Historical Characters

Characters for historical fiction are created in the same way as for any other genre, i.e: with a major characteristic or trait, but must be made relevant and connected to the period in which they live. Don’t judge the past by modern standards. Balance your characters with good points and a flaw, which could lead to them making them a mistake about their decision in life and for which the reader will feel sympathy or admiration for them. Always remember the historical mindset.

To make characters believable, they must act as if they are contemporary to that time and place. For instance, they might not know that a war is looming even if the reader does. Anything they are planning might have a poignant threat of hope and interest but possible devastation to it. So long as their motivation is clear and the world in which they exist is a living-breathing place, the reader will accept attitudes and actions they never would need in their own life. It helps to read contemporary novels if you can, to get the feel of behaviour, problems and concerns, attitude and speech. And you naturally have to put words into their mouths, so carefully check the language of that period.

Some characters of the less salubrious kind if it’s a gritty historical, could be guilty of prejudice, prostitution, cruelty or whatever, for which the reader will feel no respect. We live in a world with certain demands of political correctness and moral requirements. Our society disapproves of prejudice and bigots, racialism, chauvinism, sexism, provincialism. Remember your characters are people of their own times who may accept some of these issues. You must allow them to act according to their own standards, not yours. Don’t pass judgment on them by making excuses or being dismissive. Don’t apologize for their mistakes and don’t attempt to make them all into free thinkers who are ahead of their times. You have to be able to see the story from their perspective, even if it offends you. And if they are more of a villain to a mistaken hero, they’ll pay the cost for their dreadful behaviour.

Should you use real historical figures? 
A novel about a famous historical figure may feel exciting and good to write. However, can the facts of their life be changed and fiction added? Can you have a woman marry if in reality she actually remained single or was captured and killed? Are you free to change these characters and the way they lived? It is essential that you make it plain that you are adding fiction to the story of your chosen historical figure. You’re saying - What if she was able to free herself/marry/live elsewhere, survive, or whatever. Wouldn’t that have been better for her? Sometimes you are short of knowledge and have to guess what she did and why, so make that clear too.

The concern is, do these historical people or their descendants still have rights? In theory they do, but if it suits the story you are writing to give them a safer or more interesting life, make sure that you do it well. A less well-known figure may seem easier to write about but may not be as interesting. Using real historical figures can be difficult and demand a lot of research, but fascinating. Readers have their own perception of these historical figures. If you feel it might be a problem to develop them in a way to suit your story, it could be fun and more imaginative to create your own historical figures.

In the end there are no set rules. It’s up to you. But if you do it badly, the critics will slay you as being inaccurate, sloppy & anachronistic, so do it well.

I have written about real historical people in the Hostage Queen Series, The Duchess of Drury Lane, Lady of Passion. But in My Lady Deceiver, The Promise, and The Girls of the Great War,’ I made up characters who never existed in reality. You can find these on Amazon, if you are interested in any of them.

 

Amazon Lake Union 

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Soldiers in World War One

Their physical and mental stress was so strong at times that it blocked out their minds, filling them with fear, grim reality, tension, strain and anxiety whenever they approached a battle zone. They would fall into silence, asking themselves if they could cope with the dangers they were about to face. They always dreaded snipers, shell shock, infections and injuries, or to be damaged with shrapnel. It could make their mind go completely numb, particularly if they suffered the loss of a friend. Some could be walking wounded, or could only sleep on a groundsheet against the cold.

Infantry soldiers often knew very little about where they were or what was going on elsewhere. They lacked the facility of maps, news and information, relying on gossip and rumour. Food in Blighty was very much a problem. They might be given bacon and liver, brawn and kidneys, bread and dripping, but not too much food was available. They might have porridge with a few smashed army biscuits boiling in a mess tin with some water and sugar. Sometimes they were given a small drink of beer, and they would take a sip of rum and roll it on their tongue. Soldiers were also expected to keep their boots, caps, badges and buckles well-polished, and would hide them at night in case one of the other chaps might pinch them. Life was not easy, and they very much depended upon friends and letters from their family. It was a relief for them to be given a short break from the frontline when they were feeling worn out, perhaps to walk through the streets unthreatened by locals. Or to enjoy a performance.

Amazon Lake Union

Amazon UK

Amazon US

War might drain men of energy, but Cecily firmly believed that their minds and spirit needed nurturing. Her team gave regular performances in the camp and at local hospitals. It was not unusual for wounded men to be wheeled out of the wards and lie on stretchers in order to watch, having been treated or were simply waiting for the necessary care. They often happily accepted they could be soaked as rain beat down on them. Cecily would regularly sing and on one occasion, they performed a play. Because some couldn’t be moved, following a concert Cecily would visit the hospital and sing to patients in their beds, or to one alone if he was blind or dying. It was exhausting but moving, her team’s situation ripe with danger too. They performed popular songs, poetry, Shakespeare, comedy and gave a glimpse of ‘Blighty’ often to an audience of thousands. The soldiers were always overjoyed to be entertained.

Amazon Best Seller Tag!

I'm one happy author this morning. 
Two weeks after release Beneath a Stormy Sky has an Amazon Best Seller tag! 
It's #1 on Amazon Australia in the Victorian historical category! (The Slum Angel is #3!) 😃

Beneath a Stormy Sky

Surviving a shipwreck was the least of her problems.

#Victorian #historicalfiction

Amazon: mybook.to/BeneathaStormySky

The Salford Sagas

I have several favourite sagas and four of my original ones are part of my backlist and about to be republished by Canelo on 26th August. They have always sold well as have my others, including The Girl From Poorhouse Lane Series now published by Canelo and selling well.

I sincerely hope these other books will also do well for them. I will put up pictures of them closer to the time. But here are a few details of their stories.

Watch for the Talleyman.
He’s after more than your money… Dolly Tomkins knows what it’s like to live hand to mouth. In the mean streets of 1920s Salford, the only one making a decent living is the talleyman - and Nifty Jack has a moneybag where his heart should be. Dolly’s mam is in hock up to her ears, but when Jack offers to wipe the slate clean in return for Dolly’s favours, she just can’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she takes him on at his own game, and in the process is in danger of losing the love of her life.

Dancing on Deansgate 
They called it the Christmas Blitz, but there are no festivities for Jess, locked in the cellar by her feckless, tarty mother. And when Lizzie is imprisoned for shoplifting, Jess is sent to live with her uncle, a bullying black marketeer, who treats her like a slave. Her natural musical talent offers an escape route - and the chance for love. But Uncle Bernie has never forgiven his niece for refusing to join his illegal schemes, and threatens to deprive Jess of her hard-won independence.

The Favourite Child
Isabella Ashton has always been her father's favourite, but when she becomes involved with the new Birth Control Movement, Simeon is scandalised. It’s 1928 and running a family planning clinic in Salford is challenging but rewarding work, and Bella is grateful for the help of Violet Howarth, a big, generous-hearted woman who takes her in off the street. A friendship with Violet’s son, Dan, quickly turns to love. But Bella also becomes involved with handsome ne’er-do-well Billy Quinn, leader of an illegal betting ring, and soon finds everything she has worked for put at risk, and herself in mortal danger . . .

Ruby McBride 
The grand opening of the Manchester Ship Canal is a big day for Ruby McBride and her young sister and brother. Its glories fade into insignificance, however, when their mother Molly, due to illness, reluctantly entrusts her beloved children to Ignatius House, and the not-so-tender care of the nuns. Ruby, a rebel at heart, is always on the wrong side of authority, but when she is sixteen, the Board of Guardians forces her into marriage and she has to abandon her siblings, vowing she will reunite the family just as soon as she can.

Convinced that her new husband is a conman, she discovers life on the barge is not at all what she expected. She is furious at being robbed of the chance to be with her childhood sweetheart, Kit Jarvis, so resists Bart’s advances for as long as she can. But Ruby’s courage and spirit enable her to rise above the disadvantages of her birth and make a life for herself within the thriving community of waterways folk.

And on 23rd September they will next publish The Champion Street Market Sagas, of which there are six of them. More details of these later.

My latest news, Freda Lightfoot.

Nominated for a RONE Award

My novel, The Promise of Tomorrow has been nominated for a RONE award. Would love some votes for it please.

Register and vote online at InD’tale Magazine.

https://www.indtale.com/2019-rone-awards-week-three

Available for pre-order!

Available for pre-order!

Millie - the first book in a new 4 book series!

Will the events of the past destroy everything she wished for?

#historical #1920s

Amazon: viewbook.at/Millie

A brand new series from the author of the Kitty McKenzie series and The Slum Angel. 

The Great War is over, and Millie is ready to leave her loving family home and be a wife to Jeremy who is everything she had hoped for. 

Until… 

Not long after their wedding, Millie discovers Jeremy is affected by shell shock and moving into his late father’s cold dark estate escalates the problem. Millie tries to help, but Jeremy grows more distant and befriends a homeless, wounded ex-soldier, Monty, who has secrets... 

As Millie’s distrust of Monty grows, a rift is created between her and Jeremy and when he leaves to receive hospital treatment, she is left feeling abandoned. When her family is dealt a terrible loss, it is Millie who must be the strongest. However, just when she feels things couldn’t become worse, she suffers her own heartbreaking tragedy. 
Grieving and alone, Millie wonders if her marriage can ever be mended, but she can’t give up without a fight. 

Will a new home for her and Jeremy in a foreign country be the answer, or will the events of the past destroy everything she wished for? 

Only .99, a travel through time, BEYOND THE FALL

A Cemetery in Bodmin, Cornwall inspired the idea for my Time Travel, Beyond the Fall.
Ebook on sale for .99.

Over a decade ago my husband and I visited Cornwall, England so I could research a novel. In the city of Bodmin we explored the eighteenth century courthouse and the Bodmin church, St. Petroc’s.

 

A ruin—which could have been the chapel of St. Thomas Becket from the 1300s—was next to the church were a woman in a large hat and loose gown walked through the overgrowth. When next we looked, she was gone. My husband and I laughed that perhaps she was a ghost.

 

 The church, a wonderful gothic structure, dates back to the fifteenth century. We entered the dim, cool interior, where we inspected the twelfth century Norman font, carved with eyes that are supposed to open during baptisms. The effigy of Prior Vyvyan—a Cornish bishop in the 1500s—lies on a chest, both carved from Catacleuse stone and grey marble. Fine woodwork, a rood screen and bench ends were constructed around this time.

To the side of the church was a cemetery of weathered headstones and Celtic crosses, crooked and ancient-looking in the shadows.

 Years later when I looked at the photograph my husband took, inspiration struck. What if a woman researching her ancestors poked through a neglected cemetery, moved a fallen headstone and was whisked back in time to 1789? How would a modern woman survive in the more primitive eighteenth century where women had few rights? Miners out of work, grain riots, and the French Revolution, all happened in this year. Would she be condemned as a spy, or a witch, with her strange ways and odd clothing?

 My novel, Beyond the Fall, a time travel adventure, tells that story.

 Blurb: In 2018, Tamara is dumped by her arrogant husband, travels to Cornwall, England and researches her ancestors. In a neglected cemetery, she scrapes two fallen headstones together trying to read the one beneath, faints, and wakes up in 1789, the year of The French Revolution, and grain riots in England. Young Farmer Colum Polwhele comes to her aid. Can a sassy San Francisco gal survive in this primitive time and fall for Colum, a man active in underhanded dealings or will she struggle to return to her own time?

To purchase an ebook of Beyond the Fall, click https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fall-Diane-Scott-Lewis-ebook/dp/B07HDFRLT4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

For more information on me and my books, please visit my website: www.dianescottlewis.org

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband in Pennsylvania.

 

The Slum Angel out now!

The Slum Angel.

Can Victoria find the security she has lost? Will a certain doctor be the man she can give her heart to? 

My latest book has been released. Set in Victorian York, England. 

Blurb:

Orphan, Victoria Carlton is brought up by her uncle, a banker, to be a lady and make a good marriage. Yet, she is drawn to help the poor families in the slums, much to her family’s disgust. When her uncle dies suddenly, her cousins blame Victoria, and she is thrown out of the house with nothing. 
Victoria flees to the poor side of York to start again in a world that is full of perils. To combat the heartache of being without her family, she befriends the destitute women and children in the slums, but such friendships come with the danger of disease, and increasing poverty, and the threat of a brutal man could cost her everything.
Can Victoria find the security she has lost? Will a certain doctor be the man she can give her heart to? Or will the ghosts of the past return to take away everything she has worked so hard for?

Available in ebook and paperback from Amazon: http://mybook.to/theslumangel

Poor House Lane Series

Editions of Poor House Lane Series have been published by Canelo, provided with beautiful covers. 1 -
The Girl from Poor House Lane What lengths will a mother go to in order to protect her son? The first in the historical Poor House Lane sagas The slums of Poor House Lane are no place to bring up a child, and Kate O'Connor struggles to make ends meet when her beloved husband is killed, leaving her a single mother with a baby to support on the meagre hand-outs she gleans from charity. So when the childless Tysons, owners of Kendal's shoe factory, offer to adopt her son, Callum, and employ Kate as his nanny, she seizes the chance to ensure he has a better life. To be so close to her son, yet no longer be his mother, is bittersweet. But Kate is not prepared for the jealousy the new arrangement provokes in Eliot Tyson's brother, Charles, who sees Callum as a direct threat to his inheritance…

 Amazon

2 -The Child from Nowhere Kate finds herself back in Poor House Lane with some heartrending decisions to be made, not least how to find her missing son. Somehow she must also make a living for herself and help the women being abused by the hated Swainson. But nothing is straightforward, and her sister-in-law Lucy isn't done with her yet…

Amazon

3 - The Woman from Heartbreak House The Great War is over and Kate is ready to welcome back Eliot with open arms. But her husband is a changed man. Kate has become used to her independence, and Eliot's return creates tensions both at work and at home, particularly with Kate's son, Callum. It tears Kate apart to see such strife between the two men she loves most. And her sister-in-law seems determined to stir up the animosity in order to benefit her own son. But when tragedy strikes, Kate cannot imagine just how much trouble Lucy's ambition can cause…

Amazon

Guest post: Elizabeth Ellen Carter!

Today I'm showcasing fellow Australian author Elizabeth Ellen Carter and her brand new book, which is out today!

Here's the blurb:

Refused his rightful promotion, Adam Hardacre quits the Royal Navy in disgust and is quickly approached with an intriguing proposition to serve his country undercover.

His first assignment takes him home to Cornwall to expose traitors plotting a French invasion of England. There, he meets newly unemployed governess, Olivia Collins, who has stumbled upon a hidden secret from Adam’s past – his youthful summer love affair with the local squire’s daughter. It is a tragic history that brings Adam and Olivia closer than is wise.
However, with the attraction deepening to something more, neither realize that Olivia unwittingly holds the key to his mission.

As Adam infiltrates the plot, Olivia finds out the shocking truth behind his lost love’s death many years ago, and both their lives are in danger. But their growing relationship is clouded by suspicion. Who can and cannot be trusted – anyone or no one?

Or... even each other?

Here is the buy links:
US - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L23VCZT
CA - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07L23VCZT
AUS - https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07L23VCZT
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07L23VCZT

Excerpt 1
Adam felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
He was not alone.
Whoever watched did not want to make themselves known. He turned slowly, looking in the shadows for a tell-tale figure. Nothing made itself obvious to him. The stream bubbled along merrily as it had always done; the old priory was still there. He’d played in the ruin as a child and later became a man there, in deed if not in years. In fact, it looked as though not another stone had tumbled since he first saw it. It made him feel like he was ten years old once more.
Surmising that whoever watched had slipped away, more cautious of him than he of them, Adam started whistling a familiar tune, one they used to keep time as they brought in the halyards. He approached the standing end wall where an old window opening would have once have contained stained glass, the sill at waist height. Adam lay a palm flat on the wall to the left of the opening and closed his eyes, feeling the rough texture of stone weathered for centuries but still solid – a mute sentinel which had stood watch while two young people cautiously and tentatively explored the act of love together.
Sweet Constance.
Kenstec House was only just through the trees. Perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm to venture as far as the edge of the lawns. He doubted anyone would recognise him. Squire Denton would be in his seventies now, if he lived.
Even if his presence was questioned, he could always say he was a rambler who had lost his way.
Adam took a deep breath bringing with it the nostalgic scent of honeysuckle. It was a perfume Constance favored, and it was strong here, as though her presence lingered still. And yet...
He furrowed a brow. There was no honeysuckle covering the ruins, so where had it come from?
He opened his eyes and was face to face with a woman through the opening in the wall.
“Constance?”
The woman looked as shocked as he did.
Before he had time to compose himself, the woman fled, disappearing into the thick of the trees.
“Constance!”
He called out her name once more but had gone no further than a few steps in pursuit before his rational mind could alert him to the differences between the two women.
Constance would be nearly forty now. That woman was at least ten years younger. This woman’s hair was much darker. But it was the eyes he remembered. Constance’s eyes were the lightest shade of blue. His wood sprite had brown eyes – as big and as frightened as a doe’s.
Adam chuckled to himself. He’d frightened a maid from Kenstec House. Or perhaps it was she who startled him.

Either way, it wasn’t an auspicious return to Ponsnowyth.

Excerpt 2

Constance? Constance!
The man’s question lingered and his exclamation rang in Olivia’s ears as she ran through the woods into the safety of the estate grounds.
Who was he? Why would this stranger mistake her for a girl who had been dead these past twenty years? She was afraid she knew the answer, but no – surely it was too much for a coincidence for it to be Adam Hardacre.
By the time Olivia had got half way across the lawn, she had dissuaded herself from such a foolish belief. She must have misheard the man. Clearly, he had been as surprised by her appearance there as she was of his.
She let herself into the house via the kitchen and bolted the door. In the stillness, she became acutely aware of her isolation inside the manor walls. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to stay here on her own tonight.
She wondered if it was too late to accept Polly’s invitation to live at the inn for a few days. Olivia hadn’t minded being on her own in the earlier part of the week when there was much to do in the house, but now, with that work nearly complete, one could almost entertain the thought of ghosts.
And while she was in the mood to contemplate such matters, it was also time to stop dwelling in the past; worse still, in someone else’s past.
The fate of the ill-starred lovers from Constance’s diary was long ago and there was nothing more she could do about it. The mystery of it had been solved.
Olivia went up to her room and packed a small valais. The afternoon sun through the window brought out the red grain of the mahogany of the writing box. Inside it, she had reunited Adam’s love notes with Constance’s diary as well as the letters from St Thomas’ Hospital in London which told of the young woman’s untimely end.
She ran her hand over the box. Did this Adam the carpenter still live?
If she left now, she could stop by the Trezises’ at the timber mill on her way to the inn and ask if they knew how to contact the former owner. She would write him a letter to explain who she was and what she had found. She would make the offer of returning the box and the papers relating to his one-time sweetheart.
Without truly knowing why she did so, Olivia shoved the writing box under her bed next to her trunk. Something which had been hidden for so long ought to be kept hidden until it could be returned to its rightful owner.

Nicola's Virtue FREE!

Nicola’s Virtue – ebook FREE until Dec 16^th.

She crossed the world to start again, only it was harder than she expected.

#Australia #historical #governess #Sydney #19thcentury #saga

http://myBook.to/NicolasVirtue

New books to find on BookBub!

To all our lovely readers, you can follow all your favourite authors and be notified when they have a new book release or a price deal on BookBub. It's a website that authors use for promotion, and its great for readers to find new books to read! Win win!
(I'm on there too.)
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/annemarie-brear

Go find your favourites, I'll see you there!

Medieval Gift-Giving at Christmas. Plus 2 Sweet Medieval Historical Romances

During the Middle Ages, Christmas was seen as a sacred time, the time for the three Christ-Masses. Charitable giving to the poor was encouraged on Saint Stephen's day, December 26, which we know as Boxing Day.  On Boxing Day in the middle ages, the poor received money in hollow clay pots with a slit in the top, nicknamed 'piggies'. Unlike modern piggy banks, these clay pots had to be broken to extract the cash.

A page from the Bedford Hours.

What about gift-giving among other classes?

Sacred gifts - of prayer books and so on - were seen as being appropriate for the holy Christmas period. Anne of Burgundy presented the Bedford Hours to Henry VI, her eight-year-old nephew, in 1430. The book is now at the British Library.

Gifts were sometimes given at the New Year. New Year's day, known at the time as the étrenne, a word derived from the Latin strena,  (used to mean both the gifts and the ritual exchange) was the traditional time to do so. Gifts might be food -Christmas was a time of feasting and, for example, it was considered bad luck to refuse a Christmas mince pie given by a host. A Christmas kiss of peace might be given under the green kissing bough of holly and other green-stuff and mistletoe, the plant of peace. Sometimes the 'gift' might be a joke, such as the 'book' given by the illuminators of Les Tres Riches Heures to the Duke de Berry, which turned out to be a block of wood. 

At times the gifts were part of very formal processions and ceremonies. At the courts of Henry Tudor and Richard II the king rose on the day of the New Year and seated himself in his chamber ready to give and receive presents, given and received in strict order or rank. Sometimes the heralds and messengers bringing such gifts could also find themselves rewarded, as happened in the court of Richard II when the carver of the King was given a gold cup by the French King Charles. Kings and Queens could exchange gifts, often of rich jewels, as a public show of respect and affection. Rulers were expected to be generous but at the same time the size and value of gifts were ranged in order of class - kings and queens, their families, nobles, servants, right down to laundresses and cleaning-women. In some years, certain symbols might be used in gifts. In 1422 at the court of Charles VI, small jewels shaped like peacocks were given out to courtiers -  the peacock being one of Charles's badges. 

In medieval England, such gift-giving also went on. People gave New Year’s gifts to those above and below them in the social hierarchy. For example, peasants who worked on landed estates brought gifts of farm produce to the local lord during the Twelve Days of Christmas. Custom dictated that the lord respond by inviting them to a Christmas feast. Personal gifts between people of equal status might have taken place but there are few records of such. In the records and for many kings and nobles, gift-giving meant ostentation and display.

Christmas and gift-giving features in several of my books. In my latest medieval romance, "Sir Conrad and the Christmas Treasure" I show my hero and heroine taking part in several medieval Christmas customs, including winter hunts, gathering and displaying Christmas greenery, Christmas fairs and dancing carols.






In the dark time of the year and the winter solstice, there might also be spirits and ghosts. My Christmas novella "Sir Baldwin and the Christmas Ghosts"
have Sir Baldwin and Sofia seeking to placate the restless dead in time for Christmas.



Lindsay Townsend

A GIFT FROM A GODDESS by Maggi Andersen Amazon Bestselling author. Pre-order 0.99 releases 20th November!

It is said that Aphrodite stands for love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation, and she can even mend a broken heart.
Can the goddess’ power be real? 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

 

A woman hurtled through time, Beyond the Fall

Yesterday my first time travel adventure was released. In BEYOND THE FALL, Tamara Ledbetter struggles to reorder her life after her husband leaves her for another woman.

In my extensive research of the eighteenth century for my other novels, I wondered what it would be like to take a modern woman from San Francisco, have her travel to England, fall back to 1789, and have to deal with a primitive life with few rights of her own.

Novel blurb:

Tamara Ledbetter, dumped by her arrogant husband, travels to Cornwall, England to research her ancestors. A trip first planned with her soon-to-be ex. In a neglected cemetery, she scrapes two fallen headstones together to read the one beneath, faints, and wakes up in 1789. Certain she’s caught up in a reenactment, she fast discovers she’s in the year of the French Revolution, grain riots in England, miners out of work, and she’s mistrusted by the young farmer, Colum Polwhele, who’s come to her aid. Can a sassy San Francisco gal survive in this primitive time where women have few rights? Could she fall for Colum, a man active in underhanded dealings that involve stolen grain, or will she struggle to return to her own time before danger stalks them both?

Tamara tries to make sense of her situation, thinking she's being tricked, it must be a reenactment. Here an excerpt when she's fist met Colum and he wonders why she's alone:

“I have a sister, and my father isn’t well.” Tamara sighed and wished Eva was with her now.  She glanced again at his face, and he had large turquoise eyes full of intelligence. He smelled of horse and a faint, spicy cologne. “We lost our mother three years ago.”

“My condolences. If you’re a single lady, who is protectin’ you then?” His dark eyebrows drew together. He was a good actor, she'd give him that.

“No one since...” Since her rat-bastard of a husband had run off with a slut, but she thought better of mentioning that. Her heart felt heavy for a moment, but more in irritation than sadness. “I protect myself. I’m perfectly capable.” At least she’d thought so, until a few minutes ago.

“That’s not advisable, for a woman to be on her own. Is your sister near? Do you have an abigail?” He dropped his horse’s reins, and the large animal stopped and stilled.

“My sister is across the ocean.” Tamara began to grow slightly annoyed by this farce. “And I don’t know anyone named Abigail.”

They climbed the stairs, which also looked less neglected. If there sat a cart and horse instead of her car on the hill, she’d scream.

       At the top, Tamara sucked in her breath. The car park was gone, no cars, no asphalt to park on, only a field. The nausea bubbled up once more. What was happening!

To purchase from Amazon, click HERE

For more info on me and my novels, please visit my website: dianescottlewis.org

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband in Pennsylvania.