Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Molly Lee by Andrew Joyce
Release Date: 26th March 2015
Genres: Historical Fiction
Brook Cottages is thrilled to welcome Andrew Joyce to the blog for the first time with a super guest post. Take it away Andrew!
I had just finished reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for the third
time, and I started thinking about what ever happened to those boys, Tom and
Huck. They must have grown up, but then what? So I sat down at my computer and
banged out REDEMPTION: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom
Sawyer in
two months; then sent out query letters to agents.
My
name is Andrew Joyce, and I write books for a living. J.B. has been kind enough
to allow me a little space on her blog to promote my new book, MOLLY LEE.
The story is a female-driven account of a young naive girl’s journey into an
independent, strong woman and all the trouble she gets into along the way.
Now
you may possibly be asking yourself, What
is a guy doing writing in a woman’s voice? And that’s a good question. I
can only say that I did not start out to write about Molly; she just came to me
one day and asked that I tell her story. Perhaps
I should start at the beginning.
My first book was a 164,000-word historical novel. And in the publishing
world, anything over 80,000 words for a first-time author is heresy. Or so I
was told time and time again when I approached an agent for representation.
After two years of research and writing, and a year of trying to secure the
services of an agent, I got angry. To be told that my efforts were meaningless
was somewhat demoralizing to say the least. I mean, those rejections were
coming from people who had never even read my book.
“So you want an 80,000-word novel?” I said to no one in particular,
unless you count my dog, because he was the only one around at the time. Consequently,
I decided to show them City Slickers that
I could write an 80,000-word novel!
I had just finished reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for the third
time, and I started thinking about what ever happened to those boys, Tom and
Huck. They must have grown up, but then what? So I sat down at my computer and
banged out REDEMPTION: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom
Sawyer in
two months; then sent out query letters to agents.
Less than a month later, the chairman of one of the biggest agencies in New
York City emailed me that he loved the story. We signed a contract and it was
off to the races, or so I thought. But then the real fun began: the serious
editing. Seven months later, I gave birth to Huck and Tom as adults. And just
for the record, the final word count is 79,914. The book went on to reach #1 status on Amazon twice, and the rest,
as they say, is history.
But not quite.
My agent then wanted me to write a sequel, but I had other plans. I was in
the middle of editing down my first novel (that had been rejected by 1,876,324
agents . . . or so it seemed) from 164,000 words to the present 142,000.
However, he was insistent, so I started to think about it. Now, one thing you
have to understand is that I tied up all the loose ends at the end of REDEMPTION, so there was no way that I
could write a sequel. And that is when Molly asked me to tell her story. Molly was a character that we
met briefly in the first chapter of REDEMPTION,
and then she is not heard from again.
This is the description from MOLLY LEE:
Molly is about to set off on the adventure
of a lifetime . . . of two lifetimes.
It’s 1861 and the Civil War has just started. Molly is
an eighteen-year-old girl living on her family’s farm in Virginia when two
deserters from the Southern Cause enter her life. One of them—a twenty-four-year-old
Huck Finn—ends up saving her virtue, if not her life.
Molly is so enamored with Huck, she wants to run away
with him. But Huck has other plans and is gone the next morning before she
awakens. Thus starts a sequence of events that leads Molly into adventure after
adventure; most of them not so nice.
We follow the travails of Molly Lee, starting when she
is eighteen and ending when she is fifty-six. Even then Life has one more
surprise in store for her.
As I had wondered whatever became of Huck and Tom, I also wondered what Molly
did when she found Huck gone. I know this has been a long-winded set up, but I felt I had to tell the
backstory. Now I can move on and tell you about Molly.
As
stated earlier, Molly starts out as a naive young girl. Over time she develops
into a strong, independent woman. The change is gradual. Her strengths come
from the adversities she encounters along the road that is her life. With
each setback, Molly follows that first rule she set against self-pity and
simply moves on to make the best of whatever life throws her way. From working
as a whore to owning a saloon, from going to prison to running a ranch, Molly
plays to win with the cards she’s dealt. But she always keeps her humanity. She
will kill to defend herself, and she has no problem killing to protect the weak
and preyed upon. However, when a band of Indians (for instance) have been run
off their land and have nowhere else to go, Molly allows them to live on her
ranch, and in time they become extended family.
This
is from a review on Amazon:
“A young female in nineteenth-century rural America
would have needed courage, fortitude, and firm resolve to thrive in the best of
circumstances. Molly Lee possesses all of these, along with an iron will and an
inherent ability to read people accurately and respond accordingly.”
I
reckon that about sums up Molly.
I
would like to say that I wrote MOLLY LEE in one sitting and
everything in it is my pure genius.
But that would be a lie. I have three editors (two women and one guy). They
kept me honest with regard to Molly. When I made her a little too hard, they
would point out that she had to be softer or show more emotion in a particular
scene.
I
set out to write a book where every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. I wanted
the reader to be forced to turn to the next chapter. And I pretty much
accomplished that, but I also wrote a few chapters where Molly and my readers
could catch their collective breath.
One
last thing: Everything in MOLLY
LEE is historically correct
from the languages of the Indians to the descriptions of the way people
dressed, spoke, and lived. I spend as much time on research as I do writing my
stories. Sometimes more.
It
looks as though I’ve used up my allotted word count (self-imposed), so I reckon
I’ll ride off into the sunset and rustle up a little vodka and cranberry juice
(with extra lime).
It’s
been a pleasure,
Andrew
Great post! Thank you Andrew!
Thanks, JB, for an interesting read. I really enjoyed this interview!