Pick a City for Romance! Annie West



As you know from my blogs, and hopefully my books, location is incredibly important to me. Whether it's a coastal area or mountain locale, or a rambling old house, or a city, I usually find at least one location in every book really 'speaks' to me as I write. That location is as important as another character to the development of my story and the way my characters interact.  I've had heroines who've struggled on dairy farms or found themselves in windswept deserts or isolated castles! But sometimes a city location is just right for a story. For instance, my current one, THE FLAW IN RAFFAELE'S REVENGE takes place in New York, as well as in country Australia and the Caribbean. My lucky characters - they really can be jets-setters!

 





 

Most of the time I don't deliberately set out to choose a location for a story, it chooses me. That's what happened with New York in FLAW, when I wanted a place as far from rural Australia (where Lily lives when the story opens) as I could get. And with Sao Paolo in Brazil for DAMASO CLAIMS HIS HEIR when Marisa finds herself unexpectedly pregnant to the most dangerous man she's ever met. And the quaint old city of Prague in Europe seemed the perfect place for Flynn and Ava to marry in THE SINNER'S MARRIAGE REDEMPTION.

 

 

A VOW TO SECURE HIS LEGACY is about a woman who believes she only has months to live. She decides to experience life to the full, and so of course, she includes Paris on her bucket list, where she meets a suave, charismatic Frenchman who turns her expectations on her head.

 

 

When I needed a palatial inner city apartment for a man intent on revenge against his English father, it seemed natural Rafe would move to London in RAFE'S REDEMPTION. I loved the glamour of that city as a backdrop to the tension between Rafe and Antonia, the woman he blackmails into being his mistress.



Some books almost grow from their setting. I knew from the first that SEDUCING HIS ENEMY'S DAUGHTER would be set in Sydney, and that sun would shine on the harbour, making it look it's spectacular best.

Right now I'm considering writing a few more of my HOT ITALIAN NIGHTS novellas and Venice is a distinct possibility for a setting. After all, it's such a romantic city and I was lucky enough to visit in the last couple of year so I have a good feel for the location.

So now it's your turn. I'd love to hear what city or cities you think might make a good setting for a romance. So much the better if it's one I haven't mentioned.

I'm giving away a copy of my first HOT ITALIAN NIGHTS novella: BACK IN THE ITALIAN'S BED to someone who comments. Do come back later to check the name of the winner - I'll post it in the comments section.

Sarah Morgan: A Tale of Three Cities

I find it hard to decide whether I’m a country girl or a city girl. I love to spend time in the mountains or at the beach, but I also love the buzz, excitement and opportunities of a city.

I live near London and have worked in the city at various points of my life so I know it well.  London is rich in history and culture. We have some of the best museums in the world and I have spent hours at the Natural History Museum with my two sons admiring the dinosaurs, gazed at the Egyptian mummies and the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum and marveled at the Apollo 10 Command Module in the Science Museum. I love to stroll along the river, particularly the South Bank which is always vibrant. On a sunny day it’s a glorious walk, and you can enjoy the sparkle of the water while taking in many famous sights including The Globe Theatre and St Paul’s Cathedral. For a stroll mixed with some shopping, I love the cobbled streets of Covent Garden which has great cafes, talented street entertainers and of course the famous Royal Opera House.  On a sunny day, I think London might be my favorite city, and then I remember Paris……

Paris is famous for its iconic architecture, stylish shopping and of course food. It’s a mere two hours train ride from London, which makes it perfect for a romantic weekend. Stroll along the banks of the Seine and you’ll pass palaces, lush gardens and flower markets.  If you don’t feel like walking then join a boat tour and glide under the bridges while admiring some of Paris’s most famous landmarks, from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame.  If you make it as far as Notre Dame then drop in to the famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Co. Take the stairs up to the top floor and curl up with a book.  The place has a magical atmosphere. When I’m walking through the leafy Tuileries Gardens that stretch between the famous Louvre Museum and the Place de la Concorde, I think Paris might be my favorite city, and then I remember New York……

New York has an energy and vibrancy all of its own, which is why I decided to set my new series there. Arriving in New York for the first time (and the second time and possibly the third!) is like stepping onto a movie set. Whether you choose to explore the expanse of Central Park or admire the iconic view from the top of the Rockefeller Center, there is something for everyone in this city. If you’re in a romantic mood you can sip champagne on the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum while admiring the skyline and the views over Central Park, or head to Brooklyn and walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan at sunset.

If you feel like a dose of city excitement without leaving the comfort of your sofa, then take a look at my brand new series, From Manhattan with Love.  The first book, Sleepless in Manhattan, is out now.

Falling For The Freemans By Kate Hewitt

I’m so excited to share my new series, Falling For The Freemans, with readers. The idea for this series actually came to me about ten years ago, when my husband and I was driving through Upstate New York on the way to my parents’ house in Canada. We unfortunately had engine trouble, and went off the highway in search of a garage. We drove through a town that looked as if it had once been a tourist destination, with beautiful old Victorian houses and a lovely village green and bandstand, but with a forgotten, dilapidated air over everything that made me curious. What had happened to this town, and why wasn’t it still a popular tourist destination, like other towns in the Thousand Islands region? I answer that question in my series, set in the fictional town of Creighton Falls, and the first novella in it, Falling For Christmas, came out  on November 9.

Falling for Christmas is Hannah Ford and Sam Taylor’s story. Hannah is a New Yorker running away from a Christmas house party where her snide ex unexpectedly showed up. Sam is the strong, silent type who has no idea what to do with a glamorous city girl. Fortunately they figure something out over a very special Christmas! And during her stay in Creighton Falls Hannah learns about the Freeman family, who once ran the town as well as the huge hotel on the village green, empty and abandoned for twenty years, ever since Peter Freeman fell through the ice and drowned in a fishing accident.

The next three books in the series, Falling Hard, Falling Fast, and Falling Forever, have a Freeman brother as the hero of each story. Each brother has had a different experience of and reaction to his father’s death, and what happened on that awful day. Each one will have to return to Creighton Falls and face his past and deal with his secrets. And meanwhile Creighton Falls will finally get the facelift it deserves.

I hope you enjoy Falling For The Freemans. I’m giving away one e-copy of Falling For Christmas—just leave a comment below, telling me what you think of small town series.

Happy Reading,

Kate

Patty Blount: Evolving Holiday Traditions

When I was little, Christmas Eve was always spent with my dad’s family and Christmas Day with my mom’s.  And this worked well for many years because back then, only the dads drove and everyone lived close by. But soon, things changed.  My parents divorced. My relatives on my dad’s side of the family didn’t invite us over anymore.  I met my husband and his family had their own traditions to follow, so there was a blending of ideals and favorite activities. We had our own children and for them, created new things that they soon cherished as tradition.

I’ve always found it intriguing how some traditions endure while others fade away. Have  you noticed how many traditions are connected to people?  So many traditions are our way of honoring those no longer with us. My mom’s parents lived just a few blocks away from us so every Sunday, we had a big family dinner. It was always an Italian dinner with antipasto, some form of pasta and meatballs, followed by salad. Italians tend to eat salad after their meal. After dinner, the adults would play Italian card games, whose rules I no longer remember because this tradition died when my grandparents did.

My mother is also gone now. December is always when I miss her most. Her birthday was December 30^th and Christmas was her favorite holiday. We used to have these epic baking weekends, baking up trays of cookies to give out as gifts. I still do this every year, though that tradition came very close to ending, too.

Right after Mom passed away, my sister and I were planning the after-funeral menu. I said I’d bake her favorite Italian rainbow cookies. You’ve seen these in bakeries – the ones with the red, yellow, and green layers. She gave me her recipe years ago and I made a mistake following it. The recipe calls for almond paste, but I used almost filling, not knowing there was a difference. People tend to like my cookies better than Mom’s and this really bothered her. *laughs* We didn’t discover my error for about ten years, when she happened to be at my house while I baked them.  I continued to bake them ‘wrong’ ever since. Well, at the funeral, my sister made a comment that so upset me, I swore I’d never bake them again. She claimed Mom never liked my cookies; she was just humoring me.  I didn’t make them the first year after she passed away, but I do bake them every year now.  Whether she liked them or not doesn’t really matter. It’s simply the act of baking them that connects me back to her and to one of our happier moments. I’m glad I decided not to let my sister’s comment ruin that moment.

The Rainbow cookies make an appearance in my latest book, Goodness and Light, book 4 in the Christmas in New York series from Tule. Main character Elena lost her mother, too. Like me, Elena got the recipe from her mom. There are so many traditions we allow to die for silly reasons – we’re too busy, we’re mad at certain people, and so on. Thankfully, we preserve a lot of traditions too – simply by amending them, tweaking them to fit a little easier into our lives at this moment.

That’s what it’s about – moments.

New York! New York! : : Anne McAllister

In the interests of research, I went to New York City a week and a half ago.

I am gearing up to write a Christmas-in-New-York book for a story that’s been brewing in my head for a good long time. But it’s been a far longer time since I had actually spent time in New York before the holidays.  So I thought a refresher  course of a few days in the city was in order.  That these few days happened to coincide with Hugh Jackman’s one-man Broadway show was fortuitous indeed.

So . . . I went. I refreshed. I experienced lots of good stuff that gave me ideas for my book. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes.  And Hugh. Definitely Hugh.

And I’ve come home with plenty of memories.  But one thing that stands out – besides Hugh – is how incredibly nice and thoughtful and pleasant everyone was.

From the taxi driver who drove us into the city from LaGuardia and who wrestled a very heavy suitcase up a flight of stairs (unasked and already tipped, so he didn’t need to) to the one who drove us back to the airport six days later, but who asked us before we got in the cab if we were in a hurry because, if we didn’t mind, he had to go a few blocks out of our way to drop off a camera to someone who’d left it in his cab, every person we had contact with was pretty much unstereotypically delightful.

Now, I’m not a big believer in the ‘brusque, sarcastic, can’t be bothered New Yorker” stereotype in the first place. But at this time of year, when people are normally more frazzled and harried than usual, it was a delight it was to run into so many people who were thoughtful and generous. Whether it was squashing more closely together on the subway  to offer us a place to sit or digging through their billfold in Macy’s to provide a coupon for a discount on a sweater, or offering tips on shopping when they were sharing our table at a fast food restaurant, New Yorkers were unfailingly kind and almost, dare I say, unhurried. 

They were great.

I think I promised last month to say where we went and what we did while we were there.  So here’s the recap.

We walked all over and absorbed sights, smells, sounds. The Christmas trees on the corners were lovely and fragrant, and we delighted in seeing them wheeled in shopping carts to nearby brownstones. We did wonder, though, who was going to lug them up the four flights of stairs.

We went to the Frick Museum which I love because it’s small enough that my feet don’t hurt by the time I’m done wandering through it, and the collection is small enough that I can actually remember paintings. They don’t all blend together in some artistic brain blur.  We went to the planetarium and saw the Journey to the Stars program.  Pretty impressive.  I liked it a lot, even if I came away with a stiff neck!

We ambled through the Natural History Museum, spend a bit of time in the New-York Historical Society, spent an evening in Chinatown (great soup dumplings!) and wandered past the big department stores to ogle the lavish animated Christmas windows.

We went to the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side, and shopped at one of the very best Museum stores I’ve had the pleasure to visit.  We crossed Delancey and sipped tea at the Starbucks and watched the rain pour down outside. Then we walked through it across Manhattan and caught a bus back up to the Upper West Side. 

We went to Macy’s.  We rode the escalators up and up and up. Then down, and felt sorry for the employees whose job was to stand there and say to everyone who descended, “Watch your step.”  But it was personal, and appreciated, where those recordings at the end of moving sidewalks in airports are somehow not quite so personal – or appreciated.

And we saw Hugh.

If you want more about Hugh, you’ll have to go over to the Pink Heart Society blog and scroll back to Monday where I wrote the Male on Monday piece this week. 

Suffice to say, we had a good time otherwise, I got a lot of research done, but if I had gone looking for a hero, well, that one afternoon would have done the trick.

All in all, a great trip. Thank you New York. Thank you, New Yorkers. 

I love your city. I feel like it’s my city, too. It definitely will be my city as I finish the book I am working on now and get going on the Christmas one to come.

Hugh was glad to be back on Broadway.  I am just so glad to be back in the city itself!

The Chocolate Tour : : Anne McAllister

Last month when I wrote my column here I was just about to head off to spend a week in New York City.

The one thing I knew I would be doing was attending a wedding. I fully expected to get lots of lovely research for my upcoming books from that experience -- and I am not disappointed.

But I was going to be there several more days and I wanted to get some research in. It was not specific to a particular story as the research I did in September was when I went there to spend time at Columbia University and get a feel for what my hero might be doing there (he taught physics after doing something far more dangerous in his previous life).

No, this time I was was trolling for future ideas -- sort of deliberately looking for those "ideas" that are everywhere that we authors ostensibly have no trouble finding when we are "getting our ideas."

Pretty much that's true. But sometimes a bit of judicious seeking out of venues and wandering around in neighborhoods primes the authorial pump, so to speak.

This time as no different.

One of the things I mentioned last month was that there were lots of walking tours of New York available.

Whatever you might think you are interested in about New York City, chances are someone has developed a walking tour that will help you learn more about it.

My friend Nancy and I had no trouble deciding which tour caught our eye. I mean, revolutionary war New York and Mark Twain's New York and The Ladies' Mile are all well and good. But really, would you take them instead of The Chocolate Tour?

No. Me, neither.

So we didn't. And bright and semi-early on Saturday morning we headed south to meet our guide and find out about some of the interesting specialty chocolatiers in Soho, Tribeca and the West Village.

As luck would have it, it was a blustery cold but clear day. A day in which 8 million or so other people had other things to do than go on chocolate tours. So Nancy and I got our very own guided tour -- just us!

We started out at Jacques Torres' shop in the West Village. It was the week before Easter and everyone at Jacques Torres's shop was in high gear preparing of the biggest weekend of the year. The bunnies were amazing. The baskets were beautiful. The chocolate was intense. We got a couple of deliberately chosen pieces which we took home to divide and savor. We were also given a small cup of extremely high content cocoa (like 68% as I recall) made with milk. It was powerful stuff.

But the most memorable part of Jacques Torres's shop was his take on Peeps.

They were dipped in chocolate, decorated with bow ties and dots for buttons and called Chirp N Dales. They were not only handsome, they were (trust me) delicious!

I didn't eat my Chirps there. I took them home with me. I might have left them to petrify on my kitchen shelf (next to my glass bottle of CocaCola from the 100th anniversary of the death of Judge Isaac Parker -- the hangin' judge -- of Fort Smith, Arkansas -- don't ask -- but the bottle has a longer shelf life than a bunch of peeps. And really, who could resist?)

Our guide, who was doing his first time at this particular tour himself, was a chef and had some interesting things to say about chocolate as we wandered from Jacques' across the bottom of Manhattan, stopping at a tiny Korean chocolate shop where five people could not fit in at the same time.

The owner and chocolatier was there to talk a bit about the very small batches of intense chocolates that she makes. And we chose, as a part of our bounty, a "creme brulee" chocolate that she insisted we would not be able to split.

"It is a single mouthful. It's too liquid. You will not be able to share it," she said.

But we brought it home, frozen it overnight, and split it very nice the next day. We are nothing if not resourceful. It was absolutely ambrosial.

Our next stop was a far cry from the tiny Korean shop. It looked positively European. Marie Belle's is full of exquisite chocolates of all descriptions, many decorated with tiny individual designs made by the her husband, a graphic artist. The rows of gaily colored chocolates in old-fashioned glass display cases were as visually appealing as they were mouth-watering.

We chose chocolates infused with saffron and cardamom, and had another with a hint of dulce de leche and one with lemon. Here we also got our second taste of hot chocolate -- this a 70% cacao mixture made with water. Definitely intense. It still raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

We also went back after the tour and had lunch at the small dining room in the back of Marie Belle's. Not chocolate, but definitely highly recommended. It was a treat.

A few blocks further on we were introduced to another chocolatier who introduced us to bacon and chocolate. Sounds rather weird, but was surprisingly tasty. Though I must admit that I was fonder of their take on what I would call English toffee.

The last stop was a little cheesecake factory -- not chocolate at all. But what they did with chocolate had to be tasted to be believed. We each got to pick a small one to take home. Nancy had one with all sorts of chocolate on it -- I think it was referred to as a "Rocky Road" cheesecake (though I don't remember marshmallow).

Mine was a key lime with white chocolate. I am not really a huge fan of cheesecake, but this could seriously have made me think I'd died and gone to heaven.

What exactly I'm going to do with all this wonderful information in a book remains to be seen. But I am confident I'll think of something.

I'm thinking a Chirp N Dale would make a good hero.

On the Road Again : : Anne McAllister

This winter has been something of a blur due to circumstances beyond my control. Life is often like that and being able to roll with the punches is a good thing. I've rolled. And rolled.

Eventually things settled down. Time passed. And I realized a couple of days ago that, amazingly enough, I'm going out of town next week. I'd pretty much forgotten!

Usually I spend a lot of time thinking about traveling -- where I'm going, what I can do and see there. I wallow in guidebooks. I prowl the internet. I love reading about places I'm going and making tentative plans. And even when it's somewhere I consider a second home, I still like to think about it ahead of time.

Next week I'm' going to New York City for a wedding. This is something like a second home for me.

But even so, I wanted to wallow. There was no time.

Back when I first planned it, I did check to see what else might be happening in the city at the time -- and I booked a ticket to a play. That would be to see Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson in A View from the Bridge.

But then life got in the way (my mother got very ill, needed hospitalization several times and three changes of abode, but is now thriving, thank God). I promptly forgot about the wedding, the trip, the play -- the book I was supposed to start writing.

But now life has mellowed again for the moment.

The date of departure is almost here and I have yet to wallow. I haven't even really given it much thought. But I'm going to be gone six days. And while I've been to New York enough that for years I actually had a pediatrician for my kids there and a neighborhood pharmacy that knew their allergies -- I haven't been back a lot recently.

I did go and see Hugh and Dan (yes, Jackman and Craig) when they were doing A Steady Rain last September. I was there researching my George-the-physicist-hero research at Columbia, and they happened (fortuitously) to be on Broadway at the same time. But George is in production and Hugh and Dan have moved on to other projects.

So, I ask you -- what -- besides the wedding -- should I do?

Ideas? Suggestions?

What are your favorite things to do in New York? Or if you've never been there -- what would you do if you could go?

Are there plays you've been to that I ought to see? Movies you recommend that won't come to the sticks (where I live)?

Museums? Galleries? Walking tours? Street fairs?

Things I haven't even thought of yet?

Please save me from having to wander around aimlessly lfor the better part of a week.

I always have a great time in NYC -- but I know it will be even greater if you share ideas. And I'd love to be able to report back next month on your suggestions. And incidentally, I might see if I can figure out another book to set there as well.

Grandma and the Prince - Part 5 (Barbara Bretton)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


Do you remember those old B-movie westerns? They were TV staples when I was a kid. The good guys wore white hats; the bad guys wore black. You cheered the heroes and hissed at the villains and you never for a second questioned who was right and who was wrong. You just knew.

Too bad life isn't like that. One of the things I've discovered as I dig back into my Grandma El's life is that there are shades of grey everywhere I look and nobody left to help shine some light in the dark corners.

According to the story my Grandma El told me, her father was a ladies man. "A divil of a man," she called him and I'm not sure whether or not it was a compliment. She claimed her mother gave as good as she got and for my great-grandmother Nell's sake, I hope she did.

Sometime around 1904 when my grandmother was 4 years old, her father Charley did something so dastardly, so unforgivable, that he had to take his family and leave England for New Zealand. (Let's face it: you couldn't get much farther away from home, could you?) Although he had been born into money, he'd apparently squandered his share and couldn't afford passage for his wife and three kids so he turned to the family at Sea View for help.

I've warned you that the Dimlers weren't exactly the Waltons, right? Well, great-grandpa Charley "sold" his eldest child, Edith, to relatives at Sea View for enough money to get him to New Zealand and set himself up with his own butcher shop.

I know. It boggles the mind. Poor Dede was only seven years old at the time, a tall gangly introspective blond in a family of short and boisterous redheads. Can you imagine how she felt when her parents and siblings sailed away? (Actually I know how she felt and will tell you next month.)

I've often wondered why my great-grandfather chose New Zealand. Out of all the places in the world, why such a far away (and beautiful) country? And why didn't I ever ask my grandmother that question?

They settled down in Auckland, in a small house on Ponsonby Road that my grandmother loved.
The photos are front and back of a "real photo" postcard my Charley sent to Dede from New Zealand. Unfortunately Grandma El glued the postcard into an album so much of the message on the back was lost.

The postcards lead me to believe that Dede had been left in her grandfather's care, something that makes my blood run cold. Her life must have been something out of a Gothic novel. Not so Grandma El's life. She loved every second of their ten years in New Zealand. Decades later, she glowed when she talked about the beauty and freedom of the place. (She claimed her best friends were neighboring Maori kids but I'm not sure that wasn't wishful thinking on her part.)

In 1914 Charley ran out of money and into trouble again and packed up the family for the return trip to England.

He didn't stay long. In 1916 the entire family, Dede included, was on its way to America.

Here are Grandma El's words, transcribed from a tape I made of her during the summer of 1976: "We came back to England when I was 14. They were broke and in disgrace. We stayed at Sea View for two years. Oh, Barbara, the things people thought! The Germans were the enemy and someone said my grandfather was signalling them with secret messages and people threw rocks at us and set fire to the house. We were hated by the town. You don't know what it was like . . . the bombs . . . the fires . . . the zeppelins overhead . . . terrible . . . terrible. Then he decided we were going to America. It was 1916. The War was still on but he had to go. We made the trip on an American ship. We stopped in the middle of the Atlantic with our engines off on account of the submarines everywhere. I remember that only the American flags on the ship saved us.

"I remember it was hot, so hot, when we reached New York. We didn't waste any time getting jobs. The second day our parents said, 'Find work," and we didn't know anything. I was brought up rich. I couldn't do anything. So I found a job as a nursemaid for a rich Jewish family on Central Park West. I took care of their little girl and the mother used to say to her, 'Now you should learn to speak like Elsie -- cahn't, tomahto' and I would feel so good to be appreciated.

"We used to go--I can see it now--to the swanky shops like B. Altman on Fifth Avenue. She had a chauffeur and a limousine and I would sit in the rear and I can still see him placing the fur robes over the madam and the girl. But not me. It wasn't done. I told them that I'd had servants too but who knows if they believed me. I was just a green kid.

"One day I left them. I don't know why. I just left. I didn't know any better. [silence] You don't know what it was like to come here . . . everything so big . . . so much . . . all the food and stores and people. I loved it from the first."

And then the unthinkable happened: Charley died of a heart attack at 47 years of age.

May 2, 1922
(from)
AVOCA
22 Ashfield Rd
Aigburt (?)
Liverpool

Mrs. Dimler, our united and heartfelt sympathy go out to all of you in your dreadfully sudden Bereavement. It was a bombshell to me and tears trickled down my face whilst reading the sad news to the rest of the family at the Breakfast table.

May God be with you in this your hour of trial.

Margaret is away at Chester - and we wrote her the sad tidings. She replied immediately - sending her love and sympathy.

Now as regards Charley's affairs under his late mother's will -- you may rest assured that your interested will be carefully guarded by the Enors. It is a pity Charley did not make a will - especially as he wrote me regarding in his very last letter. You may have possibly read my reply to it - stating that the balance eventually due to him after meeting his legal liabilities is somewhere around about 150 pounds - perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less.

I presume Charley was still a British subject at the time of his death - if so this money will be disbursed according to British law. If on the other hand he was a naturalized American (and I never heard anything) then I must have documentary evidence of this fact and a letter from a New York Notary Public direct - stating American law on this point. You quite understand, don't you, that if Charley was not an American then all this red tape business and expense will be unnecessary. So please write me by return so we may put things in order. Also please thank Cassy for his very feeling letter.

With kind regards to all of you we remain yours in sympathy,
The Ludeck Family

----
To be continued.

PS: I'm Barbara Bretton and you can find me here and here and here. My next book, LACED WITH MAGIC, will be released in August. I hope you'll watch for it.