I’ve mentioned my friend, A.M. Stuart, on this blog before. She writes the Harriet Gordon series, set in early twentieth century Singapore. Well, she has just published the fifth and final installment, Agony in Amethyst. Perhaps she ran out of jewels. In any case, this tale tidies up a few loose ends left over from Terror in Topaz and brings Harriet and Curran to their HEA –finally!
If you want more background on Harriet and her times, go to A.M. Stuart books. You can see all the books in the series, watch a short video and get a free copy of the prequel The Umbrella, when you sign up for Ms Stuart’s newsletter.
In our splintered world, I often find myself railing against social media for spreading hatred and lies and fomenting anger.
And yet, when I consider my long friendship with an author on the other side of the world — I don’t think one can get farther from my home in Canada, to hers in Australia — I laud the wonders of electronic communication which make that possible.
Twenty years ago I picked her name off a registration list for an on-line course. The instructor wanted the students to pair up as a way of making us accountable. I decided to choose someone from far away. She picked me too and for the same reason. We’ve discovered so many commmonalities, apart from the obvious English language heritage. We’re both married. We both love cats. We both attend church. We share similar outlooks on the state of the world. We write and read historical fiction. We belong to romance writing groups.
We do have at least one difference. She is a much faster writer. When the pressure is on she can settle in front of her computer and churn out the words and storyline much, much faster than I can. I envy her on that front. To even things out a bit, I have a great neighbour and she has issues over the back fence. 😊
Over the course of our friendship we have endured a worldwide pandemic, seen a shift in world attitudes, watched our democracies come under threat, grieved at wars in Europe and the Middle East. We’ve seen the weakening of traditional publishing and the explosion of self-publishing in our industry. We’ve confronted the physical ailments associated with aging. And we’ve seen our friendship grow and deepen — all through weekly letters.
Through the power of words I’ve gained a friend oceans and continents away from me. Through the power of words we’ll keep on sharing our thoughts, our troubles and our triumphs. Through the power of words we have a friend to lean on.
Words have great power — good and evil. The maxim, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” still holds true. Like my friend and I, let us all use that power to learn and grow and understand the “other.”
Twenty years ago, when book clubs were all the rage, my friend and I decided to start one. We had few rules. One was that members had to live in the neighbourhood. Our winter nights are very black and often pouring rain. No one wanted to travel a long dark highway in November. The second rule was about the reading list. We wanted to push ourselves to read outside our usual book choices so we agreed that the reading list had to have books from a variety of genres. So, our choices included one each from romance, mystery, historical, biography, travel, hobbies, best seller, classic, children’s . . . you get the idea.
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