Nothing New Under the Sun

When the theme came up for November, “Is there a place for old-school heroines in modern romance novels?” it made me laugh just a little. First, let me say, I’ve been reading romances for an unconscionable number of years. My mother was a huge Mills & Boon fan, and while my tastes in genres are a lot wider than hers, when in need of a read I’d grab one of her thousands of books. Her romance library spanned from the early 60s forward. When I was about eleven, and my grandmother realized I was reading those books, she decided I should only be reading Barbara Cartlands, and would send me piles of them. From there, in my mid-teens (still in the Dark Ages LOL!) I branched out, finding and devouring whatever caught my eye.

So when presented with the term, “old-school heroine” maybe my perception of what that means might differ slightly from someone who’s looking at the 1980s, or even the 1970s. I know the term is generally meant to mean the too silly to live heroine who needs the man to save her, usually over and over again, as he molds her gently (or not so gently) into the woman of his dreams. Yet, is that really what an old-school heroine is? How old is old school? And in any timeframe have all the heroines in romance been created in any one mold?

Barbara Cartland was well known for writing heroines who often would fit into the TSTL mold (let me add a caveat that not all of them would). Yet one of her contemporaries, Georgette Heyer, often wrote incredibly strong-minded, strong-willed, smart as a whip heroines, one of my favorites being Sophia Stanton-Lacey in The Grand Sophy, which was first published in 1950.

Too far back, perhaps? Okay, let’s look at the 1970s when, despite being the era of sex, drugs and disco, romances still had heroines who hadn’t a clue about the real world, right? Well, despite the simpering girl/women in some romances, there were also women like Aislinn of Darkenwald, from The Wolf and the Dove. She’s never broken. Instead the hero has to learn to live with a woman as strong willed as he is!

Yet, if we take the saying ‘old school heroine’ at face value, using it to mean the young, virginal heroine who apparently doesn’t know her ass from her elbow, I’d say she’s been around forever…and she apparently isn’t going anywhere. There are variations on the theme. The Unknowingly Powerful heroine, who has no clue about the magic residing within until some forceful older man, often portrayed as the mentor, saves her from obscurity and shows her the truth. The Sweet Doormat, who isn’t moved to stand up for herself until her love for the hero makes it imperative. The Hopelessly Clumsy and Clueless heroine, who doesn’t know how beautiful and desirable she is until the hero can’t resist her allure. Within the last year I’ve read newly released books with those themes, with those heroines.

It can, actually, be done now and even sometimes done well. I think the difference between many of the older books with those heroines and the newer incarnations is the endings. Instead of being no smarter, savvier or able than she was at the beginning, the new breed of old-school heroine is expected to get her act together, and GROW. Not just grow into the relationship, but grow into herself, become a woman in control of her own life, not just a cipher for her man. Realistically though? I can think of at least one book I’ve read recently where at the end I still wanted to strangle the woman and shoot the man, because she was a twit and he a bully and neither had learned anything at the conclusion of the story.

So I guess the answer, at least for some publishers and readers, is yes…there is a place for that old-school heroine. She’s a part of romance history, and doesn’t seem inclined to go quietly into the good night. And as long as there’s a demand for them, they’ll continue to people the pages of romance novels.

Phoenix Legacy: Officially A Series!

Phoenix Legacy, the second novel, third story in my Phoenix Institute superhero romance series releases in ebook form today!

Night Owl Reviews made it a top pick, calling it a "wonderfully entertaining rollercoaster read."

Here's the official blurb:

Philip Drake is immortal by virtue of a psychic power that heals all but the worst injuries. He’s needed every bit of it as a black ops agent, a life so violent that the line between pain and pleasure is tangled up in his head.

When he walks away from the CIA, the last thing he expects is to discover someone stole his DNA to create a race of super-healers. And that the expectant mother is a woman from his past who’d consider it her pleasure to spit on his grave.

One moment, Delilah Sefton is listening to a seriously hot, seriously deranged man giving her some half-baked explanation as to why she’s pregnant with no memory of how she got that way. The next, armed men swarm into her bar, and she and Mr. Sexy-Crazy are on the run.

Safety at the Phoenix Institute is only temporary, but it’s long enough to put the pieces together. A madman plans to steal her son in a plot to take over the world. And to stop him, she must learn to trust the baby’s father—a man she blames for her greatest loss.

It's no secret I love superheroes and action stories and that my idea of a romance is The Terminator where Kyle lives at the end. But I also want my stories to have some resonance, like Lois McMaster Bujold's brilliant Vorkosigan series does for me, to the point where I've memorized individual lines of dialogue, like this exchange:

"It's an impossible job."

"That happens sometimes."

The exchange is from Bujold's Cordelia's Honor, one of my favorite science fiction romances, though you'll find it on the science fiction shelves. (If you've never read it, well, go buy it!)

There are a lot of sociological issues explored in Bujold's writing along with space battles, political machinations, scheming, fights, and various murders and, oh, some of the best characters I've ever read. Aral. :sigh: 

That depth is why I re-read the Vorkosigan series so often. 

I've no idea if I can do this resonance as well as Bujold and many other talented authors but there's no sense writing something if one doesn't aim high. 

So while I love that Phoenix Legacy is a fast-paced romantic adventure, I also wanted to cram it full of emotional intensity. The warped bond between Philip and Del leads up to their sex scene, which is not conventional in any sense of the word. I can only say that Philip's pain/pleasure confusion plays a large part. 

I'm extremely curious as to how readers will react to the scene and the one before it. I suspect if I say it out loud now, there are more than a few people who'll say "NO! That will never work," so I'm being cagey. It works in context, so I firmly believe. Also, Anne Stuart told me to go for it when I asked her about dark heroes, so that was all the reassurance I needed to let the story play out as it must.  

I think Legacy is very sweet in the end but see the above about my idea of a romance. :) 

The other question that I wanted to explore is how tragedy can follow a person through their lives and how they get accept it and move on. Philip is stuck in a violent moment that he thinks defines him for the worst. And yet...if he didn't want more, he wouldn't have saved his foster daughter, the eventual heroine of Phoenix  Rising, from some seriously bad guys.

Above: Philip saving Beth, in what he views as his one purely good moment in his life. Art is by the wonderful and talented Cassandra James.  

What is forgiveness or closure? Can the past remain in the past instead of defining the future? How does a person define themselves as good or evil? 

After I wrote the story, I was compelled to write an epilogue for Legacy. It put a lump in my throat, in a good way. 

I'm hoping it does the same for readers.   

Corrina Lawson is a writer, mom, geek and superhero thought not always all four of these things on the same day. You can find her at www.corrina-lawson.com 

Old School and New School—Romantic Set-ups

A funny thing happened to me on the way to publishing my third book.

My editor rejected it. Soundly, I might add. And tears, I’ll add those too. I just figured that once I’d sold two books I was golden. Editors supposed to love everything their authors write, right?

Um, not necessarily.

The main reason my editor rejected the manuscript was that it didn’t follow a typical old school set-up. The characters actually liked each other the moment they met. Not love, but like. This was no good.  Who knew? Well, my editor, but not me.

I didn’t understand that since the dawning of time, readers have adored the old school romantic trope of “enemies to lovers”, or “strangers to lovers”. Those storylines are still going strong because the conflict and tension between the characters is palpable. Conflict keeps us turning pages. The desire to resolve the conflict in a satisfying loving way is why most of us read romance.

After pouting for a bit, I realized I needed to increase the conflict. I began the arduous task by throwing out the first third of the book and starting over from scratch. I made things tougher for my characters. They don’t hate each other but they do have competing objectives—real, noble, life or death goals. If one wins, the other loses and people could die unless they find a way to work together.

After tossing out the first third, I tossed the middle third and completely rewrote the final third. You don’t need to be a mathematician to see that I rewrote the whole darned enchilada. But it’s okay because I love it! This story is much deeper, more complex, more emotional, more…everything. Breath-stealing conflict was the key. Characters we love to root for is another other key. Heart-stopping plot is the third. Well, there are lots of keys.

I am still tinkering, but I am tickled to say that this manuscript is a finalist in four writing contests. I am excited beyond words to see what the final judges decide.

Apparently my editor, like my Mom, is always right.

www.kimberleytroutte.com

The Woman's Journey.

In fantasy, there's a lot of stories modeled after The Hero's Journey. A boy who is called to adventure, answers the call, faces challenges and hardships, and eventually defeats evil. That's a pretty simple breakdown, but it's all the books I ever read as a kid. To the point I sort of wished I'd been born a boy - they seemed to have MUCH cooler lives.

Then I read some romances, and the women just...fell in love. They didn't get to have sword fights or anything. They just...fell for some guy who eventually figured out he loved her, too. (Though I gravitated toward beta heroes, even then, so they were nice guys.) Of course, the moment they realized they were in love, everything worked out - they caught the killer, found the forgers, captured the robber (I liked romantic suspense a lot!)

The first book I wrote as an adult, then, tried to merge those two genres. A hero's journey, where the hero just happened to be female. She was called to adventure, battled the demons, and fell in love. But falling in love wasn't a solution for her, it was, in fact, an inconvenience. It caused more problems than it solved.

I didn't realize it at the time, but there was an entire wave of writers working on very similar stories. They are the new wave of Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance. They feature strong women who might fall in love, but who don't need a man to complete them. They feature that hero's journey formula, but they allow the woman to be the one who discovers she's the leader of the longlost race, that she's the princess in disguise, that she's the savior of the universe.

I still prefer stories that are all about the woman. I even like them in first person, or third person where we never get the love interest's point of view. Because one of the uncertainties in my life is wondering how other people see me. What they think. How they feel. And there's something reassuring about a strong, independent heroine who has those same concerns. (It's even more fun when *I* can see that the hero loves her, and I can yell at the book for her to stop being so ridiculous, of COURSE he loves her, and would she just figure it out already!?)

But for me, the books I write and read are all about the heroine. They're about her journey, her realizations, her growth, her power. And through her, those things are within reach of the reader, too.

Old-school heroines

 Is there room left for an old-school heroine?

Good question. I suppose it depends, in part, on your definition of 'old-school'.

When I first discovered romance novels, I read mostly Harlequin stories. At that time, they all seemed to revolve around the young, virginal heroine and the older, gruff, and very experienced hero. Since they were mostly told in the heroine's point of view, the reader rarely knew what the hero was feeling or thinking -- our only clues came from the rather limited and naive perspective of the young heroine. She was usually wrong. ;)

Back then, it didn't matter that the heroine often needed the hero to save her; or that the biggest 'conflict' was often a silly misunderstanding; or that, at times, the hero seemed harsh, even to the point of being rather a bully, if not abusive. When I was thirteen, I didn't know any better. And apparently neither did a large portion of the romance readership.

Now we are more enlightened. When I think of the term 'old-school heroine', I think of those rather shy, sometimes pathetically inept but kind, untried heroines who always needed to be saved. In that respect, no, I don't feel they have much of a place in the romances of today. But they do still pop up from time to time, sadly enough. I've seen the trend, in particular, take a subtle shift in that direction when it comes to some Young Adult stories and a few adult romances. Nope, not mentioning any titles.

I have nothing against the hero riding into the rescue. I personally love the idea of letting the big, strong man take charge and deal with the messes of life while he protects those he loves. There are days when I wish the man in my life could deal with the hard stuff and let me be the pampered heroine back at the ranch. Sometimes he does; mostly, we share the load.

That said, I prefer to see and be a heroine who can stand by her man -- or at least watch his back when things get dicey. The women in my favorite stories don't have to be trained in martial arts or able to beat the bad guy (gal) in battle. But she can't be a wimp, either. She also can't be "too stupid to live" -- No, sweetie, don't go alone and unarmed into the basement where the serial killer is waiting. DUH!

In my fictional worlds, a heroine should be strong and tough, with a few edges of weakness about her. She can't be invincible because no one would relate well to her. And please, IF she has to go into that basement, give her a really good reason. If she has to rescue the hero, let her show a softer side when the time allows. But don't drop her into a fetal position when she and her man have a fight and are separated forever. Let her cry, sure. A good, hard cry is very therapeutic. Then pluck her up off her butt and get her moving again.

There are all kinds of heroines in the real world and in fiction. I suppose it's up to each of us what type we want to be; what type we want to read about. But humans are complex creatures -- we're rarely all one thing or another at all times. The best heroines will always be those with some depth.

Meg Allison
Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

Thirteen Dubious Halloween Candies

At Beyond the Veil in November, bloggers are going to be talking about romance genre heroines or the influence of history on our writing. Some might be talking about the influence of history on romance genre heroines...or romance heroines throughout history...because we have some particularly clever bloggers here. As I'm in a post-Halloween candy fugue, today I'm not one of them.

Today I'm lucky to be sharing a list of thirteen dubious types of candy in my kid's Halloween haul. None of these candies are contributors to my fugue today, I'm proud to say...

1) Eyeballs. We haven't opened one yet, but the foil wrapping looks like an eyeball. Wonder if it's chocolate?
2) Smaller eyeballs. These aren't in foil but are in unlabeled packaging. No label on the packaging makes me instantly dubious.
3) Squishy crab-shaped things. Packaging yet again has no labels. They look like gummy versions of the coconut crab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab) . Coconut is good, but the crab--no thanks. (However, these images are for your nightmares! http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-incredible-photos-coconut-crab?image=0)
4) Bones. I guess these are hard sugar candies? There's no label on the packaging. Shocker. I'm just not a fan of putting unlabeled food items in my mouth.
5) Pixie sticks. Dubious because...what is the point? There's chocolate to be had.
6) Candy corn. I know some folks enjoy the waxy edible, but I'd rather eat chocolate. Though I did crochet a jaunty candy corn hat that we all fight over on Halloween.
7) Halloween Peeps. Just no. Chocolate can't even save them; they're all around grody.
8) Tigerpops. It's a sucker. Is it full of tiger's blood? Will it make you act like Charlie Sheen?
9) Jawbreakers / Jawbusters (the package has both names). What is it, jaws of life for if you get a Tootsie Roll stuck between your teeth?
10) Christmas candy. Christmas. Candy. In October. Either somebody time traveled or this is some damn old chocolate. Into the trash with ye!
11) Laffy Taffy. After one nibble, trust me, you won't be laughing.
12) Flavor Morph. It's small, it's square, it's generic, and it's not chocolate. Nuff said.
13) Airheads. I don't even know what it is. Maybe I'll make one of the kids taste it so my mockery can be more specific next year.

Hopefully the rest of the bloggers this month will be more on topic! But at least I kept it short...

Sincerely,

Jody Wallace
Author, Cat Person, Amigurumist
http://www.jodywallace.com  * http://www.meankitty.com  

The Black Donnelly's

There was a family. A notorious family just north of London, Ontario in a little quaint village called Lucan. This family was not well like by residents. Many claimed the Donnelly's were criminals and on one bloody night on February 4, 1880 vigilante justice was carried out in the most brutal way and a family was nearly decimated.

I say nearly because the ones the mob were looking for, were not there that night on the Donnelly farm when Old man Donnelly, his wife, their niece visiting from Ireland and two sons were murdered that night and the mysterious thing was no one was ever convicted of their brutal killings.

It's speculated because of an old feud between the Donnelly's and the townsfolk. The Donnelly's were not well liked.

And today, the farm where the brutal murders happened is supposed to be haunted.

Birds don't sing and men don't smile,
Out on the Roman Line.
Their faces grim and so they'll be,
Until the end of time.

For the midnight hour brings alarm,
And horses won't pass the Donnelly farm,
Stay off that road or you'll come to harm,
And horses won't pass the Donnelly farm
Stay off that road or you'll come to harm,
Out on the Roman Line.

Old Song Reprinted from: The Black Donnellys by Thomas P. Kelley

I'm a firm believer in ghosts big time.

Before I even KNEW about the Donnelly's (Because I'm not from this area) we'd drive up past Roman Line to get to my inlaws and at night I'd feel anxious about driving along this stretch. It was eerie.

When I found out about the Donnelly's it all started to make sense.

There's even a whole ghost page set up about The Donnelly's here.

You can tour the original house, where the tragedy occurred, but it is a private property today. Have I toured it. No. I doubt I ever will. Just passing The Roman Line is enough to make me skitterish and I'll stay away from St. Patrick's cemetery in Lucan where the Donnelly's are buried.

I'll learn more about this fascinating ghost story from afar!

Slacker Ghost Hunting and Local Ghost Stories

My bestie J.C. Wilder and I, paranormal authors to the bone, have come to the conclusion that we’d make terrible ghost hunters.

First of all, we talk too much.

Second, real ghost hunters lug heavy equipment. Climb ladders to set up cameras. Schlep up and down stairs. Sit for hours in cold, damp cellars.

We’re simply too high maintenance for that.

A few weeks ago we had a girls-only weekend at her house. She had just downloaded Ghost Radar to her Android phone, and I had a similar program on my laptop. (Not sure if these really work, but they’re fun to mess around with.)

Camped out on her huge, antique, four-poster bed, fuzzy-slippered feet propped up, about 800 pillows arranged just so, dogs squeezed in wherever they could, we fired up our apps and waited. Positive we’d get something, because strange stuff happens in her house all the time.

Like how J.C.’s Mom always says hello to me by making her musical coffee cup play a merry tune.

After about a half hour of picking up random energies and spoken words, getting no answers to out-loud questions, J.C. commented, “We really should move downstairs. That’s where everything happens.”

For about a minute we contemplated the logistics of moving our comfortably parked arses all the way downstairs. (About six steps down, 30 feet as the crow hops.) And incurring the wrath of two tucked-in-for-the-duration pooches.

Neither one of us moved.

“Let’s watch a Medea movie.”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

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Holland, Ohio, where I live, is a small bedroom community at Toledo’s southwest edge. You wouldn’t think Toledo would be a hotbed of paranormal activity, and you’d be wrong. There’s a lot of moving water around here – nearby Lake Erie, the Maumee River, and a close-to-the-surface water table just under a glacier-dumped bed of sand. Ghosts tend to feed off the energy of moving water.

Even itty bitty Holland as its hot spot – an old 1800s storefront down by the railroad crossing.

Currently it houses an art glass studio. And a poltergeist. Fortunately the poltergeist would rather fling small objects in the office rather than wreak havoc in the studio! A bit of video taken during Fringe Paranormal’s 2010 investigation shows how careful the ghost is with the fragile glass pieces:



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The Toledo area is also the site of a couple of significant battlegrounds, the “Battle for Ohio,” in which there was a ruckus over a narrow strip of swamp land between Ohio and Michigan. Ohio won, which is the reason my house sits in the Buckeye State. No deaths were reported, except perhaps for that of a startled milk cow.

The more famous Battle of Fallen Timbers, said to be the last battle of the American Revolution, took place not far from my home. Sadly, much of the battlefield has been swallowed up by a highway interchange. But a small section has been preserved by the National Park Service. The forlorn little piece of land between the highway and the river is hard to find unless you really want to find it. A bike path runs through it, connecting the adjacent mall and housing development.

The bloody battle took the lives of 30 of “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s soldiers, as well as twice that number of Ottawa warriors.

A few yards from the towering monument to the white soldiers is Turkey Foot Rock. Marked with a plaque, this is the spot where the Ottawa chief rallied his warriors, and lost his life. If you look closely at the weathered stone, you can still see where surviving tribesmen carved turkey tracks as a memorial. When I visited, someone had left an offering of tobacco and flowers.

It is said that if you sit near the rock on Aug. 20, the anniversary of the battle, you can hear gunfire, screams, and smell gunpowder in the air.



If you're interested in finding out if your corner of the world is haunted, the internet has a number of sites where you can find out. Chances are there's an old building, battlefield, or bridge guaranteed to raise your hair.

Blessed Samhain, everyone!

Carolan Ivey
Romance that will haunt you…
www.carolanivey.com

Local Ghost Stories - Gacy House and a Quick Survey of Modern-Day Ghost Hunting

This is Noony, your host for today's exploration into ghostly phenomena around Chicago.

Okay, that was my working hypothesis when I started to write my post for this week.  It quickly turned darker and more reality-based as I wandered the pages of one of my husband's local guidebooks, one that centers on ghost stories around the Windy City.  I came across the chilling factoid that I am a neighbor of John Wayne Gacy.  Not a literal neighbor, but in the sense that he lived, and murdered, in Norwood Park, just 3 neighborhoods away from where I sit, typing this.  Chilling.

Mug Shot of John Wayne Gacy
Photo from Wikipedia (1)

The interesting part about Gacy's murders is that several of them were solved by the use of psychic evidence.  In the book Chicago's Street Guide to the Supernatural, author Richard Crowe, with Carol Mercado, relate how the lot where Gacy's house stood continued to remain barren in two oval spots, photographed 3 times over 2 years.

Several theories abound about why plants would not grow on those spots.  The location of buried victims, the ground remained disturbed until new owners purchased the lot and changed the physical address.  The land recovered after that change and grass finally grew on the site.

Despite this, speculation has surfaces regarding other possible sites used as dumping grounds by Gacy.  His construction company worked all over Chicago.  He was convicted of thirty-three murders, but authorities don't know if there are more bodies that have yet to be uncovered.  Other psychics have attempted to discover signs of his victims.

The use of psychic phenomena in criminal investigations is viewed with skepticism by many in law enforcement, and with good reason.  Some so-called psychics have been charlatans, bilking people out of money and raising false hopes.  On the other hand, there have been verified discoveries by psychics that have lead to the arrest of criminals, so it's hard to say with black-and-white certainty one way or the other whether psychic phenomena are empirically true or not.

In the last few years, the public has grown more fascinated with the possibility of psychic phenomena.  Shows like Ghost Hunters, now on the SyFy network, detail the work of real paranormal investigators armed with modern-day technological tools to support their psychic detection.

Dean Radin has researched consciousness and related phenomena for over 20 years and has worked on psychic research for the government.  He ran the paraphsychology program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, when I lived there, and the program was greeted by great fanfare in the press.  (I regret not going to study with him, actually, since that would have been an interesting, and unusual, course of study.)  My point in bringing him up, though, is that not all psychic research is by new age devotees.  There's some pretty heavy science behind trying to figure out, conclusively, whether or not this stuff exists - and, if it does, to what extent and in what ways.

Curious about these practices, I wandered over to Meetup to see if there were others who decided to try to find Casper with an EMF meter.  It turns out there are many groups who meet on a regular basis to do just that.  There are six groups just in the Chicagoland area.  If you're curious, head over to Meetup.com and type "ghost hunting" in the search box.  Perhaps a group meets in your town?  If not, why not start one?  You might find the next local murder house.  ~shiver~

Resources
1.  "John Wayne Gacy," Wikipedia entry, Photograph accessed 10/24/2012 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy

2.  "Biography," Dean Radin's website, accessed 10/24/2012 from http://www.deanradin.com/NewWeb/bio.html

3.  "The Top Ten Best Video Clips From Ghost Hunters (TAPS)," YouTube, accessed 10/24/2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciHf4WXKY4E

4.  Chicago's Street Guide to the Supernatural:  A Guide to Haunted and Legendary Places In and Near the Windy City, by Richard T. Crowe with Carol Mercado, Carolando Press, Inc., Oak Park, IL, Second Printing, 2001

--
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings

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Publishers: Samhain Publishing | Torquere Press

Check out BURNING BRIGHT, available from Samhain Publishing.
Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Books.
Check out "Taking a Chance", part of the Charity Sips 2012 to benefit NOH8, available from Torquere Books.
Watch for TIGER TIGER, coming soon from Samhain Publishing.

Alexandria Ghosts

Looking for ghost stories?  Have I got the town for you: Alexandria, Virginia.  We’ve got three centuries of ghosts to choose from, and we aren’t done yet.

Founded in 1749, Alexandria hosted the gathering of governors that kicked off the French and Indian War.  General Edward Braddock, who convened the conference, wrote the fateful letter to the British government suggesting the colonials pay for their own defense, which prompted the creation of the Stamp Act.  If that wasn’t enough, he was a braggart, a drunk and a sexual predator.  He was no respecter other people’s property, and oh yes, he insisted the town’s citizens house and feed several thousand unruly British troops without compensation or legal recourse.  Fortunately, he managed to get himself killed within three months of his arrival, and the aftermath gave local boy George Washington some serious experience in retreating.

Speaking of George, he slept, ate, drank, danced, and was first called “president” here.  Dolley Madison served oyster ice cream at her parties here. 



Johnny Bull and the Alexandrians by William Charles (1814)

The town surrendered to the British twice in during the War of 1812. On one of those occasions, local leaders had to chase the British down to do the deed.  It saved the city from burning…by the British.  The political cartoonists of the day were another matter.

Robert E. Lee’s hometown, Alexandria was the site of the first Union and Confederate deaths in the Civil War.  It was occupied by Union forces for the duration, although it voted overwhelmingly to secede with the rest of Virginia. 

During the occupation, nearly every large building was converted into a military hospital.  Many of the remaining structures became part of the Union war machine, serving as laboratories for the advances in engineering which helped win the war for the North.

All this history means there are so many ghosts, local ghost tour guides have to pick and choose.  Are the customers interested in the War for Independence?  Tell them about the Loyalist wrongfully shot by the British, who has since made a point of harassing any English-born man or woman who presumes to cross the threshold of his Prince Street home.

Are they romantics?  Recount the story of the Female Stranger, whose male companion swore her deathbed attendants to secrecy about her identity—then skipped town without paying the hefty tab for her medical treatment and her elaborate gravestone in St. Paul’s Cemetery.  Or talk about the screaming ghost of Candi’s Candies, who burned alive when a candle ignited her wedding gown.

To say nothing of the usual parade of spectral dogs and soldiers, executed criminals (including one who was cooked alive in an outdoor oven), suicidal sea captains’ wives, etc., etc.  You could fill a book.  In fact, people have.

So why hasn’t it appeared on any of the televised ghost hunting shows?  You’d think it would be a natural.

Okay, you can understand why someone might now want to open their home, but the museums?  Gadsby’sTavern, favorite haunt of the Female Stranger and the occasional incorporeal cotillion, has been a restaurant and museum for years.  Ramsay House, formerly owned and still patrolled by one of the town’s founders, serves as Alexandria’s Visitor Center.  On the creepy side of the street, the headquarters of Franklin and Armfield, one of the nation’s largest slave trading firms, has been office space since 1984—which seems appropriate in an odd, double-speak kind of way.

I don’t know why those folks didn’t invite Ghosthunters to come on down.  I only know the reason why the Carlyle House never made it to national TV.

Carlyle House
(courtesy Ser Amantio di Nicolao at en.wikipedia)

Carlyle House was built in the early 1750s by John Carlyle, a wealthy merchant and close family friend of George Washington.  The Georgian Palladian stone mansion was the premier house in town for many years—and the only one with a front yard.  So it was the natural choice for General Braddock’s famous conference. 

It was the “mansion house”, which gave its name to the Mansion House Hotel, and became an integral part of the hotel complex.  During the Civil War, the hotel also became one of the largest medical facilities in the region and ground zero for one of the conflict’s biggest battles of the sexes.  It was a proving ground for the Civil War’s most outrageous innovations: women nurses.

And that’s just the building’s public face.  An Englishman of Scottish extraction, Carlyle appears to have been a superstitious sort.  When the Northern Virginia Park Authority restored the mansion in the early 1970s, they discovered a dead cat had been walled into the hearth—an old Scottish tradition thought to protect the house from harm. 

It worked on the house, if not on the Carlyles.  Both of Carlyle’s wives died of complications in childbirth before the age of thirty-five.  All but two of Carlyle’s eleven children predeceased him.  Only one survived to her majority. 

However, daughter Sarah Carlyle Herbert not only beat the family odds, she had seven healthy children and lived out her full three score and ten.  Her descendants and those of her sister Ann (who died in childbirth at seventeen) are the reason the house can display so many Carlyle family treasures.  They cherished their heritage and their ancestors’ possessions.

This historic photo shows the Mansion House
Hotel during the Civil War, when it served as
a military hospital. The hotel was built in front
of the Carlyle House (aka the Mansion House).

Before its restoration, the house was popularly supposed to be the most haunted place in town.  The basement wine cellar, the result of a mid-nineteenth century renovation, was described as a pen for runaway slaves.  (It wasn’t.)  Mrs. Green, the wife of the man who built the hotel, was said to roam the backyard, fretting about the ruination of her daughter Emily.  (Emily wasn’t ruined. She never even dated a Yankee.  She married Frank Stringfellow, a Confederate spy who later became a U.S. Army chaplain in the Spanish-American War.)  Any number of ghostly Civil War patients were said to repeatedly throw themselves off the roof.  (When the hotel was converted to a hospital, the house was used as a doctors’ residence.  The patients were billeted in the hotel, which spanned the street in front of the mansion.  Some of them did jump or fall from the upper floors of the hospital, but not the house.)

But all the ghoulies seem to disappear as soon as the derelict remains of the hotel were torn down.  I suspect it had something to do with all that sunlight streaming through windows which hadn't seen the street in over a hundred years.  But whatever the reason, I’ve worked as a volunteer docent at the Carlyle House for two years now, and I’ve never felt any out-of-place “spiritual energy” or unnatural cold spots.  The building is quiet.  Serene, even.  At least to me.

But I wonder if the house’s last curator felt the same.  You see, one of those national ghost hunting shows did approach him about doing a program about the house.  He said no.  He said the house wasn’t haunted.  Insisted it wasn’t.

“Why’d you turn them down?” I asked.  “Half the time they don’t find anything.  The other half, they’re just scaring themselves.  Either way, it’s good publicity.”

“I know.  But…” 

He hesitated.  The former curator resembled a genial linebacker, and I wouldn’t have thought anything made him nervous.  But by this point in the conversation he was looking downright sheepish.   

“But,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, “what if there’s something here?”

Jean Marie Ward

Duppy, Rolling Calf and a White Witch

My country of birth and heart, Jamaica, is filled with “duppy” (ghost) stories. Tales such as that of River Muma, who sits on a rock combing her hair with a golden comb, luring the enchanted to a watery grave abound. Another Jamaican spectre you may encounter as it races along lonely country roads is the Rolling Calf, covered in hellfire and bound with rattling chains, coming to scare you into madness, or to death.

Obeah, the remnants of African spirituality brought to the island with the slaves, doesn’t produce zombies like Voodoo is reputed to. Instead, the Obeah Woman or Man steals a person`s spirit, hiding it in a cotton tree and using it to make mischief and bring misery to others. In the meantime the person whose spirit was stolen slowly withers away and dies, unless someone with the knowledge and spiritual strength can “dig out” the obeah, freeing the spirit and returning it to its owner.

Ironically enough, probably the most famous Jamaican ghost story involves not the work of an Obeah practitioner, but of a woman alleged to be well versed in the art of Voodoo—Annie Palmer, the White Witch of Rose Hall.

Rose Hall is a plantation house located east of Montego Bay, on the northern coast of Jamaica. Legend has it that the owner of the planation, John Palmer, married Annie, a woman who was well versed in Voodoo. Annie is reputed to have murdered not only John, but also her next three husbands, all of whom died under mysterious circumstances. Apparently not content with a handful of husbands, Annie also had a tendency to take to her bed any slave who caught her fancy, eventually murdering them too.

She in turn is said to have been murdered by her butler, a slave and one of her many lovers. Some legends say he murdered her because he knew if he didn’t, she would kill him in turn. Others say he killed her because she caused the death of his daughter’s lover.

After her death, it’s said that the next owners of the house had a series of unfortunate incidents that culminated with their housekeeper falling to her death from the balcony Annie would stand on each morning to issue instructions to the slave. The house was eventually deserted, and fell into ruin. It was restored in the 1960s and then, in the 1970s, was refurbished and opened to the public for tours.

There is little, if any, historical fact to back up the legend of Annie Palmer. There are no records showing she ever existed and so many variations on the story exist, making it hard to decide which is more likely. Some stories are set in the 1700s, others in the 1800s. Some say she was born of mixed English/Irish heritage but raised on Haiti, where Voodoo is practised, others have her born in France and being taught Voodoo in Jamaica, by the very slaves she used it to terrify and control. She is said to have tortured, maimed and killed slaves without mercy and remained at the house even after death to continue her reign of terror.

I’ve been to Rose Hall, and it’s a beautiful, interesting place, and will say whoever sourced the items displayed in that house did a masterful job when they acquired a particular portrait, billed as being of Annie. Since I can honestly say I don’t think she ever even existed, and know the house and most likely all contents were destroyed by fire during a slave rebellion, I’m sure it wasn’t her in the painting. Yet I stood there, feet glued to the floor, staring and staring, feeling the woman in the picture staring back at me, her black-eyed gaze burning its way into my soul. It took all my energy to turn away.

And to this day that painting haunts me, a lingering, malevolent shadow, the most vivid reminder of my trip to the rebuilt plantation house. Whatever ghosts live at Rose Hall, I bet they found a happy, haunted home in that portrait…

Romantic Ghost Stories

I have always loved a good romantic ghost story. I blame the Saturday afternoon matinees that local stations used to have in the days before cable.

I first watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on a cold winter weekend afternoon. I must have been about ten years old.

Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison are a couple deeply in loved but divided by the great beyond. Harrison is the ghost of a sea captain, cranky and sarcastic while Tierney is a single mother trying to find some way to raise her daughter alone in a world where her employment options are limited.

The original trailer is on YouTube and has some terrific scene snippets.

The story also has a feminist angle. Mrs. Muir at first tries to solve her problem by falling in love with a man who she believes will take good care of her and her daughter. Unfortunately, the charming gentleman courting her turns out to have a wife and she's back on her own.

Knowing he's getting in the way of Mrs. Muir moving forward, as their love appears doomed, the Captain vanishes fading to a distant memory.


If you've seen the ending of Titanic, you can guess how this movie ends. I often think James Cameron is a fan of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Another similarity to Titanic is the beautiful musical score. The video above showcases it.

The movie is proof that sometimes even ghosts have happy endings.

But we don't see this kind of romance often in books. At a workshop for my local RWA chapter, former editor Theresa Stevens said that ghost stories are a hard sell and don't sell well. Perhaps it's because a happy ending for a ghost is so hard to find.

I find ghosts comforting because it's nice to think that they exist. They're de facto proof of life after death, after all.

I have written one ghost story but the ghosts aren't part of the love story, they're being used as weapons against my heroine, who can see ghosts but thinks they can be explained by science, at least some day. I thought it would be a fun idea to have a person who can see ghosts but doesn't truly believe in them. Eventually, she'll change her mind--or the heroes change it for her.

That story isn't published as yet. But maybe having flesh and blood humans as the heroes will help. And a vampire.

Coming Into the Home Stretch...

But not on a manuscript. Boo.

On my Master's Degree. After three years of juggling and putting things off, especially writing, and especially after I got a full-time job, I am on the last month of Graduate School. I am working like mad to get my Special Project finalized and turned in (this week!), and all the paperwork that goes with graduating, AND finishing the final two courses, one of which is absolutely insane with work.

I keep thinking of all the things I will have time for once this is over. NOT getting up at 5:15 am to read textbooks. Or working on papers while sitting at son's football practice. Or having Sundays to do...anything. House projects. House cleaning, which has gone woefully undone for far too long.

And finally...writing. It's not like I haven't written anything the last three years. I put out two novels, one of which was done before I started grad school, the other half done when I sold it. I finished another, and got an agent. I spent the summer pounding away at the keys to get just over 20K in a new book so that I have something to show a prospective editor when my agent sells the book she has. And I wrote hundreds of thousands of words of academia. Yuck. It's weird, some days I don't even think about writing at all, and I don't miss it, and others I long to break into a project and work, work, work. Some days I just want to get some sleep and watch some TV without a computer on my lap.

Oh, I don't plan to start writing for fun and profit the day after grad school is over. I plan on getting very very drunk before that. But once the hangover is gone, and I get a few days to breathe, I will be ready to go. I will have to shift my brain from logical thinking to fictional thinking, but I think it's like riding a bicycle. And there are so many projects just waiting, so many stories to be told.

Home stretch, baby. By Thanksgiving, this will all be but a memory.

Ghost Stories

My grandmother had some of the best ghost stories and I was an eager listener.

There was the time that her favorite brother came to her in a dream. He was covered in dirt as if he was a child again rolling in a giant dirt pile. But he was no child, he was a young working man far, far from home.

"Cap?" she mumbled, using his nickname. "What are you doing here?" Wasn't he supposed to be in Alaska?

She could barely make out the whites of his eyes, widening in alarm. He tried to speak and puffs of dust spewed out, but no sounds. Only the dust. So much dust.

Terror seized her. "What's wrong? What are you saying?" 

His mouth opened and closed so quickly that it seemed he was smoking dirt. Choking on it. And his eyes. She'd never forget the anguish, grief, sadness swirling in her favorite blue eyes.

"Cap!" she screamed and woke herself up.

Later the next day when a messenger arrived, my young grandmother became distraught, crying and wailing before her mother could open the letter. She didn't need to read or be told that her sweet brother had been killed during a mine cave-in. She already knew. In the middle of the night he'd come to tell his favorite sister good-bye.

I've always wondered what my great-uncle had tried to say.

Happy Halloween.

www.kimberleytroutte.com