Author Interview, Amanda Scott ~ Scottish Historical Fiction Author

SUMMARY :  The first book in Amanda Scott’s acclaimed Dangerous series journeys from the battlefields of Waterloo to the ballrooms and boudoirs of London, where a deadly deception unfolds . . .

Engaged by proxy to a man she’s never met, Lady Daintry Tarrant is dismayed when the war hero returns, introducing himself as her fiancé, Lord Penthorpe. She cherishes her independence and has turned away many suitors, but this one she must marry. Penthorpe is completely captivated by Lady Daintry—but he’s not who he claims to be.

Penthorpe and Lord Gideon Deverill fought together at the battle of Waterloo, and when Penthorpe fell, Gideon assumed his identity in order to see the beautiful Lady Daintry. Gideon knows there’s bad blood between Lady Daintry’s family and his own, but he’s smitten with Daintry and determined to reunite the bitterly feuding clans. When a ghost from Gideon’s past appears, he could lose everything—including Daintry’s love.Publication Date: March 26, 2013
Open Road Media
eBook; 344p
ASIN: B00BPJOC40

SUMMARY :   Set in treacherous sixteenth-century Scotland, the first volume of Amanda Scott’s Border Trilogy tells the unforgettable story of a woman sworn to defy the knight she is forced to wed—only to discover a love she’ll do anything to claim

As Mary, Queen of Scots, languishes in the Tower of London as a prisoner of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, war tears Scotland apart. To save her beloved homeland, a proud Highland beauty named Mary Kate MacPherson must wage her own battle when she’s forced into wedlock with a knight, Sir Adam Douglas, from the barbaric borderland of Tornary.

Even as she succumbs to her seductive husband’s sensual demands, Mary Kate vows never to give him her heart. She will belong to no man. But Adam burns with something deeper than desire. Sworn to carry out a long-awaited revenge, he won’t rest until he has vanquished his enemies. Accused of treason, the last thing he expects is to lose his heart to the woman he’s determined to tame but never to love: his own wife.
Publication Date: March 26, 2013
Open Road Media
eBook; 344p
ASIN: B00BPJOBT6

SUMMARY :   Forbidden passion has never been more dangerous—or more irresistible—in the first novel of bestselling author Amanda Scott’s spellbinding Highland series

Scotland, 1750. In the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion, Maggie MacDrumin vows to keep fighting to liberate her people. But the intrepid Scotswoman is risking her life for a dangerous cause. When her latest mission lands her in a London courtroom on a trumped-up larceny charge, she has only one hope of survival. Enlisting the aid of Edward Carsley, the powerful fourth Earl of Rothwell, is a two-edged sword. The seductive aristocrat who awakens treacherous desire is her clan’s mortal enemy—a man she can never trust.

Edward will do whatever it takes to quell another bloody uprising. But how can he fight his passion for the rebellious Highland beauty in his safekeeping? As their lives come under siege, Maggie lays claim to the one thing Edward vowed never to surrender: his heart.
Publication Date: March 26, 2013
Open Road Media
eBook; 421p


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

 

A fourth-generation Californian of Scottish descent, Amanda Scott is the author of more than fifty romantic novels, many of which appeared on the USA Today bestseller list. Her Scottish heritage and love of history (she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in history at Mills College and California State University, San Jose, respectively) inspired her to write historical fiction. Credited by Library Journal with starting the Scottish romance subgenre, Scott has also won acclaim for her sparkling Regency romances. She is the recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award (for Lord Abberley’s Nemesis, 1986) and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. She lives in central California with her husband.

For more information on Amanda Scott’s novels, please visit the official website.


AUTHOR INTERVIEW !!!

A Bookish Libraria is proud to include the following interview with Amanda Scott today.  What an accomplished author and inspiring woman she is.  Thank you for joining us, Amanda!

1)       Tell us something about yourself, please.  How do most people describe you?

I'm a native Californian, fourth generation. I was born in Salinas, so I'm a northern Californian. I attended elementary through high school in the same town that my parents did. I also spent time on my paternal grandfather's ranch in Ukiah and at our cabin in the High Sierras near Tahoe. I was a solitary child, because my father fought in World War II (Silver Star) and then went to law school, so there is a four to eight-year gap between me and my three siblings. My imagination, even as a child, was fertile, so I peopled our house in Salinas and our apartment in San Francisco, where my dad went to law school, with three imaginary friends – Aloysius, MacGillicuddy, and one who shall remain nameless, because my cousin and I (at ages three and two, respectively) named him after a rooster that my uncle had shouted at when said rooster got under the fence into my grandmother's 'victory garden.'

 

I have a master's degree in History, specialized in British History with an emphasis on Scotland, England, and Wales. I'm married, have a son and two delightfully mischievous grandchildren, and I write full time. Twelve of my older books are now available as ebooks: Dangerous Illusions, Dangerous Games, Dangerous Angels, Dangerous Lady, Highland Fling, Highland Secrets, Highland Treasure, Highland Spirits, Border Bride, Border Fire, Border Storm, and The Bawdy Bride. The three books in my current Lairds of the Loch trilogy are my 58^th, 59^th, and 60^th books published. The first one, The Laird's Choice, is out now. The other two are finished and in production. The Knight's Temptress will come out in August, The Warrior's Bride in early 2014. A more extensive bio is on my website: www.amandascottauthor.com

 

I don't know how most people describe me. It's not something I think much about. Reviewers have been kind enough to call me brilliant, a master of the genre, knowledgeable, and many other very nice things. They have also said that I make readers feel as if they are right there, wherever my characters are, which I certainly work hard to do.

 

Library Journal credited me with inventing the Scottish historical romance, although it did take a long time to find a publisher for Border Bride. Editors kept saying they loved it but, because of the humor in the book, I should turn it into a Regency. I couldn't do that, because I had based the story on Scottish laws pertaining to women that didn't exist in England. When an editor at Dell finally bought it, the book flew off the shelves and did seem to start a new craze for Scottish tales (Diana Gabaldon's Outlander came out from Dell the following year). Nevertheless, I loved Jan Westcott's and Dorothy Dunnett's books long before I wrote anything publishable, so I'm not sure that that one will stick.

 

For whatever it's worth, I asked my husband and son to suggest words they would use to describe me. These are my husband's: "intelligent, thorough, dedicated, detail oriented, demanding (of herself), tenacious; and my son's: "Does 'my bad-ass mom', work?"; so I suggested printable words and got "imaginative, fierce, loyal, and a softy."

 

2)      Where is your favorite place to write?  Any special gimmicks, writing tools or keepsakes that you keep near you when you write…I hear authors can be superstitious!

In general, I write in my office at the computer or longhand at my son's old student desk in our spare room. In the summertime, my favorite place to write is on the porch of our old family lake cabin in the Sierras near Tahoe. The cabin lacks most amenities, including a road, sewer, electricity, and the Internet. We use a boat to get there, it's peaceful, and my companions are jays, squirrels, and the occasional drop-in neighbor. My grandparents bought the cabin when I was three, and I love it there.

 

I have a solar panel on the roof so I can use my laptop there, and at home I simply connect the laptop to a large monitor, a mouse, keyboard, and other peripherals. My office has two desks, the leather-top one that my husband bought me when I began writing and a computer desk.

 

Three walls contain bookshelves. The one in front of my computer is all bulletin board and has contained a wall size map of the city of London in Regency times and now has pictures of settings I'm using, a cartoon of my grandfather when he was in court, trying a case, and various other mementos. I spend most of my time reading, or staring at the computer screen, so my biggest enemy in my office is clutter that accumulates while I'm working.

 

I don't have any gimmicks that I can think of. My favorite writing tool is any pen that writes smoothly and without much pressure applied to it. I am not superstitious, but I am claustrophobic, so I walk every day outside on a wetland trail with birds (including egrets, pheasant, quail, and great blue herons), beasts including the occasional deer, wild turkeys, the odd bobcat or river otter), and waterfowl.

 

3)      Which contemporary authors do you most admire?

I read constantly, voraciously, probably four or five books a week if you count research. I read everything, from political, legal, and medical thrillers to romance, mysteries, science fiction, and more literary books for our book group, also plays and poetry, as well as Scottish history.

Some of my favorite authors are Lee Child, Brad Thor, Janet Evanovich, Tess Gerritson, Stephen J Cannell, Alex Kava, James Grippando, Vince Flynn, John Sandford, Lisa Scottoline, Stuart Woods, Kate Wilhelm, Thomas Perry, Steve Berry, Dana Stabenow, Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, Robert B. Parker, Daniel Silva, Elizabeth Peters, Greg Iles, Kay Hooper, Deborah Crombie, John Nance…I could go on, but these are the first ones that come to mind, so you probably get the idea.

 

4)      Which are your favorite classical authors?

Just off the top of my head, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Hawthorne, James Fennimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Zane Grey, and I tend to think of Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth, and Jan Westcott as classical authors, although all of them wrote in the twentieth century.

 

5)      Jump into any book—which character would you be?

I'm always at a loss when people ask me this question. If you mean one of my own books, I can't imagine. I'm in them, of course – at least, my mind is – when I write them, but I would not want to live in any century but the present one. Spending my summers in a rustic cabin, as I do, is enough historical living for me. I like libraries, iced mochas, and driving fast cars. Living in a drafty, smoky castle might be interesting for a sennight or so, and I love good haggis, but after that … nae, moran taing! (no, thanks.)

 

If you meant my being any character in any book, I'm still at a loss, because I simply don't think of myself as anyone else. One identifies with most characters in books as one is reading, but I don't want to live a thriller, just to read them for pleasure. Nor do I want to live anywhere else, although I love reading travel books and books set in exotic places.

 

6)      Are you working on a new book?

Always. I just finished The Warrior's Bride, which is book 3 in my Lairds of the Loch (Loch Lomond) trilogy, so I'm working on the outline for a new trilogy and a new contract. Having just done two trilogies set in the Highlands (Scottish Knights and Lairds of the Loch), I'm ready to return to the Borders for a while and perhaps continue using Scott and Douglas history for the background. I tend to move forward chronologically with the history, so I'll set the three books around 1426-1430 in James I's reign (Jamie Stewart).

 

Clan Scott and Clan Douglas figure prominently in my own heritage, so they are naturals for me. I also have connections to a number of other clans, including Jamison, Logan, and Ferguson. Once again, I plan to use real people for my two main characters, but we'll see what my editors think about that. My plan is to use the grandson of the Sir Walter Scott in Border Wedding.

 

The rub is that the Scotts seem to have used very few names for the men of our clan beyond Robert, Walter, and William. Every other generation from the beginning seems to have had a Walter Scott, right down to my grandfather, who was Russell Walter Scott and had been named after his grandfather, Walter Ferguson Scott. The Walter I have my eye on now was known in his youth as WalterKirkurd but eventually became Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch and Rankilburn. Also, like his grandfather, he married a woman named Margaret. She's easier to do than he is, because her last name was Cockburn (COE burn) and I can call her Molly (the earlier one was known as Muckle-Mouth Meg, and not only did I write about her but Sir Walter Scott the poet wrote a ballad about her).

 

So, if anyone knows a nickname for Walter other than Wat or (heaven forbid) Wally, I don't, and since editors and many readers dislike it when an author uses the same names for the heroine and hero in more than one book (unless they are the same characters as in the earlier book), I need to find a workaround. Any help resolving this dilemma will be greatly appreciated! Feel free to send suggestions to amandascott@att.net

     
Thank you for this very telling and lively interview, Amanda.  I'm working my way through your books and enjoying them thoroughly. I'm a Scottish Hendrix (or Hendricks)  who mixed with the English Riggs before coming over on one of the Plymouth Colony treks.  You can see where my love of historical fiction comes from.  It's been a pleasure to have you here today!


This tour was brought to you by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours where you can find more reviews, interviews and guest posts on these books and Amanda Scott by following this link:

http://www.hfvirtualbooktours.com


Thank you for stopping, and try Amazon for a copy of "Highland Fling" to start reading today...


Deborah/TheBookishDame

Giveaway!! "The Forgotten Queen" by D.L. Bogdan~Scotland's Queen

 

SUMMARY:

 

From her earliest days, Margaret Tudor knows she will not have the luxury of choosing a husband. Her duty is to gain alliances for England. Barely out of girlhood, Margaret is married by proxy to James IV and travels to Edinburgh to become Queen of Scotland.

Despite her doubts, Margaret falls under the spell of her adopted home. But while Jamie is an affectionate husband, he is not a faithful one. And nothing can guarantee Margaret’s safety when Jamie leads an army against her own brother, Henry VIII. In the wake of loss she falls prey to an ambitious earl and brings Scotland to the brink of anarchy. Beset by betrayal and secret alliances, Margaret has one aim—to preserve the crown of Scotland for her son, no matter what the cost…

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:
Published by:  Kensington Books
Pages:  315 plus Reading Group Guide
Genre:  Historical Fiction
For more information on D.L. Bogdan and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE. You can also find her on FACEBOOK and TWITTER.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

 

 

 

D.L. Bogdan is an ongoing student of history, musician, and avid reader who enjoys travel, the outdoors, and time with her family and friends. She is a proud wife and mother who makes her home in central Wisconsin. She is the author of Secrets of the Tudor Court, Rivals in the Tudor Court and The Sumerton Women.

THE DAME REVIEWS :

My eyes are burning and my bones are aching from staying glued to this book so many hours in the past two days!  What a wonderful walk through history and romance it is.  I was so taken up in the story from the first chapter as the young Margaret was swept by her father, Henry VII into her role as a mighty queen in purpose, to bond the great countries of England and Scotland.  Margaret was just a little girl, and her life had already become larger than imaginable.  I was breathless and anxious along with her.

D. L. Bogdan has a way of keeping the action moving while she entwines us with a perfect love story fit for the often delicate queen.  Margaret is strong in spirit, but tender of heart, that is.  And, Bogdan achieves the perfect balance of that character in her.  Mother, queen, sister and lover/wife, this Queen of the Scots is a gracious blend of womanhood.  I completely fell for her brilliance and gentleness.  As mother to the Scottish dynasty, she was loving and staunchly protective, traits that brought out the best in a young King James who was to eventually serve to unite the kingdoms of Scotland, England and France.

This is a novel written with close attention to history, but not in the least boring or difficult to glide through.  It's a glorious love story on many levels.  Bogdan is a writer of much power, and her work is both insightful and entertaining at the same time.

I strongly recommend this one to historical fiction lovers.  It's a novel that will not disappoint!

5 stars                   Deborah/TheBookishDame



This review is in conjunction with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours where you can find other reviews, interviews and guest posts on this book and the author.  Please click on the link:
 http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/d-l-bogdan-on-tour-for-the-forgotten-queen-january-21-february-1/
Twitter Hashtag: #ForgottenQueenVirtualTour

 

 

 

GIVEAWAY!!!!

 

A Giveaway of this book will be held for the month of January...ending Jan. 31st.

 

Please leave your name and email address to enter.

Also, please follow me on GFC on the sidebar!  :]

 

This is open internationally!!

 

Thanks,  Deborah

"The Flower Reader" by Elizabeth Loupas~Historical Fiction Lovers Take Note!

With a particular eye to the beauty and mystery of flowers and also an understanding of the powers they hold, young Rinette Leslie of Granmuir, Scotland becomes the unlikely and reluctant confidant of Queen Mary of Guise. But Rinette's only wish is to marry her childhood sweetheart and to return to her beloved homeland.  Instead, she's caught up in a court intrigue that will affect her life and those she loves for many years to come.

Summary:
In the sweeping new novel from the author of The Second Duchess, dangerous secrets lead a passionate young woman into a maze of murder and conspiracy as Mary, Queen of Scots, comes home to reign in a treacherously divided Scotland….

With her dying breath, Mary of Guise entrusts a silver casket to Rinette Leslie of Granmuir, who possesses the ancient gift of floromancy. Inside the casket, and meant only for the young Mary, Queen of Scots, are papers the old queen has painstakingly collected—the darkest secrets of every Scottish lord and explosive private prophecies prepared by Nostradamus. Rinette risks her life to keep the casket safe, but she makes a fatal mistake: she shows it to her beloved young husband. On the very day the young queen comes home, Rinette’s husband is brutally assassinated.

Devastated, Rinette demands justice from the queen before she will surrender the casket. Amid glittering masques and opulent weddings, courtly intrigues and Highland rebellions, the queen’s agents and Rinette herself search for the shadowy assassin. They are surrounded by ruthless men from all over Europe who will do anything to force Rinette to give up the casket—threatening her life, stripping her of her beloved castle by the sea, forcing her to marry a man she hates, and driving her from the man she has reluctantly grown to love. In the end, the flowers are all she can trust—and only the flowers will lead her safely home to Granmuir.

Publisher: New American Library
448p

Author: Elizabeth Loupas

Author's website: http://elizabethloupas.com

A Bit About the Author:

Elizabeth Loupas lives near the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. She is presently a novelist, freelance writer and amateur historian. In other times and other places she has been a radio network vice president, a reference librarian, a business-to-business magazine editor, and a tutor in English literature.

One of her passions is the art and poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites. This led her to the Rossettis and the Brownings, and the project nearest and dearest to her heart--her novel THE SECOND DUCHESS, based on Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess."

She hates housework, cold weather, and wearing shoes. She loves animals, gardens, and popcorn. Not surprisingly she lives in a state of happy barefoot chaos with her delightful and faintly bemused husband (the Broadcasting Legend), her herb garden, her popcorn popper, and two beagles.

You can find Ms Loupas's blog at:  http://www.elizabethloupas.com/blog/

*Note:  You'll find some more very interesting things here about "The Flower Reader" and a experience the very active sense of humor of Ms Loupas!!  :]

The Dame's Review:

I enjoyed this book immensely.  From start to finish I found Rinnette one of the most engaging and feisty of heroines historical fiction has offered in a good while.  There are many strong historical women characters in recent historical fiction I've had the pleasure of reading, and I'm not meaning to take my praise from them. However, the character of Rinnette bursts forth from the start, showing her strong resolve to keep herself, her loved ones, her property and her resolve under murderous pressures!  I loved her brave spirit and her willingness to stare down death and queens despite her youth, power and lack of weapons.  Because of this beautiful, mystically talented and unabashedly strong woman this novel is one of my favorite historical novels this season.

Rinnette is a brilliant character who will endear herself to readers and keep you hungry to finish her story.

Played out on the world stage of the courts where such historic figures reigned such as Queen Mary of Guise, Mary Queen of Scots and the Scottish clans...not to mention such notables as Nostradamus,

Elizabeth Queen of England, and Catherine de Medicis, this is a tapestry of time and

intrigue that is absorbing in and of itself.  Elizabeth Loupas has then laid a set of secrets and mysteries that rival the CIA!  It's a plot that kept me reading, and that moved at a steady, rapid pace. 

I appreciated her writing style and her development of a world within the real world with adjunct characters that didn't really exist but seemed plausible!

The relationships between her characters; Rinnette with her husband and her children, for instance, was palpable, striking at my heart strings.  I felt a deep sense of loss with her at times, and a joy at other times.  Ms Loupas has a strong gift of portraying emotion and personal relationships that gives her book depth and character. 

I really loved the element of the flowers and Rinnettes "reading" of them at every bend as she encountered friend and foe.  This added a dimension to the book unlike any other historical fiction I'd read, obviously!  In her section at the back of the book, Ms Loupas is interviewed about this element and she gives the history behind flower "discernment."  I found it fascinating.  The connection with herbal healing as we know it today and our use of "diffusion" for different states of relaxation and such, show us some small connection to the practice Rinnette must have been using. 

On a deeper level, and with a immediate mystical response, Rinnette was a master "flower reader" foretelling the future constantly...it was so exciting to read this part of Elizabeth Loupas's story.

In summary, a great book of historical fiction which I absolutely adored reading.  I highly recommend it to all lovers of the genre, and to others of you who are thinking of taking a step into historical fiction.  It is a mystical, feminist, mystery and family dynamic of a book.  Great reading!

5 stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame

This book is brought to you on tour in connect with:

To follow the tour please go to:  http://hfvirtualbooktours.blogspot.com/2012/03/elizabeth-loupas-on-tour-for-flower.html

To purchase this book go to:  Amazon.com