Introducing Laura Vosika

Today I'm pleased to host a guest post by Laura Vosika, author of the Blue Bells of Scotland, historical fiction with a time travel twist.

Music has opened many worlds to me—opera, ballet, musicals, even ships as I once played on the dock for visitors to the recreated tall ship Endeavor on its journey around the world. Never did I expect that music might draw me to medieval Scotland!

Had I played a different instrument, I might have ended up elsewhere. But I played trombone, and as all who love the instrument do, I spent many hours working on a piece called Blue Bells of Scotland. The streaming banners and noble deeds of the lyrics begged for a story. My favorite book had been about four siblings who go into a Scottish keep and come out in medieval Scotland. Along with the image of a musician brash enough to gamble away his livelihood in a poker game, a story began forming in my mind. I started researching Scottish battles for a setting conducive to streaming banners and noble deeds. Somewhere between the Picts and the Jacobites, I discovered the Battle of Bannockburn, and my brash musician’s fate was sealed.

It has been a wondeful experience delving into the lives of people like Robert the Bruce and his queen Elizabeth whose course in life was charted by England’s aggression, Isabella MacDuff who lived in a cage on castle battlements for years, and James Douglas, the fierce warrior whose name became synonymous with terror among the English—the Black Douglas—yet whose reputation among his own people leaves him known even today as the Good Sir James.

I have enjoyed discovering the ways in which these people are like us, and yet, through their circumstances and surroundings, so different. And I think this is the appeal of historical fiction, especially time travel. We’re curious whether people who dress and speak and live so differently are really the same under the surface trappings, and I think we’re curious who we ourselves would be, in their surroundings. How different would you be if you lived in a castle with hundreds of others, instead of in a single-family home with central heating? If you attended jousting instead of baseball games? If you’d lived before the Reformation?

In Blue Bells of Scotland, Shawn Kleiner and Niall Campbell face this question. Shawn, a modern American musical phenomenon, who wears his selfishness like a badge of honor, finds himself in a world without his money and power, where not everyone is cowed by him, and few are amused by his fun-loving, womanizing ways. Niall, a devout Highland warrior, wakes up in Shawn’s life of luxury, knowing, for the first time in his life, days of peace, time to play the harp, and freedom from fear of death, enjoying a world where no one will object to anything he wants to do.

Shawn and Niall, with nothing in common but their looks and love of music, wake up to new worlds. How would any of us change in such a vastly different situation? How do they?

Blue Bells of Scotland is the first of a trilogy exploring how each changes as a result of their experiences. Copies are available at my website, and through amazon. If you love Scotland or history, stop by my blog, The World of the Blue Bells Trilogy, where I write about the events, people, and places of Niall’s life in medieval Scotland. Right now, there’s a giveaway going on for celtic music by DruidSong. Leave a comment for a chance to win. Also, please feel free to follow me at twitter, or get updates on my writing at Night Writers on facebook.



Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Bells-Scotland-Trilogy-Book/dp/0984215107/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280023466&sr=1-1

My site: http://www.bluebellstrilogy.com/

My blog: www.bluebellstrilogy.com/blog

Twitter: www.twitter.com/lauravosika

Night Writers: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Night-Writers-Books/119737701722