Tuesday 10 September 2019

Cursed? Or Just Unlucky?




 When not reading horror, I frequently turn to another of my passions - historical fiction - and one of my favourite authors in that genre is Shehanne Moore.

She brings a zest for adventure, humour, spice and a cast of characters that leap from the pages and keep me entertained from start to finish. Yes, there is romance, but bosoms most assuredly remain unheaved. Shehanne's heroines are tough, feisty and indefatigable. The heroes are anything but textbook.

Now Shehanne is back with the first in a new series - Cornish Rogues. She's here to tell us more about 'O'Roarke's Destiny':

‘May everything you touch wither to dust.’ Cursed? Or just unlucky? 
    The question is this. I cursed you. I cursed you and your brothers –” 
    “One of whom—” 
    “Blew his brains out at midnight. Do you seriously think I didn’t trouble myself to find out?”
     “Oh, I’m sure-"
 
     “May everything you touch, turn to dust.”’  
     Cursed?  Or just unlucky? Nice to think it’s the latter but legends of curses permeate practically every culture in history. from entire families to items---jewels especially—but places too.  It would be good to say we just like someone to blame misfortune on but then again, some folks don’t seem to have a lot of good fortune, do they? 
   Let’s take my new heroine, Destiny who is the victim of just such a curse…
   “But the fact was that curse uttered for nothing had killed Ennis, as surely as if Divers O’Roarke had pushed his carriage down that ravine that night.” 
     It’s very convenient to believe that all the loss and tragedy that follows Destiny about like a bad smell is the result of that curse, when it was probably on the cards anyway.  Also, at the time she was cruising for the proverbial bruising, causing besotted men to shoot each other, this could just have been a wind change in her life,  a what-goes-round-comes-round time. But then again, the loss of a mother, father, brother, husband and more in the space of two years, not to mention another brother becoming an alcoholic, does seem the kind of misfortune that would give the Kennedy family a run for their money in the cursed stakes.  
      And I think that is where curses have their power—superstitious--but even so. Would you really want to flout a curse by wearing the Hope diamond for example? Or indeed  by then touching someone who was cursed? 
    From Land’s End to Launceston people avoided her like she had the plague. In fact it was probably from Land’s End to John O’Groats. She couldn’t get another husband even if she wanted to.” 
     Whether it is balderdash or not, if something goes wrong after you flout a curse, well, you are probably going to blame the curse and wish you hadn’t done it, even if curses may, or may not exist. The Rhodes family aren’t alone in being cursed. Other famous families, in addition to the Kennedys, include the Hapsburgs, the Grimaldis, the Hemingways. I guess the Romanovs weren’t exactly what you might call lucky either. 
      Of course big families like that, in terms of being newsworthy, of having wealth etc., are always going to find their bones being picked over by the ‘lesser mortals.’  And the Rhodes family have that local standing.
      ‘She was a Rhodes and Rhodes were all about living life to the hilt.’
      Big old house, family tree going back centuries, suggestions of links to pirates, definite links to smugglers. Legends surround them, like Raven’s Passage, said to stretch from their family seat, Doom Bar Hall, all the way to the beach, a fabulous place stuffed with golden treasures. 
     It’s easy to say that some of these real families were cursed when you can point to the actual curse itself, how it came to be uttered and who was responsible.  Rasputin, of course gets held responsible for cursing the Romanovs but as a family they had plenty of misfortune before that. Nicholas II’s father and grandfather didn’t exactly fare brilliantly either and Rasputin never cursed them.  But then the times they were living in were pretty explosive.  No pun intended actually. Just pointing out the possible carnage/ill heath rate which brings me to the Brontës, another family that might be construed as cursed. Equally fame eventually touched them, so we know of their lives. But their deaths were the lot of entire families especially given the unsanitary conditions of the time. 
     The thing about curses? I honestly think you pay your money you take your chances…I know I am taking mine releasing this book on a Friday 13th.  It did-–er—seem apt.  And I loved weaving a curse into the story as it gave me plenty scope to use the hero and heroine’s reaction to it to drive things forward. 
      Catherine, thank you so very much for asking me here today.
    “He cursed you, me, Chancery. You most of all. Think how different your life would now be if he hadn’t uttered these damnable words. When Chancery loved Rose. Wanted to marry her, for God’s sake. That Divers O’Roarke didn’t know is no damned excuse.”
     “I am thinking. And I’m thinking we are the life we live. Its graces and its pain. And while we may not always have any control over it, we can control what we do about it. But if you want to believe in a load of old gypsy mutterings and superstition and hold it responsible for the fact you can’t walk past a drink, without feeling obliged to down and then drown in it, that’s your choice. This is mine.” 


   Once he’d have died to possess her, now he just might… 

Beautiful, headstrong young widow Destiny Rhodes was every Cornish man’s dream. Until Divers O’Roarke cursed her with ruin and walked out of Cornwall without a backwards glance. Now he’s not only back, he’s just won the only thing that hasn’t fallen down about her head—her ancestral home. The home, pride demands she throw herself in with, safe in the knowledge of one thing. Everything she touches withers to dust. 
He’d cursed her with ruin.
Now she’d have him live with the spoils of her misfortune.
Though well versed in his dealings with smugglers and dead men, handsome rogue Divers O’Roarke is far from sure of his standing with Destiny Rhodes. He had no desire to win her, doesn’t want her in his house, but while he’s bent on the future, is there one when a passionate and deadly game of bluff ensues with the woman he once cursed? A game where no-one and nothing are what they seem. Him most of all.
And when everything she touches turns to dust, what will be his fate as passion erupts?  Will laying past ghosts come at the highest price of all?
Available Amazon. September 13th 2019 Black Wolf Books.






About the Author

When not cuddling inn signs in her beloved Scottish mountains alongside Mr Shey, Shehanne Moore writes dark and smexy historical romance, featuring bad boys who need a bad girl to sort them out. She firmly believes everyone deserves a little love, forgiveness and a second chance in life.

Shehanne caused general apoplexy when she penned her first story, The Hore House Mystery—aged seven. From there she progressed to writing plays for her classmates,  stories for her classmates, plays for real, comic book libraries for girls, various newspaper articles,  ghost writing, nonfiction writing, and magazine editing.  Stories for real were  what she really wanted to write though and, having met with every rejection going, she sat down one day to write a romance, her way.  




6 comments:

  1. Interesting thoughts about curses. I'd have to say no, I don't believe in them, and yet there's no way I'd touch the Hope Diamond! The book sounds fab. Best of luck to Ms Moore on this new release!

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    1. Thanks, Priscilla. I tend to be open-minded on curses, but I do believe that objects can absorb energies from their habitats so I'm probably with you on the Hope Diamond - something nasty has infected it and won't go away...

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    2. Cat.. a book in there perhaps....?

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  2. Lol, that is how I feel re the Hope Diamond...not with a bargepole in fact ... and I think that is the power these things can still have even though we think, 'Nah'. Thank you so much for your kind wishes. Cat, thank you for inviting me here today. Now I'm back home I can get this out here and of course the little dudes will reblog this in the next week too xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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    1. I'm sure they will, Shey. Always a pleasure to have you come and visit my blog. You;re welcome any time. The book will be dropping onto my Kindle on Friday. Really looking forward to it.

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  3. Ooh... now this is when I get nervous but thank you for letting me come to your blog. Always love it here you know And thank you for kind intro here too xxxxxxxxxxxx

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