Behind Sally's Books

Sunday, 23 September 2018

Tash Vasiliev’s Antler Accessories

Tash Vasiliev’s Antler Accessories: Object Post 102

Source? Who knows? Where do children acquire these odd things?

Significance? Children of Tash’s age often enjoy accessorising and surely no one but a child of Tash’s age could countenance antlers with a tutu. The fact that Zach Rowan can mention them with confidence suggests he sees quite a lot of his step-niece

Fate? Probably jumbled up in the bottom of the wardrobe

Author’s inspiration? I’ve seen these monstrosities. On adults. The mind boggles

Appeared in? Man Overboard

***

“She’s always wearing antlers or butterfly bows or a blinking bow-tie.”

Zach Rowan had a horror of dating mothers and aunts. This stemmed from his work as an early childhood teacher. He loved teaching kids, but he definitely didn’t want to encounter one of his dates across her daughter’s or nephew’s finger painting. When he developed an interest in Jin Peckerdale, he asked her if she was an aunt. She said she wasn’t and asked if he was an uncle.

Zach, showing a shocking disregard of double standards, happily admitted that he was—in the manner of speaking.

“My stepbrother has a five-year-old named Tash. He calls her a feral ferret in a tutu.”

“What does she look like?”

“It’s hard to say. She’s little and lively. She’s always wearing antlers or butterfly bows or a blinking bow-tie. She’s pretty special.”

What Nik Vasiliev actually said about his daughter during a discussion on Zach’s job was this:

“Tash is a feral ferret wrapped up in a tutu. That’s why I know I couldn’t hack fifty of them.”

“Twenty-three. And you know you’re really a certified doting dad.”

Nik’s broad Slavic face relaxed into a surprisingly sweet expression. “Ssh! Make that certifiable. Anyone can have a cute kid. Takes me and Yulia to have a feral ferret.

Most likely both dad and step-uncle maligned Natasha Vasiliev. She was a perfectly normal five-year-old girl. Probably. She did know how to inspire devotion in her male relatives, because Zach claimed to remember attending a unicorn party at which five candles adorned a cake.

Tash’s antler accessories take attention from her doubtless winsome looks in Man Overboard

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Saturday, 22 September 2018

Here Be - TWINS

Here be- Twins: Here Be Post 6

I’m pretty sure twins and doubles, like redheads and Bond villains, appear far more frequently in fiction than they do in life. Why not? Their existence, whether suspected or actual, offers all kinds of tasty plot-points. Handy plot points aren’t static. They move on with technology and social and legal change. DNA has changed the face of crime fiction, mobile phones have changed adventure, and I could go on, but today I’m looking at twins and doubles in my fiction. Mind you… I’m seeing fewer than twenty books here, with actual twins appearing in just thirteen books (or series, two of which were accepted but never published, and one that I wrote very early.) This takes it down to ten which makes it about 2% of my books that have actual twins. That’s probably not far from the real-life figures.

Way back when I was fourteen or so I wrote two books in the Kamarand series. This was the very early 1970s when twins were a staple in children’s fiction. Thus I had my twins; the loud Leanne and the thoughtful Paul. I don’t remember if they had a surname, but they did have a pony that turned out to be a unicorn in hiding.

In Anna’s Own, a historical novel, Anna and Jack Kelly have twins, Janie and Jack. Janie dies in babyhood during an epidemic, leading Anna to treat Jack more leniently than she does her three remaining daughters Mary, Maggie and Bridget.

In A Box of Sundries, Quinn and Quentin Taylor are twins who accidentally buy a stolen painting when shopping for a present for their parents.

In the romance Pen and Ink Pen’s husband-to-be Duffy has twin sisters named Niamh and Helene. Niamh and her hob husband have a large family and Helene is expecting her first; which may be twins. Niamh possibly has a set in her brood, too.

In Floribunda and the Best Men, Pen and Duffy are expecting twins themselves. Pen is delighted because, at forty-two, she never expected to have a family at all.

In Kayak! Mark and Luke Winwood are twins who go kayaking down the Bandinangi River. Mark is the brash one, and Luke is quieter. When Mark disappears, Luke has to endure both survivor’s guilt and a lot of questions.

In Man Overboard, it’s implied Honey and Hob might be expecting twins. Later this is confirmed when the daughter Skye thought they were having is born and named Islay along with a boy they name Harry

In My Aunt Agatha, Aunt Agatha and Aunt Ellery are elderly identical twins. Aunt Ellery is wealthy and Aunt Agatha poor. Aunt Agatha dies … supposedly. I originally called this book Aunt Agatha’s Murder.

In Mix and Match, Jasper and Jet Diamond are identical twins. Jasper is a documentary film maker, Jet a financier and yachtsman. They have never got along very well and are easy to tell apart because Jasper has slight nerve damage from one of their early altercations.

In Terrible Twinge, Rhys and Ceridwen Morgan are twins who have matured unevenly. Ceri is tired of childish rivalry and horseplay, while Rhys is still right in there with the ducking and water bombs.

In Trinity Street, Moss and Sib are elderly genius twins in the 27th Century. They're very, very bad news.

In Triple Treat, (accepted but not published to date, Jet and Jasper Diamond appear briefly, while their non-identical twin sisters Gentian and Sabrina are major characters. Gen and Sabrina are known as "The Diamond Duo".

In Wedlocks, a rom sus which again was accepted but never published, Gift Winter and Elisabetta Gundas are twins who were adopted by different families and have never known about one another. When they finally meet it’s not pretty.

So, there they are. Thirteen sets of twins, of which five are identical; three sets of girls and two of boys. In three cases (Gift and Elisabetta, Jasper and Jet and Agatha and Ellery), they had to be for the plot to work. Of the eight fraternal sets, six are boy/girl and one is two girls and one lot unborn and undecided. These statistics probably mean… something!

STOP PRESS! I just remembered Charlie and Charming, twin boys who appear in short stories and poems for Prints Charming books... I'll deal with them in Here Be Royals!

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

Friday, 21 September 2018

Here be Bushrangers

Here be Bushrangers: Here Be Post 5

"Have you heard that they hanged Moonlight and Kelly?" (James Galbraith - Heather and Heath)

Bushrangers, like pirates, highwaymen, dragons, spies and vampires, have a kind of glamour in fiction and tradition that they wouldn’t have in reality. Alone among that group though, these are an Australian icon. I’ve used them in at least ten books. Unlike dragons from the first “here be” post, bushrangers can’t be popped into any time period. They generally occupy a quite narrow space in the Nineteenth Century, though I suppose you might find isolated instances in the late Eighteenth and early Twentieth. To put them elsewhere or elsewhen takes a bit of ingenuity.

Of the ten bushranger books two are non-fiction. Tasmania, A Guide (1989 – 1997) and The Children’s Book of Australia (2000) both deal with Australian history and so bushrangers play their part.

Four more titles are historical fiction for adults. In Anna’a Own (1995 – 2018) Anna Kelly meets a desperate convict named Amos Hawkins who scars her and kills her cow. He's a long way from the romantic highwayman type. In Captain Sunrise (2016) the titular character is a bushranger, although he’s a pest (being a disgraced gentleman) rather than an active danger. In Heather and Heath (2015 – 2018) a bushranger plays a small part when Jamie Campbell acquires a horse. In Gold’s Bride (2005) bushrangers burn down Jeremiah Gold’s house with him in it. Luckily there’s a cellar.

Dolphin (2002) is a children’s book set in colonial times. In it Dolphin, the convict maid, routs Bad Jack the bushranger with some creative cooking.

Wicked Rose is a picture book, also set in colonial times. Wicked Rose is a faithful wife, a loving mother… and also a bushranger.

This leaves Beyond the Black Stump (2002), and Pride Bridgeover-Sundown (2007 - 2017). One is set in 2002 and one in 2027 so how can there be bushrangers (unless it’s a Mad Max deal which is isn’t)? In Beyond the Black Stump, Michael and Ben hear four bushrangers making plans. Well, maybe. There is a history festival on but there are anomalies the boys may never work out. In Pride Bridgeover-Sundown Glen Steele is driving the Outback Highway when he arrives in a town that’s not properly on the map. There are bushrangers about, but then, there are also drovers, squatters, ANZACs, ghosts, explorers—and animals that ought to be extinct.

So that's the ten bushranger books. And that's the fifth of the Here Be posts which will intersperse the character, book, place, naming and object posts and what have you.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

Thursday, 20 September 2018

Marcus Whippersnapper's Squirming Brown Paper Parcel

Marcus Whippersnapper's Squirming Brown Paper Parcel:
Object Post 101

Source? It came from Great-Uncle Hinkley Whippersnapper

Significance? It contained a special legacy

Fate? It was opened and the contents extracted

Author’s inspiration? I used to think it would be handy to be able to shrink horses, bicycles and other things I couldn’t get over fences

Appeared in? Timothy Whuffenpuffen-Whippersnapper

The parcel was squirming, so it was probably an Amazonian python, or something worse.

When the brown paper parcel arrived for Marcus Whippersnapper, Mum and Marcus knew it was from Great-Uncle Hinkley Whippersnapper and assumed they’d shortly be making a trip to the zoo. Uncle Hinkley had a habit of sending Marcus livestock for his birthday. It had somehow escaped his notice that Marcus and his widowed mother Veronica lived in Blankstone Buildings, where the landlord didn’t allow pets.

Mum hated sending away Great-Uncle Hinkley’s presents, but she had no choice.

The accompanying envelope this time held a letter from Fergus McDaftie, Uncle Hinkley’s solicitor, and also a letter from Uncle Hinkley himself. It turned out the squirming parcel wasn't a birthday present, exactly. It was a legacy.

By this time the parcel had stopped squirming, so Mum opined it might be an antique clown costume.

Marcus prodded the parcel again. “I don’t think it’s a clown costume,” he said in a doom-laden voice. “I think it’s a python.”

Only one way to find out,” said Mum briskly. “Unwrap it and see.”

“Can’t you?” asked Marcus, but Mum gave him a look, so he cut the string and pulled apart the paper.

“Thank goodness for that!” remarked the contents of the parcel as the waxed paper fell away. “I was somewhat tired of holding my breath.”

Mum and Marcus stared at what had been in the parcel. “What is it?” said Mum.

“Well,” said Marcus doubtfully, “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a dragon.”

The parcel was unwrapped, but the adventure was just beginning.

Marcus Whippersnapper’s squirming brown paper parcel appears in Timothy Whuffenpuffen-Whippersnapper

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

Wednesday, 19 September 2018

LLL Jonesbury's Three Piece Luggage

LLL Jonesbury’s Three-Piece Luggage: Object Post 100

Source? Presumably she bought it from different sources

Significance? It shows a certain lack of cohesion in taste and a lack of interest in what anyone thinks of her

Fate? She would continue to use them just because

Author’s inspiration? It was the 1980s, the decade of shoulder pads, big hair, boxy silhouettes and plastic

Appeared in? The Ghost Collector

The guest had a small overnight bag in black vinyl; a shoulder-bag in grey suede, and a briefcase in green leatherette.

LLL Jonesbury arrived at the Haunted Guesthouse as Uncle Anderson’s guest. Melinda, ignored, (even Uncle Christopher’s girlfriend Sarah got a nod) was much less impressed by the lady than her forty-year-old bachelor uncle was. She noted several unfavourable things about her, including the mismatched luggage Vinyl. Suede. Leatherette. Black. Grey. Green. What was the lady thinking? Come to that, what was I thinking? Um… It was the 1980s. I vaguely recall the editor asking me at the time what was implied. Did I mean, asked the editor, that the woman has no taste at all? Indeed, I did. Maybe. Probably. I’ve always remembered the comment, anyway.

LLL Jonesbury, whom Uncle Anderson knew as Louisa, blandly signed her name in the guesthouse guest book, using the same name as the one on the letter from The Society for Accuracy in Advertising, which had recently arrived to challenge the veracity of the Uncles’ claim that the guesthouse had a ghost in every room.

“Coincidence,” said Uncle Anderson when Melinda drew this to his attention.

“Not at all,” said LLL Jonesbury. “But you have nothing to worry about, have you?”

The smitten Uncle Anderson showed every sign of going over to the enemy, but Melinda was made of sterner stuff. As for LLL… if she was really as charming as Wendy Corbett’s picture implies, then no wonder Uncle A was putty in her capable hands.

LLL Jonesbury and her aesthetically extremely displeasing (description cribbed from another editorial letter) luggage appear in The Ghost Collector

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

Tuesday, 18 September 2018

Here Be Adoption

Here be Adoption: Here Be Post 6

Adoption happens for all kinds of reasons in books. Sometimes it’s a plot point, to allow for information to be revealed or mysteries to present. Sometimes it’s a character point, or social exploration, looking at the impact adoption has on the characters and their behaviour. The first “adoption” book I remember is Josephine Kamm’s No Strangers Here (1968) in which the main character discovers in her teens that she is adopted and goes off the rails in consequence. Then there are the classics; Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna. The adoptions in those are rather different, as Anne is adopted to help Matthew on the farm (they sent for a boy and got a girl instead) and Pollyanna is taken in by her aunt when her father dies. In any case, the girls know perfectly well where they came from. In Rilla of Ingleside, Rilla informally adopts a baby whose father has died. These, and others like them, are not at all the same in tone as the 1960s title.
My mother was adopted (not sure whether it was formal or not) by her grandparents in the 1920s, and found out when someone told her at school (She didn't go off the rails.) Anyway, adoption is so prevalent in fiction that it’s odd I haven’t used it more in my own books. Here are the ones I found.

In AURORA, an alien baby is informally adopted by Keith and Polly Quinn, a young couple in transit to a new home. They find Aurora in a crashed UFO which vanishes when they lift her out. Polly’s father was a con man, so she’s not keen on contacting the authorities. Aurora looks human and mostly behaves that way but she weighs a lot more than one would expect from her appearance. In her teens she starts to be troubled about her future.

In the A FAIRY IN THE BED series, Chloe Fraser was formally adopted as a baby by an older couple, who died when she was in her early twenties. She has one much-older adopted sister. Nevertheless, she handles her fiancé (now husband) Peck Grene’s sprawling family with aplomb. Thus far she hasn’t pursued any search for her birth family but if she does, her sister will probably be her first port of call.

In GLORY GATE, Sudeshi is Gavven's formally adopted sister, but now the Whiteshirts say she must live with another family. Gavven is upset, even when his friend Jameel’s family is the one chosen.

In THE PUP’S TALE, Tiny is a chocolate Labrador puppy, the smallest in Goldie’s big litter. He’s not doing well, so Doctor Jeannie and Trump find him a foster mother; a charming Sheltie named Pipwen. It’s not exactly an adoption, but effectively Tiny becomes a surrogate part of Pipwen’s litter.

In TRANSLATIONS IN CELADON, Rafe Winter tells Rosanna he was adopted when he was seven after his parents died in a fire. That’s why I can’t let people go. Rafe was adopted by his aunt and uncle and has a David and Jonathan friendship with his cousin/adopted brother Asher.

In TRINITY STREET, the genius Camena de Courcey's adopted parents are dead, and Gerhardt Watchman uses her lack of relatives to lure her into a trap. Camena’s married sister Lyndall loves her, but Lyndall and her husband are very different from the fragile, brilliant Camena. With her adoptive parents gone Camena would be socially isolated if not for her best friend the tenacious Tell Clancy.

In WEDLOCKS, Gift was adopted as a baby, and never knew she had a twin sister until the ship Bula Sula sinks and Gift is rescued and taken to Atonement, where a taciturn sculptor believes she is his estranged wife and takes a lot of convincing otherwise.

Since there are so few of these, I decided to look at the reasoning behind the adoptions in literary terms.

In AURORA, TRINITY STREET, GLORY GATE and THE PUP’S TALE, the adoptions explored the situation of the adoptee being so different from the adoptive family. Aurora’s alien heritage, Camena’s IQ, Sudeshi’s appearance and Tiny’s breed set them apart from their families.

In AURORA, TRINITY STREET, GLORY GATE and WEDLOCKS, danger or sorrow ensue when the past comes back to impinge on the present. Aurora’s adopted cousin discovers her secret in traumatic circumstances, Camena has trouble finding intellectual equals and so falls easily for Gerdardt’s trap, Sudeshi is the innocent to be taken away for a bureaucratic reason and Gift nearly gets killed when she encounters her unknown sister.

In THE PUP’S TALE, the only problem is the gently humorous fact that Tiny believes he is a Sheltie and has to be taught how to behave like a Labrador.

A FAIRY IN THE BED’s Chloe’s circumstances trouble her not at all. She is short of relatives, but she loved her parents and has no pressing desire to find out about her birth family, assuming they did what they thought best for everyone. Chloe is a natural helper and fixer and a self-sufficient person, so if she does decide to investigate she’ll no doubt do so methodically and without much angst.

Rafe Winter from TRANSLATIONS IN CELADON is troubled, not so much by being adopted, but by the fact that he remembers the time before.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

Monday, 17 September 2018

Lockie Stewart’s Swan and Peony Shower Curtain

Lockie Stewart’s Swan and Peony Shower Curtain

Object Post 99

Source? Lockie bought it from a shop… maybe Coles Variety

Significance? It showcases Lockie’s personality

Fate? It could have been trashed when Mouse and the Traps parted company, but more likely it was one of those things that mysteriously hung around and surfaced in the occasional spring clean until one day it was perished enough to come apart

Author’s inspiration? There were some pretty horrid shower curtains back in the day

Appeared in? Freedom

That was that, but Lockie went off that afternoon and came back with a plastic shower curtain, printed with large yellow swans and pink peonies, which he strung up ceremoniously across the rear section of the van. Mouse was touched by the thought and appalled by the colours, but Lockie was so pleased with her praise that she almost convinced herself.

It was the 1960s and runaway Terenza “Mouse” Rhodes had fallen in with three young men named Keith, Mike and Lockie. They styled themselves The Plaids and were trying to break in to the music scene. Renamed The Traps, they took Mouse as their manager and travelled about playing at dances. After a scare in a hotel room, Mouse…

…addressed the hotel problem by buying a cheap delivery van from a florist who was trading up. The Traps thought she was out of her mind, but she soon talked them round.

“We can all sleep in it,” she explained. “There’s plenty of room.

“But what will people think?” asked Lockie.

Keith laughed cynically, but Mouse grinned at Lockie and ruffled his hair. “I’m your sister, remember—or maybe your cousin? Oh—grow up, Lockie. Most people think I’m a groupie anyway, so what does it matter?” She pulled a face. The foot-in-the-door man had been quite explicit about what he expected and why he thought he had a right to it. She entertained three boys on a regular basis, he’d pointed out, so why not make it four?

“Well—what does it matter?” she repeated now. “Worried about your reputations?”

“It won’t hurt us,” Mike said. “But it might hurt you.”

“Well it won’t. If it bothers you to share I can sleep in the cab or underneath or . . .”

“On the roof?” Keith suggested, fondling his cornet.

“No,” Mouse said severely. “It might rain, and a seagull might fly over. But think how much money we’ll save on rooms.”

The Traps thought, shrugged, and gave in.

“All right, Mouse,” Mike said. “You’re the boss—as usual.”

That was that, but Lockie went off that afternoon and came back with a plastic shower curtain, printed with large yellow swans and pink peonies, which he strung up ceremoniously across the rear section of the van. Mouse was touched by the thought and appalled by the colors, but Lockie was so pleased with her praise that she almost convinced herself.

The van worked well for Mouse and The Traps until Toni joined the group…

It was Toni’s first experience of cross-country touring, and she was finding it more exhausting than she’d supposed. The Traps, veterans of the old FJ and the van with the plastic swans and peonies, had known what to expect, but the strain of trying to out-sing the chanters and clappers was telling on their nerves.

Eventually, after a stint at a club they called The Mousetrap, things fell apart, The Traps broke up and the van was presumably sold… Who knows what happened to Lockie’s shower curtain? It was a kind thought though, and Mouse and Lockie remained friends. Well into the 1990s, when Mouse, now married and a mother, was a well-respected music manager, Lockie was still part of her entourage. Neither of them would have had it any other way.

Lockie’s shower curtain appears in Freedom.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)