Today, I’m honoured to host Author, Nonnie Jules, the founder a president of two international literary communities: Rave Reviews Book Club and Rave Writers International Society of Authors. Nonnie is touring with her new book, “No Pedigree”, a short story that you won’t soon forget! Take it away, Nonnie!

Hi, and thanks for dropping in on Day 2 of my NO PEDIGREE blog tour! I’m so grateful to John for sharing his space with me today as I share a little of a historical topic that I mentioned in the book. Since John is a historian, I could think of no better place to share this.

WHY REFERENCING THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE WAS IMPORTANT IN “NO PEDIGREE”

In the 1^st chapter of NO PEDIGREE, I reference a historical event now known as the TULSA RACE MASSACRE (also known as Tulsa Race Riot, Greenwood Massacre or the Black Wall Street Massacre).

To give readers a bit of clarity as to how strongly my main character, Baylee, felt about her new environment, I had to reference an event that would lend credibility to those feelings. Although I didn’t go past a mere mention of the event, I felt that if readers were as curious as I am when I happen upon such references, they would do their own research. For you, here’s the back story…

On May 31^st and June 1^st, a mob of white residents of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK, attacked a group of black residents and businesses. The massacre, which began over Memorial Day weekend in 1921, stemmed from the arrest of 19-yr-old Dick Rowland, a black shoe shiner, accused of assaulting 17-yr-old Sarah Page, a white elevator operator in the Drexel Building on May 30^th.

Rowland was well-known among attorneys and other legal professionals within the city because of his profession as a shoe shiner. Some witnesses later recounted hearing several attorneys defend Rowland in their conversations with one another. One of the men was quoted as saying, “Why, I know that boy, and have known him a good while. That’s not in him.”

While Rowland was in custody, a group of angry whites gathered outside the courthouse, where he had been moved for his safety. Rumors quickly spread throughout the black community that he had been lynched, prompting some members of the black community to swarm the area outside the courthouse, weapons in hand. Shots rang out and, in the end, 12 were killed – 10 whites and 2 blacks.

That night and the next morning, mobs of angry whites rushed through the black neighborhoods killing men and burning and looting homes and businesses. This attack was carried out from the ground and via private aircraft, destroying over 35 blocks in that district, which at the time was the wealthiest black community in the U.S. – also known to many as the “Black Wall Street.”

It wasn’t until around noon the next day that the troops from the Oklahoma National Guard were able to get control of the situation by declaring martial law. But, in that short span of time, in less than 24 hours, 10,000 black people were left homeless and property damage was listed at more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property. (Equivalent to $32.25 million in 2019).

Many of the survivors of that massacre (not sure if this would have been more blacks or more whites or a mix of both) left Tulsa. Black and white residents who remained, never spoke of this horrid event and it was largely omitted from local, state and national histories.

The charges against Dick Rowland were dismissed at the end of September 1921. Once he was exonerated, he immediately left Tulsa, moving to Kansas. Little else is publicly known about the remainder of his life.

Seventy-five years after the massacre (in 1996), a bipartisan group in the state legislature authorized the formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (later renamed in November of 2018, the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Massacre), established to specifically investigate events, interview survivors, hear testimony from the public and prepare a report of events. Through this process, the group also aimed to educate the public about the event.

In 2001, the Commission published its findings which stated that the city had conspired with the mob of white citizens against black citizens. The report also recommended reparations to the survivors and their descendants. The state passed legislation to establish scholarships for descendants of survivors, encourage the economic development of Greenwood and develop a memorial park in Tulsa to honor the massacre victims. The park was dedicated in October of 2010 and named the JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN RECONCILIATION Park, in honor of one of the survivors who became a leading scholar of black history. John Franklin died shortly after the dedication of the park.

“We can tell the nation the story of a whole community decimated by hate but rebuilt by a community full of hope,” Tulsa Mayor, Dewey Bartlett said.

Since I am a lover of history myself, I could spend days on John’s blog going on and on about this event, but, I won’t (because I’m pretty sure eventually he’d kick me off). I referenced this event in NO PEDIGREE because I wanted readers to know the atmosphere that Baylee was in – an atmosphere that hadn’t changed much in over 90 years.

I’d like to end this post by sharing that just recently (in 2020) the massacre became part of the Oklahoma school curriculum!

Thanks for spending time here with me today, and John, I have no words to thank you for allowing me this time. My little THANK YOU will have to suffice.

Sources: Wikipedia and TulsaWorld.com

BOOK BLURB…

Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, Baylee never quite fit in… anywhere. She was taunted and teased because her clothes had no designer labels, and spit upon because her only pair of shoes had holes in the bottom. The butt of many jokes, she was excluded from all social activities, sneered at by the parents of her peers after school as she waited for the bus, watching them drive away in their fancy cars; assaulted in the most unthinkable fashion.

Having been born to a white father and a black native American mother didn’t make things any easier. In fact, that circumstance made her life ten times harder – until the day she made them all stand up, take notice, and regret every ugly word and deed they had inflicted upon her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Hi, I’m Nonnie Jules – President & Founder of RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB {RRBC} and RAVE WRITERS – INT’L SOCIETY OF AUTHORS {RWISA}. As a writer who values the (polished) written word, it is my mission to help my fellow authors understand that their reputations as writers should be treated as rare treasure and that the only way to be taken seriously in this business, is to ensure that your writing (no matter the forum) is impeccably written and well-edited. If not, you’re just another “Joe” with a pen who was the first to raise his hand when Amazon asked, “Hey, any old Joe out there wanna publish a book? Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be good and there’s absolutely no hard work involved.”

FYI: If you don’t care what you put out into the world, you’re just a laughingstock in the literary community … and your name is “Joe.”

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Connect with Nonnie via Twitter: @nonniejules

To purchase your own copy of NO PEDIGREE, https://www.amazon.com/NO-PEDIGREE-Really-Short-Story-ebook/dp/B083SB1RMN/

To learn more about Nonnie and how to connect with her, please drop in on her RRBC Author Page!

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GIVEAWAYS: (2) e-book copies of NO PEDIGREE, (2) $5 Amazon gift cards & (1) 3-Day Weekend blog tour! You must leave a comment on this page and also the author’s 4WillsPub author page to be entered into the drawing.

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To follow along with the rest of the NO PEDIGREE blog tour, visit the author’s tour page.

If you’d like to schedule your own 4WillsPub tour to promote your books in a similar fashion, click HERE.

It’s my pleasure to host colleague and fellow member of Rave Reviews Book Club, Robbie Cheadle, to our Fiora Books site today. Please support this gifted author.

The benefits of living on a farm during the war

While the bombs fell is a collaboration between my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton, and me and tells a fictionalized account of her life as a small girl growing up in the small English town of Bungay, Suffolk during World War II.

Life for the children of a farmer in England during the war brought a lot of benefits compared to city and other children.

The greatest good fortune for my mother and her family was that, as a farmer, their father was exempt from fighting in the war. Farmers, like firefighters, medical practitioners and policemen, were considered to provide an essential service to the nation. All the other men in the town, between the ages of eighteen and forty-one years old, were obliged to enlist in the army and their families were left to fend for themselves while they were away.

Another advantage of living on a dairy farm was that the family suffered no shortage of milk. As an agricultural worker doing a heavy manual job, my grandfather also received extra cheese rations, although other luxuries like butter were in short supply.

The children were also able to supplement their diet with other food sources such as the occasional egg from a swan and eels from the river as per the following extract:

“After tea, Wendy set a fishing line which she left overnight. She was excellent at this and frequently caught an eel or two. She dug for worms in the kitchen garden to bait the line.

The green-brown eels looked like snakes, but they tasted delicious, cooked in milk and water in a frying pan and flavoured with pepper.

Elsie hoped that Wendy would catch some eels for them to eat. In the morning, Wendy would run down to the river to see what she had caught.”

Their father was also able to supplement their table with game, especially rabbits, which often came onto his land. My grandmother would make a rabbit stew to feed her large family of two adults and six children and a baby.

The following extract explains how my grandmother made her rabbit stews:

“She cut the rabbit into joints using her knife and put it to soak in a bowl of cold water with one

tablespoon of vinegar. After thirty minutes she removed the pieces from the water and dried them well with a cloth.

Mother mixed a small amount of flour with salt and pepper and coated every piece of the rabbit with the mixture. In a large pot on the paraffin heater, she heated a small amount of lard, a white animal fat, and the rinds of two rashers of bacon, when available. She then added the coated rabbit joints and cooked them for about ten minutes until they were golden brown. The meat in the pot sizzled and fried, and it smelled good.

Mother removed the rabbit from the pot and added two rashers of chopped bacon, if she could get it, as well as two medium onions, cut into slices, and three medium carrots, chopped into pieces. After she sautéed the vegetables and bacon for approximately five minutes, she returned the rabbit to the pot. She added water and one grated apple. Wendy would help Mother stir the liquid as it came to the boil and thickened slightly. Finally, Mother added gravy salts and whole peeled potatoes and allowed the stew in the pot to simmer for about three hours until lunchtime. The family heartily appreciated rabbit stew as a mid-day meal.”

From both a family and food, perspective, my mother and her siblings were a lot more fortunate than many other children, a lot of whom were evacuated from London during the blitz and had to live with strangers, not all of whom treated them well.

BOOK BLURB:

What was it like for children growing up in rural Suffolk during World War 2?

Elsie and her family live in a small double-storey cottage in Bungay, Suffolk. Every night she lies awake listening anxiously for the sound of the German bomber planes. Often they come and the air raid siren sounds signalling that the family must leave their beds and venture out to the air-raid shelter in the garden.

Despite the war raging across the English channel, daily life continues with its highlights, such as Christmas and the traditional Boxing Day fox hunt, and its wary moments when Elsie learns the stories of Jack Frost and the ghostly and terrifying Black Shuck that haunts the coastline and countryside of East Anglia.

Includes some authentic World War 2 recipes.

AUTHOR BIO:

Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle-grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s books are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.

I also have a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.

I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.

I have participated in a number of anthologies:

• Two short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Dark Visions, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre under Robbie Cheadle;
• Three short stories in Death Among Us, an anthology of murder mystery stories, edited by Stephen Bentley under Robbie Cheadle;
• Three short stories in #1 Amazon bestselling anthology, Nightmareland, a collection of horror stories edited by Dan Alatorre under Robbie Cheadle; and
• Two short stories in Whispers of the Past, an anthology of paranormal stories, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth under Roberta Eaton Cheadle.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

Robbie Cheadle

Website

https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

Blog

https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

Twitter

https://twitter.com/bakeandwrite

Roberta Eaton Cheadle

Website

https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

Blog

https://wordpress.com/view/robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19631306.Roberta_Eaton_Cheadle

Twitter

https://twitter.com/RobertaEaton17

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/robertawrites/?modal=admin_todo_tour

AMAZON OR OTHER PURCHASE LINKS:

TSL Publications:

https://tslbooks.uk/product/while-the-bombs-fell-robbie-cheadle-and-elsie-hancy-eaton/

Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/robbie-cheadle-and-elsie-hancy-eaton/while-the-bombs-fell/ebook/product-23768958.html

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Robbie-Cheadle/e/B01N9J62GQ

“THE MEREST LOSS” Q & A

A story of love and political intrigue, set against the backdrop of the English hunting shires and the streets of Victorian London and post-revolutionary Paris.

GIVEAWAY:

Steven is giving away (3) Signed Paperback copies of “THE MEREST LOSS.”  For your chance to win, be sure to leave him a comment below.

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Getting to know Steven Neil, the author.

*What is your novel about?

 The Merest Loss: A story of love and political intrigue, set against the backdrop of the English hunting shires and the streets of Victorian London and post-revolutionary Paris. It is historical fiction but it is also a romance. Most of the novel is written from the point of view of the omniscient narrator, writing in the present tense, although this is interspersed with four strategic chapters, from the point of view of one of the characters, in the past tense. I like the idea of varying the presentation and I also make use of letters, newspaper articles and reviews to provide additional perspective.

Originally I was planning to write a Dick Francis style thriller and I was researching a jockey called Jem Mason, who won the first Grand National at Liverpool in 1839. I found a line in his description which said something like ‘also famous for his relationship with Harriet Howard, who ran away to live with him in London when she was fifteen and who also became Louis Napoleon’s mistress and financial backer’. I decided she was an even more interesting character and I set about writing a fictional account of her life.

*Who are the main characters?

Harriet Howard is the heroine. She is independent, feisty, stubborn, beautiful and intelligent. Jem Mason is the main love interest. He is taciturn, difficult and moody, but also charismatic, talented and single-minded. Tom Olliver, friend to both Harriet and Jem, is loyal, tough, reliable and a brilliant horseman. Louis Napoleon is arrogant, feckless, self-regarding and a womaniser.

*What is the main plot line?

Having settled on Harriet Howard as the main character, I learned that although she did not come from wealth or position in society she became Louis Napoleon’s mistress and financial backer in his ambition to become Emperor of France and she  died a multi-millionairess in today’s terms. I could find nothing from research to satisfactorily explain where the money came from or how she came into contact with the future emperor. The Merest Loss is my fictional attempt to explain how this might have happened.

*What research did you carry out?

I did a lot of historical research on the internet and at the British Library, trying to make sure the historical timeline was correct and that the language and cultural references were appropriate to the age. I also read a lot of 19^th century novels and books on the history of Britain and France in the 19^th century. The Merest Loss took three years from conception to publication: two years of research and one year of pure writing.

*What appealed to you about this subject matter?

 I love the Victorian era. I warmed to Harriet Howard as I wrote about her. She was arguably a woman ahead of her time. I also had a strong connection with the character Jem Mason. I have great admiration for the skill and courage of the jump jockey. I share some of his characteristics and was able to empathise with him.

I was also fascinated by the idea of a romance where the two main characters are thwarted by their own temperaments; they are both unromantic, stubborn and uncompromising. How will it ever be possible for them to get together when they seem unable to resolve arguments, even though everyone around them can see they are well suited together?

*What was the most difficult part of writing the novel?

Getting started was probably the most difficult part. Writing doesn’t come easy to me but I am very disciplined and I keep going.

*Why should we want to read The Merest Loss?

Almost all the characters in The Merest Loss are real. Harriet Howard, Jem Mason, Tom Olliver, Louis Napoleon are all real. The timeline is historically accurate but the substance of the storyline is entirely a fiction arising out of my own imagination. You might like to play ‘guess who is the made up character’ when you have finished reading the novel. Oh, and it has lots of five star reviews.

*Do you read your reviews?

I read all my reviews. I know I can’t please all the people all of the time and that no two people read the same book the same way. One of my creative writing tutors advised me to look up my favourite books of all time on Goodreads and see how few of them have an average rating above 4 out of 5. Only one of them did.

*What is your favourite review?

All the five star reviews are my favourites.

*Who would you cast if The Merest Loss was made into a film or TV series?

I think Australian actress Emma Hamilton would make a terrific Harriet Howard. Dominic Cooper for Jem Mason perhaps. Johnny Flynn for Tom Olliver. James Norton as Louis Napoleon.

© Steven Neil

THE MEREST LOSS is available in paperback and eBook in the UK, US, France, Canada and Australia.

Follow Steven Neil on https://twitter.com/stevenneil12 for information on how to purchase the paperback through an independent bookseller in the UK.

Author Bio

Steven has a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the Open University and an MA in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University. He has been a bookmaker’s clerk, bloodstock agent, racehorse breeder and management consultant amongst other professions in his varied career. He is married and lives in rural Northamptonshire, England. The Merest Loss is his debut novel.

Twitter:  @stevenneil12

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