June 2007

Newsletter 20

Hello friends,

And here I was, in last fall's newsletter, quoting Samuel Johnson: "Impending execution concentrates the mind wonderfully".

I was talking about Five Star buying The Burning Glass on just three chapters and landing me with a short deadline. Not that it didn't work out well—I turned the book in on time, in October, and it will duly appear this coming September.

I'd barely caught my breath when I went off to the World Fantasy Convention in Austin. There I met with the editors of Juno Books, an up and coming new romantic fantasy line, an imprint of Wildside. Lo and behold, they bought a duology on the first three chapters of the first book! (It sure didn't hurt that while I talked to them, person after person came up with copies of Cross Plains Universe, an anthology published by the convention, for me to sign.)

Well, so far so good, I thought. I only had to turn in a 65,000 word novel by May of 2007, for publication in September. So I spent December and January formatting my most recent short stories (including "The Diamonds of Golkonda" from Cross Plains Universe) for publication in a collection this August, from Delphi Books.

Then, in January, Juno decided the book would be better in one volume. And, I have to admit, that's what I'd intended to begin with. But I was now facing 100,000 words  by June 10, for publication in October. And I only had about 15,000 words actually written.

Suddenly my entire spring vanished like the snow we had in April. Oh, I managed to make the Novelists Inc conference in San Diego in March, the Texas Library Association Conference in San Antonio in April, and Malice Domestic in Arlington, Virginia, in May. I also turned up for enough family get-togethers that my children should still be able to recognize me in a police line-up. However, it's been frantic.

But the book, Blackness Tower, is finished!

San Diego, where I'd never before visited, was delightful. We stayed at the U.S. Grant hotel, a newly-renovated Victorian pile with a ghost, no less, not that any NINC members actually met her. One afternoon my husband and I enjoyed the ocean in front of the Del Coronado Hotel, a wonderful historic building famous as the site of the movie "Some Like it Hot".

San Antonio is always delightful. The TLA conference was downtown, right on the River Walk. I attended an event on Thursday night titled "Speed-dating with Mystery Authors", where the authors went from banquet tablet to banquet table talking about their work. After the first two tables I was babbling, but it was very enjoyable touching bases with so many librarians.

Then, Friday afternoon, Five Star sat me down in the Exhibition Hall with a hundred advance reading copies of The Burning Glass—all of which they gave away in only twenty minutes. By that time I'd pretty much forgotten how to sign my name! There's a photo of this on the For Librarians page of my website.

Malice Domestic seemed a bit more low-key this year. Maybe I was just tired after finishing up the first draft of Blackness Tower two days before I left—to the accompaniment of a raging Texas thunderstorm.

So, to sum up, I have THREE new releases coming out this year. First, in August, is The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery, and Myth, a tour through the mystery, the magic, and the myth of history.

Thirteen short stories take place at the end of the British colonization of America and the beginning of the British colonization of India, in medieval England and revolutionary Scotland, in Shakespeare's timeless Illyria and the very real twenty-first century.

From St. Thomas Becket to Thomas Jefferson, from Charles Dickens to Bonnie Prince Charlie, from Elizabeth I at her height to Ann Boleyn, her mother, at her depth, from slaves to soldiers to sorcerers to sinners—and even to a striped cat or two—the characters are often detectives and are always good company.

Greed, love and hate, and the rights of man—and woman—provide motives for murder and more. The odd touch of fantasy illuminates several lives. And along that shore between the present and the past, nothing is certain.

The Muse and Other Stories includes twelve stories especially commissioned for theme anthologies (three of which were reprinted in "Best Of" anthologies) and a story from a magazine, plus new Author's Comments and an essay on writing short historical mystery.

"Topnotch entries include . . . Lillian Stewart Carl's ‘Way Down in Egypt's Land,' a marvelous tale about 19th-century slavery . . ." 

—Publishers Weekly

"Inspired contributions include...Lillian Stewart Carl's ‘The Necromancer's Apprentice,' which presents an interesting solution to the actual mystery surrounding the death of Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth I's favorite lord, balancing wizardry with astute deductions about the political motives of those who stood to benefit."                                                                        

—Publishers Weekly

This collection was originally titled Around the Circle of Time, to tie in with my first collection, Along the Rim of Time, but the publisher wanted a zingier title. No problem, except in my befuddlement all the promotional bookmarks I made this spring list the latter title as Around the Rim of Time!

September is The Burning Glass, Book Three of the Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron series—America's exile and Scotland's finest on the trail of all-too-living legends.

Fire in the Borders

The rolling hills of the Scottish Borders have seen centuries of fire—Scots, English, battling kings, feuding lords, rampaging clansmen, raiding, looting, killing. But the fire at brooding Ferniebank Castle wasn't set by an enemy. Isabel Sinclair died there four hundred years ago, on her way to a lover's tryst, in the conflagration kindled by her own burning-glass.

Or so the story goes.

Now Jean Fairbairn is on her way to write Ferniebank's story—and to her own tryst with ex-cop Alasdair Cameron, who is now a caretaker of historic properties. He has at last lowered his personal drawbridge for Jean, and they plan to set decaying Ferniebank alight.

But they're not alone. Ciara Macquarrie, a New Age mythobabbler from Alasdair's past, plans to transform the castle and its chapel into a bright new conference center and spa. Especially since the chapel was built by the same long-dead hands as cryptic Rosslyn—now a hot tourist attraction, thanks to a popular story titled The Da Vinci Code.

In Scotland, plans go up in smoke. Stories shift and change like reflections in antique glass. Buried secrets rise to haunt the living. The Ferniebank clarsach, Isabel's harp, disappears—even while its music lingers on. Vandals lurk in the night. Death visits both the castle dungeon and chapel's ancient well.

To his frustration, Alasdair now has to work in the shadow of the official force. But when the darkness clears, it's Jean who finds herself facing a murderer.

The Burning Glass is a story of mystery and suspense tightly woven with Jean and Alasdair's personal story. It takes place in Scotland, on the ever-shifting shore between history and myth, a place where (mis)perception kindles many a fire.

Books One and Two, The Secret Portrait and The Murder Hole, are still very much in print and available, Portrait in both hard and soft cover.

And October is the debut of Blackness Tower! I haven't yet finalized the cover copy, but for the moment I'm considering:

Her face will open the secret doors into the labyrinth of time.

Blackness Tower: the enigma at the edge of the world, looking over the sea to the Orkney Isles. Drawing the searchers to its ancient, ruined, haunted riddles, as they all seek their own goals among its stones.

Ewan Calder is an archaeologist excavating the churchyard, but looking for a sunken galleon from the Spanish Armada

Magnus Anderson is a TV presenter looking for measured proof of the supernatural

David Sutherland is an ex-soldier wanting restoration, of a ruined castle and of his own life

Lauren Reay needs an explanation of her own dreams, and answers about her family's mysterious past

But it is Lauren's past, her presence, her face, that will open the secret at the heart of Blackness Tower and heal the hurts in her own heart.

This is the first time I've ever written a book with the cover art already finished. I now have three copies of it, in various sizes—this is by far the most beautiful cover I've ever had. Just one thing: the version on Amazon and a few other places isn't the final one. My heroine has red hair, not blond. But what the heck, it's still gorgeous. Please check it out on my website or on artist Timothy Lantz's at http://www.stygiandarkness.com/.

Now I'm anticipating the Texas Scottish Festival, three days of bagpipes, men in kilts, clan activities, men in kilts, Celtic rock—and did I mention men in kilts? Once I recover from that—funny how the resonance of bagpipes will linger in your ears for days—I'll write a short story for a DAW anthology titled The Dimension Next Door, and getting started on The Bujold Companion, which will be published by Baen next year.

Yes, yes, I know—I don't have enough to do!

For all my titles, including the story anthologies, please support your local independent booksellers. They would be glad to order anything they don't have in stock. And don't forget your local library, source of all good things.

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A peaceful and happy summer to you all!

Cheers, Lillian

Lillian Stewart Carl

http://www.lillianstewartcarl.com

"Of making many books there is no end."
                                           Proverbs 12:12

"She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain."
                                           Louisa May Alcott