good cover reveal, and I hope you do too, so remember to stop by on Wednesday!
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.