The Game of Life

 

Excel in the game of life

Game of keys, clean ebony notes, young prodigy, acclaim

Game of pawns, of bishops and queens, chess genius, strategy

Game of dance, lithe spins, nimble star, artful muse

There are many ways.

 

Shine in the game of life

Gift of words, hidden meanings, ideas, storyteller, philosopher

Gift of numbers,

Those you own, in comfort, in luxury - the zeros, the glittering estates, the dividends

Those you probe, play with, in ecstasy - the curves, the charts, the rates…the vision. The vision!

Those that own you, the friends, the contracts, the fame…family, those you serve in joy, 

In sweat

There are many ways.

 

Or else the game of life, the game of life in depth,

Gift of seeing

Gift of hearing

Gift of healing,

By touch, by knife, by poetry, by divine intuition.

Or by love.

Be in love with the game.

There are many ways.

 

And yes, the game of life in laughter,

Gift of humour,

Through courage, through wisdom, through hope

Stoic and fearless is this game.

There are many ways.

 

Oh, the game of life in beauty,

Gift of sensitivity,

By light, by color, by song, by imagination.

Moved by the magic.

One with the game.

There are many ways.

 

A game of life in the unrelenting,

Gift of battle,

Gift of winning,

By race, by wit, by grit, by force, by endless striving.

Driven, often revengeful, this game of life.

There are many ways.

 

The game of life that longs to live,

Gift of quiet endurance,

By health, by joy, by resilience, by curiosity

Endless learning and discovery.

Endless shifting.

There are many ways.

 

But of all the ways, of all the ways…

One way remains...

Fail the game of life.

Fail and feel, all there exists to feel.

Fail and rise, slow rise, astound, surprise.

Fail and learn, be open, grow wise.

Fail, and then fail again, transcend the game of life.

Fail and accept to fail.

Fail and let go of the game.

Fall,

Fall low so you might fly above the game of life.

Such is the game.

Calista - latest news on movie magic

 

My Victorian horror mystery, Calista, is now a movie !! 

Not quite. 😉 It has been optioned but that is a nebulous future considering that these film projects take decades to take off. Only the most enduring will play at that game. I’ve indeed seen options renewed yearly over a span of a decade while directors change and nothing gets up. Sigh.

For now I am creating art for the novel because it deserves it. ♥️ Plus it’s fun for those who love visuals.

I love this early scene where French detective Maurice Leroux steps out of the carriage that has brought him to Alexandra Hall. The thing with employing Sora for imagery is that you end up blending your historical fiction writing with both art direction and an entirely different cinematographic language. It is intensive but well worth it. It took me three hours to get this picture just right. I love being able to share my world, and give a more vivid glimpse into a gothic story that I hold dear.

This next image is straight from the first chapter of the novel. In which we find, a terrified Vera Nightingale attempting to get some shuteye while reminiscing on the last years, not least, of knowing her brother's strange Greek wife, Calista. Dearest Calista is a village girl from Corfu and to Vera she will always be a peasant, despite her regal appearance in the portrait. The night in Alexandra Hall promises quite a few surprises for Vera. And what is it with those silver spoons on the staircase? Well, you'll have to read the novel to find out.

Next up we have this kitchen scene depicting Maurice Leroux as a child...

I admit, I was itching to feed this idea into Sora. It is Maurice Leroux's dream sequence. Here we find a childhood memory back in Paris, growing up in the post-terror. Save that the terror is domestic...

As with all dreams, the imagery here departs from the gothic and enters surrealism. 

Thérèse Leroux wears her French cockade well, don't you think? In the novel, she even threatens Maurice with the guillotine.  

Well that is all from me. Short and sweet!

Calista is available in Kindle, paperback and audiobook format from all Amazon territories. It can be purchased almost anywhere online. Alternatively, readers can borrow it from the National Library of Australia and from the BnF in Paris.

Book Launch: The Signare of Gorée

Yay! My new novel, The Signare of Gorée, was finally published on 9 September. For having been born in Senegal, it is a rare delight to be able to say that I have written a mystery set in my birth country.

I am celebrating my book's launch over four weeks with a fantastic blog tour hosted by the excellent Coffee Pot Book Club. They promote high quality historical fiction and I am honored that Cathie Dunn would accept to host The Signare of Gorée.

This post will update weekly with links to the various blog tour stops as they happen. You can find the same links on the official blog tour page. 

Over the tour, I will be sharing: what inspired me to write this historical mystery; the historical background of the powerful women called, signares - who they were and the unique culture they created; the tragic story of Senegal's last warrior queen; the dark and beautiful highlights of my historical research; and the occult practices I witnessed in my childhood and that have seeped into the novel. 

There will be many excerpts and I will try not to bore you with my answers to interview questions!

 

I hope you will visit to learn more about this unique story and the fascinating country where it is set! 

September 12th

When Angels Fly

Let Your Words Shine

Let Us Talk of Many Things

The Historical Fiction Company

The Coffee Pot Book Club 

September 19th

Left on the Shelf

Archaeolibrarian

Historical Fiction Blog 

MJ Porter's Official Blog

Linnea Tanner's Official Blog

September 26th

CelticLady's Reviews

Yarde Reviews & Book Promotion

Myths, Legends, Books & Coffee Pots

The Whispering Bookworm

Mary's Bookcase

October 3rd

A Darn Good Read (Review)

Oh look, another Book!

Elizabeth St.John's Official Blog

Wendy J. Dunn's Official Blog

Ruins & Reading (Review)

The Signare of Gorée will soon be available on expanded distribution booksellers worldwide.

The Signare of Gorée - Cover Reveal

Before she could blink, she was 48 years old and pined for glimpses of her hometown. And it was just as well she was deep into 1840s Senegal, a world where few have traveled before, while those that have truly seen it are long gone. But we can make them return with a little imagination, can't we? We can create magical characters and spin a mystery. 

You must know that life is short and time is running out for me. This is why these days, my blog is sparse in content. All my efforts, you see, are poured into writing, researching, keeping myself fed, staying mildly connected to the increasingly narcissistic 21st century, and time-traveling to places that will hopefully inspire my future novels.

Not much to say, still working on honing my upcoming historical novel set in Senegal, but in the meantime, here is the full cover by graphic designer extraordinaire, Ross Robinson. 

I love it and hope you do too.

The Signare of Gorée will be released in September 2024 

You can already add it to your to-read shelf on Goodreads, and if you read books on Kindle, it is available for pre-order on Amazon, worldwide.

Folgar...on Gorée island.

  

The Signare of Gorée - a historical mystery set in 1840s Senegal

I have a new book coming out in 2024 and here is the cover. I hope you like it.  

1840s Senegal seems worlds apart from my current home in Brittany. While writing this book, I could not be further estranged from Victorian England where I set the first Maurice Leroux detective novel, Calista. 

This story takes place two years earlier than Calista. It is 1846 and Inspector Maurice Leroux finds himself on Gorée Island alongside my ancestor, Lieutenant Leopold Candeau who will be his Watson during the investigation.   

Nothing pleases me more than assembling puzzles and breathing life into historical figures: Gorée's métis mayor, Armand Laporte; his daughter, the signare Constance Laporte; her husband, the Bordeaux entrepreneur Hilaire Maurel; the famous signare Anna Colas Pépin (who inherited THE house you might have heard of whenever you read about Gorée); and glimpses of one of Senegal's first catholic priests, Abbé Boilat from whom we have acquired many illustrations from this period.

Yet I am most enthralled by my lead signare, Angélique Aussenac. The lady on the cover. She is already one of my favorite characters EVER! 

For months now, I have been researching my birth country's history, its people, their beliefs and that fascinating period existing between the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1817 (soon after the Congress of Vienna) and France's abolition of slavery in 1848. It is a period of shifting mentalities, of moral and economic reckoning, a period that would forever change the pulse and purpose of Gorée Island. 

I have spoken so little about this novel and its premise because it is still my secret place. I will try to add to this post over time. 

There is a trailer on Youtube for now. 

The rest I guard it close to my chest.