When A Bad Idea Seems Like Your Only Option [GUEST POST]

When society is unforgiving, some secrets must be kept at all costs. (Photo courtesy K. A. Servian)

What would you do if everything you thought you knew about yourself turned out to be a lie? In the new book, A Pivotal Right, a young woman named Viola is faced with just such a dilemma when she discovers her father isn’t who she thought he was and that her mother, Florence, has kept the truth hidden for years.

This premise captured our imaginations, so we invited the author to tell us how being a mother herself impacted the way she wrote Viola’s character and what advice she would give to Florence on how to handle telling a child such a carefully guarded secret. We hope you enjoy this guest post from K.A. Servian! —Jathan & Heather

GUEST POST

As the mother of two boys, one aged twenty-seven and the other ten; I went through the parenting experience as a young woman, had time to reflect, and I am now navigating my way through the process again as an older, and hopefully wiser, person.

K.A. Servian

I leant early on that keeping secrets within any relationship is a terrible idea. If I had been in Florence’s shoes, I would have told Viola the truth about her parentage as soon as she was old enough to understand. Having said that, my characters are living in very different times from my own and I must be careful not to judge them by modern standards. The concept of shame was hugely influential on behaviour in the Victorian period. Anyone, particularly women, could be ruined not only by their own actions, if they were deemed inappropriate, but by the actions of their family and even their ancestors. Ignominy was multi-generational.

To tell anyone of Viola’s parentage, even the child herself, was to put her at great risk of ruin if the truth was accidentally blurted out. Florence had already been through the stigma of her father’s fall from grace in The Moral Compass and was living with the veiled disapproval of those of her class due to her marriage to Emile (a foreigner of middle-class birth). She certainly didn’t need the added disgrace of her previous marriage to Jack (a working-class Scotsman) to become public knowledge.

Viola was an interesting character to write as she was not particularly likable. As an intelligent, strong-willed young woman, she had the arrogant confidence of youth and felt it was her right to control and manipulate the lives of those around her to suit her own purposes. This is a common trait in teenagers. However, life has a habit of teaching hard lessons which was exactly what happened to Viola. She emerged from A Pivotal Right as very different person from the one who went in. Whether or not she learned from her experiences remains to be seen in the final book in the series, Slaves in Petticoats.

ABOUT A PIVOTAL RIGHT

Florence struggled for breath as she stared into the face of a ghost. “Jack?”

Twenty years after being forced apart Jack and Florence have been offered a second chance at love. But can they find their way back to each other through all the misunderstandings, guilt and pain?

And what of their daughter, Viola? Her plan to become a doctor is based on the belief she has inherited her gift her medicine from Emile, the man she believed was her father. How will she reconcile her future with the discovery that she is Jack’s child?

K.A. Servian

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a life-long creative, K.A. Servian gained qualifications in fashion design, applied design to fabric and jewelry making and enjoyed a twenty-year-plus career in the fashion and applied arts industries as a pattern maker, designer and owner of her own clothing and jewelry labels.

She then discovered a love of teaching and began passing on the skills accumulated over the years’design, pattern-making, sewing, Art Clay Silver, screen-printing and machine embroidery to name a few.

Creative writing started as a self-dare to see if she had the chops to write a manuscript. Writing quickly became an obsession and Ms. Servian’s first novel, Peak Hill, which was developed from the original manuscript, was a finalist in the Romance Writers of New Zealand Pacific Hearts Full Manuscript contest in 2016.

Ms. Servian now squeezes full-time study for an advanced diploma in creative writing in around working on her novels, knocking out the occasional short story, teaching part-time and being a wife and mother.

For more information please visit K.A. Servian’s website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. Sign up for K.A. Servian’s newsletter to receive news and updates.

A PIVOTAL RIGHT
By K.A. Servian
426 pgs. K.A. Servian. $14.99

Purchase A Pivotal Right at one of these fine online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and IndieBound.

Giveaway Alert! Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours is giving away 10 ebooks of The Moral Compass, the first book in the Shaking the Tree series! To enter, visit Gleam’s rafflecopter form here. Please note,  giveaway ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on November 20th. Entrants must be 18 or older to win and only one entry will be accepted per household. All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; anyone suspected of fraud is decided upon by the blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion. Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner will be chosen.

A Pivotal Right is brought to you in association with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.