MARDI GRAS: NOT JUST FOR WILD DRUNKEN STREET PERFORMERS by Alana Lorens

Please welcome Alana to the Roses today for a fun post about one of my favorite cities - New Orleans.

Back in 1998, I decided to brave the tradition of Mardi Gras as a single mother with two daughters. My former co-worker and journalist friend Hank Henley lived in NOLA with his lovely wife, who was a college professor, and they’d invited us to experience the carnival from their home, assuring me it could be a family affair.

We went ten days before the actual day of Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, because visitors don’t usually wait till then for the fun—Fat Tuesday is actually the end of the event. Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, when all repent their sins and perhaps fast and pray is the day after Mardi Gras proper. So we wanted to experience all those days adding up to that last Tuesday, those days when all the fun takes place!

By going early, we were able to tour the other sights of the city, the Aquarium of the Americas, and the French Quarter before the real crush of people arrived. We found many beautiful buildings, wrought iron art, and the sounds of jazz playing everywhere, even out in the streets, as we walked by.

New Orleans begins gearing up long before Fat Tuesday, the Krewes building their floats and decorating them with flowers and art, huge papier mache heads and more. This is a tradition that goes back 200 years, when the secret charitable societies paraded, masked, through the streets, even at night, as flambeaux lit their way. The societies adopted three colors as their symbols—purple, for justice, gold for power, and green for faith. Even today, when you travel a parade route, you’ll see those colors everywhere, and many of the souvenirs will be decorated with them as well.

The societies, or Krewes, are these days made up of local social and business persons, who mask and ride in the floats, tossing “throws” of all sorts to those along the parade routes.  Some throws are simple plastic beads, some are “geaux” cups marked with that year’s theme of the Krewe, others are more expensive and elaborate beads, perhaps with embedded LED lights.  It’s considered lucky to catch these special throws, the Zulu coconut perhaps the most valuable of all. (And no, you don’t have to take off your shirt to get any of these at all, as I found on my visit to the Crescent City several years ago. On the other hand, some people take the opportunity as a chance to exercise their inner stripper. What happens in New Orleans….often ends up on someone’s Twitter feed. What can I say?)

In the Garden District, where we stayed, it was definitely family oriented. Families camp out for the day on the “neutral ground,” the grassy area between the streetcar tracks along St. Charles, and bring coolers and picnics ranging from PB&J to fancy wine and cheese trays. The kids are specially treated, sitting high atop ladders so they get a great view, stay corralled and their parents don’t have to worry about them being trampled. My daughter got some of her best beads this way!

Krewes bear such exotic names as Proteus, Bacchus, Endymion, Le Krewe D’Etat and the Knights of Babylon. But the premier parade is that of Rex, or King, and the King of Carnival rides at the head of Rex. His identity is kept secret until the final night, when he leads the dances at the Rex ball. He is a local businessman, who is selected by the community for his charitable and philanthropic work.

Unlike the police officer who thought it was fine to stop and give my teenaged daughter wrapped edible underwear. Still haven’t figured that one out.)

Parades aren’t the only thing to do at Mardi Gras, of course. It is de rigeur to stop by Café Du Monde for some powdered sugar-covered beignets and the New Orleans coffee laced with chicory. The Aquarium of the Americas, right on the river, has a wonderful display of local fish and history as well as the more exotic. Museums like Mardi Gras World, across the Mississippi in Algiers, where so many of the floats are constructed, and the Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter, where another side of the dark history of New Orleans can be explored.

Whenever you’re in New Orleans, one of the best activities is experiencing their wonderful food. With oysters and seafood fresh from the Gulf, you can expect many delicious dishes to be served, whether you choose Cajun (more countrified) or Creole (definitely citified). Red beans and rice are standard fare, rib-sticking food before your nights of carousing. Most dishes are made with the basics of the Holy Trinity of staples-- chopped celery, bell peppers and onion. Whether it’s jambalaya, beans or shrimp creole, you’re likely to find them.

And you can’t finish your meal without digging into a king cake. Decorated with the three Mardi Gras colors, the cake can be plain grocery-store bakery fare, or filled and iced at an upper-class bakery, but the important detail is always the small plastic baby inside. When the cake is served, whoever finds the baby will have good luck for the coming year. The lucky recipient may also be expected to bake the King Cake or throw the Mardi Gras party for the next year.

We ate well, experienced the exotic settings well outside our usual small-town comfort zone, and had a lovely time. The experience is reflected in my latest novel, VOODOO DREAMS: 

When her big trial goes bad, corporate attorney Brianna Ward can't wait to get out of Pittsburgh. The Big Easy seems like the perfect place to rest, relax, and forget about the legal business. Too bad an obnoxious--but handsome--lawyer from a rival firm is checking into the same bed and breakfast.

Attorney Evan Farrell has Mardi Gras vacation plans too. When he encounters fiery and attractive Brianna, however, he puts the Bourbon Street party on hold. He'd much rather devote himself to her--especially when a mysterious riddle appears in her bag, seeming to threaten danger.

Strangely compelled to follow the riddle's clues, Brianna is pulled deeper into the twisted schemes of a voodoo priest bent on revenge. To escape his poisonous web, she must work with Evan to solve the curse. But is the growing love they feel for each other real? Or just a voodoo dream?

If you’re ready to visit this magical and dangerous land, check out VOODOO DREAMS on Amazon and at the Wild Rose Press site. For updates and special offers, visit my website. And laissez les bon temps roulez!

Guest Alana Lorens is a Complicated Woman

Give me a complicated woman any time…

By Alana Lorens

I was reading the post this past week by Jannine Gallant about older heroines, and it set me thinking. I mean, I like to write stories about older heroines, especially because I’m not a spring chicken myself any more.

But what strikes me as most obvious is that we can’t expect that women of a certain age, although they certainly deserve love as much as anyone, will find it in the same way as someone just out of high school. Pop culture tends to glorify drinking and partying till participants aren’t really sure exactly who they’ve slept with or the seriousness of sex in the course of a sincere relationship (cite, for example, Katy Perry or Ke$ha, Rihanna and others).

Older women aren’t really interested in such behavior. They have different needs and different standards and are often in a very different place in their life than a 20-something. They may be financially secure and be looking just for someone to spend time with now and again. They may be desperately lonely and ready to take whoever shows up. All these motivations need to be taken into consideration by the author.

Women who have been through a bad break-up are often cautious about beginning again, not ready to hop into bed with the next Jason, Richard or Jean-Claude at first meeting. She may have had a wonderful husband, and be reluctant to replace those memories with someone’s warm arms to hold her. So these stories tend to be written with a little more character development—the reader wants to believe that the heroine really wants to be with the man of her dreams, and can tell if it happens too fast or too unbelievably.

This is where an author often runs into a conundrum. If we’re writing a romantic story, we naturally think it’s a romance. But editors look at the pacing and motivation of the story. A “romance” is often more superficial, dealing with the surface passions and emotions. A lonely woman finds a lonely man and they find they click sexually, healing them both. Historical romances or romantic suspense adds another layer of depth, as the characters are constrained by the intricacies of the plot to withhold their final satisfaction and love.

I’ve found that no matter how romantic the story, if the heroine has serious life lessons to learn, and a complicated path before she can allow herself to accept love, the author is often angling in the direction of women’s fiction. Women’s fiction does more to explore the development of your characters, watching them grow into whole people before they can fall in love with the person who’s waiting for them. Personally I find it more interesting both to write and to read. But that’s what’s nice about this field: there’s room for both schools of thought.

SUMMER 2012 — DUAL BOOK/BLOG TOUR!!

One romantic suspense, one women’s fiction novel, both with heroines who’ve seen some mileage but still have plenty of heat left in the engine.



CONVICTION OF THE HEART (The Wild Rose Press, release date June 8, 2012)

And SECOND CHANCES (Zumaya Publications, release date July 4, 2012)

The first and Second books of the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyer Series!

Come by the following blogs or live booksignings ON THE SCHEDULED DATES and leave a comment to be entered in a drawing—at the end of the tour, Alana will give away one ebook copy of each book and one paperback copy of each book—Four lucky winners!

The whole list of blog appearances is found at http://alanalorens.com --and this post is one of them. Leave a comment and take your chances of winning one of these books.

SECOND CHANCES: After ten years as an associate at a small Pittsburgh law firm, Inessa Regan gets a pink slip when the economy tanks. She’s never worked anywhere else, and her divorce many years before has left her insecure on her own. Her pride wounded, she flounders helplessly until her neighbor brings her a potential client, Kurtis Lowdon, a man 15 years younger than she, an Iraq War veteran with cancer.

Kurt helps her take the first steps back from the pit of despair, as she realizes that she hasn’t lost everything. She still has her legal skills, which she uses to draft Kurt’s living will and other papers. He offers her some rental space in the office from which he runs a small security business on the east side of the city; she reluctantly agrees.

At first, she’s obsessed with making money, wanting to feel secure, but as she and Kurt come to know each other and spend time together, she learns that money isn’t all she needs to feel fulfilled. Grateful for his intervention, she strives to repay his generosity by helping take care of him while he struggles with his cancer treatment and recovery. First as her client, then as her landlord, then as her partner, Kurt shows her the power of believing in oneself.

Their journey together is threatened by her struggle to become independent as well as by secrets from Kurt’s own past. Post-traumatic horrors of war have followed Kurt and his friends home from overseas and haunt their very steps. When Kurt’s cancer returns, she must realize that no matter how hard she holds on the the quickly-shredding edges of her life she could still lose it all. Can the lessons he’s taught her keep her strong enough to survive? How much will she risk to save him?

Here’s the book trailer for SECOND CHANCES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMtSxd6FQQ&feature=youtu.be

CONVICTION OF THE HEART: Romantic suspense novel CONVICTION OF THE HEART features attorney Suzanne Taylor, who raised her children as a single mother at the same time she built a successful legal practice. She’s managed to keep herself untangled from romance for many years, putting her kids and their financial security first.

But the case of a city councilman’s battered wife brings her complications in the form of police lieutenant Nick Sansone, whose interest in her comes right when she needs a little help from outside sources. The councilman strikes out at Suzanne, Nick, and eventually, anyone he can think of who might make Suzanne back off.

Will they be able to stave off the danger long enough for their love to blossom?

See the book trailer for this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84IZoH-JKw