The fault, dear Brutus ….

Tags

Cornwall, Cursed families, Curses, The Brontes, The kennedys, The Romanovs

 

May everything you touch wither to dust.’ Cursed? Or just unlucky? Shehanne Moore

    ‘The question is this. I cursed you. I cursed you and your brothers –” 

   “One of whom—” 

   “Blew his brains out at midnight. Do you seriously think I didn’t trouble myself to find out?”

     “Oh, I’m sure-“
 

     “May everything you touch, turn to dust.”’ 

   Cursed? Or just unlucky? Nice to think it’s the latter but legends of curses permeate practically every culture in history. from entire families to items—jewels especially—but places too. It would be good to say we just like someone to blame misfortune on but then again, some folks don’t seem to have a lot of good fortune, do they? 

   Let’s take my new heroine, Destiny who is the victim of just such a curse…

   “But the fact was that curse uttered for nothing had killed Ennis, as surely as if Divers O’Roarke had pushed his carriage down that ravine that night.” 

   It’s very convenient to believe that all the loss and tragedy that follows Destiny about like a bad smell is the result of that curse, when it was probably on the cards anyway. Also, at the time she was cruising for the proverbial bruising, causing besotted men to shoot each other, this could just have been a wind change in her life, a what-goes-round-comes-round time. But then again, the loss of a mother, father, brother, husband and more in the space of two years, not to mention another brother becoming an alcoholic, does seem the kind of misfortune that would give the Kennedy family a run for their money in the cursed stakes. 

     And I think that is where curses have their power—superstitious–but even so. Would you really want to flout a curse by wearing the Hope diamond for example? Or indeed by then touching someone who was cursed? 

   “From Land’s End to Launceston people avoided her like she had the plague. In fact it was probably from Land’s End to John O’Groats. She couldn’t get another husband even if she wanted to.” 

     Whether it is balderdash or not, if something goes wrong after you flout a curse, well, you are probably going to blame the curse and wish you hadn’t done it, even if curses may, or may not exist. The Rhodes family aren’t alone in being cursed. Other famous families, in addition to the Kennedys, include the Hapsburgs, the Grimaldis, the Hemingways. I guess the Romanovs weren’t exactly what you might call lucky either.

     Of course big families like that, in terms of being newsworthy, of having wealth etc., are always going to find their bones being picked over by the ‘lesser mortals.’ And the Rhodes family have that local standing.

     ‘She was a Rhodes and Rhodes were all about living life to the hilt.’

     Big old house, family tree going back centuries, suggestions of links to pirates, definite links to smugglers. Legends surround them, like Raven’s Passage, said to stretch from their family seat, Doom Bar Hall, all the way to the beach, a fabulous place stuffed with golden treasures.

 

 It’s easy to say that some of these real families were cursed when you can point to the actual curse itself, how it came to be uttered and who was responsible. Rasputin, of course gets held responsible for cursing the Romanovs but as a family they had plenty of misfortune before that. Nicholas II’s father and grandfather didn’t exactly fare brilliantly either and Rasputin never cursed them. But then the times they were living in were pretty explosive. No pun intended actually. Just pointing out the possible carnage/ill heath rate which brings me to the Brontës, another family that might be construed as cursed. Equally fame eventually touched them, so we know of their lives. But their deaths were the lot of entire families especially given the unsanitary conditions of the time. 

     The thing about curses? I honestly think you pay your money you take your chances…NOW go open the voddie and do Cossack dances.

.

 “He cursed you, me, Chancery. You most of all. Think how different your life would now be if he hadn’t uttered these damnable words. When Chancery loved Rose. Wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. That Divers O’Roarke didn’t know is no damned excuse.”

     “I am thinking. And I’m thinking we are the life we live. Its graces and its pain. And while we may not always have any control over it, we can control what we do about it. But if you want to believe in a load of old gypsy mutterings and superstition and hold it responsible for the fact you can’t walk past a drink, without feeling obliged to down and then drown in it, that’s your choice. This is mine.’

O’Roarke’s Destiny Shehanne Moore.

Catherine Cavendish and a dark veil…

Tags

Book review, Catherine Cavendish, Crossroads Press, ghosts, Halloween, hauntings, Hellems, Horror, Much Marcle, New book, Spooky Houses, the Darkest Veil

 

Hellens – Heart, History and Hauntings

 

Helens – Heart, History and Hauntings  BY CATHEINE CAVENDISH

Helens – Heart, History and Hauntings  BY CATHEINE CAVENDISH

I spent the first two years of my life in a little village, some 16 miles from Hereford, called Much Marcle. These days Marcle is best known for the incredible success story that is Westons Cider, but back in the twelfth century, the foundations were laid for a house that, over the centuries, has seen more than its fair share of history. Not bad for a manor house in a sleepy little backwater of rural Herefordshire.

Hellens (said to be named after the de Helyon family who were early owners of the property) has changed hands many times over the centuries. Early inhabitants were witnesses to the signing of the Magna Carta. Much later, in the sixteenth century, owner Richard Walwyn was knighted by Mary Tudor. She dubbed him (for reasons probably best left to her) Knight of the Carpet. Elizabeth I forgave him when she came to the throne. Sadly this didn’t stop him from dying bankrupt and, by 1619, Hellens was reported to be in ruins.

 

Over the next century, Hellens enjoyed mixed fortune and not a little tragedy. During the Civil War, the Walwyns fought on the King’s side. The opposing Parliamentarian forces stormed Hellens, where the family priest was acting as caretaker. They found his hiding place, dragged him out and stabbed him repeatedly with their halberds, until the poor man resembled a porcupine. He died in the room where Mary Tudor is supposed to have stayed – Bloody Mary’s Chamber. When I was there, a woman on the same tour reported feeling a distinct cold spot near the fireplace and many unwitting tourists have reported being chased out of there by a figure resembling a Catholic monk.

 

Also, at this time, a body was allegedly buried under the floorboards, where it remains to this day. The corpse is that of Sir Henry Lingen, killed in battle at Ledbury (three miles way). Does Sir Henry walk the house at dead of night? And where, precisely, is his body? No one – as yet – knows because it has never been found.

But the hapless priest certainly isn’t the only ghost to wander the rooms of Hellens. Around 1700, someone scratched a message on a window pane in a room now known as ‘Hetty’s Room’. It reads: ‘It is a part of virtue to abstain from what we love if it should prove our bane.’ This sorrowful little homily was etched using a diamond ring, but who did it?

)

Hetty Walwyn, daughter of the house, eloped with a local lad called John Piercel, but he abandoned her and, with nowhere else to go, she was forced to return home and throw herself on the mercy of her family. But there was little mercy for Hetty. Her mother marched her up to her bedroom and locked her in. Poor Hetty was to be denied human companionship for the next 30 years, until she died, still incarcerated in that one room. The only way she could communicate was by pulling a cord which rang a solitary bell. Visitors can still do this – and a more mournful, lonely sound you could hardly imagine. Needless to say, there was no way anyone could reply to her. Interestingly, her faithless lover may have repented, for high on the outside of the window, his name – John Piercel – is scratched, along with the date – 1702. Poor Hetty haunts the room to this day. If you visit, maybe you’ll hear her weeping…softly…just behind you.

Over the next 200 years, ownership of the house changed frequently until Hilda Pennington Mellor, became its new chatelaine in 1945. She married the philanthropist and scientist, Axel Munthe who was physician to the Queen of Sweden. Axel Munthe is most famous for writing bestselling book, The Story of San Michele, about his adventures in restoring a house on Capri, which had been built on the foundations of Emperor Tiberias’s villa. Professionally, he worked tirelessly through outbreaks of cholera and typhus – not to mention earthquakes – tending to the sick, during the years he worked in Italy. He refused to take any money for his services from the poor and even established a hospice for elderly, destitute people in a castle outside Rome.

Today, the descendants of Hilda and Axel still call Hellens home, and the house plays a major role in village life in a variety of ways. This carries on a long tradition. My mother remembered attending the Coronation Ball there in 1953. Much Marcle, Hellens and cider are so inextricably entwined that it was decided that, at midnight, the fountain in the forecourt would flow, not with water, but with cider. Unfortunately, no one thought to warn the family spaniel whose habit it was to drink from that fountain. Not only that, the celebrations started rather earlier than anticipated. As a result, the poor dog was intoxicated by four that afternoon!

This was only the beginning of a chapter of disasters that threatened to scupper the entire event and which are hilariously recounted in Malcolm Munthe’s enthralling book, Hellens – The Story of a Herefordshire Manor. Somehow, the guests – my mother included – did get their cider, the health of the new Queen was drunk and everyone talked about the wonderful masque for months to come.

Hellens is full of atmosphere – and all the better for being a little faded, a little worn and not a little frayed around the edges. It hasn’t been ‘tarted’ up for the tourists. It’s an honest house – a family home, with a big heart, that has been around for nearly a thousand years. Parts of it bear the scars of battle – relics of the Civil War and a World War II bomb, carelessly discarded following an enemy raid on Birmingham.

As you walk its creaking corridors, descend the steep, narrow staircase and marvel at the faded elegance of its rooms, you get a real sense of presence, of a home well loved and well lived in. And, as such, this has to be one of my favourite haunts (in all senses of the word).

Have a look at their website, by clicking HERE

We are the Thirteen and we are one

 4 Yarborough Drive looked like any other late 19th century English townhouse. Alice Lorrimer feels safe and welcomed there, but soon discovers all is not as it appears to be. One of her housemates flees the house in terror. Another disappears and never returns. Then there are the sounds of a woman wailing, strange shadows and mists, and the appearance of the long-dead Josiah Underwood who founded a coven there many years earlier. The house is infested with his evil, and Alice and her friends are about to discover who the Thirteen really are.

When death’s darkest veil draws over you, then shall shadows weep

 

The Darkest Veil is available from:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

 

About The Author

Following a varied career in sales, advertising and career guidance, Catherine Cavendish is now the full-time author of a number of paranormal, ghostly and Gothic horror novels, novellas and short stories. In addition to The Darkest Veil, Cat’s novels include The Haunting of Henderson Close, the Nemesis of the Gods trilogy – Wrath of the Ancients, Waking the Ancients and Damned by the Ancients, plus The Devil’s Serenade, The Pendle Curse and Saving Grace Devine.

Her novellas include Linden Manor, Cold Revenge, Miss Abigail’s Room, The Demons of Cambian Street, Dark Avenging Angel, The Devil Inside Her, and The Second Wife

She lives by the sea in Southport, England with her long-suffering husband, and a black cat called Serafina who has never forgotten that her species used to be worshipped in ancient Egypt. She sees no reason why that practice should not continue.

You can connect with Cat here:

Catherine Cavendish

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The Darkest Veil by Catherine Cavendish.

Five hamsters.

That there was something welcoming about the house is quickly dispelled in Catherine Cavendish’s latest book–a novella that yet feels and reads like so much more and in fact  shows that Ms Cavendish is every bit a master of the shorter genre as she is of a full blown novel. As ever, the time settings are carefully observed and evoked, moving seamlessly from the 1970s to the present day. The ordinariness of bedsit land and life is a perfect foil for the depth and scale of lurking horror in Yarborough Drive. It is often said that the evil men do live after them and it was never truer than of this house. In fact as Alice Lorrimer and her new friends soon find out it’s never left. But will it be to their cost or not? Can they save more than themselves in this gripping, page-turning chiller? The race is certainly on as they start unravelling the past. And the reader is led skilfully down paths where sighs of relief are breathed. But let’s not forget one vital thing. This is Catherine Cavendish’s world  and  a scary one it is. A must for Halloween.

 

 

The Gowns of Destiny.

Tags

Cornwall, Resa's Artgowns

 

O’Roarke’s Destiny – by Shehanne Moore

A REBLOG OF ARTGOWNS, DESTINY GOWNS AND A REVIEW FROM RESA BY RESA

Is the line between love and hate so fine you can’t see it? If you can’t see it, can you cross it?

Some women are attracted to bad boys. Are some men attracted to bad girls? What if a good boy became a bad boy? What if a bad girl became a good girl, even when she was bad?

That’s just part of the passion play in O’Roarke’s Destiny. The intrigue, mystery and small matter of an effective curse cast by Diver’s O’Roarke is the story’s action.

It’s 1801, Cornwall; a time when women needed men, more than men needed women. Or, so society knew. 1801, Cornwall; Destiny Rhodes needs no one, nor anything: save Doom Bar Hall, its servants, Aunt Modesty’s porcelain, Lord Tredwynne’s antique armour, Grandfather Austell’s stuffed parrots, garlands in the hall at Christmas, her garden and all the embroidered pillows sewn up mended.  At least that’s what Destiny was thinking. 

However, it all seems somewhat moot after Divers O’Roarke wins Doom Bar Hall, from Destiny’s drunkard brother, Orwell.

It’s a world of smugglers, pirates, excisemen and extreme danger, yet, Destiny needs only her instincts. She’s in over her head, but owns a drive to do what has to be done to get to the bottom of what is going on, and retain a position to remain at Doom Bar Hall.

Still, Lyons busted her illegal casks of spirits. Who tipped him off?  Mostly, why did Divers O”Roarke take the fall for her?

💥 BREAKING NEWS! 💥

There’s gowns in the story.

Tragically, Destiny’s dear husband Ennis, while in his carriage, had cascaded to his death into a ravine.(credit to the curse) Now, Destiny is in an eternal mourning in black. On top of it all, she has pined away her body’s curves, and chopped off her luscious long black hair.

Divers O’Roarke wants her, but black is for widows. He has won Doom Bar Hall … fair & square? So, her gowns are his, to sell at his pleasure. Yet, his pleasure is far from the few bits of coin he could get for the gowns. What he wants is to see Destiny, in any gown other than widow’s black.

Eventually, Destiny must wear a gown for him. She dons her least sexy gown, which is in Egyptian blue. (I don’t have that colour in my caddy, but I came up with an eau de nil). This colour is not her best, possibly her worst, definitely her most disliked.

Yet, what Divers O’Roarke wants is to see her in her most vibrant and glorious red gown. Will she wear it?

1. How did the idea of a curse come up? Are you superstitious, dabble in say; Tarot or Astrology? How/why did the curse entail everything turning to dust? Why not turn to toads, a lowly insect or even a hamster? (a little cheek)

Oh, now there was  a time I  did some work for a psychic  journalist. I did once say what haven’t I done writing wise and other way wise when it comes to earning a crust. And yes I also did some Tarot work for her too as part of that. So I did learn the cards.  At that time I also could do card readings from  playing cards. I had a great aunt who could do the tea leafs.  That totally fascinated me growing up. I think much as we may mock it, we do want to know a bit about what’s ahead, that HOPEFULY there’s a corner that will be turned or some good luck coming. As for the  curse idea? Well, the book started about a house that the heroine had lost. And that idea came from us having to sell up our family home and me jokingly saying to a friend, I should just have flung myself in with it as a housekeeper. Then I thought BINGO idea for a book here. And it started out as fun and frothy but there were things on the table that weren’t right. Like why didn’t the hero just put her out? How can he be so besotted with this family when they were horrible to him as a child? Was light and frothy going to sustain a book? Then for some reason I saw their pasts and how and why he had cursed her and how everything had then gone wrong in her life since. Everyone she cared about has died. So she gets this name locally that way. Now if only I had thought beyond the box though, you are right. He should have said may everything you touch turn into a hamster dude. But then she’d have been overrun.  That might have been a worse curse.  2. Your use of humour helps in feeling the underlying intense emotional states of Destiny and O’Roarke.  With Destiny it’s the simple practical day to day things she plans to do the next day. With O’Roarke, it’s what to dig his grave with. Did you intend these character’s personal thoughts to be a humorous relief? Or did it just turn out that way?

No. Firstly I always like to use humour of thoughts. We all have them, let’s be clear. Maybe not about graves and what to dig them with etc., but we do have little idiosyncrasies and of course we are not always aware of them either.  And I also know my readers expect to have a few giggles. So I couldn’t not. My characters always have some kind of wee saying or attitude. One heroine had sliding scales of things. Another would sooner swallow a crocodile than do whatever and as the book went on, that list grew and grew. One hero–my most impatient one–had Christ on various things.  I did feel this book would be a bit dark if I didn’t have these bits. They are neither of them in the best place emotionally.  However I then have the prob of her being a widow and I did NOT want to tackle it by having her thinking well, she was widow, thank God, because she had every reason not to have loved her husband. I felt that was a get out.  So I thought if I had her, having been hit so hard that her way through is to line up  tasks and tick the boxes, that that actually could prove quite humorous, especially if she’s so busy lining up these tasks, while people keep ‘getting in her face’  she doesn’t see how deep the waters are getting. It was like a wee you may think wink to my readers  she’s going to be incandescent with rage the way my other ladies would be, but you are in for a surprise here. She’s too busy thinking she has that cushion cover to sew and that stool to mend. In a way these are the things that also need to be prised loose from her fingertips. 

 3. I’m fascinated by “Doom Bar Hall”. How did you come up with that name? Had you considered calling it “Rhodes Hall”?

Doom Bar Hall was called after Doom Bar sandbar in Cornwall. Given I wanted to write of curses and smuggling, and not such great emotional states, I wanted something dark sounding and it is quite a fearsome sandbar I gather, responsible for hundreds of ship wrecks down the years. Originally before I went from frothy to dark, from Hampshire to Cornwall geographically,  the house was called Lavistock and the book title was the Lady of Lavistock. Divers wasn’t called Divers O’Roarke either at that point. I just felt all round this was stronger. I do like to create a pervading mood and landscape for each book. This became the one here.

Resa, I want to thank you not just for inviting me here today, but your wonderful friendship AND the talent and readiness to use it to create gowns, for all those you create gowns for AND that includes my ladies. They and I salute you. 

Here’ s the first drawing I did of Destiny. I was trying too, hard with the chopped off hair look. Yet, I still like it, because she looks like a pirate courtesan, with hair for an eye patch.  Yet, perhaps this is a more correct visual introduction to Destiny.

Shehanne Moore is a native of Scotland, Dundonian by birth. She is the author of many Romance novels.

Having read 3 (almost 4) of her books, I can say her attention to the details of an era puts one in a different time and place. You don’t question it. You are there.

As for the flame of love she burns with her words, I suggest you read a book to see the fire!

Click on the pic below, to buy O’Roarke’s Destiny on Amazon!

A cover for one’s book can be as daunting as writing it. After a great search, Shehanne found the image below. The colours were wrong, but they were made right.

Eye’d like to thank all who took the time to read this post. Love you all!

“Destiny” As a Resa one eye

NOW ALL ABOUT RESA

My name is Resa McConaghy. I’m a Costume Designer for film and television.

“Art Gowns” is a creative project that has sprung from my old Blog,  Queen’s end.

As “Art Gowns” continues on,  I will Post other creative clothing ideas with the “Art Gowns” branding.

All of these ideas, of course, will revolve around the “Art of Glamorous Fantasy”. I’m thinking things like Poetry Shirts, DIY Gowns and DIY Crystaline Accessories.

This is all new to me, and should develop with time.

https://artgowns.com/

Three bridesmaids and a bride are we …

Tags

Scottish weddings, Weddings

 

12 years in the making OR every picture tells a story.

I’m choosing that title, in case you’re wondering, just as I’m sure you must be wondering re the song choice for a wedding day and the answer is it’s just as apt. It is twelve years now since my wee girl, first sold her husband a lunchtime roll in the local Spar shop–a shop my big girl also met her husband in. Must be the little shop of romance that one.  That was then, this is now. Now she is a lawyer for those who need one most,  and he has his own successful joinery business. I like to think life brings its own rewards.

I say that because when you  see the 12 years you may  be thinking that’s a long time to be together before making this official. There are many marriages that don’t last a quarter as long. Or maybe, given the average cost of a wedding these days, is that how long it took to save up? But the title says in the making and that’s what it’s been. Quite a number of those twelve years were spent apart, some of them in dark places.  I’m not choosing to show these pictures and share a few stories of the day to say, ‘yes, do look at how wonderful and perfect we all are, as a family and there’s them in that grand venue with their little boy and all,’  I’m choosing them to say, ‘here’s where we are on the journey.’ Every step on a journey has to be lived after all and when you get to certain bits…well.. yeah you celebrate what you cherish. I say in my new book, ‘We are the life we lead, its graces and its pain,’ and that is true.

Every picture tells a story. So this one…

It’s the years they took to get here. But they are here. And yep… special moment– the reading? The reading was from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights… If all else perished. (Okay I knew about that bit, I ‘fess up, she ran three possibilities past me and I said it has to Bronte, there’s a cathedral in these towering words, especially when you think of her life and the book she produced for the time she wrote in.)

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

That first pic  at the top of the blog. Well? That’s all the bride and bridesmaids getting in the swing after  the older girl had spent the morning lying in a chair with a sick bucket and we all made jokes about carting her down the aisle like that, saying to folks, ‘Braw night we had last night…’ and one of the other girls who does not do hair and makeup but was quite taken with how good she looked, shimmied down  behind in her   Jurassic Park jammies. The older girl had a sickness bug bto and did not manage much of the reception. But still she managed this…..

As you can see from the second pic up there, these girls turned round and were all swans…

This one here…

 

Totally belies the absolute high jinks and laughter, to the extent the handymen preferred to put a ladder up  outside and climb up to open a painted shut window, rather than take their chances with us ladies…    But they had to eventually–poor things. They were quick enough to come back for more ribbing though, bringing big fans to cool the ailing matron of honour. Oh and the ladder left up and the fact we could all be heard right where the guests were arriving—above the piper too, which is saying something –led to a ton of jokes about the bride doing a runner in her trainers…

Of course our special wee grandie best man had to get in on the action.

The other side to this picture…? When I brought him in, to see his Sheshe Bear he looked all round  going she is not here and his wee face all fell… only because he did not recognize her.

So? My special moments? All of these. Hearing the saxophonist who played at my other girl’s drinks reception bit, play again.  Seeing the bridal party come up the aisle and stand while Alice Marra who has the voice of an angel  sung and I could see the registrar’s face going from that is not a wedding song to…oh my……  Clocking my new son in law, mouthing.. wow, she is beautiful… to me as Sheeshe Bear  stood beside him.  Dancing every dance. Being with those who were there.  Both my wee grandies. Enjoying the most beautiful sunshine and warmth outside. Watching the grandie who was the page boy at my older girl’s wedding building lego with the flower girl from that one as opposed to trying to impress her with his dancing skills.

Which truth to tell are now  so no bad  the band played specially for him at one point, off the cuff. But above it all was his speech, five years old. It was seeing him have the ability to stand there at the table and tell everyone his daddy was his best friend, his mummy was beautiful but he loved it best when she gave him cuddles.

It may have been 12 years in the making but it has been worth every minute of waiting. Pictures do tell stories indeed. Friday was a day of life’s graces.

P.S. I reckon the story on the pic above is that having made a bold failed attempt on the butterflies on the hat, this babba grandie now considers her chances with the necklace…. Also foiled.  Never mind, cuz, said the wee best man, you can’t have it all.  ‘least you tried, kid. At least you tried….

.

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 13th, high functioning depressives, release day and a review

Tags

#newbook #review, #releaseday, Cornwall, O'Roarke's Destiny, Romance, Shehanne Moore

I don’t usually do this.

Only because Jane Hunt can’t get her reviews on Amazon. Thank you. Now do we want the Cleanser here, or not…

And as Destiny, my high functioning depressive heroine says

“Really? And I’m the Man in the Moon. I go out at night and I fly up into the sky in a pair of silver breeches and shine me light on the world.”

Indeed it is Friday the 13th, not the best day in the world to release a new book on BUT then again, it is about a curse. It is also a book about two emotionally bereft people and features a heroine who is what is called a high functioning depressive.  She will be along next week to talk more about that.  

I made the decision many years ago that I didn’t want to write about people–hamsters either before you interrupt–whose lives were perfect.

Which of us, in reality, has that kind of life? But, as today approached and after the many hair tearing moments I had on this book, especially trying to get in humour that was respectful to an emotional state…well… humour  I know my readers expect, let’s just say there were plenty times I thought sometimes the path less chosen is indeed less chosen for a purpose.

That is why it was wonderful this morning to step online to a DM Facebook message from Jane Hunt, an author and reviewer who had an ARC rough copy and who does not shrink from pulling her punches.   I want to thank her for that message AND also her review.  This is my seventh book and my day, unlike when I released my first two, was to be spent getting on with my present WIP, the household tasks etc. But now I AM going to at least treat myself to a wee pre-Fri evening drink with my Mr. Oh obvi by pre I mean pre Friday nite meal with wine back here. But  special days should be celebrated. I think Jane’s review has encouraged me…

…because I felt she got my leads AND after what I said the other week about this being the shortest  on secondaries book I have written, she still felt the story was inclusive, the world of the two leads.  So yep, I am sharing this review AND the post I wrote for her about the things that inspired  Destiny  You can look away now if you don’t want to know the score.

https://bit.ly/2kIobYd

‘Cornwall in 1801 rife with smugglers and excise men trying to catch them is the setting for this clever, passionate and witty novel. Destiny Rhodes is cursed, everything she touches turns to dust. All she has left is Doom Bar Hall, her ancestral home, and now even this is in jeopardy.

Divers O’Roarke is a man with an agenda and so many secrets. He left Cornwall in the wake of tragedy, but not before he’d cursed the young woman he thought responsible. Now he’s back, the victor, but what he finds is not what he expected. What he feels is not what he thought, but he has a mission, and being turned to ashes by a cursed woman is not part of it.

The setting for this story is atmospheric and authentic. The subtle use of historical detail, lets you visualise nineteenth-century Cornwall. The sinister smugglers, the close-knit community, the rugged beauty of the coast, and the ethos of danger and suspicion, Amidst the roaring sea and windswept coastline, the story of two people, both emotionally bereft, and driven unfolds.

The dialogue is sharp and amusing, and the internal musings even more so. You spend a lot of time in Destiny and O’Roake’s minds, and they are both full of confusion and conniving.

The plot is pacy and twisty. Just trying to work out who O’Roarke is, keeps you guessing. Then there’s the exciseman Lyon, who becomes increasingly sinister. This story is inclusive, you feel part of the deadly game Destiny and Divers are playing, experience their anger, bewilderment, fear, and the passion they cannot hide. The intriguing plot comes to an intense conclusion, revealing who Destiny and Divers O’Roake are in more ways than you can imagine.

O’Roarke’s Destiny’, is historical romance for the twenty-first century. Complex mind games, passionate, sensual romance, and a fast-paced riveting plot that rides the waves of time. I’m looking forward to meeting the next ‘Cornish Rogue.’

Guest Post – Shehanne Moore – Inspiring Destiny

Firstly Jane, thank you so much for inviting me here today to your wonderful book review blog, which is such a help to authors and for your continued support.  Always appreciated.

I actually got the idea for O’Roarke’s Destiny the night we sold our house back in 2014. Yep, a while ago and I actually started it when I finished the Viking and The Courtesan in 2015 and put it aside because other scheduled books got in the way. I’d lived in this particular house for almost 30 years and it was a hard house to leave for many reasons, nor was this necessarily a chosen thing.  Although looking back now I don’t know what I was worrying about.  Anyway, the first night the house was on sale, the second viewer arrived—the dad of one of my pupils who lived along the road. I thought they’d come about something to do with the lessons. Anyway, he soon dashed that hope when he said, ‘I will make you a good offer tomorrow morning first thing. I have already put my house on sale in the hope and prayer of this one. But I know this must be upsetting for you, so don’t show me round, I  was burned on the house sale three doors along a few months ago, so you don’t have to.’   And he was as good as every word. Well, as I joked to a friend a few days later, I should have said, ‘And I come with this house. I just need a room.’ Then I thought … bingo, idea for a book there.

Ideas, mind you, are nothing like what ends up on paper.  This book started as a frothy battle over a house that only starts a few years later when the hero brings home another woman, a fiancée and the heroine housekeeper doesn’t like this and she discovers her own feelings for the hero. While this had its merits, another idea—a stronger one–formed, that was to start the book at the point where the house has been lost in a card game to a man where there’s past history.  But, this seemed a little contrived, given this man has been sort of lost to the world for years. What was he even doing back in the neighbourhood?  So I suppose my next piece of inspiration was in the books of Daphne DuMaurier, the smuggling, piratey books I’ve long loved. Having tackled, pirates, Highlanders, Vikings, I’d wanted to do a book about smugglers. Where better to do that than in Cornwall? Why not make that world the backdrop to the story.

Books aren’t just nothing like the idea that you start with—well mine never are, alas–they are about keeping the story going. There’s only so many times two people can argue about the choice of dining room wallpaper for example or the fact that that’s the best antique dishes sitting out at the bin, so while this starts out as a battle over a house, that is only a first layer, with lids to be lifted on a couple who are slogging it out over so much more within themselves and where they are in their lives when the story opens.  And that’s not actually the house at all.

Now you dudes can go open the voddie and git the dancing shoes on.

Secondary characters? How many do you need?

Tags

Black Wolf Books, Cornwall, Historical romance, Newbook, O'Roarke's Destiny, Romance, Shehanne Moore, Smugglers, Wreckers

 

SHEY : Dearest Silv, may I say how very kind of you it is to ask me here today  to my blog. I just can’t get over it. The great honour it is. To answer your question about Lizzie I wrote her out because she had no further use …

SHEY. Yes, Lizzie-alas–was adding nothing to the plot.

Nor did I need her after chapter one for the main reason I use a secondary character, that is to hold a mirror to a lead in some way, their personality, their actions, perhaps show them as I did with Dainty and Mitchell Killgower in The Writer and The Rake, in a better light and also I suppose not to make the whole thing too claustrophobic –as I also partly used Susan for in The Unraveling of Lady Fury, and give Fury a sort of confidant.  Lizzie was not going to fulfil any of these things and letting her stay was going to change how I saw this book. So why have her?  There’s also a one scene appearance by a few children, but while they are contributing to the story there, they’re what you might term decorative extras. Spear-carriers in theatrical terms.

Overall I don’t work with a huge cast of speaking characters but I do generally work with more throughout.

Shey. Indeed I think we got that. The world of Doom Bar Hall itself, despite being smack bang in smuggling and wrecking country, is a tight world. Destiny is a loner, probably a high functioning depressive who bashes through her daily routine and set of tasks with tunnel vision. She’s not one for friends—she’d never been what you might call popular, except with the men she drove to distraction years previously–and she confides in nobody, the family were larger than life that way locally. She’s a product of that family.  So to have put in a single scene where she does would have been wrong for her as a character and unbalanced the book.  Divers may swagger  into that world full of confidence and control,  underneath he’s a man on the edge, holding it together and no more. I won’t give away too much of the plot by saying why he’s at this stage when the book opens. He has a sidekick, Gil,  to show there’s another side to him and to mirror some of this ‘disintegration’ but that’s it re Gil being there.

 And because he could be trusted. A hard thing to come by, not just in this world but the world he inhabited. That dancing, dark and shady place of gnarled shadows and twisted paths, haunted by the need to keep one step ahead where nothing could ever be as it seemed. Not even himself.”

  

There’s reasons for Orwell–Destiny’s brother

 face as long as a six fiddle cases, and twenty four rainy days,

and as for Lyon?

.

Shey. He has  quite an appetite.

You knew everything but nothing of what he was really thinking. Hand him a farthing out the goodness of your heart and he’d still need to know where both came from. The farthing and the goodness. Probably your heart too.

Shey I think it’ s important when you are creating a world for a book and I try with each book to create a world, to think of the things that help show it.  And for me in this book it wasn’t the wider smuggling picture which is actually central to the story, but the putting of this hero and heroine and what unfolds in this world between them, centre stage. I felt that could only happen with a small playing ensemble, so even the servants had to go.  I think it’s sometimes something to consider in terms of cementing  a setting, depending on what that setting is. This one was not the world of ball gowns and dance cards and it’s not a pretty one of smuggling either.  And now before you open the voddie and do the Cossack dance… a book trailer.

 

Once he’d have died to possess her, now he just might…

Beautiful, headstrong young widow Destiny Rhodes was every Cornish man’s dream. Until Divers O’Roarke cursed her with ruin and walked out of Cornwall without a backwards glance. Now he’s not only back, he’s just won the only thing that hasn’t fallen down about her head—her ancestral home. The home, pride demands she throw herself in with, safe in the knowledge of one thing. Everything she touches withers to dust.

He’d cursed her with ruin.

Now she’d have him live with the spoils of her misfortune.

Though well versed in his dealings with smugglers and dead men, handsome rogue Divers O’Roarke is far from sure of his standing with Destiny Rhodes. He had no desire to win her, doesn’t want her in his house, but while he’s bent on the future, is there one when a passionate and deadly game of bluff ensues with the woman he once cursed? A game where no-one and nothing are what they seem. Him most of all.

And when everything she touches turns to dust, what will be his fate as passion erupts? Will laying past ghosts come at the highest price of all?

September 13^th 2019 Black Wolf Books.

From Prague to Arisaig via Glencoe …

Tags

Arisaig, CSOE, Czech Memorial Arisaig, Glencoe, Glencoe Corbetts, Morar, Operation Anthropoid, Prague, Scotland, SOE ww2 Training Arisaig, The Brecklet Trail, The Duror Trail, The Silver Sands, writing, Writing tips, WW2 SOE

 

MEESTER

 

 

MONSTER

 

 

ARISAIG. Shey on the rocks without a drink too… DAY ONE. The walk was to Rhu Point and back. Shey and the Mr were full of  day one walking anticipation, so they howfed the three and a bit miles there, then back again.

ARISAIG Shey on a moth-eaten swing. Strangely this was without a drink although you might not think it. The Highland Games Dance was yet to come….

ARISAIG A deserted set of swings without anything….

And a phone box somewhere in Glen Roy that took Shey’s fancy largely cos you can’t get a mobile signal… BUT MAYBE there’s a ‘ beam me up Scotty,’ story here, OR It’s the TARDIS… As you can see …many writing prompts here.

 

DAY TWO. Shey at the Silver Sands, Morar before she and the Mr clocked the incoming tide…. and had to walk miles back to the road… or water, lots of it would have been what they were drinking…

MORAR

DAY two the Silver Sands of Morar from a safer viewpoint.

DAY TWO Unperturbed by the diversion at Morar and dancing half the night away, Shey and the Mr drove to Glencoe and tackled the Duror Trail feeling very brisk and loving the joys of walking. So much so they even walked along to Am Torr and back later before howfing it into the Boots Bar.

Glencoe

GLENCOE DAY 3. Despite the sun now beating down Shey and the Mr. set off to bag Meall Mor. From 1500 feet already up –on a forestry road to Ballachulish no less–  with the last bit, straight ahead there, through the bog, round the sheep fence, through the gate   and up the slope, just to go, what could be simpler.  In Glencoe, there is no such thing as simple…

 

The view looking down from the top was quite something.

As for the five and a half hours all told it took Shey and the Mr to do the entire bagging-yes you can spot him there, thinking how one slip would result in him taking the express route down to Loch Leven…, while Shey tried a more zigzagging approach well….that was something too…

But returning…, or rather crawling back…to the Clachaig a surprise awaited. A bottle of lovely bubbly from the staff there for the wedding anniversary. So obvi this picture and all the ones taken after had a drink in them, in fact they had many,  and no wonder.

Now this as blogger Ralpha will know is THAT sign again which Shey, no longer so full of the joys of walking, but rather full of fizz and cask aged cider tried to vary pose-wise.

DAY 4. GLENCOE/BALLACHILISH. Despite outright rebellion in the ranks, the Mr fell into step and did the lonely, overgrown, Brecklet Trail where Ping Pong Monsters lurk….. Monsters that tasted delicious…….

On love and life. Interview with the poet.

Tags

India, life, Love, Poet, poetry

 

THINDER LING.

Well, I admire you of course…I have read three books of yours in the span of two weeks and I do not mind telling that I admire a lot of people around me….but yes amongst us definitely you….😀

THUNDER LING.

I write poetry since I was five scribbling scripts even I didn’t understand, rhyming words for friends and I remember penning down my first poem when I was in my third standard and that was to mark the moment when my sister was born. Since then, I write rhyming poetry, villanelle, pantoums, quatrains and what not.

The book, “How much can we live, love & die?” is a collection of free verses, divided   into six segments, we begin with love and end it in love. In between we touch life, death and grief. We try to show love in forms other than Phyllic form.

I am trying to highlight the relationship which love shares with death and life. We love only to live, die and love again. We are repeating this for generations and even now we are doing it just because we have fallen into a trend. But how long will we do it?

.

THUINDER LING

Yes, I have always been a writer, sharing my days scribbled in pages after school. I always knew I could write but gathering courage to do so, came very late in life.

THUNDER LING.

I am from India and I belong to a very small town filled with trees and forests. I have spent many of the vacations in mountainous terrains and I have never been bored of them. Leh is home so is Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Manipur and a few more.

THUNDER LING.

I would go about putting one line about the other depending on my thoughts or a short paragraph maybe.

THUNDER LING.

A collection of short stories or another book of poems whichever I complete first.

A very different book, from a very different poet. Thunder Ling poses the question in her title. How much can we live, love and die? Often because we have loved. ‘The heart is all it needs to look through tinted glass doors and a closed book,’ is just one richly evocative image that gives the sense of the things we risk in what is a cycle of life. Interlaced with the poems are nicely captured and written prose vignettes.  Ling’s writing is easy to read but never misses a trick or descends into the maudling. Every piece has something to say that a reader can identify with on many levels. Also the book is short and a snip at the price. I really enjoyed and highly recommend.

 

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Because I’m happy, clap along…

Tags

Happiness quotes

https://denise421win.wordpress.com/

 

The Rules for this “Chain-Letter” as copied from Denise’s  post:

1. Thank the selector.
2. Post two quotations for the dedicated “Topic of the Day” (in this case, “happiness”).
3. Select three bloggers to take part in “3-2-1 Quote Me!”

Our nominations

What’s On The Other Side?

Jean Lee

https://nayakravindra.wordpress.com/

Ravindra Nyak

https://bit.ly/2XDEx1K

Catherine Cavendish – sure she will do something spooky re happiness.

 

Meantime In Glencoe…..

Tags

Glencoe, Glencoe Lochan, Glencoe Mountains, Glencoe walks, New book, Smugglers

 

Plenty slainte in Glencoe last few days.
Games of pool played- 4
Games of pool won – 4
Miles walked—- Many
Amount of walks – 4 …
Drink consumed–no telling
Weather– pretty Baltic
Amount of laughs–tons
Bands listened to -1