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Hello all! I’m thrilled to be here today on the Jaunty Quills. Why am I so thrilled, so tickled, so pumped??? Because today is the official release day for my second book, HIGHLAND DRAGON, from Zebra books. Can I get a WHOOT?!
So I wanted to talk to you about fiction vs. truth…
As a reader, do you ever read a passage in a book and go huh? They didn’t eat corn on the cob in 1502. Does it immediately turn you away from the author? You swear you will never pick up another book by this author again because she didn’t do her research. Well, sometimes we authors have to bend that truth. We wrap it around something that is real to enhance the story. For example, in HIGHLAND DRAGON I have my heroine, Akira, being sold at auction in the Highlands. Of course, slaves were bought and sold. I researched it! But at this particular auction, the women being bought and sold were valued based on their virginity.
I’ve already had a reader email me in utter astonishment wanting to know if that scene in my book was real. I was flattered, but I also didn’t want her to think this type of outrageous horror actually happened.
So, my question for you today is: What bits have you stumbled upon hat left you gasping at the inaccuracy? Don’t give the author’s name just the bit.
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EXCERPT from HIGHLAND DRAGON
What if she’d already been sold? What if she’d never even been brought here?
Just as the questions entered his mind, the untamed hiss of the next captive pierced through the drone of bidders. Hair black as midnight framed her porcelain face—a face twisted into a ferocious expression of revulsion. Oaths spewed from her mouth in English, French, Gaelic, and another language Calin didn’t recognize. Two sentries in black hooded robes restrained her, and unlike the other women, her hands were bound tightly behind her.
“Christ, that’s Akira,” Kendrick announced in a loud whisper then started for the dais.
“Nay.” Calin placed a firm hand on Kendrick’s chest. “Dinnae draw attention to us or our interest in her.” Calin spoke calmly enough, but his insides were erupting. If the guards dared to strike her, he was fully prepared to start a war.
She lunged at the men confining her to the platform. The woman certainly didn’t lack for spit and fire. She was a fighter. Though relieved he’d found her safe, Calin worried over their initial meeting. Introducing himself to his bride under these circumstances might prove to be an awkward task.
When she drove a knee into the groin of one of her guards, Calin recoiled and instinctively cupped his bollocks. The injured sentry grabbed a mass of her hair, twisted her sideways, and forced her to her knees. Her eyes bled desperation just as she hollered out. The high-pitch note of pain bounced off the canvas walls.
Calin’s hands fisted into tight knots. Had he been permitted to keep a weapon, these men would be skewered over the end of his broadsword. He gestured to his clansmen dispersed amongst the crowd. With the silent order, the three men exited posthaste. “Remove your hood,” he commanded Kendrick. “If possible, I want her to see ye. Mayhap ’twill calm her spirits.”
“Did I happen to mention Akira has a bit of a temper?”
“A bit?” Calin eyed him warily, but he had no time for banter now. “We will retrieve Akira by any means necessary. When we leave, she will ride with me, and I will deal with her temper.”
Filed in: Jaunty Guests
Oct 6th
2009
8:41 am
kristan higgins Said:
Hi, Kim! Welcome! The new book sounds delicious! Congratulations.
I’m pretty forgiving in terms of details…for example, if there’s a stone castle back before there were stone castles, I don’t really care. But I do rear up in umbrage when the dialogue is off. No one in the 1500s should say, “Okay,” for example. There’s a Christmas book someone gave my kids. Horrifying sappy, even for a Christmas tale. And the Virgin Mary says, “Okay.” Please.
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Oct 6th
2009
9:35 am
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hi Kristan! It’s good to “see” you again. Hope all is well. And I’m with you. he Virgin Mary should not be saying Okay. Yikes!
I had a reader once call me on a flower I used. She insisted that Honeysuckle was not native to Scotland and that it was brought over by some guy in the 17th century.
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Oct 6th
2009
9:04 am
Margo Maguire Said:
Hi Kim – Welcome to the Jaunty Quills! Thanks for that excerpt – I love a spirited heroine.
I can’t think of any particular inconsistency – but I know there are readers who are real sticklers. I once heard of an author being skewered because she had her characters drinking from champagne flutes 20 years before “flutes” came into use. Now, I love accuracy, but to me, that was just downright petty.
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Oct 6th
2009
9:39 am
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hi Margo! Thanks for commenting. That woman must have been a “glass connoisseur”. I recently started writing in the 11th century and I find myself constantly checking the dates on words. Woudn’t it be funny if I had my Scottish warlord start a sentence with OMG!?
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Oct 6th
2009
10:16 am
Megan Kelly Said:
Kimberly, I’ve started Highland Dragon and am loving it. You should get another RITA nomination for this, as you did with your first book. (For anyone who didn’t read it yet, HER ONE DESIRE is fantastic and highly recommended!) As for historical accuracy…I know I’m reading fiction and give the writer a lot of leeway. I agree with Kristan on believable dialogue, though.
Good luck with this book. It’s a keeper.
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Oct 6th
2009
12:59 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Thanks for popping over, Megan.
I’m glad you are enjoying Highland Dragon and have already read my debut book.
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Oct 6th
2009
10:44 am
Diana Cosby Said:
Hi Kimberly,
Highland Dragon – I’m intrigued. Yes, it’s on my ‘to buy’ list. Congratulations on your 2nd Zebra release!!! *Hugs*
Diana
Romance Edged With Danger
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Oct 6th
2009
1:01 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hi Diana *waving*!
I’m enjoying the release and can hardly wait to get to the store to see the book on the shelf.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Oct 6th
2009
11:46 am
Nancy Robards Thompson Said:
Hi Kimberly,
Welcome to the Jaunty Quills. I’m glad you’re here today. WHOOTs on the new release! How exciting.
As for bits that left me gasping at the inaccuracy… I’m a Florida girl. Here, we have orange GROVES. One of my favorite authors called them orange ORCHARDS. Though I wanted to fling the book at the wall every time I read the words orange ORCHARD, I didn’t. And I didn’t hold it against the author because it was an otherwise fabulous book. However, I still wonder how it could’ve made it through the editing process without an editor catching that glaring error.
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Oct 6th
2009
1:05 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Nancy,
Thanks for commenting. I’m in Illinios and even I know that oranges are in groves. LOL. But there are so many other catch phrases that I don’t know so I guess I would have been lenient as well.
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Oct 6th
2009
11:57 am
Keena Kincaid Said:
Kimberly,
My reaction to an error in a book totally depends on how good the story is. If I’m totally sucked in by the writing, I ignore it. No one knows everything (and an error is different from “tweaking” an historical fact to make it for your story). If the story is marginal, then the error(s) tend to bug me and i put the book down. If I don’t buy that author again, it’s because of the story, not the error.
Congratulations on your release!
K
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Oct 6th
2009
1:07 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Keena, as I was reading your reply I came across something that I’ve always questioned.
Is it “an” historical or “a” historical. I really would love to know the answer to this question since I write that all the time.
Anyone???
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Oct 6th
2009
12:23 pm
Catherine Kean Said:
Kimberly,
Congratulations on your new release! It sounds like a terrific read!
I admit to gasping in horror at an inaccuracy in a book I read a few years ago. I can’t remember the entire scene, but in it, Yorkshire Pudding was served for dessert. My husband is British, and, since I have made Yorkshire Pudding a gazillion times, I know it’s served with a roasted meat as part of the main meal. I was a bit astonished by this author’s inaccuracy because that detail could easily have been researched.
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Oct 6th
2009
1:09 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Catherine,
I wouldn’t have caught that, but everyone knows something odd that would surprise you. For example, we raise chickens and you would be amazed how many people think you need a rooster to get the eggs. You don’t!
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Oct 6th
2009
12:48 pm
Janette Kenny Said:
Hi Kim! Thanks for joining us today. I loved Highland Dragon before it was bought, and know it’s going to do well. As for inconsistencies, I’m more in line with Kristan and cringe when modern words sneak into historical fiction. The one that annoyed me the most was a 1700s era romance where the heroine kept saying, “You’ve got to be kidding.” After a couple of those I was saying the same thing though for a different reason.
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Oct 6th
2009
1:15 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Awww…thanks, Jan. I had forgotten you read some of Highland Dragon. Thanks for the encouragement always!
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Oct 6th
2009
1:17 pm
Jeanmarie Said:
Hi Kim,
Congrats on the new book! I’ll be looking for it.
As for things that in books that make me go, “Wait a minute!” one that I’ve always remembered was in a western historical romance in which the author wrote that the stage coach made it from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to somewhere in southern Arizona in a few hours! It just made me chuckle.
Have a great release day!
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Oct 6th
2009
1:19 pm
Jeanmarie Said:
Oops! that was me talking about stage coach travel.
Jeanmarie
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Oct 6th
2009
1:28 pm
serenissima Said:
Hi Kimberly,
The most unexpected inaccuracy for me has been this really tiny mistake in a hockey-themed romance I read last winter. The author writes about three-minutes-penalty some hockey-player took in a game. IMO there is no three-minutes penalty in hockey; they can get 2min, 5min, 10min and 20min penalties while playing. This detail could have been checked out very easily.
Did it matter to me? Did I stop reading her books? No,ofcourse not. She is one of my favourite authors and an auto-buy for me. I just remember that I was kind of disappointed because of this easily avoided inaccuracy in her book.
By the way Kimberly; Your cover is delicious
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Oct 6th
2009
8:13 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Serenissima,
It just goes to show you…everyone knows a little something about something.
And I have to agree…my cover is DELICIOUS!
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Oct 6th
2009
1:50 pm
Emily McKay Said:
Welcome, Kimberly!
I once read a contemporary in which the heroine inherited a “huge” ranch in west Texas that was “200 hundred acres!” Well, a square mile is 640 acres, so that ranch she described as “huge” would actually be minuscule by west Texas standards. By most standards actually. I thought it was kind of funny. If The Geek hadn’t grown up on a farm in west Texas, I might not have known the difference either.
Btw, your excerpt made me think about my personal favorite ‘sold on the auction block’ story: Nobody’s Angel by Karen Robards. Sigh. Maybe I should reread that. After I read yours of course!
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Oct 6th
2009
8:16 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Emily,
This is the second time I’ve heard about Karen Robard’s auction block story. I’ll have to dig that one up. Thanks for stopping by and I’m with you on the 200 acres. You might be able to raise a few crops of corn there. LOL
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Oct 6th
2009
3:51 pm
Anna Said:
Kimberly, I read your praises on another blog recently and now you are totally on my list of authors to check out. Next time I have a good Borders coupon…
I think there was a sold tale in A Rose in Winter… and I thought that some wife auctions were real. Anyway, it’s a great device and I like it, so it doesn’t really throw me.
Recently I read a Regency by a very well established author who put the maids all in matching black gowns with white aprons and the males in the matching equivalent. She only mentioned it once when the heroine was meeting the servants of the hero’s country seat, so it wasn’t a huge deal, but it kind of got under my skin just the same. The black and white matchy matchy thing was extremely Victorian. I sort of take it for granted in Regency England that the servants were noted by other Europeans to be particularly well dressed because they had their maters and mistresses casts offs. I generally like this author, so I’m not giving up on her as long as the characters are good and the stories engaging.
If an author is anachronistic as if she didn’t bother doing much real research, or if the story is set historically but seems modern like the historical stuff is wallpaper only, I’m not interested in the book. I read to be transported, and I like historical detail. I want to see everything as I’m reading.
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Oct 6th
2009
8:18 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Anna,
Was it erotic? LOL And don’t apologize for the length of your comment. I found it entertaining. 
By this description, I have the little French maid costume in my head.
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Oct 6th
2009
3:51 pm
Anna Said:
Wow, I didn’t mean to write such a loooonnnggggg comment.
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Oct 6th
2009
5:29 pm
Anthea Lawson Said:
Congrats on your second novel, Kim!! I am so looking forward to reading HIGHLAND DRAGON~
I prefer accuracy – maybe because I do so much research for my own books! – but I can let things slide if they are small. One thing that bothered me though, by a pretty big author, was that a number of her books kept referring to tea from India… 80 years BEFORE it was cultivated there. The fact that she based a big plot point on a missing shipment of tea from India got my dander up. It was China or nothing until the 1840s~ Ok, I’m a beverage nerd, but again, a little fact checking would have done wonders.
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Oct 6th
2009
8:21 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hey you beverage nerd! Thanks for popping over. I’ve heard of many different types of geeks: computer geeks, book geeks, anime geeks, but I have to say “beverage nerd” has never crossed my radar.
You are one of a kind, my friend.
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Oct 6th
2009
5:45 pm
Pat Said:
This is a GREAT story, Kim. I, personally, found the combustible engine (in two concurrent stories) amazing. Why didn’t someone notice? What good is a combustible engine? I had to remind myself I grew up with a master mechanic for a dad, four brothers, and now have both a husband and son who are car mad. Still, it staggered me.
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Oct 6th
2009
8:24 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Pat,
I’ve got nothin’ here. A combustable engine got you reved up. (pun intended) I guess if it was a historical, then I might question it, but otherwise those two words strung togeher means nothing to me. I grew up on a farm and my dad did all the mechanic work in the “shop”. I guess out of sight out of mind.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Oct 6th
2009
9:09 pm
Pat Said:
It was an internal combustion engine in a fabulous classic car. Not historical, needless to say, but despite the many I’ve read in historicals, this one still floors me. Hope your sales put you where you belong, doll—NYT her she comes!!!
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Oct 6th
2009
6:04 pm
Fedora Said:
Hi, Kimberly! How interesting! Like many other commenters, I tend to be pretty forgiving on accuracy as long as the story and characters are holding my attention. Also, I confess that I’m frightfully ignorant about most topics, so you can get a lot by me!
On the other hand, I do tend to get distracted by grammatical errors and typos–and if the plot/characters are meh, then I’m even more pulled out of the story by any little inconsistencies.
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Oct 6th
2009
8:26 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hiya Fedora!
Thanks for swinging by. I think the goal is to suck the reader in so that they are reading so fast they miss our errors. I admit, I’m one to check everything, but in this day of the interent we can get bad info. I can’t even imagine doing the kind of research we have to do without Wikipedia.
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Oct 6th
2009
6:54 pm
Kit Donner Said:
Hi Kim!
Congratulations on your second book and your beautiful cover! I can’t wait to read it! Gee, I’ve thought and thought and can’t up with a particular historical accuracy reference. IMO, most authors on the writers’ loops are very conscientious about getting their facts right when writing historicals. Best of luck always
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Oct 6th
2009
8:28 pm
Kimberly Killion Said:
Hi Kit!
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the support and hope all is going well for you. Your second one will be out before you blink, so take care to enjoy the gap.
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Oct 6th
2009
9:21 pm
stacey smith Said:
Congrats on your book Highland Dragon coming out.I would not remember if something was wrong in a book don’t have a very good memory which makes it nice when you read books over again.and my knowing of history is not so good but to me its the story not how accurate it is.
sasluvbooks@yahoo.com
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Oct 7th
2009
12:35 am
etirv Said:
Kimberly!!! Her One Desire was one oft best summer reads, thanks! I can’t wait to read Her Highland Dragon. I’m easy, I don’t over analyze and dwel on historical accuracy and details. I just want to enjoy historical romances!
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2009
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