Literarily Speaking

Book Blast! To Murder a Marquis by Arabella Sheraton

thewriterslife August 13, 2026 0 Comments

When Jane Carstairs goes to Chelston Hall to complete an archival project, she wakes up in the woods there, only it's no longer 2015 ... it's 1815, and she's faced with the discovery of a possibly dead man…

Escape into the drama and romance of the Regency era with To Murder a Marquis, an immersive time travel adventure full of mystery and passion!

When modern-day Jane Carstairs awakens in 19th century England, she’s thrust into a captivating world of lords and ladies, grand estates, and old-fashioned courtship. But Jane soon realizes there’s a sinister murder plot afoot. As Jane works to discover the truth, she finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue. Will she solve the mystery in time or fall victim to the assassin? And can Jane resist the magnetic pull of attraction in this unfamiliar era?

Transport yourself back to the richly detailed Regency world and join Jane on her unforgettable quest for justice and love. With vivid descriptions, gripping suspense, and passionate romantic encounters, To Murder a Marquis is a time travel adventure you won’t want to miss. Embark on the journey today and discover why readers are raving about this unique, spellbinding tale of courage, connection, and timeless romance.

Read Sample Here.

To Murder a Marquis is available at Amazon.

╰┈➤Book Details

➢Title: To Murder a Marquis

➢Author: Arabella Sheraton

➢Genre: Regency Romance

➢Sub-genre: Time Travel

➢Language:English

➢Pages: 324

➢Publisher: Bublish

➢Publication Date: February 23, 2025

➢Formats: Paperback, Kindle

➢Paperback ISBN: ‎978-1647048969

➢Price: Paperback $14.99, Kindle $2.99

╰┈➤Excerpt

Furious barking woke me from a very nice dream in which my ex-fiancé Allan Hunter was on his knees, begging me to stay, and I had just flung his ring back in his face in a most satisfying manner. The fact he’d dumped me for a full-breasted bistro waitress called Tawnee—that’s right, with a double “e”—who clearly said all the right adoring things, had the intelligence of a single-celled organism, and was a tigress in the bedroom was something I chose to ignore.

The dog wouldn’t stop barking. I opened my eyes, and there he was, a beautiful russet-coloured retriever, barking like mad, but with his tail wagging. Still slightly dazed, I shook my head. What the hell was I doing lying under a tree? I was supposed to be in the library at Chelston Hall, helping Dad, who was in hospital in London with bronchitis, collate the archives of the Hadley family. I could almost hear him say, “Jane Carstairs, what on earth are you doing there when you should be working?”

The dog was still barking. I’m not afraid of dogs so I raised myself on one elbow. “Here, boy. What’s the matter?”

I held out one hand for him to come over and have a sniff as an introduction. The dog took a few steps forward, then ran back to his original spot, and barked once. Clearly, a clever canine. He was telling me something. But what? I struggled to sit up. For some reason, my clothes were constricting; something like a straitjacket encircled my chest. Instead of my casual T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, I wore an ankle-length flowing dress, and short lace-up boots, along with a tight, short, long-sleeved jacket. I was in period costume straight out of Pride and Prejudice. Not funny! Someone had obviously pranked me but managing to undress and get me into this suffocating costume was beyond a joke. Plus, how did I get from sitting in a chair in the library to lying under a tree?

Back to the dog again, which now seemed very agitated. He ran back and forth a bit and whined. By pulling my dress and copious amounts of petticoat up to my knees, tearing something at the jacket shoulder in the process, I managed to stand. The dog ran off through the trees as if on a mission. Maybe someone was hurt, and the mutt was looking for help? Dogs can be so clever that way. Running in the narrow skirt was impossible so I hitched the skirt as high as I could and chased after the dog. Ten minutes later I arrived, panting, at the scene of a bloody accident. Bloody is no exaggeration. A man, also dressed in period costume—riding gear—lay on his back, his arms flung out. He was either asleep, or unconscious, or ... I didn’t even want to consider the last option. The dog stood next to him, its tail wagging. It looked at me, whining as if to say, “Help him.” I knelt and took a closer look. Robert William Edward Hadley, the Marquis of Coleston, lay before me. An arrow protruded from the top of his left shoulder, a massive amount of blood soaked the front of his fawn-coloured coat, and he looked very dead.

– Excerpted from To Murder a Marquis by Arabella Sheraton, Bublish, Inc., 2024. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

From Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, Arabella Sheraton has found both enjoyment and inspiration in sparkling, witty Regency novels. She also loves history and generally finds the past more fascinating than the future. Arabella wrote her first Regency romance to entertain her aged mom who loved the genre. Arabella is honoured to share the adventures of her heroes and heroines with readers.

Arabella’s book, To Murder a Marquis, is available at Amazon.

Visit her website at https://www.arabellasheratonbooks.com.

Connect with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/regencyromances/ and X at https://x.com/ArabellSheraton.

Author Interview with Mary Lawlor, Author of 'FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER' #authorinterview

thewriterslife August 10, 2026 0 Comments

Today we are interviewing Mary Lawlor, author of the memoir, Fighter Pilot's Daughter (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).

Mary Lawlor is author of a memoir, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War (Bloomsbury 2015) and two books of cultural criticism, Recalling the Wild: Naturalism and the Closing of the American West (Rutgers UP 2000) and Public Native America (Rutgers UP 2006). She studied at the American University in Paris, the University of Maryland, and New York University. She divides her time between Easton, Pennsylvania and Gaucin, Spain. Her novel, The Translators, is set in 12th century Spain and fictionalizes the experiences of Robert of Ketton, first translator of the Koran into Latin. She hopes to see it out next year. In the meantime, she has started a second novel, The Women’s Hospital, set in 18th century Spain and inspired by the life story of an Irish woman whose family moved to Cádiz, escaping English oppression in their own country.

╰┈➤ You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/.

Connect with her on social media at:

╰┈➤ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mary.lawlor.186/

Thank you so much for this interview, Mary. How did your family feel about having you write a book that might include them?

My parents were both gone by the time I wrote Fighter Pilot’s Daughter, and one of my older sisters had passed away. I was worried about how my other two sisters and the larger, extended family would feel about my describing intimate dynamics in the book, like my parents’ fighting or my father’s alcoholism. But my sisters and I talked about these things, and they were supportive. Before publication, I sent them both the finished manuscript — not promising to make changes but to hear their feedback and be influenced or not by it. I know one of them has read the entire book, and she was very moved. Her response has meant the world to me.

What was it like living in military quarters and never having a ‘real’ home that stayed in the same place? Do you feel it shaped who you are today?

In some ways, it wasn’t so much of an issue, since from the time we were very young, my sisters and I were moving every two years or so. It was all we knew and all we expected. The other kids on the Army posts where we were stationed had the same experience.

But a couple of things complicated that normality. Whenever they could, my parents enrolled us in Catholic schools, off post, and we would find ourselves surrounded by kids who had known each other since kindergarten. Generally, they looked at us like we were irrelevant — at least at the beginning. Eventually we’d make friends and be invited to their homes, where we’d see the continuity and stability of their lives, in contrast to our own.

And there were the visits to see our New Jersey cousins, who lived in a lovely house in a country town where they’d been all their lives. They’d gone to the same school, had the same friends, and so forth. It was an ideal domestic scene, and I loved being there. I was envious of their world but couldn’t imagine it for myself. It was too far out of reach.

When we were young, the moves were exciting. My parents would talk about the places we were going — California! Germany! — and my sisters and I would start imaging what they would be like. We’d read about and picture ourselves in the new situation. As we got older and had close friends and boyfriends, the moves were more difficult. It was sad and painful to have to leave, and we wished very much we could stay in the same place. Then, again, the new place would be exciting and different. We’d make new friends, and the cycle would continue like that.

Moving so much and not having a home has shaped me a great deal. After leaving my parents for college, I kept moving and am still am not quite rooted, although I’m married and have a nice house in Easton, Pennsylvania. But every three months my husband and I shift off to Spain, where we have a cabin in the mountains of Andalucía. I love being in Spain and would move here if I could. We have friends and more of a history here than we do in Easton. We don’t, however, have residency in Spain, so after three months, we come back to Easton. The year is divided up like this, and it feels perfectly familiar to me.

In one of your interviews you said, “Memories of my girlhood and forgotten fears of nuclear apocalypse were running through my brain day and night.” I can’t imagine the fear. Can you elaborate on this and tell us how you coped?

Living on military posts, I think we had more of a sense of the potential for nuclear war than other children in America. Because our fathers’ jobs were to get the defense apparatus ready for that eventuality, we were made constantly aware of it. Civil-defense shelters were everywhere, and we practiced the “Duck and Cover” moves at school, huddling under our desks and hoping that would do the trick! On the posts in Heidelberg and Stuttgart, Germany, there was a lot of talk about the Fulda Gap, a point on the border between West and East Germany where it was predicted the Soviet army would flood through to do battle with the Germans and the rest of Europe. These images and warnings kept the possibility of nuclear apocalypse in our minds almost all the time.

Apart from that, our parents were practicing Catholics, and the story of St. John’s Apocalypse often came up in the post chaplain’s sermons. Apocalypse offered a ready analogue to the talk of nuclear annihilation, and the chaplain would build on it, trying to imbue in us a sense of how close the end of world might be. The terrifying judgement of the living and the dead and the assignment of eternal damnation or happiness was always upon us.

These twin discourses of apocalypse were in the air, in our dreams and produced what I’d call a habit of fear, a trained response to seeing whatever troubling situation emerges as a sign of the end of days. Or the end of something. Like now, so many people my age are seeing the current political situation in the US as signs of the end of democracy and, perhaps, of America. But on a more personal level, the habit of fear has stayed with me and been a real handicap to my self-development and to my ability to genuinely live with confidence. Fortunately, it’s an obvious enough problem that I’ve known about it for a long time and have spent a lot of time (and money!) trying to come to terms with and manage it in therapeutical contexts.

Can you tell us the name of some of the places you have traveled to when your father was an aviator and which were your favorite?

We lived in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, infamous as a cancer hot-spot for people who lived there in the 50s. Then there was Fort Rucker, in Dothan Alabama, where my father taught pilots how to fly helicopters and I got to ride in a Bell helicopter once — like being up in the air inside a giant eyeball. We rented a farm way out in the country and had a horse, cows, chickens, guinea hens to look after. That was hugely fun, although rural Alabama was a very unfamiliar place and the people there weren’t easy for us — especially for my mother — to understand. I go into Franny’s way of responding to southern culture in the book, but suffice it to say here that she was quite unhappy. Later we moved to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, where we lived off post in a swampy development called Forestdale. There was a creek behind the house, but you had to watch out for water moccasins. I started my writing career there with a little newspaper a friend and I created, The Forestdale Gazette, in which we reported news of the neighborhood, using carbon paper for copies.

Later we moved to Fort Ord, in Monterey, California. This was really my favorite and my sisters’ too. We lived on post, but our parents enrolled us in the beautiful Carmel Mission School in Carmel, situated in an old monastery and arranged like a cloister walk around a gorgeous garden. We made friends there and loved the school, although some of the nuns were stricter than others. We stayed at Fort Ord long enough for my older sisters and me to start high school in Monterey. Then my father had orders to go to Stuttgart, so we had to say goodbye to people who had become important to us.

We crossed the Atlantic on the SS United States, an adventure in itself, which I also recount in the book. Germany opened up a whole new world. The enormous differences of language, styles of dress and manners, of what kids were allowed to do that they weren’t in the US and vice-versa, not to speak of the economic differences between them and us in those days — all these surprises were overwhelming. But it was fascinating. I scrambled to learn the German language and understand the few German friends I made. For the first couple of years we were in Stuttgart, a beautiful industrial city, and then we moved to Heidelberg, a handsome and historic university town. In both places we lived in the very closed environment of the post and didn’t get to know German people or their language or society very well. Among the military kids, my sisters and I came of age and got a taste of American teenage life that we’d never had in the States — drinking parties in the local Gasthauses that had no drinking age, and moonlit adventures in old Nazi sites. It was a strange and exotic experience which made me into a very different person than I’d been before.

Having lived through the Cold War, you know the fear of Russians invading or setting off a nuclear weapon was very real. Can you help us feel what that was like?

We were shown films in school with images of an enormous blast, followed by empty streets with trash blowing in the nuclear wind. The announcer would insist again and again that if we heard the atomic warning siren, we were to “duck and cover,” wherever we were. And we were told there might be no warning, that a blast as bright as the sun would suddenly happen, anywhere, anytime. Duck and cover movies warnings were played in schools and in the base movie theaters. Readiness warnings were issued at sports events and even in church. Repeatedly, we were told to be always alert for the warnings or the sun-bright blast itself. The message was meant to live in our psyches and be part of our thinking, our identity. We were people under threat. Nuclear holocaust was in my dreams and fueled a steady sense of fear and trepidation. From one moment to the next, you had to be ready for the world to fall apart under your feet. It was a tremendously unsettling discourse and kept all of us, I think, on edge and fearful.

I see this now in hindsight as a terrible experience for a child. Whatever the actual threat level at any given moment, ducking and covering probably wouldn’t have helped much. It only left us with a habit of fear. It probably made some of us more philosophical or religiously-minded than we might otherwise have been, given the end-of-the-world scenario we lived with all the time; but I think the more general effect was a fear, bordering on neurosis, of what could happen from one moment to the next. No wonder the late counter-culture that followed saw such an explosion of liberation and care-lessness, to counteract the intense, imposed caution of our childhood years.

In an earlier interview, you said you just wanted your mother and father to be remembered. Can you tell us what you would like people to know about them?

I think Jack and Franny were in some ways typical of their generation. Born in the 20s, they lived through the depression and came of age in the second World War. They weren’t subtle but saw things in black and white terms; and were very clear with their comments about everything from politics to homemaking. In many ways, I think they thought of themselves as opposite to the communists who they considered the enemy: communists were subtle, cagey, didn’t put their cards on the table. You couldn’t trust people like that, since what you saw wasn’t necessarily what you got.

Jack and Franny were both larger than life for me, but others outside the family responded to them as if they too saw them as striking characters. They were outspoken and definitive in their opinions. They were both loud and ready for an argument. I never heard them identify themselves as such, but they were politically independent and would size up the candidates carefully, then decide which was the better man (it was always, of course, a man). And once decided, that was it. There was little room for dialogic discussion of things, much less changing their minds.

As parents, they could be very difficult. They were strict, demanding, and kept a close eye on my sisters and I. They weren’t alone: child-rearing was like that in those days. Kids got spanked, and nobody thought it was wrong. My parents set the rules and the tone for our household, and we followed. There was no consulting us as to what we thought or hoped for or worried about.

But they were affectionate, and we knew they loved us. They hugged us a lot and always made a big deal of our birthdays. Christmas was a huge celebration with lots of good presents. And Jack and Franny were fun. Our moves across the country were always treated like adventures. The hotels, the pancake breakfasts at roadside restaurants, the sites along the routes of America — Carlsbad Caverns, Route 66, the Rocky Mountains — were part of a great expedition we were making. They inspired us with their excitement.

At a certain level, I suppose it’s simple vanity: I want them to be remembered because they meant so much to me. But they both contributed something to the world they came of age in, and they were characters of that time. I think that’s worth remembering.

What would you like future readers of your book to know?

I’d like future readers to know what life was like in the middle-to-late years of the twentieth century, particularly for the children of military families, a generally little understood component of American society. The focus of attention to US forces fighting overseas and preparing for war at home is usually on the service members themselves — all their adventures and sacrifices. I’d like readers to know more about the people who came along with them, followed in their wake — the spouses and children of the warriors. They may well not share the warrior’s priorities or even their ideology, but the children in particular are called on to be part of the picture anyway, like camp followers of all ages everywhere. I’d like people to know more about what life was like for us in our time, but I also hope readers will see how military children still experience the difficulties of moving all the time and the instability of life in warrior society. It’s an age-old portrait and one that’s little understood.

Rosa can hear the dead. That gift has already pulled her into impossible places… and deadly danger.

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War tells the story of Mary Lawlor’s dramatic, roving life as a warrior’s child. A family biography and a young woman’s vision of the Cold War, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter narrates the more than many transfers the family made from Miami to California to Germany as the Cold War demanded. Each chapter describes the workings of this traveling household in a different place and time. The book’s climax takes us to Paris in May ’68, where Mary—until recently a dutiful military daughter—has joined the legendary student demonstrations against among other things, the Vietnam War. Meanwhile her father is flying missions out of Saigon for that very same war. Though they are on opposite sides of the political divide, a surprising reconciliation comes years later.

⤷Read sample here.

⤷Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is available at Amazon.

╰┈➤Book Details

Genre: Memoir
Sub-genre: Women in History / Military Leaders Biography
Language:English
Pages: 323
Paperback ISBN: 978-1442222007
Kindle ISBN: 978-1442222014
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
Format: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook

# Author Interviews # Fighter Pilot's Daughter

Author Interview with Bruce Berlin, Author of 'FROM CAMDEN TO KATHMANDU' #authorinterview

thewriterslife August 09, 2026 0 Comments

Today we are interviewing Bruce Berlin, author of the memoir, From Camden to Kathmandu: You Don't Have to Know Where You're Going to Get Where You Want to Be (Our Time Books).

Bruce Berlin has been a Buddhist meditator for over fifty years, beginning in the spring of 1973 when he spent a month training with Thubten Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe at Kopan Monastery outside Kathmandu. He began his legal career at the Legal Aid Society in Trenton, New Jersey, later practicing poverty law at Western Massachusetts Legal Services. A former US Institute of Peace Fellow, he cofounded and directed New Mexicans for a Bilateral Nuclear Freeze and created The Trinity Forum for International Security and Conflict Resolution. He later founded New Mexicans for Money Out of Politics and spent eight years as a senior attorney with the New Mexico Public Education Department. He is the author of Breaking Big Money’s Grip on America and resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Connect with him on social media at:

➢Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bruce.berlin.5

➢Substack: https://openroadopenheart.substack.com/

Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular path as an author?

I have always enjoyed writing. I've kept a journal since 1972, when I left my budding law career behind and traveled overland from Europe to Afghanistan, India, and Nepal in my twenties — a journey that changed the course of my life. For fifty years, those journals and memories stayed with me. After I retired from practicing law in 2012, I wrote my first book, Breaking Big Money's Grip on America, which grew out of my years as a political activist. But there was a more compelling, personal story I still needed to tell: how my unrest and dissatisfaction as a young attorney from Camden, New Jersey, propelled me halfway around the world to a Tibetan monastery outside Kathmandu where I learned and practiced Buddhist meditation. And how letting go of the narrow legal path I was on led me to a much broader highway where I discovered what I needed to know to get where I wanted to be. That story became my memoir, From Camden to Kathmandu.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you during the course of your career?

While I was writing my first book, Breaking Big Money's Grip on America, I began dating a woman who also happened to be writing a book of poetry. I sent her drafts of chapters from my manuscript to get her feedback. This went on for several months as we got to know each other better and became closer. We soon became lovers and have now been living together for over ten years.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey writing your book?What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey writing your book?

The biggest challenge was maintaining a writing routine. I started out writing three or four hours, three days a week. But other responsibilities and events got in the way. So, some weeks I didn’t write at all. When my mother died, I didn’t write for four months. I still find it difficult to keep to a writing schedule, given my political activities, service work, family responsibilities, travel and more.

What is the main empowering lesson you want your readers to take away after finishing your book?

The main empowering lesson I want my readers to grasp is the more they let go and open themselves up to the energy of the universe and allow that energy to guide them, the richer and more fulfilling their lives will be. I didn't know where we were going when I threw in with four vagabonds I had just met in the basement of a third-rate Athens hotel and bought a vintage VW bus, but trusting the universe led me to the amazing journey that followed.

What is one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer?

I’ve kept a journal for over fifty years. Recording my thoughts, observations and feelings on a regular basis has given me a wealth of material to work with. Even though what I write about may have occurred many years ago, the events in my journal were recorded when they actually happened, making them feel fresh and alive.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

The Oneness Movement would focus on people connecting to the oneness of the universe. That is, people in the movement would be instilled with the concept that we are all part of one universal energy or system. Such a movement would encourage people to understand that we are all interconnected and our similarities are much greater than our differences. Therefore, coming together and working together would be most beneficial for the greater good and the future of the planet. I first glimpsed this oneness at a monastery outside Kathmandu in 1973.

Where to purchase the book?

From Camden to Kathmandu is available at Amazon.

Rosa can hear the dead. That gift has already pulled her into impossible places… and deadly danger.

In 1972, Bruce Berlin — a young poverty lawyer from Camden, New Jersey — set off on a journey with no clear destination. What began as a restless escape became one of the most formative adventures of his life. Traveling overland through Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan at a time when those borders were still open to wanderers, Berlin found himself riding across the Afghan desert in the back of a truck with armed men and their rugs, navigating a world that would soon be transformed by war.

In India, something shifted. Visits to the sacred Buddhist sites of Bodh Gaya and Sarnath planted a seed. Then, in Kathmandu, a chance encounter with former law school classmates led Berlin to a month-long Tibetan Buddhist retreat at Kopan Monastery — an experience he would later describe as perhaps the most important month of his life. Guided by Lama Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, Berlin began a practice that would sustain him for the next fifty years.

From Camden to Kathmandu is a memoir about following the open road before you know where it’s going — and discovering that the destination finds you. Written with the documentary authenticity of real letters sent home, it is the story of a restless young man’s transformation into a meditator, activist, and lifelong seeker.

From Camden to Kathmandu is available at Amazon.

╰┈➤ Book Details:

➺ Title: From Camden to Kathmandu: You Don’t Have to Know Where You’re Going to Get Where You Want to Be

➺ Author: Bruce Berlin

➺ Genre: Memoir

➺ Sub-genre: Motivational Self-Help

➺ Language:English

➺ Pages: 190

➺ Publisher: Our Time Books

➺ Publication Date: October 2, 2025

➺ Formats: Paperback, Kindle

➺ Paperback ISBN: ‎978-0996623223