by Nichole Van
Ancient Celtic druid cultures did revere oak trees and maintained groves of sacred trees which were enclosed within a wooden palisade and encircling ditch, as described here. In fact, the word druid itself is derived from the Celtic word duir, which means oak. Hence the name Duir Cottage.
Caerphilly Castle is a lovely place to visit and remains one of the largest medieval castles in Britain. And it was, indeed, owned by the Marquess of Bute in the early 1800s.
As usual, I made up a good many things: the town of Marfield and all house names. Also, the crisis within the British fostering system was of my own creation. My apologies to all the hardworking people who take in and help those children.
For each of my books, I create a Pinterest board of all the visual references I used when writing. So if you would like to see a dara or quatrefoil knot, Caerphilly Castle, etc., don’t hesitate to look me up over there. Just search NicholeVan. A huge shout-out to Jefra Linn for her awesome pinning skills and creating a style board for Jasmine’s wardrobe. Whenever I needed inspiration, I would hop onto Pinterest and see what new lovely things she had pinned for me.
As with all books, this one couldn’t have been written without help and support from those around me. I know I am going to leave someone out with all these thanks. So to that person, know that I totally love you and am so deeply grateful for your help!
First of all, thank you to all those who read Intertwine, Divine and Clandestine and sent me excited emails, asking about the next book in the series. Your encouragement and enthusiasm means more than I can say.
To my beta readers—you know who you are—thank you for your helpful ideas and support. And, again, an extra large thank you to Annette Evans and Norma Melzer for their fantastic copy editing skills and insights.
A huge thank you goes to Lois Brown for her always helpful plot suggestions and insights.
And I cannot even begin to thank my brilliant editor, Erin Rodabough. She has the amazing gift of being able to hone in on problems and provide solutions. Not to mention just being an all-out awesome friend and travel buddy. Thank you so very much.
Thanks, again, to Andrew, Austenne and Kian for your patience and being willing to play Minecraft (and Disney Infinity and JustDance 4 and Sonic . . .) for hours on end while I wrote.
And finally, no words can express my love and appreciation for Dave. Thanks for always supporting me and listening as I work through problems, even though you get exasperated when I have to explain that the droit du seigneur and serfdom were long gone by Regency times. You will always be my one and only knight in shining armor.
Reading Group Questions
Oh yes, this book has reading group questions.
Why?
Well, the English professor in me couldn’t publish this book without making it vaguely educational. And obviously your reading group would show excellent taste by selecting this book—reading groups don’t always have to be about the classics and Oprah’s Book Club. Sometimes you just need a shameless don’t-judge-me read. And any book that has reading group questions has to have redeeming literary qualities, right? So you’re totally justified in assigning it.
You’re welcome.
One of the strong themes of this book is balancing your personal needs with those of your family. Where do you feel the line should be with this? Has there been a time when you felt like you had to sacrifice something important to you for the greater good of your family? If so, what?
This is a classic tale of opposites attract. Do you believe that people who are quite different can find love and happiness together? If so, what do you think makes such relationships work?
Timothy changes significantly over the course of this book. Did you find his changes believable? Do you think that it is possible for someone to really change that much? Why or why not?
For me, writing is only fun when I can incorporate a lot of voice, meaning there is attitude and personality in the narration—so you get a sense of Jasmine’s and Timothy’s thoughts throughout the book. Do you find this kind of narration more enjoyable to read or do you prefer the writer’s tone to be ‘invisible’?
When writing historical fiction, you face a conundrum. Do you stay completely true to the language of the period or do you allow it to be more modern (and therefore more accessible to readers)? Some argue that the language of the past would sound colloquial to those of the same time period. For example, a gentleman of 1813 might describe a new carriage as ‘bang up to the mark,’ whereas my brother would describe his new truck as a ‘sweet ride.’ Though the phrasing is different, the words would have the same casual meaning in both eras. Considering this, how should language be used in historical fiction? Should authors use completely modern language, instead of trying to recreate the cadence of older English, in order to more perfectly capture the sentiments expressed?
As a writer, I feel the look of words on the page can communicate meaning as well. Therefore, I deliberately used line breaks, non-traditional punctuation, italics and visual cues to help convey tone and cadence. Did you find this helped as a reader, making your reading flow more easily? Why or why not?
Alright, let’s cast the movie of the book. (Cause hey, we can dream big, right?) Who plays Timothy? Jasmine? Etc. In the movie version, what aspects of the book should be thrown out, condensed or altered? Also, what should the theme love song be?
The book plays subtly on the word refine and its derivatives: refined, refining, refinement, etc. How do the multiple meanings of the word play throughout the book?
About the Author
Nichole Van is an artist who feels life is too short to only have one obsession. In former lives, she has been a contemporary dancer, pianist, art historian, choreographer, culinary artist and English professor. Though Nichole still prefers the label ‘adaptable’ more than ‘ADD.’
Most notably, however, Nichole is an acclaimed photographer, winning over thirty international accolades for her work, including Portrait of the Year from WPPI in 2007. (Think Oscars for wedding and portrait photographers.) Her unique photography style has been featured in many magazines, including Rangefinder and Professional Photographer. She is also the creative mind behind the popular websites Flourish Emporium and {life as art} Workshops, which provide resources for photographers.
All that said, Nichole has always been a writer at heart. With an MA in English, she taught technical writing at Brigham Young University for ten years and has written more technical manuals than she can quickly count. She decided in late 2013 to start writing fiction and has loved exploring a new creative process.
Nichole currently lives in Utah with her husband and three crazy children. Though continuing in her career as a photographer, Nichole is also now writing historical romance on the side. She is known as NicholeVan all over the web: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Visit her author website at www.NicholeVan.com to sign up for her newsletter. You can see her photographic work at http://photography.nicholeV.com and http://www.nicholeV.com.
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a short review on Amazon.com. Wonderful reviews are the elixir of life for authors. Even better than dark chocolate.
Copyright
Refine © 2015 by Nichole Van Valkenburgh
Cover design © Nichole Van Valkenburgh
Interior design © Nichole Van Valkenburgh
Published by Fiorenza Publishing
Kindle Digital Edition 1.0
Refine is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN: 978-0-9916391-6-8
Turn the page for a preview of
Intertwine
House of Oak Book 1
James and Emme's story and the first book in the House of Oak series.
Intertwine
House of Oak Book 1
The obsession began on June 12, 2008 around 11:23 A.M.
Though secretly Emme Wilde considered it more of a ‘spiritual connection’ than an actual full-blown neurosis.
Of course, her brother, Marc, her mother and a series of therapists all begged to disagree.
Thankfully her best friend, Jasmine, regularly validated the connection and considered herself to be Emme’s guide through this divinely mystical union of predestined souls (her words, not Emme’s). Marc asserted that Jasmine was not so much a guide as an incense-addled enabler (again, his words, not Emme’s). Emme was just grateful that anyone considered the whole affair normal—even if it was only Jasmine’s loose sense of ‘normal.’
Jasmine always insisted Emme come with her to estate sales, and this one outside Portland, Oregon proved no exception. Though Jasmine contended this particular estate sale would be significant for Emme, rambling on about circles colliding in the vast cosmic ocean creating necessary links between lives—blah, blah. All typical Jasmine-speak.
Emme brushed it off, assuming that Jasmine really just wanted someone to organize the trip: plan the best route to avoid traffic, find a quirky restaurant for lunch, entertain her on the long drive from Seattle.
At the estate sale, Emme roamed through the stifling tents, touching the cool wood of old furniture, the air heavy with that mix of dust, moth balls and disuse that marks aged things. Jasmine predictably disappeared into a corner piled with antique quilts, hunting yet again for that elusive log cabin design with black centers instead of the traditional red.
But Emme drifted deeper, something pulling her farther and farther into the debris of lives past and spent. To the trace of human passing, like fingerprints left in the paint of a pioneer cupboard door. Stark and clear.
Usually Emme would have stopped to listen to the stories around her, the history grad student in her analyzing each detail. Yet that day she didn’t. She just wandered, looking for something. Something specific.
If only she could remember what.
Skirting around a low settee in a back corner, Emme first saw the antique trunk. A typical mid-nineteenth century traveling chest, solid with mellow aged wood. It did not call attention to itself. But it stood apart somehow, almost as if the air were a little lighter around it.
She first opened the lid out of curiosity, expecting the trunk to be empty. Instead, she found it full. Carefully shifting old books and papers, Emme found nothing of real interest.
Until she reached the bottom right corner.
There she found a small object tucked inside a brittle cotton handkerchief. Gently unwrapping the aged fabric, she pulled out an oval locket. Untouched and expectant.
Filigree covered the front, its gilt frame still bright and untarnished, as if nearly new.
Emme turned the locket over, feeling its heft in her hand, the metal cool against her palm. It hummed with an almost electric pulse. How long had the locket lain wrapped in the trunk?
Transparent crystal partially covered the back. Under the crystal, two locks of hair were woven into an intricate pattern—one bright and fair, the other a dark chocolate brown. Gilded on top of the crystal, two initials nestled together into a stylized gold symbol.
She touched the initials, trying to make them out. One was clearly an F. But she puzzled over the other for a moment, tracing the design with her eyes. And then she saw it. Emme sucked in a sharp breath. An E. The other initial was an E.
She opened the locket, hearing the small pop of the catch.
A gasp.
Her hands tingled.
A sizzling shock started at the back of her neck and then spread.
Him.
There are moments in life that sear into the soul. Brief glimpses of some larger force. When so many threads collapse into one. Coalesce into a single truth.
Seeing him for the first time was one of those moments.
He gazed intently out from within the right side of the locket: blond, blue-eyed, chiseled with a mouth hinting at shared laughter. Emme’s historian mind quickly dated his blue-green, high collared jacket and crisp, white shirt and neckcloth to the mid-Regency era, probably around 1812, give or take a year.
Emme continued to look at the man—well, stare actually. His golden hair finger-combed and deliciously disheveled. Broad shoulders angled slightly toward the viewer. Perhaps his face a shade too long and his nose a little too sharp for true beauty. But striking. Handsome even.
Looking expectant, as if he had been waiting for her.
Emme would forever remember the jolt of it.
Surprise and recognition.
She knew him. Had known him.
Somehow, somewhere, in some place.
He felt agonizingly familiar. That phantom part of her she had never realized was lost.
The sensation wasn’t quite deja vu.
More like memory.
Like suddenly finding that vital thing you didn’t realize had been misplaced. Like coming up, gasping for air, after nearly drowning and seeing the world bright and sparkling and new.
She stood mesmerized by him until Jasmine joined her.
“Oooh, you found him.” The hushed respect in her voice was remarkable. This was Jasmine after all.
Emme nodded mutely.
“Your circles are so closely intertwined. Amazing.”
Jasmine turned the locket in Emme’s hand.
“What does this inscription say?” she asked.
Emme hadn’t noticed the engraved words on the inside left of the locket case. But now she read them. Her sudden sharp inhalation seared, painfully clenching.
Oh. Oh!
The words reverberated through her soul, shattering and profound.
Emme didn’t recall much more of that day—Jasmine purchasing the locket or even the little restaurant where they ate lunch. Instead, she only remembered the endless blur of passing trees on the drive home, the inscription echoing over and over:
To E
throughout all time
heart of my soul
your F
To continue the story purchase Intertwine from Amazon today!
