Month: October 2023

An Oldie, but a Goodie: From Here to Fourteenth Street by Diana Rubino

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

From Here to Fourteenth Street was re-released in 2015 with The Wild Rose Press, after I revised it and gave it a new title. It was originally titled I love You Because with my first publisher. It’s the first in a trilogy, The New York Saga, featuring 3 generations of the McGlory family. Tom McGlory, an Irish New York cop, and Vita Caputo, an Italian immigrant from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, meet and fall in love despite the overwhelming odds against them in 1894. They overcome economic hardship, prejudice, hatred, and corruption in this tumultuous world.

Book Two, Bootleg Broadway, is set during the Prohibition era and features Tom and Vita’s son Billy, a scatterbrained musical genius. My objective was to get him into one mess after another, and had no trouble doing that, once I got to know Billy.

In Book Three, The End of Camelot, Billy’s daughter Vikki is the heroine. Set around the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963, Vikki realizes her husband Jack was embroiled in the plot to kill the president, but his mission was to prevent it. Jack was found dead in the bathtub of his hotel in Dallas, the same day of the assassination. When the Dallas police rule his death accidental, Vikki vows to find out who was behind the murders of JFK and her husband. With the help of her father and godfather, she sets out to uncover the truth.

My inspiration for From Here to Fourteenth Street was my great-grandmother; businesswoman, politician, small-time bootlegger, wife and mother. She was way ahead of her time. I modeled Vita after her, and since 19th Century New York City history always fascinated me, it came naturally to weave her story through that world, brining sights, sounds and smells of the streets and tenements to life.

I am a strict plotter – I work out a detailed outline, and for the last few decades, I’ve been using the Donald Maass workbook Writing Your Breakout Novel. It contains questions to ask your characters and explains how to outline your story. I find it invaluable for structuring my stories.

For this and most of my historicals, I usually spend about a year researching and writing. I write 2,500 words every day, and don’t quit until I’ve reached that goal.

Diana writes about folks through history who shook things up. Her passion for history and travel has taken her to every locale of her books: Medieval and Renaissance England, Egypt, the Mediterranean, colonial Virginia, New England, and New York. Her urban fantasy romance Fakin’ It won a Top Pick award from Romantic Times. She is a member of the Richard III Society and the Aaron Burr Association. With her husband Chris, she owns CostPro, Inc., a construction cost consulting business. In her spare time, Diana bicycles, golfs, practices yoga, lifts weights, plays her piano, devours books, and lives the dream on Cape Cod.

Connect with Diana at www.dianarubino.com

It’s 1894 on New York’s Lower East Side. Irish cop Tom McGlory and Italian immigrant Vita Caputo fall in love despite their different upbringings. Vita goes from sweatshop laborer to respected bank clerk to reformer, helping elect a mayor to beat the Tammany machine. While Tom works undercover to help Ted Roosevelt purge police corruption, Vita’s father arranges a marriage between her and a man she despises. The story has a paranormal twist – Vita and Tom work together against time and prejudice to clear her brother and father of a murder they didn’t commit, as Vita’s friend Jadwiga, a medium, helps them find the killer with some help from the otherworld – and some creative thinking.

New Release: Lost in Her Depths by Tabitha Emberose

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Lost in Her Depths is a Portal Fantasy Romance novel. It’s my debut and introduces readers to the planet of Sundara (although most of the book takes place on Earth 😁). It’s one of six known planets all interconnected by portals. These planets are known as the Torlana Lanak. 

There are four races that call Sundara home, and you will get to meet three of them in Lost. First we have the Takaryns (Ta-Karen-s). They’re a race of people who look like angels to us mere mortals with their white wings. They view Earth and the mortals who reside there as primitive, but this doesn’t prevent the small sect of Takaryns known as Kelaryn’s Guardians from protecting them. 

The next race is my Lamarans (La-mar-ans). They’re my wolf shapeshifters. Imagine a wolf twice its normal size approaching you through an open field. When they’re in their humanoid form, they stand at least seven feet tall and have a ripped body similar to the Rock or Jason Momoa. 

Our next shapeshifters are my Droskels (Dros-Kels). They appear no different than any other fantasy dragon we all know and love. What makes them unique is when in their humanoid form their skin isn’t smooth like ours. From a distance, they look human, but once you get closer you can see the main difference between them and us. Their skin is actually made up of interlocking scales similar to a snake, but these scales are strong enough to protect them from almost anything. 

And finally we have our Mer People. They look no different than any other mermaid with one exception. Unlike the mermaids we all know and love, the Mer People of Sundara have gills hidden on the back of their necks. No one ever sees them, because they’re covered up by the mermaid or merman’s hair. 

Lost came about after I wrote Guardian Against the Darkness. This will be book one of my Guardian Saga coming out sometime in 2024. I wanted to write a small series of novellas as an introduction to my fantasy world. I wrote Lost in a month after plotting it out. It’s gone through several beta reads and three drafts. It has expanded from the first draft, and is no longer a novella. I work a full time job, so I don’t have as much time as I’d like to dedicate to my writing. But I make due with what I have.

That being said, hello my name is Tabitha Emberose, and I live in a small gulf town in the Florida Panhandle. I’m the mom to my 15 year old fur baby Saphira (Yes, I named her after the dragon in Eragon 🤣). I’ve been a writer since a very young age. It didn’t matter how long or short the road trip was, I had to take my notebook and pen with me wherever I went. As I grew up, I turned away from writing original stories full time. Instead, I wrote fan fiction stories for over a decade while sprinkling in original stories that sadly I never finished.

It wasn’t until several years ago I got the writing bug to once again write original stories full time. Lost is the product of that dedication. My publisher is Mystic Phoenix Books which is my LLC business I created specifically for my author career.

Follow Tabitha at her Amazon Author page and pre-order Lost in Her Depths, available November 8, 2023.

He’s a Takaryn trapped in the mortal world. She’s a witch struggling to master her power.

But will their forbidden love survive in the end?

Artur is almost a Guardian who’ll be tasked with the protection of all the worlds of Torlana. When he learns of traitors on Sundara, he takes it upon himself to hunt for the guilty. He’s soon captured, tortured, and banished to the mortal world where he finds himself lost in the sky blue eyes and fiery spirit of a mortal female. But it’s her touch that sets his heart aflame. He knows if she stays with him her life will be in danger…

Twenty-two year old Ella Masterson has a secret. She’s a witch with the power over water, except she has yet to master her ability to its full potential. When she sees what looks like a warrior angel falling from the sky she dives in head first. Pulling the angel onshore, she soon finds herself drowning in his gold flecked eyes and musky scent. No matter how much he tries to push her away she’s determined to help him, knowing he’ll be taking her heart with him when he leaves…

Lost in Her Depths

When Once Upon A Dream Has A Beast: Bloodstone

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

“I know you

I walked with you 

Once upon a dream

I know you

The gleam in your eyes

Is so familiar a gleam…”

The adult version of Sleeping Beauty involves sensual dreams with a sexy, but faceless hunk; who also happens to be a beast – at least, that’s how others view him.

In Bloodstone by Helen C. Johannes, the heroine Mirianna has a dream lover who makes the men in her village pale in comparison. So Mirianna has saved herself for this dream man, constantly searching for him during the day. 

Durren has been cursed for fifteen years. No one can look upon his face without dying. So he completely covers himself in black clothing from head to foot, earning the feared nickname of the Shadow Man. He also dreams of a beauty who shudders under his touch for reasons other than fear. 

“And I know it’s true

That visions are seldom

As they seem.

But if I know you

I know what you’ll do.

You’ll love me at once

The way you did

Once upon a dream.”

Except that’s not what happens when Mirianna and Durren finally meet in person. Durren is in possession of the legendary bloodstones (gems made from dragon blood), and Mirianna’s father needs them to make jewelry for a client. Mirianna fears the Shadow Man and feels manipulated by him when she learns her dream lover is the legendary beast of the land. And Durren feels unworthy of Mirianna’s affections. But he gives in to his urges, and uses the threat of the real beast, Krad, to take Mirianna home with him. If she agrees to live with him, he’ll save the rest of her traveling party from the Krad. 

“Tale as old as time

True as it can be

Barely even friends

Then somebody bends

Unexpectedly

Just a little change

Small to say the least 

Both a little scared

Neither one prepared

Beauty and the beast.” 

Mirianna and Durren will navigate treachery, past mistakes, and life threatening plots with the help of a lioness and a blind boy. Amongst the danger and drama, they will be given the opportunity to fall in love and save the world.

I’m excited to introduce you to Helen C. Johannes, who has agreed to an interview. Helen is the author of three fantastic high fantasy romances: The Prince of Val-Feyridge, The Lord or Druemarwin, and Bloodstone. And a mid-grade fantasy Frederick Fly-Catcher. Helen lives in the Midwest with her husband and grown children.

How did you come up with bloodstones? Are they based on any existing jewel or gemstone?

They are loosely based on the Apache tear and obsidian. The Apache tear is darkly translucent, and obsidian is such a deep, glossy black, like clotted blood. I wanted something that would both be petrified hard and yet capable of radiating light when struck by the sun.

How I came up with the idea goes back to my father’s expeditions to Alaska to dredge for gold, and the stories he told about finding garnets among the gold flecks while panning. That’s the inspiration for the Shadow Man panning the stream in the early chapters and encountering the she-lion. My father and his friends, fortunately, never encountered anything larger than Alaskan ground squirrels.

I really admire your worldbuilding creativity in not just Bloodstone, but The Prince of Val-Feyridge and The Lord of Drumarwin. How do you come up with these lands, histories, cultures, and names? How much time does it take to create such extensive worlds?

This is challenging to answer since I’m very much an “into the mist” writer, and I create what I need when I need it, seemingly out of the stuff of my imagination. However, I’ve been fortunate to have traveled widely in Europe and the UK and to have studied medieval history before I concentrated on German and English language and literature. That connection to very old places and the treasure trove of myths, legends, and fairy tales, along with a love of tramping through castles, has given me a pretty solid grounding. You’ll probably recognize some Germanic as well as Old English in my names of people and places. And I must not forget mentioning how much The Lord of the Rings affected me when I read the books as a high school senior.

As far as names, some come almost instantly along with the full character (Rees and Pumble), some require refining or changing entirely (Syryk, Brandelmore), and some take half the book to decide what they want to be called (I’m looking at you, Shadow Man).

Were the connections to beloved fairy tales deliberate?

Having a big, illustrated collection of fairy tales as my first remembered childhood book probably is the reason fairy tales resonate with me. That and growing up on Disney’s animated versions of those tales. I don’t know that the connection is always deliberate so much as that the tales are archetypal stories embedded in our culture.

Bloodstone at its heart is a Beauty-and-the-Beast-type story, and I had that in mind from the beginning, but for The Prince of Val-Feyridge and Lord of Druemarwin, the Cinderella and Princess and the Pea connections arose organically from the characters and their journeys.

What are you currently working on? Do readers get to return to any previous worlds? Or are you bringing us someplace new?

I’ve just published my second children’s book, The Dis’Aster Family’s Halloween, a picture book based on characters my children created. My first children’s book is Frederick Fly-Catcher, a middle grade fantasy chapter book. Currently, I’m working on a throwback 1960’s YA romantic suspense/gothic (there’s something freeing about a setting that’s pre-computers and cell phones). And I’m mulling a return to a novella in the Crown of Tolem world. I gave myself plenty of characters to work with there.

Helen C. Johannes is one of my favorite fantasy authors. She has such an amazing imagination when it comes to world building, and a talent with words to show the reader that magical world. The clear connections between beloved fairy tales made the foreshadowing and guessing that much more fun. If you like your high fantasy intertwined with romance, then Bloodstone is for you. 

Follow Helen at her blog: https://helencjohannes.blogspot.com/

Short Story Prompt

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

At my launch party, I shared a modified lesson plan that I do in my ELD class each school year. We read a fractured fairy tale and watch an episode of “What if…?”. Then my students write their own short story. I provided the outline for the short story that my students use. To help them, their short story is them rewriting a story that already exists. I have found this helps with stress and the time constraints of the school day, because they don’t have to come up with an original idea.

But in reality, no story today is purely original. We all take inspiration from elsewhere. In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster wrote, “there’s only one story… everyone who writes anything knows that pure originality is impossible… Writers notice all the time that their characters resemble somebody… works are actually more comforting because we recognize elements in them from our prior reading.”

So with this idea of taking inspiration from elsewhere, my short story prompt is: Choose an existing story and rewrite it to make it your own. (For copyright protections, use a story that is in the public domain like a fairy tale or a Shakespeare play.)

You can use this outline template: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mVoLrANT82eaAe8epxNdNWVpI3wnUqZEJnSxvdFZWIY/edit?usp=sharing

Those who share their short stories* with me will get their name entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card to Amazon. Email me your final draft at chelseymortegauthor@gmail.com by October 23rd.

*Note: I will NOT be publishing or sharing your stories with anyone. These are your stories, and I am honored to read and enjoy them for myself. This is NOT a contest for the best story. It’s a random drawing of names. I hope you enjoy creating a story and it sparks something in you.

13 Years of Halloween Costumes

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Today is Friday the 13th, and my husband and I have been married for 13 Halloweens. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and even as an adult, I still love dressing up. I love matching costumes, and my husband has been a great sport letting me choose what he is each year – or at least what theme he has to choose from. So I thought it would be fun to share the past 13 years of couples/family costumes.

2010 – Pictures exist of this year. I have seen them. But I can’t for the life of me find them. Gerson and I were newlyweds, both working part-time customer service jobs, and going to school full-time. So, our costumes were not elaborate. I had a pair of Tinker Bell wings from our honeymoon to Disneyland and Gerson had a Captain Jack Sparrow hat. While the two aren’t in the same series, they both are Disney and both fall under a pirates theme; so they worked on our limited budget.

2011 – I was a witch, Bellatrix Lestrange to be exact. And Gerson was a witch hunter from one of his video games.

2012 – I was heavily pregnant with my first baby during this Halloween, and pre-made maternity costumes weren’t what I was looking for. So, I made my own Cleopatra costume and Gerson was Marc Antony. We repeated this costume when I was pregnant again in 2017.

2013 – This was our first Halloween with our oldest son, and we started family costumes with a bang: Boo, Mike, and Sully from Monsters Inc.

2014 – Another family theme: Sesame Street. The Count and The Countess took Elmo trick-or-treating for the first time.

2015 – A month before Halloween, we added a daughter to our family, so now we had four people to dress up! That year we picked traditional Halloween monsters: Death, a witch, a vampire, and a black cat. Grandma also joined in as a zombie.

2016 – This would be the last year that our children willingly matched with mom and dad, and I didn’t even know it! Gerson and I were Pokemon masters, and our kids plus Grandma and Uncle were Pokemon.

2018 – This is probably one of my favorite set of costumes. My mom, my brother, Gerson, and myself were the four houses of Hogwarts. I was Ravenclaw, Gerson was Slytherin, my brother was Griffyndor, and my mom was Hufflepuff.

2019 – We bought our house that year, and had no money for elaborate Halloween costumes. So I threw together a bunch of random stuff and was this (I don’t think Gerson dressed up. I can’t find a picture of him from that year):

2020 – The worst year of the 21st Century. I turned 30 that year and was supposed to have a masquerade Halloween party. But I couldn’t invite all the people I wanted to. I still spent the better part of the year sewing a medieval royal dress from scratch to be Anne Boleyn. Gerson was Henry VIII. This is definitely a costume that I plan on adding to and improving and wearing again in the future.

2021 – Another dream couples costume that we’ll definitely reuse down the road: Bob and Linda Belcher. The faculty at the school I teach at have a theme each Halloween. That year it was TV show characters. It was the perfect opportunity for Gerson and I to be the cartoon couple who is so much like us.

2022 – I’m not an amazing seamstress, but I’m good enough. Several years ago when I walked out of the theater from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I wanted Queenie’s pink coat. I dreamed of making it for a Halloween costume. That was before I started a full-time career. Last year, I couldn’t wait to be Queenie any longer and purchased a pre-made coat. And I don’t regret it. Gerson was obviously Jacob; which was perfect because I often joke that he is a muggle. We looked great, and will once again be keeping these costumes in the rotation.

And that’s 13 years of Halloweens! I’d love to hear from you. What’s your personal stance on Halloween costumes? Do you go all out? Are you happy to just wear a pumpkin shirt? Or is it just a normal day for you? Let me know in the comments!

It’s a Launch Party, and You’re Invited!

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

We are 8 days away from my launch party for Bondwitch, and I am so excited! I got the schedule planned out at the start of the weekend, and I’d like to share it with you and invite you to come in person or online:

Don’t live in Utah County, or can’t make it for other reasons? Not a problem! I will record reading chapter 1 and the following Q&A session and post the video to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (I want to go live on one of those platforms, it will most likely be Facebook). 

If you would like to ask a question ahead of time, email it to chelseymortegauthor@gmail.com. I will answer it during the Q&A and give a shoutout to you. 

I will also post the short story prompt on my blog that night, and if you would like to participate in that drawing, submit your story to my email by October 23rd.

Thank you so much for being here with me in this little corner of the internet. I hope you enjoy reading Bondwitch as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I can’t wait to share more stories with you.