I’ve just got to squee about this fantastic review of ‘Captain’s Surrender’ from a reader who loved it so much she’s almost written an essay 🙂 She says:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602020892/ref=cm_arms_pdp_dp and scroll down.
“Captain’s Surrender is a romance for those of us who are unabashedly romantic at heart and know a good love story when we read it. From first glance, Joshua falls head over heels with Peter, and so did I…
One particular appeal of this novel is that it does have its unpredictable twists. Just when you think it will go a certain way, it goes another, and keeps you reading to find out where the new path will lead. All the characters, including secondary ones, are so well-rounded, I could easily visualize them and understand what drove each one, even when their mindsets led them to choices that were maddening or exasperating…
One other thing I must mention–if you love lyrical prose and description that makes another time period come to life all around you as you read–then you will thoroughly enjoy this book. I adored the descriptions of time and place. The author can turn a phrase with that kind of rare beauty that makes you want to stop for an instant and re-read just to savor the way it is written…
The intimacy in Captain’s Surrender is tender, sexy, sweet, and just exactly right.”
And that’s just selected highlights!
I don’t know who grrluknow is, but I think I like her a lot! If it’s you, thank you so much!! 😀
I know several of my friends were really interested in getting this book, but wished it was available in ebook form. The good news is that now it is!
HEAR! HEAR! HEAR!
“LIEUTENANT SAMUEL BLACKWOOD (deceased)”
is now available on Lulu as an ebook in .pdf format!
And, even better news – the electronic version contains all illustrations by Mlle Amandine de Villeneuve!
The price is £ 2.50, which is about $ 4.95. And if you like what you read, you might consider buying the real thing – after all, Christmas and Yule and your aunt’s birthday are just around the corner…” 
I was tagged by Sheila Stuart
Tell seven random and/or interesting things about myself. Get five blog buddies to play, too and link to their blogs. Don’t forget to post the rules.
Of course I don’t have seven interesting things to tell! I’m a writer, all the interest in my life, thank God, goes on inside my head 🙂 Still, I’ll try.
1. I am trained to lead a Regia war-band and to fight with spear and hand-axe (blunt, of course). This is with my Saxon re-enactment society Regia Anglorum.
2. My family and I have appeared on Blue Peter (the famous children’s TV series in the UK). Again this was with Regia. We invaded the studio to illustrate a piece they were doing on Up-helly-aa, which was all very embarrassing because normally we have nothing to do with people who think Vikings wore horned helmets.
3. I currently have only one front tooth, the other one having been pulled out to deal with an infection at the root. I’ve got to wait for about 6 months until the bone is healed before I can have a replacement tooth screwed in to the bone.
4. I know how to spin, weave, make leather shoes, light a fire from flint and tinder, embroider, play the deer-bone flute, recite Caedmon’s song in Anglo-Saxon, cook bread on an open fire, carve a spoon, use a shave-horse and a pole-lathe, thatch a house and lime-plaster its walls. And I’ve been part of a team which has created an Anglo-Saxon longhall and village in two acres of land in Kent:
5. I visited Soviet Russia while it was still the USSR, saw Lenin in his tomb and bought woodwork tools from G.U.M the one and only department shop in the country. While I was there, I also rode in a troika through snowy forests at a temperature of -20 Centigrade. The chocolate icecream in Moscow was the best I’ve ever had.
6. I was married in the same church that Oscar Wilde was married in.
7. I married my first ever boyfriend, and we’ve been together 18 years this year 🙂
I tag Erastes, Lee Rowan, Charlie Cochrane, Lee Benoit and Emma Collingwood
May 29th,2008
fun,
Life |
2 Comments
In a thrilling move, I blogged on the Britwriters blog about the necessity of getting an ITIN tax number if you’re being published in America.
Possibly not everyone’s cup of tea, but of considerable importance if you’re a British writer, being paid by an American publisher:
Your ITIN and You.
I hate blurb writing! I’ve got a theme which can be summarized in about a sentence ‘this book is about true love conquering all. Also it’s about how banning homosexuality is bad for society.’ And I’ve got a plot that stretches over a couple of pages of synopsis. But finding something to say in the middle of those two extremes seems all but impossible. What do people think to this?
~*~*~*~
The year is 1762, and the Seven Years War is drawing to its close. John Cavendish, a handsome and zealous lieutenant of the British Royal Navy, and a devout Christian, has one desire in his life. He wants to be made Captain of his own ship. He is eager for glory and hates anything underhanded, such as politicians and sodomites. When he attains his dream by being given command of HMS Meteor, however, he does not imagine that he is soon to become intimate with both.
Lieutenant Alfie Donwell, a warm hearted, charming young man, also has one desire. He has fallen hopelessly in love with John. Unfortunately, seducing a man who thinks you deserve to die is not a simple task. When it all goes wrong as it inevitably must, Alfie turns to his old captain and first love, Charles Farrant, son of the Duke of Alderley, for protection. But Farrant and Farrant’s sinister doctor have an agenda of their own.
From the white slave traders of Algiers to the re-emergence of the Caribbean buccaneers, John, Alfie and Farrant have enemies enough to fight without also facing down the spectres of damnation and disgrace. But, in an age when love is punishable by death, these three very different heroes must stand not only against their country’s foes, but even against their own brothers in arms.
With God, society and his own conscience against it, can any love be worth the sacrifice of a man’s honour, his very soul?
~*~*~*~
As you can see, Fitzroy has suffered another change of name! I discovered that the historical Charles Fitzroy, who was to be the father of my character, still had living descendants. So to avoid any possibility of ‘OMG, you’ve inserted a fictional sodomite into our lineage, we’re going to sue!’ I’ve called him something different (again).
How can I not have posted this?! My only excuse has to be that this week has been beyond manic with the launch of the Britwriters’ blog, which took off absurdly and needed fifty times more administration than I thought it would. I haven’t even had time to squee about this fantastic review for ‘The Witch’s Boy’! from Val at Obsidian Bookshelf
“As all the plot threads wind closer together, The Witch’s Boy builds towards its powerful and satisfying conclusion. Throughout, we get treated to some absolutely beautiful writing…. Fans of homoerotic fiction will have to look elsewhere for gay romance because that is not the focus of this novel. However, The Witch’s Boy is probably like nothing you’ve ever read before, and should provide an unforgettable experience. Plus the cover is subtly beautiful.”
Full marks for black_hound‘s cover, which earns a place in Val’s gallery of top covers 🙂 And I’m personally thoroughly delighted with the fact that Val liked my elves 🙂 “I found the author’s take on the elves especially fascinating.” Squee! As you may know, there’s nothing I hate more in a book than elves who are too human, so I’m really happy I managed to avoid that one 🙂
Thank you so much, Val, for such a lovely and insightful review! I may not have mentioned it before, but it made this week of mad blogging stress all worth while 😀
Rainbow Reviews is doing what looks like a fun promo-come-book-giveaway in June, called the Rainbow Reviews Scavenger Hunt
if you’re a big fan of m/m books and fancy an attempt to get a whole load of them for free, you can check out how to play using the link above. I’m giving away a copy of Captain’s Surrender, and there’s a long list of other authors giving away books, so it could be fun 🙂
The Macaronis has a post about women in m/m fiction, written by Lee Rowan, author of ‘Ransom’.
And the Britwriter’s blog has stunned us all by being so popular it’s had to turn people away. Currently featuring posts about village fairs, stately homes, the fine art of gardening on one’s allotment, cultural differences in interpretation of Torchwood, and the pearly kings and queens of London.
We’ve also got an all day Brit-picking clinic lined up for Friday, where anyone can drop by and ask about anything required in Brit-picking their stories/novels/fic. I’m hoping that will be something we can do regularly which will be fun for all concerned 🙂
I’ve just finished Lee Benoit’s ‘Servant of the Seasons: Autumn‘ which I have to admit I started out on with trepidation. Why? Because she did me such a lovely interview on Speak It’s Name – spending huge amounts of time in the process – that I was afraid in case I might not like it. What would I do then?! Eek, there would be no way to avoid rudeness in one form or another!
So I’m even more overjoyed than usual at finding a new author to love, because I didn’t need to worry – this is really good stuff 🙂 What I love most about it is that it doesn’t skimp you on story. This is the blurb:
Kicked out of his home in the Domes, Edor finds himself squatting on abandoned land, taking it on as his own and trying to eke out a meagre living from the infertile soil. When his closest neighbor, Varas, offers to trade his hard-earned crop for him in the town several weeks’ walk away, Edor takes the man up on it.
Months later, when Varas still has not returned, Edor has given his hopes of getting seed for a winter crop and a beast of burden. In fact, he’s just decided that Varas has cheated him when the man returns, two slaves meant to be Edor’s in tow.
Edor frees the slaves as soon as Varas leaves, but to his surprise, the men stay with him and change his life and his land in ways Edor could never have dreamed
And for once the blurb is not misleading. Even more than that, for once the story hinted at in the blurb is not obscured by a hundred unnecessary sex scenes. Instead we’re treated to a story that takes its world building seriously! The story isn’t here just as an excuse to get to the sex. The author has devoted plenty of time to Edor’s struggles to survive in a natural world that he, as a citizen of a high tech society, simply doesn’t understand. She’s given thought to the fact that he doesn’t even know to save enough seed from his harvest to re-plant! That it never occurs to him to dry out his mud hut. She doesn’t treat slavery as a titilating excuse for dubious consent power play, she faces it head on. And because all this is so realistically portrayed, it makes it easier to accept the otherness of Edor’s two slaves, who are not quite human, but who are nevertheless – in their gentleness – a kind of glimpse of salvation for Edor. His long struggles with his own nature and his attraction to them are never rushed over, but proceed in beautiful, tentative little increments, winding the UST winch as far as it will go.
Lovely stuff!
My main problem with it is that I felt we were just coming to the crisis point, things were just about to go pear shaped, Edor’s desire and loneliness were just about to get the better of him. The semi mythical terrible enemies were about to sweep in over the hill… and it stopped.
I suppose I ought not to complain. Dickens, after all, published his books in serial form. I just wish that Torquere had seen fit to warn me that I was not getting a single complete story. No offense to Lee – it’s hardly her fault – and I will be reading the next one with probably more pleasure for being forewarned, but I would rather have waited longer and got the whole thing at once.
Yesterday was a great day! I found out that The Witch’s Boy had received a fabulous five star review from Teresa at Rainbow reviews 🙂 Hee! This is my poor red headed stepchild of a book, so I love the fact that, when I can persuade people to read it, they seem to enjoy it!
http://rainbow-reviews.com/?p=252
“Ms. Beecroft has fashioned an incredible saga that incorporates action, adventure, and passion with mythical beings in a time where magic still had it’s hold on the world… If you like a book that will hold you spellbound from the start with magical creatures and characters with compelling personalities that ensnare your emotions, then this is the book for you.”
And I went on a virtual pub-crawl-come-interview with
, who is a m/m writer with something of Ursula LeGuin’s facility for world building, and a very nice person. She made me talk and talk! I ended up going on for hours about Captain’s Surrender, The Witch’s Boy, 90% Proof, and my new novel, False Colors. Also my silly writing hat and the need to pack underwear if you go time traveling! That’s at Speak Its Name here:
World’s Longest Pub Crawl
lso, so many things have happened at once over the past week that I haven’t ended up talking about any of them.
We had a lovely day on Saturday. We visited my sister and her husband. They had both worked together to cook the most spectacular Moroccan meal for us, in honour of Andrew’s birthday. So the entire day was spent eating pigeon pie, lamb with rice and almonds, mint salad, tomato salad, pitta bread and a fantastic spicy but sweet vegetarian dish for me. Followed by chocolate cake and John’s home made ice-cream. We sat in the garden, ate, drank and talked, and it was a good way to spend a day.
On Sunday we went to Haddenham and Aldreth’s ‘Blossoms and Bygones’ spring fair. We went as Dark Ages Saxons in association with the West Stow Anglo-Saxon village though as it turned out we were the only ones who’d managed to turn up! Haddenham has a windmill and miles of green lanes lined with flowering may. Aldreth is just unbelievably picture-postcard pretty. There were classic cars, a Napoleonic soldier and his family, a park and ride – which was a cart hitched to a tractor with straw bales for seats – running from one village to the other . It was like being in some idyllic film version of England. I almost didn’t believe it. Oh and there were also Daleks outside the church hall. One old series Dalek and one new series, and they moved and spoke. It all deserves a post of its own, with pictures 🙂
On Monday, in addition to all the squeefulness of the interview and review:
I started on yet another round of editing on 90% Proof! I swear that story no longer sounds anything like my own writing. This pass, however, promises to teach me things about commas that I didn’t know before 🙂 It also confirmed that when you try to take every instance of ‘was’ and ‘as’ out of a story, you end up with your participles dangling!
I wrote a quick synopsis for False Colors. The synopsis confirms my thoughts that the end is a bit weak. So now I know I need to beef up the iceberg incident for a final crisis before resolving everything.
I also went to the dentist and discovered that there *is* an infection at the very tip of the root of one of my two front teeth. This is possibly what’s causing my recurrent terrible headaches, not migraine at all. So I either go for root canal work with the possibility that the infection will come back, or I get one of my front teeth pulled out and walk around for six months with a gap, before the bone is healed enough to screw an implant into it. Fun stuff! I’m going to go with the gap, I think.
And I started a new blog and yahoo group for British writers. But that also probably deserves a post of its own 🙂
I had an interesting Bank Holiday weekend 🙂 Spent Saturday being a Saxon and discovered that I honestly have lost any interest I had in the period. However, wandering around the multi-period show, we found an outfit called NFOE (New France and Old England). They reenact mid 18th Century America, when it was still a battle ground between French, English and Native American forces. Given Josh and Giniw, this struck me as wonderful. And it was even more wonderful to find out that they belonged to an umbrella organization called ‘Lace Wars‘ So I contacted them and will be going to my first 18th Century show on the 17th of May, at Wimpole Hall just down the road from where I live 🙂 Result!
We all spent Sunday with heat stroke from being outside on a field all day long on Saturday without drinking enough. Then on Monday we saw Iron Man, which is excellent! I want a suit like that! And if anyone fancies writing Stark/Jarvis slash through the medium of the suit, put me on the list of readers now 🙂
False Colors has hit a snag. Alfie threw a strop, and now Fitzroy’s wife wants to talk to him about his relationship with her husband. Plot wise this is all very necessary in order for him to find out that John saved his life, but suddenly my confident ‘oh yes, I’ll have it done by the end of the week’ is looking dodgy.
However, I did achieve something this week 🙂 I did a follow on to my blog about research. Once you’ve got it, what do you do with it? How much is too much? And what do you do when research indicates that history was just plain nasty? You can find that over here at the Macaronis.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
