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I’m so glad you were able to work me into your busy schedule, Janice. You’ve been snap-gapping all over the place of late so I’m thrilled to have you here at Celtic Connexions. You’re looking very “Scottish” today, all decked out in your tartan. 
I take it you’re ready for a good old-fashioned ceilidh – Canadian style.
Here, come sit by the fire 
take the chill off (escorts my esteemed guest to one of the tartan wing-back chairs facing the crackling fire ).
I’ll summon my manservant, Donald (the Red) , to bring us some refreshments. 
Would you care for a wee dram? Perhaps Glengoyne – Scotland’s only un-peated single malt? (rings bell and gives manservant instructions)
I think you’ll like what I have in store for you at the ceilidh tonight. I tried to get the Old Blind Dogs but they weren’t available. That’s okay as I do have a vast collection of Scottish music on CDs – Old Blind Dogs, The Corries, Runrig and the list goes on.
(swish of swinging door as the manservant returns with a tray carrying a decanter of whisky – 18 year old Glenlivet no less, two glasses and water). “Your whisky, my lady,” he says as he places it on the table.
“Thank you.”
As the manservant straightens to leave, I cry out… “Donald, where’s your trousers?” because so unlike him, he’s wearing a kilt!
Overcome by the shock of seeing him dressed in that fashion, it takes me a moment to regain my composure. (fans self with copy of Leopard Magazine).
Well, while we wait for our meal to be ready, Janice, let’s chat about your novel. I’m really interested to find out more about it and your creative process. You spent three months on the Island of Utila researching and writing Castaway in the Caribbean. Can you tell me more?
Yes, I had the most amazing time in 2014 visiting, researching and writing in the Caribbean. While there I spent a lot of time in boats (as one features in my new novel) and even got to sail off Tortola in the British Virgin Islands in a schooner used in the making of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie! After visiting lots of islands, my husband and I settled down to island life for a stay of three months on Utila, a tiny Caribbean island off mainland Honduras. This is where I wrote the first draft of ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’.
When do you expect to release it?
April 2015. I have promotional online book tours organised for April and May.
What made you choose that title?
I feel the title suits the story line perfectly. The premise of the book is that the two main characters, a surly boat captain who hates tourists and a girl holidaying in the Caribbean who desperately needs to get to a neighbouring island, end up castaway together on a remote island. It’s a fun, fast paced romantic adventure novel that I hope will be the perfect beach read for 2015!
The manservant returns and tells us that dinner is served… so we pick up our drinks and at the first skirl of the pipes, 
wait for him to enter the room and we get piped in to the formal dining room (I wish I had one of them, too) to the strains of The Bonnie Lass of Fyvie for a traditional Robbie Burns feast.
Once everyone is around the table, we begin with The Selkirk Grace.
Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit.
Our first course is Cock-a-leekie soup.
Not strictly traditional as I don’t put prunes in it.
You mentioned (or did I pick up on it) something about the names of your characters. Was there a particular reason why you used those names? If so, can you share it?
I wrote the first draft with my husband’s name, Travis, as the romantic hero’s name and the heroine of the story is called Janey (which is kind of like my name, Janice). I fully intended on changing the names in the second draft but for some reason ended up not doing so. The characters of Castaway in the Caribbean are Travis and Janey in their own right – they are not meant to be me and my husband – and the story is definitely a work of fiction!
The soup course is cleared away and the skirl of the pipes begins again. The door opens and the haggis is brought into the room with great pomp and circumstance.
Address to the Haggis
We’ll have a bit of a musical interlude courtesy of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers before we carry on with the rest of the evening’s festivities.
What’s your next project? Do you have another novel started?
I have a few ideas in mind for new projects. I’m travelling again this year and I’d like to continue the theme of writing romantic adventure novels set in places that inspire me.
Now that we’ve talked about your WIP (work in progress for those not accustomed to author-speak and abbreviations), tell us more about you and how the readers of Celtic Connexions can follow you?
Thank you, Melanie. I really enjoy connecting with people. I’m a keen blogger. I’m always on Facebook and I love to Twitter too. So here’s my links:
My Author Blog
Follow me on Twitter: @JaniceHorton
Friend me on Facebook Page
Link to my Amazon Author Page
Check out my page on Goodreads
My LLm Bookshelf
Associate Editor at: Loveahappyending Lifestyle Mag
Janice Horton writes contemporary romantic fiction with a dash of humour and a sense of adventure. Look out for Janice’s new release for 2015 ‘Castaway in the Caribbean’
and her Amazon Kindle bestselling books ‘Bagpipes and Bullshot‘
and ‘Reaching for the Stars‘
and her fun ‘Voodoo Romance’ series of novellas.
Her nonfiction guide to online promotion ‘How To Party Online‘
is recommended reading for all authors and writers by publishers. Janice is a regular blogger from her website at janicehorton.co.uk and you’ll also find her on Facebook and Twitter. She is also associate editor at the award winning online magazine Loveahappyending Lifestyle Magazine where she produces her monthly ‘The Bookshelf’ feature and her seasonal ‘Snap Gap Travel’ features.
Thank you so much for coming to my “un”conventional Robbie Burns Night. I hope you won’t have a sair heid tomorrow. I see the chairs have been rearranged in the front room so shall we move the party in there and let the ceilidh begin?
Gay Gordons, anyone?
and here’s the photographic evidence of its existence.
From the first time I saw this derelict mansion in October 1993, I was head over heels in love with it. I mean, just look at it. Despite the fact that there are no windows, floors, no roof and there are good sized trees growing within the confines of the stone walls, you can easily see what it would have looked like in the past.
This beautiful, yet haunting pile, is located in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Whether it’s inhabited by ghosts or not, the image conjures up all sorts of tales (leastways I think so).
And quite like my heroine, Sarah Shand, in A Shadow in the Past, I’m drawn to this place. Perhaps that’s why she says someday I’m going to live there.
This photo was taken from a different angle in 1997 and with a better camera lens. You can really see how much nature has reclaimed since the photo above taken in 1993.
And before you ask… it IS visible from the stone circle at Gordonsfield farm!
While I envision a different outcome for this grand place (I always thought B&B or hotel), it will live again. The mansion proper – at last word – will be converted to luxury flats. But then that’s economy permitting.
As you can see from this photo taken in 2013, the work has begun. The trees growing up within the walls have been removed, although it appears that they’re growing back. Pesky things.
While I’ve never had the ability to purchase said mansion, I hope I’ve let it live on in some way by including it in my novels… yup, it appears in the second book in the series, working title Shadows From Her Past.
Do you use actual locations, buildings and such in your writing? Please share in the comments.
Today I’m welcoming English author, Gilli Allan, to Celtic Connexions. I’ve asked her to share her author’s journey on her way to a 3-book contract with Accent Press.
But first, a little about the first book in the deal – Torn.
Blurb:
Jess has made a series of bad life choices and all have let her down.
Escaping London, she sets out to recreate herself in the idyllic countryside, and this time she wants to get it right!
She wants to lead a responsible, tranquil life with her young son Rory, but soon discovers stresses which pull her in opposing directions – conflict over a new bypass, between friends, and worst of all, between lovers.
Educated, experienced, and pragmatic, James is a widowed farmer whose opinions differ from, and enrage, Jess. His young shepherd, Danny, is an uneducated and inexperienced idealist. Jess is attracted to them both, and realizes if she wants her idyllic countryside life to survive, she must choose her Mr Right.
You can buy Torn at amazon.co.uk and other amazon sites.
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‘Art’ was where I was headed in life. This was the accepted wisdom in my family, despite the fact that my primary hobby, when growing up, was writing. When I started Art College at sixteen, I stopped writing altogether. I’d outgrown all that soppy stuff.
After some years of working in advertising I married. It was feasible to continue working from home as a free-lance artist after my son was born, but it would have been difficult. We lived outside London, and this was before email, even before PCs. What else could I do? I took up writing again, but this time with the serious intention of being published. And that first manuscript, parcelled up with brown paper and string, return postage inside, was taken on by a new publisher almost immediately. My second swiftly followed.
My publisher, Love Stories, was trying to fill a niche for unconventional women’s fiction – love without the rose tinted glasses – characterised by the Press at the time as, “The thinking woman’s Mills & Boon”. But this ambition failed – thwarted by distribution and marketing problems. In those days, if books didn’t make it onto the high street, they couldn’t be bought. I never felt the failure of ‘Love Stories’ as anything to do with me. I had no doubt I would soon find another publisher and began sending out my next, heavy typescript when it was completed. But, after an interval of months, back it would come, with less than fifty pages, thumbed.
After joining the RNA I refined this procedure. I now knew that publishers only wanted to see the first three chapters, and I began to make multiple submissions, but as before, back came the rejections. Instead of writing a new book, I spent much of my life – between these ‘submission episodes’- editing and re-editing the whole of the old one. Reinvigorated with optimism, “Surely this time…?”, I would then send my submissions – several in a batch – but now to literary agents. I’d eventually learned that publishers preferred not to receive material direct from wannabes. They wanted the wheat pre-sorted from the chaff. Unfortunately, I was chaff. Gradually I’d absorb the message that my book was a ‘dead horse’ (apologies for mixed metaphors) and stop flogging it!
There were times when agents expressed interest. For brief periods my self-belief revived a little. Maybe I wasn’t a self-deluded idiot. But when those agents also failed to find a publisher, their attitude towards me and my books changed, and I was on my own again.
It was the E revolution that seemed to throw me a life-line, but even self-publishing didn’t provide the complete answer. The effort needed to raise the visibility of one book above the growing sea of others, is daunting. E-publishing certainly made me savvier about social networking, and helped to establish a Gilli Allan profile, but although I was selling some books, and was rewarded with glowing reviews, I wasn’t selling in enough numbers to bother the taxman.
But… In my experience, when things happen, they happen quickly! I attended the RNA conference in July 2014. There I talked to Hazel Cushion, founder of Accent Press, and told her a little of my history. No more than a matter of weeks later Accent Press had contracted to publish my 3 ‘Indie’ books. TORN came out in December; LIFE CLASS and FLY OR FALL are due out later this year. Although I know it’s true, I can scarcely believe it. The hoopla of Christmas between then and now has added to my sense of suspended reality, and the fact that I am, again, an author with a mainstream publisher, has yet to sink in. I’m now waiting to be hailed an over-night success!
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About Gilli:
Gilli Allan started to write in childhood, a hobby only abandoned when real life supplanted the fiction. Gilli didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge but, after just enough exam passes to squeak in, she attended Croydon Art College.
She didn’t work on any of the broadsheets, in publishing or television. Instead she was a shop assistant, a beauty consultant and a barmaid before landing her dream job as an illustrator in advertising. It was only when she was at home with her young son that Gilli began writing seriously. Her first two novels were quickly published but when her publisher ceased to trade, Gilli went independent.
Over the years, Gilli has been a school governor, a contributor to local newspapers, and a driving force behind the community shop in her Gloucestershire village. Still a keen artist, she designs Christmas cards and has begun book illustration. Gilli is particularly delighted to have recently gained a new mainstream publisher – Accent Press. TORN is the first book to be published in the three book deal.
You can connect with Gilli at these links:
Twitter: (@gilliallan)
Facebook: Gilli Allan Author
and her blog Writer cramped
Thanks for stopping by today, Gilli and telling us about your author’s journey. I wish you huge successes with Torn and all of your books – written or still waiting for you to put ‘pen to paper’ so to speak.
Eleven-year-old Nick Cassidy’s stepsister delights in calling him gross names. His half-sister loves for Nick to push her in the stroller, to his embarrassment. What if the guys from school see him? All Nick wants is his father to come back and take him away from this crazy family. Is it any wonder he sometimes lives in the doghouse? 
Most of the time, you’ll find Beverly in front of her computer, writing the stories little voices whisper in her ear. When she’s not writing, she takes long walks and snaps pictures of clouds, wild flowers, birds and deer. To some of her friends, she is affectionately known as the “Bug Lady” because she rescues butterflies, moths, walking sticks, and praying mantis from her cats.
For twenty-two years Beverly taught children in grades two through five how to read and write. They taught her patience. Now, she teaches a women’s Sunday school class at her church. To relax she plays the piano. Her cats don’t appreciate good music and run and hide when she tickles the ivories.
And to all my Scottish friends and family…
Happy Hogmanay!
I’d share the wordpress helper monkeys stats for my blog here for 2014 but since I went most of the unable to connect to Jetpack, it hardly seems worthwhile. Besides, I have some other things I’d rather share about this past year and not the cheesy thing that Facebook puts together.
So, here we go! Fasten your seatbelts, we’re ready for takeoff!
April, Easter to be exact, my husband and I spent 10 days in beautiful, romantic Paris.
Then in September, another romantic destination was on the cards – Niagara Falls, Ontario. Okay, there are the tatty, touristy places but overall, it’s a lovely place.
While we were here, we decided to take a horse-drawn carriage ride. We’d seem them on previous trips and have always wanted to do it…
… so we did.
We even did a wine tour while we were in the region and came home with at least 4 bottles of wine – including a couple icewines!
Before the year was out, we spent a week in Quebec City. It was close enough to Christmas that the decorations were in the process of being put up. In hindsight, second week of December might be a better time to visit this beautiful city so that the baubles and lights and everything are in place.
And again, we did a horse-drawn carriage ride. Our driver, Philippe, was amazing and made the ride extremely fun.
No trip to Quebec City would be complete without a short drive further east to see my ‘haunted’ house which is between Quebec City and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.
Sadly it’s more run down since the last time I was down in this part of Canada but it’s beautiful nonetheless. And doesn’t being in a state of disrepair add to the mystery and the possibility of it being home to ghosts?
And when we weren’t gallivanting here, there and everywhere, I managed to write over 74,000 words in one of my works in progress (the first draft of the sequel to my debut novel)! While it was with my beta readers, I plotted and started another project and have some cracking ideas for even more writing projects.
So before I get all sappy and sentimental, I’ll finish this post with a little Auld Lang Syne.
SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.—For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a
weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
Robert Burns
What will you do to see out 2014 and see in 2015? Any traditions you take part in?
Drew Nelson did not plan to talk with anyone that morning. He did not plan to make a new friend. He certainly did not plan to fall in love.
He resisted all of Amy’s attempts to draw him out− at the hotel, at the airport, on the airplane − giving hurried responses and burying his face in a pile of papers. It was only when the flight attendant offered coffee, and a muscle in Amy’s back twitched as she reached for it, and the cup tipped, and the hot liquid puddled in Drew’s lap that they began to talk.
Earlier in the year, each had lost a spouse of over thirty years. Drew’s wife had died of a brain tumor, Amy’s husband when his small airplane nose-dived to earth, the engine at full throttle − an accident, it was ruled.
They live in the same city. Both have grandchildren. They are about the same age. Consciously, or not, they both are looking to love again.
But relationships do not exist in vacuums. Drew is wealthy, and Amy is middle class. Amy is “new” in town – she and her husband moved to Charleston twenty-five years ago – while Drew’s family has lived there for three centuries. Drew lives below Broad, a code word for high society, old families, power, and money. Amy’s home is across the river.
Class warfare may be less violent than it was in the past, but when Drew invites Amy to the St Cecelia Ball, battle lines are drawn. In a city in which ancestry is important, the ball’s membership is passed from father to son, and only those from the oldest families attend.
Family, friends, co-workers all weigh in on their relationship and choose sides. Allies are found in unexpected places. Opposition comes from among those who were thought to be friends. Though they are gone, even their spouses − through things they have done and things they have said − wield influence in the conflict that follows.
Amy begins to suspect that Drew is one of them, the rich snobs who despise her, while Drew concludes that Amy neither trusts him nor cares for him. As each questions the other’s motives, their feelings for each other are tested, and Drew and Amy are challenged to consider if they truly want to fall in love again.
BUY LINKS
About David Burnett 
I live in Columbia South Carolina, with my wife and our blue-eyed cat, Bonnie. I enjoy traveling, photography, baking bread, and the Carolina beaches.
We have traveled widely in the United States and the United Kingdom. During one trip to Scotland, we visited Crathes Castle, the ancestral home of the Burnett family near Aberdeen.
My photographic subjects have been as varied as prehistoric ruins on the islands of Scotland, star trails, sea gulls, and a Native American powwow.
I went to school for longer than I want to admit, and I have graduate degrees in psychology and education. I was formerly director of research for our state education department.
We have two daughters and three grandchildren. To Fall in Love Again is my third novel.
http://davidburnett.yolasite.com
http://davidburnettsbooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Burnett-Author/447290468681693?ref=hl
Imagine yourself newly wed to a handsome young fisherman who takes you to live in a remote cabin on the B.C. coast. How romantic! Or is it? Too late, you realize that you’ve made a bad choice. His behavior is more and more aggressive and bizarre. At first you’re nervous, then afraid, then terrified. At last, you fear for your life. There is no phone and he has control of the only radio, which is on his fishboat docked in front of the cabin. Even if you could access it, if he found out you had used it, you might not survive long enough to be rescued. Outside in the howling winter storms, the wind weeps, and so do you.
Here is an excerpt from my novel, The Wind Weeps. Robert has allowed Andrea to come along on a rare trip for groceries to a small general store on a nearby island.
***
We loaded up on groceries and it occurred to me that I might phone Monique from the store. Robert would never approve, but maybe while he was taking the first load of food down to the boat, I could make a quick call.
As soon as he stepped outside with the first of the boxes, I said, “I’ll be along in a minute. I want to have another look at the sewing things.” Then quickly I looked for the storekeeper to get his attention.
“Excuse me?” I called across the room to him. “Do you have a—”
I stopped mid-sentence as Robert stuck his head back in the door. He looked at me with a scowl and motioned with waves of his hand for me to continue the question.
“Ah, er, do you have a … washroom I could use, please?”
“Sure, right back here, miss.” He pointed down a dark hall. “On the right.”
By the time I got into the washroom my impromptu need to pee became real. I had so nearly been caught. Robert would have been furious to catch me reaching out to someone—anyone but him. And worse yet, he didn’t like Monique.
He always said, “What Monique needs is a man in her life to tell her what to do. Who does she think she is, doing whatever she pleases? I don’t like you hanging out with her. She’s a bad influence on you.” Why would I want to phone her? he would want to know.
Arranging to run away? A shiver of fear went through me. Was I really contemplating running away? Was it what I wanted? Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh yes!
I flushed the toilet, gave my hands a rinse and hurried out.
“Thank you,” I mumbled to the storekeeper. I picked up the remaining box of groceries and headed for the door. “Oh!” I stopped. “Is there any mail for me? Andrea Bolton?”
He shuffled through the letters he kept under the counter. “Yes, there is. It’s been here a while, but I hang onto letters longer than the post office says. I know people live far out and don’t get in here that often.”
“Very nice of you to do that.” I looked around the store. “Robert? Is he still here?”
“He’s gone.” I wondered later if he saw my shoulders sag with relief. I folded up the letter very small so it fit into my jacket pocket, out of sight.
“Oh, okay. Thanks. Well, Merry Christmas.”
I was rewarded with a warm smile. “And merry Christmas to you too. I hope it’s a good one for you.” I nodded. I hope so too. But chances are it’ll be just another day … if I’m lucky.
***
Review of The Wind Weeps
Elise and Hazel:
Loved it! Love the title! Loved the contents, as they kept us interested and engaged. Learned more about the lonely life of fisher people, and we revisited some of our personal dockside stories. The book touches on many topics most people will not talk about. It has some interesting dynamics with isolation. Why would the wind weep? There are a number of ways this is revealed. It makes us think that we all have stories that need to be written!
Make your next read, the Wind Weeps.
***
You can order this book as a paperback or as an e-book at smashwords.com and all amazon outlets. Click on the links for more information.
Please visit my webpage at anneli-purchase.com or my blogs at http://wordsfromanneli.wordpress.com and http://annelisplace.wordpress.com
The perfect Christmas gift idea! Choose from three of my novels: The Wind Weeps, Orion’s Gift, or Julia’s Violinist.
Walter had shared a home and a sort of life with her for over sixteen years. When he came to think of it, that’d been a bit like a game of chess too. He’d gone from the enthusiastic opening – through a mid game of jogging along – to the endgame of barbed neutrality, a sort of emotional desert where no win was possible, a kind of stalemate. That had been the pattern for the last five years.
Summer 1930 and Walter Bruce is told he has a terminal disease. With nursing care and an easier job he could have five more years. With neither he may not see out the year. But he’s got a wife to keep – one too selfish and idle to be his nurse. When he finds out she’s been deceiving him about her past for years he comes to a stark decision: if she won’t take care of him he’ll have to take care of her – for good. He plans her removal like one of the chess problems he loves. It will be the perfect murder; he’ll get away with it and enjoy his last few years in comfort. But his carefully laid plans unravel, entangling him in a slowly closing trap where truth and lies become confused…
Set in between-the-wars Liverpool, Stalemate is a gripping tale of moral choices and terrible punishment.
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My Review:
Stalemate is a gripping work of fiction based on an actual murder from that area. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and it was difficult to put down at night. I love Alan’s writing style and hope to read more of his books in the future.
A ☆☆☆☆☆ read!
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BUY LINKS
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GIVEAWAY
2 SIGNED PAPERBACKS (UK only)
2 ECOPIES (International)
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About the Author:
Alan Hamilton finds that real events, where there is a mystery or something unexplained, leave so much to the imagination they give the writer of fiction license to make it up. At heart he’s a conspiracy theorist though his head tells him accident is usually more likely – albeit far less interesting. As an antidote to the urge to write creatively, Alan is a publisher’s editor for non-fiction, academic books and journal articles. He lives by the sea in the South West of the UK. His hobbies are cooking and cryptic crosswords in the national newspapers, winning first prize twice in ten years.
https://www.facebook.com/alan.hamilton.1291?v=wall
Try the “grammar checker” at Grammarly to see how your writing stacks up. There’s more to Grammarly than just grammar checks. Plagiarism checks, punctuation, context and much more.