Is there a scarier place than Rosings to have
a ghost? I mean, we already have the scary and snappish Lady Catherine at
Rosings. But what if this mischievous ghost appears only during the twelve days
of Christmas? That’s the story within a story in my Christmas novella, Twelfth-Night
Cake & the Rosings Ghost.
The novella opens
with Colonel Fitzwilliam and his eight-year-old daughter, Sofia-Elisabete,
travelling to Rosings, where they will spend a winter’s month. If you haven’t
met my plucky girl hero Sofia-Elisabete before, see I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of Colonel
Fitzwilliam: A Perfect World in the Moon, a humorous and poignant novel about
an abandoned girl who is born in Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars and who turns
out to be the illegitimate child of the colonel.
I
wondered how Sofia-Elisabete feels to be half-Portuguese, Catholic and a love child
living in England during the Regency Era. She’s not getting along with Lady
Catherine, and then the ghost arrives to play its tricks. I imagined a crazy,
troubled world for Sofia-Elisabete because Lady Catherine, who doesn’t believe
in the Rosings Ghost, blames the girl for everything that goes wrong. What’s a
young eight-year-old to do?
Ever since my “perfect
moon world” novel, I’ve been immersed in writing YA historical fiction that
appeals to all ages, finishing three novellas about the lovable, strong-willed Sofia-Elisabete
and her close relationship with her father, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Twelfth-Night
Cake & the Rosings Ghost is the first novella to be released in
this series. My sincere thanks to Maria Grazia for helping me launch the
Rosings Ghost novella on her site!
Robin Elizabeth Kobayashi
About Twelfth-Night Cake & the Rosings Ghost
In this Christmas novella set in the year 1818, a
plucky little girl must contend with a mischievous ghost at Rosings. Colonel
Fitzwilliam and his eight-year-old daughter, Sofia-Elisabete, pass a winter’s
month at Rosings, the estate of his aunt, Lady Catherine. There, the Colonel
must help his illegitimate child, who is half-British, half-Portuguese,
navigate the prejudices of their world as his outspoken daughter clashes with
the imperious Lady Catherine. One evening, on the first day of Christmas, they
hear the tale of the mysterious Rosings Ghost who, centuries ago, vexed the
inhabitants of Rosings during the twelve days of Christmas. The next morning strange
things begin to happen. Why has the Rosings Ghost returned now? Why does a
furious Lady Catherine blame Sofia-Elisabete for all of the ghost’s pranks? Will
our girl hero Sofia-Elisabete, with the help of her father, uncover the real
secret of the Rosings Ghost and put an end to its tricks?
Excerpt from Twelfth-Night Cake & the Rosings Ghost
Five years ago, when I was a mere child of
eight years, I was plagued by a naughty ghost. It happened when papai and I
sojourned in the land of Kent, where we passed a winter’s month to celebrate
the Christmas season. There, my cousin Anne de Bourgh lived with her mother,
Lady Catherine, on an estate called Rosings, its manor-house boasting over a
hundred glazed windows, its grounds bedecked with parterres and curiously clipt
hedges.
‘I suppose you’re
looking forward to hoydening with our crazy country cousin again,’ papai spoke
between jolts of the chaise.
‘Oh, papai, she’s
not crazy,’ I shook my finger at him.
Cousin Annie was
my first true friend. Once upon a time, she had escaped to – or rather, run
away to – Scarborough, the place I call home and where I live with my parents
and my pug-dog. It was then that my older cousin taught me, a tiny and fearless
girl, how to turn a somersault, how to stand on my head and how to cross my
toes. Together we did many a hoydenish thing, much to papai’s despair.
‘Don’t you
remember how she goaded me to madness with her puppets?’
‘Oh yes, papai,
and you strangled her puppet.’
‘And with good
reason…’
I shrugged. ‘I
think Annie is warm-hearted and eccentric.’
This gave him a
start. ‘Who taught you the word “eccentric”?’
‘Mamãe did.’
Papai’s
countenance turned sad, for he always pined for my step-mother whenever they
were separated. ‘Well, now, your mamãe is all politeness and goodness.’
‘Mamãe says I must
needs practise my etiquette at Rosings, as do you.’
‘O, ho! You see
before you a true gentleman, honourable and manly, and wholly devoted to his
ancient aunt, Lady Catherine.’
I wrinkled my
brow. ‘You said your aunt was an old tabby. I heard you say so once.’
Papai’s short
horse-laugh turned into a fit of coughing. He drew from his pocket a silver
flask and proceeded to take a manly gulp of French courage.
‘Papai, what of
your cagg?’ He had promised not to touch a drop of brandy for six months.
‘Don’t you know –
I, being a colonel on half-pay, am excused from my cagg during visits to
Rosings?’ He indulged in another manly gulp of brandy.
I kept a watchful
eye on him as I always do, the truth being that I worried he would get ill and
that I might lose him again, just like I did several years ago when I took a
freak in my head to run away from home, far away from home, to search for the
perfect world in the moon. I wished for this moon world to cure what ailed him,
but it turned out to be a fanciful world, a dazzling lie. Papai must have
sensed my anxiety. He patted my hand as if to say, ‘I’m still here, my girl.’
Soon, he closed his eyes to doze, but after a minute or two, he squinted at me
to determine if I still watched him, which I did and earnestly so.
Papai sighed, and
he lifted me to his knee to console me. There, perched on his lap, I observed
him closely, because I’m a keen observer of people – a real gazer I am – most
particularly of my handsome papai. I often imagine what he looked like as a
mischievous boy, what he looked like as a brave officer commanding a battalion
and what he might look like as a grumpy old man. Sometimes I imagine his waking
dreams when he’s thinking those great thoughts of his while he sits beneath our
Scots pine in the garden, listening to his wind music. He is the most
fascinating person on earth; for, no one is so well-informed, so devoted to
instructing me when he is at home, so best beloved and so amusingly
disagreeable ever and anon.
Our
chaise rumbled through the market-town of Westerham ere it entered ‘no man’s
land’, or what papai called the miserable country lane that stretched for two
long miles. ‘The dickens take that rut!’ thundered papai, whenever we hit the
cruellest of ruts. The drought this past summer had left deep ruts everywhere,
and the rains for the last two months had turned those ruts into muddy ones,
making the lane treacherous indeed. Once, when I nearly fell from the seat,
papai seized me by the back of my lucky scarlet cloak to save me from injury.
Thereafter, I clung to him with all my might, taking comfort in his familiar
scent of cloves and cinnamon and heavy dew and bark and musty earth.
Ere long, the ruts
ended, as did papai’s droll curses, for he would often substitute bad words
with silly ones to protect my tender ears – ‘Oh, figs and fritters!’ being my
favourite. By and by, we reached the village of Hunsford. As we drove past the
parsonage, the rector waved his hat at us, while his wife stood obediently by
his side, cradling a chubby-faced baby with a single curl sprouting at its
crown, which brought to mind a turnip, a really bland turnip. We stared with
curiosity at the baby. ‘Zounds,’ muttered papai. Very soon after, we came upon
a tract of park with dark fir-trees, which place papai called Rosings Park, and
he inclined his head towards mine, speaking to me in a confidential tone.
‘My dear child,
you shall be introduced to Lady Catherine, and a grand lady she is. You must be
polite and respectful, no matter what she says to you.’
I considered this
for a moment, having recalled a visit or two with my grumpy grand-mamma. ‘Is
she cross and peppery like Lady Matlock?’
‘To be sure she
is.’
‘Will she cut me
up and call me a love brat?’
‘Let us hope not.’
Papai bit his lip. ‘You must be a brave little soldier-girl.’
Having sensed a
skirmish ahead, I became seized with a real fit of the fidgets, tug-tug-tugging
at my irksome white frock with its silly pantalettes underneath.
‘Papai, methinks I
could be much braver if I wore my breeches and jacket.’
Papai humphed
because he never could understand my desire to dress as a boy whenever I wished
to romp about, playing and pranking. I dare say he has never tried to climb
over a stile or swing from a tree branch or slide down a haystack wearing a
white frock with pinafore.
‘I shan’t forget
your promise, you know.’
‘What promise?’
the imp in me asked.
Papai looked upon
me with a suspicious eye. ‘Why, you promised to be a proper young lady, one
that’s dressed in girl’s clothes. That’s how you and your mamãe cozened me into
taking you to Rosings.’
I waved him off. ‘Oh,
stuff and nonsense.’
‘Oh, stuff?’ Papai
arched a brow at me. ‘It’s ridiculous stuff is it, to wear girl’s clothes and
act proper-like?’
‘Papai, I was
funning you about your being cozened.’ To cheer him, I placed my arms round his
neck and planted a big, wet gooseberry kiss on his cheek – hoooooooonk.
‘Silly
gooseberry,’ cried papai, and he teased me by rubbing his cold nose with mine.
About the author,
Robin Elizabeth Kobayashi
I’m a native
Californian who has lived in both Los Angeles and San Francisco. When I was
twelve, I used to haunt the public library where they had a section of books
called “Classic Fiction”. I made it my goal to read all of these books,
starting with the A’s (Alcott, Austen), then the B’s (Brontë), but I got stuck
on the D’s, because Dickens’ books were just so l-o-o-o-n-g in length. I never
did finish my reading challenge. I never did understand Pride and Prejudice at the time; that would come much later. Fast
forward several decades. After reading countless JAFF ebooks, many of them
superb, I never thought I had a story to tell. Until one day I began to write
about a half-Portuguese half-British girl living in the Regency era. That
novel, I, Sofia-Elisabete, Love Child of
Colonel Fitzwilliam: A Perfect World in the Moon, received a starred review
from Kirkus Reviews which also
selected the novel as an Indie Best Books of the Month (August 2018). During
the day, I work as a senior legal writer and editor for a leading global
publisher.
Visit me at www.facebook.com/freedomandmirth
Purchase the eBook
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Twelfth-Night-Cake-Rosings-Ghost-Sofia-Elisabete-ebook/dp/B07H8YBRG5/
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twelfth-night-cake-the-rosings-ghost-robin-kobayashi/1129661184?ean=2940155828686
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/898304
8 comments:
Enjoyed the excerpt. They are so cute together.
As I would expect, Colonel Fitzwilliam's daughter sounds adorable
This sounds like a cutie father-daughter adventure and I love the setting and holiday backdrop. Definitely want to read the rest.
Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments about my story excerpt. The colonel and his daughter have a strong relationship, but like all parents, he makes mistakes sometimes, and though he can be strict, he can also be forgiving. Ok, yes, he spoils her, he indulges her tomboy ways. He is worried about her future and living in England with him. But he refuses to hide her in the country somewhere, to be raised by strangers. That's one of the reasons why I like the colonel's character.
I've never heard of your JAFF books until now, Robin. I think it'll be a great novella to read as the premise is quite unique. Thanks for sharing the delightful excerpt and offering a giveaway.
Thanks to everyone who entered the raffle! I see that the raffle has now ended. I look forward to sending the winners their ebook.
Keto Pure Diet UK is an awesome weight reduction equation that aides in consuming obstinate fat. This powerful weight reduction supplement is readied will every natural substance and common concentrates. Keto Pure Diet UK works successfully with the keto diet. It enables a great deal in boosting the digestion of the body by expanding the serotonin to level. Keto Pure Diet UK is a viable enhancement for stomach weight reduction. Keto Pure Diet UK contains a viable measure of Garcinia Cambogia. This fixing is well known for reestablishing the degree of vitality. It consumes fat in less time. Garcinia Cambogia is additionally useful in creating bulk. It additionally helps in fixing of body muscles.
Read more >> https://www.sharktankdietary.com/keto-pure-diet-uk/
https://www.facebook.com/ketopuredietukreviews/
https://www.facebook.com/Ketopuredragonsden/
Wonderful post! We will be linking to this great article on our site. I’m definitely delighted I found it and I’ll be bookmarking and checking back often! 온라인카지노
Post a Comment