Samhain Publishing

I am involved, in a very small way—literally—in the sport of carriage driving. I used the word "literally" because I drive, hitched to a little two-wheeled cart, an equine defined as a VSE…a Very Small Equine. (In most cases, this is a Miniature Horse, but it could be anything from a short Shetland pony to a tiny Sicilian donkey. The only criteria is that it be equine and no more than 39" tall at the top of its shoulder.)

Ramona's Jewel, Miniature Horse and VSE, is my partner in this sport. She considers that her mission in life is to eat, enjoy an occasional rendezvous with a handsome stallion, have a foal (a twenty minute job) and eat some more, but, at my insistence, she has retired from that profession and now very patiently submits to be hitched to a little cart and lugging me around periodically. She has trotted 'round and 'round in arenas; woven her way through obstacle courses; dealt with everything from squealing children to jet aircraft flyovers during parades; and is now in training to handle our first Horse Trial, an event that will require that she trot up, down and across all sorts of terrain for about five kilometers. From the looks I'm currently getting when I ask her to go that distance, I may end up getting out and pushing at some point.

Still, there's something very wonderful about driving a horse. Even when your horse is tiny and your cart is tiny, you feel somehow so….so….aristocratic. Our sport is full of tradition. In the arena during an event, both ladies and gentlemen must wear hats. And aprons. (To keep mud splatter off your clothes.) Brown gloves must be worn, never black, white or colored, you must sit on the right side of the seat, your horse's harness may be black in most circumstances, but russet only in very specific instances, your outfit must match your vehicle—wearing a hat with a plume or a veil while driving a country gig is simply not done, my dear!—and you are known as a "whip." You also carry a whip. (To cue the horse, not wallop it.) It's something right out of a Edwardian romance, until you trade the chapeau for a hard hat, the velvet-collared jacket for a safety vest and go cross country. Then it's more like NASCAR with manes and tails.

But like every other sport, there's a lot of dirty, sweaty effort involved before you go out to play in public. Grooming a horse is hard work, even when the horse is Jewel's size. Cleaning harness, cleaning your vehicle, cleaning out stalls, feeding, watering and paying vet bills, hitching up and driving even when it's very cold or very hot, loading up cart, horse and equipment to go anywhere make up the hard labor necessary to participate. My friends and I joke that we want to be like Martha Stewart, able to call down to her beautifully appointed barn and tell a groom, "Put the Friesians to, please, and have them at the front door in a half-hour." Though I admit, it wouldn't quite seem the same when what would show up for me would be a little white creature whose back barely comes up to my waist.

I guess driving is like anything else, including writing. Before you see your name on the title page, a lot of work has to be done. I don't know of anyone who sits down and simply types "Chapter One" and then continues blithely on to "The End." You gotta plot, baby. You gotta figure out who does what and when, then rewrite everything when you find out that even characters in a book can't be at two different places at the same time. You've got to rewrite whole chapters when you are unfortunate enough to GET A REALLY GREAT IDEA! and it won't work unless half the plot is changed.

But the result is worth it. Whirling your way through a cones course…feeling proud when your little horse trusts you enough to walk across the Evil Wooden Bridge of Doom (they hate the sound a bridge makes)…waving to literally thousands of people in a big parade—"Oh, look at that cute little white horse!"— having your editor email, "That last set of edits should do it!" or best of all, having a reader email "I love your book!"

Worth it. Definitely worth it.

Enough writing for a while. The little white mare is waiting—coated with the dirt she loves to roll in—and we've got two miles of trotting to do.

For more information about Jan Alyce Avery, plus excerpts, reviews and reader reactions to her book Shadowed Knight….www.janalyceavery.com

Writers are not computers, all creating via the same mental "apps". We are individuals and as individuals, we get things from our brain to the word processing file in different ways.

My way is to create a movie in my mind…and then describe it.   

A writing session for me usually starts with my stretching out on my bed and closing my eyes. Then I start visualizing.

For example, in a book I'm working on, "A Payment of Women", I need to describe, in print, the arrival of a troop of medieval mercenaries at a remote English valley. But before I start typing, I need to "see" what this "scene" actually looks like.

Eyes closed. So….how big a valley? Oriented how? East, west, north, south? I knew that the far end of the valley would be to the west, since a sea cliff along the west coast forms an integral part of my story, so the soldiers would be entering from the east. I needed to "see" the valley from the viewpoint of those soldiers (a few paragraphs prior, I'd been "seeing" it from the viewpoint of the inhabitants) so to make sure I didn't confuse the two, I wanted to know where everything was. On what side of the valley was the keep? On what side some woods where the women who live in this valley initially hid? What kind of woods? Where were the fields, the cottages?

When the soldiers enter, are they in a loose mass, or in some kind of formation? Which works better for the story? (There's actually a point where this does make a difference.) How do they first see the women? From a distance? From close up? What do the women do?

I started "framing shots" in my mind. Angle from the west. Angle from the east. Closeup on the troop's leaders. Long shot on what the troop was seeing, from their POV. Who was moving where? Who was saying what….and when? What did it sound like when they said it? Angry? Thoughtful? Bewildered?

When I got this section of my "movie" the way I wanted in my mind, I sat down at the computer and basically described it. (I've added a few explanatory notes in brackets.)

Ramsey, as the troop cleared the wood, looked about him. Rynmuth was a shallow valley, [a valley gives a feeling of more isolation and remoteness than flat land] perhaps wide enough to hold a dozen large fields, ringed by thick woodland except at the far end, where the land sloped upward abruptly to what must be the cliffs overlooking the sea. To his left, a low tower surrounded by a timber-fenced bailey marked the keep, while below and around it spread a sprinkling of thatched huts.

“A peaceful prospect,” said Father Aldus. He was a spare young man with a thoughtful, pale face, the hair around his tonsure a rich chestnut. His mule was a long-striding beast and had ably kept up with Ramsey’s stallion on the long journey from Taunton; he reined it in now and, shielding his eyes from the brightness of the sun, [these men are facing west and it's late afternoon so the sun would indeed be in his eyes] asked, “But where are the people?”

As though in answer, figures appeared from the woods above the keep, moving to stand silent and watchful, figures in long gowns covered with sleeveless tunics, their heads covered by veils.

“Women,” said Audun softly. He rode just behind Ramsey and the priest, flanked by Falco and Stephen, with the rest of the troop following on foot in two ranks. “I don’t see a man among them. Women only, as the old knight said.”

“And all of them armed,” added Stephen.

Falco gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “With sharpened sticks. Half a dozen armed men could cut them all down.”

“Yet there they stand, ready to fight.” Ramsey turned in the saddle. “Men! We are about to pass in review. Eyes to the front and ranks steady!” [A bit farther on, I have these men—understandably—trying to look around at the women, who are by then following them, an act emphasized by their having to be called back into formation. Which is why I had the formation in the first place.]

He touched spur to his chestnut and the troop moved forward in response.

The women did not move. A few had children sheltering in their skirts, [A visual that conveys emotion, both of the children being scared and the women being protective; in a movie, you always try to "show" instead of "tell"] but most stood in groups of two or three, watching in silence.

“No greeting? No cheers of welcome?” Falco’s hard-mouthed gray danced sideways. [Another "visual" that reveals a bit about Falco.] "Are they mute?”

“No,” said the priest gently. “Can you not see, my son? They are weeping.”

Ramsey, looking, saw that the priest spoke the truth. The slight figures on the hill were covering their faces with their hands, some sinking to their knees, their heads bent, others lifting tear-stained eyes towards the sky, their lips moving. [Again, since I'm "watching" a movie, emotions are revealed as much by action as dialogue.]

“How much these women must have suffered,” continued Father Aldus, “to react so to the arrival of help. And what courage they must have, who have so long endured such fear!”

“Amen,” said Stephen, and Ramsey echoed the thought silently.

Now, I have no idea if this is the way other writers work. I'd be interested in hearing from my fellow Samhain authors. But for me, it's just the way my mind operates. "Movie" first—complete with sets, costumes, actions, facial expressions, even tone of voice—and words on paper afterwords.

Got to go; I have another "scene" to block out. Where's my director's chair?

Jan Alyce Avery is the author of the Samhain Publishing title "Shadowed Knight." For more information, excerpts, fan response and reviews, go to www.janalyceavery.com

I’m sick of it, bored with it and annoyed by the fact that I have to arrange it, twice a day, for a pair of old farts who should be spending their time grazing instead.

Specifically, a Reserve National Champion Section B Welsh Pony stallion named Pecan Creek’s Overture. A sweet old guy at 27 and still pretty virile, but because he’s at my place, I’ve had to keep my Miniature Horse mares at a friend’s house, driving there twice a day to feed ‘em. You don’t want a 600 lb. Welsh stallion anywhere near your 250 lb. Miniature mares. Trust me. So I load up and haul bales of hay and buckets of grain elsewhere, which ain’t fun in this 100+ degree heat. (I live near Fort Worth, Texas.)

The other participant in this affair is Tylwyth Twilight, 18 year old Welsh mare, royally bred, but through no fault of her own, the dam of only one foal, and that 8 years ago. I want to sell her, but I’m not going to do it unless I can get her knocked up.

Normally, the mare goes to where the stallion is, but “Perky’s” owner has a small place and a lot of ponies right now, so if I wanted this mating, I had to bring Perky here.

So I did. Two and a half weeks ago. And I’ve been arranging dangerous liaisons ever since.

For those of you who weren’t raised on a farm, when it comes to making foals, timing is everything. Mares normally come into heat every 21 days or so. After I spent days working in knock-you-flat heat to add hot wire around the paddock where I planned to keep Perky (my neighbor has a Miniature stallion and I needed the “zap” factor to keep the two boys apart) I brought him over. Twi went into my dog pen, he went into the back paddock and I began a ten-day stretch of “teasing” Twi each morning and evening to see if she was in the mood. This consisted of locking Perky in a small pen, leading her close enough so they could touch noses, and while he snorted and huffed and did his “I got what you want, baby!” act, watching her reaction.

Her reaction was plain. A squeal, a clawing forefoot, then backing away. “Go to hell, buster.”

This went on for ten days. Each day, I’d get up at 5:30am so I could play Cupid while the temperature was still a chilly 80 degrees; each day, Twi would tell her suitor he was a filthy beast. Considering that Perky got a full-blown erection each time, he was an angel about it; me, I wanted to kill her.

After ten days, Perky went home. Twi had required hormone shots in the past to kick start her; off we went to the vet, a sonogram was done, a shot was given and three days later, Perky returned.

The first day…nothing. The second morning?

“Take me now, big boy, and make it good!”

I tied her up to a post, opened the gate to his pen and got the hell out of the way. She crouched and lifted her tail, he galloped over and jumped aboard. I trotted sideways, bent my head and squinted to see if Peg A was indeed being firmly inserted into Hole B.

Yes! Finally!

A little bit of back-and-forth, then he groaned, closed his eyes and slid off. I unsnapped the lead line tying her to the post. I figured I’d leave them together for the rest of the day.

I’d forgotten one thing. This mare, when she’s in the mood, is insatiable.

The old man would try to get a drink and find himself staring at a big white rump. A few bites of hay? Not with her trotting after him, with that “Excuse me, but I need it and I need it now!” look on her face.

He was breeding her, or trying to, every twenty minutes. In temperatures like this, you don’t ask a guy who’s the equivalent of 65 years old to make that kind of effort, not if you want to avoid heat stroke. I had visions of trying to revive a 600 lb. pony who’d keeled over in a moment of passion. Not a good scenario, that.

So I’ve had to play procuress. I’m keeping the not-so-star-crossed lovers apart for most of the day. Whoopee time is 7am each morning and 8pm each night, an hour after I’ve fed, grained and hayed ‘em both. Procedure? Lock him up in the pen, unplug the hot wire, bring her through the gate, haul her over to the post, let him loose, then watch while he tries to score. He and I are getting equally weary of the whole business; when he’s not quite hard enough, his aim is off and the tool in question tends to bend. I just hope my neighbors haven’t heard me yelling, “Higher, you dope! Get it stiffer, damn it! Yes, right there—no, lower now! Lower!”

Meanwhile, Twilight spreads her legs, lifts her tail, crouches, then looks off into the distance, her face totally blank. When it’s all over (fifteen seconds, tops) I lead Perky back to his pen. I can do it with one finger hooked through his halter now; he’s not prancing and throwing out his chest like before, proud of his manly prowess, he’s just walking along with his head down, obviously determined, like a good boy, to do his duty, but—damn!—when is that female going to be satisfied?

I’m asking the same question. I want him back at his place, my Minis back at my place and out on pasture, so I don’t have to spend hours in the heat hauling water, grain and hay. I’m tired of getting all hot and sweaty so that Twi can get all hot and sweaty. And right now, my taste in literature runs to anything but stories of humans getting all hot and sweaty.

So, right now, don’t even mention sex anywhere in my vicinity. Not unless you want a water bucket thrown at you. Hard.

Jan Alyce Avery is the author of Shadowed Knight.

Do you have a section of your brain that seems to archive every experience you’ve had, for use later in your writing? Even things you have no reason to remember?

I’ve got such a mental archive. It stores memories, major and minor, including things that it would never occur to me I could use when I write, that somehow always float up to my forebrain when I need them. A mysterious thing, the writer’s brain. (Some people might use the word “weird” but let’s not go there.)

Example: years before I wrote Shadowed Knight, I took one of my Welsh Ponies up to a show in Tulsa, which was being held in tandem with the Oklahoma State Fair. Our barn and arena were right by the cattle barn.

Now, as a pony breeder and trainer, I like to take every chance to accustom my young ponies to things they might later encounter. Trust me, you don’t want a green pony to trot around a corner and first come nose to nose with a 1500lb cow when you’re either riding the pony or driving it.

So I decided that “Joy” and I would take a stroll through the cattle barn. The cattle were curled up in beds of thick straw. Joy and I walked slowly down the isles, looking at these massive animals, first from the center of the isle and then from just outside their pens, Joy with her eyes wide and her ears flicking back and forth. There was no other human around.

Looking over the low walls into the pens, I saw that some of the cows were curled very close to the wall. It occurred to me that anyone caught between one of these huge animal and the wall might easily get crushed or at least very, very stuck when the cow lay down.

That observation got archived in my “writer” database. No reason for me to store the memory, but I did. It sat on a dusty mental shelf somewhere for a few years until—

I found myself needing a way to do a number of things at a certain point in my book: make my rather grim hero, Richard Berenger, seem more human; engender a bit of sympathy for him in the heart of his haughty wife-in-name-only, Lady Margaret; and give them something they could laugh about together. They’d been at each others throats up to this point; now I needed them to begin liking each other.

Berenger is the bastard son of a really vicious father, and his horrific upbringing explains much of his actions. I needed to bring that out, but I also needed to end on a lighter touch. But what could ever be even remotely humorous about growing up half-starved and alone?

An image floated up into my conscious mind….cows.

His mouth thinned and his voice was raw when he spoke again. “She was a little thing, hardly more than a child herself when she bore me. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a mouth that was made for smiling, though I rarely saw her smile and hardly ever remember her laughing. There were times when she took blows meant for me, times when she risked worse than beatings to bring me the means of survival—a ragged blanket against the cold, a bit of bread or cheese when I was gaunt from hunger.” …..

“You said she almost never laughed.” Margaret wanted somehow to turn his mind from such deeply sad thoughts. “Do you remember a time when she did?”

It was a long moment before he replied, and the pause in itself indicated that such memories must be bitterly few. But when he spoke, his voice had gentled a little. “Yes, I remember one time, when I was very small. I was banished from the servant’s quarters, sent to the stables when I was five or six, I think—”

Margaret caught her breath. So young!

“—and the winters in that place are bitterly cold. To keep warm, I used to creep into the cattle byre, where the cows lay chewing their cuds at night, and curl up next to one.” He smiled just a little and said calmly, “A cow, lady, is a very warm creature, and reasonably tolerant of little boys. One night, I picked a cow that, unknown to me, had lost her calf in a cross birth only a few days before. I realize now she desperately wanted something to mother, and a grubby little boy was a reasonable substitute for her own lost child. I curled up next to her flank and was just dropping off to sleep when I suddenly found myself being …washed.”

“What?” said Margaret, startled. “You mean—”

“Oh, yes.” He was truly smiling now. “A cow’s tongue is as wide as any wash clout and she was determined to do a thorough job on me. As I said,” he added, “I was a very grubby little boy.”

Margaret bit her lip. A vision formed in her mind’s eye; a huge, soft-eyed milk cow, lying legs folded in the thick straw, the immense, wet warm tongue vigorously plied to clean a startled little boy.

“I was trapped between her body and the wall of the shed.” There was the barest hint of laughter in his voice now. “I couldn’t get away, no matter how hard I wriggled. My mother came looking for me, and she must have heard my howls of protest, for suddenly I was plucked up from where I was trapped. Have you ever seen a kitten when it’s been washed by its dam? Its fur so damp that it sticks up in little spikes?”

Margaret, imagining what his bewildered young mother had seen, clapped her hand over her mouth.

“My mother,” said Richard Berenger, lord and knight, “took one look—and laughed until she cried.”

“I—I can understand why!” Unable to contain herself, Margaret choked, gasped and broke into helpless laughter. Berenger grinned, his eyes warm with pure amusement. It was the first time she’d ever seen that expression on his face, unmarred by mockery. She managed to ask, “What did she do then?”

“What would you expect? It was the cleanest she’d seen me in a long time, so she thanked Madame Cow!”

It worked. It was what I needed at that point in the book. Who would have thought it? Cows!

So….as writers, do you find yourself using odd little memories to flavor your writing? Incidents, people, situations locked in memory that you’d never think would have any relevance to the people and situations in your book? And yet, when you need them…

…there they are?

I love to read. But reading, for me, involves one serious problem.

I hate to put a really good book down until I’ve read the whole thing. The whole thing. No matter how long it is.

Which is why, when I find a book I really want to read, my rugs don’t get vacuumed, my fridge doesn’t get cleaned, my bathtubs don’t get scrubbed and my Corgi, Emma, doesn’t get the walk in the park I promised her. (Don’t feel too sorry for her; she’s got two fenced acres to roam in right here at home.)

So I appreciate a book of good short stories. Putting a book down at the end of a chapter is hard; putting one down when you’ve finished reading a complete story is quite a bit easier.

If you suffer from this same problem, you might want to check my website, www.janalyceavery.com, on October 20th. You can already order my novel Shadowed Knight there (plus read fan comments, reviews and excerpts) but I’m also going to be offering readers a book of five romantic short stories called Seasons.

Three of these stories are pieces I originally sold to Woman’s World magazine some years ago, which, since WW only buys the first serial rights, means that I retained the right to re-publish them. (They appeared in Woman’s World before that magazine decided, mistakenly in my humble opinion, to limit its romantic short stories to 800 words. Since then, whenever I’ve checked WW’s romantic fiction, it’s always been a variation of He’s cute…she’s cute…maybe they can get together… and that’s about it. Understandable, since you really can’t do much more than that with 800 words, but not my idea of a real story.)

The stories in Seasons are considerably longer and involve the classic features of short-story fiction: multi-dimensional characters with some kind of problem they must solve. In my spring story, An Ill Wind, a woman wonders if she’s actually someone a man could love. In the summer piece, Broken Dreams, a good deed leads to unintended consequences. The autumn story, Monster Mommy, demonstrates that keeping a promise to a child may have unforeseen rewards; and in the winter story, The Ghost of Christmas Crazy, a homesick girl discovers that the Christmas spirit can be found even in a strange city. The final story is a bonus, a medieval tale called The Marsh, in which a knight in peril is rescued by a young boy who may not be what he seems.

Just to make things a little more interesting, each story is also accompanied by an illustration. (My favorite is the one for Monster Mommy.)

So…come October 20th, if you like short stories and have a few moments to spare, please stop by www.janalyceavery.com. I think you’ll enjoy Seasons and if the comments readers have sent me are any indication, you just might enjoy Shadowed Knight as well.

Do any of my fellow authors have the problem of too many ideas?

It sounds like the kind of “problem” most hopeful writers would welcome, I know, yet it’s real.

Having a head crowded with a dozen possible books makes it that much more difficult to concentrate on the actual grunt work of writing one book—the outlining, research, character development and line-by-line effort to get what is in effect, a movie running inside my head down on paper.

The other day I got curious and listed some of the book ideas I currently have tucked away in my much-too-crowded brain.

- A historical romance about a village raided by outlaws that has lost almost all its men, to the point that the women left must bargain with a company of mercenaries to survive. I actually came up with the title, “A Payment of Women” first, because I thought it was something that would cause most readers to think “What’s that about?” always a good reaction when your book is competing, quite literally, with a million other books on Amazon or in the bookstore. Title first, plot second. Not the easiest way to write a book, but I like setting myself such problems to solve.

- A Regency Romance about a desperate young woman who marries a man she has just met, then finds that he may be a rapist and a murderer. The reader knows that he’s not, but doesn’t know what actually happened. I know what actually happened (it’s somewhere in that crowded, crowded storage shed I call my brain) but I’ve got to get it all down on paper in a way that makes sense.

- A novel about a long-vanished civilization. The research on this one both fascinating and really distracting. I have learned, for example, that Elizabeth Taylor owns a teardrop pearl that is 500 years old and was also worn by Philip I of Spain and Queen Mary of England. (Hey! Idea for a book…following that pearl through the ages! No! No! Concentrate on this book!) And do you know how hard it is to create your own language?—the book won’t require me to write essays in a made-up language, but I’ve got to come up with some words and basic grammar and ….oh, damn….a pictograph method of writing that language, doubly hard since I’m a lousy artist.

- A suspense novel about a young woman who is the “hobby” of the man acquitted of her rape. For two years, she has been on the move, unable to settle anywhere because her attacker, delighted with the game, keeps finding and tormenting her.

- A science fiction novel about a female soldier who must somehow stop a race of vicious xenophobic aliens from becoming less viciously xenophobic. Really. If they become more tolerant of other species, it will be a very bad thing. Honest.
Also, a book about this soldier’s mutant ancestress. Actually, a series of books about this soldier’s mutant ancestress.

- A Regency novel about a young woman, illegitimate, who is caught between two social classes, the twist being that she manages the estate that provides a home and money for the family that rejects her.

- A “transported to another world” story about a young woman who must make a long journey with strange companions to seek help against an invading horde of ….okay, okay, everyone has at least one “Lord of the Rings” plot percolating in their head, right?

- A fantasy novel about a civilization with three empires, where the order of the natural world is breaking down. Yes, there are talismans in this book, but, incredibly, there are no unicorns, dragons, or humble farms boys who become heroes. (Or humble farm girls, ditto.) There is a very complex religion, and three very complex imperial histories….which I have to create from scratch.

And so on and so on. Really. This is not even close to being a complete list.

There are a number of problems with having so many ideas.

One is that while you’re working on one book, thoughts about another keep popping into your head. Any writer knows that if you don’t write an idea down immediately, especially a good one, it’s going to vanish. “I’ll write it down when I finish this chapter” rarely works, because you finish the chapter, you’re working along happily, an hour goes by and suddenly…what was that idea? That terrific, great, plot-problem-solving idea?

Gone. Vanished.

For.

Ever.

Trying to keep track of the paperwork (or the computer files) also drives me nuts.

“Please, please, let the most recent file be the version that was really working, not the ‘Let’s just try this’ attempt that wasn’t nearly as good as the older version, the really terrific older version that I just….deleted. “

What is really bizarre, though, is that after awhile, the characters in these at-this-point-only-in-my-head books become so real that I feel guilty that I haven’t told their stories. Eldest Daughter, the Forester, Morn, Deacon, Ymma the cook, Jo, who is so exhausted from constant fear…..it’s like they come, ring me round and stare at me, their accusing eyes saying “When are you going to tell my story? When?”

I wonder if Tolkien, grading essays between classes, ever startled his colleagues by yelling, “Gollum, you nasty little snot, just shut up and go away!”

Jan Alyce Avery

Reviews for Shadowed Knight by Jan Alyce Avery

This story does a fantastic job of setting the stage for how women were treated during this time period. No matter how skilled, they were still at the whim of their liege lord and had no veto power. I enjoyed both the actions and interaction of the main characters…. I also enjoyed the secondary romance of Sir Fitzwilliam and Lady Ann, as they both overcame their shyness and let their love blossom. If you are a fan of historical romances, you need to pick Shadowed Knight up as it has it all, a baseborn man who achieves knighthood, a rogue knight, a strong-willed woman, kidnapping and romance.

— Tanya, Joyfully Reviewed
4.5 Blue Ribbons!

… a good winter’s night tale of love, perceived deception and a well-written battle of wills. The descriptions were vivid and I had no trouble following the protagonists as they went about their daily lives.

The story is filled with interesting secondary characters who are delightful. The battle between Margaret and Richard is fiery and the final battle…Read it and find out.

… If you like historicals set in this period of history, you’re sure to love this one.

— Nickie Langdon, Romance Junkies
4 Stars!

For more reviews and excerpts, please visit
JanAlyceAvery.com

I love history. I’d rather read a well-written biography than the latest fiction best seller. To me, the people involved aren’t cardboard icons, but people as fascinating and real as anyone featured in today’s headlines.

George Washington, for example. I reread David McCullough’s wonderful book 1776 recently. Once you’ve read it, you’ll never think of Washington as a mere face on a dollar bill again. When he became the commander of the Continental Army, he was 45, three years younger than our current president. Never having commanded anything large than a regiment (and that for a short period nearly twenty years earlier) he was woefully inexperienced, as were his generals, many of whom were in their 30s. He had to contend with back-stabbing subordinates, a Congress full of critics and times of terrible peril when he stayed in the saddle for 48 hours straight. A man of great dignity and patience, he was still capable of being very human.

Example? McCullough writes of one incident involving the soldiers from two state militias who got into a brawl. Instantly, hundreds of men were literally trying to kick, bite and beat each other senseless. Washington, a huge man for his time at 6’2”, rode into the middle of this melee at full gallop, jumped off his horse, grabbed the two biggest brawlers by their throats and shook them like a terrier shaking rats. The rest of the men, shocked and terrified by their commander’s fury, fled. Yet this is the same man who would often use what little free time he had to write home listing the plants and flowers he wanted for the landscaping of his beloved Mount Vernon.

If you write a historical novel, one of your jobs is to try to create characters who are complex enough to seem real. You must also, though, try to make sure they’re as true to their time as you can make them. You can’t be absolutely true to history—if you have medieval characters speak the way those who lived then actually did, few modern readers would even recognize the language as English—but you can try to avoid obvious discrepancies.

Still, they sometimes creep in. For example, I remember once picking up a romance novel that was set in the 1890’s. Flipping it open, the first bit of dialogue I saw had the heroine saying to the hero—I kid you not—“You’ve got to give me my space!”

A 21st century concept, couched in 21st century slang, in a book set in the 19th century? Ouch. But I can understand how easy it is to make mistakes of that kind. One of my final read-throughs of my novel was a check for anachronisms. I found ‘em, plenty of them. (Hopefully, most of ‘em!)

For example, I had one character wondering if “his unconscious wish was to”—Oops! The concept of the unconscious mind didn’t show up until the late 19th century, specifically in the works of Freud and some of his contemporaries. No one living in the Middle Ages would ever use the word “unconscious,” even in his thoughts.

Another example? By the mores of the time, my heroine was rather long in the tooth to be unmarried—I recently read a fascinating little tome on housekeeping written by a medieval husband for his fifteen-year-old wife, a typical age for a bride in those days—so I had to create plausible reasons for Lady Margaret to be twenty-four and still single. (Her age also gave my knight, Richard Bereger, one of his best lines….a line that got him in a lot of trouble!)

I’m sure I missed some goofs, but hopefully not any that are particularly glaring. As for my characters, I’m really fond of them, but again, they can never be as fascinating or complex as the actual movers and shakers of this world. There’s not a fictional heroine that can compare to Eleanor of Aquitaine, and no man found in the pages of any novel is as fascinating as Horatio Nelson, that slight, one-armed gentleman who changed the face of the world with his victory at Trafalgar. From the first-known multi-tasking genius, Imhotep of Egypt, to the first man who stepped onto the moon, Neil Armstrong, the real people of our past are worth knowing better. If you agree, take a look at 1776; you won’t be disappointed.

….From their first meeting, Richard and Margaret fire insults and exchange murderous looks. Neither is willing to compromise, and it is only through the careful intervention of Ann and Richard’s best friend, Sir John Fitzwilliam, that the two do not kill each other. ….. Both hero and heroine are strong, beautiful, and so very right for each other…

Everything works in SHADOWED KNIGHT; the characters, settings, incidents, and the presentation of how things were are well done. Jan Alyce Avery has a matter-of-fact style that reads as if she were really there and was a first-hand observer. I want a Richard Berenger of my own.

SHADOWED KNIGHT is a perfect romance, one I highly recommend.
Vi Janaway, Reviewer, Romance Reviews Today

One of the tasks of a writer is to create interesting characters with complex personalties. You can describe a character’s personality, or you can reveal it through past history, dialogue or action, and I personally think the second method is better.

One example is Richard Berenger, the title character in my book Shadowed Knight. There is nothing simple about Berenger, though intially it’s obvious he can be grim, ruthless, even callous. Instead of simply describing this, I let the feelings of his friend, Sir John Fitzwilliam, reveal both this aspect of Berenger’s character, give some background for it and set up one of the main reason for his coming conflict with the book’s heroine.

April! The harsh months of winter over, the brightness of new life everywhere, and lordship for his friend no more than a wedding feast away. No one but Berenger would be grim under such conditions.

Yet Berenger was grim. Fitzwilliam had seen the expression currently on his friend’s face before and knew it was probably useless to attempt to talk Berenger into a less savage humor.

But he had to at least try. “Think of it, Richard. A manor of your own! Why, you’ll be lord and master of your own land before the week is out. What you’ve wanted all your life, yours at last, and earned by your own hand.”

For Berenger, unlike most knights, was no child of privilege and unquestioned rank, but the illegitimate son of a cold-hearted lord who’d refused to acknowledge his bastard child. Despised and outcast, Berenger had joined the baron’s forces when barely sixteen, winning his lord’s regard by more than a dozen years’ hard service, first as a common man-at-arms, then as squire and finally as knight.

“It’s no more than a just reward for you,” added Fitzwilliam. “I’ve heard that Warnmark is fair land, with rich soil and fine stands of timber—”

“And Warnmark’s lady?” Berenger’s voice was low, harsh, his mouth set in a hard line. “Sole heir to those acres, well-dowered and of ancient lineage—and that last I am not, as our lord took pains to point out—”

The skin snapped taut across his cheekbones, and Fitzwilliam decided to refrain from comment. Berenger’s outcast beginnings were a raw point with him always.

No one’s going to like a hero who’s downright mean, so I later have to hint that Berenger, for all his grimness, is inherently decent as well. So I set up a slight incident that shows this. This happens after his first clash—one of many!—with his prospective bride, the fiercely proud lady Margaret. Berenger takes out his anger on a groom, but later….

He reached the drawbridge and passed beneath the rampart at a walk, noticing as he swung down from his horse that the same man had come forward to grasp the bridle.

“You there. What’s your name?”

The man’s head was bent, his shoulders hunched, his eyes staring groundward. “Swyn, sir knight,” he said gruffly.

“Swyn, I ask your pardon.” The man’s head snapped up and his mouth dropped open. “I cursed you some minutes back. I shouldn’t have. My mood was foul,” Berenger smiled grimly, “but that was no fault of yours and you should not have suffered for it. My apologies.”

“I-it was nothing, sir.” The man gulped, his understandable bewilderment plain on his face, for how many knights cared about the feelings of a groom

Berenger’s actions reveal more complexities after he and Margaret rescue a young girl stolen by outlaws. Margaret dislikes him intensely, but I need her to begin to wonder if there’s more to him than she thinks.

Berenger took her injured hand in his and very gently pressed and flexed her wrist. His hands were large, the fingers long and tapering, the palms wide and calloused, but his touch was remarkably delicate. She winced as he bent the wrist back a fraction, but there was not the intensity of pain that she feared.

As I thought. Strained, not broken.” He took a long strip of linen and began to tightly wrap hand and wrist. “It will be swollen and aching tomorrow.”

“Was anyone else hurt? My men or yours?”

“Edgar took a graze on the shoulder from a knife. Oswald will see to him. I doubt the girl’s hurt, though I imagine she’ll have nightmares for some time to come.” He lifted the wine flask to her lips.

“As will I, I think.” She swallowed. The liquid burned down her throat, but she felt her muscles relax. “That man that I killed—he died unshriven, without last rites.”

“A death that he himself chose, lady. As did all those that we slew this day. Say a prayer for their souls, if you wish, then sleep.”

The torchlight played across his face, illuminating the high cheekbones and set line of his jaw. She could tell that he wasn’t smiling, but more than that she could not judge, for his eyes were shadowed. “Sir Richard.”

“Lady Margaret?”

“I owe you my life.”

Did she see the slightest hint of a smile, a true smile, neither mocking nor bitter? “So you do, lady. And as I said, Brenwilla owes hers to you. Somehow I think that balances all debts.”

His arms slid beneath her, gently lowering her to a prone position. “Sleep. I’ll stand watch this night.”

Her eyes closed. She heard the rustle of his cloak as he moved away. She tried to murmur a prayer for the damned soul of the man she’d killed, but exhaustion took her and pulled her down toward darkness, with the last image in her weary mind the smile she had perhaps only imagined she’d seen on her unwanted bridegroom’s face.

Can he be kind as well? Again, I decided to show this via a small, but revealing incident, witnessed by Margaret.

Margaret paused a moment as she crossed the bailey, her gaze arrested by the sight of a tall figure darkly outlined against the sharp blue of the sky.

Dressed in a sleeveless shirt and a black leather hauberk, Berenger watched the men of the garrison as Fitzwilliam drilled them. He stood erect, taut, his hands grasping the hilt of the sword that rested tip-grounded before him, the harsh face turned so that she saw it in profile: the stark bones of jaw and cheek, the hard mouth, the arch of dark brows above intent eyes. Even without mail and helm, he looked dangerous, like some warrior from an ancient legend, wanting only an instant of threat to transform him into something deadly.

Margaret felt a chill go through her. How could anyone expect gentleness from such a man? Tempered by a savage childhood, hardened by years of having to fight for survival—how could he be anything but ruthless and cold? The few gestures of consideration he’d shown could be merely the actions of a man biding his time. What had he said, that first night he’d come to Warnmark? I am willing to work—and if necessary, fight—much harder than most men for what I want…

He’d wanted Warnmark, and Warnmark was now his. He’d said that he wanted her… Margaret took a deep breath, tormented by her own confused thoughts.

Then she saw something else, something that caught the breath in her throat.

The keep’s children were kept clear of the training ground, but someone had been careless for a moment, leaving a door unlatched or unwatched. A little boy, tow-haired, bare-footed, clad only in a breechclout and a short shirt and just old enough to toddle along on sturdy legs, had escaped supervision and was stumping toward Berenger, face alight with a child’s happy, curious smile. He was only a foot or two away when Margaret saw him, his chubby hand reaching for the glittering sword.

Oh, God. Margaret tried to free her voice, tried to call out, but there was no time, no time—there were knights who would backhand a servant’s child who annoyed them as casually as they would kick a dog—

Berenger hadn’t moved, his gaze was still intent on armsmen and archers, and the child was coming up from the side and slightly behind him, the little hand reaching for the great weapon’s deadly edge…

No, thought Margaret. No!

Then the sword lifted, gently, and swung a foot’s distance away to be grounded again. The little boy crowed happily and stumped sturdily forward, his fingers curled to grasp.

Again, the sword swung clear. The child followed it, delighted with this new game. Margaret, wondering, saw Berenger’s head tilt fractionally, his profile still expressionless, as the game continued, the sword lifting horizontally now, its deadly edge just out of reach of the tiny hand of the determined child. Then it swung sideways and up and whispered into its sheath. The little boy, thwarted but forgiving, gave the towering form before him a thoughtful look, and with a child’s easy trust, lifted his arms.

Margaret gasped as he was swung aloft to perch on one broad shoulder, his heels drumming happily against the hauberk’s hard leather. Berenger turned his attention to the drill again, as calmly as though a manor lord serving as beast of burden for a grubby, wiggling child were the most natural thing in the world. Margaret stood, shocked, as Fitzwilliam, noticing what had happened, strolled over to the pair, grinning.

“What, do I have two critics now?” said Fitzwilliam. He flicked the boy lightly on the cheek with a finger. “Comfortable, little man?”

“It would appear so,” said Berenger. “Our armsmen start their training early at Warnmark, John. This one, I think, shows great promise.”

He spoke in his usual level voice, but Margaret, drawing closer, caught the faint edge of amusement

What woman hasn’t at one time wondered how what kind of father a prospective mate might be?

Margaret and Berenger desire each other almost from the moment of their meeting, but desire is not love. Love requires knowledge of each others character, and in Shadowed Knight, that knowledge come largely through sharing both action and danger.

Jan Alyce Avery

For a synopsis, excerpts and reviews of Shadowed Knight, go to

http://www.janalyceavery.com

Feedback from a reader is always valuable, whether it’s pro or con. Of course, it’s always more gratifying to hear from someone who likes your book!

I got an email the other day from a lady called Debbie Swift who read my first novel, Shadowed Knight. This is what she had to say.

“I just finished “Shadowed Knight” and I absolutely love, love, loved it! After pre-ordering it, I have to tell you that I read every book Irish, Scottish or Welsh that I can get my hands on and I very seldom write to authors, but your first book will be a big hit. I have a personal collection of favorites and hard to find books of about 4000 books, so medievals are my favorites and I have read lots and hope to read more of yours soon. Congrats and a great book and please do let me know when you write a Welsh historical romance, I would love to be the first to be in line to buy it.”

I received this on the same day I got my author’s copies of the paperback version of SK. I love the idea of e-publishing, especially the way it makes more books accessible to more people, but there is something about holding your book in your own hands that really drives home the idea that your work is no longer solely “virtual,” but now “actual” as well.

As for what reviewers have had to say about SK, well, their comments have been pretty gratifying, too.

This story does a fantastic job of setting the stage for how women were treated during this time period. No matter how skilled, they were still at the whim of their liege lord and had no veto power. I enjoyed both the actions and interaction of the main characters…. I also enjoyed the secondary romance of Sir Fitzwilliam and Lady Ann, as they both overcame their shyness and let their love blossom. If you are a fan of historical romances, you need to pick Shadowed Knight up as it has it all, a baseborn man who achieves knighthood, a rogue knight, a strong-willed woman, kidnapping and romance.
Tanya, Joyfully Reviewed, 4.5 Blue Ribbons!

….a good winter’s night tale of love, perceived deception and a well-written battle of wills. The descriptions were vivid and I had no trouble following the protagonists as they went about their daily lives.

The story is filled with interesting secondary characters who are delightful. The battle between Margaret and Richard is fiery and the final battle…Read it and find out.

… If you like historicals set in this period of history, you’re sure to love this one.
Nickie Langdon, Romance Junkies, 4 Stars!

Sir Richard is simply yummy. Granted, he has a tendency to speak before thinking… but he tries to accommodate Margaret’s feelings. There were times I wanted to knock Richard upside his head, particularly when he acted out because he felt unsure on how to respond, and I wanted to do that to Margaret, too. Although she realizes that Richard is as much of a pawn as she is, she is brutal at times when dealing with him. But I wouldn’t expect anything different from such complex and engaging characters. I appreciate the inclusion of the relationship between Sir John Fitzwilliam and Lady Ann Conroy. They brought romance to the story when things didn’t appear too positive for Richard and Margaret. Pick up Shadowed Knight and let it bring sunshine into your life.
Amy Wynn, Sensual eCataromance

From their first meeting, Richard and Margaret fire insults and exchange murderous looks. Neither is willing to compromise, and it is only through the careful intervention of Ann and Richard’s best friend, Sir John Fitzwilliam, that the two do not kill each other….. Both hero and heroine are strong, beautiful, and so very right for each other…

Everything works in SHADOWED KNIGHT; the characters, settings, incidents, and the presentation of how things were are well done. Jan Alyce Avery has a matter-of-fact style that reads as if she were really there and was a first-hand observer. I want a Richard Berenger of my own.

SHADOWED KNIGHT is a perfect romance, one I highly recommend.
Vi Janaway, Romance Reveiws Today

The consensus seems to be that this is a reasonably good book. That’s encouraging, enough so that I am working now on a second historical that I’m calling “A Payment of Women,” which I hope will be a title that will intrigue readers. (And no, the book does not involve any kind of slavery.)

So, if you know any readers who enjoy medieval romances, I hope you’ll suggest they take a look at Shadowed Knight. Positive feedback and good reviews are are certainly ego boosters….but I don’t know any author who doesn’t also get a little thrill at the sight of a respectable royalty check!

Jan Alyce Avery

I suppose everyone who wants to be a writer has this fantasy: you’re in the bookstore and there’s your book—your book!—up on the shelf. Ah! You scoop up all the copies and stroll to the front counter. “Would you like to be able to offer autographed books? I’m the author of this one.” Naturally, the store clerks are thrilled. You whip out a pen and realize….that you’ve never actually hand-written your pen name and the best you can do is a clumsy scrawl, and—oh, damn—you wrote Alyce with an I, and it looks nothing like a real signature and they think you’re a fraud, and they’re calling the police because you are obviously either a criminal or mentally unhinged…

Okay. Rein it in, Jan. You are not, at the moment, writing.

Writers have almost pathologically vivid imaginations. When you’re at your desk, this is a plus, but in ordinary life, it can be an annoyance. You find yourself working out plots based on the fact that it’s night and your neighbors haven’t yet taken in their trash cans. Has there been a home invasion? Are they lying on their living room floor, stabbed, slowly bleeding to death, the slow streams of scarlet blood gathering and thickening in the grout lines of their imported Italian floor tiles?

The next-door neighbor strolls back to her own front door. She is the victims’ only hope, but she is unconcerned, unknowing. Okay, how the heck do I clue her in that there are people dying next door?) Wait….she hears the plaintive meow of a cat from inside the neighboring house. (No, you dope, no one could hear even a caterwauling cat inside a closed house thirty feet away.) Wait….she hears the eerie howl of a dog. (Eerie? What is this, a horror story or a murder mystery?) Wait…she hears the frantic howl of a dog….

This is when you blink, look up and realize you’ve been standing stock still in the middle of your driveway for five minutes and the neighbors, who have come out to pick up their trash cans, are staring at you. Wave at the neighbors, Jan.

Then there’s the process of working out dialogue—aloud, so you can get a handle on the tone and pace—and suddenly realizing that you’re doing it in the middle of Macy’s and this time, people are staring at you with real alarm, because you’re telling someone named Ranualf that when the outlaws reach the palisade, he and his men needs to be ready with the boiling oil.

Oh, damn.

“Security to the Linens Department.” My fellow shoppers didn’t go quite that far, but they looked as though they were considering it.

I sometimes have perfect strangers ask me, with true concern, if I’m all right. It’s a little difficult to tell them that certainly I’m all right, it’s Sir Richard Berenger who’s snarling in rage, and no, I don’t have a neurological disease, I’m simply hefting an invisible broadsword—how exactly would someone effectively swing something that heavy?— in the middle of an IHOP.

This kind of thing, unfortunately goes on all the time, since the thought “What if….?” is always in my mind. What if that thin, weedy man standing on the corner is not an over-zealous dieter, but the unknowing incubator of a bizarre disease? What if—this came to me while walking through the spring lushness of a nature preserve—you wanted to hide something, say a body, but you also wanted it eventually found? So you didn’t bury it, but instead hung it in a tree that in the fall would lose its concealing shroud of leaves? And there it hung, shrouded by the slowly shriveling leaves, the bare skull reflecting the golden gleam of a dying sun. (At least for this particular “what if,” there was no one around to notice my mumblings and grimaces but my long-suffering dog.)

Imagination can be tough to control, but you do need to at least keep it in check in public. Still… with the print publication of my Samhain book “Shadowed Knight,” I’m deep within bookstore “what ifs.” I’m also spending a lot of time air-signing “Jan Alyce Avery”—don’t worry, innocent observers, my hand always twitches that way—just in case a bookstore wants authographed copies. It could happen.

“Security to the Romance novel racks.”

(By the way, a tip from me to those who write romance novels. If you sometimes take your laptop and work in public places such as the food court of your local mall, don’t get so involved with what you are doing that you completely forget your surroundings. It’s a little disconcerting to be working on a romantic scene that, say, involves a fleck of honey gleaming on a woman’s breast and suddenly realize you have a ten-year-old looking over your shoulder. At least I managed to get the file saved and the laptop closed before Mom showed up. “Unauthorized adult content. Security to the food court.”)

Jan Alyce Avery

This is the scene mentioned above:

Saracen moved on at a smooth canter, carrying their double weight as though it were nothing. A magnificent animal, worthy to carry a prince, but given freely as a gift from a stranger Berenger had tended without thought of payment. There’d been John Fitzwilliam too, another tormented little boy, whose misery had ended when Berenger had become his champion. How many other people, Margaret wondered, had he helped in his hard, lonely life?

The sun climbed to its zenith. They came to another brook, this one a tiny rivulet tumbling between moss-covered stones, curling into a basin just large enough to drink from.

Berenger eased the stallion to a halt and swung off. “We’ll stop here for a few minutes.” Before she could move, his hands were at her waist, lifting her down as easily as if she were a child. The touch of his hands made her tremble, and she couldn’t meet his eyes, afraid he’d see how he affected her. After a long moment, he turned away.

Together they knelt by the stream. Margaret glanced sideways at him through her lashes and felt her heart twist to see that his face was again cold, hard, as though the few moments of fellowship they’d shared had never happened. Was he now regretting that he’d told her so much, shown her the more vulnerable side of his nature?

Or perhaps—it was a small hope, but she hugged it to her with an eagerness that surprised her a little—did he wear that look because he thought of Warnmark and how with every mile they both rode closer to danger?

She said as cheerfully as she could, “Is it time now to finish our little pot of honey?”

Berenger turned and nodded. “As good a time as any, lady. We’ll give Saracen a chance to snatch what few mouthfuls of grass he can find, then we’ll go on again.”

They sat on a fallen tree trunk, the stallion grazing beside them. Margaret plucked a broad leaf from one of the trees and carefully poured half the remaining honey into that.

Berenger accepted it with a murmured word of thanks, then stole a look at his lady’s face as she bent over the tiny pot. When he’d helped her down from Saracen’s back, she’d shivered and looked away from him, and he’d felt a strange despair, sharp as sudden pain. Why had he spoken to her of his childhood? At best, such stories could evoke pity, at worst, contempt. Yet he could have sworn he’d seen sympathy in her eyes and her laughter had seemed genuine. But perhaps he’d seen only what he wanted to see.

Lacking bread or spoon, she swirled her fingers in the pot and licked the thick liquid from them. A single tiny drop fell to cling, just visible, on the soft swell of her right breast. Sweet, so sweet—Berenger stared at it, a mere fleck of gold that glittered as she breathed. Her head was bent over the pot, the dark fans of her lashes veiling the sapphire eyes, her soft, gently curved lips parted just a little—and the tiny golden glitter of that single drop, as her breasts gently rose and fell—those soft breasts that he’d caressed, tasted, even if only for a moment, in the darkness of the night—

Something began to build in him, something fierce, savage, the feral hunger of a man long starved. It would only take an instant to pull her down, to pin that lovely, supple body under his—she’d be helpless—the feel of her skin beneath his hands, the taste of her mouth, her body moving beneath his—the sweetness of her—
He could take her now. He had the strength, and she was his by right, his wife, his possession.

****************

REVIEWS FOR “SHADOWED KNIGHT” BY JAN ALYCE AVERY

From JoyfullyReviewed.com
This story does a fantastic job of setting the stage for how women were treated during this time period. … I enjoyed both the actions and interaction of the main characters…. I also enjoyed the secondary romance of Sir Fitzwilliam and Lady Ann, as they both overcame their shyness and let their love blossom. If you are a fan of historical romances, you need to pick Shadowed Knight up as it has it all, a baseborn man who achieves knighthood, a rogue knight, a strong-willed woman, kidnapping and romance.

Romance Junkies
… a good winter’s night tale of love, perceived deception and a well-written battle of wills. The descriptions were vivid and I had no trouble following the protagonists as they went about their daily lives.

The story is filled with interesting secondary characters who are delightful. The battle between Margaret and Richard is fiery and the final battle…Read it and find out.

… If you like historicals set in this period of history, you’re sure to love this one.

Romance Reviews Today
….From their first meeting, Richard and Margaret fire insults and exchange murderous looks. Neither is willing to compromise, and it is only through the careful intervention of Ann and Richard’s best friend, Sir John Fitzwilliam, that the two do not kill each other. ….. Both hero and heroine are strong, beautiful, and so very right for each other…

Everything works in SHADOWED KNIGHT; the characters, settings, incidents, and the presentation of how things were are well done. Jan Alyce Avery has a matter-of-fact style that reads as if she were really there and was a first-hand observer. I want a Richard Berenger of my own.

SHADOWED KNIGHT is a perfect romance, one I highly recommend.