Thanks for hosting us today. Lou and I are delighted to be here to celebrate the release of our new co-written book The Harp and the Sea.
Q: When you got your very first manuscript acceptance letter, what was your initial reaction and who was the first person you told?
Lou:
I had a hard time believing it! I’d gotten acceptances for short stories before, and they made me pretty happy, but this book was such a labor of love, and as it was M/M romance and it was 2010, I’d had a hard time finding publishers who would even take a serious look. Then I saw an interview with a certain publisher who’d recently founded a company just for M/M. My heart actually raced when I saw the article, and I remember thinking, “They’ll publish Loving Luki Vasquez.” I followed submission guidelines to a T, and turned it in, and the acceptance came within two days. That quick, I thought it would be a rejection, but it was an enthusiastic yes, and I could hardly breathe. That was a problem, because I was at work and was supposed to be focusing on adjudicating disability cases, something that requires not only breath, but careful attention, lol. I didn’t tell anybody until I got off work that evening and met a dear friend for dinner and a movie. By that time I’d got the contract offer—promising an advance and everything—but I still felt a little like if I said anything the whole fairy tale thing would vanish. So right up through the time I walked into the mall’s doors and saw my friend waiting, I planned to keep it to myself. Of course that lasted two seconds. As soon as the hello hug was over I said, “Look what I got!” brandishing my phone with the email pulled up. So we had something to celebrate. By the way, that is a great memory, and one its easy to forget with all that’s gone between then and now, so thank you for asking. Remembering has brought a smile to my face.
Q:Do you have a writing schedule or do you just write when you can find the time?
Anne:
I work from 10 in the morning to 6.30 at night three days a week at my day job, as well as both days of the weekend so I have to have to schedule my writing or I’d get nothing done. Most evenings I don’t work are also busy with ongoing commitments.
I try to fit in at least an hour’s writing each Monday/Tuesday (my weekend), and I set my alarm for 7am during the week to do the same. Unfortunately Saturday is a bit of a write off as I have an earlier work start that day, and as my job is fairly physical—I work in a public library—I’m tired by the time I get home. Evenings are earmarked for admin, and things that don’t entail as much creative brain power.
At present because I’m still republishing my backlist, I’m working on new stories on the weekends, and editing my backlist during the week. So far that split is working well. Four backlist books out—nine to go!
Q: Where did the desire to write LGBT romance come from?
Lou:
I’ve never thought to myself “I’m going to write LGBT romance.” I didn’t think it before my first book, nor have I made that decision, per se, since then. Every story I’ve written is a direct result of characters, making themselves known to me, if you will, and showing me the fuzzy outlines of their story. Most of the time, those characters have been gay men. Maybe that says something about me, but if so, I don’t know what, and it isn’t important to me. Many authors say things like, for instance, they write queer stories because they want to be part of making sure everybody gets represented, or it’s a way to buck the heavily hetero-slanted publishing industry and assert a kind of equity for non-hetero people. Make no mistake, I’m very glad my books provide that kind of representation, and can help to balance the scales. That is a huge plus, but the characters are the reason I write the stories I write.
Q:When did you write your first story and what was the inspiration for it?
Anne:
The first story I wrote that I knew was going to be a novel wasn’t my first published book, but my second. Shadowboxing is the first in my WWII Echoes Rising series, and after Cat’s Quill, my portal fantasy, was accepted for publication I dusted the series off and finished it.
I’ve always been fascinated by WWII, but when I started writing Shadowboxing nearly twenty years ago I couldn’t find an MM story set in this time period which was the mix of action, drama, and romance I love to read. One novel grew into a three book series, which I’m republishing this year. So because I couldn’t find what I wanted to read, I wrote it.
Q: How much research do you do when writing a story and what are the best sources you’ve found for giving an authentic voice to your characters?
Lou:
The general answer to how much research I do is, “A heck of a lot.” And that’s true across the board, whether it’s romance/suspense, a holiday story, or speculative fiction such as The Harp and the Sea. I always want to write a story that has credibility and cohesion, regardless of the genre, and the best way I know to do that is research. I do research before I start writing, and then while I write I’d say I usually discover more research is needed at intervals of about ten thousand words or so. 😊 That said, I admit I rely heavily on the internet, but I’m careful about how I do that. For The Harp and the Sea, the web was a very useful trove of original historical documents, scholarly articles, and present day personal accounts of a person’s experience of the places our characters visit. Of course, I also used books—some physical but mostly on Kindle—to discover historical use of words, explore opinions both past and present about the political realities of the time and region, and more. The places in The Harp and the Sea and the major events affecting the characters lives are all real. Anne and I just placed our characters in that reality, and then made some magic that fit within that framework.
Q: If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
Anne:
I’ve always loved stories about psi powers, so I’d want something like that rather than something more traditional. Teleportation would be cool. I could use it to save people trapped in not easy to get to places etc, and as an added bonus it would save a small fortune in time and petrol usually spent travelling from one place to another.
Q: If you could sequester yourself for a week somewhere and just focus on your writing, where would you go and what would the environment be like?
Anne:
My answer to this one is probably somewhat boring as I’d hole up at home, and get a lot done if I didn’t need to go to work, or anywhere else. At home I have all the comforts I need, and wouldn’t have to worry about a cat sitter. I’d also have all my notes where I can find them, a decent internet connection, and tea making facilities. And music blaring in the background.
Perfect.
I know this location would work as I wrote a novel during our recent two month lockdown here in New Zealand.
Q: Tell us about your current work in process and what you’ve got planned for the future.
Lou:
To start with, The Harp and the Sea is the first book in a series Anne and I plan to write, Magic in the Isles. We’re going to center all the stories in the wonderful landscape of the Scottish Hebrides and draw on the rich lore of the region, which features magical creatures and all sorts of interesting legends. The next story is just beginning to come together, with a working title of The Whistle in the Waves (subject to change). Anne and I are also talking about writing a second New Zealand Romance—the first being Sunset at Pencarrow. No target date on either of those yet, but we want to focus on the magic first. 😊
I’m also working on finishing up my Vasquez Inc series, which is with Changeling Press. The latest release is book 6, A Shot of Courage, which was released July 30, 2020, and the series will have one or two more books coming by fall. As you may know that series is a spin-off from the Vasquez and James series, and I’m kicking around the idea of another spinoff centering on a sexy State Department special agent, Jesse Douglas, first introduced in Vasquez and James 4, and playing a pretty important secondary role in the Vasquez Inc series. I have other Lou Sylvre stories percolating but nothing I’ve actually started writing yet. Oh, I should mention I do have a flash fiction that will appear in QSFs flash anthology this year. The theme they chose is “Innovation,” and my 300 words is called Forty-three Minutes. It’s space opera in miniature. 😊
A lot of my upcoming time is going to be committed to a series I have under pen name Lou Hoffmann, The Sun Child Chronicles. It’s Fantasy with Sci-fi overtones, with a young gay protagonist. Not a romance by any means but there are some sweet romantic subplots. Four books were published previously by a publisher that got into some financial trouble, and now I’m looking at getting those polished up, maybe making a few improvements even, and getting them self-published, along with the remaining books of the series. I’m looking at getting them out in ebook, print, and even audible.
Anne:
At present my main focus for the year is republishing my backlist. I’m taking the opportunity to go through and re-edit, and depending on setting, change the prose to UK/NZ English.
My next republished book will be Family and Reflection in September, which is the third book of The Sleepless City, an urban fantasy/paranormal romance series I co-wrote with Elizabeth Noble. Instead of co-writing each book, I wrote books 1 and 3, and Elizabeth books 2 and 4.
Then I’m focusing on republishing my WWII series, and my New Zealand contemporary romance Prelude to Love.
I also have two full first drafts finished which are first books of New Zealand set paranormal series, which will cross over at some point. Rosebound is the first of my Kiwi Psi series, and Double Exposure continues Simon and Ben’s story (from The Sleepless City) in a new Wellington set series Pōneke Shadows. I have Forgotten in Fire, the second book in my Dragons of Astria series, almost finished too. I’m hoping to publish those next year, while re-editing/re-working Cat’s Quill, and the rest of that series.
I try to do a mix of editing/writing something new, so next up writing wise for me is The Blue Feather, which is a novel of The Keys, a shared New Zealand Rainbow Writers world. One of my main characters is a little blue penguin shifter.
Thanks again, Love Bytes, for hosting us and featuring our book, The Harp and the Sea!
Title: The Harp and the Sea
Author: Lou Sylvre and Anne Barwell
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: July 27, 2020
Length: 84200
Genre: Historical Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, historical fiction, fantasy, fated love, Scottish Isles, Jacobite revolt, Highlanders, action-adventure, magic, magical items, witch, curse, music, war/battles
Add to Goodreads
Synopsis
In 1605, Robbie Elliot—a Reiver and musician from the Scottish borders—nearly went to the gallows. The Witch of the Hermitage saved him with a ruse, but weeks later, she cursed him to an ethereal existence in the sea. He has seven chances to come alive, come ashore, and find true love. For over a century, Robbie’s been lost to that magic; six times love has failed. When he washes ashore on the Isle of Skye in 1745, he’s arrived at his last chance at love, his last chance at life.
Highland warrior Ian MacDonald came to Skye for loyalty and rebellion. He’s lost once at love, and stands as an outsider in his own clan. When Ian’s uncle and laird sends him to lonely Skye to hide and protect treasure meant for Bonnie Prince Charlie’s coffers, he resigns himself to a solitary life—his only companion the eternal sea. Lonely doldrums transform into romance and mystery when the tide brings beautiful Robbie Elliot and his broken harp ashore.
A curse dogs them, enemies hunt them, and war looms over their lives. Robbie and Ian will fight with love, will, and the sword. But without the help of magic and ancient gods, will it be enough to win them a future together?
The Harp and the Sea
Lou Sylvre and Anne Barwell © 2020
All Rights Reserved
1605 the Scottish Border Marches
Robert Ker of Cessford, Lord Roxburgh wielded nearly autonomous power at the turn of the 17th century as Warden of the Scottish Middle March. Often called the Debatable Lands, the Border Marches had rough and fluid application of law. A violent nature and loyalty to kin and ally were all the tools Cessford needed to enforce his judgements. His position made him a powerful man, and though he owed allegiance to Scott of Buccleuch, he marched mostly to his own drummer.
But in the year of Our Lord 1603, King James VI of Scotland became also James I of England, and set about unifying the two countries into Great Britain. His “pacification” of the Border Marches in truth meant abolishing the office of Warden, renaming all the Marches the Middle Shires, and killing enough Borderers to make the rest bend the knee. Having lost autonomy, Ker wormed and weaselled his way into the king’s courts at Whitehall and Edinburgh and commenced warring on the people of the March without mercy as a way to impress the monarch.
*
On a rain-soaked day in autumn, 1605, the rough men who served Ker of Cessford and King James Stuart shoved Robbie Elliot into a damp prison cell beneath Hermitage—a stark and haunted castle located almost dead centre in the Middle March, a place Robbie had once called home. When he heard the heavy oaken door thunk shut behind him, rattling the rusty iron chains and window bars, he fell to his knees in the filthy straw that lay scattered over the stone floor. He and a half-dozen others had been force-marched sixteen miles from Hawick, bound, handled rough, and prodded with sticks. Now Robbie tried in vain to find a few square inches of his body that didn’t cry out in pain.
“There’s water, Robbie.” The weak, high-pitched male voice came from the darkest corner of the cell, and it gave Robbie a start for he’d thought himself alone. “In the barrel there,” the man continued. “It’s clean enough.”
Robbie’s legs obeyed him after only a brief argument, and he stood and walked to the barrel. Dust and chaff floated on the top, but when he dipped the single iron ladle and brought the water to his lips, it had no foul smell. “I’ve had far worse,” Robbie said, and then drank.
When he’d slaked his thirst enough, he turned to his cellmate, who’d stepped out of the shadows. “How’d you come to be here, Keithen?”
“Same as you, I’d wager. I’d heard the warden’s men were on the march, and I meant to hide at my old da’s holding, east of Kelso. But I was caught no more than ten miles from Hermitage castle and strung along with five others—including your stepbrother Jem. We’d thought we’d go no further than the gallows on the hill, but they brought us here.”
“Jem? He’s here?”
“Alas, Robbie, he was a lucky one, for he’ll never see these cells. He fell on the trail, and the warden’s man kicked his head a mite hard. Snapped his neck.”
Robbie piled up some straw and sat, slumping back against the wall, his own head pounding as if he’d been the one kicked. Keithen, who tended to prattle on most of the time, stayed blessedly silent until Robbie spoke up a few minutes later. “Yes, probably lucky to die then, quick like that. Do you ken why they brought us here? What they’re planning for us?”
A sudden rattle of heavy keys beyond the door interrupted the prisoners’ conversation, and a single, crusted pot was pushed inside, its contents warm enough to steam in the perpetual cold of the below-ground keep.
Keithen said, “Porridge, or what passes for it,” and then got up and lumbered stiffly to fetch the pot.
Robbie realised all at once that his insides had gone so hollow he’d be happy to fill them with a brick if it was all he had, and he wasted no time. Given no utensils, the two men scooped the thick, sticky oatmeal with their hands, minding neither the slight burn nor extra flavour of the dirt and blood on their own skin. By the time they finished, Robbie had forgotten his last question entirely until Keithen answered it.
“I heard a couple English talking yesterday—their voices come down clearly through the shaft, just there.” He pointed at a corner of the ceiling, a black, empty rectangle amid the grey stone. “They said we’ll be marched to Carlisle, and wicked James himself, the king, travels there too. They’ll hang us all at once—for his entertainment.”
Robbie said nothing for a long while, his mind focused instead on whether he could find a way to die sooner rather than give the king his satisfaction. He could think of nothing short of refusing water or smashing his head against the stones, and he knew he wouldn’t do either. Although small in stature, he’d proven himself brave in battle when he was no more than fourteen, and he’d borne his wounds as well as any man. But courage has its limits, he thought, and the pain of drying to dust from the inside out or smashing my own skull is beyond mine.
At last he said, “Well, Keithen, some comfort. At least we’ll die among our own, and not alone.”
Purchase
NineStar Press | Amazon
Anne Barwell lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She shares her home with a cat with “tortitude” who is convinced that the house is run to suit her; this is an ongoing “discussion,” and to date, it appears as though Kaylee may be winning.
In 2008, Anne completed her conjoint BA in English Literature and Music/Bachelor of Teaching. She has worked as a music teacher, a primary school teacher, and now works in a library. She is a member of the Upper Hutt Science Fiction Club and plays violin for Hutt Valley Orchestra.
She is an avid reader across a wide range of genres and a watcher of far too many TV series and movies, although it can be argued that there is no such thing as “too many.” These, of course, are best enjoyed with a decent cup of tea and further the continuing argument that the concept of “spare time” is really just a myth. She also hosts and reviews for other authors, and writes monthly blog posts for Love Bytes. She is the co-founder of the New Zealand Rainbow Romance writers, and a member of RWNZ.
Anne’s books have received honorable mentions five times, reached the finals four times—one of which was for best gay book—and been a runner up in the Rainbow Awards. She has also been nominated twice in the Goodreads M/M Romance Reader’s Choice Awards—once for Best Fantasy and once for Best Historical.
~
Lou Sylvre loves romance with all its ups and downs, and likes to conjure it into books. The sweethearts on her pages are men who end up loving each other—and usually saving each other from unspeakable danger. It’s all pretty crazy and very, very sexy. As if you’d want to know more, she’ll happily tell you that she is a proudly bisexual woman—a mother, grandmother, lover of languages, and cat-herder—of mixed cultural heritage. She works closely with lead cat and writing assistant, the (male) Queen of Budapest, Boudreau St. Clair. She lives in the rainy part of the Pacific Northwest, and hearing from a reader unfailingly brightens the dreary weather. Find her through her links listed here, or drop her a line at lou.sylvre@gmail.com.
8/3 Joyfully Jay
8/4 Love Bytes
Thanks again for hosting us!
[…] out the post here and don’t forget to enter the […]