Goddess Fish Party: Amalie's Story - Delighting In Your Company by Blair McDowell

As writers we have to know far more about our characters than ever appears in the book. There has to be a “backstory” in our minds as we write about them if they are to breathe life. No character springs to life full blown on page one. What happened before the story began? What experiences in his/her past have caused this character to act in this particular way in this particular situation?

Amalie in Delighting In Your Company is a character who intrigued me. I started out thinking she would be a proper young eighteenth century lady, very different from her twenty-first century descendant, also named Amalie, who travels back in time to meet her.

But try as I might, my eighteenth century Amalie would simply not behave herself. I suppose it had something to do with growing up in a motherless home. Her Mother was off In London where her brother was in school. Her father loved her, but he was too busy running a large plantation on the Caribbean Island of St. Clements to notice how his daughter was growing up.

It must be admitted here that Amalie used no small amount of guile to keep her father in ignorance. She appeared at dinner every evening properly dressed and coiffed. Smiling her dimpled smile at him, she always had a ready and thoroughly proper answer to his “How was your day?”

 “I started a new book.” Or “I finished another row in my embroidery.” These were not lies; they were simply a very small part of the truth.

And so Amalie grew up unfettered by the conventions and restrictions of her age. She wandered about the plantation freely. She particularly liked the stables. Not for her were the delicate side-saddled trotting horses. Donning her absent brother’s clothing she rode astride and raced like the wind along the beach on her large mare, Molly.

She regularly swam in the sea, in the nude, leaving the loose pants and shirt she habitually wore for her explorations hanging on a bush.

She knew more about mating and the reproductive process than any young girl of her age in the eighteen hundreds ever did.  She had grown up observing the mating of the many animals on the plantation, and even of her mare, Molly. And knew the consequence of mating, having assisted at the birth of Molly’s foal.

As it happened, she was wearing a dress, albeit without petticoats, the day she first saw Jonathan.  Her skirts were hiked up above her knees as she raced Molly along the sandy beach in the edge of the sea.

She hadn’t expected to see anyone there. There was never anyone there. But this morning there was.

She pulled her mare to an abrupt halt and looked down at the man who was striding along the beach toward her.

He stopped and stared up at her. Their eyes locked.

His eyes passed over her, taking in her unruly wind-blown curls and rosy cheeks, her gently rounded breasts, her bottom firmly planted in the saddle, her exposed legs and bare feet.

And then he laughed, a deep booming laugh. “Good morning, Mistress Ansett.”
Amalie blushed, furious at being caught-out.

“Never fear. Your secret is safe with me.” He laughed again and taking off his planter’s hat, he bowed low to her.

Amalie turned Molly abruptly and raced back in the direction from which she’d come. At the plantation house she turned Molly over to the grooms and rushed inside and up to her room.

Jemma, the slave who had looked after Amalie since she was an infant, was there cleaning her room and making her bed. Amalie threw her arms around the elderly black woman and danced her in a circle.

“What’s come over you, chile? And where you been here before breakfast? You looks disgraceful. Your hair not even combed. Best not let your Pappy see you like dis.”
“Oh, Jemma! I’ve met him! I’ve met the man I’m going to marry!”

When this scene, not in the book, happens, Amalie is just fourteen. Jonathan decides she is the one he wants for his wife, based on this one encounter:

He smiled, remembering. “You were still a child.”
“I was fourteen. Some women are married at fourteen.”
“You were delicious. I’ll never forget my first sight of you. You were racing your mare along the beach. Your skirts were flying and your legs were exposed to above your knees. And your hair was all loose and uncombed and windblown. And my heart stopped. I believe I have loved you from that moment. I told myself it was absurd. There was a six year difference in our ages. You were still a child. But it did no good. I wanted you.”
“You never said anything. We met at dinners and at parties, and on the beach, and you never said anything.”
“I was waiting for you to grow up. It was my firm plan to ask your father for your hand on the day you were eighteen.”
“I moved that along, didn’t I? Two years later, the day after my sixteenth birthday.” Amalie gave a low seductive laugh. “I waited quite deliberately for you that day down on the beach.”
“How could I forget? You were standing there, so close I could smell the scent of your hair, feel the warmth of your skin. It was driving me to distraction. Not touching you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Then you said, ‘race you’ and started pulling off your clothes. I just stood there, in shock, immobile.”
“Not for long. I seem to recall you divested yourself of clothing pretty rapidly.”
“We enjoyed our first kiss, out there in the sea. And I fully meant it to stop there.”
Amalie laughed. “I didn’t. I came to the beach that day determined to seduce you, to break though that steely reserve once and for all. I wanted you, Jonathan. I wanted you when I first saw you. I still want you.”

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My Love Affair With an Older Man - Blair McDowell

I suppose all writers have favorites among their characters. It’s only natural that some of our inventions should resonate more in our minds and emotions than others. So it is that I fell in love with an older man. Ian McQuaid in The Memory of Roses is a man I’d like to meet outside the pages of fiction.

Ian is an American archaeologist who works in Greece.  He always wanted to be an archaeologist even when he was a boy. His father wanted him to be an engineer but Ian persisted against all odds and went on to become world-renown in his field.

Even as a young man Ian has a brilliant mind but, like many highly intelligent men, he isn’t very bright about women. And so, as often happens, Ian ends up married to the wrong woman. It takes him years to realize that his marriage is a sham.

Ian is forty-two and recuperating from a serious illness on the Greek Island of Corfu, wondering what to do about his dysfunctional marriage, when a young Italian artist, Maria Calbrese, walks into his life and shatters his complacency. Their love affair rocks him to the depths of his soul.

I suppose what I love most about Ian is his vulnerability. That, and his sense of what is right and moral. He is at heart a totally decent man.

In the scene below, Ian meets Maria for the first time.

It was on June eleventh that he met her. He had gone to Adriatika for his evening meal. It was a week night and he had lingered over his late afternoon swim. By the time he arrived, the few other diners were well into their meals.

“What have you for me tonight, my friend?” he asked.

“Ah! You are in luck. We have Rabbit Steffado and I have kept a portion back for you.”

Ian settled into his chair at his regular table and opened his book. He had long had the habit of reading in restaurants until his food arrived. It kept him from feeling lonely.

He heard a commotion at the door and glanced up from his book to see a stunning young woman in conversation with Yiannis.

“Of course you are not too late, signorina,” Yiannis was saying as he showed her to a table. “We always look forward to your return in June. Did you have a pleasant journey from Venice?”

“Pleasant enough, Yiannis. I hope you have some of your Rabbit Steffado for me tonight. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.”

“Alas, I am afraid the last portion has just been ordered by someone else,” he said, nodding in the general direction of Ian’s table. “But I have a very nice fish if you’re interested.”

“Hmm. I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, if you could bring me a pitcher of your good house wine…”

“Of course.”

Ian went back to reading his book. Suddenly he sensed that he was not alone. He looked up to see the woman who had just entered the restaurant standing at his table, a brimming pitcher of wine in her hand. She was tall and full breasted, her long ebony hair swung loosely to her shoulders and her eyes were dark and lively. Her face could have come from a Botticelli painting, beautifully oval, classically Italian. She wore a low necked blouse that seemed to fall off one shoulder and a full skirt that emphasized her small waist.

He realized, with a shock, that she was speaking to him in English and that he had not heard a word she’d said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said I assume you speak English since you are reading a book in that language. If you’d rather, we could speak in Italian. My Greek is a bit primitive.”

Confused, Ian managed to stutter, “English will be fine.”

“Good. I have a proposition for you.” She smiled.

Ian thought, whatever it is, the answer is yes. He merely nodded.

“You,” she resumed accusingly, “you have ordered the last portion of Rabbit Steffado. I have been looking forward to Rabbit Steffado for months. I propose that we should sit together and enjoy that rabbit together. There is always enough for two in Yiannis’ portions. Meanwhile we can order some of Catarina’s eggplant and a salad to start, and,” here she held up the pitcher, “I already have the wine.” She waited expectantly.

Ian threw back his head and laughed for the first time in months. “Please,” he said, getting up quickly and pulling out a chair for her, “Be my guest. I am Ian McQuaid.”

Over the eggplant she told him she was from Venice and that her name was Maria. “I always spend six weeks here at this time of the year. And this is my favorite restaurant on Corfu. I always came here on my first night back.”

They worked their way through the appetizers, laughing and chatting about their experiences on Corfu as if they were old friends.

 The rabbit arrived at the table, steaming and aromatic in its rich sauce. Maria ladled it on to their plates. “So what brings you to Corfu?”

 Ian somehow didn’t want to admit his recent illness to this young woman who was the picture of health and vitality. “I was working on Crete and I just decided to take some time off. A friend suggested Corfu.”

 “What do you do on Crete?”

“I’m an archaeologist. My special area is Bronze-Age societies, the Minoans in particular. Knossos, on Crete, is one of the best preserved Minoan sites in the world. I’ve been working there, off and on, for some years.”

“You’re an American, aren’t you? Your accent isn’t British.”

“Yes. I’m a professor at Stanford University in California. But I spend half of every year in Greece.”

They continued to chat and laugh their way through the rest of meal. Ian could hardly take his eyes off of her. She was so utterly alive. Her mobile face telegraphed her every thought and mood. When she laughed at his stories her whole face lit up. When she was serious, her eyes held the reflective calm of a mountain lake. He found her utterly entrancing. By the time they had finished dessert he was wondering how he could prolong the evening, how he could arrange to see her again. 

Then he reminded himself that he was still married, that he had no right to become involved with this young, vibrant creature sitting at his table. And that surely she would have no interest in him, a middle-aged man, graying at the temples and many years her senior. Regretfully, when Catarina began closing the shutters, he moved to pay the bill. “Please allow me,” he said. “You have given me so much pleasure tonight.”

She nodded and rose to leave.

Outside the restaurant, she paused, confused, and looked around. “Where is your car?”

“Actually, I don’t have one. I haven’t found much need for one here. I walk everyplace. The house I’m renting is just up the hill a mile or so.”

“Please let me drive you home,” she said. “I insist. It is small payment for that lovely dinner.”

Ten minutes longer with her, Ian thought. Ten minutes more of her lovely voice and beautiful face. “Of course,” he responded.

She drove efficiently and competently. He watched the shadows and light fall on her face as she navigated the curves of the narrow, winding country road.

“Turn here,” he instructed as they reached the open gates to the property. She came to a stop at the circle in front of the villa. The fountain was splashing, its dolphins alive in the moonlight.

“What a beautiful spot.” She said. They sat in silence for a moment, neither quite willing to end the evening.

“You could come in for a brandy,” he suggested.

They got as far as the front door. Later, they could neither of them remember who moved first. They were in each other’s arms, tearing at their clothing, stumbling up the steps toward the bedroom. Frustrated with their slow progress Ian swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bed, covering her with his body. They made love wordlessly, frantically, as if their very lives depended on their being together in this way at this moment.

When the storm had passed, Ian tried to speak. “I had no right to do this,” he said. “I’m married.”

“Of course you are,” she replied. “No man as attractive as you could be single. Not at your age. I came to you willingly. I asked for no commitment. We have here and now. We have tonight. Let’s not ask for more.”

 

Win a Copy of my new Paranormal Romance!

ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF

Delighting In Your Company!

Just answer the following question: 

What would Jonathan like to do if he were 'in the flesh'?

Hint here:

Alas my love you do me wrong,
To leave me so discourteously,
While I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.  

These words from a fifteenth century song, Greensleeves, were a part of the inspiration for my paranormal novel with time travel, Delighting In Your Company.

  
My heroine, Amalie Ansett, finds herself in the unenviable position of falling in love with a ghost.   Jonathan Evans was a plantation owner on the small Caribbean island of St. Clement’s in the early 1800’s.   He died suddenly and violently and has walked the island ever since as a ghost, or, as the people there call the dead who walk, a 'jumbie'.  

Amalie can see and hear and touch him as no one else has in two hundred years.   It is up to her to help him find out what happened all those years ago.   Why he is alive but not alive, dead but not dead.  

The island in my book is based on a real one, St. Eustatius.   I’ve had a home there for many years.   Details in my book about jumbies and Obeah, the ancient religious practice brought by the slaves from Africa, are based on stories I’ve heard many times from local friends.   There is a White Wall Road.   And there is, according to local lore, a ghost who walks White Wall.   The “real” ghost, however, is a woman.   In my book I’ve chosen to change her into a man.  

There are other differences, as well.   My book is fiction after all.   While St. Eustatius is Dutch today, I’ve chosen to make my fictional island, St. Clement’s, English.   I did this because in 1807 the British Parliament enacted a law prohibiting the transportation of slaves into and out of all ports in England and all British possessions.   At that time St. Eustatius was a British Island.  This had a profound effect on the economies and social structures of the British Caribbean Islands, and it is a key factor in my plot.  

While I’ve been steeped in Caribbean culture for many years, I learned much in the course of researching the Caribbean of the eighteen hundreds.   I have a large collection of books on the history of the Caribbean, some of them very old, and these were invaluable.  

Museum on St. Eustatius

Delighting In Your Company is a fantasy.   A figment of my imagination.   But the scenes of a slave auction and of an Obeah Ceremony are taken from the works of nineteenth and early twentieth century writers, and the hand written records of slave sales that my heroine finds are, with minor changes, the ledgers I have seen in the Museum of the St. Eustatius Historical Society.  

This book almost wrote itself.   Once I became immersed in the tale, all that I love about the Caribbean Islands and their culture and peoples simply took over.  

I hope you will enjoy reading Delighting In Your Company as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

In the following scene, my heroine, Amalie, is transported in time and is observing a slave auction.   

In the basement room, Amalie contemplated the papers strewn around the wide pine table.   There was a large, leather-bound ledger sitting on top of them.   She hadn’t noticed that yesterday.   Where had it come from? She opened it and started to read the faded ink entries. 

To her shock she discovered it was a ledger of slave sales, with descriptions and prices. 

• 1 male and 2 females, household slaves to Jeremiah Johnston ….   425 guineas.  
• 2 field workers to Emerson Gainsborough….   250 guineas
• 6 field workers to John Taylor….   1250 guineas

The room spun around her.   She grasped the edge of the table to keep from falling as consciousness faded.

She was in a harbor full of wooden ships.   A crowd of men, from the look of their clothing, planters, shopkeepers and businessmen, milled about the dock, shouting to one another, pushing and shoving, vying for position.   The cacophony was ear splitting.   A large vessel was pulled up to the pier.   Naked male slaves, their ankles chained together, were shuffling down the gangplank and being herded into a holding pen.   The smell of their fear and hopelessness hovered in the air.  

Amalie heard a voice raised above the clamor and turned to see an auction block.  

“And here we have a fine specimen from the Gold Coast.   You all know there ain’t no stronger or better field workers than these.   Turn around, boy.   Let’em see you.   So what am I bid? Come on gentleman.”

Bids started coming, fast and furious.   

Horrified, Amalie watched as the young man was led away by the successful bidder.   

When she turned back to the auction block she saw that it was occupied by an emaciated boy barely into his teens.   Even in the hot tropical sun he stood shivering as the crowd jeered and the auctioneer turned him around for prospective buyers to examine.
 

“I’ll admit he ain’t much, but he might be some use as kitchen help.   Don’t know how he got into this batch.   Was supposed to be all field workers.   What am I bid? Come on gentlemen, got to move along.   Don’t nobody want this scrawny piece o’ nigger flesh?”
 

There was a moment’s silence.   Then from the back of the crowd, near where Amalie stood invisibly, “I’ll take him.   Ten guineas.  ” The speaker was a boy no older than the one on the block.
“Ten guineas?” the auctioneer sneered.   “Might as well give ’im away.   What am I bid, gentlemen?”
 

The crowd was silent.   The boy reached into his pocket and counted out a handful of change.   “Ten guineas and twelve bob.”
 

Someone in the crowd called out.   “Jonathan Evans.   Your pappy know how you’re squanderin’ his money?”
 

The crowd broke into raucous laughter.
 

“Never you mind.  ” The auctioneer took control.   “The boy’s money’s as good as anybody else's.   You got yourself a slave, boy.   Come and git him.  ”

Purchase Blair's books today by clicking on the covers below.  You can then select the vendor of your choice.

                                                                                                                

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Win a Copy of My Book, The Memory of Roses

ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE MEMORY OF ROSES!

Just answer the question below:

What dinner did both Ian and Maria order when they met at the restaurant? 

Hint here:

The Memory of Roses is now out in both e-book format and in paperback. It’s been a long journey and I’ve had a lot of help along the way.

In my previous life, I had a successful career as a university professor. I wrote six professional books and countless articles in my field and had no difficulty finding a publisher for any of these. Somehow I thought when I retired and turned to something I had always wanted to do—writing romantic fiction—it would be the same. I would write my book, send it off to one of the big five publishers in New York and they would send me a letter full of praise and a contract by return mail.

A friend of mine, a long time writer of fiction, said, “I hope you’re into rejection.”

My first book was rejected, as it should have been. I knew nothing about the craft of writing fiction. Of staying within my character’s point of view, writing believable dialogue, pacing and plotting so that crisis points happened neither too soon nor too late, developing characters that lived and breathed; my ignorance of all these things was abysmal. I somehow thought that all my years as a voracious reader of fiction would enable me to write it.

That’s rather like thinking that years of attending symphony concerts would enable one to play the French Horn.

I knew I had to go back and acquire the skills necessary to writing fiction. I took courses, read books on craft, and joined the Romance Writers of America, devouring every issue of their journal, Romance Writer’s Report, from cover to cover. I entered contests and used the judges’ comments in revising my work. I put my works-in-progress in the hands of critique groups. And I kept writing and rewriting.

Finally all the blood, sweat and tears paid off. Elizabeth Carr of Rebel Ink Press liked The Memory of Roses. I remember when she emailed me that she had read half of the book and wanted to publish it, my first reaction was to wish she would read the rest just to be sure. I had become so accustomed to rejection that I hardly knew how to handle acceptance.

In The Memory of Roses, I trace the physical and emotional voyage of a young woman, Brit McQuaid, trying to come to grips with her father’s past. Brit’s journey takes her to the Greek island of Corfu, where she meets a sizzling young Greek archaeologist, Andreas Leandros. 



Below is a scene between Brit and Andreas from The Memory of Roses:

She looked at the lines of strain etched on his face.  “You know you don’t really have to help tomorrow. Daphne and I can manage the last of the painting. You’re under no obligation to keep coming all this way just to help me.”
“I thought we’d resolved that. I don’t ever do anything out of some mistaken sense of obligation. What I do, I do because I want to.” 
He paused, placing his hands on her arms in a grip that brooked no interference. “And right at this moment what I want to do is kiss you.”
Before Brit could react to his words Andreas brought his mouth down to hers. His lips touched hers softly at first, then his arms went around her and he buried himself in her mouth, his tongue caressing hers, hunger driven. He groaned, wordlessly declaring his need.
Brit had never in her life experienced such a torrent of desire as swept through her at this moment for this man. She tried to gather her scattered thoughts. Shaken, using every ounce of strength she could muster, she pushed him away.
“Stop! We mustn’t do this,”
Andreas looked at her, dazed.
“You’re too young for me,” Brit blurted out before she could stop herself.  “Just how old are you?
“Twenty-six. And you’re thirty-two. Daphne told me. A difference of six years. Would it matter to you if I were six years older than you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then?”
“You’re just twisting things around. You know it’s not the same.”
“I believe that it is exactly the same, and I assure you that I’m not in the least too young for what I have in mind.”
Andreas brought his mouth down again to hers and Brit’s last conscious thought was what the hell! Why not? Why shouldn’t I have this brief interlude? Andreas will return to Santorini in January, and I’m only here for a year. I’ll be sensible later.

Purchase Blair's books today by clicking on the covers below.  You can then select the vendor of your choice.

                                                                                                               

Find Blair:

Website:  http://www.blairmcdowell.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/BlairMcDowellWriter

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Blog:  http://blairmcdowellauthor.blogspot.ca/  
Email:  info@blairmcdowell.com