The pub date for Murder on Principle is August 3rd, although I have heard that many people have already received the book.
I set up a giveaway on Goodreads so join in and win a free copy.
The reviews so far have all been very good to great!
I spent most of my vacation working on edits for the next Will Rees: Murder, Sweet Murder.
It is a little amusing to be working so hard on the next in the series when Murder on Principle will not be published until August 3rd.
In this book, Rees and Lydia journey to Boston to investigate an accusation leveled against Lydia’s father. I wrote this one at the request of readers who wanted to know more about Lydia’s past.
I am so excited to present the cover of Murder, Sweet Murder. No publication date yet.
I associated the Fugitive Slave Law with the Civil War. The truth is, however, the first iteration of the law was signed into effect in 1793, long before I would have guessed. It is important to remember that many of the founding fathers, including George Washington, were slave owners.
In Death in the Great Dismal,
when Rees and Lydia rescue their friends Tobias and Ruth, they were breaking the law. Although both Tobias and Ruth had both been born free in Maine, they were abducted and sold into slavery. (The slave takers frequently took any person of color, born free or not, for sale in the South. Occasionally, white children were stolen as well.)
Not only were escaped people subject to recapture, anyone who obstructed the slave takers were considered in violation of the law. Moreover, any child born to an enslaved mother was also considered to be enslaved. The prevailing custom was one drop of black blood meant that person was considered black, no matter how light-skinned. Rees and Lydia, therefore, could have been in serious trouble if they had been caught.
The full text of the Act is available from the Library of Congress (and online) in the Annals of Congress of the 2ndCongress, 2nd Session, during which the proceedings and debates took place from November 5, 1792 to March 2, 1793.
The appropriate sections are 3 and 4.
By the end of the American Revolution all of the Northern states had abolished slavery or made provision to do so. (The United States abolished the slave trade in 1808.) However, fugitives could and were returned to the Southern states per the Fugitive Slave Act by men whose profession, if you will, was capturing escapees.
This law was further strengthened in 1850 at the request of the slave states. One of the elements most annoying to Northerners was the three-fifths rule that counted every five slaves as three people and therefore gave the slave states much more representation in Congress. Although there were abolitionists prior to 1850, the revised law caused a tremendous increase in people who identified as anti-slavery.
The term Underground Railroad did not come into common use until the construction of actual railroads became widespread. An abolitionist newspaper published a cartoon in 1844 that pictured a rail car packed with fugitives heading for Canada. Use of ‘conductor’ and other railroad terms came into broader use after the 1850 law.
During the course of the Will Rees mysteries, midwives have made appearances in several books. Lydia herself has had occasion to require the services of a midwife and (spoiler alert) will need her again.
Midwives have a long history. There are references to midwives in Ancient Greek and Roman texts as well as in the Bible.
In the seventeenth century, however, the reliance on midwives began to diminish. Male doctors began to claim they were the proper individuals to help women deliver their babies. The men were educated while the women were ignorant. (And that was the kindest insult. They were also accused of being lazy, dirty and drunk.)
In A Midwife’s Tale; the Life of Martha Ballard, 1785 – 1812, edited by Laura Thatcher Ulrich, the midwife’s perception was much different. Most of these women had borne children themselves (although not all) and they were very experiences. Usually a younger woman would shadow an older midwife (it was not always a formal apprenticeship) to learn the necessary skills.
The male doctors, although they believed themselves far better at this, did not have the years of practice. In the above autobiography, there is a harrowing scene in which the male doctor takes the baby in a breech birth out in pieces. He had not learned to massage the mothers abdomen to turn the baby for the birth
The male doctors were also guilty of spreading puerperal fever. They would not wash their hands after dissecting corpses, going immediately to deliver babies. This has been well documented.
The account by Martha Ballard illustrates both the difficulties and the rewards of this profession. She leaves home at all hours and during all weathers to deliver babies. But she is far better paid for her skills than she would have been at any other type of ‘women’s work’,
It was her proud claim that, during all her years of practice, she lost only three babies.
When Rees and Lydia accompany their friend Tobias to the Great Dismal Swamp to rescue his wife, they do so as much to mend their own relationship as to help a friend. (Marriage is challenging and Will and Rees’s relationship was tested in A Circle of Dead Girls.)
The swamp proves to be a more challenging environment, and the community in which Ruth has taken refuge, more exotic than they could ever have guessed.
From the 1700s right up to the Civil War, fugitives from the neighboring plantations fled into the swamp to escape bondage. The swamp, which was more than a million acres at that time, (estimates range from one million to three million acres) was and is still a harsh environment. The Great Dismal has shrunk to 112 thousand acres. A Wildlife Sanctuary, it is home to deer, a large population of black bears, bobcats, more than 200 species of birds and many insects. (Insect repellent is a must.) It is a peat bog; items dropped on the thick water-soaked peat can disappear without a trace in a manner of minutes.
The conference begins tomorrow at 1 pm. Free but registration is required.
(Note: All times are Eastern)
1.00 – 2.00 pm
Pitch Workshop – moderator Jenny Milchman *
What Agents Want & How to Give It to Them
Figuring out how to woo an agent or small press editor can be as puzzling as a good mystery. In this informal session, writers will receive an overview of the publishing process today, learn how to describe their book and themselves as writers, and discover the secret to a difficult-to-turn-down pitch.
2.15 – 3.45 pm
Master Class I – Sujata Massey (Guest of Honor) *
A Journalistic Approach to Writing a Novel: How to Add the Right Details Without Becoming an Encyclopedia
Sujata will break down the journalism techniques she uses for creating pictures on the page, weaving real facts with the fictitious. She’ll also give tips on how to cultivate valuable sources in government and academia and the importance of sensitive representation of characters with different cultural backgrounds.
4.00 – 5.30 pm
Master Class II – Alison Gaylin (Special Guest)
Creating Lead Characters: Series versus Standalone
From hardboiled crime-solvers to noir antiheroes to the unreliable narrators of psychological suspense, compelling lead characters are a key element in crime fiction. We’ll discuss how to create protagonists that are multi-faceted, surprising and real – whether they’re driving one story or an ongoing series.
6.00 – 7.00 pm
Meet-the-Authors Cocktail Hour
Authors will introduce their series or latest book and present a brief reading. Bring your favorite drink!
Saturday, begins 10 am EST.
10.00 am Welcome and Conference Overview by Frankie Y. Bailey, President, Mavens of Mayhem
10.30 – 11.30 am Historical Mysteries Panel – Shakers, Quakers, Revolutionaries, and Depression-era cops. Journey with us to exciting mysteries of the past
11.45 am – 12.45 pm Short Stories and Other Shorts Panel – No matter where you are on your writing journey, short fiction presents an opportunity to try something new, refine your craft, and have the satisfaction of writing “the end” after just 10,000 words. Tune in as these authors share their insights and inspirations behind writing short fiction, and tips on getting started and where to submit.
1.00 – 2.00 pm A Conversation with our special guests Sujata Massey and Alison Gaylin
Don’t miss this lively and informative chat with our honored guests. Moderator – Elaine Viets *
2.15 – 3.15 pm Gothic Romance and Romantic Suspense Panel – Step away from the comfort of your armchair and flirt with danger as this panel delves into the darkly alluring genres of Gothic Romance and Romantic Suspense.
3.30 – 4.30 pm Police Procedurals: Fact or Fiction Panel – Ripped from the headlines! Go behind the scenes and learn how to turn your police procedurals into page-turners as four experts from the field talk about how murder is handled in real life.
4.45 – 5.45 pm Pathways to Publication Roundtable – This isn’t your grandmother’s publishing world! Getting a book published has changed drastically over the past decades. Join this panel as they discuss the variety of paths to publication available to authors today.
5.45 pm Wrap-up
Very excited to announce that the Suffolk Mystery Convention will be held on March 6. I will send along information in a week or so.
I will be discussing my new Novel Death in the Great Dismal.
It is an appropriate choice since Suffolk is the town nearest the swamp.
It is an amazing experience to go from the streets of Suffolk and the small peanut farms nearby to the alien environment of the swamp. It is also very buggy!
I thought I would post additional pictures. Both my husband and I are hikers and we have taken quite a few people hiking. We hoped our family and friends would love this state the way we do.
Just FYI: Maine is allowing visitors from the Northeast (States that have reduced the rates of COVID) to come to Maine without quarantining.
Forest in Maine and a shot of the rocky coast of Maine. This is in Acadia National Park, one of my favorite places.
I realized – and I’m not sure why it took me so long – that although I have blogged about many many topics, I have not discussed Maine. My detective, Will Rees, is a Mainer and many of my books are set in this state.
At the time the books are set, Maine is not yet a state of its own. Originally populated by tribes of the Algonquin Nation, whose names remain in names like Androscoggin, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and more, Maine was considered part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was officially called the District of Maine. Maine was brought into statehood as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. (Maine came in as a ‘free’ state. The following year, Missouri came in as a slave holding state, thereby keeping the balance between free and slave.)
Maine is called The Pine Tree State for obvious reasons.
Maine has a long, and rocky coastline.
Although part of the temperate climate, and frequently warm and humid in the summers, it also has a long cold and snowy winter. I have seen it snow the last week of April, and not a dusting either but several inches.
But winters in Maine have their own beauty.
The heyday of the American Circus occurred in the early 1900s. Hundreds of circuses, both small and large, toured the United States, performing for audiences of a few hundred or several thousands. Trains took the circuses all over the country and by then the circus was the circus we think of. Canvas tents had been invented and adopted in the mid-nineteenth century and exotic animal acts became a feature of the performances. The trapeze, invented in France, was added to the line-up.
But in 1800, if the circus came to Durham, Maine, it would be far different. As discussed in previous blogs, there were no tents; the circus constructed a small roofless amphitheater. Instead of elephant and lion acts, the animals were dogs and pigs. The trapeze, adapted from the tightrope, had not been invented. And trains did not carry the circus across the country,
Horse drawn wagons would have been the vehicle used.
As my model for the wagons used in A Circle of Dead Girls,
I used the Burton wagon. It is the oldest example of a wagon used as a home in Great Britain.
The history of the wagon, however, is older. By the late 17th century, most of the roads in Europe were paved. It is thought that the first wagons used as living quarters appeared in France and were designed for the actors of the circus. They were large, horse drawn caravans. By the middle of the 18th centuries, the carriages became smaller and only needed one or two horses to pull them.
The Burton wagons had small wheels placed under the body of the carriage itself and were undecorated. These wagons evolved into the elaborately embellished wagons, with large wheels necessary for going off-road, used by the Romani. According to Wikipedia and other sources, they began using such wagons about 1850 called a vardo.
Since John Asher, the circus owner, is from England and has traveled through Europe, I imagined that he would have seen such living wagons in France and other places and used them for the models of his own horse-drawn circus wagons. These living wagons would be a practical solution to traveling from town to town.
The decorated wagons did not disappear when the circus began touring via train. They evolved into parade wagons, the brightly painted and gilded wagons that paraded through town to advertise the circus. The circus museum in Sarasota, Florida has some fine examples of these wagons.