Guest Blog: Mingmei Yip

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Mingmei Yip, whose latest novel THE NINE FOLD HEAVEN is set in China during the 1930's. The author will offer a free copy of The Nine Fold Heaven to a lucky blog visitor - please leave your email address to be considered in the drawing. Here's the blurb:

In this mesmerizing new novel, Mingmei Yip draw readers deeper into the exotic world of 1930s Shanghai first explored in Skeleton Women, and into the lives of the unforgettable Camilla, Shadow, and Rainbow Chang.

When Shadow, a gifted, ambitious magician, competed with the beautiful singer spy Camilla for the affections of organized crime leader Master Lung, she almost lost everything. Hiding out in Hong Kong, performing in a run-down circus, Shadow has no idea that Camilla, too, is on the run with her lover, Jinying – Lung’s son.

Yet while Camilla and Shadow were once enemies, now their only hope of freedom lies in joining forces to eliminate the ruthless gangster Big Brother Wang. Despite the danger, Shadow, Camilla, and Jinying return to Shanghai. Camilla also has her own secret agenda – she has heard a rumor that her baby son is alive. And in a city teeming with spies and rivals – including the vengeful gossip columnist Rainbow Chang – each battles for a future in a country on the verge of monumental change.

**Q&A with Mingmei Yip**

Tell us a little about your new and fifth novel The Nine Fold Heaven.

The Nine Fold Heaven is about three femmes fatales – referred to as “skeleton women,” in Chinese. They are the singer spy Camilla, the magician Shadow, and the gossip columnist Rainbow Chang. But the journey is mainly Camilla’s. She undertakes an emotional and dangerous trip back to Shanghai to reunite with her lost lovers,  to find the baby she was told was stillborn, and to discover the secret of her parents’ murder.

Nine Fold Heaven is part of a series of Skeleton Women (femmes fatales) but can be read as a stand alone book.

Tell us about your main character(s).

The three beautiful, talented and scheming skeleton women, or femmes fatales, are Camilla, the singer spy, Shadow the magician, and Rainbow Chang the gossip columnist. Though are all successful, they remain marginalized in a society that disdains independent women. Camilla and Shadow, realizing their real enemy is a repressive society, stop fighting each other and unite to defeat their gangster boss.

In researching these novels I was fascinated to learn how women could overcome their rivalries and survive in a near-lawless world controlled by gangsters for whom murder was as routine as sipping a cup of tea.

In the course of her adventurous life, Camilla finds herself with two lovers. One is the Harvard-educated son of the gangster head Master Lung, whose bed she is forced to share. The other is Gao, Lung’s most trusted bodyguard. These are two very different men, the son is refined, intellectual, but impulsive, while the bodyguard has rough manners but is always gentle and respectful to Camilla. This iron-man-with-a-tender-heart bodyguard, seems to win the hearts of many of my female readers.

What do you feel is the most unique aspect of your story?

My protagonists are brave and strong women who are relentless in overcoming hardship and tragedy to live life on their own terms and achieve happiness. It is hard now even to try to imagine the hardships women had to endure in traditional China – marrying to a dead fiancé, making them the slaves of the dead man’s parents, or forced into prostitution, yet not even allowed to keep their babies. My heroine was taken from her parents, trained to be a spy and to kill with no emotion.

Some of my characters are inspired by the lives of actual women, including Camilla the singer-spy in my new novel The Nine Fold Heaven, and the teenage prostitute Xiang Xiang in my debut novel Peach Blossom Pavilion (now in its 5^th printing!) I feel honored to be able to give these silenced women their voice.

1930’s Shanghai is represented in your novel the Nine Fold Heaven as a lawless and corrupt time. Why did you choose this particular time?

I love history, because it is like a mirror reflecting all that’s good and bad in humanity. I think the 1930’s Shanghai is one of the sexiest eras in world history, populated with larger than life characters: glamorous women, cynical politicians, and corrupt police. But also with idealists trying to help China find its way in the modern world.

It was a time of extremes – from sybaritic luxury to abject poverty. I have tried to describe both from the indulgences of the rich to the miseries of the poor. But even for the rich, life was full of dangers.

Few of the rich came by their wealth honestly. There were always many ready to usurp their place, by guile if possible, or by murder if necessary. Those without money were expendable, particularly parentless children abandoned to orphanages. This had been Camilla’s fate, and also two of my actually virtuous characters -- the little blind girl and the baby she takes care of.

Can you give aspiring writers some writing tips?

I plunge into writing and ignore everything around me. Since I was a tiny girl I have always preferred life inside my own head. Whenever I have writer’s block, I’ll read or watch a movie. This usually triggers ideas for me so I can go back to write. I also read a lot, not only to feed my imagination and creativity, but also to have a point of comparison for my own writing.

I think it is still essential to master the basics. Not only voice, characterization, dialogue, plot, but also sentence structure, its rhythm and music. I always try to vary the length of my sentences and start each one with a different subject. It’s essential to spent whatever time it takes to find the right word. Sometimes, it is a single word that brightens a whole paragraph.

There is a Chinese saying “Slap on the thigh and exclaim!” That’s how the readers will react to a good choice of word. Readers may not be aware of the meticulous hard work behind a smooth sentence, but if you don’t pay attention, they will soon become bored. I also think it’s good for authors to attend other cultural activities such as movies, concerts, art exhibitions. Have as diverse a background as you can cultivate, that really helps.

Most important, don’t give up! The ancient Chinese philosophy classic, the Daode Jing says more things are spoiled in the end than the beginning. Stick through to the end.

Tell us about your other books?

I love writing for both adults and children. My other novels are Skeleton Women, Song of the Silk Road, Petals from the Sky, and Peach Blossom Pavilion, all by Kensington Books. For adults, I wish my readers, besides being entertained, would be inspired by my brave heroines.

I have two children’s books (which I both wrote and illustrated) Chinese Children’s Favorite Stories and the new one Grandma Panda’s China Storybook, which has just  come out this year, all by Tuttle Publishing. For children, I also like to entertain while teaching about right and wrong.

   

Are you working on another novel?

Yes, my next and sixth novel is Needle of a Thousand Beauties, to be published by Kensington Books in 2014.

It is about a young woman who escapes a ghost marriage to join a community of celebrate embroiderers. Soon, stifled by the rigid routines of the group, she helps herself to one of their treasures – an imperial robe. Chased by agents of a secret society, she makes her way to Beijing. There she finds work in an embroidery shop, only to be tricked into marrying the boss’ son. Escaping again, she falls in love with a revolutionary and lives an even more dangerous life. Despite all these distractions, she continues with her needlework and earns fame and respect. 

Visit Mingmei at: www.mingmeiyip.com

Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/SilkRoadRomance.MingmeiYip

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mingmeiyip

Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Mingmei-Yip/e/B0037A8RBO

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/235532.Mingmei_Yip

Excerpt Thursday: The Nine Fold Heaven by Mingmei Yip

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Mingmei Yip, whose latest novel THE NINE FOLD HEAVEN is set in China during the 1930's. Join us on Sunday, when the author will offer a free copy of The Nine Fold Heaven to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb:

In this mesmerizing new novel, Mingmei Yip draw readers deeper into the exotic world of 1930s Shanghai first explored in Skeleton Women, and into the lives of the unforgettable Camilla, Shadow, and Rainbow Chang.

When Shadow, a gifted, ambitious magician, competed with the beautiful singer spy Camilla for the affections of organized crime leader Master Lung, she almost lost everything. Hiding out in Hong Kong, performing in a run-down circus, Shadow has no idea that Camilla, too, is on the run with her lover, Jinying – Lung’s son.

Yet while Camilla and Shadow were once enemies, now their only hope of freedom lies in joining forces to eliminate the ruthless gangster Big Brother Wang. Despite the danger, Shadow, Camilla, and Jinying return to Shanghai. Camilla also has her own secret agenda – she has heard a rumor that her baby son is alive. And in a city teeming with spies and rivals – including the vengeful gossip columnist Rainbow Chang – each battles for a future in a country on the verge of monumental change.

**An Excerpt from THE NINE FOLD HEAVEN**

Three months ago I was singing to loud applause in a Shanghai nightclub; a few days later I became unexpectedly wealthy. But immediately I fled Shanghai in a fusillade of bullets to hide out in a run-down apartment in Hong Kong.

In the British Crown Colony, my days were calm but my nights were troubled --  not by bullets but by dreams. When I slept my baby kept disturbing me – either running on his chubby little feet or babbling to himself. But I had never met him in this life, my little treasure whom I had named Jinjin, meaning Handsome Handsome. In my mind he looked just like his father Jinying, Handsome Hero, whom I had left behind in Shanghai and whose face rose up before me – bleeding, scared, abandoned.

As I looked back over my life, though I had known only twenty Springs and Autumns, it seemed to stretch out endlessly behind me, filled with  treachery and loss.

I’d led a double life, but not by my choosing. I was the singer Camilla, known to Shanghai’s beautiful people as the Heavenly Songbird. But while admired by my fans for my freshness and innocence, I was secretly a spy assigned to send the gangster boss Master Lung to the Yellow Springs.  For my real boss was Big Brother Wang, head of Shanghai’s Red Demon gang, who had “rescued” me from the Compassionate Grace Orphanage – but only to prepare me for this fatal mission.

Abandoned when I was four years old, the word “love” had been torn out from the dictionary of my life. From my first days with Big Brother Wang, I was trained to charm others but to have no emotions myself, as befits a cold-blooded murderess, assigned to eliminate Wang’s arch enemy, Master Lung of the Flying Dragon gang.

But despite all the effort put into my training, love had somehow tiptoed into my life. Whether this was heaven’s gift or punishment, I could not tell.

It happened because of Jinying, the son of the man I was to assassinate and the father of our little Jinjin. Now they had both vanished from my life. Was this heaven’s plan – to give me a taste of the sweetness of life, only to snatch it back?  Or was it karma for something I’d done in a forgotten past life?

In the months since I’d escaped from Shanghai, I’d had no news about my lover Jinying and our son little Jinjin – except in my tormented dreams. Jinjin would talk to me, sometimes with affection, at other times with bitterness. But he’d never let me touch him, let alone shower his small body with hugs and kisses to express a mother’s longing. He seemed to be saying that since we’d never really met, it’d be better for us to keep a distance. Sometimes his father would appear also, but he never said a word to me, just looked at me with mournful eyes.

Now that I was safe in Hong Kong, at least for the moment, I needed to figure out my next move. My heart was begging me to go back soon to find Jinjin and his father Jinying, but I knew that Big Brother Wang and Master Lung would have all their men on high alert looking for me. I had no choice but to stay here and lie low -- but for how long?

I had plenty of money, which I had helped myself to from Master Lung’s safe hidden in his secret villa. This was just in the nick of time, as moments later shooting broke out between the Flying Dragons and the Red Demons.

Though I was pretty certain that no one knew that I was in Hong Kong, a free-spending woman traveling by herself might attract attention. The tentacles of the Flying Dragon and Red Demon gangs extended everywhere Chinese was spoken.

In Shanghai, I was a multifaceted diamond glittering before my enthusiastic audiences, but now I felt like a street rat chased by people wielding sticks and knives….  I feared that I had stepped onto a path of no return.

I’d made not just one enemy, but two, and they were no ordinary enemies, but the two most notoriously relentless gangsters in lawless Shanghai.    

But making unexpected, risky moves in a seemingly hopeless situation was part of my training as a spy. So I could not help but think about the riskiest possible move – my potentially suicidal return to Shanghai. Of course not right now. Not until I’d had a chance to find out what was left of the two rival gangs after the shootout. Was the Flying Dragon’s Master Lung really dead at last -- or just nursing his wound somewhere awaiting his comeback? Had my boss the Red Demon’s Big Brother Wang finally been able to take over Lung’s place to be Shanghai’s number one gangster head?

Most of all, I was anxious to know the situation and whereabouts of my lover Jinying and our son Jinjin  -- if he was still in this life or already departed for the next. And too, there was Lung’s bodyguard and my other lover Gao – he had taken a bullet for me and, after the shoot out, brought me to the ship that had carried me to safety in Hong Kong. Had he survived – or had he lost everything because of me?

All these events in Shanghai were as in a past life. My twenty-year life now seemed unreal to me, like a movie. Was I about to leave the theater forever?

Visit Mingmei at: www.mingmeiyip.com

Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/SilkRoadRomance.MingmeiYip

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mingmeiyip

Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Mingmei-Yip/e/B0037A8RBO

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/235532.Mingmei_Yip

Guest Blog: Laura Rahme

This week, we're welcoming author Laura Rahme, whose latest title is The Ming Storytellers. Laura is offering a free paperback copy of the book to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb: 

It is the 15th Century. At the dawn of the Ming Dynasty, three women's path will cross.

And of their journey, a tale will be born.
An imperial concubine,

A Persian traveller,
And a mysterious storyteller.
Three women: one story.

This is BEIJING. A city seething with mystery and royal intrigue.
Once a palace orphan, the wilful Min Li has only ever sought to please, even if that means pleasing Emperor Zhu Di. Now a powerful concubine, Min Li unearths a terrible secret concealed within the walls of Beijing's Imperial city. Driven to despair, she seeks help from her lover, Admiral Zheng He. But this will spark a chain of events that even sets Beijing's palace on fire. Min Li's fate is sealed but her true enemy is not who she thinks.

The Ming Storytellers is a historical tale of 15th century China that sweeps across the palaces of Nanjing and Beijing into the mountainous villages of Yunnan, where a mysterious shaman holds the key to a woman's destiny.

Across the oceans, from the bustling bazaars of Southern India to the lush shores of Zanzibar, nothing is quite what it seems.

For the eyes and ears of the Ming Emperor are ever near.

A tale of the far East replete with dark secrets, The Ming Storytellers is set during the early Ming Dynasty, soon after the reconquest of The Middle Kingdom from the Mongols. 

The Ming Storytellers delves into the political and personal intrigues of the Zhu Imperial family. On the eve of the great Beijing Palace fire and the Ming fleet's sixth expedition, an imperial concubine is swept up by dark forces of obsession and revenge. 

The Ming Storytellers is a must journey for historical travellers and for those who believe in the bridging between worlds.

**Q&A with Laura Rahme**

Let’s begin with a fun question. List three things you enjoy that have little to do with historical writing and research.

I love fashion and clothes. I am vain, shamelessly girly and all those things people may not at first believe upon discovering that I wrote about a Chinese admiral who led a giant fleet. Then again, dressing up is a form of role-playing, isn’t it? And perhaps that, too, relates to writing... I love perfume and beholding eccentric perfume vials. There is something sensual and comforting about inhaling scents. I love cakes. Eating cake makes me happy.

The Ming Storytellers is set in the Ming Dynasty. Why did you choose to write about the Ming Dynasty?

It was in 2006. I had just read Gavin Menzies’ 1421. I witnessed a passionate debate about the book’s claim for Ming China’s discovery of America prior to Christopher Columbus. It left me indifferent. What mattered was that I had just been blown away by a period in China’s history of which I’d known little about. It was exciting. This was the first Ming Dynasty based book I had read and I knew of no historical novel set in that period.  Aside from Menzies’ 1421 and a few other publications The Ming Dynasty seemed overlooked, at least in Western literature. How could this be? The 15^th century was a period of immense achievement for China, both at home and across its naval realm. Beijing’s palace as we know it today and the reconstructed parts of the Great Wall owe much to Emperor Zhu Di, one of the first Ming emperors. The Mongols might still more or less rule China had not Zhu Di’s father, Emperor Hongwu, risen from his poor peasant status and led the reconquest of The Middle Kingdom. Again, during the Ming Dynasty, China was a maritime power and left ship remains as far as Africa.  Back then, China’s Muslim eunuchs became powerful admirals who headed naval diplomacy. In fact eunuchism during the Ming Dynasty reached an unparalleled scale. Where had I been sleeping? Where were all the books I could have been reading? It seemed to me that available literature was focused on the later Qing (or Manchu-ruled) China only to then run the full gamut on books based in Mao’s era. To answer the question, there was a gap that I hoped to fill. I am not the only writer who saw it. 

What was the inspiration for this novel?

I was researching my Vietnamese family genealogy, which dates back to the 17^th century. I read that my first known ancestor was a Ming partisan from the Chinese province of Fujian. He had fled China and settled in Vietnam at the end of the Ming Dynasty to avoid the humiliation of Manchu rule and escape the famine raging in his province. His tragic story gave me the impetus to research my Ming China origins. Through my family archives, I also learned of scheming eunuchs and of forbidden love affairs between imperial concubines and ministers. All this titillated my imagination because like many people, I love secrets and exploring other worlds. When I visited Beijing in 2006, its Inner Palace evoked for me, a sort of monastery with the eunuchs circulating like monks and possessing hidden knowledge. The lure of delving into the concubines’ secluded life, of creating a stifled atmosphere where little is directly spoken, all this, appealed to my affinity for nuance and secrecy. It was from this sense of mystery that I began my story. It took me five years to complete.

The novel’s description speaks of three women who are each from a different cultural background. Can you tell us more about them?

They are fascinating. When writing about China, I wanted to evoke its cultural plurality and shake off the homogenous ethnic quality that, in the West, we often assume of foreign characters. Min Li, my ‘Chinese’ concubine is in fact of mixed descent. The novel makes allusion to her mother’s White Hun parentage (today this would be closer to a Uyghur from the north-western province of Xinjiang) and while Min Li has been raised in the Nanjing palace and received a Confucian education, there are claims by other characters that her constant desire to roam derives from her ‘nomadic Mongol blood’. 

Min Li’s psychology was the most difficult to achieve. I wanted to justify her complex character as being a product of her unusual and orphaned upbringing. Earlier in the novel when she is still a teenager and becomes a concubine, it was a challenge to give her point of view; the point of view of a woman-child, eager to serve her emperor but naive about the role she plays in his master plan. Adult, she is psychologically the strongest and most resilient character in the novel. Min Li is also the woman depicted on the novel’s cover.

The second female character is someone I would describe as trans-cultural. We tend to think of the trans-cultural as being a modern phenomenon but I feel it has always existed. Shahrzad is Muslim, she is veiled and she is of mixed Omani and Persian descent but she has lived most of her life in the then Arab colony of Zanzibar. Ever since the tragic death of her mother, she has been partly raised by a Swahili servant. It is possible to imagine that much like her non-traditional upbringing she has grown into an anachronism of her times. As such I took many liberties with her. I permitted her cerebral obsessions and her commanding disposition. Shahrzad is far from a secluded woman. She travels. She reads avidly. She is highly intuitive and ruthless in achieving her aims. Like the other characters, she has secrets. When the enigma of Shahrzad is lifted, one can read The Ming Storytellers differently. It gains a different meaning.

The third female character, Jun, is another ‘Chinese’. Actually, she is ethnically a Mosuo from the south-western province of Yunnan. To create her accurately, I researched Nakhi and Mosuo culture along with their ancient Tibetan roots and I visited the mountainous village of Lijiang in China. It is one of the most beautiful places I have seen. Unlike Min Li and Shahrzad who exist in a patrilineal world, Jun springs from a matrilineal heritage. She comes from a social system where women inherit property and, in the case of the Mosuo, are free to choose their own lovers.

Do you believe historical novelists should abide to facts and refrain from too much creativity in reconstructing history?

Like many, I believe history as we know it is written by those who ruled and this has meant that its compilers are males, notably from a ruling class. As was the case for Emperor Zhu Di in the Ming Dynasty, official records attempted to give a favourable impression of the ruler’s character and achievements. I am wary of this just as I am wary of what is unsaid, what is never written and what is lost or destroyed. All these represent a significant gap in history, which archaeologists or other researchers will then attempt to somehow fill.  Yet even after this, there is still ambiguity. This historical ambiguity allows for a degree of creativity in writing. Wherever a historical figure’s motivation has remained unclear, wherever there is murder or a sudden death, wherever love affairs may have existed, or where a woman was involved (especially a woman whose name may not even feature in written records), in all those cases, there is room for informed creativity.  So far, this belief guides my writing. I believe that fiction becomes much more entertaining where there is artful integration of known facts into a creative narrative and the result is historically plausible. The Ming Storytellers does go a little further as it invites a touch of magic realism.

 
And one last question...any influences from your childhood that have imbued your writing?

There are many.  In The Ming Storytellers there are also elements that originate from popular stories that have marked me and I noticed this only after writing. For example, Jun can be conceived as a Little Mermaid archetype. When I was five and read Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid for the first time, I burst into tears.  I remember that I wept from my first broken heart but I also wept from awe and respect for the main character. Since then, I have always been moved by generous, self-effacing, yet incredibly strong characters and I think this was the drive behind Jun’s creation.

It was an uplifting journey as was the entire experience of writing The Ming Storytellers.

Novel Links:

Official Website – http://www.themingstorytellers.com

The Ming Storytellers on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/themingstorytellers

Digital editions available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble , iTunes and Lulu

Paperback available on Amazon

Author Links:

You can find Laura Rahme on Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest and Amazon.

Or visit her blog, Teranga and Sun

Guest Blog: Alma Alexander

This week, we’re welcoming author Alma Alexander whose title EMBERS OF HEAVEN blends history and fantasy. Alma is be here to talk about the novel and offer a  copy to a lucky winner. Here's the blurb:

Four hundred years after The Secrets of Jin-shei, the Syai Empire is on the brink of civil war. A new voice preaching equality promises hope for the downtrodden, but the ensuing people’s revolution brings terror, reeducation camps, and death to anyone embracing the old ways.

An outsider and a child of two worlds, Amais searches for the magical bond of jin-shei, the women’s oath, in her ancestral home of Syai, unaware that her quest will bring her to the very person who may destroy her and her family. And yet, she must face him, or all hope for Syai will be lost…

**Q&A with Alma Alexander**

What's the one thing that keeps you going back and writing?

Well, there are stories to be told. They more or less march up to me and they shake me by the shoulders if I have been procrastinating too long and they more or less tell me to get on with things, if I don't mind, thank you. My stories are in a way my muses - they kind of inspire and re-inspire themselves until they are done, and I keep going back to them and talking to them and cajoling them and yelling at them and threatening dire action if they don't do as I say... They are my friends, and a collective nemesis, and they demand that I tell them.

What can I do but obey? I am but a humble writer, and they need my mind and my hand to release themselves out into the world. So I lend them. Willingly. Often. Again and again.

Why did you base "Secrets of Jin Shei" on a fictional China instead of making it a pure fantasy setting, as in, say, “Changer of Days”?

The first inkling I had of the story which became "Secrets of Jin Shei" was a page of ten character sketches, each a short paragraph long - the characters were nameless and faceless at this point, all that existed of them was their history. I kind of knew that they were going to be Oriental but not that they were to be specifically Chinese-inspired. Until I received a newspaper clipping about a dying language, a written women's language taught from mother to daughter in China - and of how the last woman who had learned it organically in this way, now in her nineties, was dying, and would take the living language with her. And my ten character sketches sat up and became people, and after that China was inevitable.

With the fantasy duology, "Hidden Queen"/"Changer of Days", it was more of a pure joyous storytelling, something that came from absolutely nowhere but my own imagination. It was tied to nothing and nobody that had ties to or roots in the "real", our, world.

Every book is different. Look at just these two examples - one purely imaginary, the other researched and rooted in an actual historical and geographical setting but still fantasy and not REALLY that - and then, the new one, the latest one, "Midnight at Spanish Gardens", is set in a cafe called Spanish Gardens... which existed once. Exactly as I described it.

A story chooses its context - at least, my stories do. Stories are like semi-sentient jewels, seeking for the setting that best shows them off. And they know best.

What are some of your favorite resources for research? Do you purchase the books you need, or find them at the library?

Yes. [grin]

The expanded answer is yes, I buy them, I borrow them, I cadge them from friends if they have what I need, I use whatever means necessary.

And let me put in a plug here for used bookstores. There are two in the town in which I live, and they are fantastic - and they are STUFFED with treasures, some which you never knew you needed until you trip over the actual volume in a bottom shelf somewhere. I've found gems of obscure biographies in these stores, books long out of print, which contained PRECISELY the context I needed for a scene or a chapter or a character. I've found illustrated coffee table books which I would never have been able to afford new being sold for a kind of price that was well within my budget - and the pictures in which gave birth to spectacular settings in my novels. Old outdated encyclopedias can be invaluable resources (as in, "Good GRIEF - they actually believed THAT?")

I remember walking up to a bookstore employee once and asking him, semi-seriously, "If I were a book on Byzantium, where would I be?" (He pointed me to the right shelf with a big smile). Memoirs, letters, even old creaky out of print novels by writers you've never heard of which happen to be set in the world which you are researching. As always, caveat emptor - you have to do ENOUGH research to know what's true and what's pure malarkey - you have to know the real rules before you are allowed to break them. But anything can be grist to the mill.

Research can be intoxicating and dizzying and it may be difficult for the neophyte to know just when to STOP. But while you're doing it, it's amazing, it's like riding a wild horse without tack, and you never quite know where you're going to end up. And sometimes that final destination is quite, quite different from the one you thought you were aiming at. Good research will do that - redirect you to Wonderful, instead of just This Will Do - if you let it.

What scene do you like the most? Is there anything a character did that surprised you? 

I'm going to answer this one as pertains to the newest latest novel, "Midnight at Spanish Gardens".

Truth is, concerning favourite scenes, that I find it hard to answer these questions - because there are a dozen scenes in this book, which I love. The scenes that bookend the book - Olivia's thoughts on Spanish Gardens as she first approaches it, after so many years have passed since her last visit, and her thoughts about the place in the aftermath of the whole story that takes place between the covers of this book. The scene where John finds out about... but that would be a kind of spoiler, and this is one of the most powerful scenes in the book. The scene where Dorotea meets Quincey's family at their wedding.

Several of the conversations in Spanish Gardens itself at the reunion.

Almost every scene with Ariel. The thing about scenes, for me, is that they have never been something that stands out as and of themselves. I know some writers literally use them as building blocks for a novel, working scene by scene, building up a story that way - whereas I tend to tell the story and then be surprised when it breaks up into discrete scenes afterwards. I am a most organic writer, and to me the value is in the whole, not the scenes. That said... YOU, the reader, might find individual scenes, which matter more than others. If anyone out there wants to let me know which, I would be fascinated to hear it.

And as for my characters doing things to surprise me... EVERYTHING my characters do surprises me. My best characters are very much in charge of their own stories. I have learned the hard way that my characters are not TAME characters - they are not hawks trained to jesses and hood. I set them free, and then I follow where they lead me. Everyone is happier that way. And my characters, my lovely ever surprising characters, are real people who live and breathe, they are someone you just haven't met yet, but they exist. And if they walked out of the book, off the page, and stuck out their hand for you to shake it, you'd recognise them even if you have never formally met. Yes, they surprise me. I've been known to weep at some of the things my characters have chosen to do. I wouldn't have it any other way.

And on the heels of that...

Anghara has been around for a long time and you often say the Jin-Shei girls basically forced you to write their story. Which characters were the most difficult for you to write, and why?

The characters from "Midnight at Spanish Gardens" have traces of people I have known who once also frequented that cafe. One of the things that Simon tells Olivia about her life choices - "you are just misguided" - was actually uttered in that place. And more than that, the person who said it remembers saying it. Sometimes things are just given to you and they are gifts indeed.

Writers are often asked how they create characters - and some will tell you that they have charts or biographical files, everything meticulously noted and sketched out, characters drawn with an almost dictatorial hand - thus you shall be, Character A, and  no other way.... My characters, instead, tend to step fully formed out of the woodwork and stick out their hand and say, "Hi, my name is X, this is my story, start writing." I often don't know all that much about them, factually, biographically, except what they choose to tell me in a context where they believe information is pertinent or required. But on the other hand I know these characters far, far better in some ways than the carefully scripted ones can ever be known. Because mine can slide right off their original storyline... and it doesn't matter, because they are real enough to take the altered timelines and CHANGE WITH THEM if that is necessary. Which is, often, where they surprise me the most.

This might sound impossible, almost insane, to a non-writer, or to a writer of carefully regimented casts of characters who believes that giving them this much of a head can only lead to disaster. But really, this is not difficult at all. The thing a writer like me quickly learns to do is just listen well, and the stories which are filtered through me are mine only to shape and to polish. They are their characters' tales to tell. And I know how to keep out of the way. That’s the BEST way to treat characters who know what they are doing.

Do you intend to write a sequel, and what is the next project you are working on?

Again, a sweeping question. There are always sequels if you look for them. There MAY be another story in the Jin Shei universe, someday.

There definitely is another tale in the Changer of Days universe, but it's on the back burner. What I'm working on now, oddly, is the final "sequel" which will round off my Worldweavers series to a satisfying conclusion - and the finale is either going to be one fat book, or the final installment divided into two shorter volumes. But it's a ripsnorter of a story, and I am finding incredible ways in which everything ties together at the end - although, as I have already said elsewhere, I have a fantastic cast of characters and it shouldn't surprise me that they know what they are doing... After that, I have a couple of other projects in the pipeline. In the meantime I have a slew of shorter fiction out in the Fall 2012/Winter 2013 bracket - stories in anthologies "Dar Faith 2: Invocations", "Scheherezade's Facade", "Airships & Automatons" and another Steampunk anthology coming out soon  from Sky Warrior Books, as well as sales to publications such as Phantom Drift (October 2012) and Aoife's Kiss (coming up in the spring of 2013). There's plenty out there to read.

Future projects include another YA series, a new historical fantasy, and a new fantasy trilogy, Coming soon. Watch my blog, my Facebook fan page or my website for details...

Alma Alexander is the author of Secrets of Jin Shei and Embers of Heaven. Read Alma’s personal blog and access her articles at www.SFNovelists.com - on the 5th of every month - and www.Storytellersunplugged - on the 30th of every month.  Follow Alma on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook  and visit her Amazon page.

Excerpt Thursday: EMBERS OF HEAVEN by Alma Alexander

This week, we’re welcoming author Alma Alexander whose title EMBERS OF HEAVEN blends history and fantasy. Join us Sunday, when Alma will be here to talk about the novel and offer a  copy to a lucky winner. Here's the blurb:

Four hundred years after The Secrets of Jin-shei, the Syai Empire is on the brink of civil war. A new voice preaching equality promises hope for the downtrodden, but the ensuing people’s revolution brings terror, reeducation camps, and death to anyone embracing the old ways.

An outsider and a child of two worlds, Amais searches for the magical bond of jin-shei, the women’s oath, in her ancestral home of Syai, unaware that her quest will bring her to the very person who may destroy her and her family. And yet, she must face him, or all hope for Syai will be lost…

**An Excerpt from EMBERS OF HEAVEN**

Iloh himself waited in the courtyard.

For a moment, I did not recognise him - he would have been only forty two years old at the time, but he looked older, with prominent bags under his eyes as if he hadn't slept well for a long time. But the eyes themselves - ah, the eyes were the same, black and brilliant, and hungry.

 I stopped, staring at him. He stared right back.

"You haven't changed," he said at last, breaking the silence.

"Oh yes," I said quietly, "I have..."

"No, said Shou'min Iloh in the voice he usually must have reserved for proclamations, because it had the ring of because-I-say-so authority.  "You have not. Oh, I don't mean that you are still the child that you were when I first saw you - you're not that, not by a long way. 

But you... you are still the same. Only you would walk up to this place and assume that your name alone would get you taken straight  through to me. Of all the women I have ever known in my life, you remain the only one who doesn't know the meaning of fear."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. "I? I am afraid of everything..."

"Not of me," he said. "That has always been your hold on me. You have never knelt to me. Come."

I suppose I could have proved him wrong and refused what was fairly obviously a command, and one that he assumed would be obeyed - he had turned and walked away, and it was obvious he expected me to follow - but this was what I had come here for, after all. So I obeyed, and fell into step - not behind him, beside him. I saw him smile at that, but he didn't speak again until we were out of the open courtyard and into a quiet room which was apparently an inner sanctum - a desk, an office chair, a typewriter, a lamp, an iron bedstead, and not much else. He closed the door behind us.

"You look tired," I said, and oh, the place where that tenderness came from - the place I still carried within me after all those years - the shores of the ocean of yuan, of the fate that had first delivered me to him.  Xuan was my life and the practical sunlit hours of my days - but Iloh had always been the other half of me, the fevered dream of my nights, and nothing had changed there, nothing at all.

This was the man who had broken my family on the wheel of his ideals, who had fuelled the fire of the Rising, who had brought in the Army to quell it when it became inconvenient - a man who had never stopped looking for his Iron Bridge, feeding whatever he could into the furnace to create the New Man who would come to live in his dream and make it a glorious reality. But he was the heart of this country, for all that. And hearts notoriously do not waste time on practical things. They yearn. They want. They love, beyond hope and beyond reason.

Alma Alexander is the author of Secrets of Jin Shei and Embers of Heaven. Read Alma’s personal blog and access her articles at www.SFNovelists.com - on the 5th of every month - and www.Storytellersunplugged - on the 30th of every month.  Follow Alma on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook  and visit her Amazon page.

The Entertainers: Disciples of the Pear Garden

Jeannie Lin

The Tang Dynasty was a golden age for the arts in imperial China and the theater was no exception. In the 8th century, Emperor Xuanzong formed the first national opera troupe which primarily performed for the Emperor's pleasure. The troupe was dubbed the "Pear Garden" and opera performers to this day are referred to as "Disciples of the Pear Garden."

Throughout the Tang and Song dynasties, opera was performed in Classical Chinese, however the during the Yuan Dynasty, operas performed in the vernacular became popular. Today there are 368 forms of Chinese opera, the Beijing form being the most popular.

Chinese opera is a combination of song, instrumental music, dance, acrobatics and martial arts. The training is quite strenuous with performers usually starting at a very young age. In historical tradition, a schoolmaster would take on all the costs of training and raising the disciples. As a result, the performers would incur debt which they would repay later on as they started to perform. Jackie Chan received vocal, acrobatic, and martial arts training as a child in a Beijing Opera School. So we can credit his crowd-pleasing stunts to his operatic background. I hear he's not a bad singer either.

In traditional Beijing opera, there are specific roles: Sheng (male), Dan (female), Jing (painted-face male), Chou (comedic). Within those categories, there are further sub-categories which correspond to common archetypes, for example the elderly man, the virtuous woman, the young male, the general, the warrior. The elaborate costumes, headdress and makeup are specific to each archetype and serve to help identify the character to the audience.

One of the most famous roles in the Chinese opera is that of the Monkey King. This role requires someone with acrobatic and martial arts ability as well as great comic timing.

Much like in early Shakespearean theater, female or dan roles were played by male actors. Their costumes were modified to make the actors appear more feminine such as special shoes to make their feet appear smaller. This practice waned after women were started appearing on stage in the 1870s, though the female actors continue to play the traditional roles as they were originally written -- which was for a man impersonating a woman.

Research into the North Hamlet, the entertainment district of the Tang Dynasty, yielded some very colorful characters which will hopefully be unveiled in upcoming books.

Jeannie Lin writes sweeping historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China, featuring sword play, politics, and, above all, honor. Her Golden Heart award winning debut, BUTTERFLY SWORDS, and the linked short story "THE TAMING OF MEI LIN" are currently available from Harlequin Historical.

Crime & Law Enforcement: Judge Dee

Jeannie Lin

The Tang Code was a complex legal system of offenses and punishments established during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) Consisting of twelve sections and 500 articles, the written code was considered the pinnacle of Chinese traditional law. It became the model system for subsequent dynasties as well as other governments in East Asia such as Japan and Korea.

The code was adjudicated by an array of magistrates who played a part in the investigation of crimes as well as the meting out of punishment. The most famous of such officials is arguably Di Renjie (630-700 A.D.), a statesman and magistrate of the Tang Dynasty who was highly revered by Empress Wu Zetian for his logical nature and honesty.

During part of his career, Di Renjie served as magistrate in Pengze County before promotion to prefect and eventually becoming a trusted and longtime adviser to the Empress herself. Yet despite his illustrious imperial career, he would be relatively unknown to the West save for an interesting turn of events.

In the Ming Dynasty (18th century), a Chinese historical detective novel was written about a crime solving magistrate called Judge Dee, a figure based on Di Renjie. Robert van Gulik, a Dutch diplomat and writer, found a copy of the novel, titled Dee Goong An, in a used bookstore. He later translated the novel into English and published it as The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.

During the effort, van Gulik translated the text faithfully, but he recognized that the supernatural element and the heavy application of philosophy might alienate western readers. On top of that, the murderer in one of the cases was revealed at the beginning with all of his motivations laid out! What fun was that for mystery readers?

Inspired by the tales, Robert van Gulik proceeded to write his own detective stories, borrowing the figure of Judge Dee. The first one, titled The Chinese Maze Murders, contains three mysteries: "The Case of the Sealed Room", "The Case of the Hidden Testament", and "The Case of the Girl with the Severed Head". All three were based on actual Chinese casebooks and van Gulik often drew from documented cases for his material.

The series contains sixteen books featuring the crime solving Judge Dee, who uses his sharp instincts and keen judgment to investigate the crimes and piece together the mystery. True to traditional Chinese detective novels, each book usually features the investigation of three seemingly unrelated crimes. A common theme is the introduction of a seemingly supernatural element, though logic and rationality prevails in the end. Along with the mystery, readers explore the ancient Chinese landscape (though the details often represent Ming rather than Tang culture) and get a glimpse of the imperial justice system.

As a result of the popular series, Judge Dee is often referred to as the Chinese Sherlock Holmes, a sharp mind with a boxer's physique. The books feature a cast of secondaries such as Dee's three wives (it's good to be a magistrate) and the thugs and bandits who Dee is able to impress into his service with his integrity. Not to mention an array of courtesans, entertainers, merchants, noblemen, and officials. In typical whodunit fashion, the books start out with a strange murder or disappearance. Dee's mode of operation is to investigate and interrogate each witness and suspect personally, making his way through the colorful city as he chases down clues and red herrings.

Jeannie Lin writes sweeping historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China, featuring sword play, politics, and, above all, honor. Her Golden Heart award winning debut, BUTTERFLY SWORDS, and the linked short story "THE TAMING OF MEI LIN" are currently available from Harlequin Historical.