Tags
Chess, Etopia Press, London Jewel thieves, Regency, Shehanne Moore, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood
https://thecontentedcrafter.com/
Stillmore. If they cheat I will.
Stillmore. Sorry. I do not know if I was listening there. Didn’t you mean the winner?
Stillmore. Oh, what is wrong with you dudes and this unbearable whining? You must know how it does my head in. Obviously cheating is the only way to beat me. And if you do that you deserve to be shot. Now then, let’s open shall we?
Stillmore… Hang it all where has that piece gone?
Stillmore. Oh stop sounding like Splendor. The one that was there a moment ago. I know I am not mistaken about this. any more than I am mistaken about anything. Ever.
Stillmore- Or should I say two pieces? Well, it matters not. Certainly I am not about to be beaten by a hamsterous bunch of cretins.
Stillmore- Obviously Shey wanted me to look my best so she used several of the most famous chess games in history as the basis for these bits of the book. For example the Splendor /Baxby final, where she offers her queen early, was based on a famous Russian game and worked like this…. Excuse me, where’s that piece gone?
Stillmore- If YOU are meaning THE first one where Splendor cheated–
Stillmore. Where’s that piece gone?
Stillmore–Let me say to you what I said to her…’You never let me finish.’ 
Stillmore — Right. Where’s my king?
Stillmore–Believe me… the waste of a bullet that would be. Now, if you don’t mind I have far better things to do with my time than sit here listening to this cretinous chatter.
Extract.
Drawing his collar up as protection against the chill night air, Stillmore strode to the edge of the curb. “Hang it, Chasens, my cane. And find the woman a carriage. She looks like she needs a ride home.” Well, wasn’t this a dilemma. How the bloody blazes could she have lost and that check still be in his pocket?
“Thank you, but I shall walk,” Splendor said, her chin held high and her face whiter than if she’d seen a ghost.
“Suit yourself.”
She must want to spend the night with him. How else could he explain her sitting there like a moonstruck mouse messing up every single move she made? How was he meant to reward such imbecility? By making himself look stupid? He’d tried. He’d let her have his rook, his bishop, his knight, and half his pawns. But his queen? No. There were things he drew the line at. God knew he had tried every trick he knew to throw the game in her favor without making it glaringly obvious, and she had still lost. She was a damnable woman. Not at all his type. Too tall. Too argumentative. Too vexing. Too much trouble.
He withdrew his watch from his pocket and snapped it open. “Although you must know you are being perfectly ridiculous insisting upon walking at this hour. It’s late. It’s been a long day. And you don’t exactly live close at hand.”
“And that is somehow your concern?”
“Well, no, now you come to mention it.” Having admired the watch’s pale face glinting in the moonlight for several seconds, he flicked it shut. “I was merely trying to be helpful.”
Her widened eyes left him in very little doubt that she didn’t just believe the concept of him being helpful was as far as the stars beyond him, she believed it was going to stay at that distance for some considerable time. Probably forever.
He was just going to have to keep the ten thousand pounds. Anything else would make him look a fool. His gaze flitted over the oval of her face, shadowed by the street lamps. They’d had a wager, hadn’t they? He might as well get his wager’s worth.
“But I shall pick you up tomorrow evening at seven. Be ready.”
‘Lady’ Splendor better not think of bolting either.
shehanne moore 
If I was any good at chess I’d say I won and claim £10,000.
Lol.. Join the club George.I only ever played it once. My Mr was trying to teach me and I beat him and that was that… x
Oh yes, Hamster Dickens is surely a Master chess-eater …. er …. I mean chess-player! Congrats. I do love that wicked Stillmore but don’t tell BB or I’m in trouble. Great stuff, Shey. xxx
Dearest Kate,
The worthy master is not called that fro nothing. Indeed he is a grandmaster.
Love
The Dudes
Dear Kate,
Ah is deeply aggrieved yah loves that no them there good stripey skunk Stillmoah.
Youahs in deep despair
Bobby B.
Aw Bobbikins, that Stillmore got no green hat, so he don’t stand a chance. Hugs, Kate xxxx *tickles whiskers*
Puhewee. yah had me them there worried Kate.
love
Bobby B.
Kate? Got the other twenty quid ready to send xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Excellent in every way Shey.
The digital art was lovely. The Dudes and the Earl… hilarious! Honestly he is worse then them! Come on HampStars man up (or rather Hampster up!) and the Splendor extract was buzzing!
I cannot believe Splendor was written by the same author as The Writer and The Rake. (Obviously I can because I know how accomplished you are). I remember you once told me you change your voice for every book so that each novel comes as something fresh to the reader. Well, you know what, you do it beautifully- the whole mood, every nuance is different. You are so skilled in your craft! I take my hat off to you!
Oh pit it back on x Paul…fifty quid in the post. my this blog is costing me a fortune. Stillmore is worse than them. he’s a sore loser in every way with this huge opinion of his abilities. He just needs a heroine to knock his rough edges off. Paul, I am not anything truly. I just like to set my novels against a particular backdrop. I don’t necessarily mean a specific location. It is more the idea of the characters, the setting they are in, MOOD I guess and this is a sort of decayed Cinderella idea this story. He’s a pretty jaded, nothing like Charming. And obviously while I like to stick to certain things, the feisty heroine, the ruthless hero, the ‘Man is an accessory’, a recent reviewer said is a trademark of my books, and also the humour and flawed characters, I want the nuances to be different, the characters to be different because their backgrounds are. –I mean like Mitchell Stillmore was unhappily marri3ed but he really loved his wife and he’s not Mitchell– so the books are hopefully different. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shey…
You Said… don’t necessarily mean a specific location. It is more the idea of the characters, the setting they are in.
Reading this I was thinking of replying…You are right the thing you really capture is the MOOD… and low and behold what is the very next word in your comment is… MOOD!
Your talent really shows in how you create a thematic mood unique to the novel that entirely pervades the work until it imprisons the readers within the novel’s pages.
When reading you don’t care what is going on in the rest of the 18 century. The Writer and Rake wasn’t a book where I wanted to go out and explore the world. What happened was the reverse. The small almost claustrophobic world of Mitchell and Britanny’s relationship leapt out of the book and got into my head, so that was all I cared about, and indeed could think about.. even after it ended.
Its like a fever where you (the reader) becomes the tinder for two people sparking each other until they ignite into flames of lust and love in equal measure and in the end are as much a part of the conflagration as they are.
And surely, well at least to me, that is what the whole genre of historical romantic, and dare I say smexy with a twist, fiction is about. It is not about going out to their world but their world coming into you.
WOW!!! Paul, I never thought of it like that BUT I do love what you say there about the world coming into you. I saw with my first book Lady Fury that it was this whole intense thing between the tow leads. it is set mainly in an Italian villa and there is a maidservant –and a few other ‘flitters,’ in terms of characters- but I worried that it was all about THEM and not enough about the world. I thought I would never get t a book out of it . not ever but I then thought well it is the characters I guess who will carry this. I am not very good at expanding beyond that immediate world. I know it historically but it’s always to the side. The same his happening with what I am working on. yes it is the smuggling world of 18th century Cornwall but it’s all about the two leads. Paul, thank you for this comment. talking worlds ? It means that to me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Great Scott! You got Siddy over there threatening the Dudes? He’d be giving them a good game of ‘Fetch’. Dude would run fast, Siddy would bound, bound, catch, toss in air and bring to me to toss away again. Poor Dudes would not be happy! On the other hand he might just get a hold of Hamster Dickens and give him a big cuddle –
he likes to cuddle his teddy bears and a Hamster Dude is not that much smaller…….
That was so fun Shey I quite missed the point of poor Mr Earl of Stillmore’s interview. Where on earth did you get that photo featuring Siddy’s butt? He’s mortified!! 😀 ❤
Ha ha. From your blog! I put in Siddy and up that came. Lovely dog. So cute. I am afraid that none of my heroes get a good interview here. They are very fond of Flint but that is it. The hero from the book before Splendor came on one day and never got a word in on round one. They answered every question for him. We did say for a giggle I should get Siddy over !! xxxx
Siddy is very pleased – he loves nothing better than to make new friends and be thought wonderful 😀
Bring on Siddy. bring on Siddy… thank goodness there was no shooting involved on either side. I think overall it was a victory for the furry warriors. xxxxxxxxx
I think so too and you have no idea how much Stillmore hates to lose. That is why he cleared off xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Run off more like.. they don’t suffer macho egos…xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
They don’t. Also underneath all that attitude Stillmore’s best kept secret is his poor, burned soft heart. xxxxxxxxx
Lunacy Ms S, yet fine lunacy
Nowt like lunacy as you well know xx
Chess players could go this crazy, i never knew. An interesting post!!
Oh yes. Despite knowing nothing about chess I am sure they do!!! Lovely to hear from you x
🙂
xxxx
Splendour in itself,my darling Shey,my whimsical dudes and my new friend Siddy 🙂
Masterful presentation and Art photography bringing out enigmatic excerpts from the plot.You’re a charismatic author,my great Scottish friend 🙂 xxxxxx
And you my darling, darling Doda, my love Greek friend Doda, are way too kind xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
🙂 xxxxxxx
Doda..xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Very brave of the hamsters! It must take you hours to put one of these posts together!
Leslie… It’s not the words. Like me they are just lippy wee gits. It is the getting it onto edit, the fixing the speech balloons etc etc. that takes forever but hey, those that like a laugh, get a laugh. It makes the world go round x Bottom line? Thank you xxx
They’re very amusing. I’m kind of in awe of what you do.
Leslie, what I do is plain nonsense. I am much more in awe of you and the way you juggle words. I mean that xxxx
I still have my eyes covered… Is it safe yet, dudes?
For you Kev??? Yes. We are unsure re that Shey who has failed to send you these picures…… x But will. Or else.
Pheee-Ew! Thanks, dudes!
We will see to this. Don’t tell her and watch the space..
That hound of hell is truly terrifying! Nice to catch up with you and the dudes 🙂
That hound is of the Baskervilles..not…. Lovely to see you .AND congrats on the re-lease of Vampire’s lair, loved the kind of vampiric laid-backness of that book. xxxx
“vampiric laid-backness’, well said! 🙂
Lol… It was so different that way Reminded me a bit of that film Love at First bite. It had that fabulously zany approach to darker things x
Die Erste xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for the reblog Interview With the Earl. Take 2. https://bizmarc.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/interview-with-the-earl-take-2/
Dudes, you did a fine job dodging bullets while advancing the story line. Stillmore is a bit too full of himself to my liking. Kudos for trying to bring him down a notch or two 🙂 Introducing Siddy helped. I hope Shey appreciates the skill you’ve achieved 🙂 Hugs to Shey and all the Dudes! ❤❤❤
Dearest Tina, of course she doesn’t. You are the only one who appreciates us. She got onto us for chasing Stillmore before he could show why he appears to be so full of himself. Now she is not speaking to us. Sob . Sob. Sob.
Love
The poor little dudes.
Take heart, my little Dudes. Shey will come around; she always does. Sending lots of love your way to tide you over ❤❤❤
Sob, sob, she won’t. Now she will make us do worse, like blog Catherine Cavendish.
Love,
the poor sobbing dudes xxx
Well little ones, you’re one up on me. I have no clue how to play chess. I just know you shouldn’t be eating the pawns or the bishops. But you are masters by now. 🙂 xxxxxxxx
But they were so tasty DG, Hamstah Dickens could not help himself. He is certainly a MASHER.
Love
The Dudes
xxxx
OMG you crack me up! You can’t be eating Chess pieces, it’s ‘so unfair’. 🙂 xxxxxxxxxx
But very delicious.
Love
The dudes. x
Well, you know how much I love this book and will be reviewing it (although not until after NaNoWriMo now, unless I chicken out of that crazy one-month novel-writing exercise after a few days, of course!).
I have a chess match in one of my novel’s too, and that is based on a famous Russian game as well. The trouble is, I can’t remember which match now, as it’s way back that I wrote the first draft. In my book, the game is called Trap, not chess, and the pieces have dogs’ heads to them! Percival Poodle is a bad loser, just like Stillmore, and accuses the boy, Noah, of cheating. Fortunately, he doesn’t suggest a duel at dawn, but he does punish Noah by locking him in a room for days on end. I don’t think the Dudes would like Percival at all; even less than they like Stillmore 😉 xxxxxxxxxxxx
My goodness I think Percival and Stillmore should NEVER play each other. Mind you,,,,could you see it? The lengths they would go to? It would be ultimate war. The dudes don’t like any of my heroes, except for Flint. They give them a rough ride. I can’t remember the games I based the matches on either but the one with the Queen being given away in the Baxby final, was a very famous Russian game. I like that you did the same when it came to chess Sarah. In fact I love that you did. And after all one does need to be able to do something in order to write about it. it is what imagination and research is for. YOU are a darling re this book as it is. I look forward to reading about you and NanoWrimo.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I love the combination of imagination and research. They sort of trigger each other off. I did some research this morning. It involved asking someone to put on a gas mask and shout whilst wearing it, so I could hear what it sounded like. My experience is that most people love assisting writers with research, unless of course it’s a writer who’s likely to write something controversial about the person they’re questioning! xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sarah… I love it! I often think what the search engine of the average writer must look like. Then there’s the not so average…. II hope you are not about to do the latter there on who you’re questioning x
Chess, hamsters, and an Earl ~ Now that makes for one heck of an amusing blog post! Keep ’em coming, Shey xxoo
Lol Christy B. Reckon the most amusing is that the dudes prob know more about chess than me, which is why I ain’t blogged any chess posts on this one…They certainly know how to eat their way through a game. Lovely to see you xxxxxxxxxxxxx
A great interview Dudes. The digital picture is great so I can well understand your irritation that your names weren’t on it. Well done, Shey on your research on chess. It is amazing how much research one ends up doing when writing. A delightful extract too.
Dearest Robbie,
Not only are our names not on it, Shey locked it up so we can’t eat it.
The starving dudes.
xx
The picture is lovely. Ahmed is such a talented digital artist and photographer. Also he often has blogs on art history. Research? Yes. I sometimes shudder to think what my search history looks like! Seriously, you are right. I don’t know the first thing about chess but saw that it was huge at the time the book is set, chess clubs, or chapters, countrywide leagues, comps, the lot and I could see the opening chapter so clearly (That is as much as I ever see clearly) I had to bite bullets. But also then you hope while I don’t hammer the detail—if folks want to read a chess manual they can buy that–that you have still got that detail right. Thank you re the extract xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Oooo, the chemistry here is *this* close to boiling over, but never does. Love it!
OOOH. Never let the pot boil over till it’s time and where this bit is, it’s time to ratchet things up that little bit further. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Never eat the chess pieces, Dudes!! It makes the players might angry…just be happy Stillmore didn’t want to waste a bullet!!
Shey, you sound like you’re having a lot fun with these interviews and also when writing the books…they read like a charm, fantastic characters and your extracts always leave me wanting more. Great post!! 😃 PS. I had to laugh that you knew nothing of chess beforehand!!
We are so very sorry Annika, but we were hungry. We would have eaten that bullet too if it had come our way.
Love from
the poor starving dudes
xxx
Annika, I quite like doing these character interviews largely cos my characters are pretty awful at times–they don’t think so but they are. So yeah, I have fun. Stillmore really does set out to let her win but you see, his problem is he hates to lose. Period. So he just can’t help reverting to type after all the promises he’s made himself. And he uses all these distracting tactics– at lease she thinks they are–the main one being it is timed chess, which she doesn’t play. Thrilled you liked this. Seriously. And no, I know nothing of chess. But hey it is what imagination and research is for eh???? xxxxxxxxxx
A lovely interview, and me, so bad at chess that I have no idea what it’s about.
Me neither sister. That is the truth. I went online and hauled up some really famous chess games for Splendor to play…..
Well aren’t you the resourceful one. 😘❤️
Lol…………………. I wanted to make her suffer actually !!! ( I mean me write chess? Whose idea was that?) xxxx
Excellent maam 😊☺
Eliza, lovely to see you this cold wet morning in Scotland xx
😊😊😊
I see my little hippie dude was in Time Warp mode. I love him more with each blog 💖 I can’t play Chess either, so glad the dudes ate the pieces xx
I was needing them to come onto the page and eat the board every time. And I wasn’t looking up any more fancy games for this blog, I am ashamed to say. My head was done in! Glad you enjoyed the dudes and that you don’t play either xxxxx
Snakes and Ladders or Ludo and even Kerplunk was my thing 😉 xxxx
Lol I liked board games too xxxxxx