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SAXXONS in WITHERSTON: Witherston Murder Mystery by Betty Jean Craige – Cozy Mystery, Women Sleuths, Multiculturalism/Family Drama

In 1968, Tyrone Lewis was murdered by KKK members for daring to love Allie Camhurst, a white preacher’s daughter. Tyrone and Allie had secretly been dating for months, and when Allie discovered she was pregnant, the two planned to elope when four men in white robes and hoods stabbed Tyrone and raped Allie. Fearing for her life, Allie escaped her hometown of Witherston, Georgia, and began a new life with a new identity.

Fifty years later, Witherston is again the scene of what appears to be a racially-motivated murder, but this time Crockett Wood, a member of a white supremacist group known as the Saxxons, has been shot to death. The killing comes hard on the heels of a controversial decision by the Witherston town council which recently voted to make Witherston a sanctuary city, taking in and aiding illegal aliens by refusing to cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and drawing criticism both within and without. This small town becomes split along racial lines, and tensions boil over as the past and the present collide when Dr. Charlotte “Lottie” Byrd, a retired college professor, opens her own investigation into Tyrone’s case and finds its twisted connection to Wood’s recent murder.

The fictional town of Witherston, Georgia, is an American patchwork quilt of diversity, and racism plays a prominent role. From a native Cherokee village to same-sex couples who call the small town home, Witherston is a celebration of heterogeneity, a microcosm for modern America. Though the majority of citizens feel their community is advanced and forward-thinking, it becomes clear that prejudice is not dead when the Saxxons threaten the town – mirroring events occurring in America in recent times. As the threats become more vicious, the Witherstonians must decide whether to let the hate of some overwhelm the lives of all. A clear message emerges in the attitude of characters like Lottie, Beau Lodge, and the Arroyo twins. Despite the hate-spewing white supremacists, the townspeople band together and choose happiness and unity over fear and factions.

Lottie’s nephews, Jaime, and Jorge Arroyo, and their friend Beau Lodge are the true champions of the novel both literally and figuratively. As biracial millennials, these seventeen-year-olds represent all that is good in ignoring racial distinctions and, instead, celebrating those differences. The boys are smart and clever and most importantly, courageous in the face of prejudice. It is through that bravery that the culminating events occur.

Saxxons in Witherston is sure to find its audience among those who enjoy history, as the author has done her research, and fans of the Witherston Murder Mystery series.

June 20, 2019
Got GOETHE? by Kiffer Brown
I became familiar with him because of the attachment that I have for the following quote of his when I was in high school. I try to live my life by it. But I must confess, when I first saw it, even though it resonated with me, I really had no idea who Goethe was—besides someone’s name to remember on a history exam.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Goethe

Fast forward to 2015…as many of you know, we named the post-1750s historical fiction book awards division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was born at the dawn of the new era of enlightenment on August 28, 1749.

Goethe is considered to be the last true polymath.

His collected works comprise of one hundred and forty-three volumes including Faust, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, and The Sorrows of Young Werther. More than 10,000 letters and 3,000 drawings of his are extant.

Goethe as a young man

“Goethe’s company could be exhausting. One minute he would be reciting Scottish ballads, quoting long snatches from Voltaire, or declaiming a love poem he had just made up; the next, he would be smashing the crockery or climbing the Brocken mountain through the fog. ” Super Goethe by Ferdinand Mount

“His lifetime, spanning some of the most monumental disruptions in modern history, is referred to as a single whole, the Goethezeit, or Age of Goethe.” The New Yorker magazine, Adam Kirch Feb. 1, 2016

Goethe (1828)

Some events that occurred during Goethe’s lifetime
- 1750 – The Industrial Revolution began in England
- 1756 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg Austria
- 1761 – The problem of calculating longitude while at sea was solved by John Harrison
- 1765 – James Watts perfects the steam engine
- 1770 – Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany
- 1774 – Goethe’s romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, propels him into European fame
- 1774 – Goethe’s play Gotz von Berlichingen, a definitive work of Sturm und Drang premiers in Berlin
- 1776 – America’s 13 Colonies declare independence from England. Battles ensue.
- 1776 – Adam Smith publishes the Wealth of Nations (the foundation of the modern theory of economics)
- 1776 – The Boulton and Watt steam engines were put to use ushering in the Industrial Revolution
- 1783 – The Hot Air Balloon was invented by the Montgolfier brothers in France.
- 1786 – Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart premiered in Vienna
- 1789 – George Washington is elected the first president of the United States of America
- 1780 – Antoine Lavoisier discovers the Law of Conservation of Mass
- 1789 – The French Revolution started in Bastille
- 1791 – Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man
- 1792 – Napolean begins his march to conquer Europe
- 1799 – Rosetta Stone discovered in Egypt
- 1802 – Beethoven created and performed The Moonlight Sonata
- 1802 – A child’s workday is limited to twelve hours per day by the British parliament when they pass their first Factory Act
- 1804 – Napolean has himself proclaimed Emperor of France
- 1808 – Atomic Theory paper published by John Dalton
- 1811 – Italian chemist Amedeo Avogadro publishes a hypothesis, about the number of molecules in gases, that becomes known as Avogadro’s Law
- 1811 – Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously. It was critically well-received
- 1814 – Steam driven printing press was invented which allowed newspapers to become more common
- 1818 – Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein
- 1832 – Goethe’s Faust, Parts 1 & 2 are published posthumously (March 22, 1832)
Goethe Haus & Museum
Frankfurt am Main

Argus (my husband) and I had the fortunate opportunity to visit the house that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was born in at Frankfurt am Main. (Afterall, I am a Goethe fangirl.) He was born into a rich family that was a pillar in the middle-class world of one of the rare republics at the time that was virtually a self-governing city-state.* His family’s wealth allowed him to indulge in bourgeois pursuits such as writing plays and studying alchemy.

The house where Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main

A photo of a few books from Goethe’s collection on display at the house where he grew up

As to how to pronounce his name, well that is a conundrum. I’ve been told about thirty different ways of how to correctly pronounce Goethe and about twelve of these hail from a late night in a German stueble where the other patrons ( all Germans) conflicted adamantly with each other’s “correct pronunciation.” Nevertheless, here is a handy link about how to pronounce his name correctly—at least in one viewpoint.

And why was he selected to represent the post-1750’s historical fiction writing competition of the Chanticleer International Book Awards?

Why, indeed!

Many historians consider 1750 to be a pivotal date in the history of humankind–in both Western and Eastern history. There are several movements that shaped this new era. Prior to 1750, monarchy was the prevailing form of government. “Citizenry” (as opposed to being a “subject”) was a radical new concept that was taking root due to the British Colonies in America revolting against the British monarchy. The concept that individuals were not just “subjects” of a monarchy, but humans with inalienable rights spread like wildfire throughout Europe leading, to the French Revolution. The 1750s brought about a completely new way of thinking about governance. With this came the concept of the right to own private property rather than being “entrusted” with it by royalty and subjected to the whims of the monarch granting the property.

Liberty Guiding the People by Eugene Delacroix

Secondly, the Secular Revolution with its scientific enlightenment began to take hold in the mid-1700s as an accepted way to see and understand the Universe and our place within it. For the first time in recorded human history, the cultural concepts of religious dominance and doctrine were being challenged. The 1750s brought us the Age of Enlightenment.

John Harrison’s Marine Timekeeper for Longitude Calculations

Next, the first phase of the Industrial Revolution (1750 – 1914) was brought about by the harnessing of the energy of coal and steam rather than biomass energy (humans and animal muscle power). This lead to mass migrations of humans escaping famine, poverty, and intolerance to take place for the first time in history. Railroads and trains, and steamships, as well as sailing ships with more dependable navigational tools such as the marine chronometer that allowed for safer passage across the oceans, made the migrations possible.

“Goethe was a contemporary of thinkers—Kant, Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt—who carried out an intellectual revolution that is at the basis of most modern thinking about religion, art, society, and thought itself. He knew most of these people well, furthered the careers of several of them, promoted many of their ideas, and expressed his reaction to them in his literary works.

The age they helped to make was an age dominated by the idea of freedom, of individual self-determination, whether in the intellectual and moral sphere or in practical politics—the age both of German Idealism and of the American and French revolutions.

If there is a single theme running through Goethe’s huge and varied literary output, it is his reflection on subjectivity—his showing how in ever-changing ways we make our own selves, the world we inhabit, and the meaning of our lives. Yet he also shows how, without leaving that self-made world, we collide all the time with the reality of things.” Written by Nicholas Boyle for Britannica (2016)

And now back to the Goethe Book Awards for post-1750s Historical Fiction, a division of the CIBAs.

We wish to congratulate 2018’s Goethe Book Awards Grand Prize Winner –

The Lost Years of Billy Battles by Ronald E. Yates

Billy Battles is as dear and fascinating a literary friend as I have ever encountered. I learned much about American and international history, and you will too if you read any or all of the books. Each is an independent work, but if read in relation to the others, the reader experiences that all too rare sense of complete transport to another world, one fully realized in these pages because the storytelling is so skillful and thoroughly captivating. Trust me; you’ll want to read all three volumes. Chanticleer Reviewer’s Note

Please visit this link to read the entire Chanticleer Review of this Goethe Book Awards Grand Prize Winner that also earned the OVERALL BEST BOOK of the CIBAS! https://www.chantireviews.com/2018/07/13/the-lost-years-of-billy-battles-book-3-in-the-finding-billy-battles-trilogy-by-ronald-e-yates-historical-fiction-literary-action-adventure/

To learn more about Ronald E. Yates, please click on this link: https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/04/11/ronald-e-yates-award-winning-author-professor-foreign-correspondent-panel-moderator-and-interviewer-at-cac19/

Congratulations to the 2018 Goethe Book Awards First Place Category Winners!
- - The Muse of Fire by Carol M. Cram
    
    Mist-chi-mas: A Novel of Captivity by J.L. Oakley
    
    The River by Starlight by Ellen Notbohm
    
    Anna’s Home by Rosalind Spitzer
    
    None of Us the Same by Jeffrey K. Walker
    
    Behind the Scarlet Letter by Patricia Suprenant
    
    The Pear Tree by K. M. Sandrick
The deadline for entering manuscripts and recently published works into the 2019 Goethe Book Awards is JUNE 30, 2019. For more information, please click here:

https://www.chantireviews.com/services/Late-Historical-Fiction-Writing-Contest-Chanticleer-Book-Reviews-p57936173

To learn more about the 2019 CIBAs, please click here: https://www.chantireviews.com/contests/

Resources

*Britannica Encyclopedia

** Oxford Reference

***New Yorker Magazine
June 18, 2019
BECOMING JONIKA by PJ Devlin – Coming of Age, Multiculturalism, Historical Fiction/Young Adult

Immersed in the nostalgia of classic summer camp experiences, Becoming Jonika is the coming-of-age story of Joni Byrnes, who, after finding herself on the wrong side of the law, receives a second chance at St. Augustine of Hippo’s summer camp in the trouble-ridden summer of 1969.

Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, Joni Byrnes is just trying to live a normal teenage life. At the cusp of high school, Joni’s parents send her to Redwood Academy, where they believe Joni will become their ideal daughter. In reality, Joni is quickly labeled by her elite classmates as a loser and an outcast, and the only place Joni feels like herself is in a swimming pool.

One day after practice, she meets Ishmael, who used to be on her neighborhood swim team and is now recently returned home after being discharged from the military. Ishmael treats Joni like she is special, and because of her insecurities and desire to be loved and accepted by others, she falls head-over-heels for him and follows him down a dangerous path that lands her in a courtroom at the mercy of a judge.

Instead of sending her to Juvie, the judge gives Joni the opportunity to make amends. She becomes the swimming instructor at a camp for young African-American children. Becoming an outcast yet again as the only white counselor, Joni learns about of her campers’ and co-counselors’ home lives. She sees their courage and perseverance and tries to move on from her own past; becoming her own person in the face of expanding generational and racial divides.

The hand-drawn look of the cover and the journal-like appearance of the interior create a physical representation of Joni’s report to the judge, pulling readers in and immersing them into the story. The descriptions of the inescapable humidity of summer, the coolness of pool water, and the sweetness of bug juice all feel within reach. In addition to the rich descriptions of Joni’s surroundings, PJ Devlin achieves authentic characterization in the development of Joni and those she encounters throughout the novel.

Joni’s feeling of being an outcast and a loser hits her upon arrival to Camp St. Augustine of Hippo, where she is different in every way from the people around her. In a heart-to-heart with Joni, one of the counselors’ is explicit about what being at camp means, “For us, that’s freedom. For you, camp’s a prison. That’s the difference.”

As the summer progresses, Joni is given the name Jonika and finds herself surrounded by people who like her despite their differences. Jonika describes these feelings in her report, “We were different on the outside but not on the inside.” By summer’s end, she’s uncertain about returning to her old life, but takes courage from the powerful lessons she learned at summer camp. She leaves Joni’s problems and insecurities in the past and instead becomes the person she chooses to be — Jonika.

Becoming Jonika by PJ Devlin won 1st Place in the 2017 Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction.

June 17, 2019
WARSHIP POSEIDON (The Adventures of Jonathan Moore, Book 1) by Peter Greene – Coming of Age, Maritime War, Treasure Hunt – Action / Adventure

Author Peter Greene often read to his two children at bedtime. But one night, the bookshelf held nothing that enticed them. So, as he explains in the Acknowledgements to this book, he decided to tell them a story. The first words that came out of his mouth were: “Twelve-year-old Jonathan Moore lived in a three-sided wooden box at the end of a dark and filthy alley.” Thus was born the title character of The Adventures of Jonathan Moore, who Greene decided should be “as normal and as human as any real child,” whether in the nineteenth or the twenty-first century.

In England of the early 1800s, help for orphans was the duty of family or church. When twelve-year-old Jonathan Moore’s mother dies, and he hears nothing from his father, a Navy captain, he shuns appealing to either family or church. Thus, he finds himself homeless on the streets of London. Fortunately, he makes friends with a boy of similar age, Irish-born Sean Flagon. Together, the boys manage to sweep enough London chimneys to keep them from starving, until one rainy day when first Sean and then Jonathan are snatched by a group of men and soon find themselves in a cage strapped to a cart headed for the Chatham docks. They’ve been “pressed” into service on one of His Majesty’s warships, the Poseidon, which they soon discover isn’t such a bad lot at all.

The two boys look in awe at the rows of cannon (cannon being both singular and plural in England). And when shown to the closet of a room that is to be their new quarters, they realize that, though tiny, it’s dry, and there are rope hammocks to sleep in, wrapped in blankets. That certainly beats a leaky wooden box in an alley, with a piece of board for a cover. Better yet, they’re soon sitting at tables on the main deck, where hot fish stew is served for dinner (as it is most days, they soon learn), accompanied by hardtack or softtack (hard bread or rolls). The next morning Jonathan awakes to see huge white sails unfurled in the wind. The Poseidon is underway.

Much adventure and not a little danger await them, from one side of the North Atlantic to the other. After all, England is at war against France, and Napoleon Bonaparte has many fine French warships. One of them is the Danielle, which the Poseidon and her crew encounter more than as they make way from Lisbon to the Bahamas.

The aim of both these enemy warships is to search for an ancient Spanish treasure chest, which an equally ancient map indicates is buried on Skull Eye Island. On peaceful days at sea, there are lessons to be learned about being a seaman—taught aboard ship by experienced sailors, junior and senior officers, and even Captain Walker. The boys’ lessons also include fencing and swordsmanship, which stand in good stead when they must battle the French crew aboard the Danielle.

This thrilling tale of high adventure is not without an element of poignancy, however. Jonathan senses that several on board the Poseidon knew or know about his father, Captain Nathaniel Moore, who the boy had assumed was dead. They seemed to recognize him by name, and they treat him with more caring and respect than the other young boys, including his friend Sean. Yet, they consistently change the subject when he tries to question them.

Exciting and fast-moving as Warship Poseidon is, the tale is rendered even better by its author’s skill as a storyteller. Greene has thoroughly researched this era—including its shipbuilding, the administrative management of both English and French Navy vessels, the design of the warships themselves, and how their crews lived aboard them and battled from them. The story is presented in infinite detail, painted in vivid color, and written in a literary style. Much care has gone into the characters’ speech—emulating the language of the time while ensuring that it can be understood by its twenty-first-century readers, whether they be young or old—since this tale is one to be read with pleasure by all generations.

To Peter Greene we would say—in British parlance both then and now—”Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” So, have great fun reading Warship Poseidon and then proceed without delay to Books Two and Three: Castle of Fire and Paladin’s War. But don’t stop there! Mr. Greene declares there may be a prequel in the works as well as another type of series beginning!

June 15, 2019
PIRACY — Not Just on the High Seas – by award-winning author Susan Faw

Book Piracy: Why You Should Care by Susan Faw

(This is a three article series exploring the ever-expanding issue of book piracy.)

It is every fledgling author’s dream to see their book published. The time spent writing and rewriting, editing and polishing your book, are unpaid months and in some cases, years of toil, never to be recovered.

Release day cannot come quick enough, whether you are independently publishing, or are on a more traditional path. The day your book goes live is akin to a wedding day, or the birth of a child, a momentous, long anticipated date that greeted with joy.

Sending your book baby out into the world is a perilous event. This child of your brain is set adrift on retail rafts, in the hope that it won’t drown, and sink into obscurity. You think that drowning is the worst thing that can happen, that no one will notice your novel and that it will disappear from view.

Actually, the worst thing that can happen is that your book is a runaway success—at least with how the publishing industry is currently structured.

You see, that ocean is full of sharks. The sharks of the publishing ocean will plagiarize your work. They will copy it and stuff it into books that they create, and slap a cover on it and upload it to Amazon, stealing your words and your income. But plagiarism has always existed in the world. They do get caught and the books are taken down.

Worse than the sharks are the pirates. Flying international flags of privilege and self-aggrandizement, these modern-day pilferers go far beyond nibbling at your work. Cruising the waters to see what rafts have popular cargo, they pounce on those books fortunate enough to be successful. They outright steal your book baby, stuffing the loot into storefronts of their own, without a penny of that work being returned to the author and/or publisher.

According to a recent article of The Guardian: “All this is exhausting for authors, but it could be devastating for readers, too. Harris, a representative of the SoA who speaks passionately on behalf of authors, knows several who have lost contracts because piracy drove down their sales to an unsustainable level. The most vulnerable authors are those who write series: when book one does well, but book two is heavily pirated, book three could end up dead in the water. Midlist authors and those who barely scrape a living are also at risk. “These people mistakenly think they’re sticking it to the man,” Harris says. “They’re not; they’re sticking it to the little people, the people who are struggling … and they don’t care.”

And the numbers of illegal downloads of pirated ebooks are staggering.

The website GoodEreader states: “Pirate websites received 300 billion visitors last year and ebooks represent a small, but growing segment. Digimarc and Nielsen conducted a recent study that reveals 41% of all adult e-book pirates are aged between 18 and 29 but perhaps surprisingly, 47% fall into the 30 to 44-year-old bracket. The remaining 13% are aged 45 or up. There are also some surprises when it comes to pirates’ income. Cost is often cited as a factor when justifying downloading for free, and this study counters that the average household income that downloads books the most range from $60,000 and $99,000.”

“Ebook piracy is not just popular in the United States, but is a global problem,” according to the Intellectual Property Office. Their latest study of online copyright infringement finds that “seventeen percent of ebooks read online in the UK are pirated – around 4m books. According to research by Dutch firm GfK, only 10% of all German ebooks on devices were actually paid for, with most of the digital books being pirated. On average, an e-reader in the Netherlands holds on average 117 ebooks. Out of that total, 11 were bought at legitimate websites. The remaining books were pirated at file-sharing sites or through Torrent sites. Ninety-two percent of ebook readers in Russia obtained their books illegally downloading the materials.”

I bet you are not feeling so cozy over your amazingly successful book launch now, are you? But this series of articles is not meant to be discouraging.—

In fact, there are promising signs for the future of e-book publishing. In this swiftly changing digital age, you can stay one step ahead of the pirates, with some careful planning. In the next article, we will explore ways to protect your digital copyright, and budding technologies you need in your arsenal, to help protect you, and your book baby from pirates.

Susan Faw is the award-winning author of the Spirit Shield Saga, young adult fantasy and dystopian series.

You can read her 10 Questions Interview on Book Marketing, Increasing Book Sales with Sharon Anderson here.

Stay tuned for her next article on Book Piracy and what you can do about it!

June 14, 2019
WISSAHICKON SOULS: A Wissahickon Creek Story (Vol. 1) by PJ Devlin – U.S. Historical Fiction, African American Fiction, African American Romance

Claire Penniman, a free black born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia in the early 1800s, is only six years old when she’s indentured to Raymond and Anna Williams, white landowners who have known her family for years. Elizabeth and Moses, Claire’s parents, have already indentured their older son, Samuel, to the Williams in hopes that both children will learn reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as valuable life skills in exchange for working the land and tending the animals.

Wissahickon Farm quickly becomes part of Claire. She immediately befriends five-year-old Lawrence, the youngest Williams son. As Claire and Lawrence grow older, so does their bond. Anna agonizes over her son’s attachment to the black girl, and her relationship with Claire suffers. Near the end of her twelve-year indenture, Claire and Lawrence’s love leads to pregnancy. The teenagers marry and run away to Haiti, a newly independent country of liberated slaves, to live together in peace as man and wife. Over time, however, hardship and disaster chip away at their love, and Lawrence struggles to find his place in a country where he’s called, the blanc.

Set in the early 19th century when trains are new and steamboats rule, Wissahickon Souls spans thirty years in the life of Claire Penniman. She grows from an impetuous, daring little girl to a strong, independent woman. Claire’s journey, both physically and mentally, showcases the trials of African Americans in the 1800s. Though Claire’s family has a long history of living in freedom in a Northern city, they are far from free. Prejudice lurks around every bend in Germantown and Philadelphia, and the Penniman family keeps a dangerous secret – the family “business.”

For decades, the Penniman family has helped runaway slaves find safe havens by delivering hundreds of “packages” farther north, giving permanent refuge to some of the runaways they save. Through the fictional Penniman family, Devlin shows the commitment and courage of people who risked much in the cause of freedom.

An important motif of Wissahickon Souls revolves around sewing. Claire’s sewing skills become the tie that binds and the fix for broken things. She learns her craft from her mother and grandmother, just as she learns to help slaves to freedom from her father. Claire not only sews clothing to support her family, but she’s also adept at stitching together wounded flesh. Respect for her skill leads to repeated calls for help. Her excellent hand proves racial division can be transcended.

Lawrence and Claire’s love story is a tragedy reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. The innocence of their first love becomes victim to profoundly rooted racism, including the subtle but soul-sapping racism of Lawrence’s righteous mother. From vicious white men to a raging flash flood, Lawrence repeatedly saves Claire but is unable to stand beside her in public.

In childhood, Claire’s spirit and friendship blind Lawrence to their racial differences. Her pregnancy forces him to confess their love to his parents, who refuse to accept the relationship. After marrying and traveling to Haiti, the teenage couple faces unimaginable daily hardships – made worse by Haitians acceptance of Claire while mocking Lawrence as the blanc.

Lawrence’s increasing alienation drives him to drink and gamble, and he loses Claire’s respect. During ten years of exile, they and their two children struggle to find their place, and their love falters. The death of Lawrence’s father, Raymond, provides the impetus to return to Philadelphia and separate lives – Lawrence to Wissahickon Farm; Claire and the children to her family home.

Though this is Claire’s story, Lawrence’s mother, Anna, plays a crucial role. Despite her recognition of Claire’s intelligence and savvy, Anna’s world is ruled by the impregnable boundaries of cultural presumptions about the African race. The theme of Wissahickon Souls plays out fully through Anna’s soul searching and her ultimate decision.

Even in graphic scenes depicting racism’s horror, Devlin’s writing is beautiful and professional. The historical setting is authentic. Readers will walk alongside Claire on her sprawling journey as a freeborn black in the early 19th century when slavery was the rule of the land.

June 10, 2019
CREATING UNFORGETTABLE SECONDARY CHARACTERS – Part Two of ESSENCE of CHARACTERS from Jessica Morrell’s Editor’s Desk – Writer’s Toolbox Series
Many writers struggle to create vibrant and complex secondary characters. After all, complicated main characters are hard enough to create. Memorable secondary characters, however, can make or break a story. Think about Yoda (Star Wars), Pippin (LOTR), Jane Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Thomas Pullings (the Aubrey – Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian), and …

Jane Bennet – Pride and Prejudice

Thomas Pullings of the Aubrey-Maturin Patrick O’ Brian series

I always view secondary characters as a measuring stick for a writer’s prowess. Jessica

Here’s a vivid example of a memorable secondary character from Leif Enger’s beautiful Virgil Wander.

His name is Rune–so here’s a simple trick, give your characters resonant names.

In this case, rune has mystical, mysterious associations. The day after the protagonist Virgil survives a car accident in the opening moments of the story he walks to the waterfront of the forbidding, ever-changing Lake Superior. Enger is introducing an oft-used device: a mysterious Stranger comes to town.

I ended up at the waterfront. It’s not as though there’s any other destination in Greenstone. The truth is that I moved here largely because of the inland sea. I’d always felt peaceful around it–a naive response give it fearsome temper, but who could resist that wide throw of horizon, the columns of morning steam? And the sound of a continual tectonic bass line. In a northeast gale this pounding adds a layer of friction to every conversation in town.

At the foot of the city pier stood a threadbare stranger. He had eight-day whiskers and fisherman hands, a pipe in his mouth like a mariner in a fable, and a question in his eyes. A rolled-up paper kite was tucked under his arm–I could see bold swatches of paint on it.

There was always a kite in the picture with Rune, as it turned out.

He watched me. He carried an atmosphere of dispersing confusion, as though he were coming awake. “Do you live in this place?” he inquired.

I nodded.

“Is there are motor hotel? There used to be a motor hotel. I don’t remember where.”

His voice was high, with a rhythmic inflection like short smooth waves. For some reason it gave me a lift. He had a hundred merry crinkles at his eyes and long-haul sadness in his shoulders.

“Not anymore–not exactly.” If I’d had more words, I’d have described Greenstone’s last operational motel, the Voyageur, a peeling L-shaped heap with scraggy whirlwinds of litter roaming the parking lot. Though technically “open,” the Voyageur is always full, its rooms permanently occupied by the ower’s grown children who failed to rise on the outside.

“Oh well,” he said,shaking himself like a terrier. He peered round at the Slake International taconite plant, a looming vast trapezoid which had signified bustling growth in the 1950s and lingering decline ever since. Its few tiny windows were whitewashed or broken; its majestic ore dock rose out of the water on eighty-foot pilings and cast a black-boned reflection across the harbor. No ship had loaded her in so long that saplings and ferns grew wild on the planking. We had a little forest up there. I looked at the kite scrolled under his arm. He’d picked the wrong day for that, be then he looked like a man who could wait.

He said, “You here a long time?”

“Twenty-five years.”

At this something changed in him. He acquired an edge. Before I’d have said he looked like many a good-natured pensioner making do without a pension. Now in front of my eyes he seemed to intensify.

“Twenty-five years? Perhaps you knew my son. He lived here. Right in this town,” he added looking round himself, as though giving structure to a still-new idea.

“Is that right. What’s his name?”

The old man ignored the question. He pulled a kitchen match from his pocket, thumbnailed it, and relit his pipe, which let me tell you held the most fragrant tobacco–brisk autumn cedar and coffee and orange peel. A few sharp puffs brought it crackling and he held it up to watch smoke drift off the bowl. The smoke ghosted straight up and hung there undecided.

Writer’s Toolbox

Did you notice how this small scene multi-tasks?

Techniques to borrow:
- Sharply observed first impressions (carried an atmosphere of dispersing confusion as though coming awake, a good-natured pensioner making do without a pension, looked like a man who could wait)
- Props (kite and tobacco, kitchen match, pipe)
- Smells (tobacco)
- Iconic or mythic comparisons (rune, mariner in a fable)
- Indelible physical features: (fisherman’s hands, question in his eyes, a hundred merry crinkles as this eyes and a long-haul sadness to his shoulders)
Here’s a tip: When you need to describe a character or objects or setting ask yourself what does this remind me of?

As you walk around your world, really notice your surroundings and ask yourself the same question.

The next post will be about noticing and nurturing your imaginings with paying attention to small details with a novelist’s eye.

Here is the link to Part One of the Essence of Characters series: https://www.chantireviews.com/2019/06/01/essence-of-characters-part-one-from-the-jessica-morrells-editors-desk-writers-toolbox-series/

Until then, Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart. Jessica

Jessica Morrell is a top-tier developmental editor and a contributor to Chanticleer Reviews Media and to the Writer’s Digest magazine. She teaches Master Writing Craft Classes at the Chanticleer Authors Conference that is held annually along with teaching at Chanticleer writing workshops that are held throughout the year.

A Chanticleer Reviews – Writer’s Toolbox blog post on Character Development by Jessica Page Morrell

Did you know that Chanticleer offers editorial services? We do and have been doing so since 2011.

And our professional editors are top-notch and are experts in the Chicago Manual of Style. They have and are working for the top publishing houses (TOR, McMillian, Thomas Mercer, Penguin Random House, etc.) and elite indie presses.

We work with a small number of exclusive clients who want to collaborate with top-editors on an on-going basis.

Contact us today! If you would like more information, we invite you to email Kiffer or Sharon at KBrown@ChantiReviews.com or SAnderson@ChantiReviews.com
June 8, 2019
The TIME TRAVELER PROFESSOR, Book One: SILENT MERIDIAN by Elizabeth Crowens – Steampunk, Sherlockian, Time Travel

A budding concert pianist delves into the realms of spiritism, sexuality, and scary foreshadowing through his time travel adventures in Elizabeth Crowens’ steampunk novel, Silent Meridian.

John Patrick Scott, a conservatory student, meets with Arthur Conan Doyle in Edinburgh, Scotland under unusual circumstances because of an elusive and mysterious red book. Arthur, lacking inspiration and tired of his Holmes character, covertly employs John as a ghostwriter. The two also indulge in the transmigration of souls and time travel. The latter topic is of high interest to the young aspiring musician since he has already accrued a handful of time-travel experiences via a mechanism of his creation. Although Arthur introduces John to nightly practices of communicating telepathically, John doesn’t include the beloved author in his time-traveling adventures until years later.

John’s time-traveling skills sharpen to the point that he no longer needs his device and uses his grandfather’s timepiece instead. He becomes particularly fixed on exploring his past, especially his school days at the Underground University; he includes Wendell Mackenzie, his old schoolmate, on his adventures—some of which John escapes just in the nick of time. Over time, John finds it difficult to distinguish between time travel and dreams and seeks the help of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. His adventures take a dark turn when they predict an impending war.

Sherlock Holmes’ enthusiast, Elizabeth Crowens, spins a wild tale riddled with glimpses of stories and themes from the early 20^th century. Crowens’ quirky narrative, which covers sixteen years, could easily befit behind-the-scenes to John’s ghostwriting connections to Doyle’s published works: The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, and The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, to name a few.

Scenes regularly flip from John’s music studies and his time-travel quests, and are heavily punctuated with references to prominent historical figures and their thematic connections of the era, such as H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, Jules Verne (fantasy and sci-fi); Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung (psychology); and Aleister Crowley, Theodore Reuss (metaphysical). While sexual identity plays a close second to the last parenthesized theme scenes, providing only innuendos. John continuously processes his particular leanings, weighing his feelings as a woman in some of his time-travel ventures and amid affairs against Doyle’s and Wells’ free-love beliefs.

Crowens balances nonfiction with fiction by incorporating memorable characters, such as Whit, John’s annoying tutor, and Finn (who John dubs Sherlock), John’s “Jiminy Cricket” guide who is only visible to John and comes and goes as he pleases. Sure to be a new favorite for Sherlock Holmes’ aficionados, Silent Meridian’s cliff-hanging closure is a perfect segue to the second book in Crowens’ The Time Traveler Professor series, A Pocketful of Lodestones.

June 8, 2019
PINKY and the MAGICAL SECRET HE KEPT INSIDE by Kasey J. Claytor – Early Readers, Children’s Books, Fantasy & Magic

*Reviewer’s note: I read the book to a little girl who, upon seeing the photo, exclaimed, “The real Pinky!” Indeed, this extraordinary story is derived from the true story of when the author was a small child. When she fell ill, her grandmother brought her a furry pink, stuffed puppy, and a story was born.

Pinky, a stuffed toy puppy, made of pink corduroy, is given to a little girl, Francesca, after a brief visit to the hospital. She loves her stuffed friend, and the feeling is mutual. Pinky does all he can to show Francesca this after her other stuffed animals tell him of a secret award ceremony at which a prize will be given to the toy that is most loved by a child.

One night, while Francesca is asleep, Pinky and the other toys journey to the ceremony where he is elated to win the most coveted award. A medal is sewn inside his chest in the spot where humans carry their hearts. Francesca and Pinky grow old together, and one day she decides to clean and repair the stuffed dog, inside and out. In doing so, she discovers the secret medal that has been inside her stuffed friend for decades. The discovery prompts her to recall a dream she had as a little girl in which Pinky won a medal for loving her so much. The final scene is that of an elderly Francesca snuggling with her favorite childhood toy. How sweet, then, to turn the page and view a photo of the author with a stuffed pink dog.

Claytor’s prose is comprised of brief declarative sentences, appropriate for young children. The tale underscores the security and affection stuffed animals offer little ones, but also invites them to consider the reverse. Told from Pinky’s point of view, the stuffed dog learns that all toys “. . . are loved, but what is most important is your loving of humans.” He strives to show that affection by snuggling with Francesca, watching her as she dances around her room, and always being where she can see him.

The illustrations are beautiful, imbued with warmth and affection. Stuffed animals smile at the reader, the backgrounds of the pages splashed in dreamy, pastel shades of pink, aqua, and yellow. Pinky looks especially huggable and, if the author chose, would be an excellent model for a stuffed animal marketed with the book. Of course, it would have to have a secret compartment that would hold a tiny medal, one that could be held by a little hand after each reading of this delightful book.

June 6, 2019
BRAINWASHED: Crime Travelers Spy School Mystery & International Adventure Series, Book 1 by Paul Aertker – Children’s International Spy Thriller, Children’s Books, Children’s Mystery

In this first installment from the Crime Travelers series, an adventurous reading line-up that takes middle-grade readers around the globe, Paul Aertker’s Brainwashed delivers a story with exciting espionage and action-packed thrills.

A group of young teens is caught up in the nefarious dealings of a tyrannical woman and her powerful child kidnapping organization. With tenacity, courage, and determination, these members of the aptly named “New Resistance” use their backgrounds, knowledge, and skill sets to counter their powerful foe’s evil offenses.

At the center of the story is the likable, but often struggling thirteen-year-old Lucas Benes. As a young toddler, he was the sole survivor of a ferry boat explosion that killed his adoptive mother. Under his father’s guidance, Lucas has grown up at the Globe Hotel, an establishment that has evolved as a safe house for young people brought out of harm’s way from around the world. These individuals ultimately come together from various walks of life, gain skills and training to embark on missions to challenge global concerns.

This latest high alert “Call to Legs” pits the group against the notorious Siba Gunerro, the icy, pink poodle-toting, a ruthless leader who heads the ironically named Good Company. She’s infamously known for her brainwashing and kidnapping tactics. Soon Lucas and his multi-cultural band of cohorts depart from their high-tech Las Vegas hotel base and travel in a private luxury aircraft to the City of Lights, Paris, determined to take on Gunerro and her motley crew of henchmen.

With colorful refinement, Aertker delivers a multi-faceted ensemble of characters. In a mix that includes a surfer dude, a fashionista from India, and a Swiss Goth, among others, these are smart, multi-talented, multi-lingual personalities who, if were a t-shirt wearing group of crime fighters, the t-shirts might well read: “Grownups have messed up the world … it’s our job to make things right.”

As a newcomer joining the group, Lucas appears a vulnerable yet relatable individual who worries about stuff like sibling rivalry, parental approval, and has to deal with general angst. Ultimately, this here’s a first-class coming-of-age story with Lucas demonstrating confidence and proving his heartfelt loyalties and a willingness to step up and break the rules to help those in need.

Amidst the attention-grabbing likes of rooftop rappels, motorcycle chases, surprise abductions, rescues, a harrowing sacrilegious ceremony attempt at the time-honored landmark of Notre Dame cathedral and a wild bus ride, the nonstop action here moves the story steadily forward. Tension builds with this young group’s creative efforts to thwart the enemy and tackle each new deterrent in their path.

Whether you’re a preteen intrigued by the heroic activities of a well-trained group of spy kids or an older armchair traveler who can appreciate the sights and sounds of a major European mecca rich in history and culture brought to life as an enticing backdrop for fun, smart, and engaging entertainment, Brainwashed truly hits the mark.

Brainwashed: Crime Travelers Spy School Mystery & International Adventure Series, Book 1 by Paul Aertker won Grand Prize in the 2017 CIBAs – Gertrude Warner Awards for Middle-Grade Fiction.

June 6, 2019

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