How to Seamlessly Weave in Backstory

When my book Surrender Love came out in 2009, I was already working on its sequel. Little did I know that life would conspire against me in radical ways. Four years later, I finally released Forbid My Heart: A Luc and Rah Story. I’m working on two more, and will likely go beyond that in the series. One of the problems with releasing a series is that readers either forget what happened in the previous books, or they never read them in the first place. It’s up to you to remind them or clue them in without dumping huge amounts of backstory.

How do you tell readers what happened in the past without what is known among writers as an “info dump”? One way is to sneak in details throughout the story.

In the sequel to Surrender Love, I was facing an additional drawback. This was more than a short story, but just shy of a novella. I didn’t have much wiggle room. I also had an alien to describe. Tall order. I handled the intro to Izzorah by writing the opening portion from Luc’s point of view.

He wakes, and finds Izzorah beside him in bed, staring at him. That could be unnerving, but Luc found it amusing. Here’s a snippet.

Luc Saint-Cyr woke to the feel of warm lips against his. His Kin lover stretched out alongside him, one arm across Luc’s chest. In the dim light, Izzorah Ceeow’s green eyes shimmered like a true cat’s, the slitted pupils wide. Luc had his full, masculine attention, and it showed in Rah’s forward-facing, pointed ears. Izzorah might have been an eager cat awaiting a favorite toy to power up. The playful image made Luc smile.

There are several writer’s tricks in play here. This is the opening paragraph of the book, so it uses the characters’ full names as a way to show who they are. It gives the setting: Luc wakes to the feel of warm lips and his lover stretched out beside him. We assume they’re in bed, which they are. We know Luc’s lover is a Kin, but we aren’t sure yet what that means. We find out in the next few sentences. Izzorah’s eyes shimmer like a true cat’s, and have slitted pupils. That gives us a bit more of a description, then we discover he’s called Rah, and he has pointed ears. Luc sees him as a cat who is awaiting a toy to power up, and thinks the image is a playful one. He relaxes. There is a great deal of detail in the 74 words included here.

I could have written it this way:

Luc Saint-Cyr woke up in his own bed, and found his alien lover beside him. Izzorah had the same kind of glow to his eyes that a cat did, and his slitted pupils were wide. He was paying attention to Luc as if he thought Luc was his private toy and could hardly wait to play. Luc smiled. Read the rest of this entry »

Women, Whiskey, and Horse Racing

As an author of mainly historical romance, I often rely on actual people, places, and events for the inspiration for my characters. In my latest release, Lover for Ransom, the Reconstruction Era South served as the backdrop for my setting, Byrne’s End, a fictitious horse farm in Thompson’s Station, Tennessee.

Most Civil War romances center around spoiled belles and cavalier soldiers who live on vast plantations, but although cotton was king in Alabama and Georgia, in reality, Tennessee, especially Middle Tennessee, was known for sour mash whiskey, tobacco farming—and horse breeding.

Prior to the Civil War, horse breeding farms and racetracks dotted the lush landscape of rolling green hills. Almost everyone with means raised horses for either transportation, farming, or sport. In the early 19^th century, Middle Tennessee (even more so than Kentucky) was the center of the horse breeding world.

Even personal disputes were often settled on the outcome of horse races and President Andrew Jackson was not immune. In 1806, he raced Truxton against Joseph Erwin’s Ploughboy and when a yet another difference of opinion ensued, so did a duel in which Erwin’s son-in-law, Charles Dickinson, was shot and killed by Jackson.

These frontier-era Tennesseans took their horseracing seriously.

One of Andrew Jackson’s good friends was a man named James Jackson (no relation) who was one of the founding fathers of my hometown, Florence, in North Alabama. Stories of James Jackson and his prized horses of the antebellum Forks of Cypress Plantation are legendary in my area. In fact, many of the winners of the Triple Crown series can trace their lineage back to James Jackson’s prized horse, Glencoe.

In Lover for Ransom, the hero, Ransom Byrne, is a former Confederate cavalry officer who was brought home to his family’s horse farm, Byrne’s End, to convalesce during an illness at the height of the War Between the States. While recovering, Ransom spreads sickness throughout his family and his teenaged sister is rendered blind as a result.

After the war, a guilt-ridden, Ransom resolves to hire a teacher from the famed Perkins School for the Blind to tutor his sister. Once Jenny had come to terms with her handicap, he’s vows to turn his back on horse breeding, leave Byrne’s End, and go West where he won’t be faced daily with the horrors his illness visited upon his beloved family.

When Yankee teacher, Cathleen Ryan, shows up with her suffragist ideas and plainspoken ways, Ransom is forced to keep a watchful eye on the unpredictable Northerner. In doing so, he rediscovers his zest for horse breeding, for life, and even for love.

And the story wouldn’t be complete without a couple of horsey secondary characters, one of which, tries to steal the show.

Excerpt ~

Their mirth didn’t appear to reach Cathleen, who kept turning anxiously toward the barn. She worried her bottom lip, a little habit Ransom had grown to appreciate.

His fingers itched to tear down that severe chignon and release her inky locks. Her gaze flicked to his. She drew in a quick breath and then looked away.

Charles emerged with String Bean. The gangly animal looked dumbfounded, but enthusiastic to finally be wearing a saddle. With his abundance of buck teeth and two overly large mulish ears, the horse reminded Ransom of one of the Bumpas brood that lived down toward Mt. Pleasant. None of the Bumpases were known for their looks—or their smarts. Neither was String Bean. But the animal was eager to please and had never bucked a rider.

Ransom glanced at Cathleen. There was always a first time for everything. Hopefully, today would not be one of those firsts for String Bean.

“Oh heavens!” Cathleen exclaimed. “He’s beastly!” Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back from the 2013 RT Convention! I survived, and I brought back books and goodies to give away. Give me a couple of days to sort through it all and bundle it. I plan giveaways for this site, and the Smokin’ Hot Firemen and High Octane Heroes websites. So be sure to sign up to get the blogs emailed to you so you don’t miss a thing!

The best part of RT is always the people—readers, bloggers, other authors. I saw old friends: Cathryn Fox, MK Merredeth, Eve Savage, and many more than I can think of at the moment! And I finally met in person friends I’ve known on line for ages: Phuong, Sharon Hamilton, Sabrina York, and Sarrana De Wylde. Again, sorry if I didn’t mention you here, but my mind’s a buzzin’ with everything that happened.

I finally met my editors at Grand Central—lovely ladies there! I spent a wonderful evening with Christina B at Samhain. Bianca D’Arc was there with her father, and I don’t think I’ve had a more wonderful dinner companion than Tom in a long, long time. 🙂

If you’d like to take a peek inside the conference, my sister (Elle James/Myla Jackson) was playing with a new app that does these twitter video feeds. I  HATE being on camera. And especially when I have to blabber very quickly. We solved that problem by letting me be her silent sidekick.

See for yourself (they are very, very short). The last one’s my favorite. We filmed it in the middle of a giggle fit. Click on the speaker icon in the upper left corners of the films to listen in.

Hi, my name is Lavender Daye and I write BDSM.

Does it sound like I’m in one of those support groups where everyone shares?  Sometimes I feel like that when discussing my writing. Friends and relatives who aren’t readers give me raised brows and questioning looks.

But I’m tired of hiding what I write. I love my stories. To me, they’re modern fairy tales.

Picture this in your mind.

You are contentedly alone, fending for yourself in a job and a relationship with no spark. A man arrives in your life—a hot, handsome man with an attitude. He’s attracted to you and isn’t shy about explaining all the heated things he plans to do with you and to you.

Your face warms and somewhere lower, your body recognizes your soul mate, the man who will fulfill all your fantasies. No longer will you be required to make plans or decisions. Your personal Prince Charming will handle every detail of your life and satisfy all your needs while teaching you how to satisfy his. An erotic spanking here and there, handcuffs and a whip now and then, only make you crave more.

You allow him the pleasure of satisfying you in every way and he adores you.

Okay, so most women wouldn’t want to live in this lifestyle, but every now and then, it might be fun to completely turn over control to a trusted lover. The heroines in my books seem to enjoy it immensely and I enjoy writing the happily ever after. Really, now, shouldn’t every woman be the princess in her own fairy tale?

Find more about Lavender’s books at www.facebook.com/LavenderDaye or at https://www.bookstrand.com/lavender-daye

My “overnight success” took 18 years. I wrote my first novel at age 23, after a dose of reality in the brokerage business. This was the early ’80s, when executive-level women were virtually nonexistent in the world of finance. My first novel, largely autobiographical, as most first novels are, featured my heroine who made it to the top of a brokerage firm. It was continually rejected on the grounds that I had an axe to grind­ and of course I did.

After three more novels, which I consider practice at honing my craft, I wrote my first historical, The Jewels of Warwick, centered around Henry VIII and two fictional heroines. I have a strong spiritual connection with late medieval England, which is the basis for my enchantment with this place and time. Jewels took 2 years to research and write, with no internet. It came very close to publication with several romance houses, but missed the mark for containing too little romance.

When I finished Jewels, I scoured the history books for another legendary figure to write about. While I browsed the Cambridge Library stacks, a book snagged my eye. Lying, not standing, on the wrong shelf was Crown of Roses by Valerie Anand. It drew me like a magnet. Richard III is a central character in the story, and the author thanks the Richard III Society for helping her. Already hooked on Richard, his tragic death at 32 and his reputation as a usurper and a murderer of his little nephews, I joined this Richard III Society. As everyone else who has a story about how they “met” Richard, he fascinated me. I’d found the subject of my next novel! And it tied in perfectly as a prequel to The Jewels of Warwick. Titled Thy Name is Love, it made the same rounds of publishers, remaining homeless after several rewrites and seven years.

In 1999 with the Internet making my life so much easier, I queried the many E-publishers that had recently set up shop, and British publisher Domhan Books responded in March with an offer for my two historicals. Fortunately, Domhan also published print books. I then wrote a time travel, One Too Many Times, and a family saga set in New York City. I switched gears with the urban fantasy Fakin’ It, which won a Romantic Times Top Picks award, with a 4 1/2 star review.

I joined a local critique group and my work improved immensely with the critiques I received. My critiquing experience led the way to editing positions and publishing contracts with Eternal Press and Moongypsy Press. In 2009, I answered an ad in the Romance Writers of America magazine and signed with my agent, Jewelann Cone. My recent novels are currently being considered by the ‘big houses’ including St. Martin’s Press and Simon & Schuster.

Critiquing and editing gave me the ability to read my work as an editor, to tighten and polish, to add more emotion, to show instead of tell, and the opportunity to critique other authors’ work also made me a better writer.

Even though your first, second, third, or even fourth novel may never see print, not a word is wasted if it’s considered a learning experience. I also believe that you must write from the heart, and your passion will shine through in your work. I know there are many roads to success, but patience is the best way!

Abraham Lincoln has fascinated me since I was eight years old. I don’t know what got me started, but it might’ve been a book which I still have, titled The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1, written in 1895. When I was in 3^rd grade, in the mid-60s (which shows how long I’ve been a Lincoln nut), my teacher asked us to bring a book to school from home, for a show & tell. My mother suggested I bring this Lincoln book, which even in 1966 was in bad shape­—yellowed, stiffened strips of Scotch tape barely held the covers to the spine. With the wisdom of an 8-year-old that sadly, all of us outgrow, I demurred, saying, “This old book? She’ll think we’re poor!” My mother corrected me: “No, she’ll think we’re rich. Books like this are rare.” Then she proceeded to tape it up some more. Those 47-year-old Scotch tape fragments adhere to the book’s spine and pages to this day. The teacher, Miss Cohen, was duly impressed.

I still treasure that book to this day, and it’s one of many on my “Lincoln shelf” which holds books about our murdered president, his wife Mary, his assassin John Wilkes Booth and his family, the “Mad Booths of Maryland” and the conspirators who faced the gallows or years of hard labor because Booth, their charismatic leader, sucked these poor impressionable souls into his insane plot.

After writing 8 historicals set in England and New York City, I decided to indulge my passion for Lincoln-lore. I began researching in depth about Lincoln’s life, his presidency, his role in the Civil War, and Booth’s plans to first kidnap him, and then to assassinate him.

A NECESSARY END combined two genres I’m passionate about­—history and paranormal. I joined The Surratt Society, based in Maryland, and attended their conferences and tours. Through the Surratt Society, I met several Lincoln/Booth/Civil War experts.

One lady I’ll never forget meeting is Marjorie “Peg” Page, who by all accounts except definitive DNA testing, is John Wilkes Booth’s great-granddaughter. My trips to Lincoln’s home and tomb in Springfield, Illinois, Gettysburg, Ford’s Theater, and the house he died in, Petersen House, brought me close to Mr. Lincoln’s spirit.

My travels also acquainted me with Booth’s brother Edwin, the most famous actor of his time, and his unconventional family. A recording of Edwin’s voice reciting Shakespeare on one of Edison’s wax cylinders still exists at https://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/browse?browseId=248018

My paranormal experience includes investigations at several haunted homes, restaurants and graveyards. I investigate with a group from Merrimack, NH, led by CC Carole, www.ccthehuntress.com. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I’ve received responses to my questions with my dowsing rods. Wishing I had my recorder with me, I made a ghost laugh at the Jumel Mansion in Harlem, New York City, (see the story and photos on my blog, www.dianarubinoauthor.blogspot.com)

Tragically, we’ll never hear Abraham Lincoln’s voice. But his spirit lives on. In my book, which is fiction—but we all know that novels are fictionalized truths—I gave Booth what was coming to him. He got his justice in real life, but in A NECESSARY END, he also got the paranormal twist he deserves. And I enjoyed sticking it to him!

I paralleled the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar in this story because in the play, Caesar was known as a tyrant to the Senators, who feared losing their power, as Booth feared losing the Confederacy. Booth always considered Lincoln the tyrant, hence his proclamation ‘sic simper tyrannis’ (be it ever to tyrants) when he jumped to the stage after shooting Lincoln.

Caesar’s Senators, Brutus and Cassius among them, conspired to stab Caesar to death on an appointed day. Booth recruited a group of like-minded disciples to aid him in his insane plot, at first to kidnap Lincoln, then to kill him.

By day, Booth was a Confederate spy and courier, taking dangerous missions so that his beloved South could fight the North in the war that tore the nation in two. But in this story, an even darker secret plagues him—he believes he’s the reincarnation of Brutus, the man who slew the tyrant Caesar, and Booth’s destiny in this life is to murder the tyrant who’s ravaged the South­Abraham Lincoln. In obeying the spirit of Brutus, Booth devises a plot to assassinate the tyrant.

I wrote it as a paranormal instead of a straight historical novel because spirituality was extremely popular in 1865 and all throughout Victorian times. Mary Lincoln was a staunch spiritualist. So stricken with grief after the deaths of her boys Willie and Eddie, she hired mediums such as Nettie Maynard to visit the White House and hold séances in attempts to contact her boys from beyond the grave.

The extent of séances, table-tapping, Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and otherworldly activities in this era fit perfectly with the story I wanted to tell. We could never enter Booth’s head, but his insane behavior begs the question: was he truly haunted by a spirit who drove him to his heinous act that changed history forever?

You can contact me at :

www.DianaRubinoAuthor.blogspot.com
www.DianaRubino.com
https://www.facebook.com/#!/dianarubino
https://twitter.com/DianaLRubino

Given the theme and the current weather conditions outside my hotel, I chose a snippet from True Heart. I’m in Kansas City attending the RT Convention. I packed for hot weather and only brought a light zip-up in case the evenings were cool. My only shoes are FitFlops. So as you can imagine, once the snow started, I was pretty much trapped inside.

With snow on my mind, I chose a snippet from the opening scene of True Heart. The heroine is moving into a remote cabin on the ranch owned by True and Lonny Heart. She’s managed to slip on ice on her steps just as True and Lonny are riding up…

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Two men plus one woman equals three bodies on fire…

True Wyatt’s hands are going to be full enough keeping the herd alive through the dead of winter. The last thing he needs to hear is that his brother Lonny has rented out their isolated hunting cabin to a reclusive writer—especially a sassy, disaster-prone brunette. Who has the time to babysit a city girl until Spring?

With a deadline looming, erotica writer Honey Cahill is looking forward to six distraction-free weeks to finish her next book. However, between Lonny’s flirty sensuality and True’s hard-edged intensity, the Wyatt brothers set the stage of her imagination for a winter of wicked delights.

The fire that destroys the cabin, though, is as real as it gets. Forced to seek a bed under True and Lonny’s roof, the temptation to experiment—all in the name of research, of course—is overpowering. One night in their arms doesn’t feel like enough; it feels like more. Particularly with one cowboy who fires all her cylinders…

Warning: It’s a Devlin ménage—expect men with stamina and not an ounce of mercy to behave like sex gods, and the lucky woman to love every minute of it. A little domination goes a long, long way…

Honey had never seen a man look so angry and flummoxed at the same time. And that shouldn’t have been the case since she managed to ruffle men’s feathers faster than a hurricane. It was a talent.

She came up on her elbows in the mud and glanced at the papers cartwheeling across the yard. If you could call it a yard. The space around the cabin was more of a rough-cut clearing.

Nothing fancy, Lonny had warned her. He hadn’t over-represented the small two-room cabin with an efficiency kitchen and tiny bathroom.

And yet the rugged utility of the place appealed. The cabin smelled of pine sap and wood smoke, and when she’d stood on the porch the view of the mountains around her took her breath away.

The view from the ground right this second wasn’t that bad either.

“I’ll get those,” Lone Wyatt said. He gave her a quick glance, raised an eyebrow at his brother, then dismounted in a fluid, graceful move that had her envious of every flex of muscle that delivered him to the ground. Could any two brothers be more alike and conversely so different at the same time?

True Wyatt moved with rugged force. She couldn’t help wondering how that economy of motion and deliberation translated to how he moved in a bed. True wore “Cowboy” like some men wore Armani.

Her gaze crept upward from his scarred boots, past legs encased in sturdy, mud-stained denim, to a dark, dirt-streaked coat that fell to his knees. He looked like he’d stepped out of an old western movie. Even the cowboy hat, broad-rimmed and shadowing his deep-set eyes, emphasized his individualistic, rugged appeal.

Her glance flew back to Lonny, who chased the newspaper clippings and her own dog-eared notes across the clearing.

Lonny was a sweetheart. A flirty man with wicked intentions in his dark green eyes. She’d already decided she wouldn’t turn down an invitation to go to bed with the man. But that was before she’d clapped eyes on the brother.

She came back to True to find his gaze narrowed on her face. All brooding darkness and hard-edged features. Same dark green eyes, weathered skin and dark brown hair as the brother, but his expression set him apart. Made him seem even older than the thirty-six years Lonny had volunteered.

Lonny was in his late twenties, still footloose and straining against obligation. Facts she’d gleaned easily the first time they’d met. After all, she was a writer and a master at pulling information from a person without him realizing just how she did it.

Something told her big brother wouldn’t be nearly as easy to pump for information. “Pump” stuck in her mind, and her brain again leapt to sexier pursuits. Read the rest of this entry »

Feel It In Your Heart

With the upcoming winter release of my book ENDANGERED, the first in my Nights of Lust series, I thought I’d do some pre-release hype for the book and start talking about it.  I’ve seen some great reactions to the book so far, for those who have beta read it are loving it.

Let’s start with the premise of the book though.

Endangered is the story of a man searching for himself, finding salvation only in the love given by the woman who loves him, and her companion.  He slowly learns redemption comes at a price but is he willing to pay that price?

Desperate to get him off the suicide cycle he’s stuck in, Livía will do anything to save the one man who can return her soul. Following his essence over three centuries has brought her heartache until this lifetime when he’s the farthest from his self-destructive urges ever.  Seizing her opportunity, Livía kidnaps Joséf and convinces him to do the one thing she knows he’ll never abandon: save the life of an innocent child.

Can the love two women willingly offer give Joséf the peace he needs to become the man who can stop The Syndicate?

I’ve got a similar series dealing with the wolves and Faery courts represented by the Corvisiero Literary Agency but we’re going back and forth on edits because my level of emotion in the book Marisa picked up could be deeper.

With Joséf and ENDANGERED, the core of that book revolves around a LOT of anger I felt at the time of its conception.  What I wanted, what Joséf thought he wanted, turned out to be not what either of us needed. Yes, he mimics my actions, only taking them deeper and harder.  His health is only crappy due to bad habits, which can be fixed through proper diet, love and learning to deal with the wolf inside.  Oh and a healthy dose of Livía and Isabella.  I gave my hero two heroines in this book because honestly, the emotions Joséf feels are so deeply ingrained, so relatable to the readers (hopefully) that he needed someone to hold his heart and heal his mind at the same time and no one person can deal with the amount of damage in him with such a clear mind.  The one lover can calm certain aspects, but after a while, Joséf’s struggle with himself and the outer world around them wears on just the one person thinking emotionally.  Livía is his emotion, she is his love, his life.  Isabella in this story starts out as his rational side.

Love stories, romance novels in particular, are really about the heroine’s journey as I’ve learned from my mentor.  That being said, Livía must go through a transformation of her own, one she struggles with because of Joséf’s stubbornness.  She must rise above her own worries and weaknesses to conquer his world so he can help her defeat her outer worldly demons.

Forced to work in tandem, Joséf and Livía must correct her mistake, because the trick she used to get him to stay leads to Joséf learning to open his heart, something I needed desperately to do at the time I wrote the book.

They always say write what you know.  Well, romance novels are emotional and that’s how I roll!

For Joséf, there is more to the world than saving the big picture and more to life than anger and self-hatred.  He only has to look at the world in Livía’s eyes.

Look out for ENDANGERED, coming in Winter 2013 from Red Sage!

Sascha Illyvich