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.
