Featured Author: Anne Stenhouse

A very warm welcome on this dreich autumn morning to fellow Scottish author and colleague, Anne Stenhouse, who is sharing the inspiration behind her new historical romance, Bella’s Betrothal, while I’m on a visit to Anastacia Pollack’s Blog today.

Set in 1820s Edinburgh, Bella’s Betrothal is a very enjoyable read with a great sense of place and engaging characters. Since Anne is also an excellent playwright, there is plenty of sparkling dialogue between the hero, Charles Lindsay, and heroine, Lady Isabella Wormsley. It begins with one of the best lines I’ve read in any recent romance and I've really enjoyed following the not-so-smooth course of their love story and their interaction with a host of interesting characters. Here’s a little about the novel.

 

Bella's Betrothal

While she is travelling north to find sanctuary from the malicious gossip of the Ton, Lady Isabella Wormsley’s room in a Dalkeith inn is invaded by handsome Scottish Laird, Charles Lindsay. Charles has uncovered a plot to kidnap her, but Bella wonders if he isn’t a more dangerous threat, at least to her heart, than the villainous Graham Direlton he wrests her from.

Bella settles into the household of her Aunt Hatty Menzies in Edinburgh’s nineteenth century George Square where Charles is a regular visitor. She has been exiled to the north by her unfeeling mama, but feels more betrayed by her papa to whom she has been close. Bella hopes the delivery of her young cousin’s baby will eventually demonstrate her own innocence in the scandal that drove her from home.

Bella’s presence disrupts the lives of everyone connected to her. Direlton makes another attempt to kidnap her and in rescuing her a second time, Charles is compromised. Only a betrothal will save his business and Bella’s reputation.

Mayhem, murder and long suppressed family secrets raise confusion and seemingly endless difficulties. Will the growing but unacknowledged love between Bella and her Scottish architect survive the evil Direlton engineers?

Inspiration behind the story

Writing a longer piece like a novel brings together lots of things previously swimming in my subconscious soup. Place is a big influence. I sometimes find myself creating a character and scenario while standing in front of a house. It needn't be a big house and I've written one or two short pieces based on some photographs I took of a Victorian laundry. With Bella's Betrothal, I was very keen to showcase Edinburgh. I've lived here for a long time now in Georgian and Victorian houses. The townscape is always around me.

Next would be theme in the sense of 'What is this novel about?' With Bella's Betrothal, I was exercised by the damage gossip can do. Even in our own, maybe pedestrian, lives, reputation is precious. Once lost, getting it back is the Devil's own job.

Characters are of course paramount and I will try out 'voices' until I'm hearing the main protagonists and, often, the villain. Villains are just so interesting and such fun to create. With Bella's Betrothal, I also had several very demanding and interesting secondary characters clamouring to be heard.

Thanks for being my guest, Anne!

Bella's Betrothal is available from Amazon UK and US

ANNE STENHOUSE has always loved words. Reading them and using them greedily, she can’t truly remember a time when she couldn’t escape into the pages of a book and certainly can’t remember when she couldn’t talk and ask questions. Anne is a published and performed playwright. She studied both English and History at University in Edinburgh, and finds it a great joy to combine these two disciplines in her novels.

Being a playwright means Anne loves dialogue and knows a piece is going well when she ‘begins to hear the characters talking to each other’. She has been a civil servant, full-time Mum, and for a while, a worker in an Addictions’ rehabilitation unit. Anne lives in Scotland with her husband and dancing partner of over thirty years. Their children and a grandchild are close by.

Anne’s debut historical novel, Mariah’s Marriage, was shortlisted for the RNA Joan Hessayon Award.

You can find out more about Anne on her blog, Novels Now.

Author Spotlight: Debut Novelist Anne Stenhouse

I’m sure Anne won’t mind me mentioning that my short novella, The Aphrodite Touch, is released today from Tirgearr Publishing and is also on Amazon. I’m being interviewed by my lovely publisher on Hearts of Fiction this week. Please pop over and leave a comment to have a chance of winning an autographed e-copy for a limited time! And don’t forget the blog party here on Tuesday.

And now it’s a pleasure to welcome Scottish author and writing friend Anne Stenhouse (also known to many as playwright Anne Stenhouse, and to some of us as Anne Graham) whose debut historical novel, Mariah’s Marriage, was released this month from MuseItUp Publishing, Canada. Anne’s novel was shortlisted for the prestigious RNA Joan Hessayon debut novelist award and she received a certificate and cheque at the Summer Party and Awards evening in London last week.

I’m reading Mariah’s Marriage at the moment and enjoying it very much. Ann has written the following delightful post about dancing, one of my own favourite hobbies.

Rosemary, thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog. Write what you know is a well worn adage and I’ve danced a lot over the years. I thought I’d tell your readers a wee story about how dancing has been important to me.

When I was a school prefect, the head of PE enlisted me to help him teach basic Scottish dancing to the third year boys for their Christmas party. With perseverance, I mean PERSEVERANCE, I managed to teach one of the lads a Canadian Barn Dance. It was a staple of party programmes. The lad had outgrown his brain in the sense that it didn’t realise his limbs were six inches longer than when the grey cells last checked. Even so...

On the night of the party, my young friend asked me up for the first Canadian Barn Dance and refreshed his memory. After the interval, he was able to ask the girl he fancied. She was able to say ‘Yes’. She’d seen he could dance it and knew she wouldn’t be ridiculed by a stumbling oaf. Result.

Lizzie Bennet is not the only one who didn’t want to dance with an incompetent partner. I’ve never fancied it much myself. Trampled toes, beery breath and wandering hand trouble all combine to spoil a perfectionist’s evening.

When Lizzie is horrified to discover she must stand up with her papa’s heir, Mr Collins, she has to steel herself. Mr Collins does not disappoint the reader, but Lizzie is faced with a serious dilemma. She knows he won’t be any good as a dancer, but if she turns him down, she won’t be able to accept anyone else. This we know from the recent Netherfield Ball programme on TV.

There isn’t a dance in my debut novel, Mariah’s Marriage, but dancing is referred to in Tobias’s thoughts when he sees how tall Mariah is. They would be comfortable together. Clearly two left feet were not prized as much as a well taught pair and that hasn’t changed over the generations. Many marriages began with a courtship in the dance halls.

Mariah’s Marriage

Leaving the chapel in London’s 19^th century Thames’ side where she teaches the alphabet to a raggle-taggle of urchins, Mariah Fox is charged by a stray pig. The quick intervention of Tobias Longreach saves her from certain injury. Mariah has always believed her destiny to be teaching. After the early death of her mother, she was brought up by her papa, Jerome, to believe that she could learn anything a boy could. She shares his vision of a future in which everyone, rich or poor, boy or girl, will be taught at least the rudiments of reading, writing, and counting.

Tobias was brought up a second son, but following his elder brother’s premature death, inherits an Earldom and the need to provide it with an heir. He comes to believe that Mariah will make a perfect countess and enrolls her papa’s help in securing her hand.

However, Sir Lucas Wellwood, whose debts have made him urge his sister to attempt to trap Tobias into marriage, has sinister intentions. Mariah suspects Wellwood has been mistreating his sister and she heads off impetuously to rescue her. Will Tobias and his friends reach Wellwood’s home before he can exact revenge on Mariah?

Short Excerpt

At three minutes to noon he saw her and drew himself up to his full height. His papa had been a tall man, and despite his mama’s tiny frame, Tobias topped six feet by two or more inches. It was a disadvantage to be quite so tall when seeking dancing partners. Mariah Fox was a tall girl who would not be swamped by his height should he take her onto the dance floor.

“Good morning, Miss Fox,” he said when they arrived at Mellon House’s entrance stairs at the same moment. “This is a most pleasant surprise.”

“Is it?” she replied, unsmiling, and Tobias began to think he may have made one or two misjudgements in his plan to captivate Miss Fox. “Is it not your hand behind the changes taking place in my life?”

Mariah’s Marriage is available from MuseItUp, and Amazon UK and US and Barnes & Noble.

Anne Stenhouse has always loved words. Reading them and using them greedily, she can’t truly remember a time when she couldn’t escape into the pages of a book and certainly can’t remember when she couldn’t talk and ask questions. Anne is a published and performed playwright. She studied both English and History at University in Edinburgh, and finds it a great joy to combine these two disciplines in her first novel, Mariah’s Marriage.

Being a playwright means Anne loves dialogue and knows a piece is going well when she ‘begins to hear the characters talking to each other’. She has been a civil servant, full-time Mum, and for a while, a worker in an Addictions’ rehabilitation unit. Anne lives in Scotland with her husband and dancing partner of over thirty years. Their children and a grandchild are close by.

You can find out more about Anne on her Novels Now blog and Write, Watch and Critique Plays