Wealth
& Privilege and
Brains
& Beauty
by
Jeanette Watts
Historic Fiction
2013 / 2015
Blurb:
Boy meets girl, falls in love at first sight.
Oops, she's already married. Bad planning. She becomes a friend and a muse,
helps him find his voice. He knows that no one gets to capture their own muse,
but he can dream, can't he...?
Excerpt:
A soft rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and they
both groaned.
“Just what we need,” Thomas observed. “More water.”
“Well, I suppose thunder doesn’t necessarily mean more
rain,” Regina answered hopefully.
It was an odd sort of thunder. It took Thomas a moment to realize why. Then it occurred to him that it was
continuous, and getting louder, instead of fading away.
A strange black fog began to drift through the air. They froze, staring at each other,
listening. The rumble increased like –
what? It was a cross between an oncoming
train, and – and – Thomas imagined this must be what an avalanche must sound
like.
Then he knew what was going on. The South Fork dam had broken!
Before he could share his insight, Regina’s face
changed. She stared up Clinton Street,
mouth open, eyes wide with horror. She
pointed, incoherent noises issuing from her throat. Thomas turned, and nearly fell off their
precarious little raft.
The source of the crashing rumble was a towering wall of
debris moving toward them. A misty black
cloud hung in the air, occasionally obscuring the horrific sight. A writhing mass of tree roots, rooftops,
planks, railroad pieces and other metal parts tumbled over and over upon
itself.
The rumble had clarified into a roar of screaming and
crashing as the rapidly approaching behemoth rolled toward them. They couldn’t outrun it, either on or off
their little craft. Regina pointed to
the nearest building. The brick corners
were coined, laid unevenly enough to make a decent ladder. Thomas understood without a word. They poled their way across the watery
distance, desperation giving them strength and speed.
Regina
looked at him as they grabbed the corner of the building. “You go first,” she shouted over the noise.
Thomas
didn’t understand why, but this was no time to stand around arguing
etiquette. He stood up on the raft,
found a foothold and handhold, and clambered up the side of the building. He slowed his ascent to look down at Regina.
Gritting
her teeth in determination, she was making slow progress. Looking up, she caught his eye as he waited,
uncertainly, for her. “Don’t wait for
me! Go!”
He could barely hear her over the roar.
Frustrated
and helpless, he climbed up onto the roof, then lay on his stomach so that he
could reach back down towards Regina.
She was making better time, but he feared the wall of debris would reach
the roof before she would. He scooted
forward, upside down on the pitched roof, caught hold of her wrist, and managed
to bodily yank her onto the roof beside him.
“Why
did you have me go first?” he demanded angrily.
“No
reason we should both die,” she answered. The
words were no sooner out of her mouth then Thomas was absolutely certain they were
both going to die. With a grinding,
crunching, screaming moan, the wave hit the building.
Book Two (Brains & Beauty)
Blurb:
Girl meets boy, falls in love at first sight.
Kind of unfortunate for a married woman. He becomes her best friend, the only
man in her life that she can really count on. She wishes there could be more to
it. There can't be, but she can dream, can't she...?
Excerpt:
Was it really less than a year since she had
witnessed the conflagration at the railroad yard? Once again, she faced smoking
ruins that had once been a thriving industry. This time, it wasn't human made.
Or at least, it wasn't deliberate.
The Washburn “A” had been a seven-and-a-half
story building, and the explosion had been so large it shattered glass windows
in the neighboring city of St. Paul. It left a crater in the middle of the mill
district. The circle of destruction was ringed with the charred skeletons of
mills that existed on the edge of the blast zone.
Regina was far from alone as she picked her
way through the piles of rock and an occasional gear. People were already
salvaging those things that weren’t still on fire, or too burnt to be of any
value. Insurance men were there. She could tell who they were when she
overheard two of them muttering together about whether the damage should be
considered fire or explosion. Others came merely to gawk at the carnage. Still
others, no doubt, were there to mourn.
She was amazed that there were only eighteen
other people killed in the explosion. Considering the scope of the wreckage, it
seemed to her it could have been so much worse. Regina felt a certain gratitude
that there were so few new widows. The bereaved would fit on a single trolley
car.
She circumnavigated the debris field,
fascinated by the extent of the damage and wondering how to prevent anything
like this from happening in Sewickley. If the new Hungarian rollers were going
to create more dust, she was going to need to do something to improve
ventilation.
Her eyes scanned for places where Henry might
have been found. There were fallen walls everywhere – and nothing looked like a
place where a man could be pinned down, and survive, even briefly.
When she returned to the hotel, the concierge
was able to help her make the arrangements with the train station over the
transportation of a coffin.
Finally, Mr. George Christian, Senior, and
George Christian, Junior, collected her at the hotel to take her back to the
train station.
"I am so sorry for your loss, Mrs.
Waring," the elder Christian said.
"Thank you," Regina answered,
realizing she was going to be hearing that sentence over and over in the next
several months.
"I don't know why God spared me, and not
your husband," Mr. Christian continued. "I almost came with him to
the mill that afternoon, but my business detained me longer than I
thought."
"Well," Regina reasoned, “it's a
good thing that your business did detain you. Otherwise your son would also be
suffering a loss in his family today.”
"Still, I feel responsible." Mr.
Christian frowned.
"If there's anything we can do to help,
please, let us know," the younger Mr. Christian said.
There is nothing so awful in the world as
uncertainty. The train ride home alone, with Henry's coffin somewhere in the
back of the train, was sad, but much less difficult than the trip to Minnesota
had been.
Now, at least, Regina's brain had something
concrete to work on. There were problems to solve, or, at least, she knew what
the problems were going to be.
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Author Interview:
What inspired you to write Wealth and Privilege and Brains
and Beauty?
The first book, W&P, was
inspired by my girlfriend's giant stack of books. She's a romance novel junkie.
I was staying at her house and waiting for her before we went out to do
something. While I was waiting, I idly began reading the back covers of the
novels. And then I read more of them. And more of them. I ended up reading
every single back cover for every book she had. It struck me: almost every book
was set in the South. Every so often, one would be set in the West. Now, I'm a
Yankee girl, what's so romantic about the North, or the East? I decided I
needed to write a romance set in Pittsburgh - which is arguably North and East.
B&B was inspired by my readers.
When I finished the first book, everyone looked deep into my eyes and said,
"You're writing ANOTHER one, right?" Threats are kind of like
inspiration, right?
When or at what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I think I knew by fourth or fifth
grade that I wanted to be a writer. I used to tell stories to my best friend
while we walked to school. I was definitely a storyteller by sixth or seventh
grade. The other babysitters used to hate babysitting for the kids I normally
sat for - I used to make up stories for the kids using their stuffed animals,
and then the kids demanded the other babysitters do the same thing.
What is the earliest age you remember reading your first
book?
I must have been about four years
old when I found a book of Peanuts cartoons in my father's desk drawer. I was
so excited - this was an adult book, not a silly little kids book, and I could
read all the words in it!
What genre of books do you enjoy reading?
I adore biographies. I've just
finished re-reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and I'm excited because the next
two books in my stack are both biographies. I swear that I write historic
fiction just as an excuse to read a lot of biographies as part of my research.
What is your favorite book?
Funny, my all time favorite book is
NOT a biography. Gone With the Wind is probably the one book that has had more
influence on me that any other single book.
You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your
favorite author and why?
Margaret Mitchell, of course, since
she wrote Gone With the Wind! Beyond that, my other favorite author is David
McCullough. He is a great storyteller. Both of my favorite two authors are
thorough researchers and know how to make history come to life in bold, vibrant
colors.
If you could travel back in time here on earth to any place
or time. Where would you go and why?
Elizabethan England, so I can see
for myself who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. The evidence is completely
lacking that Will did it himself.
When writing a book do you find that writing comes easy for
you or is it a difficult task?
Writing isn't difficult for me. It's
just like talking, but I have to form the words with my fingers on the
keyboard, instead of with my lips.
Do you have any little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat?
Or any pets?
Sadly, my husband is allergic to
everything with fur. That's why my heroine Regina has two black Labrador
Retrievers. Anthra and Bit are my fantasy dogs.
What is your "to die for", favorite food/foods to
eat?
Oh, lordy, I love food way too much.
I love sushi, and pizza, and pasta. Well, I MISS pizza and pasta - I've been on
a diet, and those had to go :-( I'm from Wisconsin, so of course I like cheese.
I love ethnic foods - Indian, and Japanese, and Chinese, and Vietnamese, and
Thai, and German, and Mexican, and French, and Irish, and even British pub
grub. And I wish I could be one of those people like my mother in law, who
doesn't like chocolate. I'd hate to calculate the number of calories I consume
in a month that have something to do with chocolate.
Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an
author?
Be prepared for a long process, and
don't let your ego trump your characters and your story. When you're done with
your first draft, you are going to have to refine, and refine, and refine. Then
editors are going to point out all the things you did wrong. Don't take that as
a personal attack. Treat your characters like your children. You want what's
best for them, right? Your characters deserve to be presented with a perfectly
proofread book with no spelling or punctuation errors, no grammatical errors,
no factual errors, no continuity errors, no plot holes, no half-baked
dialogues, or other scenes that don't ring true.
That said, in the end, you also need
to trust yourself. You are going to get bad advice from editors who think they
know more than you do. You need to know when to listen to advice, and when to
ignore advice. Don't discard advice in a bit of bruised ego, but think about
advice when it's given, and ignore it when it's not the best thing for the
story and the characters. You're not just telling a story. You're telling the
truth.
About
the Author:
Jeanette Watts is a dance instructor and performer of many different kinds of dance, a costumer, a former television producer, and a big softie who can't learn to say no when people need help with their festivals. It makes it really difficult for her to get time to write.
Giveaway:
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