Morton S. Gray – Author

Can you ever truly escape your past?

I thought I could escape my past. Thought it simply a case of moving to a new location, settling my son at a new school, making new friends and getting on with my new shiny life.

Foolishly, I imagined I could leave behind everything that had gone before, but the truth is that it’s not that easy. For one thing, wherever you go, you take yourself along with all of your fears, memories and desires. I’d had some nightmare times, lost the man I loved, tried to find security, but trusted in the wrong hands. No one can take away my nice memories, but I wish someone would take away the bad.

Would I do the same again? Or would I brazen it out where I was? Should I have stayed in Cornwall, joined self-help groups, changed my image, shrugged off those knowing looks from the neighbours?

Looking at what happened to me, and you can read all about that in The Girl on the Beach, I’m honestly not sure. My past caught up with me anyway – big time!

Looking at my motivations for moving from Cornwall to Borteen, the main reason was for my son. He was young enough to truly start again. So, for that reason alone, I think I made the right choice, even if it didn’t quite work out as I hoped. We all want the best for our children, don’t we?

As for me, I tried – I really did – and at the end of the day that is all you can ever do, even if your past does colour your present and future, you have to find a way to go on – a way to live again after disaster.

Do you think I made the right choice?

Who is Harry Dixon?

 When Ellie Golden meets Harry Dixon, she can’t help but feel she recognises him from somewhere. But when she finally realises who he is, she can’t believe it – because the man she met on the beach all those years before wasn’t called Harry Dixon. And, what’s more, that man is dead.

For a woman trying to outrun her troubled past and protect her son, Harry’s presence is deeply unsettling – and even more disconcerting than coming face to face with a dead man, is the fact that Harry seems to have no recollection of ever having met Ellie before. At least that’s what he says …

But perhaps Harry isn’t the person Ellie should be worried about. Because there’s a far more dangerous figure from the past lurking just outside of the new life she has built for herself, biding his time, just waiting to strike.

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit and winner of their Search for a Star competition 2016 is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play.

I first met my blog guest at a writing class run by Sue Johnson in Pershore. I can remember sitting opposite to Heather King feeling inadequate as she produced yet another brilliant descriptive piece in response to one of Sue‘s writing exercises.

One day I’ll get a photograph of Heather smiling at the camera!

A confessed romantic and bookworm, Heather King has always made up stories. Discovering Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels began a lifelong love of the era, although she enjoys well-written books from other times too. Heather’s stories are traditional romps – light-hearted and witty, with bags of emotion. You walk with her characters through the world they inhabit. She also writes Paranormal Shape Shifter romance.

Visiting her Dark Side as Vandalia Black, she wrote Vampires Don’t Drink Coffee and Other Stories which includes a novella set during the English Civil War.

When not looking after her two hairy ponies, three cats and boisterous Staffie, or frowning over keypad or notebook, she likes nothing better than taking long walks and curling up with a good book.

I asked Heather some questions:-

Why do you write Regency novels?

I love the era! Although I wouldn’t want to live then (I like my creature comforts far too much!), I love the furnishings, the elegance and the courtesy, the quieter pace of life, the horses – and men in breeches and neckcloths! For a long time I avoided attempting a Regency novel because I felt I could never come anywhere near Georgette Heyer’s brilliance and didn’t want to set myself up to fail.

However, in 2003 or 2004 I could not work due to the Foot and Mouth crisis, so with time on my hands, an idea which had been growing in the back of my mind began to root. Eventually, many drafts later, that story became A Sense of the Ridiculous. The rest, as they say (love a good cliché!) is history.

How is the heroine of your book The Missing Duke like you?

Ha, ha. Not a lot! Perhaps the only things we have in common are common sense and dogged determination. She is brave and bold, a little tempestuous and prepared to go to any lengths to stand up for what she believes in. I, on the other hand, hate confrontation and am decidedly not brave.

Tell us a little about how you research your novels. I’m particularly fascinated by the hot air balloon in your latest!

I can lose myself for days down research rabbit holes! I love real books. Once I get my nose in a book, I am gone from the real world for hours. As it is no longer possible to spend hours in a library, I am prostrate at the feet of the internet god. There are thousands upon thousands of wonderful old books online now, so I try to find answers to my questions within tomes written at the time I am researching.

Care has to be taken, though, as many Victorian authors wilfully plagiarized earlier works. A wise owl once told me to check facts in at least three different sources. Mind you, the previous comment applies here, too. Whenever I can, which isn’t often nowadays due to the latest member of the household, who can’t be left alone, I haunt charity shops. They are a wonderful source for research books.

As for the hot air balloon details in my latest book, The Missing Duke, I spent hours looking up all sorts of answers to a zillion questions. I needed to know what the early balloons were made from, filled with, waterproofed/fireproofed with, how far they could fly and when advances were made and so on.

My original idea was for the hero to fly across the Channel, so I needed details of distance, winds, where they flew to, etcetera. I later decided (well my characters told me) something else would happen, so I then had to research plausible methods of proofing which would be innovative for the time, so a character could ‘invent’ them. Since my heroine travels to Paris, I needed to know all about the journey in 1814… and that added a further problem – the war in France and when the English were able to return to the Continent. Another plot query required information about prisons where the English were incarcerated by the French Government.

I put a tremendous amount of work into the historical aspects of my books in order to make them as accurate as possible, even down to tiny details like naming the actual landlord of an inn and describing its’ furnishings. I like my readers to walk beside my characters and experience what they are experiencing.

What can we look forward to from you in the future?

I am planning to rework a short novel from the drawer to release for Christmas, following the success of last year’s novella, Carpet of Snowdrops, although I may hate it and decide to write a new novella instead! There is a possible hush-hush project in the pipeline for next summer; I have a non-fiction work about horses to complete and polish; a book I wrote after A Sense of the Ridiculous, which was my mother’s favourite and I haven’t yet had the time to do it justice; and also the next book in the Welsh Boys series, my Shape Shifter novels about the brothers of a Welsh family with a deeply guarded secret. Devil’s Hoof is the first in the series of stand-alone novels. It is about horses, a man struggling to cope with life after war – and love, of course. I am nothing if not a romantic!

And then there are all the new stories just waiting to be written!

Goodness, I’m feeling inadequate again after the answer to the last question. Thank you for visiting me, Heather and best wishes for lots of sales of your new book.

If you would like to contact Heather you can use the following links:-

Blog: http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.uk

Website: https://heatherkingauthoruk.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heather.king.author

https://www.facebook.com/ARegencyRepository

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomheatherkinguk

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00I04PYPE

Amazon Author Page (US): http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00I04PYPE

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/PurpleHeather

Twitter: https://twitter.com/1PurpleHeather

Below are some details of Heather‘s books, beginning with her latest.

The Missing Duke

When his father dies, Lord Adam Bateman refuses to succeed to the dukedom which rightly belongs to his missing elder brother. Whilst performing secret and sensitive missions for the Duke of Wellington, he continues his efforts to find his twin. The search has become Adam’s all-consuming passion, leaving no time for affairs of the heart.

Miss Lucy Mercier is also seeking answers. Her father, a tailor, had been used to make hot air balloons for various noble patrons, including Lord Adam’s sire. Believing the deceased Duke of Wardley had been involved in her papa’s failure to return from the Continent, she takes employment in Lord Adam’s household in order to discover the truth. Then she accompanies him on an important commission for the Allied Army, and finds herself having to guard against a growing attraction for a man she knows she can never have.

Are the two disappearances connected and will two heads prove better than one in the pursuit of answers? Will Adam and Lucy find true happiness together or will the past – and their different stations – rise to keep them apart?

Purchasing links – UK or US

Devil’s Hoof

Laminitis or fever of the feet is crippling for horses. What must it be like for a man?

Matthew Swift, Special Forces veteran of the Iraq wars and invalided out of the army following an act of heroism, is struggling to adjust to civilian life. Suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he is a loose cannon ready to explode, beset by horrific flashbacks and images. If that were not enough, Matt has broken up with his girlfriend and his father is fighting a hostile takeover, in the process hiding a heart problem from his family.

Sparks fly when Matt meets alternative therapist Shani Stevens, but then they become stranded in Rhandor Forest by unprecedented storms and have no choice but to help each other.

Both have scars, yet slowly they learn to trust. Mutual sympathy and understanding soon grow into an abiding passion, but Matt has a secret he cannot reveal…

A powerful love story and a poignant insight into the equine psyche, with a bit of mystery and adventure thrown in, Devil’s Hoof will grab your heart.

Purchasing links UK & US

A Sense of the Ridiculous

When a prank goes wrong, headstrong squire’s daughter Jocasta Stanyon wakes up in the bedchamber of an inn with no memory of who she is. The inn is owned by widow Meg Cowley and her handsome son Richard, who proves to be more than a match for the unconventional Miss Stanyon.

Having enjoyed a carefree childhood, Jocasta has refused all offers for her hand in the hopes of one day finding a soul mate who shares her sense of the ridiculous. She is drawn to Richard, but their stations in life are far apart and despite prolonging her stay by devious means, the idyll cannot last. When, by chance, her brother Harry turns up at the Holly Tree Inn, Jocasta has no choice but to return home. She hopes to persuade her father of Richard’s qualities, but then she is summoned to receive the addresses of a fashionable stranger…

Purchasing links UK & US

A Carpet of Snowdrops

Heavily enceinte, penniless and widowed, Eloise Wakefield travels from her native France to petition the military for assistance at Horse Guards in London. Dismissed by the officers there, she journeys to visit her husband’s grave at his family’s estate. By then almost destitute, she is turned away on a snow-driven night and faces an uncertain future.

Having narrowly avoided crushing the waif-like woman with his horse and caused her poor possessions to be ruined, Joscelin, Lord Rollaston, feels a certain responsibility for the widow and her unborn child. He escorts her to the home of his former nurse and soon finds himself embroiled with his best friend’s little family.

However, Eloise is a respectable woman. How can he provide for her without jeopardizing her reputation when her husband’s brother, the Duke of Ottley, is adamant she is not part of his family?

Purchasing Links UK & US

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play.

I had planned a totally different post this week, but I have delayed it to pay tribute to a woman who greatly influenced my life, despite me never having ever met her. Just shows that your writing may have an effect on someone without you ever knowing. This is a tribute to Louise Hay who died last week at the age of 90.

Rewind to the early 1990’s. I found myself divorced and bringing up my son alone whilst juggling a very hectic full-time job. I was truly frazzled trying to keep up with everything and to be honest, rather lost. I lived on adrenalin. Add to this, the terrible eating habits I’d adopted. My son had wonderful home-cooked meals with the childminder, but when I got home, I usually grabbed something quick and easy. Despite promotions at work, which at least meant that money wasn’t an issue, my self-esteem was rock bottom.

My sister introduced me to a newly-qualified homeopath who recommended the books You Can Heal Your Life and The Power is within You by Louise Hay. The books resonated with me. Basically, your thoughts influence the life you have, so you can change your life by thinking differently and by repeating positive affirmations.

Louise L. Hay is a metaphysical lecturer and teacher, and the bestselling author of 27 books, including You Can Heal Your Life and Empowering Women. Her works have been translated into 25 different languages in 33 countries throughout the world. Since beginning her career as a Science of Mind minister in 1981, she has assisted thousands of people in discovering and using the full potential of their own creative powers for personal growth and self-healing. Louise is the owner and founder of Hay House, Inc.

The homeopath and I became friends and we went to a local course that was half aerobics and half Louise Hay work. It was fun. I still have the file of handouts. By this time, I was working in staff development and was keen to incorporate some of the ideas into my work, so I went on an eight-day course in Stroud to learn to be a Heal Your Life training practitioner.

This course was amazing and proved to be a turning point for me. There were thirty-two people from all over the world. We laughed, we sang, we hugged and we cried (a lot). I felt layers of crap falling away. To this day, I have never been able to breathe as easily as at the end of that week.

The group had many talents, so I learned as much out of hours as on the course. I met Reiki practitioners and was fascinated to feel energy flowing from their hands and coursing through me. There were two hypnotherapists and I experienced two past life regressions – one on Halloween during a power cut!

I well remember driving home and vowing that I would train in hypnotherapy and Reiki. Just over a year later, I left the corporate world to become a therapist and to run courses. Thank you, Louise Hay, for the difference you made to both my outlook and my life –  RIP.

Thank you to those who entered the competition on my blog last week (Spotlight on Guest Author Janice Preston) to win a Janice Preston regency romance novel. The winner, chosen at random from the entries, was Liene. Please contact Janice by Direct Message from her Facebook page or website to claim your book. I shall post this message in the comments of last week’s post too. Congratulations, Liene.

I blogged a while back about my nomination for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Joan Hessayon award see 25 April and 22 May. I didn’t win, but it is nice to be featured in the RNA‘s Romance Matters Magazine. I’m on the cover (with glasses almost in the middle) and even quoted in the article about the award evening. I love the fact that there are so many smiling faces in photographs of the event.

It was fantastic to be a nominee and to feel so special for the evening. I asked Nicola Cornick, RNA Chair for the words used to introduce my novel The Girl on the Beach.

“A suspenseful and taut page-turner, this is a gripping book with several intricately woven plot strands, a mysterious and very appealing hero and a powerful romantic relationship at its core.”

If you have read my novel, please consider leaving a short review for me on the platform where you purchased the book. Thank you for your support.

I am now working on my edits for my next novel, as yet untitled, which will be published in early 2018. Exciting!

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play.

I first met Janice Preston in 2012 at my first Birmingham meeting of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. I didn’t know anyone attending and was lurking at the bottom of the library steps trying to spot someone who looked like a romantic novelist. I nervously approached Janice and it turned out it was her first meeting too. We’ve been friends ever since.

Janice Preston writes emotional, sensual and satisfying Regency romance for Mills & Boon / Harlequin Historicals, with her seventh book due for publication on 1^st October 2017.

Janice grew up in Wembley with a love of reading, writing stories and animals and has worked as a dairy farmer, a police call-handler and a university administrator. She has two children and two step-children (all now adult) and a gorgeous, cheeky grandson, with a granddaughter due shortly.

She now lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats, and enjoys reading, swimming, pottering about the garden when the sun is shining, and travelling when she can spare the time from weaving romantic tales set in the past.

I asked Janice some questions:-

Why did you originally want to write Regency romance?

First and foremost it was because I love the books of both Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. When my children left home for university, I reread all the Heyer books and then began to look around for other novels set in the ‘long’ Regency (approx. 1790-1830) as by then I’d fallen in love with everything about that era – its etiquette and its distinctive fashion, architecture and décor provide a perfect setting for a romance and it was also a time of great social upheaval, on the brink of the industrial revolution and with the war against France plus huge advances in the arts and science. When I decided to write my own romance it just felt natural to set it in the Regency.

How are the heroines of your books like you?

Ooh, that’s a difficult one. I suppose every character has something of the writer in them and I find the trick to making characters individual is to give them traits I don’t really possess. For instance, Thea, the heroine of Scandal and Miss Markham (out in October) is bouncy, irrepressible and impulsive – most unlike me as I am quite a cautious person. But my heroines are also strong-minded with a broad streak of common sense and a belief in fair play and justice, and I think those traits come from me.

How do you decide your characters’ names?

I have a dictionary of first names, and I try to choose names that would have been around in the Regency as far as possible (so no Chardonnays!) and I also have the Oxford book of English Surnames to trigger ideas. Graveyards are excellent sources of inspiration, and can throw up surprises. I recently saw a child’s grave – I think he died around 1814, from memory – and he was called Garthon. Before, if I’d read a Regency with a hero called Garth I’d have scoffed at it as it sounds so American, so it pays to keep your eyes open.

It takes time, sometimes, to find suitable names for my hero and heroine – they have to ‘feel’ right – and it’s complicated by the need to find titles for some of the characters in addition to their names! I often use place names for the titles (eg Duke of Cheriton, from Cheriton Bishop in Devon). I choose minor characters’ names to fit around the main two protagonists so they don’t all end up starting with the same letter. I find that happens all too often if I don’t pay attention.

If you had to choose a cast for the film of one of your books, which actors would take the leading roles?

I tend to imagine my characters first in my head and then I struggle to find any photos to match my vision, which is what happened for the first two books in the Beauchamp Betrothals trilogy. But as I did, for once, have specific people in mind for the 3^rd book in the trilogy before I even started writing it, I’ve included them too!

Cinderella and the Duke

• Leo Beauchamp, Duke of Cheriton – Matt Bomer
• Rosalind Allen – Jennifer Aniston

Scandal and Miss Markham

• Lord Vernon Beauchamp – a young Clint Eastwood
• Dorothea Markham (Thea) – I don’t know who this is, but she’s perfect for Thea!

Cecily’s story (as yet untitled, but Zach is a gipsy and Cecily is ‘Lady Perfect’

• Zachary Graystoke – Aidan Turner
• Lady Cecily Beauchamp – Kate Winslett (as Rose in Titanic)

What can we look forward to from you in the future?

More about the Beauchamp family! Cinderella and the Duke (July 2017) and Scandal and Miss Markham (October 2017) are the first two books in a series about the Beauchamps  – and the family has also appeared in some of my earlier books, as I love reading books where ‘old friends’ pop up, so when I began to write, that is what I decided to do.

The Beauchamp series is actually two closely linked trilogies – The Beauchamp Betrothals and The Beauchamp Heirs. I have just completed Cecily’s story, which is the third book of The Beauchamp Betrothals (about the three Beauchamp siblings) and am currently biting my nails hoping my editor likes it! I shall be writing The Beauchamp Heirs trilogy (about Leo’s three adult children –Dominic, Alexander and Olivia) next.

Also, I have received lots of requests from readers over the years to write about this or that secondary character, so there is no shortage of ideas.

Thank you very much for allowing me onto your blog, Morton, and for asking such thought-provoking questions! Very interesting answers, Janice.

Cinderella and the Duke

Falling for a duke in disguise

Never welcomed into society circles, Rosalind Allen gave up her marriage prospects long ago – life has taught her she’ll only get hurt. So she’s shocked when an encounter with a mysterious stranger makes her long to reconsider.

Little does Rosalind know that her mystery man is Leo Beauchamp, Duke of Cheriton, travelling in disguise to evade the ladies of the ton! Impoverished Rosalind is the first woman to captivate Leo – but can he persuade this wary Cinderella to trust him with her heart?

Buy Link http://mybook.to/CinderellaAndTheDuke

Scandal and Miss Markham

A scandalous journey!

Glassmaker’s daughter Thea Markham is devastated when her brother Daniel goes missing. Then a mysterious lord turns up asking questions about Daniel and offers to find him.

Unsure she can trust the handsome peer, Thea dresses up as a boy and follows him!

Lord Vernon Beauchamp feels his life lacks direction. Meeting Thea gives him a renewed purpose and when they are thrown together on their scandalous adventure, friendship soon gives way to desire…

Buy Link http://mybook.to/ScandalAndMissM

If you’d like to know more about Janice and her books, please visit her website at www.janicepreston.co.uk , connect with her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Janice.preston.author or follow her on Twitter @janicegpreston

GIVEAWAY! – I’m excited that Janice is offering an ebook or signed paperback of winner’s choice of Cinderella and the Duke or Scandal and Miss Markham. Just ‘Like’ her Facebook author page at www.facebook.com/Janice.preston.author, then comment on this post. (If you‘ve already liked her page, you can still enter – just leave a comment below).

A winner will be picked at random on Sunday, 20^th August.

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play.

I’ve featured a few different things on my blog of late. I’ve opened my Spotlight on Guest Author slot up to include some different authors. Nell Dixon featured on 24 July 2017. I also had my first extract blog, with an intriguing piece from Evonne Wareham‘s Summer in San Remo on 31 July 2017.

You can look forward to future features on Janice Preston, Heather King, Georgia Hill and debut novelist Lynn Forth.

My structural edits for the next book have arrived. It will be published in the new year 2018. No title for this one yet. The edits are going to keep me busy during August while I continue to recover from my operation. I’m now nine weeks post-hysterectomy and a little frustrated at how tired I’m still feeling. Taking my fourth lot of antibiotics too. I’m trying to get back to my post-op daily walking target of 10,000 steps, but progress is a bit hit and miss at the moment.

Our dog walk on Sunday was at the lovely Witley Court in Worcestershire. I have taken loads of photographs of the main fountain over the years, but was delighted yesterday to see so much more detail on the recently cleaned stonework.

Thank you for visiting my blog – Morton S. Gray – Author. I hope you enjoyed this post. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My novel The Girl on the Beach published by Choc Lit is available from all ebook platforms – Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Google Play.