Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Smoke Hunter
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://jacquelynbenson.com/
CITY: Boston
STATE: MA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/authors/jacquelyn-benson/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; has children.
EDUCATION:Attended college in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
ADDRESS
CAREER AVOCATIONS:
Reading.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Jacquelyn Benson is a writer based in Boston, MA. She attended a college in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she took courses in anthropology.
In 2016, Benson released her first novel, The Smoke Hunter. The protagonist of this volume is Ellie Mallory, who lives in London, England in the year 1898. Ellie has been working as an archivist at the Public Records Office. However, she has recently been fired for being affiliated with the suffragette movement. On her way out of her office, she grabs a psalter (a book containing the Book of Psalms), which has been hollowed out. The psalter holds a medallion that features the face of an idol and a map that is said to show the location of the fabled city of El Dorado. Ellie travels to Belize City, where she is pursued by two people who desire to relieve her of the psalter and its contents. The handsome Adam Bates, an archaeologist, saves her from being harmed by her pursuers. Ellie and Adam join forces and work together to decode the imagery on the map. Meanwhile, Ellie is still in danger, both from the villains pursuing her and from the prehistoric traps she encounters while following the map. Adam works to keep her safe, and Ellie finds herself attracted to her muscular protector. Adam is also drawn to Ellie, and the two become romantically involved.
In an interview with a contributor to the Big Thrill Web site, Benson discussed developing the character of Ellie. She stated: “Ellie did not come naturally to me. When I set out to write The Smoke Hunter, I started with the idea of a heroine who was something of a broken woman. I made it almost all the way through my first draft with her and hated almost every minute of it. Then this startlingly clear vision popped into my mind: a woman dragging her suitcase down the pavement, both terrified and exulted by the realization that she was a thief.”
Reviews of The Smoke Hunter were favorable. A Publishers Weekly critic suggested: “Romance readers will best appreciate Benson’s first novel.” “With excellent historical detail, imagination, and imagery, this book delights,” asserted a writer on the Historical Novel Society Web site. The same writer added: “Adventure seekers won’t be disappointed with The Smoke Hunter.” A contributor to the Long and Short Reviews remarked: “This story is a very exciting read with lots of action and two treacherous men after her. The author dishes out surprises, maintains the suspense from beginning to end, and makes you not want to put the book down.” The same contributor continued: “This is a really good action/adventure story.” Describing the antagonists in the book, a reviewer on the Worn Pages and Ink Web site stated: “They’re all stock characters, but it adds a fun hokeyness to the story.” The same reviewer concluded: “It’s a fun read!” A writer on the Books, Life, and Everything Web site commented: “The Smoke Hunter is certainly an action packed and dynamic story. It is great fun to read and carries you along. Moving from London to South America, it is vividly described and visually arresting. Mixing adventure with romance, it is a quest story along the lines of Indiana Jones or Rider Haggard. It never takes itself seriously.” The writer added: “It was interesting to see how skilfully the historical details were woven into the story. It was deftly done and never jarring.” Referring to Benson, the same writer stated: “She never lets such detail bog a story down or detract from the action, but keeps the story on the boil. This gives it a dynamic feeling, never stale. In short: an entertaining adventure, mixing mysterious legends with a well told romance.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, July 25, 2016, review of The Smoke Hunter, p. 49.
ONLINE
Big Thrill, http://www.thebigthrill.org/ (August 31, 2015), author interview.
Books, Life, and Everything, https://bookslifeandeverything.blogspot.com/ (November 11, 2016), review of The Smoke Hunter.
Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (March 26, 2017), review of The Smoke Hunter.
Jacquelyn Benson Home Page, http://jacquelynbenson.com/ (May 2, 2017).
Long and Short Reviews, http://www.longandshortreviews.com/ (September 5, 2016), review of The Smoke Hunter.
Worn Pages and Ink, https://wornpagesandink.wordpress.com/ (October 17, 2016), review of The Smoke Hunter.*
Jacquelyn Benson has always known who she wanted to be when she grew up: Indiana Jones. But since real archaeology involves far more cataloguing pot shards and digging through muck than diving out of airplanes and battling Nazis, she decided to devote herself to shamelessly making things up instead.
Jacquelyn studied anthropology in Belfast, Northern Ireland and married a man from Dublin, New Hampshire. She wrote a thesis on paranormal investigators and spent four years living in a museum. When not writing, you may find her turning flowers into wine, herding an unruly toddler, or hiding under a blanket devouring genre fiction.
Jacquelyn Benson has always known who she wanted to be when she grew up: Indiana Jones. But since real archaeology involves far more cataloguing pot shards and digging through muck than diving out of airplanes and battling Nazis, she decided to devote herself to shamelessly making things up instead.
Jacquelyn studied anthropology in Belfast, Northern Ireland and married a man from Dublin, New Hampshire. She wrote a thesis on paranormal investigators and spent four years living in a museum. When not writing, you may find her turning flowers into wine, herding her unruly offspring, or hiding under a blanket devouring genre fiction. THE SMOKE HUNTER is her first novel.
Jacquelyn Benson has always known who she wanted to be when she grew up: Indiana Jones. But since real archaeology involves far more cataloguing pot shards and digging through muck than diving out of airplanes and battling Nazis, she decided to devote herself to shamelessly making things up instead.
Jacquelyn studied anthropology in Belfast, Northern Ireland and married a man from Dublin, New Hampshire. She wrote a thesis on paranormal investigators and spent four years living in a museum. When not writing, you may find her turning flowers into wine, herding her unruly offspring, or hiding under a blanket devouring genre fiction.
QUOTED: "Ellie did not come naturally to me. When I set out to write THE SMOKE HUNTER, I started with the idea of a heroine who was something of a broken woman. I made it almost all the way through my first draft with her and hated almost every minute of it. Then this startlingly clear vision popped into my mind: a woman dragging her suitcase down the pavement, both terrified and exulted by the realization that she was a thief."
The Smoke Hunter by Jacquelyn Benson
August 31, 2015 by ITW
0
smokehunterDeadly beasts, improvident rum consumption, and a treasure-hunting suffragette: Jacquelyn Benson’s debut novel, THE SMOKE HUNTER, is a smart, fun ride in the tradition of Indiana Jones and The Mummy.
The Big Thrill caught up with Jacquelyn to chat about genre-bending, magic mirrors, and dangerous men.
Ellie is such a smart protagonist. What inspired you to create her?
Ellie did not come naturally to me. When I set out to write THE SMOKE HUNTER, I started with the idea of a heroine who was something of a broken woman. I made it almost all the way through my first draft with her and hated almost every minute of it. Then this startlingly clear vision popped into my mind: a woman dragging her suitcase down the pavement, both terrified and exulted by the realization that she was a thief.
I lost the suitcase, but I kept the thievery. Instead of creating someone who was a victim of her circumstances, I found myself writing a woman who reached out and took hold of her own fate. The Ellie who made it into THE SMOKE HUNTER is smart and driven, unafraid of diving into circumstances other women of her time would find unthinkable.
You draw on a lot of history and mythology in THE SMOKE HUNTER. How much of it is true?
Quite a bit, actually. There were, in fact, stories of hidden cities of wealth and power that threaded their way through the Americas during the 17th and 18th centuries, from Mexico to Patagonia. This might simply have been a case of neighboring civilizations sharing and passing along the same myths and stories—or there might have been some sort of truth to them we’ve yet to discover. The same goes for the remarkable similarities between Mayan and Aztec origin stories, right down to the name of the city said to be the birthplace of their civilizations. Obviously, in THE SMOKE HUNTER, I take a few liberties in offering a slightly fantastic theory of what the City of Seven Caves might have been, but I don’t think we can entirely rule out that there may have been a real place behind these myths.
The Smoking Mirror is actually one way of translating the name of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, and disks of polished obsidian have been found in both Mayan and Aztec archaeological sites and are associated with prophecy and sacrifice in their iconography. That association between mirrors and the ability to see into the past and future, or across great distances, is one found in other cultures as well. Remember Snow White’s wicked stepmother?
In the late 19th century, when Ellie and Adam’s story takes place, a great deal of Central and South America was still unexplored. The notion that the wilderness might be hiding big secrets wouldn’t have been at all far-fetched at the time. We’re still debating whether the Amazon might have been home to an as-yet-unknown civilization of millions of people. The world has gotten smaller since Ellie’s day, but that doesn’t mean it’s given up all of its secrets.
THE SMOKE HUNTER combines elements of several genres – thriller, historical romance, suspense, and science fiction. What made you decide to write a book that straddles so many categories?
To call it a ‘decision’ isn’t really accurate. THE SMOKE HUNTER started out as a romance novella. But before I’d gotten through two chapters, I realized I wanted the stakes to be much higher. The evolving romance between Ellie and Adam is just so much more fun when it’s happening in the midst of this great adventure, and I couldn’t resist the lure of all that juicy history and mythology. Of course, whenever you have a great power hiding somewhere in your story, there’s going to be competition to control it, and so I ended up with a pair of villains hot on my heroine’s trail.
Speaking of villains, Dawson is an unusual antagonist, a disgraced professor who feels terrible about some of the things he’s doing. What inspired his character?
Villains are a big issue with me. I think the “bad guy” trope is actually rather dangerous. It tells us that people who do harm are generally these greedy megalomaniacs. From what I’ve seen in history, that’s rarely the case. The most dangerous men are the ones who think they’re doing good, but start excusing the means based on the ends they feel they’re achieving. The man above Dawson—a figure we learn only a little about in this story—is a man like that. Dawson and his partner Jacobs are his instruments. Jacobs is the perfect soldier, a man who executes orders regardless of their moral consequences, simply because it’s his job. Dawson is a man who does possess a conscience, and who knows that some of the things he’s doing are deeply wrong, but he’s too terrified of putting himself in the line of fire to protest. He’s an intelligent, thoughtful man who is choosing to stifle his sense of morality to save his own skin. Whether that makes him sympathetic or even more worthy of contempt is up to the reader.
*****
jacquelynJacquelyn Benson studied anthropology in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and wrote a thesis on paranormal investigators, spending four years living in a museum. When not writing, you may find her turning flowers into wine, herding an unruly toddler, or hiding under a blanket devouring pulp fiction. THE SMOKE HUNTER is her first novel.
QUOTED: "Romance readers will best appreciate Benson's first novel."
The Smoke Hunter
263.30 (July 25, 2016): p49.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Smoke Hunter
Jacquelyn Benson. Grand Central, $14.99 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-4555-6906-9
Romance readers will best appreciate Benson's first novel, an adventure thriller set in 1898. Archivist Ellie Mallory loses her job at London's Public Records Office after she's arrested for her suffragette activities. Before Ellie leaves her office, she pockets a hollowed-out psalter that contains a medallion bearing the image of a grinning idol as well as a map purporting to provide the location of El Dorado. Her appropriation of the psalter sets two villains on her trail. Her pursuers follow Ellie to Belize City, where she's rescued by the rakish Adam Bates, with whom she teams to search for the map's secrets. Hitherto an independent heroine, she now becomes a damsel in distress. Amid perils straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, Ellie can't help noticing Adam's physical attributes ("The hard, wet planes of his body were only a breath away from her own, radiating heat and solid, barely concealed strength"). Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Smoke Hunter." Publishers Weekly, 25 July 2016, p. 49. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285475&it=r&asid=4b8401dc47cc549ab0e333731bdd441e. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460285475
QUOTED: "With excellent historical detail, imagination, and imagery, this book delights."
"Adventure seekers won’t be disappointed with The Smoke Hunter."
The Smoke Hunter
By Jacquelyn Benson
Find & buy on
In 1898, archivist Ellie Mallory defies convention by holding a college degree, a job, and a fierce independence. One day at work, she stumbles upon a map to a city that she thought was only legendary. Ellie decides to embark on the adventure of her lifetime: travel to Central America to discover the truth – to find out if the city is a hoax or a real place. This, however, is not as easy as it sounds; especially when adversaries steal the map and attempt to get to the city first. Ellie soon realizes that she needs to partner with equally hard-headed archaeologist Adam Bates to get a head start on the race to the city.
Benson was clearly inspired by Indiana Jones when creating this story. Ellie and Adam encounter everything from bad guys with guns to capture, torture, and many different secret traps and hidden paths. The action is nonstop; in fact, at times, it seems as though Benson was in a race of her own to see how much adventure she could cram into one story. With excellent historical detail, imagination, and imagery, this book delights. I was a little disappointed that Benson did not spend a more time with Ellie and Adam’s growing relationship, as that aspect of the story felt a little rushed. Nevertheless, adventure seekers won’t be disappointed with The Smoke Hunter. Recommended.
QUOTED: "This story is a very exciting read with lots of action and two treacherous men after her. The author dishes out surprises, maintains the suspense from beginning to end, and makes you not want to put the book down."
"This is a really good action/adventure story."
The Smoke Hunter by Jacquelyn Benson
September 5, 2016 By completedreviews 1 Comment
SMOKE
The Smoke Hunter by Jacquelyn Benson
Publisher: Grand Central
Genre: Action/Adventure, Historical, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full Length (436 pgs)
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Aloe
Voted BoM by LASR Readers 2013 copy
Chasing a threat born in smoke…
London, 1898. Archivist Eleanora Mallory discovers a map to a legendary city . But is it the key to unravelling an ancient mystery or a clever hoax?
Compelled to find out, Ellie journeys to Central America – with a merciless enemy hot on her heels.
In a race to uncover the map’s secret first, Ellie is forced to partner with maverick archaeologist Adam Bates, a man she’s not sure she can trust. Together, they venture into an uncharted wilderness alive with smoke and shadows, where an even greater danger awaits them.
For what lies there whispering to be unearthed has the power to bring the world to its knees.
Join Ellie and Adam as they battle rivers of scorpions, plummeting waterfalls and pre-historic death traps on the journey to uncovering a deadly secret that could shake the fate of the world.
Are you ready for a grand adventure that has the flavor of an Indiana Jones tale? This one will do it for you but it would have to be Indiana Jane. Eleanor Mallory is everything that a woman of London in 1898 would not be. She’s independent, unmarried, and intelligent. She loves to learn and to explore and she manages to run across a real mystery with ties to Central America.
This story is a very exciting read with lots of action and two treacherous men after her. The author dishes out surprises, maintains the suspense from beginning to end, and makes you not want to put the book down.
When she finds there is someone after her and the map and piece of mask she has, she runs to her friend’s home. There, the lady loans her clothes, money and her name and ships her out the next day. She goes to her room at the hotel and decides to bathe. As she sits in the tub, she discovers there’s snake in there with her and she screams. That’s how she meets Adam. He busts down her door and grabs her snake. Right then and there she knows she doesn’t like him. He’s not the least embarrassed and she sure is!
The bad guys trace her even with the false name and come after her. She ends up asking Adam for help but doesn’t tell him the truth. Just offers to share the discovery with him. That costs her in the long run.
The story is violent in places but it’s just like in the movies, you just keep reading along to see the rest of the story. There are tests to be overcome, they’re almost killed several times, and you can’t foresee the next challenge or the end of the story. This is a really good action/adventure story with a side of romance thrown in. Give it a try; you won’t be disappointed.
QUOTED: "They’re all stock characters, but it adds a fun hokeyness to the story."
"It’s a fun read!"
Review: The Smoke Hunter by Jacquelyn Benson
October 17, 2016
28164650*I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*
Title: The Smoke Hunter
Author: Jacquelyn Benson
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: September 13, 2016
ISBN: 9781455569069
The Smoke Hunter
Synopsis from Goodreads:
London, 1898. Archivist Eleanora Mallory discovers a map to a legendary city . But is it the key to unravelling an ancient mystery or a clever hoax? Compelled to find out, Ellie journeys to Central America – with a merciless enemy hot on her heels. In a race to uncover the map’s secret first, Ellie is forced to partner with maverick archaeologist Adam Bates, a man she’s not sure she can trust. Together, they venture into an uncharted wilderness alive with smoke and shadows, where an even greater danger awaits them. For what lies there whispering to be unearthed has the power to bring the world to its knees.
Ellie is trying to establish her career in a time where women can’t vote. The expectation is that she marry, but that would result in her no longer being able to work. That’s an option that she is not willing to put up with. She is lead across the world on an adventure to discover an impossible world, a trip that completely changes her life.
I love that Ellie is a take-charge kind of girl in a time where women are not widely accepted in the professional realm, especially in a position that takes her out into the wild. Ellie wants to discover the world and all its secret. She’s not afraid to speak her mind and take control of her situation. She’s inventive. She also has her flaws, she doesn’t think before she speaks and she doesn’t always consider all the risks before she acts. I love that she’s imperfect.
The villains are a bit typical. They are minions of an unseen forces who’s funding their expedition, ready to draw guns and eliminate threats at the drop of a hat. They’re all stock characters, but it adds a fun hokeyness to the story. It kind of reminds me of a Disney-esque adventure story. It doesn’t take away from the story in any way. In fact, it makes the story all the more enjoyable. It’s a fun read!
QUOTED: "The Smoke Hunter is certainly an action packed and dynamic story. It is great fun to read and carries you along. Moving from London to South America, it is vividly described and visually arresting. Mixing adventure with romance, it is a quest story along the lines of Indiana Jones or Rider Haggard. It never takes itself seriously."
"It was interesting to see how skilfully the historical details were woven into the story. It was deftly done and never jarring."
"She never lets such detail bog a story down or detract from the action, but keeps the story on the boil. This gives it a dynamic feeling, never stale. In short: an entertaining adventure, mixing mysterious legends with a well told romance."
Friday, 11 November 2016
The Smoke Hunter by Jacquelyn Benson *Blog Tour* Author post*
I am delighted to be involved in the blog tour to celebrate the paperback publication of Jacquelyn Benson's debut novel, The Smoke Hunter on November 3rd 2016 by Headline Press.
London, 1898. Archivist Eleanora Mallory discovers a map to a legendary city . But is it the key to unravelling an ancient mystery or a clever hoax?
Compelled to find out, Ellie journeys to Central America – with a merciless enemy hot on her heels.
In a race to uncover the map’s secret first, Ellie is forced to partner with maverick archaeologist Adam Bates, a man she’s not sure she can trust. Together, they venture into an uncharted wilderness alive with smoke and shadows, where an even greater danger awaits them.
For what lies there whispering to be unearthed has the power to bring the world to its knees.
Jacquelyn Benson has written a special guest post for Books, Life and Everything on the subject of Researching an Historical Novel.
Welcome to Books, Life and Everything, Jacquelyn.
Jacquelyn:
Researching a historical novel without getting lost in the past
In Star Trek IV, Kirk and company have to pull off a seriously tight maneuver: flying their stolen Klingon Bird-of-Prey at the sun, setting a course near enough that they can capture the star’s gravity to use it as a slingshot to throw themselves into the past.
Of course, if they fly too close, they end up getting fried.
Any time a novel delves into the past – even if it’s the past of a place you know and love well today – you’re going to need to research. But researching a historical novel is a bit like maneuvering that starship: there are more resources than ever available at the stroke of a key, providing the geeky writer with a seemingly endless array of material to help you in your mission of immersing readers in a different time. Yet those same resources can all-too-easily turn into an excellent way of neglecting to actually write your damned book.
When I started writing my debut novel, The Smoke Hunter, I didn’t have a clue what life was like in late 19th century British Honduras, or know the ins and outs of Mayan mythology… or any of the myriad other aspects of history, archaeology, and anthropology that came into play in my story. To write it, I needed a system that would let me acquire the knowledge I needed without falling into the Google black hole.
So, I built one: a simple approach to researching a historical novel that tells you when to start reading and – more importantly – when to stop.
Step one: Fuel up your brain
Before you set the first word to the page, you’re going to want to take some time to familiarize yourself with broader aspects of the time and place you’re writing about.
I give myself a set “free reading” period before I start plotting or drafting a book. There’s a start date and a very firm end date. Between those marks on my calendar, I have free reign to explore whatever aspect of the world of my story catches my interest.
For The Smoke Hunter, I hit Google Books to dig up gems like The Handbook of British Honduras and Victorian travelers’ accounts of trekking through Central America full of fabulous details about local accommodations and what sort of canned goods to bring along. I studied up on Central American history, reading the Mayan Popol Vuh , stories from Aztec mythology, and colonial accounts of the search for El Dorado. I watched YouTube videos of modern Belizeans to get a sense of the rhythm of their language and culture and browsed public Flickr albums for pictures of the buildings, people and landscapes.
What I did not do during this first research period was take copious notes. Instead, I paused in my reading only to jot down things I stumbled across that particularly caught my fancy: content I will term here “Awesome Stuff”.
Awesome Stuff – whether a fascinating account of violently suppressed Mayan uprising in the years before my story took place, or the intriguing coincidence of a mythical city with the same name showing up in the stories of two distinct cultures – got written down and referenced, in case I found an opportunity to work it into the draft of the book.
Step two: Write the damned book
I don’t mean a polished, finished draft. But whether you’re a plotter or a panster, get the story down on paper in some rough form or another.
When engaged in this part of the process, turn off your WiFi. Work in the garden shed. Take a vacation in a remote village in Finland with no library and no internet. Whatever you do, do not let yourself break off for a quick web query to determine what species of bats live in the Cayo district, or how long it would take to travel 60 miles upriver in a paddle-wheel steamboat. When you hit a point in your writing where you recognize a dearth of needed knowledge, make a big fat note of it and move on. Worry less about historical accuracy and more about pacing, plot, and the emotional journeys of your characters.
Step three: Fill things in
Once you’ve got that first draft or sketch under your belt, it’s time to put your research hat back on and fill in the blanks. Take it scene-by-scene, making a list of the places you noted you needed more information, but don’t be shy about adding to that list if you think of new information that might help deepen or enrich the world you’re creating.
With that list in hand, things get – and stay – specific. If you have a note for “find large public monument in Valencia” – search for that, and only that. Find it, record the relevant details, and move on to the next item until you’re done.
Depending on what you’re looking for, you might end up reading modern-day travel blogs, scanning landscapes in Google Earth (I like to pin all the key locations in my story), or scouring Wikipedia. If you need to know what level of knowledge your characters might have of a place or subject, do a Google Books search with a restricted date range to get materials published in and around the time of your setting. If things get really obscure, pay a visit to your local college library and take advantage of their subscription services, like EBSCO and JSTOR. I find I can still pass for a grad student if I carry a latte and look stressed out.
The sole exception where you’re permitted a research detour is if you stumble across another instance of Awesome Stuff. In said public monument in Valencia, for example – which turned out to be the city’s cathedral – I learned about the Holy Chalice, which some have claimed is a candidate for the Holy Grail. Obviously, I needed to dig a bit deeper into that gem and find a way to work it into my story.
Step four: The final polish
The last stage of your research adventure should take place when you’re looking at a manuscript you’re pretty sure is finished. This is when you do your fact-checking: giving the whole book another read and pausing at any point where you find yourself wondering, “Did I really get that right?”
Do whatever digging is necessary to confirm that yes, London’s Public Record Office was a notoriously chilly place, or that there are indeed wild pigs inhabiting the jungles of Belize. Then put a bow on the whole business and congratulate yourself that you have, at this point, produced a complete novel, instead of still mucking about with 19th century immigration trends that you will never, in fact, reference in your story.
Marianne: Thank you so much, Jacquelyn. I always love hearing how different authors structure their writing and plan their work. Your post is very impressive and enlightening.
My Thoughts
The Smoke Hunter is certainly an action packed and dynamic story. It is great fun to read and carries you along. Moving from London to South America, it is vividly described and visually arresting. Mixing adventure with romance, it is a quest story along the lines of Indiana Jones or Rider Haggard. It never takes itself seriously.
I was most taken with the character of Ellie Mallory, who escapes the confines of London in 1898. An educated woman and a suffragette, she finds the expectations of society towards young women suffocating and takes the chance to break out of the ordained path set for her. I found her to be a refreshing personality, full of impetuosity and courage. I did find the male hero, Adam, more of a stereotype, but took him with a pinch of salt, carried along with the fun of the story.
It was interesting to see how skilfully the historical details were woven into the story. It was deftly done and never jarring. Having read Jacquelyn's post on researching historical fiction, I can see that she never lets such detail bog a story down or detract from the action, but keeps the story on the boil. This gives it a dynamic feeling, never stale.
In short: an entertaining adventure, mixing mysterious legends with a well told romance.
About the Author:
Award nominated playwright, Jacquelyn Benson can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jacquelynbensonauthor.
You can find out more at her website www.jacquelynbenson.com
Follow her on Twitter @JBheartswords