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| Just days away. |
These are frightening times. I don't think anyone can rightly deny it. Times have been frightening before, however. Really frightening. Those who still remember living through the Depression and Second World War could probably teach the rest of a thing or two about living through the worst of periods...in a way we could relate to, no less. That's what's cool about history - we can look at it and see ourselves looking right back at us.
As I've said before, it's my belief that humans are essentially constructed the same way. We all have the same emotional traits and reactions in our possession. We certainly deal with them differently, but I challenge you to find a person who hasn't been scared, or happy, or bored, or aroused. That person doesn't exist. Times change - but people, by and far, don't.
That's why I enjoy penning historical fiction. I can actually put myself into the past. Rather than grind out stories about my own experiences, hoping someone, somewhere, somehow finds them interesting, I can place my obsessions within the context of a particularly colorful venue. That being said, I'm particularly pleased with the subject of American Socialite, which will be on sale next Thursday.
Elizabeth "Betsy" Bonaparte (1785-1879) was a real life person, one of the most colorful I'd ever read of. For years I found her's to be a story that was dying to be told. But the story offered to be so much more than places and people and dates. The story offered to provide insight into the human experience we all live through. Hence, I simply used the facts as a starting point and made American Socialite a novel. Not just any novel, but a novel of extreme highs and searing lows, of explosive international events and the quiet moments we all find ourselves reflecting in.
Mainly, though, American Socialite is a book about a woman who chooses to do things her way rather than someone else's. Her willfulness takes her to the peak of elite society, but also brings with it extreme consequences. Betsy is a character with sky high expectations. Whether or not those expectations are met can only be revealed in the reading. If I do say so myself, the reading is well worthwhile.
"All good books have one thing in common," said Ernest Hemingway, "they are truer than if they had really happened." I believe those words ring pretty true in this case.
