Tag Archive for: Barbara Kyle

North Star Word, by Barbara Kyle

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At the start of each new
year my daughter Sara chooses a word to embody how she wants to navigate the
upcoming year. One word to be her “North Star” for her business and her life.

Painting: North Star by Gretchen Kelley

For example, one year
she chose the word “bold” – which I thought was boldly marvelous.

So I, too, have chosen a
word to be my North Star for this shiny new year. The word is “true.”

As a writer, it means
being true to the characters in the new book I’m creating. As a writing mentor, it
means guiding each writer to be true to the soul of their story.

I loved
many wonderful books during the year we just left behind, and it struck me how
wildly varied they are, yet all deeply true. Especially the following three.


The gloriously entertaining Harlem Shuffle by
genius author Colson Whitehead:

 

 

The nail-biting real-life thriller Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman:
 

 The vivid, exquisitely
written profile of a 19th century Japanese woman, Stranger in the Shogun’s City, by Amy Stanley:

 


Books all utterly different, but all utterly true to their stories’ unique worlds.

“True” will be my bright
North Star. For writing my new book. For helping the writers I mentor find the best
truth in theirs. For living wide in the world.

How about you? Do you
have a guiding word for this new year?

________________________________________________

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/   

The Gift of Music, with Barbara Kyle

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December marks six years since I took my very first violin lesson. 

An interesting session. It went something
like this:

 

Luckily,
my teacher was, and remains, the super-talented and incredibly patient pro violinist, Anna Hughes.

At
first, I merely dipped my toe in: I rented a violin. After all, I might hate it
or be impossible to teach; in either case, I could just give up.


Wondrously,
neither happened. Novice though I was, every time I picked up the violin to
practice, I felt a lovely, sweet shiver of connection to centuries of great composers
and musicians. 

 

I was dipping my toe into a mighty river of art. 

 

So I committed
to the learning and the practicing. The rental agreement was basically a lease;
after twelve monthly payments, I owned the instrument.

 

Result?
Instant humility. When I arrived for my lessons, the student before me was ten
years old; the one after me was seven. And they were really good. (Anna teaches
the Suzuki Method which starts students young – often as young as four – on small
violins.)

 

A happy bonus
has been my new, deep appreciation of professional violinists. I had always enjoyed their
playing – whether virtuosi of
classical works, spirited fiddlers of toe-tapping jigs, or cool individualists
of jazz – but only by learning each baby step of technique myself have I come to be in
awe of their artistry. 

 

That, in
turn, has made concert-going thrilling. I’ve watched enthralling live performances
by Itzhak Perlman, Natalie McMaster, Joshua Bell, Luri Lee, Sally Fields, and
Timothy Chooi.


And I have come to love the works of brilliant composers who
were new to me, like Florence Price. Listen to her String QuartetNo 2. (Note the ravishing second movement.)

So, that funny
picture I showed you at the top of this post? That was after my first lessons.
Now, six years later, I’m daring to dream like this:

 ___________________________________________________________________

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/  

 

 

From Stage to Page with Barbara Kyle

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I’m
often asked if my previous career as an actor helped my writing.

 

Yes, it
certainly did.

 

Acting gave me a deep appreciation of strong story structure,
because it’s hard to act in a script that has weaknesses like unfocused
conflict or unmotivated turning points or a feeble climax. That stayed with me in writing my eleven novels.


Photo: With crew members (me in 19th-century bonnet) on the set of the TV series “The Campbells”


And, of course, it helped me in crafting a novel’s dialogue. I
often advise emerging writers to develop an “actor’s ear” by listening
carefully to how people talk. For a writer, eavesdropping is good!

 

Parallel Arts

 

There are also parallels between rehearsing a play and writing a novel. An acting
company often gets just four weeks’ rehearsal. That’s not much time to get a
play up “on the boards,” so each week has definite goals. 

Photo: Me (standing) and Dawn Wells (“Marianne” of “Gilligan’s Island” TV series ) in the play “Vanities.”

 

The
first week is spent just on “blocking,” working out which characters
move where and when. The next couple of weeks are dedicated to detailed scene
development, working on individual scenes and delving for motivation and
pacing. Not until the final week does the cast do run-throughs of the whole
play, followed by technical rehearsals (sound cues and light cues) and finally
the full, dress rehearsal.

 

If, instead,
the company plunged from day one into running through the whole play over and
over with full cast and tech effects, the result would be weeks of chaos, and
the final product a mess. The rehearsal process has to be done in manageable
segments.

 

So it is
with writing a novel. No writer would be so foolish as to expect “perfection” in a
first draft. It takes several, and each draft has a function: from the creation
of the raw plot, to drafts that deepen characters’ relationships, enrich
pivotal scenes, and hone dialogue, to the final draft for polishing.

 

Coming Full
Circle

 

Speaking
of the acting/writing connection, here’s a bit of sweet serendipity. Not long
ago I got a note from a writer who told me he was at work on his first novel
and subscribed to my News for Writers emails.

 

He said
that after enjoying my writing advice emails for many months, it suddenly
struck him that he knew me from years ago: that the author Barbara Kyle
was the actor Barbara Kyle he’d worked with when I appeared in several
episodes of the TV series The Littlest Hobo. 

 

Imagine my delight when I read the signature: the note was from Christopher Dew who’d created and produced that very successful TV series.

 

I’ve so
enjoyed reconnecting with Christopher. His debut novel, Ulysses-Comin’ Home, has just been published.
Here is its beautiful cover.

 

__________________________________________________________________________

 Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/  

 

 

Classics, by Barbara Kyle

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Some
things are simply never out of date, right? Thank goodness. Here are a few classics I hold
dear.

 

Classic
Clothes. I welcome autumn for the pleasure of pulling a smart, tried-and-true blazer out of the closet. And I’m always up for any chance to wear a little black dress; in this pic, it’s for my nephew’s lovely outdoor wedding.

 

Classic
Books. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the
D’Urbervilles are time-honored novels that I read as a teen and that influenced
me as a writer. 

Modern classics I revere are John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and anything by P.G. Wodehouse who has
more than once rescued me from blue days with his ineffable comic genius.


Classical
Music. The music of Bach and Mozart has enriched my life for decades, and because I play the violin my favorites works of theirs are any that feature that instrument. 

 

A modern
musical classic I adore is Leonard Bernstein’s exuberant and heartbreaking West Side
Story. Violinist Joshua Bell shines in any genre, from Bach to Bernstein. Listen to him play
the West Side Story Suite. It’s twenty minutes of perfection.

 

 

 

Classic
Movies. I’ve watched Casablanca at least a dozen times and the story
never fails to thrill me and move me.

So does the 1951 version of A Christmas
Carol starring Alastair Sim. My favorite bit in that fine old film is the small
role of Scrooge’s cockney housekeeper played with endearing spunk by Kathleen
Harrison. (She’s in the middle of the photo below.)

 


 


 

Classic
Cars. As a young woman, I considered the Jaguar XK-E the epitome of elegance. That British sports car, manufactured between 1961 and 1975, is still widely admired as a true classic. 

 

I never did get an
“E-Type” but my husband and I recently bought a 2003 Miata and I love driving
it on a sunny day with the top down. My pal Ann drives a 2000 model. That’s us
in the photo with our Miatas (Ann on the left in purple, me on the right).

 

 I
don’t know if our Miatas are technically “classics” but I figure she and I – two
“old broads” – pretty much are!

 


____________________________________________________________________________


Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/  

My One-Eyed Hero: with Barbara Kyle

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 by Barbara Kyle

 

Readers love book series. No
wonder. We get to know the continuing characters so well, we’re eager to find
out what happens to them in the next book. For the author, though, the terrain
of a series can be a minefield.

 

 

My Thornleigh Saga is a series of
seven historical novels that follow three generations of an English family over
sixty-five years (1517 to 1582), so in writing them I would sometimes
forget things that happened to characters in the previous books set years before. 

 

For
example, in Book One the hero, Richard Thornleigh, loses an eye, but in writing
the next book I would start to write things like, “Richard’s eyes were drawn to
. . .” Yikes. 

 

The solution? I created a series “bible”
that recorded important facts like characters’ ages, marriages, children, and
physical details like color of hair and eyes – and missing body parts!

 

Here are three more things I
learned in writing a series.

 

1 Every Book Must Stand Alone

 

An author can’t assume that
readers have read the previous books in the series. So each book must give
some backstory about what’s happened to the main characters in the preceding
books, but not so much that it bores readers who have read them all.
Getting the balance right is tricky.

 

TV writers are lucky. An episode will often start with a helpful recap: “Previously on The Crown
…” I wish a
plummy-voiced British announcer could give a recap at the beginning of my Thornleigh books!

 

2 Let Characters Age

 

It’s hard for readers to believe that a hero fights off bad guys like a young stud if, over the decades-long
timeline of the series, he’s become a senior citizen. Author J. K. Rowling was
smart. She let Harry Potter and his friends grow up.

 

I enjoyed letting my characters age slowly throughout the Thornleigh Saga series. The seven books take the main
character, Honor Larke, from precocious seven-year-old child in Book One, The Queen’s Lady, to
astute seventy-year-old grande dame as Lady Thornleigh in Book Seven.

Likewise, her stepson Adam Thornleigh
is a young seafaring adventurer in Book 3 but by Book 6 he’s a mature man, a
loyal champion of his friend Queen Elizabeth I. He’s been through a loveless
marriage, adores his two children, and falls hard for the latter book’s appealing
main character, Scottish ship salvager Fenella Doorn. (Pic: Christian Bale, my fantasy casting as Adam!)


3 Embrace Cliff-Hanger Endings

 

Each book in a series must be a
stand-alone story, with an inciting incident, escalating conflict, turning
points, and a satisfying climax. 

 

But if, after the climax, the author can end
each book by opening up a new, burning question for the characters, it sets up
the conflict that will be tackled in the next book. Readers then eagerly look
forward to that next story.

 

For any author, writing a series can
be a joy, forging an enduring relationship with readers – just as long as, when
creating one-eyed heroes, that “bible” is kept handy!

 

Do you have a favorite book series? 

___________________________________________________________________


Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/  

The Thrill that Inspires

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by Barbara Kyle

As the author of historical thrillers and contemporary thrillers, I’ve enjoyed pushing the boundaries of the genre.

It’s often said that a good thriller is like a roller-coaster ride. That’s true enough. The genre is about high stakes, countdowns, and suspense, and
every compelling thriller delivers this kind of excitement.

But the most satisfying thrillers deliver more: an exciting story that also
explores complex issues and has something important to say about our world. This
kind of story takes the reader away from the amusement park and sends them on a
voyage: an exhilarating journey into a different way of thinking.

I call it the Inspiring Thriller.

An inspiring thriller takes readers beyond their expectations and gives them
an insight they never saw coming. “Insight” literally means seeing the truth
through and under the surface of things. It’s the inspiring thriller’s job to
challenge readers’ acceptance of society’s status quo.

At its heart, an inspiring thriller is always about confronting power.

 Power-Busters

Charles Dickens knew this when he used his immensely popular novels to hold
a mirror up to the horrors that working-class people suffered under unfettered
capitalism in nineteenth-century England.

In our time, bestselling author John Grisham has often done the same with
his thrillers about the “little guy” up against some form of corporate bully. 

John le Carré’s thrillers train his unflinching focus on the controlling corporate
and political powers that corrode our lives.

Denise Mina, a master of crime fiction, reveals the raw wounds that
Glasgow’s poor and powerless suffer, while featuring female central characters
who are resilient and resourceful.

 Grisham, Le Carré, and Mina use the thriller genre to say what needs to be
said.

 What’s It All For?

Christopher Vogler, in his book The Writer’s Journey, says the final step of
any hero’s journey is bringing back an “elixir” to heal the rupture that
incited the main character’s risky quest. The elixir might be literal: food for
the starving tribe. Or it might be abstract: a hard-won wisdom that heals a
shattered family. In a big techno-thriller, it might even heal the world.

Whatever it is, if the hero does not bring back something to share, they
remain unenlightened, adolescent. They haven’t grown. And therefore, neither
can the reader.

In other words, the roller-coaster ride is all you get.

An inspiring thriller may end in tragedy, or it may end with justice
prevailing, or maybe a bittersweet blend of both. Whatever the outcome, readers
welcome the experience. We need it.

Because it’s not the roller-coaster ride that satisfies the soul. It’s the
voyage.

 

______________________________________________________________________

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/ 

Literary Wonder Drug

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by Barbara Kyle

I’m feeling pretty happy these days because I’ve just finished writing
a new book, my twelfth novel.

 

However, during the eighteen months it took to complete, there were days when
the work was definitely not making me happy.

 

Luckily, my career as a writer has taught me how to deal with those “blah”
days. I take a literary anti-depressant. Powerful, but safe and reliable, it’s a
true wonder drug.

 

My literary anti-depressant of choice is any book by P.G.
Wodehouse, the genius who created the ineffable valet Jeeves and his inane but
lovable employer, Bertie Wooster. Whenever I feel down, a hit of Wodehouse’s
writing gives me a warm, mellow high.

Besides being a genius of madcap storytelling, Wodehouse
invented some marvelous words. Three examples:

 

Gruntled. Adjective meaning “contented,” the
antonym to “disgruntled,” coined in The Code of the Woosters
(1938): “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that,
if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”

 

Persp. Short for “perspiration,” this first appeared
in The Inimitable Jeeves (1923): “The good old persp. was bedewing
my forehead by this time in a pretty lavish manner.”

 

Plobby. This describes the sound of a pig eating. It
appears in Blandings Castle (1935): “A sort of gulpy, gurgly,
plobby, squishy, wofflesome sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a
foreign restaurant.”

 


Here’s the prescription for this literary wonder drug:

 

Dosage: One to three chapters every evening before bedtime.

Efficacy: 100%

Side effects: Tender abdomen from laughing; sore facial muscles from smiling;
stiff neck from shaking head repeatedly at the wonder of the author’s comic genius.

 

Contraindications: Do not take this drug if you
suffer from hard-heartedness or lack a sense of humor.

 

“Wodehouse’s world can never
stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may
be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight
in.” – Evelyn Waugh.

 

 Jeeves Collection: My Man Jeeves, Right Ho, Jeeves, and the Inimitable Jeeves

 

 

How about you? On a “blah” day what’s your literary
anti-depressant?

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

 


Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/ 

The Characters Who Break Our Hearts

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by Barbara Kyle



A recent fascinating post by Lois Winston on
this blog asked: “Are there
characters that you wish the author would kill off? Or characters you wish an
author hadn’t killed off?”

 

I thought
I’d dig deeper into Lois’s topic with another question: What
character’s death broke your heart?

 

I once asked that
of my Facebook friends and the replies were extraordinary. People recall with
vivid clarity how a fictional death left them feeling bereft.

 

Beth March in Little Women. Sydney
Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Ned Stark in A Game of Thrones.
Charlotte, the valiant spider in Charlotte’s Web.

 

 
Pic: “Sydney Carton” painting by Ralph Bruce


Characters’ deaths that broke
my heart include Mariko in James Clavell’s Shogun, Robbie and Cecilia in Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Gus in Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome
Dove.

 

                                  Pic: Yoko Shimada as “Mariko” in the 1980 TV series “Shogun.”

 

That affecting experience as a reader applies
with equal force to an author. Every time I’ve killed a beloved character in
one of my books, I wept. The poet Robert Frost said it eloquently: “No
tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” I must be shaken by a
character’s death myself if I am to render it faithfully to my readers.
  
Three kinds of characters’ deaths shatter us the
most:
 
1. The Innocent Friend

The most dangerous relationship a character can
have is being the best friend of the hero. If the hero has been reluctant to
accept his destiny, or his responsibilities, the death of his friend is often the
turning point that galvanizes him to take the next steps and the necessary
risks. By his friend’s death the hero is changed, made stronger, grows up.
 
2. The Victim of a Wicked World
 
When we shudder at Fantine’s death in Victor
Hugo’s Les Miserables we
shudder at the hellish poverty that killed her. In Atonement Robbie and Cecelia lose their lives pitifully in
the gruesome grind of war. In A Game of Thrones Ned Stark is executed in a naked political power
grab.
 
3. The Self-Sacrificing Hero
 
When Mariko, the courageous noblewomen in Shogun, goes to Osaka Castle to obtain the release of
innocent hostages, she knows she is going to her death. She sacrifices her life
to save Lord Toranaga from his enemies, and restore peace.
 
In A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton takes his awe-inspiring walk to the
guillotine with selfless resolve, sacrificing his life so that Lucie, the woman
he loves, can be reunited with her husband.
 
These are deaths of valor – to me the most
poignant of all – in which the character accepts death as the price of
saving someone they love. That’s powerful stuff. What reader is not moved to
ask in admiration: Could I do the same?

 

And, speaking of killing . . . 

 

I hope you’ll enjoy my new
video: “What Makes a Killer Mystery?” in which I
outline the essential elements of the genre and show interviews with five
acclaimed mystery writers, including Denise Mina and John LeCarré (below).  Watch the video here.

 

 

___________________________________________________________

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/ 

 
 

Behind the Scenes: The Fascinating Creation of 5 Famous Stories

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Behind the Scenes: The Fascinating Creation of 5 Famous Stories

by Barbara Kyle

I love finding out how
works of art came to life. The path of creation can be a twisty journey, even
for the most gifted and celebrated.

So let me share with you
six fascinating books that take you behind the scenes. Three are about famous
novels. Two are about much-loved films. One is about a grand symphony.

I’ve enjoyed them all
and highly recommend them!

1. The Novel of
the Century: The Extraordinary Adventures of Les Miserables by David Bellos

This engaging narrative
is a biography not of the great writer Victor Hugo (pictured below) but of his
masterpiece, Les
Miserables. Bellos traces the life of the 1500-page novel from
conception to publication. It took Hugo 17 years to write Les Miserables, from
his first draft penned in Paris in 1845 when he was the honored great man of
letters to its completion in 1862 when he was an outcast living in exile on the
island of Guernsey. There, he secured the publishing deal of the century.

 

2. Goodbye
Christopher Robin: A.A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the–Pooh by Ann Thwaite

Biographer
Ann Thwaite reveals the creative process of A. A. Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh and Pooh Bear’s
enchanting adventures with Christopher Robin, who was Milne’s own son. Before
its publication Milne was a well-known playwright and columnist but he refused
to be typecast. His publishers despaired when he turned from writing popular
columns for Punch to writing detective stories, and they complained again when
he presented them with a set of
children’s verse. But the verses led to the creation of Winnie-the-Pooh,
one of the best-selling books of all time, making Milne one of the world’s favorite
authors.

 

 

3. We’ll Always
Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved
Movie by
Noah Isenberg

The origins of this
famous film lie in a 1940 stage play called Everybody
Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. Their play was
transformed by screenwriters Howard Koch and Julius and Philip Epstein into the
screenplay that became the brilliant 1942 film. Isenberg details that
transformation, and his book is full of fascinating details, some quite moving,
such as the central role that refugees from Hitler’s Europe played in the
production; nearly all of the cast of Casablanca
were immigrants.

 

4. Sailor and Fiddler by
Herman Wouk

A sparkling memoir about
the well-lived life in literature by one of the world’s best-loved authors. At
age 100 (!) Herman Wouk reflects on his experiences that inspired his most
enduring novels. He tells of writing for comedian Fred Allen’s radio show,
enlisting in the US Navy during World War II, falling in love with the woman
who would become his wife (and literary agent) for sixty-three years, writing
his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The
Caine Mutiny, and the surprising inspirations and people behind his
masterpieces The
Winds of War
and War and Remembrance.

 

5. The Sense and Sensibility
Screenplay and Diaries by Emma Thompson

The multi-talented
actor/writer Emma Thompson won a well-deserved Oscar for her screenplay that
adapted the Jane Austen novel Sense
and Sensibility, and she also starred in the beautiful 1995 film
made from it, directed by Ang Lee. This marvelous book includes Thompson’s
complete shooting script plus her astute diaries detailing the production of
this film graced by some of the finest British actors, including Kate Winslet,
the late Alan Rickman, and Greg Wise whom Thompson met during the filming and
subsequently married.

 

6. Leningrad: Siege and Symphony
by Brian Moynahan

The siege of Leningrad
was the Nazis’ pitiless 900-day encirclement of the Soviet Union’s second city,
from 1941 to 1944, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians starved to
death. During that horror a dedicated makeshift orchestra of emaciated
musicians performed the newly created Seventh Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich
(pictured below) for an audience of starving, but rapt, music lovers. This true
story is an inspiring testament to the redemptive power of a great work of art.

 

May the examples of
these gifted and dedicated artists inspire us all. 

_________________________________________________________________

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling Thornleigh Saga
series of historical novels and of acclaimed thrillers. Her latest is The Man from Spirit Creek, a novel of suspense. Over half a
million copies of her books have been sold worldwide. Barbara has taught hundreds
of writers in her online Masterclasses and many have become award-winning
authors.

Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/ 

When Liv Gardner arrives in the rural town of Spirit Creek, Alberta, she
has nothing but her old car and a temporary job as paralegal with the
local attorney. But Liv’s down-market persona is a ruse. She is actually
in-house counsel of Falcon Oil, a small oil and gas company she co-owns
with her fiancé, CEO Mickey Havelock – and they are facing financial
ruin.  

Farmer Tom Wainwright, convinced that lethal “sour” gas
killed his wife, is sabotaging Falcon’s rigs. But Wainwright is clever
at hiding his tracks and the police have no evidence to charge him. With
the sabotage forcing Falcon toward bankruptcy, Liv has come undercover
to befriend Wainwright – and entrap him. 

But Liv never dreamed
she’d become torn between saving the company she and Mickey built and
her feelings for the very man whose sabotage is ruining them. 

On a
rain-swept night, Spirit Creek is stunned when one of their own is
murdered. The evidence does more than point to Tom Wainwright . . . it
shatters Liv’s world.

The Man from Spirit Creek is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

 

 

Priceless: The Author-Reader Bond by Barbara Kyle

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Priceless: The Author-Reader Bond 

by
Barbara Kyle 

 

Most
of us vividly recall a book that touched our lives, whether as young adults or
at a crucial moment later in life. The moment makes us feel a special kinship
with the author. It’s a meeting of minds, even of souls. It’s a bond, and a
potent one. (Painting above by Daniel F. Gerhartz.)


Any author will tell you it’s a happy day when a reader gets in touch to say
how much the author’s book has meant to them. Sometimes the message is moving,
like the museum curator in Yarmouth, England who wrote to tell me that The
Queen’s Lady helped him as he mourned the death of his father. 

 

 

Sometimes the message brings a laugh, like the lady
who cheerfully told me she got The Queen’s Captive from the library
because she remembered having loved a similar book – and then realized, as she
was enjoying The Queen’s Captive, that this was the very book she had
read and loved!

 

 

Here are three readers whose messages about my historical thrillers were
very special.

 

The Colonel

Years ago I was in England researching The Queen’s Lady and spent a day
exploring Hever Castle in Kent. This was the home of the Boleyn family, and
Henry VIII came here to court Anne. That tempestuous affair changed the course
of England’s history. 

 


 As
I strolled the grounds in a happy haze of imagination, I picked up an acorn.
What a lovely feeling to hold in my hand something living from the so-called
“dead” past. I squirreled the acorn away in my pocket and brought it
home to Canada, and it sat on my desk beside my computer, a sweet reminder of
its place of birth as I wrote The Queen’s Lady. The acorn was still on
my desk when I wrote The King’s Daughter. It had become a touchstone
that spirited me back to the Tudor world. I was very fond of it.

Then my husband and I moved, and in the shuffle the little acorn got lost.

A few months later I got a cheery email from a reader telling me he was on his
way to England for an Anne Boleyn Tour during which he would be visiting Hever
Castle. There would be dinners in the Great Hall where Henry and Anne ate, plus
lectures, plays, and demonstrations – “A once in a lifetime experience,” he
said. I replied to wish him a happy trip and told him about my acorn. He is a
retired air force colonel and lives in Tennessee.

Four weeks later a small package arrived in my mailbox. It was from the
Colonel. Inside was a note: “I looked for an acorn to replace the one you lost
but couldn’t find one. I did get you this.” Nestled under the note was a pine cone.
He had scoured the Hever grounds for it. “It’s from the area where Henry
courted Anne, according to the castle staff,” wrote the Colonel. 


I
was so touched. In the following years the pine cone had pride of place on my desk beside my computer
as I wrote six more books in the “Thornleigh Saga” series. Thank you, Colonel, for what you gave
me. A once in a lifetime experience.



 

The Embroiderer

 

A music educator in Ontario emailed me
with praise about my books and told me she was part of a sewing club of about
three dozen ladies who get together at a shop with the delightful name The
Enchanted Needle. She said they were working on Tudor period sewing techniques,
and she attached images of historic Tudor-era embroidery. Now, I know little
about sewing, but I know beauty when I see it, and these works were stunning.

 

As she waxed lyrical about bygone sewing techniques like “stumpwork”
and “Assisi,” “blackwork” and “bargello,”
“cross-stitching” and “the morphing power of color,” I
could only, in ignorance, try to keep up, but when she said my books inspired
her in this Tudor-era needlework I was moved again by how glorious and various
are the connections between author and reader.

The Boy

That’s what I’ll call him, the gangly kid who showed up at a public
reading I did from The Queen’s Gamble and listened so intensely. He
looked about fourteen, the only person there who was so young. After the
reading I saw him at the edge of the knot of people I was chatting with. The
others all asked lively questions, but he said nothing. He looked like he
wanted to, but he never took a step nearer. When I finished talking to the
people, I noticed the boy was gone.

About a week later I found a package in my mailbox: a slender book and a note.
The writer of the note said he’d been at the reading, and was a high school
student who loved history, and he hoped to one day be a history teacher. My
novels were his favorites, he said. The book he’d enclosed was The Bloody
Tower by Valerie Wilding, a young adult novel in the form of a Tudor girl’s
diary. It had meant a lot to him, he said, so he wanted to
share it with me. 

 

 

There, now I’ve shared it with you. That’s what the writer-reader bond is. We
share what moves us. And that connection is what makes the writer’s work a joy.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

 

Barbara
Kyle is the author of the bestselling Thornleigh Saga series of
historical thrillers (“Riveting Tudor drama” – USA Today) and of acclaimed
contemporary thrillers. 

 

Over half a million copies of her books have been sold. 

 

 

Her latest book
is The Man from Spirit Creek, a novel of suspense. 


 

 

Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online classes and many have become award-winning authors.  Page-Turner, her popular how-to book for writers, is available in print,
e-book, and audiobook. Visit Barbara at www.BarbaraKyle.com