Deanna and Victoriana

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HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You certainly know Deanna Raybourn—right? The brilliantly talented (and truly gorgeous, not that it matters, but just saying) author of the Lady Julia Grey mysteries, and creator of Veronica Speedwell, the perfectly-named butterfly-seeking Victorian adventuress.  And now:  an EDGAR nominee!Oh, we are thrilled to have her here today, beyond thrilled, but we are fretting that we are not well enough prepared. We are..aflutter.

Are there sufficient raspberry jam sandwiches? Tea and scones and clotted cream? Our pet falcons have disappeared to where ever falcons go, and the silly footman has run off with, I fear, the ladies maid for the visiting Forrestieres, a mysterious family (so they say) the group has not quite yet decided to embrace. And my velvet cloak is in dire need of a brushing, and wherever are those pink satin slippers?

I faint, lugubrious and vexed, on my tufted chaise longue.  Perhaps I can bear it if I read. And I know precisely who and what book will certainly save the day. As always.

DEANNA RAYBOURN: Victorian sleuth Veronica Speedwell is back! A DANGEROUS COLLABORATION is the fourth adventure for our intrepid butterfly hunter and amateur detective, and I am so delighted to have the chance to write a series character as complex and unexpected as Veronica.

But keeping a series fresh and interesting can be a challenge. The world is already built; the characters are established. So where do you begin when it’s time to embark on a new journey?

For me, the easiest and most enjoyable way to start is to think about what books I have most enjoyed reading. Mysteries are the first books I remember loving. I picked up my magnifying glass with Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. 

By the time I was ten, I had moved on to Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, and I even wanted my romantic stories to have a puzzle. 

I cut my teeth on Gothic romances, and Victoria Holt was my absolute favorite. Her later books featured more far-flung settings, but her earliest novels were set in England--several in the wilds of coastal Cornwall. From THE BRIDE OF PENDORRIC to MENFREYA IN THE MORNING, Holt made exquisite use of one of England’s most intriguing counties.

With its rich history and gorgeous landscape, Cornwall is the perfect choice for a setting. Legends abound—from King Arthur to pixies and mermaids—and stories of wreckers and smugglers are handed down through the generations. I had a snippet of an idea about a story featuring a bride gone missing on her wedding day and a house thick with memories and shadows, a true du Maurier atmosphere to pay homage to REBECCA, one of my most beloved novels.

A stately home in Cornwall suggests Manderley, but it also evokes St. Michael’s Mount, the elegant centerpiece of an island cut off from the mainland when the tide is high. But I decided to go one better and make my stately home a castle, one rising from the sea mists on its island perch.

To thicken the mystery, I gave it a poison garden like the one at Alnwick Castle, inspired by the Medici in their deadly Florentine groves. Some years ago, I bought a trio of books written by the Duchess of Northumberland, the chatelaine of Alnwick and the founder of its legendary poison garden. They were full of recipes of natural remedies and warnings about dangerous plants—the very plants I wanted in this novel. Because Veronica is a lepidopterist, I filled my garden with elusive glasswing butterflies, so named because their wings are transparent, a gorgeous lure for a butterfly hunter in search of rare specimens to breed.

To immerse myself in the mood of my fictional castle, I followed Alnwick Castle and St. Michael’s Mount on Instagram. I read Daphne du Maurier’s ENCHANTED CORNWALL and WE BOUGHT AN ISLAND, a curious memoir written by two sisters who purchased a Cornish island on a whim. (Who wouldn’t?)

Together, all these little pieces of books I have loved—travel memoirs, poison guides, Gothic novels, natural history texts on butterflies and gardens—have been assembled into a new setting, something unique to A DANGEROUS COLLABORATION, full of secrets and deeply atmospheric, the perfect spot for Veronica’s latest foray into investigation.

By their very nature—remote, secluded—islands are the most romantic and mysterious of settings. If you could have an island home of your own, anywhere in the world, where would it be?

HANK: Oh, darling Deanna, it would not matter where, as long as you and Veronica were there with me!

Reds and readers, would you love an island of your own? Where--and when? Now, or in Veronica’s time?

A Dangerous Collaboration 

A bride mysteriously disappears on her wedding day in the newest Veronica Speedwell adventure by the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey series.

Lured by the promise of a rare and elusive butterfly, the intrepid Veronica Speedwell is persuaded by Lord Templeton-Vane, the brother of her colleague Stoker, to pose as his fiancée at a house party on a Cornish isle owned by his oldest friend, Malcolm Romilly.

But Veronica soon learns that one question hangs over the party: What happened to Rosamund? Three years ago, Malcolm Romilly’s bride vanished on their wedding day, and no trace of her has ever been found. Now those who were closest to her have gathered, each a possible suspect in her disappearance.

From the poison garden kept by Malcolm’s sister to the high towers of the family castle, the island’s atmosphere is full of shadows, and danger lurks around every corner.

Determined to discover Rosamund’s fate, Veronica and Stoker match wits with a murderer who has already struck once and will not hesitate to kill again.…

DEANNA RAYBOURN

    New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Deanna Raybourn is a 6th-generation native Texan. She graduated with a double major in English and history from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of one, Raybourn makes her home in Virginia. Her novels have been nominated for numerous awards including five RITAs, two RT Reviewers’ Choice awards, the Agatha, two Dilys Winns, a Last Laugh, and three du Mauriers. Her Lady Julia Grey novels are currently in development as a television series in the UK and she launched a new Victorian mystery series with the 2015 release of A CURIOUS BEGINNING, featuring intrepid butterfly-hunter and amateur sleuth, Veronica Speedwell. Veronica’s most recent adventure is A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING (January 2017), and book three, A TREACHEROUS CURSE, was published in January 2018. Further books in the Veronica Speedwell series are contracted through 2020.

You can find her her social media links, blog, contests, and upcoming appearances at deannaraybourn.com.

"You Were Not Built to Play It Safe, Darlings" — Ali Trotta and "The Other Side of a River"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Today, I'm delighted to introduce writer, dreamer, and coffee aficionado Ali Trotta. I was introduced to Ali and her work by novelist Deanna Raybourn (A Curious Beginning, et al.) and I love palling around with both of them on Twitter. (We're all friendly! Come say hi!) Recently, Ali wrote a blog post that resonated deeply with me — about change, fear, boogeymen who try to steal your dreams, and the never-ending battle against cynicism and defeatism.

And here she is — 

ALI TROTTA: If there’s one thing I know, it’s the power of choice. The power of looking at a situation, with all its flaws and potential disasters and difficulties, and choosing it anyway. Sometimes, it’s so easy to look at a situation and get scared, because of how difficult it is or how much might go wrong. It’s incredibly daunting.

Sometimes, too, the idea of actually getting what you want is terrifying too. Because it almost always involves an upheaval. No decision, no fight, is devoid of change. It’s impossible to think otherwise. And let’s face it: change can be the adult version of the Boogeyman. Because there are so many variables that can’t be accounted for, so many unknowns.

And that’s why there are times when we allow ourselves to stay where we are, doing what we’ve always done, even when we’re miserable. Even when we know that it isn’t healthy, that it doesn’t make us happy.

Fear is a strange monster. Sometimes, it is as subtle as a whisper. Other times, it’s a shout—someone or something hitting a nerve in you that’s always raw. An old wound never quite healed, always so close to breaking open, a piece of yourself you’re forever struggling to protect. This old hurt can be aggravated by so many things, seemingly reaffirmed by circumstances. Because, honestly, there are times in life where it feels like nothing is going right and everything is impossible. And it’s so much easier to retreat than fight, because we are emotionally exhausted. Beat down. Disheartened.

So, the fear creeps in just at the right time to make you feel…hopeless. To play on your insecurities in such a way that you start to believe that torrent of bad things in front of you, the heaps of mistakes, all the ways things haven’t worked out before. But history is not how we measure the future—it’s what we learn from.

The saddest thing in the world, to me, is someone who has given up. The look in a friend’s eyes that says, “It doesn’t get better than this. This is how things are always going to be.” Don’t get me wrong: I both hate fighting and change. And it’s always a gamble to gear up for a battle, to take steps toward something knew. You look ahead and see a million what-ifs, and it can be suffocating.

But that’s what your fear wants you to see and feel. The truth is that, sometimes, people like to keep us still, doing whatever they can to root us to a place. Because it’s easier for them. Because can’t bear to entertain the idea of something more. And, well, I don’t ever want that to be you—I don’t ever want you to find yourself entrenched in a situation and think it can’t change, that it can’t get better.

Rest assured, it can. As long as you don’t give up. It can be scary as all hell to stand up for what you want, what you believe in. Standing up for yourself is hard. There’s always going to be someone who wants to keep you small, keep you hurting, keep you guilty. They’re going to use that power over you to get what they want.

That person deserves a house dropped on their heads and their shoes stolen. Because that person isn’t nice. And sometimes, it is hard to recognize that kind of manipulation. It’s hard to recognize that kind of villain for a million reasons. But don’t allow yourself to be gaslit into thinking a situation is all your fault. Or that you’ll never be able to accomplish [insert dream here]. Take your power back, and remember how to fight, remember who you are.

You are made of stars. You cannot be contained.

I’ve said this before, but: life is full of battles. You decide what you’re going to fight for, but here’s the kicker: you’ve always got to fight for yourself. It isn’t easy. It’s like hopping over crocodiles to get to the other side of a river. And maaaaaybe there’s a lion waiting there. But maybe your hope for this life is waiting there too.

And it helps to have someone in your corner. Someone who looks at you when you’re being an idiot and tells you the truth, even though it’s not pretty. Even when it is through tears. Someone who sees you for who you are, especially on the days when you cannot see yourself.

Life is finite. There’s no way to guess when the sand’s going to run out. I have been reminded of this so fiercely, lately. Time is short. Life is short. Spend it loving. But more so? Allow yourself to be loved. Don’t close yourself off, because in an off-the-wall distortion you’re justifying it as “easier.” Don’t let your past get in the way of this moment, right now.

Fight for what you want. And, if it’s applicable, allow yourself to be fought for. You can put up as many walls as you like, you can put as much distance as possible between yourself and something/someone else. But all the walls and all the distance in the world doesn’t change facts—and it certainly doesn’t change feelings.

You were not built to play it safe, darlings.


SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Lovely Reds and readers, do you ever find yourself playing it safe? If so, why do you think that is? What do you do to (in the words of Winston Churchill) "Keep buggering on"? Please tell us in the comments.


Ali Trotta is a poet, editor, dreamer, word-nerd, and unapologetic coffee addict. She is always scribbling on napkins, closing her eyes while crossing the street, and singing along to songs at the grocery store. When she isn’t word-wrangling, you can find her cooking, baking, taking photographs, or hanging out in parking lots. Her work has been featured in Uncanny magazine, and she’s on Twitter as @alwayscoffee. You can also read her blog at http://alwayscoffee.wordpress.com.