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| Alessia is a Benandanti, one chosen at birth and given the ability to detach her soul from her body and defend her village from the evil that would destroy it. But when the Inquisition comes to her town, she must choose between what is easy, and what is right.
This novel is a work in progress. Here’s an excerpt: My mother tells me a story of my birth. She had been laboring hard for several hours. Just when she thought she would die from exhaustion, she felt something shift within her. A great turning, like the moon churning the ocean. She closed her eyes, thinking the angels were coming for her. When she opened them again, to her great surprise she was still alive. But the room had changed. Everything was tinged with a white glow, as if the chairs and tables, her sister, the midwife, the bedclothes bunched up at her feet and the shallow dish of water on the floor all had halos. The women at her side were saying something but she could not hear them. All she could hear was the sound of great wings beating, beating through the air, coming towards her. She looked around, her eyes wild to find the source of that sound. In through the open door swooped an owl, its wingspan longer than my mother was tall. The owl was white as the snow on the mountains, with luminous green-gold eyes. My mother struggled to sit up. The owl hovered over the bed, its wings beating up and down to keep it in place. For one long moment that my mother says she will never forget, she and the owl locked eyes. Then everything went black. When my mother came to, the midwife was hauling her up into a squat, shouting that the baby was nearly out. My mother blinked, looked around the room. It was normal now, no glow of light, no owl. She had no time to ponder her vision, for the pains were bearing down on her hard and fast. She pushed once with all her might and then…I was born. Exhausted, she collapsed backwards onto the bed. The midwife stared at the baby, then held it up for my mother to see. A translucent sheen covered half my face. “A girl,” the midwife said, her voice raspy like the wind. “Born with the caul.” “Good fortune,” my aunt said, clapping her hands together. “Not just good fortune,” the midwife said. “She will be a Walker.” And then my mother knew that she had been about to die, and the owl she had seen had defended her from death, and that the owl was me. The owl was my soul, coming to join my body. “Walkers are born separate,” my mother told me, “and I had the gift to see you become one.” |
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| Sophie Jacobs is an unwed mother-to-be, turned out by her family into a snowstorm in December 1804. Her only desire is to find a safe haven in which to bear her child, but when she meets Rose, an escaped slave who is on the run from her cruel master, Sophie can’t turn her back on the Rose’s situation. As they flee west from the law, their adventures lead them to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After bribing their way onto the Expedition, they embark on both an arduous physical journey involving harsh landscapes, raging rivers, and near starvation, and individual journeys of self-discovery. For Sophie, the expedition is a discovery of the strength within herself that she never knew she had. For Rose, the quest to the Pacific is a quest for freedom, in both body and mind. Together, they learn to trust one another and treasure the hard-won friendship that grows between them. This novel is available for publication. Please contact my agent, Irene Goodman, for a manuscript. |
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| Kalea is a Hawaiian girl who dreams of adventures far beyond the Port of Lahaina. Those dreams seem to come true when Rafe, the Captain of a Nantucket whaling ship, carries her back to that Atlantic isle to be his wife. But life is not easy on Nantucket; Kalea's mother-in-law barely speaks to her, the other islanders treat her like a savage, and within months of her arrival Rafe sails off on another whaling expedition, leaving her to contend with Nantucket life alone. When word comes back to the island that Rafe's ship has gone down, everyone gives up Rafe and his crew for dead. But Kalea knows, deep in her bones, that he is still alive, shipwrecked and lost somewhere in the wide, wide ocean. She gathers together her own rescue mission, her crew comprised of the other widows of Rafe's ship. In the dead of night they sail away to find their men, and Kalea embarks on an adventure beyond anything she ever dreamed. |
 HOW I GOT HERE I've been writing since I knew how to hold a pen and the permanent callus on the middle finger of my right hand proves it. Back in grade school, I was writing stories about unicorns and rainbows. Now I write stories about women at a crossroads and the journeys they take to bring themselves home. It took me a long time to call myself a writer, especially since I'm pre-published. It was the same when someone would ask me, "What do you do?" and I answered, "I'm an actress - but also a temp." Now I don't qualify my artistic life with my practical one. I say, "I'm writer and an actress" - because that's what I am. I like to write about women in history because, to me, it's an endlessly fascinating aspect of our past that's been ignored for too long. I think it's only recently that women have started to get equal say in historical fiction. It's part of the reason why I love Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters so much - they had to work so hard and struggle against so many odds just to get their voices heard. A lot of people ask me why I write historical fiction; why I put myself through all that research. It's hard to answer that question because my love for history is so passionate and consuming that I think it's difficult to explain that sort of love. But I do know that I have always been drawn to the past and often joke I was born in the wrong century...when I write, I live through my characters, I live in that era. It's a version of time travel. I also love the research. It's like digging into a deep well and finding buried treasure at each level down. In fact, my Nantucket story was born out of research done for Beyond the Mississippi. Sophie's father was from a Nantucket whaling family, a fact that never really appears in the novel. But I became so fascinated with the whole culture of Nantucket Quakers and whaling that it spawned a book. I think it's important for every writer to find their own style and their own voice, and to hold steadfast to that voice and style even when everyone around them sounds different. Stay true to yourself; your readers will know when you are lying. Some things I've learned along the way: DON'T FORCE IT I've always loved European history, to the extent that sometimes I still can't quite believe I'm writing American history. Back when I first started Beyond the Mississippi, I tried to make Sophie and Rose go to Europe. I swear, I really tried. They just wouldn't do it. If you try to force something to happen, chances are it will backfire. LISTEN TO YOUR CHARACTERS Tying into the advice above, your characters are usually one step ahead of you. And listening to them, instead of trying to move them around like pawns on a chessboard, often makes for a smoother collaboration between writer and character. If you are stuck on a plot point, a lot of times just listening to your characters will solve it. Every once in a while, tell a non-writer friend or acquaintence that your characters talk to you. It's a fun trick. BE OPEN TO ANYTHING As I said above, I was absolutely opposed to writing American history. I didn't like it, it bored me, it doesn't go back far enough. Then Sophie and Rose dragged me out West with them. Now American history fascinates me. I will happily extol the virtues of the Lewis & Clark Expedition to anyone who will listen. I discovered a new passion, because I was open to the possibility. PLOTTER VS. PANSTER: THE AGE-OLD FEUD A Plotter is someone who plots their story out before they start writing a word. A Panster is someone who flies-by-the-seat-of-their-pants through the book, not knowing what will happen from plot-point to plot-point. Look, people are very opinionated about this and will insist that their way is best. The truth is that the best way is your own way. Just as every writer has their own voice, every writer has their own method of writing. Here's my own experience. I wrote Beyond the Mississippi completely by the seat of my pants. It took me almost five years and 750 pages to finish. Then it took me another year to edit down to a 500-page, submission ready manuscript. I loved the feeling of not knowing where the plot and the characters were going, of having every day at the computer be a surprise. But in the long run, it was an unwieldy way to work. With the Nantucket book, I used a Hero's Journey template to track the plot from point to point. I did this after I had about 100 pages of rough stuff, so I had a good idea of the characters and story already. With The Good Walkers I did something similar, although I did discover that I do need to freewrite for a while before starting to structure the plot. And the template is loose enough to change if it has to, and still allow for a lot of surprises in the actual writing. So my advice is to draw up a very flexible outline, an outline drawn in sand, and work from that. It still allows for a lot of discovery, but will probably save you some grief on the editing end. LEARN TO BECOME OBJECTIVE ABOUT YOUR WORK This is a really hard lesson to learn. But it's a necessary one. It took me several months after finishing the rough draft of Beyond the Mississippi to become objective about it. What's important about being objective is that once you are, you're able to listen to other people's opinions about the work, sift through and figure out what's helpful and what isn't, and improve the work from there. If you can't listen to constructive criticism, you'll never improve as a writer. FIND A SUPPORT GROUP I am very blessed to have the FacethePage group. Not every writer is so lucky. But if you can find a good group it's a wonderful thing. They should be more than a crit group; they should support, nurture and encourage each other. KEEP GOING Sometimes it's hard. When Beyond the Mississippi didn’t sell, I was devastated. But I didn’t give up because I COULDN’T give up. But if the passion is there, you don't really have a choice, do you? You have to keep going. You have to get your words in every day, you have to keep following those characters around, you have to keep dreaming. GOOD LUCK! site designed by Jaleroro Web Designs |