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WORK TITLE: The Road to Alexander
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://authorjennifermacaire.wordpress.com/
CITY: Paris
STATE:
COUNTRY: France
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Kingston, NY; daughter of a history teacher; married to a polo player; children: three.
EDUCATION:Attended St. Peter and Paul high school in St. Thomas; art school graduate.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Worked formerly as a model for Elite Management and as an article writer.
AWARDS:3am/HarperCollins flash fiction contest winner, “There are Geckos,” 2002; Pushcart Prize nominee, “Honey on Your Skin.”
WRITINGS
Short story contributor to numerous periodicals, including Polo, PKA’s Advocate, Bear Deluxe, Nuketown, and Vestal Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Jennifer Macaire is a Paris-based writer. Macaire was born in Kingston, New York. Her parents were teachers and moved often. She spent her childhood in New York, California, Samoa, and the Carribean. Macaire attended St. Peter and Paul high school in St. Thomas and studied art in college. She briefly worked as a model with Elite Management in New York City. She then spent time in Paris, where she met her husband, a polo player. Her husband’s career required travel, and consequently the two have lived in Florida, England, France, and Argentina. In addition to writing novels, Macaire writes magazine articles and short stories. Macaire and her husband have three children.
Road to Alexander
Road to Alexander is a time travel novel, set both in the future and the past. Ashley Riveraine is a journalist living in a world set 300 years in the future. After winning a prize, she is offered the opportunity to travel back in time to interview a historical figure of her choosing. She chooses Alexander the Great, and is shot 3,000 years back in time via a frozen magnetic beam. The interview goes well, but before she can zap back to her present world, Alexander pulls her out of the beam, believing she is the goddess Persephone.
Stuck in this ancient world, Ashley must keep a low profile, lest she interfere with the sequence of history and change the course of the world. As Ashley adjusts to her new life, she finds herself attracted to the historical leader. Eventually the two become lovers. As Alexander’s army travels across the Middle East, Ashley is torn by her love of the man and her knowledge that he will die at a young age.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly described the book as “reasonably well-developed,” adding, “a loose ending will entice readers to find out what lies ahead in the series.” A contributor to Historical Novel Society website described the book as “a witty, sexy, fast moving, [and] colourful story.”
Legends of Persia
Legends of Persia, the sequel to Road to Alexander, picks up the story with Alexander conquering Asia and the Middle East with Ashley by his side. At this point, Ashley has revealed her true identity to Alexander, and they both understand that she could at any time ‘disappear’ if the couple does anything that might change the course of history.
In this book, Ashley has become an established member of Alexander’s court. The book is primarily about the couple’s romance, backdropped by the well-known and legendary stories of Persia. A contributor to Historical Novel Society website described the book as “witty, sexy, inventive and well-researched.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 1, 2018, review of The Road to Alexander, p. 36.
ONLINE
Glam Adelaide, http://www.glamadelaide.com.au/ (October 24, 2017), Jan Kershaw, review of Legends of Persia.
Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (June 3, 2018), review of Legends of Persia; (June 3, 2018), review of The Road to Alexander.
Jennifer Macaire lives in France with her husband, three children, & various dogs & horses. She grew up in upstate New York, Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. She graduated from St. Peter and Paul highschool in St. Thomas and moved to NYC where she modelled for five years for Elite. She went to France and met her husband at the polo club. All that is true. But she mostly likes to make up stories.
She has published short stories in such magazines as Polo Magazine, PKA’s Advocate, The Bear Deluxe, Nuketown, The Eclipse, Anotherealm, Linnaean Street, Inkspin, Literary Potpourri, Mind Caviar, 3 am Magazine, and the Vestal Review. One of her short stories ‘Honey on Your Skin’, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In June 2002 she won the 3am/Harper Collins flash fiction contest for her story There are Geckos’ Her story ‘Islands’ appears in the anthology ‘A Dictionary of Failed Relationships’ published by by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of Penguin Putnam.
Awards:
Honey on Your Skin – Pushcart Prize nomination (see short film in menu)
There are Geckos – 1st prize 3am / Harper Collins flash fiction contest
The Phallus From Dallas – Preditors and Editors ten best short stories pick
Virtual Murder – EPPIE finalist science fiction
Angels on Crusade – EPPIE finalist historical fiction
The Promise – EPPIE finalist YA fiction
Time for Alexander – EPPIE finalist – historical fiction
Heroes in the Dust – EPPIE finalist – Historical fiction Golden Rose Award
The Secret of Shabaz – Reviewer’s Choice Award The Road to Romance
A Charm for a Unicorn – Dream Realm Award finalist
Other publishing history:
She has illustrated and published ‘The Little Polo Handbook’, the ‘Jumping International Handbook’, and ‘Sunday at the Races’ (in French) and a book teaching polo: Polo Technique, by Stephane Macaire and Dominique Pan.
A time-travel interview
28 Monday May 2018
Posted by jennifermacaire in That's life ≈ Leave a comment
via MEET JENNIFER MACAIRE
MEET JENNIFER MACAIRE
My guest today is Jennifer Macaire. I invited her to join me on this blog after reading her novel The Road to Alexander, a timeslip novel about a journalist in the distant future who travels back in time to interview Alexander the Great.
EJ I must confess, Jennifer, that I do not usually read time-travel novels. They make it all seem too easy, with no technical or philosophical problems. But time travel in The Road to Alexander seems worse than a major operation, complete with pre-op and anaesthetic. It was so realistic I am convinced you are a time-traveller – but I suppose you can’t admit it or you will be ‘erased’. Is that so?
JM Actually, I’m free to tell anyone. Nobody so far has believed me! As long as I don’t do anything to change the future, there’s no risk.
EJ I believed you arrived in the present era in the United States but have since lived in many places. Can you tell me something about this and what you did in all these settings?
JM I arrived in NY, in 1960. I next stopped in California, and after that, Samoa in the Pacific. During that time, I masqueraded as an infant. My parents were teachers and loved to travel. We lived for a while in the Caribbean, then I flew to NYC where I posed as a model. I travelled to Paris, where I hooked up with a polo player. The polo circuit took us from Florida to England to France to Argentina for a while. When our children were born, we decided to settle in France and that’s where we are now – well, except for a few voyages from time to time – or to some time or another.
EJ That all seems too glamorous to spend your time writing. What moved you to become a novelist?
JM It isn’t easy to hold a job down when you’re travelling so much, so I started writing when we were in Argentina. We were hours away from any town, in the middle of the pampa, and the twins were small. I had a lot of free time because my husband was often gone days at a time looking for horses. I wrote my first stories there – on the back porch, watching the twins play in the garden in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. At night we slept in a room room heated by a softly crackling fire and lit with oil lamps. We had no electricity, but we had running water. On the estancia were ponies, sheep, and cattle; and we could see deer, burrowing owls, and wild ostriches in the plains. It was magical, like time travelling to a different century. Nowadays, while working on my writing, I work part time as an assistant in a dental office here in France and, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, part time as an assistant to a researcher in Australia.
EJ Did you have difficulty finding a publisher?
JM I did! It surprised me, because I’d been writing and selling magazine articles and short stories, and I’d naively thought that a time travel book would be easy to sell. It might have been, but it wasn’t “romantic” enough, oh, and there is a threesome because Ashley falls in love with Alexander’s lover, Hephaestion. It’s not serious enough for a history book, and it’s kind of funny. So, yes, it was rejected by at least ten publishers and twice as many agents. One agent asked for the full series. I printed it up and sent it in a box the size of a volkswagen. I never heard from her again. I suppose she used the manuscript as a table for a while. It seemed odd that she asked for the whole series and never wrote back until I re-read her letter and saw she just wanted a full manuscript – of book one. Did I mention there are seven books in the series? I sold the series to a terrific outfit in Australia, which published books 1-3 and then folded. Meanwhile I kept writing and sold a few more books. I have a pen name and write erotica. But this series has always been my favorite, so I was thrilled when it was accepted by a publisher in the UK last year.
EJ Have you always been interested in the Ancient World? Did you know a great deal about Alexander before you started work on your trilogy?
JM My mother is a history teacher and I’ve always been interested in history. I didn’t know much about Alexander the Great, but I’m keen on research, so when I decided to write about him, I researched for nearly a year. I had piles of information, most of which I didn’t use or got chopped in editing (note from editor: Jennifer, you’re being pedantic again…)!
EJ Do you think you would have fallen in love with Alexander had you met him – indeed did you fall in love with him?
JM When I met him, he was just starting his “great adventure”, as he calls it. He was young and brash, and had an incredible charisma. I think, if I were Ashley, I would have fallen under his spell. It’s undeniable that he was someone special – I often wonder what the world would have been like had he lived to govern Persia, Egypt and Greece. What would have happened with Rome? Would he have gone to Africa, as he’d dreamed of doing? He was quite simply capable of anything. It’s hard to resist someone with such energy and optimism.
EJ Your books are quite playful in the sense that they play with history rather than re-living it. Have you ambitions to be a more serious historical novelist?
JM I would love to try my hand at a more serious historical novel, but I’m afraid I’m more of a science fiction writer. I did write a book set in the time of the Crusades, but again, it’s a time slip. I can’t seem to get around that. Putting a modern person back in time is an interesting way to perceive the distance that separates us. One author I admire immensely is Connie Willis. Her “The Doomsday Book” is one of my favorite time slip novels. She’s a science fiction/history/romance writer, which is more in line with what I love to write.
EJ What are you planning to do after the Alexander trilogy?
It’s not a trilogy. It’s a septology! Book III is due out in September, and book IV will appear in December if all goes according to plan.
EJ Can you tell my readers where they can find out more about you?
JM My blog is here (https://jennifermacaire.wordpress.com/) and my author showcase is here (https://authorjennifermacaire.wordpress.com/) the Facebook page for my series is here (https://www.facebook.com/TimeforAlexander/) You can write to me at jennifermacaire@gmail.com – at least until my next time slip – although I usually try to come back ahead of time. My twitter handle is @jennifermacaire
EJ Thank you, Jennifer. My review of The Road to Alexander should appear in the November issue of Historical Novels Review and on the Historical Novel Society website.
JM Thank you, Edward! It was my pleasure!
formats
Quick Q&A with Jennifer Macaire, Author of The Time for Alexander Series
Published on May 19, 2017 by danecobain+ in Author Interviews
Hi, folks! Today, we’re hosting a quick Q&A with author Jennifer Macaire. Click here to check out her Amazon page or read on to find out what we talked about…
Jennifer Macaire - The Road to Alexander
Jennifer Macaire – The Road to Alexander
Hi, Jennifer! Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work.
Hi Dane, thank you for inviting me! I’m a bit of a gypsy – been moving around all my life, so I don’t have any roots. I suppose if I add up the years, I’ll have spent most of my time in France, my adopted country. I was born in Kingston, NY, and lived in Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, Florida, England, France and Argentina, and I spent some time wandering around Europe. My husband is French, so we decided to settle here to educate our children, which didn’t turn out too badly. I started writing when I ran out of paint. I’m an art school graduate and mostly painted on our travels. One day, stuck in the pampa three hours away from any town, I dug up a yellow lined notepad and some pens and started a story. I found I loved using words to paint stories and started writing magazine articles about life as a polo wife, then sold some short stories. I started a short story one day and it turned into a novel, then a seven book series (the Time for Alexander series). It’s a time travel (my characters seem to be addicted to voyages) series and it was picked up by a lovely publisher, Accent Press. The first book, The Road to Alexander, is out now. It doesn’t fit into any genre – it sort of lopes across history, sci-fi, fantasy and romance with its tongue stuck out, poking fun at Ashley the modern woman who is so sure she’s superior to those primitive ancient Greeks. Then there’s Alexander the Great, who just can’t help being great, Aristotle, whose idea of teaching is hitting his pupils over the head with a stick, and Barsine – Alexander’s first wife, who is a one-woman Olympic sports’ committee. But it still makes me cry in parts, so I guess it’s pretty good.
Which gives you more satisfaction – to write a first draft, or to finish the last round of editing?
The first draft – definitely. I love the rough bones of a story sticking out, waiting to be trimmed and polished. There is something raw and energetic about a first draft, clumsy – like a teenager, full of pimples and bad habits (repeated words, dangling participles, misplaced modifiers…)! But also full of so much promise!
What inspires you? Where do you get your ideas from?
Anywhere – dreams, the news, things I see, things I hear. I’m easy to inspire.
Jennifer Macaire - Legends of Persia
Jennifer Macaire – Legends of Persia
Pick a random piece of writing that you worked on ages ago and that never saw the light of day. Now tell us about it!
Oh my gosh – I’m fifteen and my best friend is sixteen, we’re in school passing notes back and forth. We’re bored, restless, full of wild ideas – and we decide to write a story together told from two viewpoints. We called it The Jocks and the Bards and we wrote it all year long, stitching the chapters together, drawing the characters, using up at least ten notebooks. I have no idea what happened to that book. It was about two teenage girls trying to fit into the “cool crowd”. My character was the jock – she was hung up on sports and she was anorexic, and she was crazy about the captain of the football team who didn’t even know her name. My friend’s character was an artist and a dreamer. She wanted to go to the prom but her parents were so strict they never let her out of the house. Everything in the book was very dark and depressing. I think everyone dies in the end. Typical teenager stuff.
Do you have a writing routine? If so, can you tell us about it?
No, I just write when I can. I have two part time jobs, so writing, unfortunately, happens when I have the time for it. Not very often, I’m afraid. I was hoping to make a living with my art or writing, but I’m too cartesian. What’s funny about that word is that in France, it simply means you have your feet on the ground. In English, it seems to mean that we hope that studying the world will give us unchangeable knowledge of ourselves and the world.
What was the last book that you read and what did you think of it?
The last, very last was Dragon of Ash & Stars: The Autobiography of a Night Dragon by H. Leighton Dickson. It was fabulous. I just finished it last night, so I’m still caught in its web. Good books catch me like that, and I feel like part of their world. I’m going to write a review for it – I always try to put up a word of thanks to authors for their books. It takes no time, and I, as an author, appreciate it.
Jennifer Macaire - Welcome to Paradise
Jennifer Macaire – Welcome to Paradise
Who are some of your favourite unsigned and indie authors?
I read voraciously – and just about anything – but my fave books are sci-fi and historical fiction and so I have a vast pool of indie authors to choose from. But you want favorites, so here are just a few: Vera Nazarian, Tricia McGill (historical and time travel novels), Jodi Taylor, Sahara Kelly, Debbie Palonen, Tom Piccirilli, Juliet Waldron, Meredith Whitford and Charles Colyott. Plus I saw some of your work and was impressed. I’ve downloaded one of your books, so I’m looking forward to reading it!
What’s the best bit of writing advice that you’ve ever received?
When in doubt – leave it out. Seriously. Just cut it out. You have no idea how much dead wood I trim when I’m editing. If I start fiddling with a phrase, it’s usually because it does nothing for the story. Ask yourself these questions: Does it advance the storyline? Is it important later on? Does it tell something vital about the characters? If not, leave it out.
What’s it like working with Accent Press? Tell us a little bit about your journey together.
I found Accent Press through Jodi Taylor – I’d been hooked on her St Mary’s series. My mother had read the first one and said I’d love it because it was time travel. Well, I read the series and loved it, and about that time was looking for a forever home for my Time for Alexander series – and thought Accent Press might like it. I wrote a cover letter where I absolutely laid it on thick about how I loved Jodi’s books and how I thought Accent Press was amazing and how I thought my book would be happy there, etc etc., and I sent it off with sample chapters…and you know what? I’d sent it to the wrong publisher. See, this is part of the joys of dyslexia. I sent it to a different publisher – nearly the same name – but not Accent. They wrote a frosty note back saying they were not interested and I was heartbroken, until I saw I’d goofed the name. So off went the note again, like an overexcited puppy, and Accent wrote back asking to read the full manuscript and the rest was just waiting and chewing my fingernails and trying not to care very much, until they said “yes”, and of course I jumped up and down (literally – I get enthusiastic like that). But I’m still a newbie – haven’t been with them long. So far, so good. They’re very easy to work with. I’m not the kind of author that wants to have their hand held all the time, and I don’t need emails every day. I like the fact that they are flexible about editing – I saw some errors I failed to correct in book I, so asked for the doc back to correct them and there was no problem.
How do you get the word out about your work?
I blog, I Facebook, I Instagram and tweet. It’s not easy. I’m pretty sure promotion isn’t in my blood – I’m terrible at it. I do try though. I review other authors’ books because that’s a huge help (for promoting). You get quotes that way, people can read reviews and get more info on the book. I’m better at promoting other people’s work than my own – it’s how I was raised. You know, “Stop showing off. Don’t toot your own horn. Sit down and be quiet!” So I try to work with people – other writers for example – and collaborate on reading and promoting each other’s’ work. I’m picky, but if I don’t like something I won’t write a bad review, I’ll always try to find something good to say about it because everyone has different taste. Mostly, I guess, I post on Medium (my blogs and reviews), Facebook and my blog, of course. I have taken some paid ads out and did a giveaway, etc. I can’t tell if they worked yet because it’s too soon. I tried to calculate that I’d spend not more than $75 per book on promotion. That’s actually quite a chunk out of my salary, so if I don’t see a good return, I won’t do the same for future books. This is all new for me, so I’m feeling my way around.
JennierMacaire - Riders of the Lightning Storm
JennierMacaire – Riders of the Lightning Storm
Thanks again to Jennifer Macaire for stopping by SocialBookshelves.com. Be sure to check out her books on Amazon and to follow SocialBookshelves.com on Facebook and Twitter for further updates. I’ll see you soon!
The Road to Alexander
Publishers Weekly. 265.1 (Jan. 1, 2018): p36.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Road to Alexander
Jennifer Macaire. Accent Presse $12.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-1-78615-467-5
Macaire's imaginative opening entry in the Time for Alexander series transports time-traveling journalist Ashley Riveraine back 3,000 years to 333 BCE via a frozen magnetic beam to interview the legendary king and military general Alexander the Great. Ashley loses her ability to return home when Alexander pulls her out of the beam believing she is the goddess Persephone. Alexander is unaware that Ashley is from the future, and she must not do or say anything to change history or she will be erased. She soon becomes Alexander's lover (steamy scenes ensue) and a resourceful operator in a society in which people rely on omens, oracles, and gods in everyday life. Alexander's relationships--with his treacherous mother, Olympias, his three wives, and his troops--are reasonably well-developed. The book's most engrossing sequence sees Alexander matching wits with the Persian king, Bessus, while pursuing him in a grueling ride that sees many men and horses die. A loose ending will entice readers to find out what lies ahead in the series. (Booklife)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Road to Alexander." Publishers Weekly, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 36. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A522124956/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=141cd7b3. Accessed 3 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A522124956
The Road to Alexander
BY JENNIFER MACAIRE
Find & buy on
The story starts about 300years in the future when a young journalist wins a prize to be sent back in time to interview an historical figure of her choice. She chooses Alexander the Great, but after the interview the return flight goes awry, and she finds herself stranded in the 4th century BC.
This is obviously not historical fiction in the sense that the author is trying to enter the mind of somebody in the past. The protagonist, Ashley, remains resolutely (ultra)modern in her attitudes and prejudices (e.g., slavery and religious sacrifices), but this means that she can look at the Ancient World as an outsider, seeing things the Ancients cannot see. Also, the author knows her Alexander and vividly describes the everyday life of his army as it crawls across the Middle East.
Not that Ashley is a dispassionate observer. She becomes Alexander’s consort and falls passionately in love with him, all the time knowing that Alexander is doomed to an early death. She cannot try to change history or she will be ‘erased’. The situation is unresolved at the end of the book, because this is the first in a series.
This is a witty, sexy, fast moving, colourful story, and you will enjoy it even if Timeslip is not your usual reading.
Legends of Persia | Son of the Moon
BY JENNIFER MACAIRE
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These two books are sequels to The Road to Alexander, reviewed in the November 2017 issue of Historical Novels Review. The three books can be read as stand-alone novels but are best read as a series, if only because The Road to Alexander is the best so far. This is almost inevitable, since the big leap of imagination takes place in the first book and the next two are built upon it.
Ashley is a young journalist in the third millennium AD who wins a prize to be sent back in time to interview a character of her choice. She chooses her hero, Alexander the Great. All goes well until the return trip goes awry and she finds herself stranded in the third century BC. This is all in the The Road to Alexander. By the time Legends of Persia opens, Ashley has become Alexander’s consort, and thus no longer a wide-eyed stranger but an established member of Alexander’s court. In this book we follow Alexander through the conquest of Central Asia, and in Son of the Moon we go with him on the invasion of India. The two sequels are therefore more like conventional historical novels, and the timeslip element is hardly evident. The Greeks have no problem in having another semi-supernatural being in their midst, for they are familiar with nymphs, demi-gods and so forth.
Not that these two books are not colourful, exciting, witty, sexy, inventive and well-researched, but at the end we are still wondering how Ashley will get back to her own time and will she be able to cheat history and avert Alexander’s early death. That must be for the next book.
Book Review: Legends of Persia, by Jennifer Macaire 0
BY JAN KERSHAW ON OCTOBER 24, 2017 BOOKS & LITERATURE, BREAKING
This book is a sequel to The Road to Alexander and continues the story of time-travelling Ashley who has gone back to meet her hero Alexander the Great. In this second book, the couple are desperately searching for their kidnapped son amidst the confusion and danger of war as Alexander conquers the Middle East and Asia, building his empire.
Alexander now knows that Ashley comes from the future and is in danger of being ‘disappeared’ in all times if she significantly changes or interferes with history. Jennifer Macaire skilfully weaves acknowledged historical facts about Alexander and his campaigns into the fictional account of his life with Ashley, a twenty-first century time traveller.
There are interesting vignettes such as Alexander naming a city Mary Margiana after Mary in the Beatles’ song Let it Be which Ashley has taught him. The story is in a first person narrative by Ashley, a useful narrative device as she is also, effectively, the omniscient narrative as she knows the future.
Despite the title, there was not enough about the legends of Persia and far too much about the couplings of Ashley and Alexander. The relationship between her and Alexander clearly is a major part of the story but, as in the first book, there is to my taste an unnecessary focus on the couple’s sex life including a threesome between Alexander, Hephaistion/Plexis and Ashley, plus a public drug-assisted coupling lasting seven hours, to ensure a good harvest with Ashley in her role of goddess.
As I said in my review of the earlier book in the Alexander series, it seems to me that Macaire resorts to a sex scene whenever she needs a change of pace or a narrative climax (pun intended) and I think that is lazy writing. I can’t recommend this book or the series.
Reviewed by Jan Kershaw
Rating out of 10: 6
Distributed by: Amazon Australia
Release Date: June 2017
RRP: $3.99
Visit Jennifer Macaire’s website
60%
60%
LAZY
Macaire resorts to a sex scene whenever she needs a change of pace or a narrative climax (pun intended) and I think that is lazy writing. I can’t recommend this book or the series.