Monday, September 6, 2010

Day 7 With Author Brita Addams & Giveaway!

Today is our last day with our featured author Brita Addams. We have all had a great time getting to know this incredible author and we hope you did too. For our last day we are handing over the reins to our Mistress Of Erotica Brita Addams. Stay tuned because at the end of her guest post she will be having a giveaway.



The Stories We Tell
As an author, I create stories with characters that speak to me, sometimes in my dreams but always in the very early morning hours! Muses have little respect for a writer's sleep.
I'd like to talk a bit about our real stories, for we are nothing if not for our stories.
When we are young, we think the world began and will end with us. As we get older, we discover there was indeed a world long before any of us and it will most certainly go on without us. For me, that was a revelation of massive proportions.
I've been a non-professional genealogist for over twenty years. During that time, I've uncovered some very interesting stories about my ancestors, some of which were rather unsavory creatures. Ultimately, they are great fodder for the stories I write, changing the names to protect the not so innocent, of course.
My grandmother died when I was seventeen. I adored her and miss her all these years later. My greatest regret is that I didn't know her better. Yes, I saw her nearly every day, talked to her, but never asked one question about who she really was, other than my Gram, I mean. After her death, I began asking my mother the questions, and found she didn't have a clue about anything to do with her mother.
Of course, that only made me more curious, for my grandmother was an interesting woman in her simplicity. She was wholly uneducated, though she could read and write. I began to dig and oddly, the more questions I asked, the more answers I easily discovered. I grilled my mother's siblings, all five of them, and slowly a glorious picture emerged.
Doris Moon was motherless at fourteen, an orphan at sixteen. Four days after her father died, she married my grandfather. My aunt said they'd planned on marriage but it was sped up by events beyond their control. Being poor, several of her siblings went to an orphanage, the two youngest were adopted out, the rest were taken in my families in town. My grandmother was the third oldest.
By the time Gram was thirty-one years old, she and my grandfather, were the parent of six children. They never lost any in childbirth, quite common at the time. Their children grew to adulthood, five still living today, my mother being the only one lost.
I visit my former home every couple of years, during which time, I sit with my aunts and uncle and they tell me stories. One of my favorites was the one about the time my Uncle Pete and his classmates tied their schoolmaster to the bench on which he slept. He loves to tell that story and I really don't believe he remembers he's told it to me dozens of times. I'd listen to it a dozen more just to hear his laugh as he remembers that day.
In my research, I discovered my Gram's brother Roy was a hero, died during a flood while trying to save a family's possessions. He died at thirty-five, leaving four small children and a lovely young widow. I met her, fifty years after Roy's death, she aged and frail. She told me of that rainy day, the creek overflowing its banks. Dorothy begged her husband not to go, but he felt compelled to go help. It wasn't an hour later that a neighbor came banging on her door and she knew. She told me she ran from the house, leaving her children with the bearer of the bad news. She was there when they found Roy's body, which had been washed down the creek and wrapped around a tree. Though she'd remarried many years later and bore two more children, she never recovered from Roy's death. She followed him in 2007, sixty-two years later. She maintained to her dying day, according to her children, that Roy was the love of her life.
Then there was my great-grandmother, who bore my mother's grandfather and gave him up. He was then 'adopted' by the family I grew up thinking were related by blood. It appears that great-granny was complicit in a murder. She was also rather loose with her favors, acquiring several "husbands" and uncles for her passel of children.
However, she also engaged in some nefarious activities, including the murder of her first husband, Samuel. It would seem she enticed her first husband to sign over his life saving to her and their two children. The vast sum of $200 was securely in her name and that night, her second husband, William, lured Samuel into a barn and murdered him. Of course, he was caught, as was most of his family, and they were all jailed, including my charming great-grandma.
From the transcripts of the trials, I gleaned an exact picture of her, red hair, 'not a very handsome woman', stutter and all. It was many years later, after a couple of years in prison, that my great-grandfather was born. My mother adored him and his red hair.
Stories, real or fictional, are wonderful. I have many real stories, some charming and some not so much. However, they are all part of my history. I have doctors, lawyers even the first fire chief in Boston in my family tree. All with great, interesting stories attached to their names.
Writers are constantly creating stories, some with unlikely characters, others quite predictable. However, I dare guess, even the most unusual characters could never equal those characters found hanging in my family tree.
I will continue to use my ancestry to provide me with bits and pieces of personalities for my heroes and heroines. The stories I write will always have a germ of reality, taken from those who came before.
Now, if you've read my books, you know my characters have rather kinky propensities. They, my friends, are strictly from my imagination. At least I haven't discovered any lurking about my ancestry.
The point I'd like to make is, ask questions of your family, dig into the history of your family. I can't guarantee you will find characters as colorful as some of mine, but if you do find any with some interesting, ahh, practices, please contact me and maybe your ancestor will appear in a future book! *wink, smile and raised eyebrow*
Luv,
Brita
Find me here:


Website/Blog: CLICK HERE
Facebook: CLICK HERE
Twitter:
CLICK HERE
Shelfari: CLICK HERE
Goodreads: CLICK HERE

Brita would like to giveaway to the winner an ebook from her Sapphire Club Series their choice. There is Serenity's Dream Book 1, Lord Decadent's Obsession Book 2, and Chocolate, Tea And The Duchess Book 3 to choose from. If you would like to win one of these ebooks you must fill out this FORM.

RULES:

1) If you like leave a meaningful comment and/or a question for Brita.
2) MUST fill out the form.

This giveaway is open to everyone and ends September 14th at midnight (EST).

We here at Sinfully Tasty Reads want to say thank you to Brita Addams for being our first featured author. We also want to thank her for her time and generosity. If you have not read any of Brita's book please consider doing so for she is truly a gifted writer.


Link:
http://www.britaaddams.com/

12 comments:

  1. Hi Raquel, Maria, Dee and Wanda,
    I want to thank you all for having me this past week, allowing me to share my books and thoughts with you. It has been great fun and I do hope you'll have me back.
    I love you all for your kindness and generousity. You make a girl feel loved.
    Brita

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  2. Your are so very welcome. We would love to have you back. We loved hearing your thoughs and learning so much about your Sapphire Club Series. We ell pimp your books anytime....lol.

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  3. Thank you Brita so much for sharing an E-book on Sinfully Tasty Reads!! :-)

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  4. I think that is so cool that you use family members in your ancestry to use as your characters. I've never thought of doing something like that.

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  5. I look forward to the giveaway and I thank everyone for stopping by all week. Thank you ladies for hosting me and sharing my excerpts and blurbs. It has been great fun and I hope I can come back again.

    My first book under my real name is coming out on Sept. 27 and I absolutely love that book as well. I'd love to share it with ya'll.

    Send me the names when you gather them and I'll select the winner. Or if you guys want to select the winner and I'll contact them. However you want to do it.

    Luv you all,
    Brita

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  6. Brita, Congratulations. It is a unique way how you explained the usage of your ancestry and had them as characters in your book. How astonishing...I wish you the best on your success with all your books presently written and to come..I'm looking forward to your next book under your real name..

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  7. Did you ever find your Gram's brothers & sisters that went into the orphanage?

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  8. Shaiha,
    Great question. Of the four siblings that initially went to the orphanage, 2 were recovered quickly and placed with friends. The youngest two were eventually adopted. Twenty years later, in 1945, the third youngest brother located all his siblings and they were briefly reunited.

    The two youngest had lived vastly different lives, having been adopted by wealthy families. From what I understand, they all stayed in touch.

    My grandmother died in 1967 at the young age of 56. Today, there is only the youngest living, at the age of 85. I've never met her or any of the others but one, the next youngest "boy." He, sadly passed away a few years ago, but I've stayed in touch with my aunt, his wife, as well as the widow of the man who reunited all of them and the aunt who is still living.

    The third oldest, Roy, the man who died in a flood in 1945, was married and I met his widow and a couple of his children a few years ago. She has since passed, but I so enjoyed meeting her. She'd only had one photo of her husband, a very tiny photo. We made a copy of it and had it enlarged for her. She told me that the enlargement sat right next to her always, as she'd never stopped loving him, though at that time, he'd been dead for over 50 years.

    Is there any wonder I write romance??

    Luv, Brita

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  9. This Giveaway is now closed. We would like to thank everyone who entered and helped us celebrate our featured author Brita Addams.

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  10. This has been the greatest fun! I think I want to live here. Do you serve coffee in the morning?

    Thank you to all the commenters who stopped by and left their wonderful words.

    Please have me back. I really love you guys.

    Luv,
    Brita

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  11. You are welcome back ANY TIME hun be it here or on my blog. We loved having you and you know how much I respect and admire your work....^_^. And if coffee is what you seek than coffee is what you shall have....lol.

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