Bring It Back(list) This Winter Heart by PG Forte

 

Santa Fe, The Republic of New Texacali, 1870 

 Eight years ago, Ophelia Leonides's husband cast her off when he discovered she was not the woman he thought she was. Now destitute after the death of her father, Ophelia is forced to turn to Dario for help raising the child she never told him about. 

 Dario is furious that Ophelia has returned, and refuses to believe Arthur is his son—after all, he thought his wife was barren. But to avoid gossip, he agrees to let them spend the holidays at his villa. While he cannot resist the desire he still feels for Ophelia, Dario despises himself for being hopelessly in love with a woman who can never love him back. 

 But Dario is wrong: Ophelia's emotions are all too human, and she was brokenhearted when he rejected her. Unsure if she can trust the man she desperately loves, she fears for her life, her freedom and her son if anyone else learns of her true nature...

Excerpt:

Later that night, after Arthur had been tucked into bed, Ophelia sat down by the fire to do some mending. She knew her time would likely be better spent in drafting a letter to her husband apprising him of her arrival and explaining what she was doing here—and begging him to meet with her. But thoughts of the inevitable confrontation that loomed between them made it easy to put the task off a little while longer. Surely, it could at least wait until morning. Besides, it really wouldn’t do to allow Arthur to show up at Dario’s door in clothes that were threadbare. 

The faint electromagnetic charge running through her circuitry caused the needle to cling ever-so-slightly to her fingers. It had been the case all her life of course and, as such, was not the kind of thing she tended to notice. Tonight, in this place, it drew her attention. 

Her sewing done, she put her things away then sat for a few moments, just staring at her hand, flexing and straightening her fingers. It looked so normal, so ordinary, so very human. She even had fingerprints. Her father had been particularly proud of that. If only he had not been quite so proud of all his accomplishments, so eager to share his genius with the world. How might her life have been different if that had been the case?

Buy links, and a link to a FREE prequel can be found on my website: 

https://www.pgforte.com/winter-hearts

A BRAND NEW free short sequel will release later this month, but will only be available to members of my Facebook Reader Group, The Crone's Nest. Join here:  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheCronesNest

Remembering Differently

I write steampunk.

Phonograph
Azelia Ley Homestead

Such a simple sentence, but it means so many different things to different people. For me, it means a chance to explore history, to play with it and to challenge the world of today via an imagined past.

I've always loved history - not the Great Men doing Great Things stories, but the intimate social histories. How did people feel? How did they respond to the troubles of their time?

One of the most tangible ways to encounter the lives of the (relatively recent) past is to visit local museums.

Old Post Office
Perth, Australia

Walking through old streets is also incredibly evocative...though you have to remember to look up!

There are surprises everywhere -- and those surprises connect you to the lives, aspirations and humour of the people who lived here before you.

Fiction is one of my favourite ways to bring alive the past. The joy of steampunk is that it acknowledges -- heck, it celebrates -- the fact that such stories are shaped as much by present moods as past realities.

Stories tell us who we are. Steampunk means we could be anyone.

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COURTING TROUBLE

The Bustlepunk Chronicles #2

Swan River Colony, Australia, 1895

All suffragette Esme Smith wants is respect. Her beau, American inventor Jed Reeve, may be more enlightened than most men, but lately his need to protect her is at odds with her need for independence. Esme begins to wonder if a modern woman can share her life with a man without losing some of herself.

With his courtship of Esme stalled, the last thing Jed needs is the pressure of saving the Prince of Wales. But when blueprints for a sonic destroyer fall into his hands, he uncovers an anarchist plot that could have deadly consequences.

While investigating the threats, Jed is determined to keep Esme out of harm’s way, despite her protests. But when the terrorists capture Jed and demand a priceless emerald in exchange for his life, it’s Esme who must draw on all her strength to save the day.

Amazon    B&N

Read the reviews at Goodreads

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Jenny Schwartz is an Australian author in love with living in the suburbs. What could be nicer than chatting to your neighbour over the back fence? She's currently mis-using her history degree to write steampunk and can be bribed with TimTams. You can catch up with Jenny at her website, on Twitter, Facebook  or Tumblring about steampunk.

In Praise of Sequels and Series

The only thing better than discovering an enchanting  new (to you) world—the literary kind, that is—is finding out that it’s part of a series or, at worst, that there’s a sequel or two…maybe three, in the offing.

I love reading series. A good book leaves you with the certainty that the story isn’t over when you’ve turned the last page; that there’s more going on with the characters you’ve fallen in love with, or the world they inhabit, than can fit comfortably into just one volume. A great book leaves you yearning for some of that "more". A series means multiple chances to get it!

As an author, I love writing series as well. Because I write primarily paranormal/sci-fi, I put a lot of energy into my world-building. The settings for my stories are usually an integral part of the story itself.  It takes time  and patience (something I don't have all that much of!) to research all the science, history, geography, myths, legends, and who knows what else it might take to bring a new world to life. From a practical point of view, I have a hard time  justifying walking away from all of that after only one book.

Of course, there’s also the emotional angle. I really hate saying good-bye to my imaginary friends. Writing a sequel is  a good way of putting that off a little while longer.  There’s also the fact that I’m OCD enough to really like things in sets, but that’s probably a good topic for another post!

In any case, it didn’t really come as a huge surprise when the idea for a four-part, spin-off series hit me when I was only about one-third of the  way through the writing of ThisWinter Heart. And, as if I needed more proof that my antho-sisters and I are truly connected, I was thrilled to realize that all of the A ClockworkChristmas authors have sequels or related series in the works, promising more steampunky goodness for the year ahead.

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We Wish You a Steampunk Christmas

Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband’s love. A man learns that love isn’t always what you expect. A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor. And an American inventor finds love Down Under. Enjoy Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four steampunk novellas.

Anthology includes:

Crime Wave in a Corset by Stacy Gail
This Winter Heart by PG Forte
Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz
Far From Broken by JK Coi

The anthology releases December 5 from Carina Press. To keep up with the fun and laughter and sheer silliness of our pre-release celebrations, please join us on the A Clockwork Christmas Facebook page.

You can buy A Clockwork Christmas as an EPUB or for your Kindle.

The World of What-If?

It’s probably no accident that the two school subjects I enjoyed most were History and Science. I’m sure it goes a long way toward explaining why I love Steampunk so much. It is, after all, a genre that begins with a nostalgic look at the world as it used to be, then asks that ever-intriguing question: What if?

What if steam power had won out over gas? What if Charles Babbage had been able to fund his inventions, and computers had been readily available in 1812? What if the Hindenburg had never crashed and lighter-than-air travel had become the norm?  Or…what if the transcontinental railroad had never been built? What if wireless electricity had been discovered? What if the Louisiana Purchase had never been made, or hostilities between France and Britain had never ended?  What would our world look like then?

Of course there are countless questions you could ask, and endless ways in which the world around us might be different today—and that’s one of the things I love most about the stories included in the A Clockwork Christmas anthology. Each story is a unique melding of the past and the possible. Grounded in pseudo-science and altered-history, each one offers its own distinct version of a world that’s just a little bit different than our own.

There is one constant that unites these worlds, however, and that’s the people who populate them. Despite the fictional technology that contributes to our stories and that help to make some of our characters the unique specimens they are, they’re all still recognizably  human. They all want love. They all struggle, to a greater or lesser degree, for happiness. And, this being Romance, after all, they all demand their HEA.That might be my favorite part of all.

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We Wish You a Steampunk Christmas

Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband’s love. A man learns that love isn’t always what you expect. A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor. And an American inventor finds love Down Under. Enjoy Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four steampunk novellas.

Anthology includes:

Crime Wave in a Corset by Stacy Gail
This Winter Heart by PG Forte
Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz
Far From Broken by JK Coi

Stories also available for purchase separately.

To keep up with the fun and laughter and sheer silliness of our pre-release celebrations, please join us on the A Clockwork Christmas Facebook page.

The anthology releases December 5 from Carina Press.

Food. Glorious Food!

I love the strange and adventurous foods in fantasy novels.

Jayne Castle (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) has an amusing trick with her light SF Harmony novels. The foods are similar to those from Earth, but slightly different. So the characters drink coff-tea and eat pear-berries.

Fairytales make a big deal about food with Snow White eating a poisoned apple, Goldilocks stealing breakfast and various draughts of forgetfulness, immortality or love sickness causing no end of trouble.

When I was writing my Steampunk novella, "Wanted: One Scoundrel", I couldn't resist adding a Steampunk touch to the suffragette afternoon tea. Fog cakes have a dab of dry ice in their centre so they "fog" as the automated butler hands them round.

Do you have a favourite fantasy food?

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We Wish You a Steampunk Christmas

Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband’s love. A man learns that love isn’t always what you expect. A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor. And an American inventor finds love Down Under. Enjoy Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four steampunk novellas.

Anthology includes:

Crime Wave in a Corset by Stacy Gail
This Winter Heart by PG Forte
Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz
Far From Broken by JK Coi

Stories also available for purchase separately.

117,000 words

The stories in this anthology are fabulous (yes, I’ve had a sneak peek–gorgeous!) and so are the authors. To keep up with the fun and laughter and sheer silliness of our pre-release celebrations, join us on the A Clockwork Christmas Facebook page.

The anthology releases December 5 from Carina Press.