Waxwood Series Relaunch Giveaway!!!
Category: reading
đLessons From My Mother’s Life (Updated and Revised Edition) Giveaway!!!đ
Why I Love (And Write) Womenâs Fiction
***This blog post was written in honor of Womenâs Fiction Day, designated as June 8 by the Womenâs Fiction Writers Association.***
If you would ask me what is the genre of the Waxwood Series, I would unhesitatingly say “women’s fiction”. This is in spite of the fact that False Fathers, Book 2 of the series, is actually about a young man’s coming-of-age. The series itself focuses on the journey of one young woman to emotional and intellectual maturity in the last decade of the 19th century. Women’s fiction is always about journeys and all of my fiction, regardless of genre, even my upcoming historical cozy mystery series, the Paper Chase Mysteries, is about women’s journeys.
But is womenâs fiction only about the gender of the author?
Different authors define womenâs fiction (whether they write it or not) differently. My definition of womenâs fiction is fiction where a woman goes through some kind of emotional and psychological journey and transformation, usually the main character or one of the main characters. That transformation doesnât necessarily have to be a positive one, but one in which she learns something about herself and the world around her. And the book doesnât have to be written by a woman either. I consider books like Leo Tolstoyâs Anna Karenina and Gustave Flaubertâs Madame Bovary womenâs fiction, because the woman protagonist of each book goes through her own journey and transformation (however tragic), and we learn something about human nature and womenâs lives in the nineteenth century.
This last element is really why I love reading womenâs fiction. The genre not just about women written for women and only relevant to women. Itâs relevant to all our lives, male or female, or however you identify your gender. They also teach us about how women behave and are treated, and this reflects on the way human nature works in our patriarchal society, then and now. I make no secret of the fact that I donât read many contemporary books but a few months ago, I picked up a book firmly placed in the contemporary womenâs fiction category by K. L. Montgomery titled Fat Girl. Montgomery is a body-positive advocate and her protagonist is a plus-size woman whose trials and tribulations with romance, divorce, and raising a teenage boy speaks to our time with the struggles of single parents and body shaming in our weight-conscious society.
In the Waxwood Series, Vivianâs transformation continues throughout the Waxwood Series and will be completed in Book 4. Her revelations about family, women and social expectations will hopefully speak not only of the paradoxes of the Gilded Age but also our time.
In honor of Women’s Fiction Day, I’m giving away an ebook copy of The Specter! To enter the giveaway, please comment on this blog post and tell me why you love women’s fiction (historical or otherwise). The giveaway will end on Sunday, June 13.
Larissa Alderdice: The Alderdice Matriarch
Photo Credit: jspring/Depositphotos.com
Itâs May, which means itâs not only spring but also the month of mothers (Motherâs Day in the United States was May 9). If weâre talking about mothers, I wanted to say a few things about Larissa Alderdice, the matriarch in my Gilded Age family saga, the Waxwood Series.Â
Iâve done several blog posts about the Alderdice family already. I did one for Vivian Alderdice, the series protagonist, and for her brother, Jake. I even did one for Penelope Alderdice, the family specter whose hidden past kicks off the whole series.Â
Larissa is a fascinating character because she is one of the focal points of the series, and yet, in each book, she remains a minor character. Her influence is not in the number of appearances she makes in each book but the mark she leaves on everyone in the family. I donât think this is unusual when it comes to mothers. Mothers are a major source of nurture, discipline, and affection in many of our lives (mine sure is) but they often remain in the background, and their influence affects us in ways we donât always realize until weâre adults and possibly have children of our own.
Larissa had her own beliefs, some of which are quite rigid. Her whole life evolves around society and what the Jonesâ are doing. She is very much a product of the Gilded Age in that she is a part of all its opulence and excess. Like the famous Mrs. Astor, there is a âthemâ and there is an âusâ and âweâ are more superior to âthemâ. So, yes, sheâs a snob.
Her views are somewhat mid-Victorian. There is a scene in Book 2, False Fathers where she chides her daughter for attending a suffragist meeting:
“You have a mutinous streak, Vivian,” Larissa said gently. “I’m only trying to help you.”
“Don’t worry, Mother. No blue blood woman ever strayed far from conformity.” His sister’s voice was wary.Â
“Conventional life has its rewards,” [her] mother reminded her. “Comfort and peace of mind, for one.”
In other words, Larissa finds security in the separate spheres and the chaotic changes that were happening in the last decade of the 19th century and into the 20th were frightening and disturbing to her.Â
Where Larissaâs maternal influence is felt most is in the third installment of the series, Pathfinding Women. In that book, the Alderdices arenât exactly on sure footing with their Nob Hill neighbors, and this is a devastating situation for someone as social-conscious as Larissa. Her solution? Coax her daughter into chasing after a wealthy but somewhat unpolished Canadian buccaneer. Not the most liberating solution in the world, but, given Larissaâs character, predictable. What happens in the book is far from predictable, though.
But Larissa has her good points too. There is no question she is intelligent and brings her views forth in an insightful way. In False Fathers, her daughter remarks, âIf social propriety hadnât distorted your wit and intelligence, you might have achieved something in this world.” Had Larissa been a woman of the 21st century, she would probably have been an entrepreneur or a high-ranking executive of a company because her acumen and social savvy would have been channeled into more useful ways than at high society balls and dinner parties.
But, as it is, her obsession with society and its conventions place her in a position to editorialize about them in ways you would expect from a Mrs. Astor. For example, in a mock interview I wrote as part of the âMeet The Alderdicesâ packet, Larissa has this to say about Gilded Age debutante:
âFor us, when a young lady comes out in society, it is an occasion for celebrating. She is now a woman and must take upon her shoulders the duties and responsibilities of a woman, not only toward her husband and children, but toward society as well.â
Want to read more about Larissa and her role in the Waxwood Series? You can start with Book 1, The Specter, which has now been revised and updated and is at the special price of 99¢.Â
Want to explore the nooks and crannies of history that arenât in the history books? Like social and psychological history and not just historical events? Want in on exclusive sneak peeks, giveaways, and surveys? Then sign up for my newsletter! Youâll get a free short story when you do. Oh, and that Meet The Alderdices packet? I occasionally put that out to my newsletter subscribers, along with a few other goodies, but only to subscribers, so if youâre on my list, youâll get a chance to get that too!
Social History: Putting the Human Element Back into History
Photo Credit: Dudley Street, Seven Dials, 1872, Wellcome Images, Wellcome Trust, UK: Fae/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0
Iâm starting out this year as a revisionist (in a sense). Iâm revising my perspective on my writing and my passion for history by examining what really makes them tick. For those who have been following my blog for a while, you know Iâve had several transformations in the past years. I started out in 2017 as a contemporary literary fiction writer believing in psychological reality in fiction, something I am still fascinated by and still incorporate in much of my fiction. Then I discovered a way to transform my passion for history, especially womenâs history, into stories about resilient women and the nooks and crannies of history that donât always come up in historical fiction.Â
Last year, I completed the Waxwood Series, my Gilded Age family saga set among San Franciscoâs elite. I discovered that my real passion for history lies more in its social and psychological aspects rather than its politics and events. Those terms can sound a little vague and academic, so this month, Iâll be talking about what social history is and what it means in my fiction.
Letâs begin with a simple definition: Social history is history with the human element thrown in. Not that political or economic history isnât about humans, as all history inevitably is. But youâre more likely to read a book about or set in the Civil War, say, where the people or characters are players in the big event. Social history looks at the people who participated in history, how they were affected by it, and how they influenced it. In my Civil War example, a novel might be about African American soldiers (actual or fictional) and their daily struggles not only with the war itself but with the racism surrounding them on the battlefield, forsaking a more blow-by-blow account of the events of the war. Social history gives us a window into the way people lived and breathed in their time and, sometimes, the values and beliefs they held that we want to acquire or release in the 21st century.
Social history is actually an academic field of study that emerged in the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s. This isnât much of a surprise, since much of the social awareness that emerged during these times required knowledge of the past. For example, the Civil Rights movement was built on the oppression and heinous crimes of slavery and on racism not only of the present but of the past. Similarly, the second-wave feminist movement, as I discuss here, took the issues the 19th-century suffragists were fighting for to the next level.
When I say I focus more on social history than on political and economic history, I mean that how my characters live and relate to their environment matters to me. The more academic perspective of social history often looks at the bigger picture, like the movements, systems, and structures of history. These are important, but I also find the way people related to these social structures and lived within them (or rebelled against them) is part of what makes history so fascinating and relevant to us today.Â
Vivian Alderdice, the main character of the Waxwood Series, is a great example. Like many 19th century women, she is locked in social systems and structures with very rigid definitions of what women should and shouldnât do. Sheâs a member of the Nob Hill elite, adhering to the social norms of the aristocratic class (which is especially true in Book 3 of the series, Pathfinding Women). Later, she moves into suffragism and progressivism, but, just as she had to revise her position in her Nob Hill world, she also has to examine her values and beliefs against those of her new world (which you can read about in the last book of the series, Dandelions).Â
In my upcoming historical mystery series, The Paper Chase Mysteries, social history plays a huge role. The series begins in the first years of the 20th century when many people were still reluctant to leave behind Victorian values for the complexity and fears of the modern. Like Vivian, the series main character is a social reformer, and when she moves from San Francisco to the small, dusty town of Arrojo, her forward-thinking ideas arenât always embraced, appreciated, or understood.
You can find out more about that series here. The first two books of the Waxwood Series, which were re-edited and refreshed in 2020, are here and here.Â
Want to explore the nooks and crannies of history that arenât in the history books? Like social and psychological history and not just historical events? Want in on exclusive sneak peeks, giveaways, and surveys? Then sign up for my newsletter! Youâll get a free short story when you do.