Interview with Margaret Tanner

Today, I'd like to welcome Margaret Tanner, author of "THE TROUBLE WITH PLAYBOYS" to our website.

1. Welcome, I’m so glad to have this opportunity to chat with you. Can you share with my readers the essence of the story you’ve penned?

The essence of the story is about love lost and found against a background of the 2nd World War, and how one man’s lust had the power to ruin the lives of the following generation.

2. You’ve chosen a very interesting title. What inspired the title? What inspired the book?

My Editor suggested the title actually. This is an updated version of a novel titled “Forbidden Love” which was with a publisher who unfortuantely had to close their doors. Although the original book received a 5 star review from The Romance Studio, I feel that with the help of my wonderful editor, Nan Swanson at The Wild Rose Press, it is an even better read now.

My late father served in the 2nd World War in Singapore and Malaya and as he was engaged to my mother at the time, he wrote many poignant letters to her, which I had access to. (Perhaps I inherited my writing talents from him??). I wanted the memory of their love and fortitude, and that of their generation, against such tremendous odds, to be remembered, but not in some dusty history book shoved in an out of the way library.

3. What makes this book special to you?

The location. It is partially set in Wangaratta, my birth place, and a country town that is still dear to my heart. Also parts of it are set in Malaya and Singapore during the 2nd World War, and as my late father served there. I was able to get first hand information on the terrible happenings and chaotic situation in the few weeks before Singapore capitulated to the Japanese.

4. What makes this a book that people MUST read and WHY?

I think I have answered that above, but I do believe we need to find out as much as we can about the terrors, triumphs and heartbreak of war, so we can get a better insight into what our parents and grandparents went through.

5. What sparks your creativity? Any tips to help others spark their own creativity?

Anything can spark my creatitivy, although I do find certin scents – lavender and rosemary for example, really affect me.

6. What has been the biggest stumbling block in your writing? Can you share some tips to help others get past similar problems?

My biggest stumbling block is finding time to write. I find it helpful to look on it as you would a paid job. Make a roster/schedule and try to stick to it, although you do need to be flexible. Always carry a note book for jotting down ideas.

7. Tell me about the most unusual things you have done to promote your book?

I went to a “trash and treasure” market once and walked up and down wearing a huge bill-board promoting my books. The weight of it just about broke my back, and I didn’t get many sales either. I work at an X-ray clinic and I got my boss to let me put a sign on the reception desk promoting my books, but the patient’s though they were for free. Although, I did sell one book to a relieving Chinese Radiologist.

8. Each author is different in the way they create a work of fiction. Please describe for us how you plan or plot a story.

I never plot or plan. The story just jumps into my head and I write it down in long hand, not worrying about punctuation, sentences or paragraphs, and I transcribe it on to the computer at a later date.

9. Authors are very unique in the way they write, the tools they use, when they write, etc. Please describe a typical writing day for you? How do you organize your day?

I try to be well organized. Mostly I write in the evening when I get home from work. I seem to get inspiration at night time, although as I said before I always carry my trusty note book around with me. My husband says it is like my third arm.

10. What is your current work in progress?

I am working on a story set in the 1880’s in Australia. The heroine, who has amnesia, is mistaken for a courtesan. By the time the hero realises that she is a virgin it is too late. He sets about trying to turn her into the kind of woman every man dreams of, but complications that he never envisaged arise and change the course of both their lives.

11. Can you tell us where to find more information about you and your books and how readers can reach you?

My website is http://www.margarettanner.com/

My publisher for “The Trouble with Playboys” is the Wild Rose Press
www.thewildrosepress.com

Whiskey Creek Press is my other publisher www.whiskeycreekpress.com

12. What would you like our readers to know about you and your writing?

I am an emotional person and I write from the heart. I also love history, so my research is thorough, so my books are historically accurate.

Many thanks Mirella for your insightful questions and for this opportunity to present myself. Margaret



When a wealthy Englishman, Paul Ashfield travels to Australia in search of the birth mother he thinks deserted him, he never expects to meet and fall in love with Daphne Clarke. Upon meeting her parents, Paul is horrified by the possibility that they have the same mother. He beats a hasty retreat, believing he has slept with his sister.

Amidst the turmoil of WW2 they meet again in singapore, where he discovers the truth, Daphne is not his sister. They marry as the Japanese pour into Malaya and Singapore teeters on the birnk of invasion. In the chaotic aftermath, each believe the other has died during the bombing. When they finally see each other again, it is in a church, where Paul is about to enter into an arranged marriage.

The Trouble with Playboys by Margaret Tanner

When a wealthy Englishman, Paul Ashfield travels to Australia in search of the birth mother he thinks deserted him, he never expects to meet and fall in love with Daphne Clarke. Upon meeting her parents, Paul is horrified by the possibility that they have the same mother. He beats a hasty retreat, believing he has slept with his sister.

Amidst the turmoil of WW2 they meet again in singapore, where he discovers the truth, Daphne is not his sister. They marry as the Japanese pour into Malaya and Singapore teeters on the birnk of invasion. In the chaotic aftermath, each believe the other has died during the bombing. When they finally see each other again, it is in a church, where Paul is about to enter into an arranged marriage.

Winner - Dr. Margaret's Sea Chest

Congratulations to Susan Hawkins who is the winner of Waheed Rabani's novel, Dr. Margaret's Sea Chest. It's a sweeping historical story that covers several eras and plot lines. I'm sure it will keep you well entertained.

The Fool's Tale by Nicole Galland

Roger Mortimer, a ruthless English magnate attempts to assassinate the Welsh King Cadwallon. During the assassination attempt, Gwirion tries to protect the fallen king and is captured. Valiantly, he refuses to give up the location of the king’s son and heir and his best friend, Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon, known as Noble. Gwirion is tortured and beaten, but he refuses to give up any information on his friend, Prince Noble who now must take his father’s place as king. Noble and Gwirion become bonded and truly inseparable.

Noble’s reign is in constant turmoil as he struggles to keep his tiny kingdom from being usurped from archrival Roger Mortimer. In an effort to try to bring peace to his kingdom, he marries Isabel Mortimer, Roger’s niece.

Gwirion's outrageous humour and mischievous pranks are normal fare at Cymaron Castle. But a catastrophic hoax performed during Isabel and Noble’s wedding provokes an explosive antagonism between Gwirion and Isabel for the king's affection.

The naive Isabel is determined to earn acceptance as queen in the unrefined, unceremonious, and boorish Welsh court. Slowly she gains the respect of her husband and the people, but not Gwirion, the king’s fool and best friend. Gwirion hates the Mortimers for the murder he witnessed and his subsequent torture.

As Mortimer continues to wreak havoc on Cadwallon, trouble flourishes between Noble and Isabel. Slowly, in time, admiration and friendship soon blossoms into romantic love between Gwirion and Isabel. Lives, friendship, marriage, kingdoms, love, and loyalty are all at stake as one betrays the other in this complicated love triangle.

The outrageous pranks and strong character interactions kept me flipping pages as I become totally engrossed in this believable and fascinating tale.

The Kings Touch by Jude Morgan

A biography written in the first person through the eyes of Jemmy, aka James Crofts who became James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. He describes his complex relationship with his father, King Charles II.

Born in Rotterdam in 1649, the same year as the execution of his grandfather, Charles I, James was the child of Prince Charles’ exile, and he and the boy’s mother, Lucy Walter, parted long before he regained his throne.

James’s early life was blighted with poverty as well as his illegitimacy, which never left him. With little money for Lucy Walter and James’ half sister, Mary, his mother began relationships with a series of men in the hope she would be cared for.

Prince Charles took over Jemmy’s upbringing and sent him to Colombes outside Paris, to live with his grandmother, the dower Queen Henrietta Maria, the bitter papist French queen who mourned her martyred husband all her life.

Jemmy forms a firm and lasting attachment to his aunt Henrietta Anne, ‘Minette’ and creates a jealousy in his father whose devotion to his sister was particularly close. Minette accepts a marriage to the odious Monsieur, Phillippe duc d’Orleans and despite the outcome of this disastrous marriage where her premature death is shrouded with suspicion, we are assured that Minette lived her destiny and wouldn’t have changed anything.

Jude Morgan puts himself into this lost child’s head with great style, explaining his insecurity, his loyalty to his much-maligned mother and his unshakeable belief that his parents entered a clandestine marriage.

When Jemmy was eleven, Charles II was restored to his throne and his life altered beyond recognition. In 1662, he was brought to England to be part of the court at Whitehall and he becomes the crown prince in all but name with servants, clothes, riches and honours. Despite this, the shadow of Jemmy’s early life remains and colour his behaviour and decisions from then on.

King Charles II marries him to a considerable heiress, Anna Scott, the Duchess of Buccleigh whose name he adopts, when he is only fifteen. The marriage is not a success, but for a while, this spoiled pair are the darlings of the court.

In Jemmy’s own words, he freely admits to taking everything Charles II gives him and expects even more, excusing himself at the same time that all he really sought was his father’s love.

Jemmy clings to the belief he isn’t a bastard, despite his father’s frequent insistence that he and Lucy Walter were never married. Jemmy is ripe for seduction by the Exclusionist, Lord Shaftesbury, who hates the king’s brother and heir, the Catholic James, Duke of York. When Shaftesbury schemes to have the Duke of York excluded from the succession and Jemmy legitimised and declared heir to the throne, it’s no more than Jemmy believes he deserves.

Despite the author’s mitigation that Jemmy was unsure of his place in the world, a romantic soul not sharp enough to detect ambition in others and was led astray, again and again Charles pardons him and buys off his conspirators.

Does this handsome, rich and impetuous boy learn?

Like the true Stuart he was, of course not. By the end of the book he is a thirty six year old man with a mountain of regrets, banished from England and living in exile with his mistress, Lady Henrietta Wentworth.

Before he can obtain that final pardon he always believed would be his and go home, Charles II dies and the new king closes the ports to stop his troubled nephew from returning.

The footnote is written by Lady Henrietta Wentworth, who outlived him by only a year to die at twenty-six. She gives a brief account of the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion where Jemmy attempts to raise an army and rid the country of his uncle. Jemmy seriously underestimates James II, or rather he overestimates his own popularity and when he is caught and captured, his previous actions tell me that he fully expected to be pardoned. However his uncle is crueller than his father ever was and has him executed.

More like an autobiography than a colourful romp through Restoration times, Queen Henrietta Maria comes across every bit as awful as history has painted her. The story is very sad in places as Jemmy explains his sense of isolation from a family he yearns to be part of but is kept on the sidelines by his illegitimacy.

This is a sad and beautiful story of a man for whom the world truly wasn’t enough. Of a king who understood his son completely and loved him so much, he continued giving and forgiving, aware that he sealed his tragic fate at the same time.

Jude Morgan doesn’t shirk from Jemmy’s bursts of ill behavior, his acquisitive greed and the fact that he slept with his father’s mistress, Barbara Castlemaine.

His portrayal of the court of King Charles II is mastery and his pastiches of Queen Catherine of Braganza, Barbara Castlemaine, Louise de Keroualle and Minette, the oh-o-good-but-proud princess-in-exile are lovely.

Review by Anita Davison

Win a copy of Dr Margaret's Sea Chest

Win a free copy of Dr. Margaret's Sea Chest.

All you have to do is visit Waheed Rabbani's home page at:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~wrabbani

and answer the following questions correctly:

Where was Dr. Margaret born and what was her family's religious affiliation?

Once you have the answer, send an email message to Wally at:

wallyr20045@yahoo.ca

The first person to answer the question correctly will win a free copy of Dr Margaret's Sea Chest. Winners will be announced at the end of April.
I wish you all good luck!

Waheed's Favourite Excerpt

Chapter 10

Six Years Later

1847 July: Grimsby, Upper Canada

From far away out on the lake a flock of gulls spotted us, for they flew over the beach squawking and flapping their white wings. It was a sunny, breezy, Sunday morning and Robert and I had gone out riding. We ended up at the Forty Mile Creek and, tethering our horses to a tree, strolled on the sandy shore.

“It appears they are welcoming you back, Cousin Margaret.” Robert said, as he pointed at the birds, while his golden hair blew in the wind gusting from the lake.

“You are such a romantic, Cousin Robert. The birds don’t know me from Eve. It’s likely my red dress they are after.” I looked up at the birds, needing to hold on to my bonnet with one hand. Indeed, I was happy, just like the gulls, to be back—it had been six long years—since I last visited Grimsby. This time only Elizabeth and I had come over, although not without a chaperone. Mamma had made sure that one of her distant cousins, Aunt Clara, accompanied us.

“Romantic! Who me? From what I’ve heard, you’re the romantic one!” Robert said sounding much mature than the young twelve year old I had walked on that same beach the last time.

“Oh! And pray what have you heard?”

“That more than half the birds in New Jersey are in love with you!”

“Well I can’t help it if they keep coming to my window ledge, can I?”

“Why don’t you catch some one day and make a good meal out of them? I love bird stew.”

“Never! Oh, you’re so cruel, Cousin Robert.” I grabbed his arm and tried to twist it playfully behind his back. He shook himself free and ran ahead. I followed in pursuit. He looked back and seeing me falling behind, slowed down, I believe purposely, for even at eighteen he had strong long muscular legs that could have outrun the best sprinter, let alone poor me. I reached him, grabbed his jacket collar, and pulled his face closer to mine. He had mischief written all over his countenance.

“I demand you take back what you said about killing and eating those poor creatures,” I said, breathless and in mock anger.

“All right, all right. I’m sorry for even saying so, let alone doing it. Now will you release me or are you going to strangle me right here on the beach?”

“There, that’s better,” I said, letting go his collar and hitting him lightly on the shoulder.

“Thank you your highness,” he said making a curtsey to me, in the noble way, with a bow and a wave of the arm.

“You are forgiven, sire.”

We had run quite a distance along the beach, and I was feeling hot in the high-collar buttoned-up dress. Although, I was then only seventeen, I had filled out. Mamma thought I had developed a bit too much and wouldn’t permit me to wear a low-cut dress. I felt thirsty, and looking up at the embankment, I spotted the same Lake House Tavern in the distance.

“Look Cousin Robert,” I said, pointing to the tavern.

“Yes?” he asked with a quizzical look.

“Goot any money gov’ner?” I asked, doing my best to mimic a poor cockney.

“Yes, I do. But why?” Robert still looked puzzled.

“Last time we were ‘ere m’lord, you didn’t ‘ave any.”

At last the penny dropped. He burst out laughing.

He recovered to say in his best English accent, “Well, m’lady, I have found a buried treasure chest. You only have to command me to escort you to that establishment.”

“I command thee.”

“It shall be done.” He extended his right elbow to me, and we walked on the path towards the tavern.

I stumbled, having stepped on a loose rock or something. Robert, turning swiftly, put his arm around me to support me up. My breasts pressed on his muscular chest. At that contact and from his closeness, a pleasant sensation flowed through me. I felt faint and could not withdraw, which I should have done. Neither did Robert step back. We simply stood there in a trance, in the cuddle, looking into each other’s eyes, savoring the moment.

Finally, I regained my composure. “Let’s go, there are people watching us,” I whispered.