My Ten Favorite Novels by Kevin Finn

My personal taste in books is always evolving, but some things always remain consistent. I love a great drama, thriller or adventure story.  Many times it’s the way the writer treats the reader that lures me in. Whatever the hook, here is my current list of favorites and a few short reasons why.

1)    CYRANO de BERGERAC (Rostand)— Though properly considered a play, this work always felt as if it were written directly for me. A man against the world piece that is noble in thought and deed, swashbuckling, introspective and inspirational, woven beautifully through the pathos of loneliness, love unrequited, and the foolishness of vanity.  The ‘no, thank-you’ soliloquy and the Fight with Death help make this the finest character piece ever written.

2)    CATCH-22 (Heller) Bitingly funny, wry and sharp-witted all in one.  Not even M*A*S*H presents the horrors of war is such a brutally honest but enjoyable tone. 

3)    ACTS OF VIOLENCE (Jahn)-Ryan David Jahn’s debut novel is a haunting look inside the (fictitious) lives of witnesses to New York’s most infamous real-life murder, and why those witnesses did nothing to save a tragic victim.  Fact blends with fiction to put us in the courtyard with Kat, the helpless victim, and make us live the heart-wrenching terror of her final moments right along with her. Like her neighbors who did nothing, there is nothing we can do to help her. 

4)    CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (Clancy)-One of the most riveting, tightly wound action thrillers of our time, Clancy blends personal depth with political corruption and meandering.  No one is safe, and no one is what they seem.  

5)    TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Lee)- The greatest American novel, with some of the most memorable characters in literary history. A powder keg of emotions and themes that are still relevant today, this is the first novel I read that showed how important it is treat a reader with respect, regardless of their age.  

6)    DON QUIXOTE (Cervantes)-A challenging read in both verbiage and emotion, Don Quixote forces one to look upon themselves for who they are and what they want to be. Not for everyone, but highly preferable to Steinbeck.

7)    THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Dumas)- More thrills and sword fights than you can toss a tunic over, this is the ultimate adventure. The naiveté of youth sparks derring-do in the name of love, adventure, Queen and country. With clear lines between the good guys and the bad guys, or the bad women, we do it all for one and one for all.  En garde!  

8)    THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (Green)-John Green doesn’t soft-shoe around cancer, and makes no excuses for forcing lovable characters to deal with the realities of life near death.  It’s a refreshingly honest, stark portrayal of a subject no one wants to deal with, with enough whimsy to make one fool themselves into believing in happy endings, at least for a few pages.  Another work that shows nothing but respect for its readers regardless of age, it’s a Young Adult novel that most adults would gleam invaluable lessons from.

9)    THE CROWN (Bilyeau)-Nancy Bilyeau’s debut is top-shelf historical fiction, centered around a nun investigating a murder in her Priory while searching for a priceless relic in the time of Cromwell.  As a sharply drawn, neatly twisted heroine who goes from the Tower of London to the royal halls of the Tudors in her quest, Sister Joanna Stafford is the smart, devout and strong woman so often lacking in modern literature.  

10)    TOP TEN (Pearson)-This one wins on concept alone; A serial killer named Michaelangelo, ranked number 10 on the FBI’s most-wanted list, climbs his way to the top by killing off the nine fugitives ahead of him in artfully deranged style. Sparsely written and quickly paced, this one plays like a movie in your head. There’s also a delicious twist and some sickly conceived butchery. The first chapter leaves you breathless and the rest of the novel has you huffing to keep up. One of the most overlooked contemporary thrillers.  

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After beginning his career as a television news and sports writer-producer, KEVIN FINN moved on to screenwriting and has authored more than a dozen screenplays. He is a freelance script analyst and has worked for the prestigious American Film Institute Writer’s Workshop Program. He now produces promotional trailers, independent film projects including the 2012 documentary SETTING THE STAGE: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and local content for Princeton Community Television.

His next novel, Banners Over Brooklyn, will be released in 2015.

Kevin Finn Website - http://www.kvfinnwriter.com/

Kevin Finn Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kevin.finn.58?fref=ts

Kevin Finn Twitter - https://twitter.com/Finnkv

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About the Book

WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SAVED?

On the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination comes a new edition of the extraordinary time-travel thriller first published in 2003, now extensively revised and re-edited, and with a new Afterword from the authors.

On November 22, 1963, just hours after President Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President aboard Air Force One using JFK’s own Bible. Immediately afterward, the Bible disappeared. It has never been recovered. Today, its value would be beyond price.

In the year 2000, actress Cady Cuyler is recruited to return to 1963 for this Bible—while also discovering why her father disappeared in the same city, on the same tragic day. Finding frightening links between them will lead Cady to a far more perilous mission: to somehow prevent the President’s murder, with one unlikely ally: an ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

Forward to Camelot: 50th Anniversary Edition brings together an unlikely trio: a gallant president, the young patriot who risks his own life to save him, and the woman who knows their future, who is desperate to save them both. 

History CAN be altered …

Q & A with author Randy Susan Meyers

Can you tell us a bit about the book and the relationship between the characters?

Accidents of Marriage asks what is the toll of emotional abuse on a family. It’s an account of life inside a marriage that seems fine to the outside world, an account of emotional abuse, traumatic injury, and how a seeming accident is really the culmination of years of ignored trouble. It’s the story of an unexpected gift of clarity making the difference between living in hell and salvation.

For Madeline Illica, the love of her husband Ben is her greatest blessing and biggest curse. Brilliant, handsome and charming, Ben could turn into a raging bull when crossed—and despite her training as a social worker Maddy was never sure what would cross him. She kept a fragile peace by vacillating between tiptoeing around him and asserting herself for the sake of their three children, until a rainy drive to work when Ben’s temper gets the best of him, and the consequences leave Maddy in the hospital, fighting for her life.

Accidents of Marriage, alternating among the perspectives of Maddy, Ben, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Emma, takes us up close into the relationships between all family members. The children, lost in the shuffle, grasp for sources of comfort, including the (to them) mysterious traditions of their Jewish and Catholic grandparents. Emma and her grandparents provide the only stability for the younger children when their mother is in the hospital. Ben alternates between guilt and glimmers of his need to change, and Maddy is simply trying to live.  Accidents of Marriage reveals the challenges of family, faith, and forgiveness.

How many different titles did you experiment with before deciding on Accidents of Marriage?

My first working title was A Thousand Suppers (which comes from a line in the book, but ultimately made no sense out of context.) The title I used when I presented it to my editor was simply Maddy & Ben. After many long sessions with poetry books, anagrams of words, and other methods that I use, I came up with Accidents of Marriage.

How has working with batterers and victims of domestic violence influenced your writings?

Working with batterers taught me far more than I can put in a paragraph, but here is my version of the most important take-away: Never underestimate the hatred some men have of women. Never think that people (other than the truly damaged)  ‘snap’. If they chose to find it, people can access at least a sliver of decision-making. We have agency. We do not choose to hit and scream at our bosses. We choose to hit and scream at people in our homes. The hierarchy of power always comes into play.

Women (and men) do not choose abusive people as their loves—they pick the charming folks they meet in the beginning of a relationship. There might be signs to look out for, but abusers keep those traits in check until the relationship has solidified, when breaking up is more difficult.

There is not a black and white line between being abusive and not being abusive. There is a continuum of behavior, and most of us fall on the wrong side of the best behavior at some point—whether is be yelling, silent treatment, or some other hurtful conduct. Learning that this can be controlled is a job for everyone.

Batterers can change; we can all change our behaviors, but most often we choose not to do the difficult work that change requires. This is something I hope I bring to my writing.

Can you discuss the role of Maddy and Ben’s daughter in the book?

Emma is an average teenager who is thrown into very un-average circumstances. She becomes the stand-in mother, a role she takes on without credit or even being noticed. She is also the keeper of secrets, an impossible position for her to take on. In every stage of her family’s trauma, she is the silent absorber, who ultimately will break or find strength.

How did you portray someone with a traumatic brain injury so well?

I did an enormous amount of study. Luckily I find medical research fascinating. My shelves are crammed with memoirs of those with TBI and caretakers of those with TBI, workbooks for those with TBI, and medical texts—as well as spending time on line reading medical information for those in the field and information for those affected by brain injury. I had someone in the field read the novel and am also lucky enough to have a doctor in my writer’s group.

Did you have any say in choosing the cover for the book?

Yes! The final cover was the fourth one presented. It was tough finding the right ‘mood’ for the cover, but I was very pleased with the final version. Of course, most authors (including me) would love to actually design the cover, but my guess is our final products would not be the graphic success we imagine.

What made you choose a car crash as the tragic turning point between Ben and Maddy?

Abusive and bullying behavior very often plays out in driving. Road rage is a real problem on our motorways and seemed the logical vehicle for demonstrating how Ben’s bad choices result in devastating consequences.

Parts of this story make the reader begin to empathize with Ben. Why did you choose to do this?

I don’t believe books that present characters as all good or all bad can adequately capture life’s totality or experiences. It’s important for me to tap into how we are all the stars of our own show and how we often convince ourselves why it is ‘okay’ to act in awful ways.  Ben is not all bad, despite doing awful and bad things. The question I explore about Ben (among others) is can he change? Is he, are we, capable of change, and if so, how does will and can that change manifest?

Is Maddy modeled after anyone that you know?

Maddy is modeled after about a thousand people I know—including myself and my friends and family. Most of us have some Maddy in us, at least at some point. We close our eyes to the worst, or we use drugs or alcohol or food or something else to tamp down our feelings. We live in a maelstrom of problems and pretend it’s all okay. We deny and lie to ourselves. Until we can’t anymore.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading Accidents of Marriage?

Abusive behavior is wrong, whether it is physical, emotional, verbal or any other type of hurtful behavior. It overwhelms a family. Raising children with verbal and emotional violence is harmful and the ramifications last forever.

Most important, we can control our behavior.

But, most of all, I hope readers take a page-turning story from my book. I don’t write to lecture; I write to tell the stories that mesmerize me, and thus, I hope, fascinate others.

Read an exclusive excerpt from the book here.

Q&A with author Matt Cook

What inspired you to become a writer?

At six, I knew I wanted to tell stories. My family was taking a road trip through Europe. Sitting in the car and looking out at the mountains, shores, forests, and castles, I began drawing maps of fantasy worlds and naming specific places and people. My love of knights and wizards gave rise to a fantasy novel called Tovar’s Enchantment, which I finished in 2001 and rewrote into a longer and quite different book, completed four years later. Around that time, I was becoming more interested in writing and reading real-world stories, particularly involving espionage.  

You have an interesting background that involves magic. Tell us about it.

My grandfather was always pulling coins out of my ear when I was little. My dad, too, often showed me tricks involving science. And I was enchanted with wizards, in the midst of creating a fantasy story. An interest in magic came naturally. As a teenager, I became a member of the Magic Castle Junior Society and began performing professionally at private parties for Hollywood celebrities. The wonderful thing about magic is that it helps overcome the language barrier. In travel, magic has helped me communicate with people when we don’t use the same words. Mystery is universal. A deck of cards is the best universal translator you can find. 

Your debut thriller, Sabotage, comes out in September. Tells us about it. 

Sabotage is a story of espionage on the high seas, arriving September 9, 2014 from Forge Books. In the story, an extortionist commandeers a weapons technology that could alter the international balance of power. Nothing is known about him, other than his alias: “Viking.” Trapped in a bidding war for the technology with terrorist conspirators, the responsible defense corporation can’t touch him as long as he controls a hijacked cruise ship in the North Atlantic. The key to bringing him down may lie in the disappearance of Stanford professor Malcolm Clare, a celebrated aviator, entrepreneur, and aerospace engineer. 

Searching for Clare is doctoral candidate Austin Hardy, who seeks out the man’s daughter, Victoria—a fellow student with a secret that sweeps them to Saint Petersburg. Aided by a team of graduate students on campus, they must devise Trojan horses and outfox an assassin to unravel the extortionist’s scheme. Failure would ensure economic disaster for the United States.

The story also follows a former Air Force combat weatherman, Jake Rove, who is one of three thousand passengers held hostage aboard the luxury liner. He’s determined to weaken the ship’s hijackers. He evades detection, dives by night, and communicates intelligence to the Stanford team on land as they uncover a trail of deception and sabotage. 

What are you currently reading? 

Dome City Blues by Jeff Edwards. A fan of his military fiction, I’m also loving his foray into futurism as seen through the eyes of a grieving former detective, who gets drawn into a dark and unusual case in a futuristic world where people must live under domes for protection.  
 
Having accomplished your first book, what is your reflection of the process? Would you have done anything differently? 

In writing Sabotage, I wish I had spent more time creating dramatic conflict, rather than thinking so much about the action. It’s helpful to identify the source of the biggest thrills. If you think about some of the greatest thrill scenes you’ve ever read or watched in film, they aren’t necessarily the action or fight scenes. The most exciting scenes are often those that offer the threat of action—at any moment, the tension could boil over and cause a fight. Once the fight starts, all bets are off, and much of the tension is already satisfied, even as the fight continues. 

The biggest thrills come from dramatic conflict between characters. By dramatic conflict, I mean the discovery of a clash or alignment of motivations, or the threat or anticipation of such a discovery. For example, in Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, after Jack sets fire to the old cathedral to create work for his family, the reader is left wondering for the rest of the book when someone will uncover his act of arson. In his book Whiteout, you have a band of thieves taken in during a storm, who have stolen from the family that took them in, and readers wonder when and how the family will discover their treachery. 

If you were stranded on island and could only take three books, what would they be?

The best three island survival guides available! Okay, assuming fiction: (1) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; with a cast of multi-dimensional characters, the book offers a thorough examination of the role of the mind in man’s life, a complete philosophy, and a portrayal of the author’s ideal man. (2) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, for endless laughs. (3) The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a meticulously researched medieval drama whose themes of love, dedication, and tenacity were especially moving to me. 

Are you currently working on anything that you can share?

At this point, just a tease: The next book is not a sequel. It’s darker, and set in a different time. The research has been fascinating. 

Any advice for aspiring authors?

“Writing” a novel seems like it should entail putting words on a page, but the critical part comes before the first word is written. Give yourself plenty of time to think through your theme, plot, and most importantly, characters. Develop them from the inside out before you start the manuscript. Consider giving each major character a two-to-four page biography. The content may or may not appear in the final product, but structuring your thoughts will help you achieve consistency and dimensionality of character. 

If you want to get more information on Matt, you can reach him on his website or Facebook!

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About the Book

A cruise ship loses power in the North Atlantic. A satellite launches in the South Pacific. Professor Malcolm Clare—celebrated aviator, entrepreneur, and aerospace engineer—disappears from Stanford University and wakes up aboard an unknown jet, minutes before the aircraft plunges into the high seas.

An extortionist code-named “Viking” has seized control of a private warfare technology, pitting a U.S. defense corporation against terrorist conspirators in a bidding war. His leverage: a threat to destroy the luxury liner and its 3,000 passengers.

Stanford doctoral student Austin Hardy, probing the disappearance of his professor, seeks out Malcolm Clare’s daughter Victoria, an icy brunette with a secret that sweeps them to Saint Petersburg. Helped by a team of graduates on campus, they must devise Trojan horses, outfox an assassin, escape murder in Bruges, and sidestep treachery in order to unravel Viking’s scheme. Failure would ensure economic armageddon in the United States.

Both on U.S. soil and thousands of miles away, the story roars into action at supersonic speed. Filled with an enigmatic cast of characters, Sabotage, Matt Cook’s debut novel, is a sure thrill ride for those who love the puzzles of technology, cryptology, and people. 

Q & A with author Nancy Christie

The characters in the stories all seem a little (in some case, a lot!) wounded or vulnerable. What draws you to write about these types of characters?

I’m not entirely sure. It’s not like I set out to write stories about odd, eccentric or unstable people. It’s just, for some reason, I am drawn to those types of people—perhaps it’s one of those “There, but for the grace of God” things.

My fiction—or at least, my short fiction—tends to be about people who are damaged in some way—by what they have done to themselves or by what was done to them, by what they have received, what they gave up, or what was taken from them. They are, for the most part, struggling to navigate through dangerous waters. Some survive and move forward toward land, some are just treading water, and some don’t even know that they have lost the battle and are, even now, drowning.

I feel sorry for those people, wish I could do something for them, and perhaps, in the writing of their stories, that is what I am doing. Because somewhere out there, there is a real person who is held in thrall by his or her obsessions, who is controlled by past or present circumstances, who wants to live a happy, normal, balanced life but finds that the tightrope of life vibrates too much and maintaining equilibrium is but a dream.

“Dream”—and there it is again. The idea of what we want and what we have. For some of us—perhaps for most of us—the former is the dream and the latter is the reality and never the twain shall meet.

Where did the idea of the cover art for TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER come from?

From the very beginning—even before I knew it would be a book!—I had an image in mind for the book cover. The cover is a literal interpretation of each character’s metaphorical journey on the road of life. Some of them zig-zag across the center line only to pull back to the right side at the last moment, while others cross once and never make it back in time. And then, there are the few who are merrily driving right down the center, every now and then drifting first to the left and then to the right, blissfully unaware that they are courting disaster. When I shared the concept with my publisher, it took only a few tweaks before we had the “ah hah!” moment and said “This is it!” and after a few revisions, we successfully “birthed” this book cover!

You made a reference to your “short fiction”—does that mean there is a novel or two kicking around in your writer’s closet? And are those characters damaged as well?

Yes—two that I have finished and several more in various stages of creation. And no, those characters are more normal (whatever that means!) although they too have their own battles. But those battles are, in a sense, more conventional—trying to figure what they want out of life, trying to carve a new identity and role when circumstances alter.

I don’t think I could sustain a story line like “Annabelle” for fifty or sixty-thousand words. It’s not a writing thing but a temperament thing—it would exhaust me psychologically to become so immersed for so long in that type of story. When I write, I live with my characters. It would be too draining to live with Annabelle or Sarah in “Skating on Thin Ice” for months or years on end.

What was your “writer dream”—your goal— when you began to write? Has it changed over the years?

I don’t think I had a dream. Certainly, I never pictured myself holding a book with my name on it. Writing is such a natural part of me that I never thought about it as an occupation or a goal, any more than I would think about breathing as a profession. It was just something I did.

Of course now, with two books—TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER and my non-fiction book, THE GIFTS OF CHANGE— in print and two short stories as e-books plus others that have been published in literary journals, I do have a dream or two. Great reviews in The Times. Accolades from well-known literary fiction writers. An award or two to stick somewhere on my bookshelf—next to about a dozen foreign translations of my collection!

Or maybe my accountant telling me that my royalties have pushed me into a different income bracket!

Where do you do most of your writing?

I’d love to say that I write on some special paper in some special notebook using some special pen but the reality is I am a keyboard writer. I hate to transcribe and sometimes can’t even read my own notes, so I write using the computer. But most of the times, the ideas for the story come when I am far from my electronic secretary. I’m out on a run or mowing the lawn or driving along somewhere and, for no reason whatsoever, the opening lines of dialogue fill my mind and it’s off to the races! Sometimes, if it will be awhile before I can get back o the computer, I have to stop myself from going too far lest I forget all the good parts!

Do you have a theme you return to time and again?

Probably change. I mean, that is the constant we all face, isn’t it? We are only fooling ourselves if we think we can control everything that happens to us. So, that being the case, what do we do? How do we handle change—happy change, sad change, confusing change? That’s the predicament my characters find themselves in.

What do you want your writer’s epitaph to be?

Just two words: “Fiction Writer”

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Nancy Christie is a professional writer, whose credits include both fiction and non-fiction. In addition to her fiction collection, TRAVELING LEFT OF CENTER, and two short story e-books, ANNABELLE and ALICE IN WONDERLAND (all published by Pixel Hall Press), her short stories can be found in literary publications such as EWR: Short Stories, Hypertext, Full of Crow, Fiction365, Red Fez, Wanderings, The Chaffin Journal and Xtreme.

Her inspirational book, THE GIFTS OF CHANGE, (Beyond Words/Atria) encourages readers to take a closer look at how they deal with the inevitability of change and ways in which they can use change to gain a new perspective, re-evaluate their goals and reconsider their options. Christie’s essays have also appeared in Woman’s Day, Stress-Free Living, Succeed, Experience Life, Tai Chi and Writer’s Digest. She is currently working on several other book projects, including a novel and a book for writers.

A member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Short Fiction Writers Guild (SFWG), Christie teaches workshops at writing conferences and schools across the country and hosts the monthly Monday Night Writers group in Canfield, Ohio.

Visit her website at www.nancychristie.com or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or at her writing blogs: Finding Fran, The Writer’s Place and One on One.

Website: www.nancychristie.com

Blogs:

Finding Fran http://www.nancychristie.com/findingfran

The Writer’s Place http://www.nancychristie.com/writersplace/

One on One http://www.nancychristie.com/oneonone/

Make a Change http://www.nancychristie.com/makeachange/

Social media links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nancychristie.writer

Google+: http://gplus.to/nancychristie

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nancychristie/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/NChristie_OH  @NChristie_OH

Q & A with author Claudia H. Long

What inspired you to become and author?

I've written for so long I almost can't imagine not writing. Many of my earlier books were written under a pen name, because I'm also a lawyer and I wasn't sure that my professional and authorial lives could mix. When Josefina's Sin (Atria/Simon & Schuster) came out in 2011, I realized I was ready for the big time, and since then have written under my own name.
 
Writing is one of the best ways to express the world within. It's not just telling people how you as the author feel, but it's a way to paint pictures with words, share a world that others may not inhabit, and at some level reflect the conflicts and major issues in life.
 
What led you to choose your genre?

I know this sounds corny but historical fiction chose me. I set out to write a story and the story took place a long time ago. I was fascinated by the time and place, and my characters happened to live there. I didn't know about all the "rules" of writing historical fiction, I just wrote. Now, of course, I know.
 
Genre is a funny thing, though. If it takes place more than fifty years ago, and is fiction, it's historical fiction. If there's even a breath of love, and the book is written by a woman, it's historical romance. If it's written by a man, not so much! Yet love inspires so much of men's work, and somehow it's not "romance." So I go with Fiction and let the genres work it out!
 
How much research goes into your work?

Oh, an enormous amount! With Josefina's Sin I had written my college thesis on Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a poet in the late 1600s in Mexico, so I knew the era well. But for The Duel for Consuelo I researched the Conversos (converts at the point of a sword during the Inquisition) and the Secret Jews or Crypto-Jews of Mexico. I spent about a year researching Consuelo and even now I find myself going off on tangents of research. There's so much to know about that difficult, complex issue.
 
The Duel for Consuelo, takes us into the early 17th century Mexico and into the Inquisition. Give us an insight into why this period inspired this story?
 
As practically everyone knows, the Jews were exiled from Spain in 1492, at the time that the Muslims were expelled as well. Persecution had gone on for centuries, of course, but Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in an uneasy peace until the expulsion edicts finally put an end to co-existing. 
 
But not all Jews left the only homes they had ever known. Having lived in Spain for four hundred years, it was as much their country as America can be to any of us. Contradictory edicts made it impossible to leave, mandatory to leave, requiring conversion, denying the merits of the conversion, all with the drumbeat of confiscation of wealth behind the acts. So not only were Jews required to leave or convert, they often were prevented from exercising either choice. If they were "lucky" they converted and eventually got out, often as financial advisers, to the New World.
 
Two-hundred-and-fifty years later, Consuelo would be a distant descendant of the original converts. But the strain of the old religion ran deep, and families could still be forced to "prove" their allegiance to the new religion. Any hint of Judaizing, or secretly practicing their old religion, was ruthlessly ferreted out by the Inquisition, which led Conversos to the practice of haciendo sábado, or "doing the Sabbath." This involved ostentatiously working on Saturday so the neighbors could see them, eating pork in public, and putting on other displays of Christianity.
 
1711 was a tumultuous year in New Spain. The new Viceroy, Duke of Linares, arrived ready to clean out corruption. Of course, that was a monumental and thankless task as those with funds, long used to a free hand, opposed him at every juncture. Throughout Europe the Enlightenment movement was growing, but in Spain, both a cash-strapped king who had waged war with France, England, and Holland, and the weakening Inquisition used their last gasps of power to stifle any "new thinking." Those new thinkers, unflatteringly called novaderos, looked to the rest of Europe for inspiration in the burgeoning sciences, streamlined poetry and prose, and a new social order.  In Mexico, ideological change was slower to come, but the freedoms of being far from the source made for independent and at time strange ways of thinking.
 
Consuelo is caught between both worlds. She lives in fear of discovery, all the while not knowing much about the beliefs of a secret Jew. She's a Catholic in her mind, but when the consequences of her heritage come home to roost she is forced to make the most difficult choices of her life.
 
What is the hardest thing about writing historical fiction?

Every now and then a detail trips you up! For instance, mangoes came to Mexico in the 1730s. So you wouldn't have a mango tree in 1690, but you could have one in 1740.
Also, some people rely only on popular sites, such as Wikipedia, for their historical knowledge, and in-depth research often turns up conflicting views or facts that don't square with popular knowledge. This occasionally upsets some people's cozy view of the past, and they can get upset when your story doesn't square with their somewhat superficial understanding of what "really happened" three or four hundred years ago.
But fiction, especially "historical fiction", lives in the interstices of history, creating story from the spaces between the facts.
 
What authors have you been inspired by?
 
The list is long! Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the most wonderful writer in the world (just sayin'), Julio Cortazar for his complexity, Elizabeth Peters with her wonderful and exquisitely researched Amelia Peabody mysteries, David Liss—an historical fiction writer of the highest order. They have inspired me, and comforted me with their books, and given me great pleasure.
 
Do you have any advice for upcoming writers?

Oh, yes indeed!
1. Ask yourself at every juncture: Is this interesting to anyone other than me? Why? If it's only interesting to you, that's wonderful for a personal diary. To reach beyond it has to captivate others.
2. Edit, edit, edit. Make sure your grammar is right. I can't tell you how many times I have cringed, reading "He gave the book to he and I," or "I recalled how him and me used to walk along…"
3. Nanowrimo. www.nanowrimo.org is the greatest boon to writers who struggle with the censor at the end of their fingers, the censor that stops them from writing what is truly interesting or meaningful. In Nanowrimo, you write a 50,000 word novel in a month (November.) Then, of course, you spend a year re-writing it (see 1 and 2 above!) but it forces you to get it on paper, or on the screen. At the end there's no prize, no one reads your work, but you have the first draft of your novel done. Every book I've ever written, whether under my own name or a pen name, was first drafted in Nanowrimo.

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Claudia Long is a highly caffeinated, terminally optimistic married lady living in Northern California. She writes about early 1700’s Mexico and modern day and roaring 20′s California. Claudia practices law as a mediator for employment disputes and business collapses, has two formerly rambunctious–now grown kids, and owns four dogs and a cat. Her first mainstream novel was Josefina’s Sin, published by Simon & Schuster in 2011. Her second one, The Harlot’s Pen, was published with Devine Destinies in February 2014. Claudia grew up in Mexico City and New York, and she now lives in California.

For more information please visit Claudia H. Long’s website and blog. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

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Book Summary

History, love, and faith combine in a gripping novel set in early 1700’s Mexico. In this second passionate and thrilling story of the Castillo family, the daughter of a secret Jew is caught between love and the burdens of a despised and threatened religion. The Enlightenment is making slow in-roads, but Consuelo’s world is still under the dark cloud of the Inquisition. Forced to choose between protecting her ailing mother and the love of dashing Juan Carlos Castillo, Consuelo’s personal dilemma reflects the conflicts of history as they unfold in 1711 Mexico.

A rich, romantic story illuminating the timeless complexities of family, faith, and love.

Don't Let Rejections Get You Down (Yea, Right) by Rosalind James

“Dear Author: Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately . . .” And your heart sinks again.

You tell yourself that Gone With the Wind was rejected 38 times. That over a hundred publishers turned down Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries. That Tom Clancy, after everyone else had said no, finally found a publisher for The Hunt for Red October—the Naval Institute Press.

But still, what you’re hearing is that your book stinks. And that nobody, anywhere, will ever love it. So how do you keep from getting discouraged? Here are some thoughts that may help.

1. Publishers are risk-averse. Also agents. I worked in the publishing industry for 20 years, and have been on the other end of this one many times. If a publisher thinks a book has a 40% chance of making $100,000, he will take that bet over a 5% chance of making $2 million. What does this mean? More of the same! They want more of what’s been selling lately (BDSM romance, anyone?), because it’s too hard to predict what will sell tomorrow.

2. Success stories. I decided to self-publish on the day a major agent told me that she enjoyed my book very much, but “New Zealand rugby” would be too tough of a hook in the U.S. market. Avon’s new ebook line turned me down on the day I offered that same book for free on KDP Select and gave away over 14,000 copies. I sold 2,000 books in my first month, and 20,000 books in my fifth. And I’m not the only one. Being turned down by agents and publishers doesn’t mean your book isn’t good, or that the public (as opposed to the publishers) won’t buy it. You can choose either to keep trying, keep polishing your query and your manuscript, sending out a few queries at a time until you land that fish, or …

3. Consider self-publishing. We are living in a unique moment when the barriers to entry have come crashing down. Yes, this means some books are being published that probably shouldn’t be. But it also means that authors whose books sat rejected for years are putting them out there, and guess what? People want to read them!

4. The downside: What downside? If your book succeeds, the publishers may come to you. (It happened to me!) Maybe you’ll finance a little bit more writing time. And if it doesn’t sell much, what have you lost? Some time and the money for (I hope) a professionally designed book cover and professional editing. So make sure your book is the very best you can make it, do your research on producing and marketing your work, and give it a try.

5. Keep writing! Whichever way you choose to go, don’t stop writing. If people whose opinions you genuinely trust are telling you your work is good, and you believe in your heart of hearts that it is, you owe it to yourself to keep going, and to find a way to put your books out there for the market to judge. Nobody’s tombstone ever said, “I wish I hadn’t pursued my dream.”

Helen Keller said it best. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”

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Rosalind James, the bestselling author of the Escape to New Zealand and Kincaids series, is a former marketing executive who discovered her muse after several years of living and working in paradise--also known as Australia and New Zealand. Now, she spends her days writing about delicious rugby players, reality shows, corporate intrigue, and all sorts of other wonderful things, and having more fun doing it than should be legal.

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Book Summary

No shirt, no shoes, no … problems?

Hemi Ranapia isn’t looking for love. Fun, yes. Love, not so much. But a summer fishing holiday to laid-back Russell could turn out to be more adventure than this good-time boy ever bargained for.

Reka Harata hasn't forgotten the disastrously sexy rugby star she met a year ago, no matter how much she wishes she could. Too bad Hemi keeps refusing to be left in her past.

Sometimes, especially in New Zealand’s Maori Northland, it really does take a village. And sometimes it just takes a little faith.