by Roseanna White | Mar 21, 2018 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
This is actually a re-post of a fun blog I did in 2011, near when
Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland released. Given that I’m still celebrating the re-release of the story as
A Heart’s Revolution, I thought it would be fun to share this again!
Back in 2011, a friend of mine from Colonial Quills made mention of “brick tea.” Now, I had no idea what in the world she was talking about. Until this arrived in the mail:
The moment I withdrew this brick from its bag, the scent of tea wafted up to me. My daughter, who runs to the kitchen the moment she senses a package being opened, rushed out just then, saw the brown-paper-wrapped block, and said, “What’s that?” My answer was to hold it out and say, “Smell.”
You should have seen her eyes light up with delight and disbelief as she squealed, “Tea?!”
Tea has been a staple of many societies for centuries. But loose leaf tea is hard to transport, so back in the days of the silk road in Asia, the Chinese discovered that if they use forms to press the tea into standard sized bricks, they can transport them with ease, and the tea lasts through the journey.
This became such a standard that tea bricks could be used as currency, and this was the way most tea was transported for hundreds of years, all the way into the 19th century. So the tea tossed into Boston Harbor during the Boston
tea party? That was bricks.
Naturally, when something is used so long, for so many purposes, there comes to be a rhyme and reason to each part of it.
I don’t know if you can read the label on this, but if you do, you’ll find its “translation”–what each part of it means.
The front of this particular brick has details that let buyers know that this tea comes from a company managed by more than one person, and is manufactured by Enterprise Company Tea and the Chinese Lee family.
The back of the brick is separated into squares that can be used as currency. One square, for instance, might equal the price of a chicken
In addition to being brewed, the tea traditionally pressed into bricks can also be eaten. I don’t intend to try that, gotta say. 😉
I thought at the time that I’d be eager to try some of this tea . . . but in actuality, I couldn’t bring myself to break it apart! Instead, it still sits wrapped up, on display on my hutch. Perhaps if I ever buy another, I’ll actually use one of them. But for now, this lovely brick of tea remains a pretty, fragrant reminder of my friend, of history, and of when my first Colonial story first released.
by Roseanna White | Mar 7, 2018 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
In writing the Shadows Over England series, I did a lot of studying of the geography of England. For book 1, I only had two scenes in London, and then the rest was in Cornwall. So the fact that my family’s big trip to England fell during the writing/editing of A Name Unknown served me quite well. We spent a lovely four days in Cornwall, which gave me the opportunity to explore it and get to know the neighborhood in which Peter Holstein lived.
But then that made me all the more aware of how little I knew about the settings for the rest of the series. Wales. London. Ack!
To help me in
A Song Unheard, I purchased a few books…and spent a lot of time in Google Maps, traveling down the streets of Aberystwyth, Wales. To be perfectly honest, I was pretty proud of myself for actually learning all the street names around the hotel where much of the action took place. Because, much like Ella from
A Lady Unrivaled, I am directionally impaired, LOL. Even with a GPS, I can get lost. Or try to direct my husband down the wrong street. It is a foregone conclusion in my family that if I say, “I think/don’t think this is it…” one should ignore me. 😉 But when dealing only in fiction, I can give directions. I could make Willa (who explores until she’s at home in any town) navigate the small city with ease.
But also in A Song Unheard, I needed to get more specific about where the family lived in London. I knew it would be a big deal by book 3, which would take place almost entirely in that city, so it was time to get serious. The scenes in book 2 that actually took place in London were based partly upon my own very limited exploration of the place. When I realized Lukas would likely have come into St. Pancras train station–the same place we went by train to France–I decided I’d put my fictional newspaper office that he was seeking on the very street where our hotel was located. Why not? That allowed me to describe things like walking distance and surroundings with a bit of knowledge.
But
An Hour Unspent was a different story. First of all, I needed the neighborhood where my family of thieves had spent most of their lives. You may remember
my post from last April, when my tyrannical book
refused to be set where I wanted it to be. *Sigh* After searching through my book of London boroughs, I decided to put them in Poplar–historically one of the poorest sections of London. This, then, is where Pauly’s pub is, and where
Rosemary and Willa and Barclay were the most comfortable. The streets they know best.
But if you’ve read
A Song Unheard, then you know Peter offers them the use of his London house, which I decided to situate in Hammersmith. I had fun learning about that section of the city too. And it became an even better pick for them when I realized it was only a 7-minute walk from Whitehall, where the Admiralty buildings are. Given that my mysterious Mr. V is good friends with a naval officer who in fact gives them some of their assignments in
An Hour Unspent, this was perfect.
Still, if we’re talking personal preferences, I’m a country girl, not a city girl. At all. So it still feels a bit strange sometimes to be writing so many books set in London–
The Number of Love, book 1 in The Codebreakers Series that I’m writing now, is also set there. It was some consolation, however, to realize that my characters were a bit out of their element too, being transplanted to new parts of the city. Or in the case of
Margot, moving from small-town life in Louvain (Belgium) to occupied Brussels, and then finally to London, which is obviously very different from anything she’d known before.
Moving characters can be a challenge for a writer–logistics! New streets to pretend you know–but it’s also fun! Because you’re forcing your characters out of the familiar, comfortable places…and we all know that taking characters out of their comfort zones results in some beautiful tension and stressful situations. Mwa ha ha ha–just what every writer needs!
by Roseanna White | Jan 31, 2018 | 17th-19th Centuries, 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
I thought it would be fun to take a quick look today at Willa’s violin…or, rather, violins in general, and some info that appears in A Song Unheard about this beautiful stringed instrument.
Violins and other stringed instruments like them began appearing in the 1500s. They were invented in Italy, and some of the first evidence we have of their existence is from paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari.
 |
Glory of Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari.
Not to be confused with Enzo Ferrari.
Or, you know, other painters with the same surname.
|
There also exists a treatise written in 1556 that details the string family as we know it now.
Willa, of course, didn’t know all this history. What she did know was that Stradivari was always heralded as THE luthier whose instruments everyone wanted to own. That’s certainly true today just as it was a hundred years ago.
It’s only been recently, however, that scientists have discovered
why Strads sound better than other violins. I happened to catch a documentary on this just before I began writing
A Song Unheard (thank you for that, Lord! LOL), which obviously proved useful. 😉
So the secret to the amazing sound of these instruments? The Little Ice Age.
Yep. See, these drastically colder temps resulted in trees’ growth drastically slowing. If you recall your middle school botany, you know that each year trees add a ring of growth, hence how we can count a tree’s age with a cross-section. Well if you’ve ever seen the stump of a really, really old tree, you’ll have noticed that some rings are very wide and others very narrow. The wide rings are the years that were perfect growing years–nice temps, good rain, lots of sun–and the narrow rings are harsher years.
During the Little Ice Age, trees couldn’t grow very much. So the rings were narrow, and the wood, therefore, was very dense. The forest from which Stradivari sourced his wood was full of Little Ice Age trees, whose wood was heavy and dense. Meaning the instruments, while the same size as others made from different wood, would be a bit heavier and denser, and that of course effected the sound.
Now, this is a relatively new discovery–certainly not something they knew in 1914. But I wanted to hint at it, so I had Willa observe several times that Lukas’s Strad felt heavier and more substantial than the battered, cheap instrument she’d rescued from a rubbish bin.
She got up again and strode to the
wardrobe. Not set on grabbing a hat for the trek she had to make, but to pull
out that battered violin case. She set it on the bed and extracted the
equally-battered violin.
Poor thing. It looked like a rag
next to the memory of the Stradivarius she’d held last night. Dull and scarred
and . . . lighter, even, as if the wood were too thin. Perhaps it was. Still,
it was one of her oldest friends, and her fingers caressed the familiar curves
and corners, ran along the strings.
~ A Song Unheard, Chapter 6
Do you play an instrument? Or is there one you particularly enjoy listening to? One you’ve always dreamed of owning?
I’m a piano player, so I may occasionally drool over baby grands…though not the newfangled electronic ones. Those are just WRONG. 😉
by Roseanna White | Jan 17, 2018 | Remember When Wednesdays
We live in a pretty amazing time, don’t we? When traveling has become fairly easy and affordable. One can get from the east coast of America to Europe for just a couple hundred bucks (if one is willing to travel light and compromise on leg room…). We can travel from state to state by highway, train, or plane. The world is there, waiting to be experienced, and few people today will face the reality of most people two hundred years ago–to never go more than 20 miles from home.
Over the weekend, my family and I sat down and wrote out a list of places we’d like to go and things we’d like to see. Some of them are pretty simple and easily done–the Smithsonian, the Pittsburgh zoo again, that sort of thing.
Then there are those entries that say things like the Maldives. Or Padagonia. Not quite so easily accomplished, hence the need for a list and planning to see which we might actually get to some day.
I have characters, of course, who have traveled farther than I ever have. And others who have never really strayed from their own neighborhood. Travel, and its progress, has played a part in many of my stories, and I remember the elation of realizing in Circle of Spies that there were trains now! And telegraphs! People and news could move so much faster! LOL
As my family dreams about our someday-travels, I’d love to know what’s on YOUR list! Where have you gone that you loved, either domestically or abroad? What’s on your list of places you would love to see someday? Please share!
by Roseanna White | Dec 13, 2017 | Book News, Remember When Wednesdays
We’re only a few weeks from the official release of A Song Unheard. My copies have arrived, and orders of signed copies from my store are in the mail.
And so, it seemed like the perfect time to share the book trailer! (If for any reason it doesn’t work for you here, you can watch it on Vimeo.)
A Song Unheard ~ Book Trailer from WhiteFire TV on Vimeo.
I’m so excited to share this with you!! Here’s the scoop on it.
- A year ago, I ran the Song Unheard Contest, in which people could submit a melody that would become “Willa’s Song.” My daughter and I chose 3 finalists, and then the public voted on their favorite, and y’all chose the song you hear featured in the video, composed by Jessica Brand.
- My friend Harry Burchell III graciously saved me some time and transcribed Jessica’s beautiful melody into sheet music.
- The amazing Taylor Bennett performed and recorded said music on the violin.
- My wonderful English friend and beta reader (who checks my books for Americanisms for me) Elizabeth recorded the voice-over.
- My awesome husband of WhiteFire Media produced the trailer.
Wow, that’s a lot of people who participated and helped me create this! Hence why it’s no surprise how much I love it. Thank you to all who submitted songs for the contest or voted on their favorites, and even bigger thanks to those who brought it to life!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! And if it does its job (ahem) and makes you want to rush out and buy the book, you can find it here:
AMAZON
BARNES AND NOBLE
CBD
PARABLE
LIFEWAY
TARGET
by Roseanna White | Aug 30, 2017 | Remember When Wednesdays, The Great War
As I write a series about the Great War, set in Europe, I keep being reminded of one of the hardships that goes hand-in-hand with total war: hunger. Within months of the German invasion of France and Belgium in 1914, lack of food became an issue. First in Belgium, where citizens were accustomed to buying nearly all their everyday food from abroad, and then in occupied France, where the locally grown produce was being requisitioned by the German army.
In A Song Unheard, my hero is from Belgium, though he’s currently in Wales with an orchestra made up of other Belgian refugees. But his sister and mother are still in Brussels, and through the eyes of his little sister, Margot, we get a glimpse of wartime in an occupied country. The anxiety of realizing that there’s only a few weeks’ supply of food in the country. The reality of bread lines. The question of whether aid will come.
Something I found interesting as I was researching A Song Unheard–and which came up again in my research for the final book in the Shadows Over England Series, An Hour Unspent (due to my editor on Friday, eeep!)–is that the British were not happy with the idea of other countries sending food aid to Belgium and France.
Seems kind of strange, right? These were their allies. They obviously didn’t want the people to starve. But they held an American ship filled with food for Belgium for months in a British port. Why?
Because they didn’t want it to help the German army. And even if the rescue workers could guarantee all the food went to civilians, they still argued it would indirectly aid the German army, since it would mean less competition for what food was in the country. They’d blockaded German ports and wanted them to feel the pressure.
Eventually, the British government had to grant their approval to the aid. Hence began the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), which took much-needed supplies into Belgium and Northern France throughout the war. Crossing front lines in both directions, allowed past blockades, and permitted to move freely through the war zones, the CRB was called, by one British diplomat, “a piratical state organized for benevolence.”
So naturally, they’re going to have to play a small role in my stories. 😉
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.