The Market Stall Girl released August 1st!

I'm so excited to share the news that my next historical saga is The Market Stall Girl, which will be released in Kindle ebook and paperback August 1st.

1913 Yorkshire, England.
Beth Beaumont enjoys her life as a rhubarb farmer’s daughter in West Yorkshire. Working on the family’s stall selling the fruit and vegetables grown in their own fields gives her a sense of purpose and is healthier than working in a dangerous cotton mill.
Although not thinking of marriage, when Beth meets Noah Jackson, a village miner, she is suddenly very aware of Noah as a man who could change her mind. The summer brings the two closer and their feelings deepen while Noah studies hard to fulfill his dreams of becoming a teacher and securing a better life than his parents endure.
But, a disaster at the coal mine changes lives forever. Noah’s plans are shattered. His love for Beth is put at risk, and he fears they can never find happiness together.
However, another man wants Beth. Louis Melville, the wealthy son of a local gentry family, is acutely aware of Beth’s beauty and he wants her for himself. At first, he is willing to offer marriage, but when Beth turns him down in favour of Noah, Melville, furious to be denied, wreaks revenge with devastating consequences.
Will Beth and Noah find the happiness they wish for or will overwhelming events break them apart?

#Edwardian #historicalsaga #familysaga #Wakefield #Yorkshire @amazonkindle

http://mybook.to/TheMarketStallGirl

Kitty McKenzie

Here is an excerpt of my Victorian historical, Kitty McKenzie, which is out in both ebook and print and available from Amazon.com and amazon.uk and The Book Depository which has free postage worldwide.


Blurb

1864 - Suddenly left as the head of the family, Kitty McKenzie must find her inner strength to keep her family together against the odds. Evicted from their resplendent home in the fashionable part of York after her parents’ deaths, Kitty must fight the legacy of bankruptcy and homelessness to secure a home for her and her siblings. Through sheer willpower and determination she grabs opportunities with both hands from working on a clothes and rag stall in the market to creating a teashop for the wealthy. Her road to happiness is fraught with obstacles of hardship and despair, but she refuses to let her dream of a better life for her family die. She soon learns that love and loyalty brings its own reward.

Excerpt.
 Kitty caught her breath at the magnificence of Kingsley Manor. In comparison, her old home, although large, looked like a poor cousin. When they arrived, Benjamin’s parents were out visiting after Sunday morning church service. Alone, Benjamin gave her a private tour of the house. In each superbly decorated room, he stopped and kissed both her hands until it became a game and their laughter echoed throughout the house.
 However, Kitty’s first impression of the beautiful Georgina Kingsley chilled her. The woman wore a frozen expression of horror on her face the moment she looked at Kitty. Distressed, Kitty lowered her gaze and fumbled with her black skirts. She wore the best clothes she owned, her black skirts and cream blouse, but her crinoline was bought from the market and her black lace gloves possessed the glassy shine of frequently washed clothing.
 After introductions, Benjamin’s father, John, took Kitty’s hand and led her into the conservatory. A maid waited by a table laden with a silver tea service and silver stands filled with dainty little cakes and sandwiches.
 “So, Miss McKenzie, Ben informs us you have started a business?”
 “Indeed I have, Mr. Kingsley, tearooms.” Her lips thinned into a tight smile.
 They were all aware of Georgina’s intake of breath.
 “It is a rare thing, a young woman going into business by herself. It must have been quite a decision to make.” John Kingsley’s gaze didn’t waver as he looked at her.
 “Upon my parents’ deaths we were left with vast debts that took everything we owned to pay off. For my siblings and myself to survive, I needed to acquire a living for us all.”
 Georgina put down her teacup and saucer. Her cold, blue eyes narrowed. “Surely there are relatives who could have helped…your…er…situation?”
 "I’m afraid we don’t have a large quantity of relatives. No one offered to help us. There was very little we could do, but sell everything.” Such intimate talk of her family unnerved her. She wished the conversation would turn to a much lighter subject.
 “Did you not find that odd, your relatives turning away from you?”
 “I hardly think that distant relatives, whom we rarely saw, should have to alter their lives to suit us.” Kitty hated the woman for making her defend the people who ignored her pleas for help.
 “And how many are there of you, Miss McKenzie?” Georgina raised an eyebrow. She wore her disgust like a cloak.
 “I’m the eldest of seven, Mrs. Kingsley.”
 “My, my, so many of you. So, where do you live now?” Georgina flicked an imaginary speck of dust from her beautiful, gray, raw silk dress with its crinoline so wide they had to move the chairs to accommodate it.
 "We are to live above the tearooms, Mrs. Kingsley.” She felt like a noose hung around her neck and with each look and question from Georgina Kingsley the knot tightened.
 “How extraordinary. To live above one’s own shop.” Georgina didn’t hide the foul look she directed at her son.
 He turned away to smile at Kitty. “Of course, it will only be temporary, until I return from the colony. Then we shall be married.”
 Georgina paled and her hand shook as she reached for her teacup and saucer. Kitty wasn’t sure whether it  was due to shock or anger.
 John Kingsley stood and held out his arm for Kitty. “Come, Miss McKenzie, let me show you the gardens and my fine hunters. They are the best in York I assure you.”
 When John and Kitty exited the conservatory, Ben stood abruptly and faced his mother. “How dare you,” he ground out through clenched teeth, his whole body rigid with anger.
 Unperturbed, Georgina sat quietly drinking her tea. “How dare I?” she asked with laced sarcasm. “My dear, I don’t know what is troubling you.”
 “Why must you behave in such a way? She is going to be your daughter-in-law. It wouldn’t have hurt too much for you to be kind to her and make her feel at ease. Instead of treating her like she was something a cat dragged in!” Ben’s chest heaved.
 “She is not one of us, my dear. Your union would be a most drastic mistake.” Calmly, Georgina leaned over and selected a small tart from the cake stand.
 “That is where you are wrong, Mother! She is one of us. Her father was a doctor, her mother a lady. They lived well and entertained many of the people you do.”
  “No, my dear. They were never one of us, for we wouldn’t have let our children be thrown onto the streets upon our deaths.” Georgina contentedly nibbled her tart, secure in the knowledge of her own wisdom.
  “Bankruptcy can touch anyone, Mother, even the Kingsleys.”
  “Benjamin, you do realize I recall the McKenzies, especially the wife? I cannot recall her name, however.” Georgina’s wave was dismissive. “I was introduced to her some years ago at a party. And let me inform you, she was one of the most vulgar women I have yet to meet. She was loud and dreadfully flirtatious. She was attractive, I’ll acknowledge that, but she was no lady.”
 “I don’t care a jot, Mother. It is Kitty, not her parents, who I shall be marrying.”
 “Then you are a fool and you will be ruined because of it.” Georgina glared.

Find out about Anne's books on Amazon.Uk
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anne-Whitfield/e/B002BLN8LY/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1289643315&sr=1-2-ent

Getting Ideas for Books

I’m often asked how I get my ideas. Basically, I don’t know. I just – get them.

However, there is one thing that regularly helps me get ideas for my historical novels – the books I read for research. I’m always looking for aspects of history that haven’t been exploited by other authors, so I read all sorts of books.

Some story ideas have been done to death and I avoid them like the plague eg woman unjustly accused is transported to early Australia on a convict ship, and makes good in spite of the difficulties. I heard one Australian editor say she feels sick every time she sees yet another story with that background.

I love to read about social history, especially ordinary people’s autobiographies, and I note down ‘titbits’ ie pieces of information which may come in useful. Not big information like wars and epidemics, but small details about everyday life in the past.

I’ll illustrate this by telling you how I got the idea for FAREWELL TO LANCASHIRE, which came out last month (July 2009) in hardback, will probably be out in Australia only in a special trade paperback edition around January, but won’t be out until the middle of next year in mass market paperback everywhere.

I was reading a book called ‘The Bride Ships’ about women’s migration to Western Australia in the 19th century. A very small entry (one paragraph only) mentioned that 60 cotton lasses had been sent to Western Australia to work as maids. The cotton lasses were desperate because the American Civil War of the early 1860s cut off supplies of cotton. They were not only out of work, but starving as there was no social security in those days, only charity, which might or might not be enough.

On the employers’ side, there were about ten men to every woman in Western Australia in those days, and marriageable women got snapped up quickly, so ladies regularly lost their maidservants. And who wouldn’t want to get married and have a house of one’s own, instead of working long hours keeping another woman’s house clean for a pittance?

I duly noted this titbit of information down, but it was about 10 years before I used it. What nudged me into writing a story based on it was reading the autobiography of a clergyman’s wife, who’d travelled to Western Australia with her husband in the early 1860s. That book was a brilliant find, because she travelled out on the same ship as the cotton lasses, so I had a lot of eye-witness information about that particular voyage.

Once I’d started writing ‘Farewell to Lancashire’, I also had to revise my knowledge of the American Civil War, read up on measures taken in Lancashire for relief of those starving because of the Cotton Famine, find out more about sailing ships going to Australia in that period – it was before the Suez Canal and also before steamships became common. Oh, and I also needed to know which parts of Western Australia were settled (with only 30,000 population, not many!), how people lived and made a living, how they travelled around in a huge country without any railways – just a few tiny details like that!

Another time I’ll tell you about the research I did for the sequel ‘Beyond the Sunset’. That led me down a few interesting paths.

NB This is the cover of the hardback. The cover for the trade paperback and paperback will be different. I'll add them to this blog next year.

Happy reading!

Anna