Five reasons not to want your book in paperback.

Tags

Shehanne Moore, Soul Mate Publishing, The Writer and the Rake, Time-travel, Writing tips

 

She shifted on the chair. The door was there. Was she making a mistake not signing the silly bit of paper? What if he kept turning up at all her signings? She could scream. She could have him arrested. Given the way he flitted all over the place like a vampire bat, the prison didn’t exist that would hold him however. Signing would get rid of him for good. Signing would probably ensure none of this ever happened.

“Actually, if you do want my autograph . . .”

“Brittany, I’m not here for-–”

“I’ll give you it. I’ll sign your piece of paper too. It’s really no odds. You and your time-mutant friends want peace. That’s my choice and my pleasure. If not, don’t come back.”

His gaze, dull as his eyebrows, flickered over her.

“Do you really think you can stick to that?”

“Me?”

She reached forward. It was worth parting with another book to get rid of him, since he clung to his copy like a drowning mariner. She opened it, scraped the pen across the paper.

“To Mort, with all my love, Brittany Carter. Will that do? Hmm? Or do you want something more personalized? Like . . . well, I forbear to say.”

A shrug of his equally un-expressive shoulders. “Whatever suits you.”

“Well, what suits me is for you to go away, Mort. So if you’d also care to hand me that bit of paper, I’ll also prove I’m as good as my word. Just make sure, you don’t go bursting into flames in here. Although they do say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

Copyright Shehanne Moore Soul Mate Publishing

 

 

 

 

The Time Mutants’ Guide to Time Travel with Paul Andruss

Tags

Jack Hughes Books, Paul Andruss, Regency, sci-fi, The Viking and The Courtesan, The Writer and the Rake, Thomas the Rhymer, TIme Mutants, Time Travelling Dynasty, Time-travel

 

The Mutants Guide to Time Travel  by Paul Andruss.

Please… settle down.

If you let me talk, everything will be explained.

I know this is unsettling.

But it is not your first unsettling experience, is it?

 

That got your attention!

 

Many of you fear you are going mad or perhaps caught in some nightmare; which is unsurprising after your recurring vivid dreams and the recent dislocation experience.

You are frightened and alone. Let me assure you. You are not alone. We have all been through the same thing: because each of us is related.

I see you looking at the different styles in the room, clothes, hair, cosmetics, and wondering if I joke. You think you know your family: parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. You were brought up to view family as those around you. You do not to think in terms of deep time: about generations past and those to come. But you will learn. Believe me.

Why am I here? You want to ask.

We all carry a double recessive gene from our common ancestress that makes us time travelling mutants.

Oh dear! How to put this simply?

Genes are what make you look like your parents or grandparents. If grandparents, you may have been told it skipped a generation: this is a recessive gene. Over centuries, families separate. Generations later, distant relatives meet and fall in love. When this happens often enough, you are the result.

Our common ancestress lived in the early 21st century. Her name was Brittany Carter. She wrote romantic fiction distinguished by the fact her heroines time travel: her granddaughter to the Viking age and another, in a thinly veiled autobiography, to the 18th century.

I know many of you read her classic novels when studying English Literature, and perhaps experienced a thrill of recognition in their pages. No doubt you were taught they were written by that literary giant Shehanne Moore. A pleasant fiction I am afraid. Brittany Carter wrote these works. Shehanne Moore was merely her nom-de-plume. A ruse used at the insistence of her publishers.

But time travel I hear you protest, surely you need a machine like the fabulous TARDIS of legend, or perhaps a sacred circle of standing-stones to concentrate the Gaia force. Not at all! Our research at the Institute, shows time travel is simple. It is caused by the relatively common ability of psychokinesis: the power to move objects with the mind.

Historical records show many of you experienced poltergeist activity when you hit puberty. Would it shock you to learn poltergeist activity is in fact involuntary outburst of psychokinetic energy, brought on by hormonal changes? As you grew older you no doubt noticed the violent outbursts subsided.

About the same time lucid dreams began. Lucid dreams are a psychological term for vivid dream states where your conscious mind remains aware making it seem you are actually experiencing the dream as reality. If it seems so, it is because you are.

Such dreams are a psychokinetic by-product; a telepathic bond with your ancestors and descendants. It is widely known Brittany Carter wrote about her granddaughter, Malice, under the influence of such dreams. This is why we time travel during moments of heightened sensation, usually, but not exclusively, during sexual arousal.

At this point I need to tell you everything you understand about time is wrong. From an early age you were taught to view time as a progression of events paralleling birth, growth and gradual decline towards death.

Here are some ancient flick-books, please take one and pass the rest on. See how each photograph, taken exactly a year apart, shows the person moving from birth to death at a fixed rate.

 Normally we do not question this.

But think for a moment, even identical twins do not die at exactly the same time. Age is relative. It depends on a series of complex interactions governed by genes and environment.

In the 20th century the oldest person on the planet died at the age of 140 – which is nothing now; while children with the disease progeria died of advanced old age when no more than ten. Some individual cells, like cancer, never die. Others can be indefinitely held in suspension, such as the 5,000 year old seed from a Chinese tomb that grew into a magnolia tree when planted by archaeologists.

Aging is not due to minutes flowing into hours; days into years.

Aging is not time travel. The minutes and hours of your life merely mark the earth’s revolution on its axis and the year its orbit around the sun. Even a light year is a measure of distance, 5.9 trillion miles to be exact.

Stephen King claimed time particles, or chronons, were formed by the past colliding with the present and evaporated when the present dissolved into the future. Michael Moorcock agreed. Moorcock envisaged humans, called Time Dwellers, evolving to live permanently within a single moment. For Moorcock the only answer to the question: ‘What is the time?’ was ‘The present’.

Einstein, the father of science, did not believe in time. He said it was nothing other than a measurement of space like height, width and depth. To him we were no more capable of seeing the bigger picture than a word printed on the page can read the novel it belongs to. Like fish in a barrel we cannot see or understand the world outside, never mind swim in it. He explained it thus:

If a fish swims in a tank at 4 miles per hour, inside an airplane travelling at 500 mph, that is flying across the earth rotating at 1,000 mph at the equator, and orbiting around the sun at 68,400 mph, in a solar system spiralling around the Milky Way at 515,000 mph, in a universe expanding at 158,000 mph. How fast is the fish swimming? The answer is 4 miles per hour. That’s relativity.

If we stepped outside relativity, we would see the past, present and future happening concurrently. It would be like looking at a road from a hilltop. This is how Brittany saw her granddaughter’s life 800 years in the past.

You must understand atoms are not like specks of dust. They are infinitesimal amounts of electrical energy clustered into a nucleus of protons and neutrons and orbited by electrons. If the nucleus was the size of a tennis ball, the atom itself would be four miles across. This means most of the universe is empty space.

The universe expands in every direction at approximately 158,000 mph; as does every atom in it. Think of drawing two circles on a balloon then blowing it up. The bigger the balloon gets the more distant the circles become and the bigger they get.

If we could compact or expand an atom, it would automatically shift to the point when the universe was at the same density. In other words it would time travel.

The electro-magnetic force holding the universe together is the same as Gaia, the life force within every living creature. Outbursts of psychokinetic energy are measurable electric currents. This is how we time travel. Psychokinetic outbursts cause our atoms to contract or expand, hurling us through time.

The final question I am asked in this introductory session is: Am I immortal?

Yes and no.

Remember Michael Moorcock’s Time Dwellers living within a single moment? Like them we can dwell in a single moment of time and so do not age. But in that case, how did Brittany and Malice manage to live with their lovers?

That is relativity. As we cannot exist outside our immediate space-time environment, we take it with us, like a deep-sea diving suit. It is perhaps no more than an atom’s thickness but enough to keep us safe.

If you would care to get to know each other and work out your complex and often confusing relationships, there are refreshments next door. However, before you leave let me assure you, my fellow time-travelling mutants, you have long and interesting lives ahead of you, and many difficult skills to master. But master them you will. For we already know your future.

 

http://www.paul-andruss.com/
http://bit.ly/2wxqs9H

Paul Andruss is the author of 2 contrasting fantasy novels

Wanting to engage readers and build an audience 2 novels are available as free downloads in different E-books formats.

Thomas the Rhymer – a magical fantasy for ages 11 to adult about a boy attempting to save fairy Thomas the Rhymer, while trying to rescue his brother from a selfish fairy queen.

If you enjoy the Harry Potter & Narnia books & films? Thomas the Rhymer is right up your street

Thomas the Rhymer is the 1st of a trilogy.

 

Finn Mac Cool – rude, crude and funny, explicitly sexual and disturbingly violent, Finn Mac Cool is strictly for adults only

Finn mac Cool is a modern retelling of the Irish Myth cycles with a science fantasy edge.

Finn Mac Cool is a must for those with Irish ancestry or anyone interested in Irish legends and folklore. Ever since being a child Paul was fascinated by the phantasmagorical and strange. Blessed with the type of mind that squirrels away peculiar facts, he  supposed it was only natural these should become a central feature in his novels.

As Paul got older he often forgot where he found these oddities in the first place. Odds and Sods: A cabinet of Curiosities was born as an on-line notepad and sort of grew from there. Now it showcases the curious stuff he’s  come across when researching his novels. He also get a tremendous kick from sharing it with friends.

The blog includes stories from science, history, myth, miracles, occult objects & fabulous beasts.  Sample Posts:  History – Bonfire of the Vanities / Myth – Philemon & Baucis / Miracles – The Lady at Lourdes / Occult Objects – The Turin Shroud/ Fabulous Beasts – The Horse Cock / Science – Alma (Are Neanderthals still alive?)

Paul  is a guest Writer in Residence on ‘Smorgasbord- Variety is the Spice of Life’ where you can enjoy exclusive extra articles: Still Waving – the poet Stevie Smith / Marc Bolan’s Millions / Who were the Proto-Indo-Europeans? / The Truth of the Cottingley Fairies / Venus in Furs & Justine in Tears- De Sade & Masoch / Rosabelle Believe – Did Houdini return from the dead?

Why don’t you subscribe to both?

 

Music to Write Books By

Tags

Music, Music to write to, Playlist, Playlist for the Writer and The Rake, Romance, sci-fi, Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake, Time-travel

 

 

 

https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/carrotranch-writeprompt-pies/

Brittany. Oh God, not you lot again. Darlings, don’t you have a cage or something to be in? Your little balls to play with? Hmm?

Brittany. All the better to amuse yourselves with then darlings. Now  then  what is it you want to know? So long as it’s not will I ever be  a nice Georgian housewife,  how to instruct a servant, or can you have one of my fags, or any of my booze, we’re good.

Brittany . But I do, darlings. So? Playlist? Well when she was writing the Viking and the Courtesan which I understand  is about my granddaughter Malice…

Shey listened a lot to the first  piece on this list, probably because she plays and has taught it several times too.  So obviously when writing more of the series  it was her starting point, just as Mitchell and I are. I think she found  the epic scope of it inspiring, although our story was not nearly as epic as all the things Malice went through, a shipwreck, a convent raid nearly being burned to death in a Valhalla style funeral in Viking times, being kidnapped, locked up and then incarcerated in a lunatic asylum in Regency times, all the time just trying to find her way to where she wanted to be. 

The rest though? Well, these were ours, pure and simple.  As to why darlings? Well, you’ll just have to listen won’t you? Any lines about smiling like you mean it which I do all the time, sort of anyway, being far apart on this old carousel,  and people rather being lonely than being by someone’s side, are of course incidental….

 

 

 

Interview with the Earl

Tags

Ariellla's Escape, Book review, Carol Balawyder, Carolee Croft, Getting to mr Right, Jewel thieves, London Jewel thieves, Shehanne Moore, Splendor, The Starkadder Sisterhood, The Writer and the Rake

 

I have a very special post today in collaboration with Shehanne Moore about her latest novel, Splendor. It includes a review and an interview with Ms. Moore and her hamster friends and even the Earl of Stillmore himself.

 

 

 

Carolee Croft/ First, the review:

 

I just love Ms. Moore’s cheeky heroines, and Splendor is no exception. How can you not like a woman whose name is Dora and she therefore decides to name herself Lady Splendora?

She’s an honorary member in the London jewel thieves’ guild known as the Starkadder Sisterhood, but not a thief herself. In fact, she wants to help the poor, marry her sweetheart Gabriel and buy him a ministry.

Gabriel, as it turns out, is no sweetheart at all. But then neither is the Earl of Stillmore, a man who calls his servant an “overstuffed seal”. He reserves even better names for Splendor. Mostly he calls her names in his head, but sometimes he does so to her face… usually when she’s being a brat, which is quite often.

While Gabe shows his cowardly and whiny nature, the earl drives Splendor up the wall by “training” her to win a chess tournament even though she is obviously better than him at the game.

With shades of Shakesperean cross-dressing comedy and scenes that reminded me of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady  and Confessions of a Shopaholic as Splendor by turns participates in a men’s chess tournament and then tries to pose as an aristocrat at high society balls, this novel had me laughing out loud throughout. It was also extremely touching when I realized how much these two have suffered for love (and their own stubbornness).

I would highly recommend Splendor as a fast-paced, funny and romantic read!

Now I have some questions for Shehanne Moore (and hamsters):

 Carolee.  How did you come up with the idea for this novel?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shey. Okay dudes can we stop this and leave Hamster Dickens out of this.

Shey. What I meant to say. Now then Carolee, first of all let me thank you for asking me to your fabulous blog. I hope all your own writing is doing well. So looking forward to reading your next book. I have had the basic first scene of this novel a long time. Before I had anything published in fact.  I don’t play chess myself but in Regency times it was so popular there were clubs in most of the cities and matches between them too. Obviously the period was very constraining for women. So I had this idea of a woman cross dressing to enter a competition but running into trouble straight off and being challenged to a duel by the best shot in London. That was it. At that time I was trying to break into romance writing and sticking to the ‘sort of’ formula. The characters were pretty limp wristed. The heroine was a lady who had fallen on hard times. Her fiancé was a clergyman. The hero was a very decent sort really. No wonder the first chapter yawned on the shelf for years while I wrote four other books.

Carolee… What is it about Georgian England that appeals to you?

 

 

 

Shey. Right dudes, can we stop it. I suppose that it’s where a lot of books are set. I have to say though there is nothing that appeals to me. It was a very different world from this one so I might say I set books there because I want to be bad to my heroines. Oh, ok, it is quite nice to set a book there and try and create characters who will flout convention in an acceptable way. I know that sounds sort of contrary but I mean I hope I make them tough enough to break the rules, to mold their world, as far as that is possible because of the kind of characters they are.

Carolee. Do you have an actor in mind to play Earl Stillmore or Lady Splendor?

Shey. We always have muses don’t we? I do anyway even for the smallest character. So yes. Aidan Turner for Stillmore. He has the right glowering impatience. And Drew Barrymore for Splendor.

 Carolee. Good choice! He was great in Poldark.

The Starkadder Sisterhood series has many fine ladies in it, Ruby being one of my favorites just because I think of her as a very unlikely romance heroine. How many more novels are you planning in the series, and will Ruby get her own love story?

Shey. You know she is so unlikely as you can see from this extract from Loving Lady Lazuli…..

‘“Get ’im, Pearl!”

Dear God, while that would be very nice, if Cass didn’t do something, blood would be spilled. His. Of course it would be his own fault. But it would also be hers if she had to bury him in her herb garden. Besides she was unsure about Barron. Where he would stand on the matter of assistance. A broom handle may have been sawing his windpipe, but it did not mean he was one of them. What might be around the county tomorrow about her?

“Kill ’im! Toffee-nosed snout.”

Ruby sprung and Devorlane Hawley did not hit her back. Cass’s throat constricted, the noise that came from the back of it not one she would usually make. Men, certainly those of her acquaintance, would never do such a thing. Did or did her own back not bear witness to that fact? What Starkadder had done to her that day. And not just that day. Every day she’d refused to steal.

Of course, a corpse would make things inconvenient for her. Who would have thought he’d have retaliated like this, a powerful man like him, who had no fear of arrest, though? Plainly not herself or she’d never have opened her mouth. Let alone row with him over a kiss, a kiss she gave him so she could worm off the hook, a kiss which would be a complete waste if she didn’t stop this unraveling further, if they had to flee the county.

“Ruby. Ruby—no. No.”

“Get orf of me, Cass.” Ruby tried wrenching the handle free—no doubt because her fists weren’t good enough. “I knows whot I’m doin’. Stickin’ it ‘round ‘ere like ‘e owns the bleedin’ place. Smarmy—”

“No, Ruby!”

“’E thinks ‘e knows. ‘E don’t know jack-shit. ‘E—”

“Ruby!” ‘

 

Pearl who was her sidekick in Lazuli is quite unlikely too, I quite fancy having a go and giving each their own story. I have ideas for Diamond, Jade and Amber. So that’s definitely another three.  But I am playing with one for Pearl and it would be an awful shame to leave her out.  In fact, an idea I have been keeping for Emerald might well work better with Ruby. As you say she is so unlikely…..

Carolee. And for the hamsters… who was your favourite character in Splendor?

 

 

Carolee. I also have some questions for the hero of this novel, the Earl of Stillmore:

Carolee . Your first wife broke your heart. Why couldn’t you just get over it?

Stillmore  :

Splendor: Because he doesn’t like to lose. Not even a dud farthing.

Stillmore: I did get over it. I shot lots of people I challenged to duels. I drank. I went with women. What was that if not getting over it? Well?

Splendor : Being afraid of falling again, Your Grace.

Carolee : Do you actually enjoy playing chess, or did you join the chess tournament just to foil your former mistress and her fiance?

Stillmore. Me? Do that? Me? That is the kind of thing someone else would do. It is the kind of thing you would never see me doing. If you were not a woman, I would call you out for that but I would never call out a woman.

Splendor: Dearest, aren’t you forgetting something? You know….pistols at dawn.

Stillmore:  Well, what I mean is…  YOU were dressed as a man. How was I to know you were a woman?

Splendor : Well….

Stillmore : Oh very well, the answer is no. Obviously I am an excellent chess player. Indeed if Splendor had taken my advice, freely offered she would never have lost that ten thousand pounds. As for Babs Langley, had she not put me off my game, snapping the lid on that bracelet I bought her  before the chess tournament, I’d have won it. I can’t think what else she was expecting when I presented her with that trinket box.

Carolee You famously hate marriage, indeed you said-

Stillmore: Not me.

Splendor: Ahem..

Stillmore : I see. Well. It is a loathsome, hackneyed institution.  Suitable only for those whose picnic is several sandwiches short. I just didn’t know I was famous about it.

Carolee. But maybe with the right partner it wouldn’t be so bad. Do you think you would like to marry Carolee Croft? 😉

Stillmore: Me?

Splendor : Dearest, do be polite. In fact…..

Stillmore : Well, I might. Yes. I wouldn’t like you to think that is why my cravat has just got tight and I am sweating beneath it. But the thing is I haven’t married Splendor. I mean officially and I don’t know she’d be pleased. She might rip this blog up as she did that cheque for ten thousand pounds  if I said, ‘But of course.’ So really, truly, although I could, whether I should is another matter. Because of her you understand. Nothing else.

Carolee :Thank you so much, Shey, for joining me with your hamsters and your characters, even if some of them refuse to get married (ahem).

https://caroleecroft.wordpress.com/

https://t.co/uTOVnxB2Tl

 

Moore Delivers Smexy

 

Brittany Carter must choose either to live in the present or in 1765. She cannot have both. In her present, she is finally starting to reach her goals of fame, success and money. Her romance novels are bestsellers! But success does come at a price. And that price is Mitchell Killgower.

Drop dead gorgeous and with a heart to boot. The man of her dreams, the love of her life, THE ONE she’s been waiting for her entire life.

But can she trust him?

Does she want to live in 1765 with all its inconveniences which she takes for granted in the present?

Is she willing to give up fame, success and money?

Moore is delightfully good at historical romances. With wit and intelligence she takes the reader back to Georgian England where bad-boy Mitchell is in the midst of an inheritance row when Brittany Carter literally drops into his life.

With the romance between Brittany and Mitchell as veneer, Shehanne Moore smoothly makes her way through the power struggles between men and women – using as backdrop a feisty, strong protagonist with present day relationship values trying to apply them to the relationship values of a man living in 1765.

One of Buddha’s famous quotes is

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

The journey to arrive at the ending of The Writer and The Rake is complex, entertaining, amusing, reflective, smexy and made me happy as well.

The Writer and the Rake is the latest in Shehanne Moore’s Time Mutant series.

More Hecklers, More Hamsters and More Reviews

Tags

Book review, Dundee, FinnMacCool, Jack Hughes Books, Joh Quinn, Jute, O Halflins and hecklers and Weavers and Weemin, Paul Andruss, Play, Regency, Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake, Thomas the Rhymer, Time-travel

 

 

 

http://www.paul-andruss.com/the-writer-and-the-rake/

Book Review:

The Writer and The Rake

by

Shehanne Moore

 

I can confirm Shehanne Moore is no Miss Barbara Cartland.

Now there is two ways you can take this news. If you are anything like me it will be with a lusty huzzah and an air punch. I was never one for simpering virgins and sex scenes discretely ending outside the bedroom door.

Shehanne Moore writes historical romance with a sci-fi twist that’s unapologetically smexy. For those who don’t know, smexy (her word, not mine) is a cross between smutty and sexy… raunchy romance in the raw… or is that with a roar? Cos, boy, does the gal deliver!

If you want a complex heroine, so feisty she could bitch slap you in a stand-up row, meet tough but vulnerable Brittany Carter – ‘brittle as porcelain and deadlier than shattered glass. An irresistible combination.’

If you like a ruggedly handsome man, oozing animal magnetism, you can’t go far wrong with Mitchell Killgower. He’s not so tough. Underneath them smouldering looks and icy demeanour beats a heart to make you melt. At least something will be wet by the end of the novel.

By that I mean if a ‘good man who needs saving from himself’ don’t bring a tear to your eye then you are no Brittany Carter – not matter how smexy and gorgeous you are – ‘darling!’

Brittany is a struggling historical romance writer and no simpering virgin. Like most good-looking modern women in their mid-twenties, she’s had her fair share of men; all of them disappointments.

The book opens when a stranger called Morte stops Brittany for her autograph. Or so she thinks.

To be honest she’s not taking much notice. The girl’s got a lot on her mind. Off to straighten out her finances with some crap-head she used to date – he took everything but somehow managed to leave her name on a mortgage he’s not paying.

Morte’s weird, more stalker than fan. As his ominous warning about making the right choice rings in her ears, lightning strikes him. Brittany does the decent thing: calls an ambulance; helps Morte live.

Wrong choice!

Next thing Brittany wakes up in a sixteen year boy’s dusty bed. Wound tight as a cheese wire garrotte, she desperately plays it cool, frantically struggling to keep herself together while figuring out what the hell happened?

The boy’s furious. Handsome dad’s furious too. Not with her; with each other.

All the while she’s praying it’s a nightmare and she’ll wake up. Gradually it dawns. She’s somehow travelled through time, back to 1765 to be precise. To a crumbling stately home in Georgian England and the middle of a bitter inheritance feud between handsome rakish father and puritan unloved son, and with a cow of a sister-in-law holding the purse strings and fuelling the whole debacle.

The Writer and the Rake starts at 100 miles an hour and never flags. It is an unrelenting tour de force; a dazzling pas-de-deux of searing wit and laugh out loud moments between Brittany and Mitchell. The frisson between them is tangible, popping and fizzing across the pages as they slog it out to gain the upper hand, only to have the other snatch it back.

Despite wanting to return to her own time Brittany can’t take her eyes off Mitchell; while he can’t keep his hands off her behind. So, what about Morte? Don’t worry, he’s there too. Intent on sealing his Faustian bargain.

When Mitchell sees Morte with Brittany, he’s jealous as hell of her secret lover. It’s just the spark they need for scorching emotions to boil over into reckless sex. Even if you don’t smoke, you’ll be reaching for that post-coital cigarette Brittany can never have because she ran out in the first few days.

Casual sex has consequences. Hell, Brittany knows that. But she’s not prepared for what they are. Ok it’s not the first time she’s woken in a strange bed. But this one’s oddly familiar. She’s leapfrogged forward to her own time to find she’s been missing for weeks, presumed kidnapped, and her books are now best sellers.

Bingo!

Morte picks his moment to explain it all; a drunken night out with the girls. Apparently she’s a time mutant – the mother of a dynasty. Shame she’s too pissed to take it in.

Talk about sealed with a kiss. One drunken snog with some bloke in the club and Brittany’s back to Mitchell’s crumbling house. Only one thing for it, seduce Mitchell and use the ride of her life to hitchhike through the centuries back to her duly deserved fame and fortune.

Here lies the rub.

Mitchell’s the man she wants, the one she’s been waiting for all her life. She knows it from the moment he sweeps her up in his strong arms and drops her on his big old bed. From the second he unbuttons her bodice, and she his breeches. If only he was from her time. If, if, if…

If this is her last kiss; the last time she can make love for fear of ricocheting through the ages with every orgasm, then there is no one she would rather do it with.

Life’s never that simple, is it Brittany? Not with destiny calling… loud and clear.

The Writer and the Rake is a genre-bending adventure. It confirms Shehanne Moore as an author who know today’s woman is as likely to be into science fiction, playing computer games or watching light porn as reading heavy romance. And Moore’s not afraid to give her readers what they want … without ifs, buts or apologies.

The dialogue is racy, witty and thoroughly modern. This is no cod 18^th century comedy of manners. That would get in the way of the lust and punishing pace. Her characters are real: gritty, decent and flawed as the rest of us. And ultimately, as redeemable by love we all are. Though it’s bloody hard work for them sometimes!

And in case you are thinking this is just for the girls, I’d advise you to give it a shot, lads. Cos let’s face it… it does no harm knowing what your woman wants.

O Hecklers & Hamsters, Sarah Potter & Book Reviews

Tags

Book review, Dundee, Dundee and the jute mills, John Quinn, New Play, O Halflins & Hecklers & Weavers & Weemin., Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake, Time-travel

 

 

AMAZON (UK) & AMAZON (US),

AMAZON (UK) & AMAZON (US),

all images from–and more info from  https://sarahpotterwrites.com/

The Writer and the Rake by Shehanne Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I totally loved everything about this time-travel romance and would give it ten stars if I could.

Brittany Carter is an author, who drinks, smokes, and parties too much. After a surreal encounter with a character called Morte, she’s transported to the Georgian era and meets bad boy Mitchell Killgower, who is locked into an inheritance dispute with some hateful relatives of his deceased wife. When Brittany materialises out of nowhere, he hopes she can prove useful by pretending to be his obedient and mousy wife for long enough to hoodwink those who hold the purse strings and stop his son getting the inheritance. The only trouble is that the feisty Brittany is incapable of fitting into this role and Mitchell has truly met his match on the impossible person’s front.

I don’t want to give too much away, as this will spoil readers’ fun; and the novel is such great fun, in a quirky sense of the word, always sustaining a great forward momentum with wonderfully entertaining dialogue. Come to think of it, I don’t recall the author using any dialogue tags at all and, if she did, they weren’t intrusive.

Brittany is often insufferable, but also pretty cool in a chaotic way. Mitchell is a Mr Darcy type: dark, handsome, brooding, stubborn, hard to impress, and master of his heart, but decidedly sexier than the original. His relationship with Brittany is meant as a short-term arrangement of convenience and nothing more. And the feeling is mutual …until it isn’t.

Speaking of the raunchy scenes, Shehanne Moore knows how to write about sex in a way that’s humorous, playful, erotic and, at times, intense. It’s never explicit, because it doesn’t need to be; the subtle interplay of all the human senses is sufficient.

On the hilarity front, the crowning moment for me is when Mitchell rifles through Brittany’s bag and puzzles over its contents from the future, and then questions her about one of the items in particular.

If you haven’t already guessed, I fell in love with Mitchell and felt really sorry for him when Brittany kept appearing and disappearing. A rake like Mitchell does not give his heart easily to a woman, preferring the casual company of floosies when needs dictate.

The Writer and the Rake can be read as a standalone novel, even though it’s the second part of a series. One reviewer has suggested that, in order to understand the time mutants better, it’s an idea to read the series in the right order, starting with The Viking and the Courtesan.

As you can imagine, Time Mutants #1 is near the top of my reading list, as I can’t get enough of Shehanne Moore’s writing and am delighted to have discovered someone with such a fresh and original voice.

A highly recommended read.

https://sarahpotterwrites.com/2017/06/09/book-review-the-writer-and-the-rake-by-shehanne-moore/

 

 

Have you ever heard of the Hellfire Club? The Lot of Women in Georgian England-reblog

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Barry Lyndon, Christy Birmingham, Frances Wright, Georgian England, Lady Mary Bowes, Marraige in Georgian England, New book, Poetic parfait, poetry, Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake, time travellers, Women

 

Have You Heard of the Hellfire Club? The Lot of Women in Georgian England (Guest Post) Shehanne Moore

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Here with me today is historical romance author Shehanne Moore. We go back a ways, Shey and I, so when I heard about her new book The Writer and the Rake, I asked her to come visit the blog. She kindly agreed to write a guest post, and, wow, she has provided quite a read about Georgian England, women, and the writing process. Now, let’s give Shehanne Moore the stage.

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Let’s be clear here, this is not a paean of praise to Francis Dashwood’s exclusive club for high society rakes.  When meetings often included mock rituals, items of a pornographic nature, much drinking, wenching and banqueting, what kind of a person do you think I am? And while the hero of my latest book has every selfish reason to appear enlightened about women, he has a point. Women were not able to walk into a tavern and drink in these days, the way they do now. In fact, a woman’s lot in 1765 was one to die for and not as we have come to know that term either.

Firstly, let me thank this very special woman, Christy Birmingham, for asking me, a romance author, to her blog today.  It’s a great pleasure to be here and to know Christy, one of the most supportive women I know, a tremendous poet and an intelligent advocate for us ladies.  My home town, Dundee, gave the U.S. Fanny Wright, lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, abolitionist, and social reformer, born here in 1795.

Where the lot of Georgian women was concerned it’s a pity she hadn’t been born a bit earlier and hadn’t been lost to across the pond.

My idea in writing this book was to take Brittany, a young woman from today’s world and have her flit between Georgian England and the present day. You know ,I even thought how nice, gracious  and sedate that Jane Austenish world would be, that within hours of arriving, she’d be so calmed by the green-fielded pleasantry and ladies in rustic bonnets everywhere,  she’d fall totally in love with this charming world. DUH.  What is it they say about the best laid plans? The more I looked into this alien galaxy and the lot of women, the clashier, not classier, this became. And not just between my hero and heroine either. What was interesting was the things I had to go to bat for re this book.

The hero is a rake but before anyone thinks too badly of him, a lot of upper crust men from that era were because most society marriages were arranged. Sometimes affection grew but not for my hero, whose shy, awkward, naïve, young wife, he was railroaded into marrying at sixteen,  hated him on sight, so he joined the ranks of men who went elsewhere. At least he didn’t force the issue which he would have been perfectly within his rights to do.

If, as a woman, you think you would have been free to say no, or choose your spouse, think again. You and your belongings, all these nice shoes, bags, books, everything in fact you thought were yours, were, in fact,  your hubby’s. Take the case of rich heiress, Lady Mary Bowes, an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth 2nd, and the subject of The Luck of Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray. Her second husband kidnapped her, beat, gagged and carried her around the countryside  on horseback, in winter, all to stop her divorcing him and keep his hands on her fortune.

And to think my editor initially complained after my hero, at the end of his tether and really not understanding  why my heroine wouldn’t do what he asked regarding the servants, stuck her under a water pump.

Talking servants, Mary Bowes escaped only with the help of loyal ones.  The initially sympathetic public were affronted to learn of her affair with her lawyer’s brother and felt she was quite wrong not to hand her money over to her abusive, swindling, husband.

Interestingly, that was another editorial clash where no questions were raised over my hero but some shock was expressed that my heroine had  a history of getting drunk in the present day and went with random men.

So, that’s marriage. Next up? Childbirth. In Georgian England, public opinion was against contraception within marriage.  Romance writers Google all sorts –ahem—let’s face it, these things have to be looked after.

And, I understand sheep’s intestines were all the rage for prevention. Soaked in water, of course, for an hour beforehand and torture to get on. Small wonder my hero quite welcomed the contents of my heroine’s bag. Childbirth was one of the most dangerous threats to a woman’s health and life. Up to 20% of women died during or after childbirth. Small wonder too my heroine wants back to her time.

Childbirth wasn’t the only killer. Noblewomen—and we are talking noblewomen here, although the lot of a poor woman was as bad in different ways— noblewomen caught diseases passed on from their husband’s prostitutes. They suffered barbaric ‘bleedings’ during pregnancies, developed lead poisoning from their make up, indeed as my heroine  Brittany thinks–

The Lot of Georgian Women. Quote by Shehanne Moore.

And before anyone thinks their lives were frivolous in their smelly gowns—wash day once a month, baths very seldom—their powdered wigs it took hours to arrange, the lady of the house was tasked with running that same house, of getting up early to instruct the servants on their daily duties and supervise the kitchen, because the servants were mostly illiterate and couldn’t write things down, meal choices, polishing,  etc. before sitting down to breakfast at eleven. My heroine thinks the eleven bit is quite civilized but that’s it.

So I think we get the picture that a Georgian lady’s lot was anything but happy.  Live in that time? Thank you. No. As for whether Brittany finds anything to recommend it, you’d have to ask her.

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Extract from The Writer and The Rake

“While it might not pay to underestimate this man, what if this morning was an aberration? Now that he saw how domestic she was, he’d go away again and drop this nonsense about instructing the servants. In what way? If she wrote Regency romance, she might know but she didn’t and frankly she’d other things to consider. Besides she couldn’t. If she was successful he wouldn’t need her.She slipped her gaze back, bestowed her kindest smile on the young man opposite. Mitchell Killgower took another sip of brandy.

“God-fearing, you say?”

“It is what one of us, I can’t remember if it was you, or me, or even Fleming here, told Christian. Or maybe, she told us. But, obviously it is a condition that prevents me from giving too many orders. And frankly I feel it solves everything.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what? Darling, I’m sorry I don’t know what you’re on about.”

“The fact that this condition solves everything.”

She kept her gaze firmly on the wool. Her hands winding it too. Mitchell Killgower sounded quite happy for him. Satisfied as he nursed his drink.

“Yes.”

“So as conditions go, it does not prevent you from sitting on your backside?”

“You know, I almost think you’re taken with my backside, the amount of times you mention it.”

“Sometimes your thoughts fail to come remotely close to what I’m really thinking. To do that you’d have to fully think.”

She smothered a grimace. “Oh, I think all right.”

He set the glass down as if he’d made up his mind. She hoped it was to let her win this battle.

“Good, then you’ll have no trouble coming with me, seeing as you’re so God-fearing, Brittany. After all, a God-fearing wife obeys her husband.”

“Well, they must be several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. Anyway.” She stopped winding the ball of wool, tilted her chin. “I didn’t think God-fearing wives were your cup of tea, or that you expected a woman to obey you? Except in certain places.”

The Writer and the Rake Book Blurb

Is having it all enough when it’s all you’ll ever have?

When it comes to doing it all, hard coated ‘wild child’ writer, Brittany Carter ticks every box. Having it all is a different thing though, what with her need to thwart an ex fiancé, and herself transported from the present to Georgian times. But then, so long as she can find her way back to her world of fame, and promised fortune, what’s there to worry about?

He saw her coming. If he’d known her effect he’d have walked away.

Georgian bad boy Mitchell Killgower is at the center of an inheritance dispute and he needs Brittany as his obedient, country mouse wife. Or rather he needs her like a hole in the head. In and out of his bed he’s never known a woman like her. A woman who can disappear and reappear like her either.

And when his coolly contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and stay there, will having it all be enough, or does she underestimate him…and herself?

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Thanks for being here today, Shehanne! I have my copy of The Writer and the Rake and hope you pick up a copy too. Get The Writer and the Rake at Amazon US | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

You can also find Shehanne Moore on social media at Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Find out more at her self-titled Weebly site and follow her Smexy Historical Romance blog too!

Now back to reading and writing here,

♥ Christy

The loneliness of the long distance author

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being an author, Book tour, Carolee Croft, Reviews, Shehanne Moore, The Writer and the Rake, writing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been a fan of Shehanne Moore’s work since The Viking and the Courtesan. Now she brings us the Writer and the Rake, which is even better! I absolutely loved the concept. For certain people who happen to be Time Mutants, a kiss can take them backwards or forwards in time to a completely different century. This is what happens to struggling romance writer Brittany Carter, who is frustratingly whisked away into the past just as she is about to make her ex-boyfriend’s life a living hell.

I think I mentioned before how I hate romance heroines who are the paragon of all virtues. Well, Brittany is definitely not. This heroine is a vindictive, manipulative, chain-smoking alcoholic, and I love her. If romance heroes can be rakes, why shouldn’t the heroine be a ‘rakette’?

Brittany arrives in 1765 dressed in nothing but a bathrobe, landing in Mitchell Kilgower’s teenage son’s bed. Mitchell, a long-suffering, brooding gentleman thinks his son has finally stopped being such a milksop and become a man, or rather the kind of man his father wants him to be. Brittany is just confused. She thinks her ex-boyfriend has murdered her and she is now in some sort of strange afterlife. Mitchell thinks she’s insane.

Of course, one can’t blame him as for all he knows, a woman has appeared out of nowhere and keeps babbling on about him being good fodder for her next romance novel. Mitchell’s uncle and slightly incestuous aunt (or former sister-in-law) show up, and the only way Brittany’s presence can be explained is in a lie hastily concocted by Fleming, Mitchell’s son, that she is Mitchell’s new God-fearing wife.

Hilariously unsuited to the role, Brit goes along with is because she needs to figure out a way to get back to the 21st century.  She may be a romantic novelist, but unlike her naive heroines, she’s not going to swoon and fall into Mitchell’s arms just because he has a gorgeous body and amazing cheekbones. All the same, there is an attraction simmering beneath the surface of her pretense.

As for Mitchell, he starts out wanting to get rid of her, but he is by turns enraged and captivated by a woman the likes of which he’d never seen. A modern heroine unleashed on an unsuspecting 18th century world is a force to be reckoned with.

Brittany wreaks havoc everywhere she goes. She is a truly comedic heroine, though Ms. Moore deftly alerts the reader to how easily things could turn tragic if these characters don’t find love very soon.

Mitchell treats Brittany terribly, though she’s no picnic herself. However, she shows real resiliency and even keeps writing while in her 17th century imprisonment. One of the most beautiful lines of the book is, “A writer could write without paper, without ink, without hope.”

Time is working against them as Brittany can’t control her travels between centuries, but love might just bring them together in the end.

About Carolee

Enchanted by romance on page and screen, I have always tried to write my own numerous versions of the perfect fairytale. No matter whether the story takes place in Ancient Rome or on one of the moons of Jupiter, romance always beguiles and charms us with its fairy tale magic. My first inspiration to sit down and write came from watching the movie The Princess Bride.

This was a “modern” fairy tale with plenty of action, humour, and of course, true love. I resolved that my stories should have the same light-hearted, fun, and romantic spirit.

As for real life… I believe I may have already found the man of my dreams, but I still haven’t found the dog of my dreams. Currently, I am obsessed with greyhounds, but I live in an apartment that doesn’t allow pets. I guess this means my perfect dog is still a fantasy, and I hope it is a story yet to be told…

I usually live on the west coast of Canada, but I’m currently in Oxford, UK, not actually attending the university but absorbing all the smartness that emanates from its general vicinity.

https://caroleecroft.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beguiling something far more dangerous. The non-villainry of the Hellfire Club

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secondary characters, Shehanne Moore, Sir Francis Dashwood, The hellfire caves, The hellfire club, The Writer and the Rake, Writing tips

 

 

 

 The tail end of Brittany’s little scene with Sir Francis Dashwood which takes place just after she finds out, not just  how to get home to her own time, but to finally stay there too. Oh, and her feet just happen to be killing her

“Anyway, whatever is said of us, we’re not as bad as all that.” Sir Francis’s muddy brown eyes held a slimy twinkle. “Just different. There’s one shoe on. Let’s get the other one for you.”

“Yes.”

“You know Mitchell thought you had come to us?”

“What? When?”

“Recently. He seemed to have trouble finding you.” He lifted her other foot. “Do you know he virtually accused me of stealing you?”

“Real—? Well.” She cleared her throat. “He was probably just . . . desperate. I left him a note because I was in such a hurry, but obviously it never reached him. The servants Christian sent are so unreliable.”

“Christian?”

“Lazy, lying, conniving. What? You didn’t know she sent them to spy and report on everything we do, to her? They probably hid that note on purpose from him. She had to know though. She went and arranged this whole evening the second I was gone, in the hope I wouldn’t be here and Mitchell would be left high and dry. You have no idea of the spite of that creature.”

“Hmm. Well, I daresay it’s something we’re all capable of.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, didn’t I, that he used to come to our humble, little meetings?”

“I’m sure they’re anything but humble.”

“Well . . . Anyway but then he stopped. Maybe, you’ll be the one to bring him back?”

She might. But then again she wasn’t staying. She rose above her agony to fix on her warmest, most ingenious smile.

“Who knows what the future holds for any of us, Your Grace.” Unless you were Mort. Then it probably did hold certain non-existence. “But, who is to say indeed?”

“Of course he never really forgave us for Gabriella as such. The fact she preferred others to him. Silly, when he preferred so many to her.”

“You’re not saying that Gabriella pretended all that in order to make him jealous?”

“If she did, she did it well. Nor would you ever call Mitchell the jealous kind. No. That was a forced marriage of the worst kind. Still, why don’t you ask him?”

She offered her most enigmatic stare. “Why don’t you?”

“I would like to, my dear, but Mitchell and I don’t really get along any more, which was why I was so surprised he abased himself by visiting me. Here is your dear husband now. If you don’t mind, I shall make myself scarce.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Dashwood,_11th_Baron_le_Despencer

https://www.readyclickandgo.com/…/legend-and-history-the-hell-fire-caves-west-wyc…

 

 

 

The Ba Bridge Monster and the Interview with the Rake…..

Tags

Contemporary Romance, regency Romance, Shehaanne Moore, The Hell Fire Club, The Writer and the Rake, TIme Mutants, Time travel books, time travellers

 

 

 

 

 

Mitchell Killgower.  Vie? I’m sorry? Oh right. I have no idea. But if I was to hazard a guess, it’s probably because Brittany, my worst half, has told all kinds of lies about me.

Mitchell. Indeed I could. But as I said to Brittany, when she asked me if the tedious old bastard who runs it, beguiled women, ‘No, he beguiles something far worse. Ideas.’ I don’t know if Shey would be too pleased if you got any.  

Mitchell. I know. But as you’ve so often said yourselves, it’s not raining either.

Mitchell. The one who kept Shey’s latest heroine offering in about. Next?

Mitchell. I wouldn’t know.  You’d have to ask her but she’s dead. Unless you’re planning on joining her? Whatever way I seem to have with women does not extend to wives, or pretend ones. But she squirmed whenever I went near her.  So I didn’t because I’m not all bad.

Mitchell. A friend.

Mitchell. Frankly? If you gentlemen helped me secure my inheritance, you could stay where you damn well wanted. In fact, if I’d known you gentlemen and ladies were so helpful I’d have paid you, not Brittany, to sort out my ex sister-in-law, Christian  and her husband, (who is also my uncle) Clarence, and ruin my son, Fleming. How does that sound?   

Mitchell. The question is, does she want to marry you?

Mitchell. I think you’ll find the word is ‘thought ‘and I also thought, I’d be –

 making the mistake of his life to let her back in.

 

Mitchell. So please don’t label me a romantic. I’m not.

 

Mitchell. Fine. Have it your own way.  Anyway, dudes it has been nice meeting you all.

Mitchell. Not what Brittany found out. Well… not as you seem to think.

Mitchell. In fact I’m very open and honest.