Downton Abbey is but a memory… but it will be forever in our hearts.
Do you remember that first scene when a messenger on a bicycle brought a telegram to the Crawley family that would forever change their lives?
And ours?
A telegram about two male relatives lost at sea.
On the Titanic.
Hard to believe it’s 110 years ago today the grand ship Titanic left Ireland.
So in honor of the souls who perished that night and those who survived, here is a lesser known story about the Titanic.
And the pig.
According to the New York Herald on April 19, 1912: Five women saved their pet dogs and another woman saved a little pig, which she said was her mascot.
The reporter goes on to say that she didn’t know how the woman cared for her pig aboard the Titanic, but she carried it up the side of the ship [the Carpathia, rescue ship] in a big bag.
How did the pig get into the lifeboat?
Was the little pig traveling first class?
In a word, yes.
More about this intrepid little piggy and the important part it played in the sinking of the Titanic later. First, it seems you can’t get away from pigs and the Titanic.
In the Julian Fellowes’ mini-series Titanic, a passenger in third class isn’t happy about traveling steerage to New York. She tells her husband that her daughter said their Irish Catholic family is like six little pigs packed into that cabin, all trussed and bound for market.
They’re not the only Irish aboard the ship with pigs on their mind.
Ava O’Reilly, the heroine in my historical romance, THE RUNAWAY GIRL nearly doesn’t make it on board the ship because of a pig.
Katie runs away from the grand house where she is in service after she is wrongly accused of stealing a diamond bracelet. The law is after her, but she has one chance to escape.
The Titanic.
Will Ava make it on board the Titanic before she sails? Only by the skin of her teeth.
Does she see the pig during the crossing?
Few passengers did because the cute little pig with the curly tail was the lucky mascot of Miss Edith Russell.
She loved to wind up its tail and it would play a lively musical tune similar to a two-step called Maxixe.
You see, the pig was musical pig.
The reporter on the Carpathia didn’t know the real story behind Miss Russell’s pig. How it was given to her after she survived a horrific motorcar crash. She promised her mother it would never be out of her sight. When she realized the Titanic was sinking and she’d left her mascot in her cabin, she sent the steward to retrieve her lucky pig.
Still, Edith was hesitant to get into a lifeboat. When a seaman tossed her pig into a boat (believing it was a baby wrapped up in a bag), Edith insisted on getting into the boat, too. Its nose was gone and its legs broken, but Edith and her little pig escaped in lifeboat no. 11.
Overcrowded with sixty-eight passengers (nearly one-third were children), Edith realized her little pig could comfort others as it had her. She wound up its tail so it would play music for the children. Most of the little ones stopped crying as the pig’s sparkling musical notes calmed their fears.
Its furry, white-gray body wet with sea spray.
Its cute grin giving them hope they would be saved.
It was the little Titanic pig that could.
Thanks for stopping by!
~Jina
The Runaway Girl
Buy Links:
Amazon:
Audible https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084MM1D4R
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/3A08bcsCeI6LHWRQTmAM30
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-runaway-girl-jina-bacarr/1135653540?ean=9781838893736
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-runaway-girl-1
Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-runaway-girl/id1492269132
PS check out TITANIC AND ME, my story behind the story on the BOLDWOOD BOOKS Blog.
Once upon the ship of dreams… me dressed as a first class lady
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Happy April. One of the reasons I chose this day of the month to post is because my birthday is the 5th of the month. I knew I’d remember the fifth day of the month. However, this month I actually forgot today was my day to post. What’s more shocking, I forgot it was my birthday. I’m not saying I’m old and forgetful. I’m saying I’m on a major deadline focused on one thing, completing my book.
I thought setting up preorders with Amazon would help me stick to my writing goal for the year of three books. I’m on track to meet that goal. However, setting up preorders has been a little stressful. I made a mistake after my last release…I took a break. During that break, I got blocked. I love the story I’m writing. The characters are fun and it’s been exciting watching them grow. What I didn’t expect was I would hit a wall with the story.
I’ve been careful to have one major surprise revealed in each of the books. In part four, the heroine discovered her lover’s secret. In part five, she has to figure out her next move. For all those author who outline this wouldn’t be a problem, because I’m a panster I don’t know where the story is going or if it’s going anywhere until the inspiration or muse hits.
When I decided to write a fifth book in this series, I knew the main plot revolved around the heroine deciding if she wanted to remain married to a man she really didn’t know. If she did, it would open the door to a sea of problems and new characters. So now I’m faced with a few decisions: a) push the release date back a month and risk punishment from KDP; b) make part five VERY long or add a sixth book; c) spin off the other characters into stand alone books; d) new covers again…I never expected the series to go beyond four books so I didn’t really have covers for more than five books…well that’s not exactly true. I have a cover I can’t use because Amazon will probably banish me to the EZone (erotica) and there’s no way Facebook will allow me to run ads.
Four pressing questions all because I set up preorders in order to stick to my publishing goal. So what would you do? Would you push for a fat book five or add a sixth book? Here’s an advantage to a sixth book in the series, additional revenue.
As for the rest of my goals list, here’s the update. Goals achieved are striked out
Get my letters
Triple my income
Triple my mailing list – Signed up for a Book Sweep newsletter promotion later this month…hoping for maximum resultsMaster Facebook ads – This is ongoing, but achieved so far
Update covers – 13 covers in total to update. 8 completed.
Learn how to write a sellable blurb
Use Ingram Spark
Direct distribution – One down
Increase BookBub US Followers to 1000 – 1000 US are needed to qualify for a new release promotion alertIncrease my prices – All of my ebooks are $4.99 except for the preorders I set up before making this change.
Release 3 Books – One down, two to go. I added a short story as part of an anthology. So that gives me a publishing bonus.
How are you doing with your goals so far?
Happy Birthday to me and see you next month.
0 0 Read moreI’m back with a Quarter Days’ post to tell you about a bevy of new Regency romances for your reading pleasure. Desperate Daughters, A Bluestocking Belles Collection With Friends releases May 8, 2022, and Claims of the Heart, the third book in my Macbeth Series, releases April 12, 2022.
Desperate Daughters includes my novella, Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match.
And good news! You can preorder the collection and my standalone full-length novel today for only 99 cents each.
Love Against the Odds
The Earl of Seahaven desperately wanted a son and heir but died leaving nine daughters and a fifth wife. Cruelly turned out by the new earl, they live hand-to-mouth in a small cottage.
The young dowager Countess’s one regret is that she cannot give Seahaven’s dear girls a chance at happiness.
When a cousin offers the use of her townhouse in York during the season, the Countess rallies her stepdaughters.
They will pool their resources so that the youngest marriageable daughters might make successful matches, thereby saving them all.
So they start their adventures in York, amid a whirl of balls, lectures, and al fresco picnics. Is it possible each of them might find love by the time the York horse races bring the season to a close?
Lady Dorothea’s Curate: by Caroline Warfield
Employed at a hotel, Lady Dorothea Bigglesworth had no use for a title. It would only invite scorn, or, worse, pity. Plain Miss Doro Bigglesworth suited her fine. Ben Clarke dedicated his life to helping the neediest. It gave his life meaning. He tended to forget the younger son of a viscount went by “Honorable.” Neither saw the need to mention it to the other, until they were formally introduced— in a ballroom in York. Shocked.
Concerto: By Mary Lancaster
At the age of 27, Lady Barbara has long accepted her position on the shelf. She is thrilled to put aside her music-teaching in order to help her beautiful young sisters find eligible husbands. But then, a chance encounter with an unconventional and mysterious young piano tuner has her heart in a spin. Can she trust him? And can she save him from the lethal threat hanging over them both?
The Butler and the Bluestocking: By Rue Allyn
On arriving in York to visit his godmother, the honorable Malcolm K. Marr did not expect to find her house locked and empty. Nor did he expect to have to break in to the house to find shelter. Least of all did he expect to be awakened at mid-day after the break in to find a woman with the bearing of an Egyptian goddess demanding to know what he was doing in her house.
The Four-to-One Fancy: By Elizabeth Ellen Carter
Fate has given twins Ivy and Iris Bigglesworth a season in York. They vow to marry only brothers so the sisters will never be apart. But what are the odds of finding and falling in love with two eligible brothers? Hearts race when they meet two handsome cousins who are betting their future on a risky racing venture. Soon the twins learn there are more than fortunes to be lost on a four-to-one fancy.
I’ll Always Be Yours: By Ella Quinn
All her life Miss Harriett Staunton believed she was the natural daughter of an earl. In the merchant society in which she was raised, that only garnered improper proposals. Knowing she would never wed, she moved to York, far away from her London family.
Lord Sextus Trevor needs to wed. Unbeknownst to him his father has arranged a marriage. But before he is even told about the betrothal, he’s whisked off to York, where he meets Harriett Staunton and must find a way to defy his father.
Lord Cuckoo Comes Home: By Jude Knight
Dom Finchley only came to York as a favor to his half-brother, who asked him to attend a meeting there. After a devastating break with the Finchley family followed by ten years at war, he is keen to get the favor done and then leave to build the home he’s never had. A place to call his own.
Then he meets Chloe.
Chloe Tavistock is past the age for the marriage market, and unfashionable in her shape, her opinions, and her enthusiasms. She is not going to find a husband in York, whatever her fond brother might think.
And then she meets Dom.
Two people who have never fitted in just might be a perfect fit.
Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match: By Alina K. Field
He’s not just a perfect image of a soul-stirring hero, but a perfect-for-her match.
After years of putting up with her late husband’s rowdy friends, Honoria, Lady Twisden has escaped to York where she can paint, investigate antiquities, and enjoy freedom. Then her stepson appears with a long-lost relation in tow. Promised York’s marriage mart and the hospitality of his cousin’s doddering stepmother, Major August Kellborn is shocked to find that his fetching hostess is the one woman who stirs his heart.
A Duke For Josefina: By Meara Platt
Lady Josefina would much rather spend her time studying plants and their healing properties, but her father, the Earl of Seahaven, has died and left the family impoverished. Marriage seems her only alternative until she meets the handsome Duke of Bourne in an apothecary in York’s ancient Shambles. He offers her an intriguing proposition, a fake betrothal and a king’s ransom as reward if she returns with him to his estate and finds a cure for his sister’s illness. But will the true reward be his heart?
A Countess to Remember: By Sherry Ewing
Sometimes love finds you when you least expect it…
Patience, the young Dowager Countess of Seahaven cares for a bevy of stepdaughters, and a Season for each to find husbands seems out of reach. There’s been no chance for romance herself but fate intervenes in the form of Richard, Viscount Cranfield, in York for his sister’s Season. Will Patience allow herself time for love?
Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/bMwL17
Claims of the Heart, a brand new full-length novel, is the third story in my Macbeth series. If you read Fated Hearts and wondered what became of Macbeth’s daughter Lucie, this is her story:
Since a perilous fall, Lucie Macbeth has been seeing more than a settled future as the heiress to a Scottish barony. The visions plaguing her include a man—one far above her class and breeding, and English to boot. He’s engaged to a duke’s granddaughter as well, and thus wholly inappropriate. Though she can’t marry him, and she won’t become any man’s leman, when the Sight warns her of danger to him, her conscience and her heart tell her she can’t walk away.
Since returning from Waterloo, Major Lord Rudgwick has been rusticating in the country teaching himself how to live as a man with only one hand and pondering how to end the engagement he contracted before his world turned upside down. But then a letter arrives from an old army comrade, requesting Rudgwick’s aid for his daughter, Lucie Macbeth, the woman he met one year earlier, the woman whose claims on his heart he can’t deny.
I wish you all happy reading, and I’ll see you in June for some Midsummer magic!
0 0 Read moreI love the word default. It is so definitive. It is authoritative when you’re on the right side of it; terrifying if you’re on the wrong side. Default on your loan. Default the game. You have failed to live up to your promise. Over! Done! Fini— unless you do something to change the situation PDQ and get back on track.
Then came computers and the word default got a makeover. It’s softer. Helpful. Kind. The word became synonymous with a do-over. Default is now your safety net. Screwed up your settings? Default. Go back to the beginning. Get a do-over. It’s okay. We got your back.
Ah…
Well, don’t get too comfy with that default button, especially when you’re writing. I have a new book that I let lie fallow for two Covid-years because I took a creative hike, turning to manual hobbies like sewing and quilting, crafting and cooking. Now I’m back and making a sprint to complete the last 25%. I’m jazzed because it’s almost done. I proudly sent the first three quarters of the manuscript to my editor fully expecting the green light to cross the literary finish-line.
Sadly — and thankfully —her input was the exact opposite. I had dialed in my characters. I had been lazy with my red herrings. I had defaulted in the bad way, and not lived up to my promise to deliver my best work to my readers. On the other hand, she was offering me the chance to default in the kind way: reset, rethink, and rework. It was up to me to decide if I wanted to skate, shrug my shoulders, and publish a book that was ‘just okay’, or go back and make this the best book it can be.
I decided to go with option two. Reset. Rethink. Rework. That’s what author’s do. Thankfully, I have a great editor who is clear that how I define the word default — and how I respond to that definition— is up to me.
0 0 Read more@jinabacarrauthor The Lost Girl in Paris hit 33 on #Amazon #kindle @boldwoodbooks #booktok #booksoftiktok #authorlife #authorsoftiktok #writer #author #histfictok
Celebrating The Lost Girl in Paris hitting # 33 on the US Amazon Kindle List.
And # 2 in the Fiction & Literature category on Apple.
Amazing…
BookBub Deal:
99 cents/99p
My heroine, Angeline de Cadieux, is a Roma girl in WW2 Paris… she’s strong, fights in the Resistance… makes exquisite perfumes and comes up with an amazing marketing campaign during the war to boost morale in France.
Thank you!
0 2 Read moreA Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
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A Slice of Orange is an affiliate with some of the booksellers listed on this website, including Barnes & Nobel, Books A Million, iBooks, Kobo, and Smashwords. This means A Slice of Orange may earn a small advertising fee from sales made through the links used on this website. There are reminders of these affiliate links on the pages for individual books.
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