Beyond Words

I thank Jeanne for giving in to my begging her to be on her site. One year in the making and the book has made it to market. Here I share a few things, including an excerpt not shared anywhere else yet. It's not one of those exciting ones, but a nice moment in time where the main character isn't the main character of the scene. It involves one of my favorite characters I created, a man named Gimby, the helmsman for Captain Gabriel Wallace. Stay tuned following the synopsis. Jeanne's reply - Ronovan is much too humble. He did not beg. He didn't even ask to be on my blog. Over the years, Ronovan has given so much of himself, his talents and his time to other writers, it's only fair that he now take center stage. So, please, welcome Mr. Ronovan Hester and his wonderful debut novel, Amber Wake, to Beyond Words. Synopsis The autumn of 1705 brings Royal Navy Captain Gabriel Wallace to face off against an enemy within the ranks of the Admiralty itself tha...

From Gone with the Wind to Confederacy of Dunces to the The Sookie Stackhouse series the southern gothic style has appeared in almost every type of fiction since its inception. The first gothic novels were born on the banks of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816 when Lord Byron hosted a ghost story competition between himself, Percy Shelly, Mary Shelly and John William Polidori. That contest produced both Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyre. Almost 200 years later the vampire novel has evolved but is still as popular now as it was when it first sunk its teeth into the reading public. The heart of the gothic novel is extremes; greatness turned tragic, lofty affluence fallen to social squalor, heroic acts of bravery ending in madness and death. And few places can you find more examples of great ventures turned disastrous than the American south. The image of the old southern plantation fallen to ruin; aristocrat turned r...