I caught Jane giving something on the end of her finger the evil eye while she said,
“Come on guy. Start wigglin; or I’ll split yer guts out!”
Don’t let that cute exterior fool you she’s the terror of the rain barrel and all the mosquito larva quake in fear at the sound of her dainty footsteps.
John read the first few pages and told me that he thought I would like it because it was like Francis Hamerstrom but with dragons. He wasn’t wrong exactly… except that not even fiction can do Francis Hamerstrom justice. (In the event that (unlike me) you did not have the good fortune grow up with her as a household name, reading books like Is She Coming Too and Strictly for the Chickens and then eventually got to work with her grumpy, old, great-horned owl, I recommend you find yourself a book of hers and become acquainted!)
But, to John’s point, the main character is a woman set out to study wildlife in an era when women don’t do such things, and she does have some unorthodox ways of solving problems. So it is a bit reminiscent, it’s just that instead of prairie chickens, the wildlife she chooses to study is dragons. This puts dragons in a light that most books don’t. Not as evil treasure hording monsters (think Smaug) or amazing magical beings (think Saphira) but as fascinating and poorly understood, bits of wildlife. Alibeit one that sometimes eats people and has breath with interesting properties, as well as being a severe nuisance to the shepherds.
Would I recommend it? Would I recommend a book with a female character pushing the boundaries, dragons, a mystery and a bit of natural science? In a heartbeat!
I was just two pages into Georgia Rose’s new thriller romance and she had me hooked. I knew her main character was living some sort of lie. But what was it? And when did I get to find out? And what was going on? From that point on it was hard to put down but, I have this life that does exist outside the written word, so I put it down. And then spent much of the time until I could pick it back up again pondering all the lies and foreshadowing the love and sneakiness the twists and turns the story had taken. I thought long about the supporting characters- I loved the supporting characters. They could each have a book, in fact I’d bet that with the amount of secret backstory they must all have to be so substantial that there are already a book’s worth of material floating around for each of them. I marveled at the complexity of it all and wondered how she came up with such a thing…
And then, lo and behold, look what I found in my inbox. A guest post from Georgia herself answering that very question! Read and enjoy!
Where do your ideas come from? Is a question I have often been asked. Again, it wasn’t until I took up the pen (overly poetic, I know, but indulge me) and started talking to non-writing people (there should be a name for them, don’t you think?) that I found out that non-writing people do not have this crazy imagination stuff going on in their head all the time. Which is weird.
I can’t speak for everyone but my ideas come from many things, something I read, watched, a random thought, an overheard phrase, some wild fantasy that passed through my mind when I was relaxed and daydreaming… ahem… moving on…
Sometimes those tiny thoughts don’t let me go and sometimes they want to be more.
This is what happened with Parallel Lies. I had a thought, an imagining, years ago. Well before the Grayson Trilogy ever popped into my mind. A place, a person, a situation and it stuck with me. This…
‘I hear it, behind me, and to the left. The snap of a twig underfoot and a sharp intake of breath at the indiscretion.’
… was all I had and it was the first line I wrote. I was going to start the book with it and do some sort of time jump back and forward thing. But changed my mind. It’s now where it should be in the natural course of time progression and, so that you’re not just left with that, here is the rest of that paragraph.
‘I hear it, behind me, and to the left. The snap of a twig underfoot and a sharp intake of breath at the indiscretion. He’s here, just as I knew he would be, but I allow myself a small smile of satisfaction knowing he’ll be cursing his mistake. I have no intention of making this easy for him so leave him to come and find me. I still, and although my heart is pounding, blood pumping in my ears until I’m sure he’ll be able to hear it too, I concentrate on making myself small and silent. I am one step ahead of him and plan on keeping it that way.’
The possibilities captured my imagination when I first had that thought, but I did nothing with them for years. Two lines expanded to become a 95K novel (which wasn’t as easy as I just made that sound) and
if it is in anyway intriguing to you the rest of those words are available for you to download right now.
So where do your ideas come from? I’d love to hear from any writing people (or non-writing, I’d hate to be discriminatory) who come this way with what has made their creative juices flow.
Thank you for inviting me on Behind the Willows, Jessie, it has been a pleasure to visit you and get to chat to your readers.
Thanks for guest posting, Georgia! I don’t know about anyone else but I have my own little narrator who likes to comment on my life as I go through my day, occasionally she makes up a story as well. Sometimes when the narrator is particularly fond of a story she repeats it over and over until I consent and sit down at the keyboard- and suddenly I’ve been blogging for seven years!
P.S. Would I recommend this book? This is the sort of book that I doubt John really wants to read. Bit heavy on the romance, not exactly his jam, but I liked it so much I told him about the whole thing anyway. If you are any kind of romance reader, or like a light thriller with a bit of drama and a bunch of suspense, you’ve got to get your hands on this book!
Georgia Rose is a writer and the author of the romantic and suspenseful Grayson Trilogy books: A Single Step, Before the Dawn and Thicker than Water. A short story, The Joker, based on a favorite character from the series followed and is free to download from Amazon.
Her fourth novel, Parallel Lies, a standalone to be released on 12 September 2017, encompasses crime along with Georgia’s usual blending of genre.
Georgia’s background in countryside living, riding, instructing and working with horses has provided the knowledge needed for some of her storylines; the others are a product of her overactive imagination!
Awards have never been showered upon Georgia but she is the proud holder of a silver medal gained in swimming at the tender age of ten and won Miss Rally Young Farmer (with a sash and everything!) more years ago than she cares to remember.
Her busy life is set in a tranquil part of rural Cambridgeshire in the UK where she lives with her much neglected husband and dog. Their son, currently at university, comes and goes and their daughter, having delighted them all for long enough, has eventually moved out, got married, and is discovering the joys of being all grown up and having a mortgage!
Can you tell?
Does Ivy look like the one who was up and dressed and ready? Excitedly talking to Jane all morning about how fabulous school is. Impatient for us to hurry up and get there already. Last week she told us, “The first day of school, to me, is like a holiday.” (I’m not actually sure she’s not some sort of alien robot because none of this behavior sounds like something a daughter of mine would do.)
Does Clara look like she spent the morning in virtual silence? She spent all evening crying at the thought of another school year and left this morning as if I was marching her off to a firing squad rather than a new school year. (This one is for sure my kid.)
Does Jane look like the bundle of nervous energy she was? Torn between her older sisters’ enthusiasm and dread, she didn’t know what to think. (I sympathize with Clara too much, I tried not to chime in.)
Can you tell that I’m holding the camera looking forward to seven hours of being able to pee without anyone asking me a question?
Can you tell?
Does it look like Ivy was just as enthusiastic about school as when she left in the morning?
Does it look like Clara is dreading tomorrow just as much as she dreaded today?
Does it look like Jane’s answer to, Did you like school? was “Not very much.”
Does it look like Jane and Clara were about to release their pent up energy, tiredness and frustration by picking on each other until they both cried, making up and then repeating until bedtime?
Can you tell that between the preparation, the drama, the fighting and the essay homework that I was assigned, that I felt like I paid for every solo bathroom trip?
Can you tell that it was still worth it?
I have a reputation for diving into projects.
I like to jump in feet first (not head first because that would be silly – you never know if there are rocks) without checking the depth or looking for alligators or figuring out just exactly how much time I will need before I can drag myself back out of the water.
When I couldn’t stand our strange, uneven, brick and 4×4 back steps any longer – I ripped them apart. I had a plan (I always have a plan.) and it even included new steps. It also included removing old wood chips, sand and boards around the landing area, making a new brick landing and reseeding with grass. John wasn’t super happy when he came home one day to discover the two foot drop out the back door. Not even my elation at finding a nice concrete pad underneath it all (or my plan) seemed to bring him any joy. Probably he knew what was coming next – a lot of months without back steps.
He was totally right.
But we have steps now! And a nice brick landing. And… a really big disaster of gravel and dirt and half ripped up weed barrier. But that’s okay, because this month I was doing the final step of the project. I would haul away the sand and gravel and replace it with dirt, throw some grass seed on it and it would be done.
And then I saw them.
Great Black Wasps.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen them. And while I was unwilling to put my finger in the picture for size reference I can tell you that they are well over an inch long. Huge wasps. Scary looking wasps.
And totally fascinating.
Because, of course, I put my shovel down and looked them up. I found out they are non-aggressive and not even the Orkin man removes them as a matter of cause. They are solitary nesters, excellent pollinators and feed a ridiculous amount of grasshoppers and katydids to their young.
So I watched the wasps, and discovered that there were a number of holes, right in the sand I wanted to remove. I watched longer and saw one dig her hole deeper. I watched them come and go and not bother the dogs that walked over the top of them or me sitting a few feet away. I watched one fly back to it’s nest carrying a katydid. (I did mention that they were quite large right?!?) I got my camera and watched a bit more…
Then I sighed and put away my shovel.
I ripped apart the steps a year ago… at this point a few more weeks isn’t going to make a difference.
John turned forty this week!
That’s a number that scares some people but not my man.
Nope, he’s quite convinced he’s more awesome now than he was at thirty.
And you know what?
I totally agree.
Happy birthday Honey!
Years have passed since the events in Inceptio but our main character Carina is no less awesome for it.
It’s possible she’s quite a bit more awesome, or maybe it was because this book dives a bit deeper into the culture of Roman Nova (the society founded by Ancient Romans and ruled by women ever since) but regardless I enjoyed this book even more than the first.
Carina continues to overcome obstacles by being a general kick-ass lady, and yet stays remarkably human and even, dare I say, feminine when dealing with controversy as she finds herself thrown into the middle of a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Would I recommend it? This book certainly earned the “thriller” in it’s series title (Roman Nova Thriller Series). I had a terrible time walking away from it once I was a few chapters in. Which is basically the best problem one can have with a book. But, of course, start with book one. Starting midway through a series has the potential to upset the natural order of the universe. Consequences can be dire, don’t risk it!
You can find a review of the first book here: https://behindthewillows.com/2017/08/02/inceptio-by-alison-morton/
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I discovered this book because I’m a proud member of Rosie’s Book Review Team!
I saw my oldest frenemy over the weekend.
I was really happy to see him but my toes were sort of scared.
Yes, that is a turkey vulture.
Yes, I used to work with him.
Yes, he is a ham.
Yes, he bit my toes.
No, I didn’t wear real shoes then either.
Yes, he got car sick.
No, that’s actually worse than it sounds.
Yes, I love him anyway.
We drove into the path of totality to watch the eclipse on Monday and, yes, it was worth it.
Worth the drive, worth the crazy last minute plans, worth the insane heat, worth the traffic on the way home and the fact that it came at the end of a marathon week of capoeira and most of us hadn’t slept a real night of sleep in days.
The adults bounced around in excitement, the kids (if not quite as enthusiastic as the adults) were still excited. And it was truly awesome to watch. Full totality was just what they said it would be, an indescribable corona, sunsets all around, bats, a major temperature drop… it was a thing that gives me goosebumps to remember.
But… as with most things in life, it’s not always about what you do, but who you do it with.
Eight people who can happily jump in cars at the last moment and drive off into the sunset with barely a plan are hard to find. But there we were. Four adults who could be happily, geeky together as they reuse the same adjectives over and over in their excitement…
…and four kids who can play together in a truck for hours… and hours… and hours.
Two car loads of people swapping seats and stories across Illinois.
The total eclipse was an indescribable hiccup in the Earth’s journey.
But friends…
…friends make the world go round.
John and I are mean spirited and old fashioned in our parenting and we are at our nastiest in the car where we won’t let the kids play on screens while we drive.
Clearly we are monsters.
We enforce this rule because we want the girls to grow up with the skill of being able to occupy themselves without a screen for more than five minutes without succumbing to a case of “I’m bored’s”. I do realize that this is probably a skill they will never need to use once they leave my house. That’s fine. My dad made me learn DOS, I’m just passing it on to the next generation as well as I can.
The other reason we are sticklers about this particular rule is that we are not shelling out the money to get them each some sort of handheld screened device and you know what would happen if there was only one to share…
Fighting. One screen does not divide among three girls. We know this. Oh do we know this.
Instead my poor, deprived, screen-less girls current favorite thing to do in the car is to “collect” all the edibles we drive by.
“I get this side!”
“I get this side”
“WHAT SIDE DO I GET?!?”
“I get the corn!”
“I get soybeans!”
“I get that wheat!”
“Yeah, well I get ALL the corn!”
“You can’t have ALL the corn!”
“I got those strawberry patches!”
“I DIDN’T SEE STRAWBERRIES, THAT’S NOT FAIR!”
“I got this corn too!”
“YOU HAVE TO SHARE THE CORN!”
Yes, that’s right. Currently my girls’ favorite thing to do in the car is to fight over the cornfields we drive by.
Proof that it doesn’t really matter what you do as a parent, when in the mood kids always know exactly how to push each others’ buttons.
On the bright side, it’s working – they aren’t bored.
Behind the Willows 