Please wlecome Isabel Roman, author of the Dark Desires of the Druids series from Ravenous Romance!
Alternate History
I love alternate history books. Harry Turtledove’s Southern Victory Series? Read him, though I couldn’t get into the whole alien thing. Fatherland by Robert Harris? One of my favorites—and oh my God, there’s a movie?! 1994 TV movie I didn’t know about? Ohh, and with Rutger Hauer…how big a crush did I have on him during the 80s? *sigh* Now then, where can I get this little known movie?? Star Trek and Stargate alternate universes? All over them.
I don’t know what it is about the What Ifs of the storytelling, but I’ll read just about anything that has to do with changing something in history and seeing the timeline through from a different angle.
In my Druids series, I took one aspect from history, the Spanish Inquisition, and twisted it. The Inquisition was no longer about the persecution of religion, but the persecution of Druidic magickers. Those with the ability to do deviltry, those who were different.
Magickers went into hiding, creating small enclaves of safety even as their own hunted them for money and power. By the time these stories take place in the 1880s, they’ve forgotten their past as Druids, lost much of their knowledge, and barely survive in small outposts along poorly populated areas. Those still in power guard their secrets from high society with a paranoia that is only partly contrived.
A long time ago I read a romance about a woman who stepped around a corner in her office building and popped into a different world, effectively switching places with the her from that world. In this one, the wife of the guy she’d been dating is still alive, and yet she’s still having all sorts of erotic thoughts about him. I’d have liked it to be longer, I really wanted to know about the world-building, but I think she eventually traced it to JFK’s assassination. Or in this world, the lack thereof.
Pretty interesting stuff. How would JFK surviving have affected the world? The US? Or even every day people? Would we still live in a Camelot-like place where we believed world leaders could do no wrong? (Please, no hysterical laughing here—no snickering either!) Or mandatory joining of the Peace Corps?
Would the Cold War have ended? Would Regan ever have the opportunity to utter his famous “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” speech? Would we still send missions to the moon? Would we be on Mars by now?
Ohh, Mars. Imagine. That’s pretty cool. Or a colony on the moon, family vacations there instead of the beach.
What would you like to see? Do? Imagine? What would you change? Where would you take an alternate history?
Isabel is giving away a fabulous prize on one random commenter on her blog tour: A Vice Versa beaded fashion purse, a summer shawl, and a box of Godiva chocolates. So drop a comment here, and be sure to check out her other blog tour dates as follows. The more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win.
7/12/2010 Cherry Mischievous
7/13/2010 Alisha Paige
7/14/2010 You Gotta Read Guest
7/15/2010 Romance With an Attitude
7/16/2010 Romantic Journey
7/19/2010 Domestically Challenged Momma
7/20/2010 Fantasy Pages
7/21/2010 The Cozy Page
7/22/2010 Amber Scott Project
8/5/2010 Romancing the Pen
8/6/2010 Authors by Authors
Dark Desires of the Druids: Sex & Subterfuge available now in bookstores! And be sure to check out Isabel’s free story!
A master magicker, Morgana Blackthorne has a tenuous hold on her following. When a strange Englishman arrives on her doorstep with news of other druidic magickers, and magicker problems, she’s intrigued but suspicious. There hasn’t been contact between the American and European druids in over a hundred years. Plus she has her own worries and doesn’t need the handsome earl adding to them.
Lucien, Earl of Granville, left England to seek out the Blackthorne Druid line and discover what they’ve been up to since contact was lost. Once he and Morgana meet, their mutual attraction distracts him from his purpose. Embroiled in her problems, he finds himself more concerned with her welfare than is practical for a passing affair.
When I invited you into my bed, it never occurred to me I wouldn’t want you to leave.
There are darker forces at work and the hunger of a weak magicker desperate for power. Will Lucien convince Morgana of his true feelings before things spiral out of control? Or will the surrounding subterfuge tear them apart?
Romantic Journey 
Thanks for having me today! As you can see, I love to play with what ifs.
Hi Isabel, I thin alternative history is always a fascinating idea, especially when the present is going as exactly as we’d wish. I’d sure sure change the housing bubble crisis in California LOL. I would have loved to have Jackie as first lady a lot longer. Cool take on the Spanish inquisition. Good blog.
I love the idea of small things making a big difference. I was intrigued by the movie “Sliding Doors” for that reason. Missing the train changed a woman’s entire life and we get to track both “realities” — the one in which she missed the train, and the one in which she didn’t.
“It’s A Wonderful Life” visited that idea, too. It’s not just the JFKs of the world who create change, it’s the little people.
I’ll shut up now, but thanks for sharing. Your book has me intrigued, as I’ve long been a fan of the Inquisition as well.
Great post.. I really enjoyed reading it. I to love these kind of things.
I always liked writing stories with this theme. What if my mother married this other person, what would I have been like, what if i would have stayed with my first boyfriend, what if i would have stayed in school not getting married after college, what if I would have done what I dreamed of doing, adopting children from other country’s and not having my own. What if…
But I always came back to then I wouldn’t be me…
Thanks for posting,
Heidi
Following you on your tour. I like what you did with your story. The more I am following you the more I want to read it!
I only hope that I have the courage to be half the person your friend was. Adversity brings out the heroes in people; that I have learned. This was a wonderful post, and I wish I could have met your friend. Love to you, molly