Paranormal Historical Romance
Date Published: 01.03.2023
Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
Seeing ghosts is literally in her blood.
Life is hard enough without having to deal with ghosts following you around every day. Maggie O’Connor wishes that she did not have psychic gifts but coming from a long line of Irish female seers, she never had a choice.
Faced with having to care for her departed sister’s orphaned baby, Maggie struggles to pay the rent while working for pennies at a local Bowery sweatshop. Her life goes from bad to worse when a wicked neighbor steals the baby.
Things look up when the handsome son of Maggie’s employer falls for her. Gershom understands that having psychic gifts does not necessarily make a woman crazy. If only the local judge agreed. When Maggie ends up at the New York City Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, she must find a way to escape and return to Gershom’s loving arms.
Will Maggie be stuck in a madhouse forever? Even if she escapes, can she and Gershom rescue the lost baby? The obstacles seem insurmountable, but anything is possible with the assistance of ghostly helpers and Andrew Carnegie, one of America’s richest men.
Fairy Tales can come true- but not without suffering.
Love the Gilded Age but want more magic? Grab a copy of THE GHOST IN HER, the first book in the new Ungilded series featuring magic among the Bowery Streets. THE GHOST IN HER is a perfect match for fans of Harper Lin’s Southern Sleuth Series or Christina Skye’s Draycott Abbey series.
“The first book of Anika Savoy’s Ungilded series, The Ghost in Her is a dark, immersive fairy tale, dusted with Gothic whimsy. It is a story for the romantic and the history buff, a rich page-turner that forces us to consider the ongoing social ills that, to this day, continue to haunt us.”—Bestselling author- Mike Robinson.
Interview with Anika Savoy
How many books have you written, and which is your favorite?
I have written four books that were published and two manuscripts that are sitting in my closet collecting dust. I never submitted those manuscripts to an agent or publisher because they weren't up to par. I'm glad that I never published them, but I don't regret writing them as doing so was a learning process.
Two of the published books were nonfiction, His Garden: Conversations with a Serial Killer, and Escape from Mariupol: A Survivor's True Story. They were written under the name, Anne K. Howard. The other two published books were paranormal historical romances: The Hempen Widow written under the pen name Harper Quinn, and The Ghost in Her written under the pen name Anika Savoy. My favorite thus far is a tie between Escape from Mariupol and The Ghost in Her. They are very different from one another, but they reflect my best writing.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
I am so excited about the sequel, Mayhem in Disguise. When I queried the publisher Inkspell about The Ghost in Her, Inkspell asked to see a few chapters of the sequel to ensure that the series would sell. The publisher immediately responded, "I love the early chapters of Mayhem in Disguise. Yes, let's get this series published!" The heroine of Mayhem in Disguise is Bella McGuire, the gorgeous nurse who befriends Maggie in the NYC Lunatic Asylum towards the end of The Ghost in Her. Bella is half Irish, half Mohegan. She tries to cover her native ancestry with powder and proper etiquette, as if ashamed of it. As the book progresses, she embraces her Mohegan heritage.
Early on, Bella falls hard for a handsome Irish surgeon, Russell Murphy, who is treating Bella's little sister for tuberculosis at a sanitorium in Connecticut. She returns to the city to work as a private nurse for a wealthy elderly man, promising Russell they will meet for dinner on Christmas Eve. When Bella is a no-show for their highly anticipated night on the town, Russell fears she has lost interest in him. In fact, Bella is being held captive by her duplicitous employer who has a bloodthirsty appetite for Mohegan women! Can Bella escape her evil employer's vampirish clutches and return to Russell's loving arms? Will Maggie O'Connor, the heroine of The Ghost in Her, come to Bella's aid? Find out soon!
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
The Ungilded series will be a body of work with familiar characters from previous books appearing as secondary characters. The hero and heroine of each book will be a new couple facing obstacles in their quest for a happily ever after ending. I also introduce new secondary characters and villains to spice things up.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
The love affair of Maggie and Gershom was inspired by the song, The Ghost in You, by The Psychedelic Furs. Whenever I write romance, I pick a song that plays in my head as I imagine future scenes in the book. I love the song, The Ghost in You because it has a haunting yet beautiful feel to it and I wanted that same ambiance in my book. The lyrics describe a man who is madly in love with a woman's spirit- her soul, her "ghost.
Inside you the time moves
And she don't fade
The ghost in you
She don't fade
Coming from a Catholic background, I associate the term with Jesus "giving up the ghost" at the moment of death. Again, the ghost is his spirit or soul. Additionally, it denotes the Holy Spirit. Finally, it is "the ghost" in Maggie that communicates with actual ghosts.
I want readers to understand that the hero, Gershom, is obsessed with Maggie on a very deep level. Yes, she is physically beautiful, but it is her soul that fills him with indescribable longing. For me, this is the ultimate meaning of lasting romantic love. Youth and physical beauty are fleeting, but the soul lasts forever and it is "the ghost" in our partner that we cherish the most. When you see an elderly couple that has been married forever holding hands and walking through the park, you are witnessing two ghosts in love.
How long did it take you to write this book?
One year. The first draft was about 80 pages longer and included a subplot that I ended up deleting.
What does the title mean?
See above.
What did you learn when writing the book?
I did a lot of research when writing The Ghost in Her. Sources include: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, by Jacob A Riis, first published n 1890; Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th Century New York, by Stacy Horn; The Bowery: The Strange History of New York's Oldest Street, by Stephen Paul Devillo, and The Lower East Side Jews, by Ronald Sanders, to name just a few. I learned so much about turn-of-the-century NYC and the squalid Bowery District which was a melting pot for immigrants of all types.
I also came across a large picture book about The Blizzard of 1888 at a local library and included a lot of that research in the scenes in which Maggie is trapped in the Hole beneath the tenement during that deadly storm. One advanced reader said to me, "The part about the wires catching fire and buildings burning down during a blizzard is too unrealistic." I responded, "But that's what actually happened!" Indeed, truth is stranger than fiction and I draw a lot of inspiration from research. I feel that my readers deserve a fun but substantial book that is rich with history.
What surprised you the most?
How some of the secondary characters came to life right before my eyes and started talking and behaving as entities that were somehow apart from me- as if they entered my mind as fully formed human beings. Take Gershom's elderly Jewish father, Leo Moskowitz, for example. It was all I could do to restrain Leo from taking over the story with his quirky and endearing ways. This was also true of the ghosts in the story, Monsieur and Madame LaFontaine, and their charming daughter Virginia. I was surprised by how much fun it was to write about all of these eccentric characters, especially Cloddaugh, the crusty but loveable old witch. When she started lusting after a handsome young priest, I found myself laughing out loud. "Ach! I'm a witch, not a nun!"
Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?
Oh, yes. I knew from day one that Leo would kick the bucket. I teared up when writing his final scene. In Mayhem in Disguise, I will kill off a small child. I think it's important to address that historical reality. Before the age of modern medicine and antibiotics, infants and young children frequently died. Almost every large family had a history of one or more children dying. How on earth did the parents cope with such loss?
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
Before starting a book, I write down the traits of each character, along with a few past events that defined their lives. For example, Maggie had an alcoholic father who abused his wife and daughters. Her mother had tuberculosis and died, leaving Maggie and her sister to fend for themselves. These hardships shape Maggie's character and contribute to her insecurities and fears, but they also make her a survivor. Sometimes she remembers the traumas, other times she reacts in ways that are consistent with a woman with an abusive past.
As another example, Gershom is a dreamer, so it makes sense that he longs for a mysterious woman who he names after his favorite galaxy, Andromeda. It also makes sense that he is repulsed by the prospect of settling into a traditional Jewish marriage with a nagging wife who stifles his dreams. Gershom's mother died in a tragic accident, so I work that grief into his and Leo's characters. Though she is gone, her presence remains in their minds and home.
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2 comments:
The blurb sounds good. I love the cover. Very pretty.
An intriguing cover and synopsis, The Ghost In Her sounds like a must read for me. Thank you for sharing your interview, bio and book details and for offering a giveaway, I have enjoyed reading about you and your work and I am looking forward to reading your story
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