Patricia M Osborne

This week’s guest, Rosemary J Kind, is not only a talented author but also a good friend from Swanwick Writers’ Summer School.  Today Rosemary has come to talk about her new novel Unequal By Birth, a sequel to the brilliant New York Orphan. So without further ado, let’s go over to Rosemary.

Unequal By Birth

by

Rosemary J Kind

When I wrote New York Orphan, it was my proof reader who said, ‘I can’t wait to read the next one,’ Next one, I thought, next one – there isn’t going to be a next one. New York Orphan was always intended to be a standalone novel telling a particular story. Then I went out to walk the dogs.

As so often happens, walking gave me thinking time. I joke that I discuss all my work with the dogs and in a sense I do. It’s when I’m out with them in the peace of the countryside that I get the time to clear my head of everything and think. As I walked that day, some of the scenes from New York Orphan played back through my head. Molly and Miss Ellie, on their train journey to Dowagiac, being joined by a somewhat inebriated gentleman who assumed that women travelling alone must be in want of a man. Miss Ellie making the farm over to Molly so she could go travelling around America. I began to see strands of a story ready to be woven together.

The first book finished in the 1860s, just the time that was approaching the campaign for equality for both women and the black community in America. I had inadvertently laid the foundations for another important story to be told.

Although when I write, I want to cover important themes, at heart my writing is about the impact those themes have on ordinary people. I don’t write about the ruling classes and the nobility. I write about men and women not so different from my readers, but in another time and another place. They are people who have to work to make ends meet and who face the traumas of life and death, but also love and hope.

In Unequal By Birth, Molly is a young woman running a farm. A situation which is still not the norm today, but was far from ordinary in America in the 1860s. Part of her land was bought from the Reese family, who lost it to the bank due to old Mr Reese’s laziness and drinking. His two sons have followed in their father’s footsteps, but despite their idleness believe that they have somehow been wronged by Molly, who is proving successful with the land Miss Ellie, her guardian, bought.

Threaded through the story of the Reese boys campaign of undermining the farm, is the bigger fight for equality, essentially for women, but for people of colour too. I can’t tell you too much of how that unfolds, as it will spoil a key part of the story. However, this time intentionally, I have laid the foundations for the next book which takes up the fight for justice both in the courts and in politics. Why does there need to be a fight for justice? Well, you’ll have to read Unequal By Birth to find that out.

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Thank you for that, Rosemary.  Having already read New York Orphan, I can’t wait to get started on Unequal By Birth. It’s downloaded ready on Kindle and on my TBR list.

Let’s find out a bit more about Rosemary.

About Rosemary 

Rosemary J Kind writes because she has to. You could take almost anything away from her except her pen and paper. Failing to stop after the book that everyone has in them, she has gone on to publish books in both non-fiction and fiction, the latter including novels, humour, short stories and poetry. She also regularly produces magazine articles in a number of areas and writes regularly for the dog press.

Where can you find Rosemary on Social Media – click on the links below 

Email 

Website

Alfie Dog Website

Facebook

Facebook Alfiedog

To purchase Rosemary’s books, click on the links below. 

 

Blight and Barney 

New York Orphan 

Unequal By Birth

Thank you for coming along today, Rosemary. I wish you the best of luck with the new book. Come back and visit soon.