And now for something a little different...
I'm taking a break from my current Presents, which is very nearly finished, to work on my current historical, the third in a saga series about a Scottish family emigrating to Prince Edward Island and Boston. It's nice to be able to go from one to the other! Here is the first paragraph:Boston 1837
“The fact remains, and will always remain, that ether is a dangerous substance and utterly inappropriate for use in a hospital.” James Henderson's voice rang out across the salon, leaving a ripple of speculative murmur in its wake.
Seated on a cream silk divan, Caroline Crombie raised her eyebrows in delicate inquiry even as she gave her head a slight shake.
Across the room her husband, Dr. Ian Crombie, heeded the warning. His eyes flashed and his lips thinned but he said nothing.
It was an ill-kept secret that Ian had been experimenting with the use of ether as an anesthetic for the last five years. He funded these experiments with his own time and money, and yet still they were nearly universally disapproved of by Boston's medical community. James Henderson might have been choosing to be deliberately provocative, considering he was currently a guest in the Crombies' salon, but his opinion was no more than what most of the other guests in the stuffy room thought, if they had an opinion at all.
This story is going to be fun to write, because it takes place all over the world. Boston, the American West, Canada, China, Burma, and the South Sea islands! The research has been fascinating :)
You can learn more about the first two books in the series on my News page, in the newsletter for September. And to celebrate the start of my third historical, I'm going to launch a contest to give away the first two to a reader (a steal--they're hardcover and cost about $25 each, alas!) So stay tuned for details.
posted by Kate Hewitt at
7:57 AM
