More eHistoricals (The Molly Maguires, Ancient Egypt, and a 1920's Rodeo Gal)

SC Poe's Indie EBook Sampler, # 11

Call Me Kate: Meeting the Molly Maguires

By Molly Roe

Tribute Books, 2009

Poe thinks this is MG historical

First sentence: "S'ter, s'ter, I need to see Katie right away!"

1860 is a crisis year for the nation as well as Kate's family. A great Civil War is inevitable, and Father is horribly injured on the job. Kate is beset with troubles that may sound familiar to young readers—coal mine safety and the struggles of immigrants (the Irish, in this instance) to make a new life among resentful natives.

Roe's first-person narration speaks with just a light tang of the Irish and the era, sprinkling in words like bewildered, beckon, feckless, betokened. The steeply-hilled Pennsylvania mining town feels real. The flavor of Kate's Roman Catholic traditions thread naturally through the story; we don't get sermons or dogma, but the rituals, vestments, snips of Latin, and of course the Sisters are always around, as they would have been. The author falls prey to occasional telling-not-showing, especially when a historical point must be made, but this doesn't happen enough to spoil the momentum. The book has received recommendations from several eastern PA historical societies and museums.

Best of all, the sample leaves us hanging on the finest cliff-edge Poe has ever encountered in an ebook. (And—glory be!—for once, the book blurb doesn't spoil the surprise!) Poe must read on.

Rated S for Snapped Up.

 

The Eyes of Pharaoh: A Mystery in Ancient Egypt

By Chris Eboch

CreateSpace, 2011

Poe thinks this is MG historical mystery

First sentences: Seshta ran. Her feet pounded the hard-packed dirt street. She lengthened her stride and lifted her face to Ra, the Sun God.

Seshta's a 13-year-old Temple dance student who wants to be a star. She still pals around with brother-like Horus (a toy-maker's apprentice), but she's old enough to be developing a crush on another old friend, Reya. Reya's in the army now, and frustrates Seshta by treating her like a kid sister. He's also the source of hints that foreign troublemakers are hatching a plot in the city.

Like Call Me Kate, this story shows how today's kinds of conflicts play out in another time and place. Seshta must compete with sly fellow students who seem fresh out of Dance Moms; Horus's brilliant toy designs are claimed by his boss; every foreign face looks dangerous.

Eboch eschews the stilted language that often puts readers off historicals. The feel of time and place are expertly integrated, never telly. Eboch previously published another Egyptian historical, The Well of Sacrifice, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the Haunted series with Aladdin.

Rated S for Snapped Up.

Cowgirl Dreams

Follow the Dream

By Heidi M. Thomas

Treble Heart Books, 2009

Poe thinks these are YA historical biography

First sentence: The rangy reddish-brown steer stared into Nettie Brady's eyes for just a second.

Book One's opening could use some spit and polish. The rodeo men feel like types, not individuals. But the steer? Utterly real. Suddenly we're in a rare place for a female MC—in the rodeo ring.

The very short sample doesn't reveal the era, but the blurb sets the story in the 1920's, and tells us that the series recounts the true adventures of the author's grandmother, who defied the town gossips by pursuing rodeo fame.

Book Two opens thus:

Mrs. Jake Moser. Nettie drew a heart around "Jake" and doodled flowers in the margin of the first entry in her new journal. I'm married to my cowboy and we're going to rodeo together.

Rated If you love horse books, true life stories, or historicals with unique settings, then take a look at this series.

eHistoricals: Helen Hart's Pirates and Peter St John's Gangs

SC Poe's Indie eBook Sampler, #10

Poe spent the past week in a favorite corner of the Netbook Jungle: Historical Fiction. Alas! Worthy pickings are slim. A good historical cannot be dashed off, for the genre's fans value elements that take pains and time (world-building; research; top-quality editing; often, a distinctive and accurate period "voice").

Yet epublishing and HistFic are made for each other. Readers who like them are avid to find new titles, while Historicals rank low on the list of what big presses publish. (Some editorial and agency wish lists even make a cruel point of specifying no historicals, as a child might say no cauliflower.) Poe therefore entreats authors to dig into your trunks and pull out those rumpled old historical mss. (So many of us have one, with "good" rejections clinging to it like Purple Hearts.) Format them, give them nice covers, and send them into the digital marketplace.

If you know/are an author who's already done that, please contact Poe, who will gladly sample it. See Poe's spanking new sidebar for how to submit.

Poe did uncover several excellent MG Historical authors at a small UK press called SilverWood Books. Not all titles are available as ebooks yet, but Poe recommends these:

The Black Banner

By Helen Hart

SilverWood Books, 2011

Poe thinks this is MG historical (seafaring)

First sentences: October 21st 1719. I am Billy Baxter. What does that name conjure up?

How about imagining a runaway whose real name is Becky, shipping out that day on the Bonny Marie with a cargo for Jamaica? The girl is fleeing her mother, a bawd who's been letting Becky ripen like an apple for the rapidly approaching enjoyment of the disgusting Mr Crudder.

The writing is vigorous, rich, and full of convincing details. The names are delicious, from ship's cook Uriah Flubb to Captain Scabrill and the detested Crudder. The brief sample comes to an arbitrary end in the middle of a sentence, but who cares? We lubbers are already well out to sea, and primed for adventure. If we needed added incentive, the frontispiece has clued us in: there's Piracy afoot!

Helen Hart has published under various names with HarperCollins and other presses. As Sebastian Rook, she pens the Vampire Plague series for Scholastic.

Rated S for Snapped Up.

Gang Territory

(The Gang Books: Gang Territory, Gang Warfare, Gang Rivalry, Gang Loyalty, Gang Petition, Gang Spies)

By Peter St John

SilverWood Books, 2012

Poe thinks this is MG Historical (WWII)

First sentences: I braced my belly against a leaden foreboding that couldn't be vomited out. I knew I would have to fight.

At first, the MC won't give his name. All we know is that his London orphanage was bombed, and he's been evacuated to the country village of Widdlington. In later books, we learn that he is named Peter, like the author, who himself was a "vaccie" during the London Blitz, and who plundered his own vivid memories for these stories.

Nowadays, the word gang makes us expect street crime and violence. In this series, there are a few bullies (hinted at in the opening, above), but for the most part we're reading about mischief and sports competitions. The gangs feel like combination Scout troops and Soap Box Derby teams. Of course, real danger always hovers and occasionally intrudes, for (as the leader of the Go-Getter Girls says in Gang Loyalty), "An' s'pose they decide ter start the invasion at Widdlin'ton—wot then?"

St John has crammed these stories with fascinating details: the school fence, sheared off to make bullets and bombs; the feel, smell and taste of a gas mask; the bucket and plank privy; even a detailed lesson on how to flick marbles.

The core group of characters is well-drawn, and the girls play important roles, too. This aspect, and the quieter feel of the stories, make the series best suited for readerly middle graders.

Rated Q for Queued—all six books—to explore as time permits.