Secret Ways : Character Building

Bio: �Eakes has a charming way of making her novels come to life without being over the top,� writes Romantic times of  bestselling, award-winning author Laurie Alice Eakes. Since she lay in bed as a child telling herself stories, she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a published author, with more than two dozen books in print.

She has recently relocated to a cold climate because she is weird enough to like snow and icy lake water. When she isn�t basking in the glory of being cold, she likes to read, visit museums, and take long walks, preferably with her husband, though the cats make her feel guilty every time she leaves the house.        

I love writing historical fiction, especially eighteenth and early nineteenth century Americaand Great Britain, but I truly enjoyed writing my contemporary novels.

In Appalachia. I love those mountains.

Scotland. I�ve been to Europe three times, but have yet to get to Scotland. I love their history. It is fascinating, sad, and a symbol of courage�or stubbornness. And I have a lot of Scots in my ancestry.

I would love a little cottage on a beach. Just me and my sweetie alone with the sand and waves and wind. Going for long walks along the shore, close enough to a town for dining and entertainment like music or theater�live theater, but no true demands on our time.

I haven�t yet set one in Scotland and would like to�contemporary or historical.

What is family and the importance of family.

Deirdre is an American woman who has known little more than life aboard her father�s merchantman. Then the War of 1812 is declared, her father�s ship is captured, her father dies, and she enters into a marriage of convenience with an Englishman for her protection. But while she is welcomed into his family and begins to love them and her husband, her loyalty is split between them and her crew, what she has always considered family, who are in an English prison. She determines to free them, but in doing so, she betrays her husband and his family. 

From Chapter 1 of My Enemy, My Heart

�Nothing to worry about.� Her observation of the ship on the horizon complete, Deirdre MacKenzie shoved the spyglass into her waistband, swung into the rigging, and slid down a backstay to land on the deck with a barefooted thud. �It�s only a British merchantman, Captain, sir.�

Daniel MacKenzie gave her a faint smile, amused to have her call him Captain instead of Father, as she had done since she could talk. Despite the smile, his face remained pale, grayish due to the ill health that had plagued him since their rough passage around Cape Horn. �If it�s only a merchantman, we�re safe running up the Stars and Stripes.�

�Are you certain about that, sir?� the first mate, Ross Trenerry, asked from where he stood manning the Baltimore clipper�s wheel. �We haven�t been what one would call friends with the British lately.�

�Only their navy, Ross.� Father pressed one hand to his chest, and his breath rasped loudly enough to be heard above the whistle of wind in the rigging.

Deirdre bit her lip. She wanted to wrap her arm around her father�s too-thin frame and lead him below, suggest he lie on his bunk and let Ross or her make contact with the other merchant ship if the British came their way. He wouldn�t welcome the solicitude, though. She knew that all too well.

�British merchantmen aren�t impressing men from American merchants.� Deirdre spoke more to reassure herself than convince Ross or her father.

Ross shook shaggy, dark hair out of his face and snorted. �The British think they can do whatever they want. I think we�re better off hightailing it out of here.�

�You may be right.� Father sounded as though he�d been running a footrace. �I�d like a bit more wind . . . for that. Deirdre, nip up top again and get their heading. We�ll evade . . . them . . .�

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Bio: �Eakes has a charming way of making her novels come to life without being over the top,� writes Romantic Times of  bestselling, award-winning author Laurie Alice Eakes. Since she lay in bed as a child telling herself stories, she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a published author, with more than two dozen books in print.

She has recently relocated to a cold climate because she is weird enough to like snow and icy lake water. When she isn�t basking in the glory of being cold, she likes to read, visit museums, and take long walks, preferably with her husband, though the cats make her feel guilty every time she leaves the house.

A couple of years ago, some ladies wanted to write a group series with Tuxedo Park, New York as the setting. The Tuxedo Club was an exclusive gated community built for the rich people of New York. It�s a pretty spectacular place, or was at the time. The father of Emily Post, the author of Etiquette, was the main architect on the project.

Waterfall creates some truly beautiful covers. This depicts my heroine as a woman between mourning for her husband and breaking back into society. She is headed for a ball in the lovely Tuxedo Park clubhouse.

What�s fact? The setting. The gated community, the clubhouse, the annual autumn ball, the December charity tea are all real places and events. The tennis club and skating on the lake, including the use of skating chairs, are also real. That Emily Post drove down to the train station every day to pick up her husband, who was usually not on the train, is from her biography. The person mentioned who doesn�t have a telephone was a real resident without a telephone. That people were beginning to call for invitations is real, and the way Thanksgiving was celebrated happened. Thanksgiving at this time was state by state and not yet a national holiday.

Fiction: The events of the story other than those mentioned above, are not true to my knowledge.

I researched a great deal for this book, from reading all of Emily Post�s original version of Etiquette, to books on the houses of the Tuxedo Club, to a biography of Emily Post, who grew up and then resided in the Tuxedo Club well into her adulthood, to a book called To Marry an English Lord. Then I had to read up on the dress of the day, the Boer War, which effected the hero, and other details like that. I loved reading about ice skating at the turn of the century, including the skating chairs. Very weird contraptions.

Most of what I read couldn�t possibly make place in the story, of course, and I touched on as many things as I could to give an authentic flavor of the time and place and people.

I was surprised how interesting Etiquette was to read. One would think a book on manners would be boring, and it wasn�t in the least. Mrs. Post had a great sense of humor and sense of irony and a wonderful way with words. She wrote novels, which I didn�t know. One day I will read them.

The understanding that one can put the past behind and begin a new life. It may take work and changed behavior, and mistakes can be gotten over.

I have another book coming out in November, My Enemy, My Heart, a long historical with an American heroine trapped in England during the War of 1812, and I am working on the publisher�s edits on the second book in the series coming out next spring.

Read books in a wholly separate genre, go for walks, sometimes I even clean house.

�The young widow should wear deep crepe for a year and then lighter mourning for six months and second mourning for six months longer. There is nothing more utterly captivating than a sweet young face under a widow�s veil, and it is not to be wondered at that her own loneliness and need of sympathy, combined with all that is appealing to sympathy in a man, results in the healing of her heart. She should, however, never remain in mourning for her first husband after she has decided she can be consoled by a second.� Emily Price Post

She felt his gaze upon her from the instant she stepped into the clubhouse ballroom. That ballroom, all white pillars and blue velvet benches around the circular walls, fell silent the moment Catherine VanDorn, now Lady Bisterne, strolled through the white painted doors from the great hall, and a hundred pairs of eyes swiveled in her direction. Yet the intensity of one man�s bold stare drew her own past the gowns and jewels of the New York elite to meet the audacious dark eyes of a gentleman at the far side of the room.

Her heart skipped a beat. Her gold-shod feet stumbled. Skin-deep cold from the rainy November evening crept through to her bones, and for the first time that evening, she accepted that Mama was correct to tell her not to wear the mauve satin ball gown a mere thirteen months after her husband�s death. It was too bright, too frivolous, proclaiming, however falsely, that the debutante who had departed from Tuxedo Park in triumph on the arm of an English lord, a scandal in her wake, intended to seek a new husband.

http://www.lauriealiceeakes.comWhere you can find excerpts of my books.

http://www.twitter.com/@LaurieAEakesWhere I keep people up-to-date on my life.

http://www.facebook.com/AuthorLaurieAliceEakes/Where I have contests fairly regularly, call-outs for my street teams on books, give away books randomly, and just feed some news.

I think my books will take the same avenue of a blend of American and English-set historicals, as well as some contemporary romantic suspense. All that should change is a constant improvement in my storytelling ability.

I have attended two conferences this year�Romance Writers of America and The Beau Monde conference, both of which were in San Diego, California. I was a speaker at The Beau Monde conference.

The topic nearest and dearest to people�s hearts is what is the future of publishing in these ever-changing times where self-publishing is no longer looked down upon. People on the panel would likely include my agent, Natasha Kern, someone from Amazon Publishing, someone from Gilead Publishing�the new kids on the block�someone from one of the older publishers like Bethany for a Christian panel or Harper Collins for a secular one, and an author published in both traditional and self-publishing means and successful at both.

I think this is highly important. We need to connect with colleagues to keep up on trends in the industry, know what is going on with publishers, editors, and agents, and give and receive feedback on our work.

Due to the fact that I am unable to drive and live in a city with terrible public transportation, I no longer volunteer my time in my community.

Other than my mother, father, and husband, finding others who have made the most impact is difficult to whittle down to just two more. The thing is, those people keep changing. The impact my life for a while and then circumstances change and the impact comes from another source. I might have to say Lee Tobin McClain, though, as she suggested I apply to the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University, where I obtained my master�s degree. There I learned how to turn an idea into a novel publishers wanted to buy. So that leaves just one more we shall call Person at Large.

All that comes to mind are rather smart-alice words like: She has now joined the history she loved to study.

Collision of the Heart is a second chance at love story of two people who allow ambition and selfishness to interfere with the longings of their hearts for one another. The year is 1856 and Mia Roper is on her way back to Hillsdale, Michigan, to write an article about the women attending the second college in the country to allow women to gain an education alongside men, the same education. She left a year and a half earlier to take a job in journalism after obtaining her own degree. She thought Ayden would go with her, but he stayed behind to take a teaching position at the college. She hopes to avoid him on her visit, but the train on which she is arriving wrecks on the outskirts of town and launches her right back into Ayden�s life.

The train wreck is real. In 1856, two trains heading on opposite directions on the same track collided during a snowstorm outside Hillsdale, Michigan. Passengers were stranded in the town, and the townspeople came together to take care of them, providing food, shelter, and clothing.

This book was previous published by Love Inspired Heartsong, but I have rewritten it, adding several thousand words I had to cut for the Heartsong version, and re-edited by Amazon Publishing�s fabulous editorial team. And the cover is positively stunning.

This book is available in five formats: Kindle, Paperback, Audio CD, MP3CD, and audible.com download. The reader is Angela Dawe, who is also from Michiganand an experienced narrator.

In ten minutes, the westbound train would reach the town Euphemia Roper once vowed to never set foot in again.

Hillsdale, Michigan, was the town Euphemia�Mia to her friends�had called home longer than anywhere else in her twenty-six years and the town she had left with a broken heart. Only opportunity knocking too loudly to be ignored had drawn her back. For a week, she would research the story that would establish her as a professional lady of letters, while she avoided encounters with Ayden Benaiah Goswell.

She twisted in her train seat and rubbed frost from a patch of glass with her gloved fingers. The action accomplished little beyond making her hand damp through the knitted wool. The lights of Osseo had already dimmed beyond a veil of falling snow. The train gathered speed.

So did Euphemia�s heart.

Muscles twitching in her legs, Euphemia tucked her handbag under one arm and her writing portfolio under the other. Rustling pages, snapping locks, and a child asking if they were there yet rose like a wave before a high wind. Euphemia rose to get up the aisle and near the door before the train stopped so she could be one of the first passengers to disembark. Others preceded her, including a child barely old enough to walk. He paused to grasp the side of her seat.

�Are you lost?� Euphemia leaned toward the boy. Someone should be frantically searching for the little one.

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