Month: February 2022

My guest today is a scientist turned novelist. I’ve heard of many lawyers, doctors, and nurses but few scientists who’ve turned to writing fiction. I hope you enjoy meeting Juliane Weber! Let’s take a look at her background and then find out more about her.

Juliane is actually a scientist. She holds degrees in physiology and zoology, including a PhD in physiology. During her studies she realized, however, that her passion lay not in conducting scientific research herself, but in writing about it. Thus began her career as a medical writer, where she took on all manner of writing and editing tasks, in the process honing her writing skills, until she finally plucked up the courage to write her first historical novel, Under the Emerald Sky. The book is the first in The Irish Fortune Series, which is set in 19th-century Ireland around the time of the Great Famine.

Juliane lives with her husband and two sons in Hamelin, Germany, the town made famous by the story of the Pied Piper.

Author Social Links: Website * Facebook * Twitter

Betty: What inspired you to write the story you’re sharing with us today?

Juliane: Thank you, Betty, for inviting me onto your blog today!

I had thought about writing a book for many years before actually doing it. The only thing I knew for sure, though, was that I would write historical fiction, as this is my favorite genre to read. Besides that, I had no idea when or where my hypothetical novel would take place and really fell into the eventual setting quite by accident. While googling interesting times in history, I came across the Irish Potato Famine and was immediately drawn to this setting, as I loved the idea of the 19th century and of Ireland with its beautiful scenery, its myths and legends, as well as writing about a time in history that hasn’t been written about quite as much as some others. And so, the idea for Under the Emerald Sky was born.  

Betty: Which character arrived fully or mostly developed?

Juliane: Both my main characters, Quin and Alannah, arrived mostly developed and slipped quite easily into their roles in each scene. I had a little more difficulty with Alannah’s brother, Kieran. Although I did know a lot about him from the start, it took a bit of time to really figure him out. The somewhat villainous character of Herbert Andrews was the most challenging, as he kept doing all sorts of things that didn’t even make sense to me. Once I understood his devious mind, though, it all started coming together!

Betty: What kind of research did you need to do to write this story?

Juliane: When I first decided on 19th-century Ireland as the setting for my book, I did quite a bit of reading to get a broad idea of what I was dealing with. This nearly made me give up on the whole thing, actually, as it was no mean feat wading through the complex layers of social, political and agrarian factors that contributed to the disaster that was the Great Famine. I stuck with it, though, and once I had a good general idea about the historical background, I concentrated on doing specific research as scenes required it, looking up particular things in reference books, historical records, scientific papers and so on. I find this kind of targeted research more effective than trying to deal with everything at once, as that can be quite overwhelming!

Betty: How many drafts of the story did you write before you felt the story was complete?

Juliane: I don’t really write drafts as such. I tend to write fairly slowly, fiddling with each scene until I feel that it’s the best that I can make it. Once I’ve written all the scenes I feel are needed in the book, that’s it (aside from the general editing, of course).

Betty: What rituals or habits do you have while writing?

Juliane: I like to read a bit of what I wrote the previous day to get back into the right mindset when I sit down to write.  

Betty: Do you have any role models? If so, why do you look up to them?

Juliane: I’m a big fan of Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series of books. She’s a scientist turned novelist, and her story inspired me to also try my hand at writing a novel, being a scientist myself. I would love to have a chat with her about her experiences – and of course to tell her how much I love her books!

Betty: Do you have a special place to write? Revise? Read?

Juliane: I used to carry my laptop around the house and write wherever I could, but I have become a little more sophisticated in that I now have an office in which to write and revise! As far as reading is concerned, on a nice summer day I love to sit outside on the terrace in the sun, otherwise I’m more than happy with the couch.

Betty: Success looks different to different people. It could be wealth, or fame, or an inner joy at reaching a certain level. How do you define success in terms of your writing career?

Juliane: At this point in my writing career, success is as simple as having a reader really enjoy my book. Of course, not everyone will love (or even like) what I’ve written but receiving glowing reviews and having readers recommend my book to others makes me feel like I’ve done something worthwhile. I feel a sense of achievement when someone tells me that the story moved them and that the characters stayed with them long after they finished reading. It’s those reactions that make me love a book myself, and so I’m thrilled when I’m told that I’ve achieved the same with my writing.

It’s 1843 and the English nobleman Quinton Williams has come to Ireland to oversee the running of his father’s ailing estate and escape his painful past. Here he meets the alluring Alannah O’Neill, whose Irish family is one of few to have retained ownership of their land, the rest having been supplanted by the English over the course of the country’s bloody history. Finding herself drawn to the handsome Englishman, Alannah offers to help Quin communicate with the estate’s Gaelic-speaking tenants, as much to assist him as to counter her own ennui. Aware of her controlling brother’s hostility towards the English, she keeps her growing relationship with Quin a secret – a secret that cannot, however, be kept for long from those who dream of ridding Ireland of her English oppressors.

Among the stark contrasts that separate the rich few from the plentiful poor, Under the Emerald Sky is a tale of love and betrayal in a land teetering on the brink of disaster – the Great Famine that would forever change the course of Ireland’s history.

Buy Links: AmazonUS * AmazonUK

Thanks so much for sharing your writing process with us, Juliane! I’ve read this story and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Happy reading!

Betty

Best-selling Author of Historical Fiction with Heart, and Haunting, Bewitching Love Stories

Visit www.bettybolte.com for a complete list of my books and appearances.

Subscribe to My Newsletter to learn the inside scoop about releases and more!

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I’d like to introduce you to a fellow American historical fiction author! Please help me welcome Julie Weston! First a look at her bio and then we’ll find out more about her books.

Author Bio: 

Julie Weston grew up in Idaho and practiced law for many years in Seattle. Her memoir of place, The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009) received honorable mention in the 2009 Idaho Book of the Year Award. Her debut mystery, Moonshadows, was a finalist in the May Sarton Literary Award. Basque Moon, her second mystery, won the 2017 WILLA Literary Award in Historical Fiction. Moonscape, won a Bronze from Foreword INDIE Awards. Weston and her husband live in Hailey, Idaho, where they ski, write, photograph and enjoy the outdoors. Visit www.julieweston.com for more information. All of her mysteries are published by Five Star Publishing, a division of Cengage.

Author Social Links: Website * Facebook * Instagram

Betty: What inspired you to write the story you’re sharing with us today?

Julie: All my books take place in Idaho, and MINERS’ MOON, a Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery (#4) is set in north Idaho. My great-great grandparents came to Boise and Ketchum, Idaho in the 1870s. My great-grandfather and -mother even honeymooned in Ketchum. My grandmother and mother were both born in Idaho, and my great aunt wrote a book about the family in 1948. I grew up in a mining town in north Idaho. With all those roots in this state, how could I not write about Idaho?

Each of my mysteries is set in the 1920s and in a different locale in the state. Determining place is how I begin each book: Hailey and Ketchum, Stanley Basin, Craters of the Moon—all in Central Idaho–and mining in North Idaho. Each place is as much a character as Nellie and her black Lab dog, Moonshine. The inspiration for MINERS’ MOON arose from my own exposure to mining and my experience descending into a major mine in my town. I also wrote a memoir about that experience, which included a chapter on the brothels that were part of the towns of north Idaho and my research on them. The fact of Prohibition in the 1920s in the US also gave me much opportunity to write about bootlegging and moonshining in the state.

Betty: Which character arrived fully or mostly developed?

Julie: My protagonist, Nellie Burns, arose out of my family connections to photography. A woman needed to be the star of my books. My grandmother’s family was heavily involved in photography, so I chose that as her career. My husband is a photographer and he had all the expertise for large-format cameras (all Nellie used) and could help me get the technical details correct. There was a woman photographer, Nellie Stockbridge, in north Idaho, who had come from Chicago in the early 1900s and took photographs of the mining, miners and prostitutes. She was partially a model for my Nellie Burns. Her name was Nellie Stockbridge. My family’s photo studio in Boise was called the Burns Studio and existed for many years.

Betty: Which story element sparked the idea for this story: setting, situation, character, or something else?

Julie: As indicated above, my exposure to mining sparked the setting. When I descended into the major mine in 1990, I was given a tour to some of the deeper sections of the mine. I visited a “stope” where mining took place and also saw where former mining areas were filled with slurry to keep them from collapsing. At the time, I was writing my memoir, but even then I saw a situation that would be perfect in a murder mystery. Thus, MINERS’ MOON sat on a backburner in my head for many years and finally, I took the chance to write it as my fourth novel.

Betty: Which character was the hardest to get to know?

Julie: Nellie Burns works with a Basque sheriff, Charlie Asteguigoiri, known as Charlie Azgo in my series, as his Basque name is too hard to pronounce. I have Basque friends here in Idaho with long roots to the small towns and sheepherding industry, and from whom I have learned about the Basque heritage. A short story I wrote about a sheepherder was published in a literary journal quite a while ago, “Idaho Surprise” in the Clackamas Literary Journal. I built on that story to develop Charlie, but getting into his voice has been a stretch. A Basque sheriff in Idaho in the 1920s is also a stretch, but I did it anyway.

Most of the other characters are based on people I have known in Idaho—a miner, a boarding house landlady, Mormons, union members, and so on.

Betty: What kind of research did you need to do to write this story?

Julie: Before I wrote this story, I had already researched the mines by descending one of them. I also wrote in my memoir of the Idaho mining towns about the brothels and prostitutes, which existed up until 1991. Revenuer interest during Prohibition in Idaho was explored by Donna Krutz Smith in a master’s thesis at the University of Idaho entitled “It Will All Come Out in the Courtroom”: Prohibition in Shoshone County, Idaho. The thesis reads like a thriller in many respects. A fire in the town of Burke (a real town) took place in 1923, but I moved it to 1924 to fit into my time period. A story in IDAHO Magazine helped me with the details. I have also read a number of books about the union difficulties in the mining area which gave me an excellent background in which to set my plot.

Betty: What rituals or habits do you have while writing? Do you have a special place to write? Revise? Read?

Julie: I write mostly in longhand in a three sectioned spiral notebook. From there, I input the handwriting into my computer and often continue on the computer. I print out as I go along and revise by hand and again input to the computer. Usually, before I begin, either in a notebook or on the computer, I get a hot cup of tea—Lapsang souchon or Darjeeling—to accompany me at a table in my dining area, a window seat, or my desk. My office is in a balcony space above our kitchen, and I have a large flat area to accumulate books, articles, photographs, and drafts for each book.

I read everywhere in our house—in bed, on the window seat, at the table, on a couch, on the patio in the summer, in a car, at the library. I have a huge stack of to-be-read books and usually three going at once.

Betty: What other author would you like to sit down over dinner and talk to? Why?

Julie: Louise Penny, Jaqueline Winspear, and Craig Johnson are wonderful mystery series writers I enjoy reading. I would love to sit down and talk to any one of them, especially about continuing characters in a series. Inspector Gamache, Maisie Dobbs, and Walt Longmire inhabit their books, respectively. Keeping characters fresh and interesting presents opportunities and challenges. It would be fun to exchange ideas and learn from each of them.

Crime photographer Nellie Burns and Basque Sheriff Charlie Asteguigoiri travel from central to northern Idaho to investigate bootlegging and possible complicit town officials. A suspicious mine explosion pulls them into a second investigation. Retired miner Rosy Kipling joins them, bringing Nell’s black Lab Moonshine.

While Charlie roams the backcountry in search of illegal stills, Nell questions survivors of the explosion and a madam. Rosy descends the principal mine to listen and pry. The two investigations lead all three to discover secrets and lies—from “soda drink” parlors, local brothels, worker hints deep in the mine shafts—that have deadly consequences. Predictably, Nellie gets in over her head. A rock burst seals off Charlie and Rosy in a mine collapse. Moonshine plays an instrumental role, and Nellie tries to rise to the occasion in spite of her debilitating fear. All four long to return to their high desert home, but cannot until they lay bare the crimes before their luck runs out.

Buy Links: Amazon * Indiebound * Five Star Publishing

Thanks, Julie, for stopping in to let us get better acquainted! Good luck with your writing!

Happy reading!

Betty

Best-selling Author of Historical Fiction with Heart, and Haunting, Bewitching Love Stories

Visit www.bettybolte.com for a complete list of my books and appearances.

Subscribe to My Newsletter to learn the inside scoop about releases and more!

Follow Me on Amazon / Facebook / Twitter