by Roseanna White | Jul 23, 2013 | Uncategorized
Only 7 days left! Can you believe it? And two winners I’ve yet to post are:
Wendy Newcomb and Kathleen Belongia!
And this week, you’re entering for this beautiful set, as well as the daily drawing for Ring of Secrets.
Story Time Tuesday . . . Jasmine by April McGowan
Occasionally I like to talk to y’all about books I’ve edited, and today seemed like a fine time chat about our most recent fiction title, Jasmine. April McGowan is a talented writer who tells a story of a girl who ran away from a life that could have killed her, landed on the streets, but picked herself up. The book begins when Jazz gets the news that her mother has passed away, and she needs to return to her hometown for the first time in 15 years for the reading of the will.
She survived her past there–but can she face it now?
Let me tell you a bit about what drew me to this book to begin with. I was the acquiring editor for it at WhiteFire, and I was pulled in right away by April’s smooth, simple style of writing. The pages turn quickly in this book, so fluid and graceful is the voice. But the story–the story packs a punch. Jasmine is tough, hardened, jaded about some things in life…but she’s also a hero. She’s turned her life into something beautiful and useful, having earned her doctorate so she could counsel at-risk young women who are in situations much like the one she escaped. Abused, used, and neglected, these women all need to learn the same lessons Jazz did–that it won’t get better until they get out.
But Jasmine still has lessons to learn too, and traveling through them with her is poignant and real. When faced with the family she’d turned her back on–and the best (guy) friend who would give anything to be more than that to her–memories long suppressed come flooding back, and with them the weakness she hates in herself. But only in weakness can she see the strength of One greater than she.
This is a book that will touch you, move you, make you cheer. And maybe, just maybe, make you wonder what stories around you you’ve never seen…and what you can do to help them change.
April’s also partnering with her local women’s mission, directing readers and in-need women to them–I just love it when my authors put action to their passions!
And this being a WhiteFire book, that means that digital copies are cheap!! =) Check it out at Amazon or B&N, or pre-order your paperbacks now (Amazon). 😉
Now, an interesting quirk of Jasmine’s family is that her mom names all three kids after flowers. The brother is Sweet William (he goes by Bill now–I can’t understand why, LOL), Lily is her older sister, and then Jasmine herself.
So my question comes from that.
If you had to pick a new name based on a plant,
what would it be?
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by Roseanna White | Jul 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Sorry this weekend’s posts have gone up a bit late–someone schedule them for the wrong time. Don’t know who that could be. 😉
Also a little behind on announcing winners! We have two winners of Ring of Secrets from Friday and Saturday:
Rachel Kasperson
Debra Dawn Smith
And the winner of last week’s Tea Light Garden is (drum roll, please):
Randi!
This week, not only are there daily drawings for Ring of Secrets, but also for this fun set! (Or something else from Victorian Trading Co of equal or lesser value.)
Weekends are just for fun, so without further ado, my question for you today:
What’s your favorite hobby?
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by Roseanna White | Jul 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s time to unveil this week’s bonus prize! Ready? Drum roll, please…
The Silvery Plume Pen and Ink Set
Inspired by the days when feather quills were dipped into ink to write,
your handwriting will adopt a romantic air
with surprisingly few “dips”
needed.
Includes pen, ink bottle and bundled envelopes.
So keep entering every day for a daily chance at
Ring of Secrets, and amass those entries for Friday’s drawing for this beautiful pen, ink, and paper set!
My question to you today:
Do you still send letters by post, or are you all email?
*I’ll be ordering this and having it shipped directly to the winner; if for some reason it is unavailable at the time of purchase, winner can choose another item from VTC of equal or lesser value in its stead.
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by Roseanna White | Jul 19, 2013 | Uncategorized
First, I just want to say how awesome it was to read everyone’s responses yesterday. You all have some great words to live up to this year! I’m blessed that you shared with us here. =) And yesterday’s winner of Ring of Secrets is:
Patty Hamblin
Now, don’t forget that today is your LAST DAY to enter for the candle garden! Tomorrow a new prize will be unveiled, so jot yourself a note to check that out. 😉
Now, since
this month is all about celebrating the release of my second spy novel,
I jumped at the chance to be included in the blog tour of another spy
story…this one for kids! I don’t know about the little ones in your
life, but mine love to play super-spy.
So put on your cloak, hide your dagger, and come play with May, the K9 spy! KC has a great giveaway going on–follow the link below for details on how to enter!
About
Book 1
May on the Way: How I Become a K9 Spy
Sometimes I start
with a well-thought out plan, and sometimes, me being me, things just happen.
In my imagination I’m on my way, heading anywhere. Because anywhere’s better
than here.
Which is why I’m
staring at this latch. I’m going to escape today. I’ve been watching closely to
see how they work it, though no one’s noticed.
Humans…
So unaware…
Available
in Kindle format for $2.99 on Amazon.com.
FREE for Kindle: July
16-20, 2013
About
Book 2
May Finds a Way: Peril in Paris
An enterprising
escape, a perilous mission…
After going astray during K9 Spy boot camp, May tries to find a way to the
American Embassy in Paris.
Join her and Léonce, a feral cat, as they sniff out an evil plot leading from
Benjamin Franklin’s park through the historic Passy Cemetery to The
Pantheon…including a journey under the city!
Available in Kindle format for $3.99 on Amazon.com.
FREE for Kindle: July 23-27, 2013
Giveaway
Information:
Check
out the rules and join May the K9 Spy’s Scavenger Hunt at May’s Blog
Tour HQ!
**Entries for the K9 blog tour will all need to be made at May’s Blog Tour HQ. Enter here only for my giveaway.
My question of the day:
Have you ever imagined one of your toys or pets
had a secret life?
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by Roseanna White | Jul 18, 2013 | Uncategorized
Yesterday’s winner of Ring of Secrets is:
Abbi Hart
Keep entering for your chance for today’s copy of the book and for Friday’s drawing of the Tea Light Garden!
I’m also guest posting today on Christian Bookshelf Reviews, which means a whole other giveaway over there! Feel free to come by!!
Thoughtful About . . . Shining On
I’m not used to blogging everyday–just sayin’. 😉 I used to blog 5 days a week, then cut down to 3 once I had deadlines to meet. So this month has been challenging to me–and also so rewarding! As I sat there yesterday thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, I realized that the post many of readers most love and remember sums up perfectly why I do what I do…and how hard it can be.
Those of you who have been around for a while might remember this. But since many of you are newer to Writing Roseanna, let me introduce you to “Shine.”” (The original post has been tweaked to fit the current context.)
At the start of the year 2011 (two months, as it turns out, before the contract for my first big-press book, Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland), I was praying for a word from the Lord, both for me and our small church. A word that was either something to live up to and strive toward, a goal, or a promise from our Father.
Saturday
morning (we’re Sabbath keepers) I was making bulletins for church and
choosing the songs to sing. My usual method of doing so is to consider
time of year, sermon topic, and otherwise just do a quick prayer and
flip and pick whatever catches my eye. Said method resulted in our
opening hymn being “
Shine, Jesus,
Shine.” I typed the page number and
title without thinking much about it.
Then
in church, as we sang it, I got that shiver of awareness all through
me, and my voice wobbled. My heart welled up inside. I could barely
sing, barely play the organ. Because I knew the Lord had just given me
my word: Shine.
Still
playing, still singing, I started to pray. Was this a private word,
just for me, or did it go for the church too? I’d been praying that
whatever He gave us for the church, He give to several of us for
confirmation. So I asked Him to make clear who all this word was
intended for.
After
we sang the chorus the final time, my mom (the worship leader) raised
her hand and said she wanted us to sing that chorus again. And more, she
wanted us to make it our prayer for the year. That the light of the
Lord would
Shine through us, and that we would be the mirror to reflect
Christ and his love. My dad (the pastor) added that the words “set our
hearts on fire” struck him, and that we ought to pray for that too. And
so I also added what I’d been praying for, and how this leaped out as an
answer.
I
get shivers again remembering. We’re a small church, a tiny
congregation of mostly-family. Yet in this little body of believers,
I’ve grown closer to the Lord, I’ve heard from Him more, and I’ve felt
the moving of the Spirit more than in all my life before, combined. And
on Saturday, I latched onto this newest whisper of my God.
Shine.
Shining
isn’t easy. It means being bright when you feel dull. It means
projecting out when you want to huddle in. It means being filled with
light and heat when you might want to crawl into a cool, dark corner and
sleep for a century or two.
And
not just that–because we are not light in ourselves, because we are,
on our own, empty vessels, it means, like my mom said, being that mirror
for Christ. Not just when we’re “on,” not just when we’re trying, but always. It means, like my Dad pointed out, having hearts on fire for our Lord and Savior.
I’m
not going to claim that I’m this brilliant, shining creature,
enjoying the success of the Lord’s word. But I choose to share it with you all
because I want to be accountable, and because I think it’s a word we
can all share. If ever you see me stuck in a shadow, remind me to
Shine.
And if ever I see you in one, I’ll point my mirror your way and try to
share what light I’ve got with you.
That’s
the beauty of being a mirror–we can reflect on others without losing
anything. So come on, friends.
Shine with me. Let’s fill the land with
the awesomeness of His presence.
If your year’s goal could be summed up in one word,
what would it be?
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by Roseanna White | Jul 17, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Welcome to Day 17! Yesterday’s winner is:
Rebekah Gyger!
And here’s what you’re entering for this week. Winners of the book are selected every day, and the Tea Light Garden’s winner will be drawn Friday night. Keep entering all week! Every entry is good all week long.
And EXCITING!!! I think I might have missed an email from my publisher alerting me to this–but the book trailer for Whispers from the Shadows is live!!!
You’ll notice that there’s a new way to earn an entry. 😉
And now for today’s normal post.
Remember When . . . Espionage Needed Tools?
I’ve blogged about my different discoveries in historical espionage before, but I’ve never put them all together before. And since this fall I’m teaching a home school class to my local group about the different historical methods of spying, I figure it’ll be fun to get a head start here. 😉
By the time of the Revolution, spying in Europe had reached some rather hilarious levels. It was so common in the different courts that they all knew other countries’ men were intercepting their messages and copying them. The “Black Chambers” of these master spies were located nearby the courts. The spies would steal incoming correspondence, make a copy, and slip the original back into the post. Codes had become common too, but these dudes got their jobs by being able to break them, quickly and efficiently. So it was just all one big puzzle that they were playing, knowing well their opponents were evenly matched.
 |
| A page from the real Culper Ring’s code book |
One story I read and loved was of a spy who mistakenly sent along his copy instead of the original message. The recipient knew right away what had happened and sent it back to him, demanding his original in its place–proving that they all knew exactly who was doing what and took very little issue with it after so long.
But in America, espionage was like so many other things–new and experimental. And when the Revolution was in full swing and General Washington found himself in need of reliable intelligence, he had no Black Chamber to rely on. He had only a few trusted men with no background in spying and no training in the covert.
 |
| My personal experiments with heat-developed inks |
Today we look at the cyphers and codes that the Culper Ring developed and shake our heads at how amateur they were. But they did the job, and because of the ingenuity of the brothers Jay and their “sympathetic stain” (invisible ink), the British never even
saw the code to crack it. Until then, they had to use heat-developed inks for messages, which anyone with a flame could develop. But this stain required a particular counter agent. This level of security is what kept their secrets throughout the war. And what made
Ring of Secrets a lot of fun to write. 😉
By the War of 1812, another intelligence tool had made its way to America–the mask, or grille. This was a piece of paper with a shape cut out of it. The writer of a message
would put this mask down upon a blank piece of paper, write his true
message within the hole, and then remove the mask and fill in the lines around the message so that the real words would be innocuously hidden within innocent sentences. In order to know what the message was, the recipient would have to also have the mask, which would be sent in a separate batch of correspondence.
In the Civil War, codes were the feature of the day, and there were a lot of them. Members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, for instance, would come up with codes for each occasion. Simple phrases to let each other know if a particular outcome had happened as expected or not. Other codes used a key–a book, usually a dictionary, that both sender and receiver had. They would use numbers to indicate words. So you might see something like this: 192.15.26
These numbers stood for page, line, word on line. If they were encoding something like a name that wouldn’t be in a dictionary, they would spell it out using a forth number to indicate a letter within the word.
See why this series is so much fun? And you’ll have a chance to put some of your own skills to use this Friday, when I’m taking part in a blog tour for a kids’ series about a K9 spy. 😉
Now my question to you today:
Do you think you could have been a spy in early America?
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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. 