Author
Demelza Carlton has asked me to join her in this Meet The Character blog hop
and she’s a tough act to follow with her interview of Caitlin Lockyer. I first started reading Demelza's books last year and have so far read all of her Ocean's Gift and her Mel Goes to Hell series, both of which I can thoroughly recommend.
You
can read her post here,
and buy her book here,
Meet The Character Blog Hop - K T Bowes, writer of Artifact ...introducing Lara.
Buy Artifact here:
What is Artifact about?
“The
harsh English winter battered Market Harborough, grid locking roads and
railways. But the sun-dial on the side of St. Dionysius Church spire still did
its best despite the lack of sun that made its job harder. The position of the
sun-dial gave away the location of the secret priest hole, not that many knew
of its existence still. It was a silent beacon that nobody understood.”
The ancient church in a sleepy English town releases its secrets to historian, Lara, whispering tales of depraved humanity and the murder of innocent men.
But Lara has troubles of her own, arriving in the town emotionally bruised from a devastating experience in New Zealand, which caused her to flee with two precious Maori artifacts stolen from her employer.
Struggling to deal with the spectre of guilt that haunts her, Lara tries to begin again, finding work at the local museum and friendship with her new neighbours, Kerry, an eccentric primary school teacher and Arama, a handsome but hostile businessman. As Lara’s painstaking work, restoring the recently discovered treasures, causes her to reflect on the tragic lives of others she finds redemption and hope.
But life has some lessons for Lara in seeking to honour the past. Not everyone wants their history laid bare for all to see and some have good reason to wish it kept hidden. As Lara faces the owner of her stolen artifacts her secret is brought full circle and with his presence comes unexpected love.
The ancient church in a sleepy English town releases its secrets to historian, Lara, whispering tales of depraved humanity and the murder of innocent men.
But Lara has troubles of her own, arriving in the town emotionally bruised from a devastating experience in New Zealand, which caused her to flee with two precious Maori artifacts stolen from her employer.
Struggling to deal with the spectre of guilt that haunts her, Lara tries to begin again, finding work at the local museum and friendship with her new neighbours, Kerry, an eccentric primary school teacher and Arama, a handsome but hostile businessman. As Lara’s painstaking work, restoring the recently discovered treasures, causes her to reflect on the tragic lives of others she finds redemption and hope.
But life has some lessons for Lara in seeking to honour the past. Not everyone wants their history laid bare for all to see and some have good reason to wish it kept hidden. As Lara faces the owner of her stolen artifacts her secret is brought full circle and with his presence comes unexpected love.
Is Lara a fictional or historic
character?
Lara is purely fictional although
she represents parts of women I have met across the course of my life who have
a tragic story in their past which invariably shapes their present and future.
When and where is the story set?
The
storyline is deliberately timeless and could be anywhere between the year 2000
and now. I didn’t want the story to be dated because I feel there’s a tendency
to disregard things as obsolete far too quickly nowadays. The places have and
will exist for a very long time to come and I kept technology out of the book
because I didn’t want markers. I wanted a sense of continuation from the old
manuscripts that Lara handles to her present day.
The
story is set in a beautiful little market town on the
Leicestershire/Northamptonshire border of England. I lived there for six years
and know it well. It will always share a place in my heart because it’s where I
met some of my best friends and had some of my most life changing moments. The
church in the centre of town and the old schoolhouse are worth a detour off the
beaten track just to admire. The wording around the sundial on the side of St
Dionysius Church has always captivated me as it’s high up and often unseen or
ignored.
What should we know about Lara?
Lara
is stunningly beautiful - a real head turner who has no idea how attractive she
is. She’s the daughter of a New Zealand Maori raised in England and has a
strong sense of heritage, which has been passed down from her father. She’s
someone who treads a fine line between the past and the present because of her
role as an archivist. But her chosen career is a deliberate choice because
apart from her aunt, there’s nobody left in her life who has any attachment to
her. Walking that fine line allows her to dip into a past where she was loved
and cherished and a present in which only her aunt knows or cares about her.
What is the main conflict? What
messes up her life?
Whilst
working in New Zealand, Lara suffers a huge emotional blow and feels like her
life’s work has been wasted. It forces her to question everything she knows
about herself. She does something completely out of character and runs back to
England bearing a secret that will continue to eat away at her.
What is the personal goal of the
character?
Lara’s goal is to preserve and
protect history for the enjoyment of future generations. She constantly battles
against a throwaway society that doesn’t care about the past and will happily
bulldoze or trash the traces of other people’s lives - which they could have
learned from. A good archivist will operate under the mantra ‘leave no harm’
when they work on an artifact. They should leave no visible trace of having
touched it, unless it is a restoration. Lara’s frustrations are my own as a
working archivist and she shares my personal need to preserve the past against
a tide of wastefulness.
When was Artifact published?
Artifact went on sale in January
2014 at 99c. It’s sold really well so I might raise the price in the near
future.
EXCERPT from Artifact:
“The school building was magnificent and sent
the historian in Lara into raptures. It was over a hundred years old and
steeped in memories. The original part of the building was Victorian, red brick
built with a sharply angled roof and the characteristic gable ends reached
forward, perpendicular to the main structure. The windows were long and thin,
slightly rounded on the top without bowing to the severe arches of previous
eras, individual panes of glass set into complicated wooden frames. It gave
Lara a feeling of security, creating a timeless solidity just by being there.
It was a sensation she craved and the reason she was an archivist. She hunted
for things to ground herself, historical facts and realities that gave her life
a security that it had once had, but lost.
Inside,
the solid wooden floors were dark wood, possibly oak and shone with the love
and care put into their maintenance. Thousands of feet had passed over their
surface, running, skipping, slouching, feet driven by childish elation or misery
and bearing away future politicians, doctors, cleaners and astrologists. Each
one as essential to somebody as the next set of small, twinkling toes.
Lara
spent most of the morning in tears. Not out of sadness but out of pure mirth
and the sheer effort of keeping it in. The room of four and five-year-olds were
both clueless and hilarious and they had no idea how funny they were. In their
little world, everything was deadly serious and every minor accident a full
blown crisis. Lara didn’t know how Kerry coped with it every day of her working
life. Kerry viciously allowed the art session to run into the next lesson with
a glare at Lara. “We haven’t finished our works of art,” she declared, ignoring
the fact that the archivist had a pounding headache and a bizarre urge for a
large, unadulterated gin.
“You
laugh a lot,” one little boy commented to Lara, as she poured glitter on his
horrific picture of his grandma and he spread the deliciously creamy glue
around his face like shaving cream. Lara didn’t know if the comment was
appraisal or criticism, but she was alarmed when she turned around and saw him
trying to shave with a plastic ruler. She couldn’t ask for clarification
because he had glued his lips shut.”
My other novels:
links
to me:
Twitter:
@hanadurose
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/hanadurose
coming
up next week Lorrie Farrelly:
My
first introduction to Lorrie’s work was reading Dangerous, which I absolutely
couldn’t put down. I would strongly recommend her work as books that will suck
the reader in and keep them there. She'll be introducing her character on her blog:
Buy Lorrie's book here:
AMAZON UK: http://amzn.to/1mWwAxJ
AMAZON AUSTRALIA: http://bit.ly/1iwU1y5
eNovel Authors at Work: http://enovelauthorsatwork.com/153-2/
Lorrie Farrelly Website: https://sites.google.com/site/yourbestreads
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