Jeannie and Alexandra: the backstory.

(From Sophie, in Shadow) What a strange friendship they shared, this ill-matched pair: Jeannie Grenville-Smith, with her Scotswoman's steadiness and common sense, doing her best to conform to the claustrophobic rules of this still-Victorian world; and Alexandra, to whom the rules, it seemed, were mere inconveniences, to be ignored altogether if they interfered with her plans.

And yet was Jeannie entirely what she seemed? There were the veiled hints of something strange in Jeannie’s past; and the glances between Jeannie and Alexandra, as though they shared some special knowledge. There was much more about Jean Grenville-Smith that Sophie had yet to learn.

They recognize no limits to their power —What did those words mean to Jeannie, and why did they frighten her so much?

Some of the answers can be found in my earlier novel, Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural. It's the story of the young Jeannie Guthrie (later Grenville-Smith) and Alexandra David Neel, caught up in the occult worlds of London and Paris, twenty-six years before Sophie, in Shadow begins.

“The greatest strength of Wild Talent is its vivid portrayal of the tumultuous times in which Jeannie lives. The drudgery of rural poverty, the decadence of absinthe-soaked artists, the glamour of the Paris world’s fair, and the spiritual debates among London’s occult circles are all handled with skill. When I finished Wild Talent I felt that I’d paid a visit to the late 19th century, that I’d be there with Jeannie right along.” -- Fantasy Literature Net


Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural (Thistledown Press, 2008)

Sophie, in Shadow makes the finalist list for the 2015 Sunburst Awards

Excellent news this morning: Sophie, in Shadow is on the shortlist for this year's Sunburst Awards, in the YA category.

2015 Sunburst Awards finalists announced

Monday, June 22, 2015 | 0

The Sunburst Award Society has announced the shortlists for the 2015 Sunburst Awards for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, which honours speculative fiction in three categories: adult, young adult and short story.

The five short-listed works in the adult category are:

The Troop by Nick Cutter (Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster)

The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)

My Real Children by Jo Walton (Tor Books)

Will Starling by Ian Weir (Goose Lane Editions)

    

Honourable Mentions:

The First Principles of Dreaming by Beth Goobie (Second Story Press)

Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (ChiZine Publications)

Echopraxia by Peter Watts (Tor Books)

The five short-listed works in the young adult category are:

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier (Amulet Books)

Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci (Roaring Brook Press)

A Breath of Frost by Alyxandra Harvey (Bloomsbury Press)

Sophie, In Shadow by Eileen Kernaghan (Thistledown Press)

The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet (ChiTeen)

    

Honourable Mentions:

Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong (Doubleday Canada)

Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica (Tor Books)

The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel (Harper Trophy Canada)

The jurors for the 2015 award are S.M. Beiko, Gerard Collins, Paula Johanson, Corey Redekop and Sherryl Vint.

The winner in each category will receive a cash prize of $1,000 as well as a distinctive Sunburst medallion. 

Winners will be announced in the fall of 2015.

I opened my e-mail this morning to read the announcement of the Long List  for the 2015 Sunburst Awards (Canadian Literature of the Fantastic), and was thrilled to find Sophie, in Shadow on the YA list. 

From the official website: The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award which recognizes exceptional writing in three categories: adult, young adult and short story. The awards are presented each fall to the best Canadian speculative fiction novel, book-length collection, or short story published any time during the previous calendar year.

Named after the first novel by Phyllis Gotlieb (1926–2009), one of the first celebrated writers of contemporary Canadian science fiction, the award is a cash prize of $1,000 for each of the Adult and Young Adult categories. All awards are presented with the distinctive Sunburst medallion. The awards are presented in the fall of each year.
 I'll be reading from Sophie (along with my friend and fellow historical writer Ruth Kozak) at the Vancouver Public Library Main Branch on June 10, 7 p.m.

From Babylon to India

Ruth Kozak and I will be reading from our recent historical novels, Shadow of the Lion and Sophie, in Shadow,  June 10th at the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch.

Analogies and Myths

David C. Kopaska Merkel reviews my 2009 poetry collection Tales from the Holograph Woods at Amazon. com. " This is a wonderful book and I think you need to read it. After you do, it will probably stick with you."  From "Wild things":

 

out of the midnight forest
they follow you home like shadow
they live in your walls and rafters
in forgotten backs of cupboards
you know their shapes
but will not name them.

From 49th Shelf: Quick-Hits Strange and Otherworldly " In Quick Hits, we look through our stacks to bring you books that, when they were published, elicited a lot of reaction and praise. Our selections will include books published this year, last year, or any year. They will be from any genre. The best books are timeless, and they deserve to find readers whenever and wherever."

Sophie, in Shadow is reviewed in the  University of British Columbia's  2015 Ubyssey Book Supplement. "In an endless sea of pale girls peering out from under dark bangs plastered on every book cover in the young adult section of Chapters, Eileen Kernaghan’s newest novel, Sophie, in Shadow, stands out against the masses."

May 2nd writers' workshop at Port Moody Library

 "Get Published: Explore Your Options"

" Calling all writers: are you working on a manuscript and need some help with editing and query letters? Are you wondering which publication method is best for you? There are so many choices with traditional, self and e-publishing options available."

On Saturday, May 2, bring your questions to the Port Moody Public Library’s interactive event, and take the next step towards becoming a published author.

For more information: 
http://www.thenownews.com/community/library-hosts-events-aimed-at-writers-1.1795746

Darkness. The air frigid, the sea an infinite expanse of black glass. The sky glittering with stars. Somewhere music — a lively dance tune, ragtime — growing faint with distance as their lifeboat drifted away from the dying ship. The dark, the bitter cold, the sickening awareness of unthinkable loss. The ship’s stern a monstrous finger pointing skyward, its ghostly lights still glimmering beneath the water. The music slow and sombre now, a familiar hymn. And then that terrible rising din of voices.

Sophie woke, shuddering and crying out. She sat up among the tumbled bedclothes, teeth chattering, throat clenched around a hard knot of terror and grief. The dream never changed. How many times was she doomed to relive in every detail the horror of that night?  (Sophie, in Shadow, Thistledown Press, 2014.)

Sophie, in Shadow is shortlisted for a B.C. Book Prizes Sheila A. Egoff award in children's literature.

In Kali's temple

This was not the painted image of the goddess that Sophie had seen everywhere throughout the city, nor did it resemble the clay figures sold in the marketplace. This Kali of black stone, with her long, grotesquely protruding golden tongue and her three huge glaring red eyes, must be, thought Sophie, the goddess at her darkest and most fearsome, the One Who Causes Madness. This was not an image of the deity in terrifying human form, but an image of terror itself, come down from the first days of the world.

(From Sophie, in Shadow, Thistledown Press, 2014.)

Sophie, in Shadow reviewed by the Historical Novel Society.

"Historically, this is a descriptive and engrossing read on all aspects of life in early 20th century British India. It has a twist of mystery and a hint of the supernatural, but it is also a clever study of the customs and culture of Buddhism, as explored by one of the characters who helped Sophie understand her visions. The story includes light-hearted humour and offers an engaging adventure perfect for young adult readers."

The review, by Arleigh Johnson,  appeared in Historical Novels Review Issue 70 (November 2014) You can read the full review at the Historical Novel Society website. 

My latest novel, Sophie, in Shadow, set in 1914 India, required a daunting amount of research. Since a great deal has been written about India under the Raj, a broad picture of life in British India was not difficult to find. But what I also discovered -- in the memoirs of private citizens, and in histories like Margaret MacMillan’s Women of the Raj --  were fascinating, less often recorded details of everyday life.

When the ladies of the Raj  escaped from the sweltering plains to their rented houses in the hill stations, they transported not only clothing and supplies, but a good deal of household furniture. A list of basic necessities in The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook (1888) includes crockery and kitchen utensils, carpets, a chest of drawers, bed linen, iron cots, three boxes of books, ornaments ,coats for the servants, an iron bath, and a great deal else -- eleven camel loads in all. (Cited by Margaret MacMillan in Women of the Raj)

 
Simple Menus and Recipes for Camp, Home and Nursery by Lucy Carne
(1902) suggests a suitable breakfast in camp, while touring: kidney stew, pigeon potato pie and a curry. The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook  provides a list of garments in which a lady might  survive the heat: undergarments of silk or flannel, corsets buttoned to a petticoat and covered by a silk camisole, and then a light woolen tea gown. Optionally, a memsahib might add a flannel cummerbund and a cork spine-protector.

"Next to the Sikh soldier, the nattiest native in India is the postman, who is dressed in a blue uniform with a blue turban of cotton or silk cloth to match, and wears a nickel number over his forehead with the insignia of the postal service, and a girdle with a highly ornamental buckle… You can mail a letter to any part of Calcutta in the morning, and if your correspondent takes the trouble, he can reach you with a reply before dinner. " (Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis, 1905)


"The Fishing Fleet was by long-established custom made up of the highly eligible, beautiful daughters of wealthy people living in India. This was the only way in which they could come out under the protection of their parents, to meet eligible young men and marry. Those who failed returned to England in the spring and were known as the "Returned Empties. " (Plain Tales from the Raj , Charles Allen, Ed.)

Amy Mathers reviews The Snow Queen at Marathon of Books.   "In an interesting take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, Eileen Kernaghan uses her version to focus on the different kinds of strength and power, belief and disbelief in the magic and mystical and the importance of self-determination. Her story focuses on Kai’s disappearance, but also on his rescue thanks to the ingenuity of Gerda and Ritva."

 



Read  Pulp Literature's   interview   with  my character Ritva,  from "The Robber Maiden's Story" .  My story of Ritva's adventures, loosely based on Andersen's "The Snow Queen"  will appear in the Winter 2015 issue of PL.

Reading History at Renaissance Books

Ruth Kozak and I will be reading from our new historical novels at Renaissance Books, 43 -6th Street in New Westminster, on Wednesday, October 15 at 7 p.m. Admission is free and an open mic will follow.

Beginning in Babylon at the time of Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC, Ruth Kozak’s The Shadow of the Lion follows the journey of the newly appointed joint-kings, Alexander’s half-brother Philip Arridaios and his infant son, Iskander, through Asia Minor and Egypt to Macedon, until the year 310 BC when tragedy marks the end of Alexander’s dynasty.


Set in British India, 1914, Sophie, in Shadow, by Eileen Kernaghan, is a story of spies and terrorist plots, time travel and Himalayan journeys, against the background of a world at war. For Sophie Pritchard, still devastated by the loss of her parents in the Titanic disaster, India proves a dangerously unsettling environment, where past, present and future seem to co-exist.

The real historical figures in Sophie, in Shadow

Alexandra David Néel

In the course of her long and adventurous life, Alexandra David-Néel (24 October 1868 – 8 September 1969) was an opera singer, scholar , spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, author of more than thirty books on Eastern religion, and intrepid explorer of the Himalayas. In 1924, at the age of 55, after many unsuccessful attempts to enter Tibet -- long forbidden to foreigners -- she disguised herself as a male pilgrim and, accompanied by her adopted son, Sikkimese monk Aphur Yongden, she became the first European woman to reach Lhasa. Out that journey came her best known book, My Journey to Lhasa (1927). Alexandra’s writings and her adventures inspired not only Jack Kerouac Allen Ginsberg, and philosopher Alan Watts, but generations of Himalayan travellers

Many years earlier, as the 20 year old Alexandra Néel, she studied oriental languages and philosophies in London and Paris.  This younger free-spirited Alexandra appears in my novel Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural.  For Alexandra’s adventures in those early years, I drew on her journal entries, published posthumously as Le sortilège du mystère. Though Wild Talent was meant to be the story of my fictional hero Jeannie Guthrie, her friend Alexandra seemed determined to take over the narrative.


In Sophie, in Shadow, a quarter of a century on, the middle-aged Alexandra is comfortably ensconced in her Himalayan hermit’s cave, ten thousand feet above Gangtok, and is still making plans to visit Tibet. Meanwhile, I’ve given her a new role as spiritual adviser to my young hero Sophie Pritchard.


Sir Charles Bell


 During their stay in Sikkim Sophie and the Grenville-Smith family  are guests of the British Resident, Sir Charles Bell, Britain’s political officer in Sikkim, and his wife Cashie. Sir Charles was a respected Tibetan scholar, a friend of the 13th Dalai Lama, whom he met in 1910, and influential in Sikkimese and Bhutanese politics, However, as we see in Sophie, in Shadow, his relationship with Alexandra David Neel was an uneasy one.






Prince Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal

Prince Sidkeong, Maharaja and Chogyal of Sikkim for a brief period in 1914, was a close friend of Alexandra David Néel. When he died suddenly under suspicious circumstances at the age of 35, Alexandra was distraught. Prince Sidkeong’s reformist plans were opposed by the rest of the Sikkimese royal family, and there was a suggestion that his stepmother, the Dowager Queen Drolma, might have had a hand in his death.