Author Spotlight week - Excerpt from Changless as the Heavens

It's excerpt Friday and Barri has left us with a great excerpt from Changless as the Heavens.
Leave a comment here on the blog and I'll pick one winner on Monday to win a PDF copy of Barri's book. I'll announce the winner and on the Connections Loop.

Enjoy
Moderator Steph
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Cara did understand and that was the problem. "Oh, but I do. I understand perfectly."

Rand's lips twisted scornfully. "Then you're one up on me because, once I was gone, you made a choice that I don't understand."

He left her with no options. She was forced to carry on without him as best she could. "What choice?"

"The choice to cut me out of your life completely and permanently. You never once, during the first year I was gone, tried to find me or get in touch with me."

Cara's heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. "How do you know that?"

Rand asked, sharply, "Did you?"

She hadn't, mainly because she'd been too busy trying to survive. "No."

Rand nodded. "And later, even though you had no proof I was dead, you chose to think of me that way, why Cara?"

He was raising questions that even now, were too painful and too revealing for Cara to face, let alone answer. "I... don't know."

"My boots, my clothes, my guns, books, tools, fishing gear." Rand spread his hands. "All the personal belongings I left when I went away, where are they now?"

"We moved. The farmhouse was crowded." Cara was making excuses and not very good ones. "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm trying to assess where I stand."

So he was looking for an excuse to make another quick exit. She would make it easy for him this time. "Nothing in this house belongs to you. You have no ties here at all."

Rand's jaw tightened. "Except for my sons, I'm beginning to think you're right. What did you do with my worldly possessions?"

Cara sorted through old memories. "I sold most of your clothes. What I couldn't sell, I gave away. Elaine was getting rid of Baron's things. She said there was no point in holding on to the past when you needed money for the present. I decided she was right."

"The tools, the fishing gear, the books, my guns, did you sell them, too?"

He was forcing her to recall painful events she'd rather forget. "I sold the tools and the guns a few months after you left. I needed the money. The next summer I traded the fishing gear to Fred Thompson for some work he did on my car. When we moved to the farm, space was limited. I gave the books to the library." Her chin came up. "Things were rough in the beginning. I did what I had to do."

Rand ran his fingers along the sides of his hair. "The money I left should have more than taken care of you and the boys for that first year."

Cara gasped, "You didn't leave me a red cent. I never got any money from you." That wasn't quite true. "Except the allotment I received after you joined the army."

Rand's voice dropped to a whisper. "I left the money with Dad." Realization caused his features to harden. "He never gave it to you?"


"Your dad never gave me one thin dime."

"All this time you've believed I walked away and left you with no income, a pile of debts, and two children to support? I'm beginning to see why you preferred to think of me as dead." He was a man in obvious pain. "Did you sell your wedding ring, too?"

Cara looked down at her bare finger. "No."

"Then where is it? Why aren't you wearing it?"

"I put it away." Sometimes forgetting was as painful as remembering. "It's in my bedroom, in my jewelry box." It was time she stopped dodging the issue. "If you want a divorce I won't fight you. We can reach an amicable settlement."

His eyes were two blue magnets. "I don't want a divorce."

Cara gasped again, this time in amazement. "What do you want?"

"I want another chance."

Cara asked, oh so cautiously, "To do what?"

His words seemed to levitate and hang in the tense air, "To make our marriage work."

Confusion and a host of polarizing emotions left Cara speechless.

Perspiration beaded Rand's top lip. "I know you have reason to doubt me. All I ask is a chance to prove to you how wrong you are and to make up for any past mistakes, be they real or imagined."

He spoke with such sincerity. "I don't know what to say."

"Say yes." Standing, Rand walked toward her. "I'd like to set things right." Pulling a chair with him as he advanced, he stopped directly in front of her. "Will you listen to what I have to say?" He sat in the chair and waited for her response.

What did she have to lose other than her heart all over again? "Okay."

Rand took her hand in his. "When I was first approached to do undercover work, it was to be a one-time, short-term mission. I thought I'd complete the assignment and be home with you by the following spring. My country needed me. A few months out of my life didn't seem too much to ask or to give." He closed his eyes then opened them again, slowly. "I have to admit also, the idea of having a little adventure in my life appealed to me."

So he had craved excitement, even then. And he hadn't found it with his oh-so-ordinary wife; all the more reason to be wary about taking him back. "Were you that bored with your life?"

"I thought it might help if you and I spent some time apart." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. "I know now I was wrong. What you and I needed was more time together."

How time could alter perception. Once she would have agreed with him, not any more. Without some outside interests, Rand would have bolted long before he did. He thrived on diversity, excitement and adventure. Cara on the other hand, needed the peace and security of stability and routine. What a wise fool she was. Knowing what a chance she'd be taking, letting him back in her life again, she was still tempted to say yes. "There are so many problems, so many things to consider..." Her voice trailed away on the end of a little sigh.

Author Spotlight Week - Barri Bryan shares her passion for 20th Century Historicals

I like writing 20th century historicals because it’s always a challenge to mix history and fiction into a romantic tale.

I have lived long enough to know a great deal about the culture, mindset and events of a good part of that period. I choose a decade and look at some important trends such as transportation, inventions, social movements and developments, politics, and sexually related trends and movements. The better I understand how these things fit together, the better I can understand the mood and attitude of that era.
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Then I find an episode or a chain of events and build my plot around that. In my story titled Bridget’s Secret, I took the rise of the KKK in 1922 and built my story loosely around that event. In A Long Shadow, set in 1955, I chose the integration of public schools as a basis for my plot. Changeless as the Heavens has as its background the end of a global conflict, returning soldiers, and economic conflict.

I draw many of my characters from the people who populated my world in earlier days. Scores of them were colorful, most of them were interesting, and a few were downright dastardly

When writing historicals, originality does not always mean making something from nothing. It can also mean making interesting changes in what has gone before. I look at the material already in existence. I can then enter into a world that previously existed, and by innovation and imagination, try to make it interesting and exciting. In so many ways, writing historicals is rewriting, it comes from the writer’s reading and then synthesizing new ideas with old experiences.

To paraphrase T. S. Eliot, The immature writer borrows from the past. The mature writer steals from the past.

Author Spotlight Week - Q&A with Barri Bryan

STEPH: I don't know much about "Changeless as the Heavens." Can you tell us a little about the story.

BARRI: Changeless As The heavens is set in 1946. It is the story of a woman who, has for four years, believed that her husband, Rand, is ‘missing in action, and presumed dead’. As World War Two draws to a close she learns that not only is Rand very much alive, he’s coming home. So many things have changed since he went away. Most of all, she has changed. She’s not the same person she was when he left without saying so much as a good-bye. Then she was a shy little housewife. She is now the head of a prosperous corporation. She also has formed both a business and a personal relationship with Rand’s cousin, Evan. Now she is faced with trying to cope with a situation that threatens to overwhelm her and to destroy the safe world she has spent the last four years building for herself and her children.


STEPH: What was the inspiration behind the story?

BARRI: I was a teen-ager during World War Two. I have so many memories of that time. I wanted to tell of what it was really like when the war ended and servicemen came home to a world so different from the one they left behind, and when the women who stayed at home to manage on their own were suddenly faced with being thrust back into the role of the ‘little woman’.


STEPH: How long did it take you to write?

BARRI: I don’t really know how long I worked on this story. I worked on other projects too, so it was a work-awhile, stop-awhile process. In all, I probably spent something like a year. Although I have many memories of that time, I also found it necessary to do a lot of research.

STEPH: How did you 'craft your characters?" Did you do character bios? Research? What made these characters personal to you?

BARRI: Before I start a project, I always make character bios for my characters. I used my mother as a model for my heroine in Changeless As the heavens. My mother was a strong, capable woman who met each challenge that faced her during those war years with courage and determination. I admired her tremendously. I modeled my hero after my father. He was very much the military man. Of course I took many literary liberties. Neither of my parents was as daring or as colorful as my hero and my heroine, but they served as models for me to construct people whom I hope come across as both bigger than life and believable.


STEPH: What did you say when you first saw the cover art from Gwen Phifer?


BARRI: I was very please with the cover Gwen did for Changeless as The Heavens.
I thought she captured the spirit of the story very well. The airplanes in the sky on one side and the buildings on the horizon on the other, to me, depicted the fast moving and changing world the heroine found herself caught up in. To have her standing alone, in an open field, facing them, was a picture of her isolation and of her determination to meet and conquer what lay ahead.

STEPH: What's your writing space like?

BARRI: My writing space is a small bedroom I’ve converted into an office. It is off limits to everyone but me. You definitely need an invitation to enter. Maybe you’d need a shovel too. It has a lot of ‘stuff’ crammed inside, my favorite books, my computer and printer, a granny rocking chair, two file cabinets, my radio and CD player, a chest, a couple of small tables. . . It’s probably what most people would consider messy, but I think of it as organized chaos.

STEPH: Do you have an ereader? If so, which one?

BARRI: Yes, I have a Kindle and I love it. My daughter gave it to me for my birthday. I had a old Franklin Rocket eBook but it’s nothing to compare to my Kindle, plus I can shop around in a bookstore everyday, and I do.

STEPH: Tell us a little about the state you live in.

BARRI: I live in the great state of Texas. I suppose everyone knows Texas is big, Texans tend to be braggarts, and that the state has two languages, East Texas drawl and West Texas Twang. They know of Texas’s rich history. They have read of The Alamo, Texas under six flags, and colorful characters like Jim Bowie and Sam Houston. What they may not know is its state flower is the bluebonnet, never mind that in the truest sense of the word, a bluebonnet is a weed. Its state tree is the pecan, its state bird the mocking bird and its state song is Texas Our Texas. But most of the old Texans I know think our state song is The Armadillo Song. It’s not, and that’s not even the true title. The real name of this anthem to Texas is The London Homesick Blues. It was written by Gary P. Nunn. By the way, Cotton-eyed Joe is not the official dance of Texas either.

STEPH: How important was setting to the story?

BARRI: To me, setting was very important. It touches on and colors every other aspect of the story. I like to think of a fictional setting as a framework. All details related to time, place and action fit within this framework. Properly understood and applied a setting becomes the under girding for your story.


STEPH: What state would you visit that you haven't been to?

BARRI: That’s a tough question, and one I’d never thought about until now. After some consideration, I think I’d like to go to Virginia. I’d like to see Williamsburg because of its colorful history. I would love to visit the area around Chesapeake Bay. I’d like to spend some time in Virginia Beach and go to Arlington National cemetery.

Featured March 2011 Release - Changeless as the Heavens by Barri Bryan

BLURB:

For three years Cara Williams's husband has been missing in action and presumed dead. She¿s moved on with her life to form new relationships and make new commitments. As World War Two draws to a close, she is shocked to learn that her husband is not only very much alive, he's coming home.

How does she justify to him that she has turned his old homestead into a business site? How can she explain that she now has a darling little toddler who calls her Mommie? What does she tell him about her relationship with his cousin Evan? Most of all how does she deal with the resurrection of emotions and passion she had thought dead and long since buried?


EXCERPT:
Can it be that Rand is alive?

Cara Williams sat in the back seat of a military staff car and stared at the passing autumn landscape. Leaves were falling from the post oaks. Birds collected along fence rows, gathering for their flight south. Ahead and to the left junk yards came into view.

Three years ago -- had it been only three years? It seemed like a lifetime -- on a day not unlike this one, she'd received that terrible telegram that read: We regret to inform you. Her husband was missing in action and presumed dead. Now, the army was telling her that he was waiting for her at Fort Sam Houston? This has to be a mistake.

Colonel Daniels, the military liaison who had brought those tidings to her earlier in the day, addressed the driver who sat next to him. "Turn left at the next intersection."

The young soldier nodded, "Yes, sir."

Colonel Daniels shifted in his seat to face Cara. "We're nearing Fort Sam."

The longer Cara was in this man's presence, the more she disliked him. "So?"

"So you will soon be reunited with your husband. Do you have any questions?"

Cara had many questions, but none Colonel Daniels could answer. "I can't think of a thing."

"You're not curious about where he's been or what he's been doing for the past four years?" Of course, she was curious. She was also doubtful. "Are you sure the man at Fort Sam is Randall Williams?"

"We're sure." The colonel dropped his brisk military manner. "That doesn't mean he's the same man who left you four years ago. I trust you will bear that in mind when you see him."

"Rand was my husband. I can cope."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Barri Bryan is the pen name for Billie Houston. I acquired a pseudonym at the behest of my adult children when they discovered a steamy excerpt from one of my romances at the web site of a publisher.

I am a former teacher and educator. I like poetry, George Strait's music, old movies and Earl Grey tea. My hobbies are reading, quilting, sewing, knitting, crocheting, taking long walks, and growing house plants and herbs.

I'm four-time EPPIE winner and a published author with over twenty novels, four books of poetry, numerous essays, several short stories, and one non-fiction how-to-write-book to my credit. I have been writing since 1990. My first romance was published in 1998. I write the kind of books I enjoy reading --- romantic tales about relationships; stories that explore feelings and probe emotions. The plots revolve around ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and faced with difficult decisions.