Banished Love by Ramona Flightner

Tags

Goddess Fish Productions, historical, romance, suffragette, suffragist movement, Victorian Boston, Women's Fiction

I am happy to welcome Ramona today and to offer you an opportunity to learn more about this interesting and talented author.  She very kindly agreed to an interview:

Tell us about your latest release. BANISHED LOVE, the first novel in the BANISHED saga, follows Clarissa Sullivan and Gabriel McLeod as they discover love, challenge societal restrictions, and fight class prejudices. Clarissa wants more from life than to sit in the parlor sipping tepid tea and awaiting visits from friends. She chafes against the limitations placed on her by the suffocating society of Victorian Boston. Determined to live an active, fulfilling life, she teaches in a school for poor immigrant girls and joins the suffragist movement. Clarissa’s greatest dream, to find a man who will love her and nurture her independent spirit, seems increasingly elusive.

However, in the spring of 1900, her situation changes dramatically. Clarissa meets Gabriel McLeod, a poor cabinetmaker, and her interest in him places her in direct conflict with the ethnic and social prejudices of the period. Their burgeoning love is quickly tested when her stepmother’s machinations lead to Gabriel’s financial ruin. BANISHED LOVE follows Clarissa on her journey as she struggles to suppress her fears and overcome the dictates of family and society in order to live the life she desires with the man she loves.

What have you got coming soon for us to look out for? BANISHED LOVE, released in January 2014, is book one in the BANISHED Saga. Book two, RECLAIMED LOVE, will be released sometime in the Fall of 2014. Book three in the BANISHED Saga, REDEEMED LOVE, will be released sometimes in 2015. All of the novels follow Clarissa Sullivan and Gabriel McLeod on their journey together.

What song would you choose for Karaoke? I hope I am never in a situation where I would need to sing a karaoke song. I tend to be more of a wallflower type than a limelight type and that does not sound fun to me. I have no idea what I would sing.

Which Star Trek or Star Wars character are you most like? I loved the first Star Wars movies, movies 4-6 (the original and best ones in my opinion), but I’ve never imagined myself as one of the characters. I actually polled my family and friends, and everyone had a different answer! It made me realize how hard this question is. This is what one of my friends wrote and I thought it was lovely: “I see you as R2D2…intelligent, knows how to get what you want with whatever “gadgets” you have, witty (not sure why, but I’ve always thought of that little robot as “witty”) and kind.”

I’ve never liked Star Trek, so I have no idea.

Who would you most like to be stranded on a desert island with? Least? Why? I would most like to be stranded on a desert island with my brother. I know we’d get on each other’s nerves at times, but we both love to talk and can make each other laugh over the silliest things. I think that would be essential if we were stuck on an island. He’s also a hard worker and a good fisherman, so he’d work to build some form of shelter and be able to help obtaining food.

There isn’t a specific person I would least like to be stranded on a desert island with. It’s more what the person is like. If the person were selfish, self-serving, greedy, and all those other traits along that line, I would not want to be on an island with him or her. If the person were negative, unsupportive and hated to tell stories, no thanks!

Thank you, Ramona.  Let’s now take a look at Banished Love!

BLURB:

Free-Spirited…

Clarissa Sullivan dreams for more from life than sipping tepid tea in stifling parlors in Victorian Boston. She defies her family’s wishes, continuing to teach poor immigrant children in Boston’s West End, finding a much-needed purpose to her life.

Radical…

As a suffragette, Clarissa is considered a firebrand radical no man would desire. For why should women want the vote when men have sheltered women from the distasteful aspects of politics and law?

Determined…

When love blossoms between Clarissa and Gabriel McLeod, a struggling cabinetmaker, her family objects. Clarissa’s love and determination will be tested as she faces class prejudices, manipulative family members and social convention in order to live the life she desires with the man she loves.

Will she succeed? Or will she yield to expectations?

BANISHED LOVE follows Clarissa Sullivan on her journey of self-discovery as she learns what she cannot live without.

EXCERPT:

“Colin, anything in that paper interesting enough to share? You read it like you are hoping to find some long-lost treasure,” Lucas cajoled.

“Hmm…no, nothing uplifting like that song. Just more tales of death and woe around the world. The Boxers are getting more powerful and dangerous.” Colin sighed, setting aside the Boston Evening Transcript.

“And why should we care about a bunch of pugilists?” Mrs. Smythe demanded, her thin face even longer with her disapproval.

I giggled; Lucas snorted before acting as though he were sneezing to hide his amusement, but Colin stared at Mrs. Smythe with frank fascination.

“Do you read the papers, Mrs. Sm…Sullivan? Talk with your friends?” At her cold stare, he continued. “The Boxers are discontented Chinese on the verge of rebellion who are indiscriminately killing Christians in China. Including American Christians,” Colin said helpfully. “I thought it was the topic of conversation these days.” He glanced toward Lucas and me, and we both nodded our agreement.

“A genteel woman,” Mrs. Smythe began, with a sniff in my direction to indicate I must be lacking in that regard, “would not know of such vulgar goings-on halfway around the world with a bunch of savages, my dear Colin. I do read the papers but only the parts that pertain to my world and me. The parts about running a good home, a good kitchen. About decoration.” With this, she waved her hand around the room to indicate its frightful state. “Decorum.” Yet another censorious glare was sent in my direction. “These are the important matters of my life,” she stated with one more sniff, showing her displeasure at the topic.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ramona Flightner is a native of Missoula, Montana. After graduating from Tufts University with a B.A. in Spanish, she earned a Masters degree in Spanish Literature from the University of Montana. Her Master’s thesis, Chilean Testimonial Literature: the collective suffering of a people, highlighted her continued interest in the stories of those who were at risk of being forgotten or silenced.

She studied nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a Master’s in Nursing as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She has worked for ten years as a family nurse practitioner providing care to the poor and under insured at two community health centers, first in Wilmington, Delaware and now in Boston, Massachusetts.

An avid reader, she began writing three years ago. She enjoys the demands of research and relishes the small discoveries that give historical detail to her books.

Ramona is an avid flyfisher and hiker who enjoys nothing better than spending a day on a remote Montana river, far from a city. She enjoys research, travel, storytelling, learning about new cultures and discovering new ways of looking at the world. Though she resides in Boston, Massachusetts, Ramona remains a Montanan at heart.

Her dreams are to see the plains of East Africa, marvel at the wonder of Petra in Jordan, soak in the seas of the South Pacific, and to continue to spend as much time as possible with her family.

Banished Love is her first novel and is the first in the forthcoming Banished Saga.

AUTHOR WEB PAGE: http://www.ramonaflightner.com

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/ramonaflightner

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/authorramonaflightner

PINTEREST: http://www.pinterest.com/ramonaauthor

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