Nostradamus and Me
Today I’m guest-posting over at Always with a Book, about Nostradamus, the quatrain that made him famous, and my own adventures in writing fictional secret quatrains in the style of Nostradamus for The Flower Reader. Come see, and find out why I describe Nostradamus as the Gawker.com of his day. (Hint: gossip about famous people and lots of blind items.)
There’s also a fabulous and thoughtful review of The Flower Reader by Deb Previte, the “Bookish Dame” (I do love that sobriquet), at A Bookish Libraria. Would love to see you there!
The EmoCoaster
Some of my writer friends call it the “emocoaster”—the emotional rollercoaster. We all ride it sometimes. I seemed to have had a whole handful of tickets this past week, lurching from euphoric highs to abysmal lows and back again. And again. And again. And that’s really all I’ll say about that. Heh.
Among the wonderful things: my virtual book tour continued, with reviews and guest posts (some with giveways) at:
Let Them Read Books
So Many Books, So Little Time
Passages to the Past
The True Book Addict
Many thanks to these wonderful book bloggers for their reading, reviews and hospitality!
Flat Rinette also made some new stops around the country. I’d love it if you’d tuck your copy of the book in a fun or unusual place, snap a picture, and send it in—see details in the sidebar.
More touring coming up next week:
Monday, April 23: Review at A Bookish Libraria. (and no, there’s no ‘n’ on the end)
Tuesday, April 24: Review at Always with a Book.
Wednesday, April 25: Review at Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews.
Thursday, April 26: Review at A Novel Affair, and a guest post on my adventures in writing fictional quatrains in the style of Nostradamus at Always with a Book.
Friday, April 27: Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages.
Whew! I’m stocking up on Rescue Remedy (dog people will know what I’m talking about) and I’ll see you there!
Off to Houston
I’m flying down to Houston this afternoon for a signing at the wonderful Murder by the Book tomorrow. If you’re in Houston or the Houston area, please come see me—it’s at 1:00pm tomorrow, Saturday, afternoon. Nothing fancy or formal—I’ll just talk a little about floromancy and Nostradamus and Mary Queen of Scots, and hopefully get lots of questions and interaction. I like it when you talk better than when I talk. Heh.
I’ll also be giving away some of my beautiful pressed-flower bookmarks, with the floromancy meanings of the flowers written up to go with them.
There are quite a few murders in The Flower Reader and so I think Rinette will fit right in. I’ll have to take some “Flat Rinette” pictures of her hobnobbing with other mystery/thriller heroines.
A fun interview today over at Unabridged Chick. Who else would have gotten me to admit that my first piece of fiction was written from the point of view of a horse??
Always a Hound
I’m guest posting today on the Owl Bookmark Blog, about dogs in sixteenth-century courts, Renaissance art, and of course historical fiction.
Being a beagle lover (how would you ever have guessed?), my fictional doggies tend to be hounds—the pocket beagle puppies Tristo and Isa in The Second Duchess, and the loyal hunting hound Seilie with his melting eyes and freckled paws in The Flower Reader. Stop by and join the discussion about you favorite animals in fiction!
Flat Rinette and Lots More
I’m taking a page out of Flat Stanley’s book and launching a “Flat Rinette” campaign! Grab a copy of the book, take it somewhere fun and snap a picture of it, then send me the picture with some details about where you took it and what you were doing. Let’s see if we can’t take Rinette on a trip from border to border, coast to coast, and around the world! The “Flat Rinette” photo collection has already begun on Pinterest, so drop by and say hi. Above you see the very first photo, featuring my favorite daughter-in-law Jennifer and my darling grandchildren Grayson and Miranda. Hi, sweeties! 
Fabulous reviews for The Flower Reader by Kayla Posney in The Examiner and at Diary of a Book Addict. As part of my online book tour, more reviews at Confessions of an Avid Reader and Raging Bibliomania.
I guest posted about the real silver casket at Tina’s Book Reviews; I also wrote about floromancy and just what a “flower reader” is at Confessions of an Avid Reader.
Had a delightful event last Thursday night at A Real Bookstore in Fairview. The terrible tornados on Tuesday had delayed it, but Teri and David were wonderful hosts and four lucky winners went home with beautiful pressed-flower bookmarks. Coming up this Saturday, I’ll be signing at Murder by the Book in Houston and giving away more bookmarks.
You know? Right now I’m feeling about as “flat” as Rinette, so I think I’d better go sit in the corner with the doggies and give myself some beagle-ear therapy. Then I need to spend some time in sixteenth-century Florence…
Tornados and Winners
First and most important of all, I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to all my fellow Texans who are coping with injury and property damage in the wake of our violent tornados yesterday afternoon and evening. The storm passed right over us here in Coppell (and the tennis-ball-sized hail crashing into the roof certainly terrified the doggies) but (pending a professional roof assessment) we have only minor damage and a few tree branches down. My release-day booksigning was cancelled and rescheduled for Thursday. Looking around at the havoc wrought by Mother Nature certainly puts one’s book-release stress into perspective!
ETA: After inspecting everything in the daylight this morning, I find my poor little car, Willow-the-Skate (and of course there is a story as to why he’s named that), has a huge star-shaped crack in his windshield, and won’t be driveable until it’s fixed. Unfortunately he was totaled after another of our Texas hailstorms, so no insurance to help pay for it…
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The Broadcasting Legend™ has chosen the winners of the three Flower Reader bookmarks. They are:
Leigh
Terry Martini
Liz Michalski
Congratulations! I’ll be emailing each of you privately to get your mailing addresses.
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A note to readers of Dear Reader and AuthorBuzz. There’s an offer this week for The Flower Reader, and to my horror my ISP abruptly announced (with only two days’ notice) that it was doing a “Server Performance Upgrade” and taking my website (including my email addresses) offline for several hours. This was scheduled to happen last night around 1:00am MDT, and last for an unspecified length of time. So if you tried to email my special “flowers” email address in the night and your email bounced, I’m so sorry! Everything is working now, so please try again, and I apologize for the inconvenience.
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I’m guesting today at Tina’s Book Reviews, with a post about the real silver casket that inspired the story of The Flower Reader. History! Pictures! Another chance to win one of these beautiful limited-edition bookmarks, plus a free book! Don’t miss it.
Novels and Puppies
So today’s the day. The Flower Reader goes out into the big wild world.
Writers feel all kinds of strange things when their books are released. Pride, sure, and apprehension, and vulnerability, and hope, and moments of joy, and middle-of-the-night, it’s-too-late-now sinking moments of oh, no, I should have written that part this way and not that way.
But mostly I feel—I don’t know—helplessness. Empty-handedness. That puppy has sneaked out the door and you can offer it all the Milkbones you want—you’re never going to get it back. It’s on its own and it doesn’t belong to you anymore. In fact, it’s suddenly all grown up and not the cute fuzzy puppy you’ve been used to as you pored over it and petted it and brushed its silky fur—it’s a great big spotted dog with teeth and claws and—floppy ears? But wait, you didn’t mean for it to have floppy ears! Where did the floppy ears come from?
Too bad. If people see floppy ears, floppy ears there are.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of people like floppy ears.
It’s just—not what you thought it would be. You write a book and you love it and think it’s yours, and then somehow it gets away from you and becomes this self-sufficient wild thing, hiding in the cucumber vines and foraging for its own food. It may still have your tags on its collar (“Hi! My name is The Flower Reader! If you find me, please call xxx-xxxx. Reward!”) but don’t be fooled. It’s not yours any more.
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I’ll post the winners of the bookmarks tomorrow! The Broadcasting Legend™ is out today and I need his magic touch to do the drawing.
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A lovely kickoff review by Melissa, the Avid Reader, at Confessions of an Avid Reader!
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I am guest-blogging today at Julianne Douglas’s Writing the Renaissance. Do you like your historical fiction with fictional characters, or without? There are pros and cons to both sides…
Bookmarks!
Several people have commented that they’ve already ordered the book (and huge thanks for that!) and would like a chance to win one of the beautiful pressed-flower bookmarks on its own. So here it is. Comment below to be entered, and I’ll have the Broadcasting Legend™ draw a winner—what the heck, two winners—no, wait, let’s go all the way and say three winners—on Tuesday, April 3rd, the day The Flower Reader is released into the world. As always, extra social-media mentions get you extra entries. “Likes” on Amazon get you extra entries. The honor system prevails. International entries welcome.
I would just like to say something about social media. Early on I made a pact with myself that I would not comment on reviews, good or bad—that is the slipperiest of slippery slopes, and we’ve all seen too many ghastly brawls on Goodreads and Twitter and Amazon. But I do read them (how can any author really not read them?) and I sincerely appreciate every single person who has read and reviewed and commented on both The Flower Reader and The Second Duchess. It doesn’t matter whether you loved them or hated them or were somewhere in the middle. You read and you cared enough to comment, and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart. I truly am. You know who you are. Yes, you. And you too. Really.
Counting down the days…
Rinette is Off to Australia!
The thing about small town post offices is, everybody knows everybody. When I walked in this morning with Jemidar’s book and bookmark, Jackie greeted me happily and wanted to know all about the book and the contest. She helped me with the packaging—the “small flat rate priority box” was just a smidge too small, which was a big disappointment, because if I’d sent it priority I would have been able to track it. As it is—well, Rinette is on her own, and we’ll have to wait for Jemidar to let us know she arrived safely.
Anyway, we got the book and the gorgeous purple bookmark into the envelope and got the customs form filled out and just as Jackie turned to put the package in the outgoing bin, I whipped out my camera (I did ask first) and snapped this picture. So there it is. I’m really quite excited about this—it’s the first book I’ve sent to Australia. Australian readers, remember—the UK edition of The Flower Reader from Preface will arrive on your shelves this summer. I think I’ll save a bookmark as a prize for the first person to send me a picture of the book in the wild in Australia!
The Winner, Part Deux!
The Broadcasting Legend™ has once again chosen a winner of a signed advance copy of The Flower Reader, plus a handmade pressed-flower art bookmark. I must admit that I squealed when he pulled the name. It’s:
JEMIDAR!
So now at last I have the opportunity to follow through on my promise to ship books internationally. I’ll start the package on its way on Monday, and track it here to keep us all up on date on Rinette’s adventures as she makes her way to Australia.
There are lots more opportunities to win. NAL is currently running a giveaway on Goodreads, with twenty-five copies up for grabs (US only for this one), so if you haven’t entered there, here’s the link:
Goodreads Giveaway of The Flower Reader
There are only a few more days to enter, so sign up today. There are more giveaways coming up, so watch this space.
Thank you all for your lovely comments this past week. Blake, I think the tussy-mussy (what a lovely old-fasioned term! I didn’t know people still used it) for your wedding, with the flower meanings, is the most delightful idea. Wnitney, I have to warn you that although Mary of Guise is instrumental in setting the story of The Flower Reader in motion, she dies in the first chapter and from that point on only exercises her influence through the secrets she collected and the effect they have on people she knew in Scotland, France and England. She is certainly present in spirit right to the end.
Again, warmest thanks to everyone who commented and helped to spread the word.
The Second Time Around
…love is lovelier, and luck, perhaps, is luckier! I’m giving away another book-and-bookmark combination this week, so everyone has a second chance to win.
The rules are the same—comment here to enter, spread the word via other social media and get extra entries! Like the first giveaway, this one is open internationally and everyone is welcome. The prize is a signed advance copy of The Flower Reader, plus a signed-and-numbered pressed-flower-art bookmark with the flowers and their floromancy meanings identified.
The contest will close at midnight Friday night, March 23rd, and I’ll announce the winner on Saturday morning, March 24th.
Remember, if this is your first time commenting here, or if you’re commenting from a different address than you used before, your comment will be held for approval—I’m sorry it has to be that way but you would not believe some of the spam that turns up. Your comment will not be lost, I promise, and I’ll add it as quickly as I can.
The Winner!
First I would like to thank everyone who commented—I didn’t want to clog up the comment list with posts of my own but I was so delighted to see each post pop up.
This morning, I wrote up slips of paper for everyone who commented (with extras for everyone who re-posted to other social media), tossed them all in my favorite popcorn bowl (temporarily free of popcorn), and asked The Broadcasting Legend™ to pick a winner. (There were really too many entries for me to be able to do my doggie/kibble trick.) The winner of the signed advance copy of The Flower Reader, plus bookmark #1/36, is:
Jessica B.!
Congratulations, Jessica! I’ll write to you privately to get your mailing information.
You know, this was all so much fun, and there were so many lovely entries—let’s do it again next week! I’ll post a new post on Monday morning, and everyone (except Jessica, heh) come back with new comments/reposts for another chance to win a signed advance copy of The Flower Reader and a gorgeous pressed-flower bookmark with floromancy details. Once again, the contest will be open for international entries.
Again, thank you all so much for all your lovely, lovely comments. You make me very happy.
Beware the Ides of March
…because it is my birthday! And a very suitable birthday, I think, for a writer of historical fiction with murders. And adventure. And political intrigue. And romance-with-a-capital-R. (Two or three capital Rs!) And, of course, beagles.
Don’t forget to comment on the post below for your chance to win a signed advance copy of The Flower Reader, plus a beautiful handmade, one-of-a-kind pressed-flower bookmark. Many heartfelt thanks to everyone who has entered so far!
Win a Signed Advance Copy of The Flower Reader
I’ve just received books—beautiful books! Look at the lovely embossing and rich brushed-gold metallic ink! I am just thrilled with them.
I’m also thrilled with my collection of the most breathtaking custom-made bookmarks, created by flower artist Lesley Hegewald of Butterfly Garden Creations. Each bookmark is unique, made from real pressed flowers and leaves, signed and numbered; what makes each one even more unusual is that I’ll include a note identifying the flowers used (thanks to Lesley’s care in keeping track) and giving their meanings in Rinette Leslie’s lush world of floromancy. On the back, the book cover art and information, of course, plus a few delicate strewn petals.
I’m giving away a signed advance copy of The Flower Reader this week, with one of these gorgeous bookmarks tucked inside. Comment below to enter! Tweet the link or post to Facebook or other social media and get your name entered again for each time you share! (Just tell me what you’ve done—I’m on the honor system.) Giveaway is open internationally—everyone is welcome. The contest will close at midnight Friday night, March 16th, and I’ll announce the winner on Saturday morning, March 17th.
Remember, if this is your first time commenting here, or if you’re commenting from a different address, your comment will be held for approval—I’m sorry it has to be that way but you would not believe some of the spam that turns up. Your comment will not be lost, I promise, and I’ll add it just as soon as ever I can.
“Windflowers, Nightshade and High Adventure”
(I love that quote so much that I just have to use it as my post title.)
Julianne Douglas of Writing the Renaissance is one of the first advance readers of The Flower Reader, and she has written a lovely, thoughtful, in-depth review.
She has put her finger on one of my ongoing themes—what people believed in the sixteenth century versus what we believe now. I won’t say “versus reality,” because who knows what people will say about us, five hundred years from now? Anyway, so much of what people in the sixteenth century saw as “magic” and “miracles” was actually science or psychology, and it fascinates me to explore what their mindsets might have been—how they believed they were right just as absolutely as we do today. I am digging even more deeply into that idea with all my material on alchemy for The Alchemist Prince.
It’s both terrifying and wonderful that The Flower Reader is going to be released in less than a month…
Shrove Tuesday Pancakes
Wow—my coconut cookie post was a big hit, it seems! So today I’m going to post another recipe, although this time, sadly, I don’t have a picture—we ate these all up before I put my fork down long enough to get out the camera. This picture, therefore, is not the real Oat Pecan Pancakes, but an imposter—a sort of placeholder of pancake-y goodness. Picture or no, though, take my word for it—these are really good, and with the richness of the pecans, perfect for that Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/pre-Lent splurge.
Oat Pecan Pancakes Chez Loupas
1 cup flour (For more nutrition use 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat. You can also use 1/2 white and 1/2 cornmeal for a johnny-cake-like flavor and texture.
1 1/2 cup rolled oats. (You can break these up a bit in a food processor, or use quick-cooking oats, but I like the heartier texture of old-fashioned rolled oats.)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons molasses (You can use dark brown sugar for a slightly milder flavor.)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
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Stir together dry ingredients—flour, oats, baking powder and salt.
Stir together wet ingredients—eggs, milk, molasses and melted butter.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir just to combine.
Let stand for a few minutes. This is important—it will soften the oats and make your pancakes fluffier by giving the baking powder a head start.
Just before cooking, fold in the pecans. Want to keep these crisp!
Ladle batter onto hot, lightly oiled (or buttered or cooking-sprayed) griddle by quarter-cupfuls or so. When bubbles have formed on the top and the edges begin to look dry, flip. The second side will be done in about half the time it takes to cook the first side.
These are utterly heavenly with real maple syrup. They’re pretty darn good with plain old pancake syrup, too.
The Flower Reader Excerpt Now Online!
The first chapter, just to whet your appetite—see the link at right, and on the Flower Reader page.
Enjoy!
Research Adventures
I’ve been digging around in various sources trying to pinpoint the marriage dates of Isabella de’ Medici and Lucrezia de’ Medici. The thing to remember here is that although Isabella is a secondary character in The Alchemist Prince, at the time the story starts she’s been married to Paolo Giordano Orsini for over fifteen years, and the specific date of her wedding is pretty much irrelevant. But two of my favorite books on Isabella and her contemporaries—Caroline Murphy’s Murder of a Medici Princess and Gabrielle Langdon’s Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love and Betrayal—give different dates. This sort of thing is irresistible to historical novelists. How could the specific date of Isabella’s marriage be in question? What was it really?
Part of the answer may be in the damnatio memoriae (“condemnation of memory,” the erasure of a personage from the historical record) that appears to have been instituted against Isabella after her ignoble (for her time and place, at least) death. One would think there would be more portraits and letters and records of a woman who was Cosimo I de’ Medici’s eldest surviving daughter, the “star of the house of Medici” and the de facto first lady of Florence from her mother’s death until her brother’s accession. But no. So much seems to be missing.
Isabella’s younger sister Lucrezia, of course, is one of the narrators of The Second Duchess. The date of her wedding ceremony is given over and over: 3 July 1558. This is supported by Alfonso d’Este’s presence in Florence for the wedding, and the lavish celebrations and games. But Murphy gives the date of Isabella’s wedding as 3 September 1558—after the wedding of Lucrezia, who was her younger sister (something that would have been extremely unusual for the time), and as a sort of private family party as opposed to a public celebration. Langdon says rather vaguely that Isabella was married in “June 1558,” with no source given for the date. So what is going on here? Was Isabella married before or after her younger sister? And if Paolo Giordano Orsini and Isabella were not yet married, why did he sponsor an elaborate and expensive game of calcio (Florentine football) as part of Lucrezia’s wedding celebration, with one team dressed in cloth of gold and the other team dressed in cloth of silver? Surely he was already a member of the family?
In the state archives of Florence (Archivio di Stato di Firenze) I found a paper by Georgia Arrivo giving brief biographies of Medici women, and extensive bibliographies and source notes. This paper gives Isabella’s wedding date as 29 January 1557, with the consummation delayed until 3 September 1558. (Aha, so it was the consummation. Leave it to the Medici to make a family party out of it.) Of course, with dates in January before the Gregorian reform of 1582, we’re never entirely sure if the year is given “old style” or “new style.”
To me it makes sense that Isabella would have been married in the January prior to Lucrezia’s wedding in July, so in January 1558 new style. Part of this is due to the fact that Alfonso d’Este was originally betrothed to Maria de’ Medici, Cosimo’s eldest daughter, and most likely her wedding would have been the first of the Medici daughters’ weddings. Sadly she died (there were whispers that her father murdered her, which couldn’t possibly be true—could they?) in November 1557, and Lucrezia was hastily substituted as Alfonso d’Este’s bride. With Maria dead, Isabella became the eldest daughter and the first wedding was her due. So my personal conclusion is that she was indeed married in January 1557 (1558 new style), and because she was not yet sixteen, the consummation was delayed until September, after her sixteenth birthday at the end of August.
Now none of this has anything at all to do with the story of The Alchemist Prince. But I’m writing about Isabella and I wanted to know such an important detail about her life, or at least come to a conclusion that worked for me. I needed to know. I do just love historical fiction…
The Flower Reader’s Gorgeous UK Cover!
Isn’t it breathtaking? I am so thrilled and excited that my story of Rinette Leslie and Nico de Clerac and the beautiful, mercurial Mary Queen of Scots will be published in the UK by Preface, with the inimitable Rosie de Courcy editing. It’s scheduled for June 21, 2012, and you can pre-order it now on Amazon.
The Best Crispy-Chewy Coconut Cookies Ever
Well, in my opinion, at least. I cobbled together two or three other recipes to come up with this, and experimented on my own with chopping the coconut finer and finer. I’m very pleased with the result, which combines the crispness of a shortbread with the chewiness of coconut. The trick is whizzing the coconut in the food processor until it’s chopped very very fine. The original cup of shredded coconut should be reduced to a rounded half-cup when finely chopped.
The chopped coconut also makes slicing the cookies easier, and I love slice-and-bake refrigerator cookies—so easy.
It occurs to me that if you like Mounds candy bars (which I do), you might like these with a bittersweet chocolate frosting instead of the plain (but deliciously vanilla-y) powdered-sugar glaze.
Here’s the recipe:
Coconut Cookies
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut, chopped very fine in food processor
Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix in the flour until just blended. Fold in the coconut. Roll dough into a log with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours.
Preheat the oven to 350°. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice dough into quarter-inch (or so) slices and bake just until golden around the edges, 12-15 minutes. Cool and ice thinly with powdered sugar glaze.
Naturally I had to look up some of the history of coconut as a foodstuff. Rather to my surprise, I found that the nux indica, the Indian nut, was at least known in Europe as a botanical curiosity as early as Marco Polo, and possibly earlier. The term “coconut” itself is later, and derives from the Portuguese and Spanish “coco,” “grinning face,” as a description of the face-like markings at the base of the shell. Vasco da Gama (who died in 1524) is supposed to have brought coconuts to Europe from India. So it’s entirely possible that the Este and the Medici, living in very wealthy Italian courts in the mid-sixteenth-century, could have been served coconut as an expensive and exotic delicacy. Rinette in faraway Scotland? Sadly I think it’s pretty certain she never tasted the sweet, chewy deliciousness that is the coconut.
FLAT RINETTE
The Flower Reader
Read the First Chapter of The Flower Reader
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter of The Second Duchess
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
