Opposites attract? Can an Englishwoman and Acadian Fall in Love?

February is considered the month of love due to Valentine's Day. The old saying is that opposites attract, but is it true?

In my Canadian Historical Brides novel On a Stormy Primeval Shore, I bring two people together from different cultures who meet in the strangest of ways. Amelia is an Englishwoman fresh off the boat in a wild country, the just formed province of New Brunswick in 1784. She's come there at the father's behest to marry one of his officers at Fort Howe.

However, she is repulsed by the rude man, who treats her like a pity-project, and refuses to marry him. Deciding to stay, she struggles to form her own life in herbal medicine in a burgeoning country.

Gilbert, a trader, is an Acadian, descendant from the original French settlers when that area was known as New France. The Acadians hate the English after these invaders swept in, murdered the French, and took possession of what would become Canada.

He had no intention of courting an English miss, but fate was against him. Will more be in store for these star-crossed people?

Read the excerpt:

 A growl startled her. Turning, Amelia gasped. Out of the trees lumbered a large, snarling black bear. The animal’s fluid grace belied the menace in his glare. Saliva dripped from the creature’s mouth when it bared sharp teeth. Fear shot through her like arrows.

Louise froze, eyes bulging. Amelia instinctively stepped back. Her foot found no purchase. She slipped, tumbling down the short embankment, rocks poking into her flesh. Her gloves were ripped off as she groped. She landed with a thunk in the marshy soil next to the stream. She struggled to rise amid her tangle of skirt and petticoats. Hips and knees aching, her hands smarted, scraped and embedded with pebbles, but she scrambled to her feet to scuttle up the hill with muddy fingers to help Louise.

She wanted to call out to the girl, but that might attract the bear. Nearing the crest, dirt dislodged above her, sifting down on her face and scalp. Amelia blinked up, her pulse hammering. She heard movement, footsteps.

A large man with a black beard, wearing buckskin clothing and a leather hat, stood at the top of the slope. He aimed a musket in the direction of the bear. The animal growled louder.

"Don’t move, either of you, mes jeune femmes," he commanded in a French accent.

 

 

Gilbert prepared to fire. “Sors d’ici!” The bear swiped again, knocking the musket from his hands. Claws scraped his right arm. He hissed at the scratching of his flesh, the pain radiating up to his shoulder. The animal snapped at him, teeth close.

Gilbert ducked, just missing a bite from those teeth, his face sprayed with saliva. He reached for the musket, his breath harsh.

The young woman (Amelia) crawled to her feet. She screamed like a lunatic, but it sounded more from anger than fear.

                                                                         * * *

 

The handsome Gilbert, a man about to be pushed off his land by greedy Loyalists, will be impressed by a woman who screams at bears. A most unsuitable courtship has begun.

 

To purchase my books at Amazon or All Markets: Click HERE

 

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

 

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

San Francisco Christmas Spirit

Delve into the dawning of New Brunswick's history, the Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, and a forbidden romance, in ON A STORMY PRIMEVAL SHORE. Buy Link Below.

But now on to Christmas memories. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a small town called Pacheco. Almost every Christmas we traveled the 25 miles to the Big City where my father's sister, my Aunt Mary lived. Aunt Mary never had children, though she'd had about three husbands. She was a Registered Nurse, but also a free spirit who wore turbans and dangly earrings. Her laugh was uproarious. She was my Auntie Mame.

Aunt Mary as nurse

Christmas in San Francisco was magical to a child: the creeping fogs, the groan of the foghorn out in the bay, and Macy's department store with the huge decorated tree in the store's center.

Not Macy's but similar.

When older, my brother and I would leave the chattering adults and roam the city. We'd ride the clanging cable cars down to Fisherman's Wharf. A freedom most children couldn't enjoy today. I loved the old Victorian buildings, the bustle of the trollies, the fat sea lions grunting on the pier.

The city was decorated with ribbons and tinsel. Giant Christmas ornaments hung from the street lights. The store windows looked like Christmas scenes out of a storybook.

We'd wander through China Town, with the shops set up on the sidewalks.

By the time we returned to our aunt's apartment, a delicious dinner would be served. My beloved aunt and brother are long gone but I'll always have these wonderful memories from my childhood.

To purchase my books at Amazon or All Markets: Click HERE

 

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

 

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

Total Immersion

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Why write historical fiction? This is a deep question. The 1980’s, when I first started writing, was a low point for the genre. I remember querying ever so many agents and getting replies which said “only a small market for historical fiction.” That was discouraging enough, but not so much that I stopped working on those novels, driven by the writing demons as I was.   

Like everyone else who will reply to this question, I started young reading historical fiction, following the books my mother took out of the library. She was a voracious reader of both history and science fiction, and I became one as well. I began early, and remember writing a short story about the Princes in the Tower back in 8^th grade that got an “A.” (My story successfully creeped-out  the class, too, which was even better.)

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I could say that my love of history happened because I’ve often lived in old houses—several with disturbances of the kind that are often labelled “ghost.” I could talk about the love of my important elders for history, their familiarity with the past, and the way the past was always present in discussions about politics, or about how trips were taken to view gravestones, battlefields, Indian mounds, and museums. 

I could dwell on the lit professor grandpa that I adored. His study fairly breathed of old books, tweed, leather, pipe smoke and things past. A large oil painting of the Canterbury Pilgrims overlooked his desk, a beautiful obsidian spear point that had emerged during the spring plowing at the family farm in upstate NY sat beside his typewriter. All of these objects had stories, and he shared them with his children and grandchildren. At home, that wonderful quote of William Faulkner’s “The Past is never gone. It’s not even past,” was a statement of fact. 

The truth is more that I’ve never felt truly comfortable with the noisy, gasoline era into which I was born. Cars were something to get around in, but not by me beloved. Every time a tree falls in the creation of a road or a new development, I feel a terrible sense of loss.

I’ve often spoken of what I write as a kind of time travel, because for me that’s what it is—a way to be present in another place and time, to smell and taste that world, to deal with the hardships and the inevitable dirt and sweat, the blood and the loss, that is the genuine past.  The “romance” died quite early for me because I read and read and read, ever deeper into my chosen subjects. 

Living inside another time and place, or inside another culture, is truly an immersive experience; I love the scuba sense of diving in and swimming around inside these deep waters of history. Originally, I wrote from my own European-American perspective, and my books were set in 18th Century Europe or England or the colonial US.  The time shift alone caused me to change my perspective. I sometimes get nasty reviews because the 18th Century characters about whom I write do not behave up to the highest standards of the 21st Century. I always want to reply to these folks that I don't write these stories to make them comfortable. I write to show them as much as I can of what I've learned about what was--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Maybe I'd be richer if I sugar-coated, but taking the trip into the past and taking my readers along with me is always far more important than whatever is currently P.C. If you want to read about the 18th Century people, expect to meet  men who have "patriarchy" firmly entrenched in their heads and women who have no other recourse than to accept or attempt to circumvent whatever their menfolk, their churches and their society dish

out. Englishwomen, as every reader of Jane Austen ought to know, could not inherit property until quite recently.

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In Genesee, and, later, to a far greater extent, in Fly Away Snow Goose, I had another task. here I found I had to shed the Euro-based colonizer culture into which I was born so that I could inhabit (as far as I am able) a life-way with a totally different outlook. The Tlicho tribe in Fly Away Snow Goose were historically a nomadic, communal people, living in small groups that got even smaller in winter--who shared food with one another. They disapproved the kind of willful ignorance of their environment, the braggadocio and "me-first-ism" that is  rampant in the capital-driven European cultures which almost overwhelmed them. 

Instead of "conquerors of nature," the Tlicho strove to always to be in "right relationship" with the earth and her creatures, to eat and/or to make use of every piece of any animal they killed. They saw the spirits in the sky and in the earth and water all across the enormous terrain they traversed every year, following the caribou. Everyone had to pull together, or the group might not survive the long frigid winters where starvation was a very real threat. This experience, this total immersion has changed my outlook on the world in a fundamental way.  

Now, it's as if I've put on an entirely new pair of spectacles.  

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~~Juliet Waldron
www.julietwaldron.com

Vacation to Historic Saint John

Last year, in need of research for my Canadian Brides novel, my husband and I drove to New Brunswick. The French border guard lady fussed at my husband for following the car in front of us too closely when we entered from Maine. I laughed; we were already in trouble.

We headed east then south into the city of Saint John where most of my story is set. Situated on the Bay of Fundy, Saint John is a beautiful mix of modern and Victorian buildings. Unfortunately, the eighteenth century buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1877. Since my novel is set in 1784-85, that would have been a boon for my research.

View down Princess St. to Saint John's harbor



We visited the New Brunswick Museum and spoke to a woman who was interested in my upcoming novel. She gave me her card. When we returned home, we couldn't find it. Never did.

I did mail them the pamphlets I designed for On a Story Primeval Shore.

We went to visit one of the oldest remaining houses in the city, Loyalist House built in 1817. Their website said they were open. The door was locked. We tried again later, still locked. A lovely young waitress (more on this later) told us they'd been closed for refurbishing for a year. No one knew when they'd reopen. A sign on the door might have helped.

Loyalist House

I did get to meet Joan Hall Hovey, a suspense author in my publisher's stable of talented authors. After a tasty lunch, she graciously showed us her vintage town house with its beautiful Victorian grate. A very nice lady.

On the sunniest day, we drove up the hill to the site of Fort Howe, also important in my novel. The fort was built during the American Revolution to stop rebel marauders from harassing the communities in the area. Only a blockhouse remains of the fort.

Author at Fort Howe's site, on the hill overlooking Saint John's harbor

Afterwards, we sat at a restaurant on the waterfront, had a glass of wine, and talked with the waitress, a college girl, who told us about Loyalist House. A man danced in the lane in front of the restaurant. I wish we had a picture. He was quite the character. The waitress said he was harmless and did this all the time. We greeted him when we left.

I enjoyed my visit to Saint John, and Joan, and hope to return someday, especially to see the inside of Loyalist House.

All pictures above were taken by my husband, George Parkinson. (Gotta give the guy credit)

My Canadian Brides novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, called a "Fabulous Historical" by Night Owl Reviews, is available in E-book and paperback:  Amazon and All Markets

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

 

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

An Acadian Recipe by Diane Scott Lewis

In my novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, set in New Brunswick, one of my main characters is an Acadian man, which prompted me to research the history of these people.
Novel blurb:

In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, and refuses to marry him. She is attracted to a handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must fight the incursion of English Loyalists from the American war to hold onto his land and heritage. Will he and Amelia find peace when events seek to destroy their love and lives.




Available January 2018
Pre-order NOW (link below)

In the 1600's, when France conquered the eastern area of what is now Canada, they called it New France. The settlers were mostly soldiers, farmers and crafts people. They brought their food traditions from rural areas of France, and soon added the foodstuffs, such as corn, moose and black bear, found in this new land.

The staple of the Acadians, as the settlers became known as, was herring, cod, potatoes and pork. Eventually the French recipes disappeared into the local traditions, as purely Acadian. A typical dish is a one pot meal called Fricot, consisting of meat--usually chicken--potatoes, a hearty broth and dumplings (poutines).

For festive occasions, a Pâté à la Râpure or "rappie pie" is still popular in New Brunswick. Grated potatoes are layered with meat or fowl and broth all baked to a golden brown.

Recipe:

1 five pound fowl, chopped

3 medium onions

1 medium carrot

1 celery stalk

2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 pound finely diced salt pork

15 medium potatoes (about 8 pounds)

Combine ingredients, boil until tender, remove fowl's skin and bones, grate potatoes, layer fowl and potatoes and bake at 400 degrees for thirty minutes, then at 350 until crusty brown (two more hours). Of course in the 18th century when my novel takes place, they'd have baked in an iron pot in the fireplace hearth.

For more detailed instructions, click link below for Acadian.org.

Source: Acadian.org

On a Stormy Primeval Shore Pre-order: click HERE

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

For more info on my novels, please visit my BWL author page
or my website: Diane Scott Lewis

A Diverse Group Supports my Writing, by Diane Scott Lewis

I have many people to thank for their wonderful support over the years. My mother, and my English teachers are the earliest. Recently, for my Canadian Historical Brides book, On a Stormy Primeval Shore:

Here's the blurb: In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, and refuses to marry him. She is attracted to a handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must fight the incursion of English Loyalists from the American war to hold onto his land and heritage. Will he and Amelia find peace when events seek to destroy their love and lives.

First and foremost I’d like to thank Nancy M. Bell, my fellow author, who sent me research documents, websites and kept in touch with people at The New Brunswick Museum while writing her own novel in the series. She also critiqued each chapter and offered suggestions.



Nancy M. Bell

 

 

I thank my Beta readers, all three of them. So I guess they’d be Gamma and Delta, too. Ginger Simpson, Norma Redfern, and for my final draft, Kathy Pym.

 

My two on-line critique groups. I’ve been with many of these people for over a decade. Their suggestions and expertise is invaluable. These writers include fellow BWL authors Kathy Pym and Anita Davison. Also, authors Maggi Andersen, AnneMarie Brear, Ursula Thompson, and Lisa Elm. In my other group I have Carolyn, Randall, Karen, James, Harry, Lindsey, Kathy and Jane.

Nancy's contacts at The New Brunswick Museum, who guided her to rare documents: Jennifer Longon; Gary Hughes; Ruth Cox.

 

The Internet, what would I do with you? Formally, I’d research in libraries, including the fantastic Library of Congress. I’d get Library Loans of difficult to find books. I still enjoy libraries, that unreplaceable smell of books, but where I live now in rural Western Pennsylvania the choices are limited.

My publisher Jude for believing in and promoting this series, and the Government of Canada for funding it.

Now for who supports my writing in general, my husband, family and friends. I've dragged my husband off to England through the wilds of Cornwall, over to France, and up to Canada, in pursuit of my research. He's waiting for my million-dollar book deal; he really wants that vacation house in the tropics!

Bio: Diane Parkinson (Diane Scott Lewis) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, joined the Navy at nineteen and has written and edited free-lance since high school. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novels Review and worked as a historical editor for The Wild Rose Press. She’s had several historical novels published. Diane lives with her husband in Western Pennsylvania.

 
For more on my novels, please visit my BWL Author Page

And my website: dianescottlewis.org

Plotting with history’s constraints, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

 

Writing historical fiction is not for the disorganized. I intended to specialize in one century and prefer the eighteenth century. I read numerous books on that period in preparation. However, my first novel was so complicated, and covered such a long period, I had to create a chronology of the years people were born, died, had children, and so forth, so I’d know how old people were and what event in history might be in the background.

I relied on libraries and reference books I'd collected. I studied so much on this time-period, I can pick out inaccuracies in other authors’ works, but I’m sure I’ve made several myself.

Now, with the internet there are so many sites, blogs, and documents that cover the Georgian era, it's much simpler.

I had a superb on-line diary to consult, written by a man in the eighteenth century, which told of government activities, agriculture, when the price of sugar soared, and so on. Then the web hosting service, GeoCities, was discontinued, and I lost that valuable resource. If it’s in their Archives, I can’t find it.

I have post-it notes all over my computer and desk to remind me of things to add to my various novels. I send myself emails from my phone when an idea strikes me and I’m not home.

When I started my story on New Brunswick, I began with my usual method—a pantser not a planner. No outlines for me! I write by the seat of my pants, then I go back and see what my characters require, because now I know who they really are. For this novel, I read the history of the colony and decided where to place who and which events would shape the characters in 1784 and a couple of years beyond.

Often you write something, then discover it couldn’t have happened at that time. I’ll mention a city, then find it wasn’t developed until twenty years later. New Brunswick has long, harsh winters, and I needed to work around that. I’m originally from California, where things rarely freeze, so it was a learning experience for me, and my bride, Amelia, who comes over from Plymouth, England. And poor Amelia has no central heating, electric blankets, or other modern conveniences. She doesn’t know how to gut animals for eating, and there are no supermarkets with fresh food. Still, I like that my characters can’t grab a cell phone to call for help; they must learn to use their wits, develop courage, or perish.

Just recently I realized I couldn't use the fort I'd chosen for an assailant to have been stationed. It hadn't been built until twenty-two years after the "assault". I dove in for quick rewrites.

As my writing continued, more ideas came for the story arc: what huge event would rock her world, historical or otherwise?  Which man will catch her fancy and change her life?

I have websites bookmarked, a map on my desk, books stacked up, and Nancy Bell to help with all the research required to sound authentic.

 New Brunswick’s history is fascinating and I hope I gave the colony a proper showcase as well as keeping readers entertained.

 

 

For more info, please visit my BWL Author Page

or my website: www.dianescottlewis.org

Researching New Brunswick- a surprising history




Available in Jan. 2018

When I was asked to contribute to the Canadian Historical Brides series, with the stellar help of Nancy Bell, I bought a book on the province’s history. I decided to set my story in the eighteenth century, a period I enjoy writing in, and picked the year 1784. From the book I learned that was the year the huge colony of Nova Scotia was divided in two, the western part to be called New Brunswick. This was my first surprise.



Coming of the Loyalists by Henry Sandham

Why the break? After the Revolutionary War, the numerous people who’d remained loyal to King George III had their property confiscated and risked arrest. Thousands of these Loyalists escaped north, into Canada, and the western portion of Nova Scotia. The colony swelled with a disgruntled population who needed land. They demanded their own colony, another capital.

 

 

I wanted to toss my characters into this morass, everything changing.

Nancy sent me several websites with old maps, documents on the settling of the Loyalists, so much to work in, or leave out.

Then I came across the history of the Acadian Expulsion, the original French settlers when the area was known as New France. Entire villages were slaughtered when the British took over. I just had to delve deeper into that period, and have an Acadian character, one whose mother lived through the expulsion.

Acadians by Samuel Scott

Of course, I couldn’t ignore the First People who were there when the French arrived, mainly the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes. Every layer of settlement, wars, massacres, needed to be worked in without overloading the story.

The biggest challenge was to fit in my fictional characters with actual historical personages, the history timeline, and the extreme hardships of this as yet untamed wilderness. Also, what food was available in what season, and what items were shipped in. How did these people survive the long winters, and the political turmoil around them and I had to make sure I kept to the historical facts.

I hope my novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, will intrigue readers about New Brunswick and its varied history.

To find out more about my novels, please visit my BooksWeLove author page: BWL DS Lewis
Or my website: DianeScottLewis

The Challenges of Historical Fiction

by Kathy Fischer-Brown 

In celebration of Canada’s 150^th birthday, Books We Love has published the first of 12 historical novels, each set in one of the provinces and territories. The Historical Canadian Brides series is funded by the Canadian government and will be covered by Publishers Weekly. The first two books, Brides of Banff Springs, by Victoria Chatham and His Brother’s Bride, by Nancy Bell, are already generating great enthusiasm and readership. Where the River Narrows (Quebec), the book I’m writing with assistance from Canadian BWL mystery, suspense, and thriller author Ron Ady Crouch will cover an interesting area of Canadian history that is as fascinating to research as it is to write.

As a writer of historical fiction (all but one of my BWL books are historicals, and that other being a fantasy), I have no problem with diving head first into the research. In fact, it is for me one of the more exciting aspects of the writing process. Finding source material can be challenging, but it is also inspirational. I can’t enumerate the incidents of finding a particularly interesting bit of history that not only sparks the need to find more information but, more important, gives my muse something substantial to chew on (and my muse loves to chomp on tasty morsels).

My biggest challenge in writing Where the River Narrows has to be the fact that, as someone who is U.S. born and bred (and having gone through an American education), I’m writing a book that has as its focus the American Revolution through the point of view of “the other side.” (Something not covered in great detail in our curriculum.) Then again, it’s always cool to learn new things, and my submersion in early Canadian history has been eye-opening. But getting into the point-of-view of my heroine, Elisabeth Van Alen, a young woman from a family of “Loyalists” or “Tories,” has been downright mind-changing. It’s been a real stretch to look at the incidents of the War for Independence from another perspective—and make it believable—when for my entire life, I’ve viewed the “rebels” as “patriots” as being in the right in their decision to break from British rule and set up their own country and government at the risk of their liberty and their very lives.

On the other hand, reading depositions and documents about the women who made perilous journeys from their homes to escape persecution—who sacrificed everything to join their men in exile with the hope that life would return to “normal” when the war was won by the Crown—has been a fascinating part of the process of building a story. Along the way, I’ve met some incredible people: re-enactors of the King’s Royal Yorkers (the regiment of loyalists established by Sir John Johnson, a historical personage and Canadian founding father who appears in the book), who devote their leisure time to recreating the lives of people I’m attempting to create in the pages of this book. Historians who have written extensively on the subject of loyalists refugees, and photographers whose work has been enshrined in the works I’ve been studying.

All in all, I’d say that this is and has been one of the more exciting projects I’ve been involved in to date.

~*~

Kathy Fischer Brown is a BWL author of historical novels, Winter Fire, Lord Esterleigh's Daughter, Courting the Devil, The Partisan's Wife, and The Return of Tachlanad, her latest release, an epic fantasy adventure for young adult and adult readers. Check out her Books We LoveAuthor page or visit her website, www.kfischer-brown.com. All of Kathy’s books are available in e-book and in paperback from Amazon, Kobo, and other online retailers.