WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS IN AUSTRALIA

The Pirate And The Puritan by Mary Clayton
Historical Romance, heat level Sweet

Buy at: www.romancedirect.com.au

1704 - Dangerous times, when the British colonies in the America's are threatened by Queen Anne's War. It is not the French but a pirate who captures Mercy Penhall, mute Puritan spinster. Fearing for her life and virtue yet drawn to the captain in spite of herself, Mercy unknowingly sets foot on a path of adventure and heartbreak that will test her courage to the limit. And in the end the secret she carries in her soul threatens to prevent even the small chance of happiness inherent in an impossible love.

Edmund Gramercy is an unwilling pirate, forced to join a hostile crew to save his life. He defies them to spare the captives and the women, but the silent Puritan tempts him like no other.

Can the impossible become possible for the pirate and the Puritan?

Reviews: Jody Allen: excerpt: "A heroine who can't speak and a pirate with a heart..."

Laura Miller: excerpt: "She is intrigued by his protection of her... He is drawn to her innocence and strength..."

Drebbles, Amazon Top 500 reviewer, excerpt: "...a sweet gentle romance... a rip-roaring adventure..."

Kym McNabney "Writing From The Soul", excerpt: "The story kept me on the edge of my seat, eager to find out what happened next."

Donna K. "bookcrosser", excerpt: "Instead of sexually tense bickering, these characters interact with kindness and respect."

TeensReadToo.com (reviewed by Steph), excerpt: Edmund and Mercy give hope to readers that love can overcome anything."

Christy Tillery French "reviewer/writer", excerpt: "An enthralling love story, moving from the high seas to colonial America."

Lesley West, Amazon Top 1000 reviewer, excerpt: "Edmund and Mercy are both damaged by life but are strong and sympathetic nonetheless."

Marion Marchetto, excerpt: "A story of depth and intelligence... A Puritan heroine instead of an English lass of the privileged class."

Beverly Romance Books "Beverly", excerpt: "Without one sexually explicit scene the author has sensuality ooze from the page."

Jackie B, excerpt: "Once I was hooked, I didn't want to put it down."

A ROMANCE WRITER - WHO, ME?

This is a fun pic of me taken by my friend Nelma, who is in the local Photography Club as well as our Writers Group. I used to be a Romance Snob, now I'm a romance writer!

Honestly though, there are some great stories out there in romance land. Hope mine are some of them. Here's an excerpt from the latest review of The Pirate And The Puritan, by Cindy Vallar. The whole thing is available on Cindy's website:
http://www.cindyvallar.com/piratepuritan.html
and her site: http://cindyvallar.com/pirates.html is devoted to all matters piratical, privateerish and buccaneer-business. It's lots of fun for romance readers, as well as writers! And the review is really nice. It always gives me a charge when fellow writers enjoy my work.

"The Pirate And The Puritan is a captivating love story, replete with adventure and unexpected twists. Clayton's research into piracy and the era shines through, but never intrudes into the story. Rather she deftly spins a tale that transports readers back in time and keeps them guessing how the hero and heroine will finally find the life together they desire."

How do I write the background - for a country I've never visited, for a time over three hundred years before I was born? This book was set in the eastern United States in colonial times, 1704-5, and I'm an Australian. I also have far too much respect for historical and geographical accuracy to write a story without researching it properly. My own country has suffered in fiction novels which weren't correctly researched, and I didn't want to do the same thing to anyone else. The story is all important. Yet as a reader I've left more than one book unfinished because of glaring errors. For instance, the British writer who wrote about Australia's convict days, and it was a good book, without having ever heard of eucalyptus (gum) trees! And another mentioned "snow-melt" in the rivers, which since we have no high mountains, only occurs in the Snowy Mountain region.

I realise most mistakes are honest and (whisper) I made one or two of my own, but by and large I believe I managed to convey the setting correctly. The book is set in colonial Carolina, New England and Virginia. One reviewer told me "you made this native New Englander feel right at home". Thank goodness! South Carolina has a similar climate to my home state of Queensland, but Virginia and New England are quite different. They receive snow and storms in winter, for one thing. Here our storms blow up in summer and I've only seen snow once in my entire life. Also the rivers behave differently, the landscape and trees are quite different, even the soil.

So I consulted a lot of encyclopaedias, spent a lot of time in local libraries - this was in the days before I had a computer or access to the Internet - and made a LOT of notes. I also wrote to South Carolina and a dear man in the State Archives Dept. in Columbia sent me reams of photocopied information. I also read all the fiction I could find set in American colonial times. At least I started off with a basic knowledge - I have a retentive memory and have been reading all my life - and now found the particular details I needed to give the background validity. There's more than just the setting to consider, of course. A friend of mine here said, "the buildings, the food, the clothing - it must have taken you forever to research all of it!"

I believe the greatest compliment I have received is that people have told me they loved the STORY, and have barely noticed the background, though they find it interesting. Hooray, I did it (almost) right.

Ahem, now for the thing I did wrong. I'm SO tempted not to mention it, because the only person who's noticed is an English-born colleague in our local Writers Group. I mentioned lemons, twice, in a 350 page book. And of course in those days, lemons were practically unprocurable. Limes from the West Indies, possibly, but not lemons. I live in a warmish climate and they're a commonplace feature of life. Whereas my fellow writers group member told me they had to be imported to Great Britain from Spain right up until the 1950s. So, folks, it's practically impossible to get every research detail correct, and I understand those other authors who, like me, quite innocently make glaring mistakes.

Ah, yes, the story's the thing!

The Pirate And The Puritan, by the way, is available in e-book form at the publisher's site: www.thewildrosepress.com
In Kindle edition at www.amazon.com
And as a paperback at www.amazon.com www.amazon.co.uk B & N Borders and all other online sellers.

Do join other CRR authors for more fun at our blog:

http://www.classicromancerevival.com/blog/?p=688

Prizes for best comments!
Monya Mary

WHY HAVEN'T WE SEEN MORE NEW PIRATE MOVIES?

This is our grandson Noel, aged 16, and behind him our son Kim, his dad. Don't you think Noel looks a bit like Orlando Bloom in the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies? He caught the beard thing from his father.

Anyway... I'm surprised those movies haven't been followed by more pirate yarns on the big screen. I've complained about this and no one (meaning studios!) has taken any notice. Maybe they think the Caribbean trilogy is too hard an act to follow. Sure they were entertaining, but gosh, a scriptwriter with imagination can take a different tack, surely.

When I was a kid in the 1950s pirate movies were regular Saturday afternoon matinee (and Saturday night family) fare at the theatres. They were mostly light-hearted adventures. I remember Disney's "Treasure Island" of course, in which Robert Newton as Long John Silver set the standard for the "aarrrh", the parrot, and the wooden leg.

Then there was The Crimson Pirate with a young and agile Burt Lancaster. And "The Black Swan" with Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara (gosh they stuck that girl in a lot of pirate/swordsman movies.) Even Bob Hope got in on the act with The Princess And The Pirate. More serious was Anne Of The Indies with that excellent actress Jean Peters. There was Yankee Buccaneer with Jeff Chandler of the iron-grey hair. And A High Wind In Jamaica, not exactly about pirates but kids captured by pirate Anthony Quinn.

Captain Kidd with Charles Laughton was more of a drama. And that rascal Sir Henry Morgan was played by several actors in various interpretations of the genre. Errol Flynn swashed and buckled in Against All Flags and as Captain Blood. Oh, there must be lots more but you get the picture (literally).

Then they went out of style until the Pirates of The Caribbean turned up. Again I ask, why hasn't anyone made any more pirate movies?

I have an ulterior motive here. My historical romance The Pirate And The Puritan would, my friends tell me, make a good movie! My friend Nelma, a book and movie enthusiast, has already suggested the cast. Aaron Eckhardt for Edmund Gramercy and either Reese Witherspoon or Kirsten Dunst (or any other great blonde actresses!) as the mute Mercy Penhall. (Note to said actresses - playing a mute is a good way to earn an Oscar. Look at Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda and Holly Hunter in The Piano.)

Hey, producers, are you listening?