The Honeybee Emeralds + Get Outside + Kangaroo Time
May I recommend
Reading The Honeybee Emeralds
I’m dedicating March to revisiting my debut novel, which has its TWO YEAR birthday this month. I hold this book close to my heart because it’s what got me started as a published author.
The Honeybee Emeralds is a story of female friendship, history, mystery, romance…
Alice Ahmadi has never been certain of where she belongs. When she discovers a famed emerald necklace while interning at a struggling Parisian magazine, she is plunged into a glittering world of diamonds and emeralds, courtesans and spies, and the long-buried secrets surrounding the necklace and its glamorous former owners.
When Alice realizes the mysterious Honeybee Emeralds could be her chance to save the magazine, she recruits a disparate group to form the “Fellowship of the Necklace.” Together, they set out to uncover the romantic history of the gems. Through diaries, letters, and investigations among the winding streets and iconic historic landmarks of Paris, they begin to unravel more than just the stories of the necklace’s obsolete past and uncover each other’s secrets as well.
One of the best parts of writing the book was researching the real-life ladies who owned the fictional Honeybee Emeralds over the decades. These gals were uncompromisingly themselves in the face of huge social pressure. Each one of them deserves a thousand books and movies about their lives.
Josephine Baker was the Star France Wanted, and the Spy it Needed
I am Ready. Mata Hari Faced a Firing Squad
Marguerite Bellanger: Mistress of the Napoleon III, emperor of the French
Here’s a link from the Méli-Mélo archives where I reflect a little on the process of getting HONEYBEE published.
My book (THE HONEYBEE EMERALDS March 2022) was rejected more than 60 times. The unpublished book before that about a coroner solving a mystery in an archival nitrate facility? Rejected 70+ times. The novel before that? The one about an archivist (I know) who finds a dead body squished up in the rolling stacks? Rejected 30+ times (rate is lower on this one, because the Internet wasn’t flourishing at that point, and I had to mail that sucker out and pay for postage). The one before that? The plucky florist who falls for a caddish businessman? Rejected 20 times.
So yeah, my writing career, up until January 2021 was a series of unrelenting rejections of material that I had poured my heart, soul and free time into. I told myself that I wrote because it was creatively nourishing and social (I love my critiquing group) and because I just had to find one person who said “yes” and my whole world would shift. Those things were all true (even the last one, which I thought was a comforting lie). While I had reasons for writing other than publication, the fact that I submitted things I deeply cared about and was proud of over 150 times, and 149 times, the world has come back and said, “Nah, I’m good,” was painful.
Have you read The Honeybee Emeralds? Did you like it? Let me know in the comments (and hey, if you want to leave a review somewhere or tell a friend to read it, I won’t be mad!)
Article Roundup!
The Day I put $50K in a Shoebox and Handed it to a Stranger
What Pantsing Really Means and Why Most Writers Have it Wrong
How to Improve Your Sense of Direction
The 20-5-3 Rule Prescribes How Much Time You Should Spend Outside
Why it Pays to be Grumpy and Bad Tempered
What It’s Like to be a Sociopath
Explain your PhD through Dance - Kangaroo Time:
Book Stuff
Book Launch - Honor the Dead
Very thrilled to announce the Book Launch for Honor the Dead. You’re invited!
If you’re planning on coming, send me an email — amytectorwrites@gmail.com so I can get a sense of numbers and make sure I have enough cake — that’s right — CAKE!
Goodreads Giveaway!
My publisher is giving away TWENTY print copies of Honor the Dead right NOW
Enter to win — shipping to US or Canada… Don’t miss this chance to get a print copy in your hot little hands!
Enter HERE
Reviews!
The Wonderful RebeccaReads Book Review Blog gave Honor the Dead a great review — thanks Rebecca! Sign up to her blog to get great recs (if I do say so myself) and be awed by how many books one woman can read in a month!
Honor the Dead will deliver a lot of the same twisty surprises and fun archival humour (for those who like that sort of thing) against a beautiful Canadian backdrop – this time around Tector sets the story in Quebec’s Eastern Townships as fall is settling in. We’re also reunited with Cate Spencer, coroner and (unofficial) detective. As much as Cate has grown and changed (just a little bit) since her turbulent Ottawa summer, she’s still the intrepid, wine drinking sleuth we met in Speak for the Dead.
Buy my books!
TikTok
This is good advice.
This made me LOL
We were the Bimbos
Overly supportive friend
A voyeur from Alburquerque
That quiet, confused intensity…
Storytelling is a gift
Boarding Group One
This is me when I showed my daughter Anne of Green Gables
No rush!
The idea of choice is a delusion
The swimsuit is fused
Stay HOME
These made me chuckle
POV: My passport when travelling
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Free books!
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