Guest Post and Giveaway: Shana Galen

Please join me in welcoming Shana Galen author of, The Making of a Gentleman, Book 2 of The Sons of the Revolution series. Sourcebooks has generously offered 2 copies of this book for giveaway. Please see the details at the end of the post.

Revolution and The Making of a Gentleman by Shana Galen

In another life I was a high school English teacher. I taught 10th grade, and where I taught that year was not-so-lovingly referred to as the Year of Doom and Gloom. Sophomore year seemed to be when the students read all the most depressing literature - Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, Julius Caesar, Fahrenheit 451, A Tale of Two Cities and more. If you don't remember your high school literature, lots of characters, including main characters, die in those books.

My favorite book to teach was Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Yes, Sydney Carton dies at the end to save the husband of the woman he loves ("It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known"), but the entire book is not a tragedy. A father and daughter are reconciled when the father is released from prison after eighteen years in solitary confinement. He was imprisoned unjustly and thought dead.

It was the story of the imprisoned man who rises from the "dead" that inspired Armand's book The Making of a Gentleman. Armand too is imprisoned unjustly, and he is kept in solitary confinement for twelve long years. When he emerges, he's little more than an animal - he can't speak, bear light, and he's lost all sense of social manners and customs. His brother and sister-in-law, Julien and Sarah from The Making of a Duchess, hire a tutor for him, the beautiful and talented Felicity Bennett. But just as Felicity begins to bring Armand back to life and to fall in love with him, her own problems in the form of a greedy, violent fiance threaten everything.

The Making of a Gentleman isn't set during the French Revolution, but because so many of the secrets Armand hides stem from that period, I was able to write a few scenes during the chaos and bloodshed of that turbulent time. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in that time. Riots broke out unexpectedly. Governments toppled. Men, women, and children, many of them innocent, died publicly in the streets - victims of the guillotine. The prisons were full of the accused and trials were nothing but spectacles. Judges were afraid to go against the crowd and based verdicts on the mood of the spectators.

It was a time of fear and a time of desperation. It was also a time for great courage. In The Making of a Gentleman, I wanted to show all of these aspects. I wanted to give the reader a glimpse of that period and glimpse into the private torments of a boy with a secret, hidden in the tiny windowless cell for twelve long years.

And like Dickens I wanted love to triumph in the end.

I've enjoyed writing about the French Revolution so much, I'm actually considering another series set entirely during that time period. What about you? Is there a time or place that intrigues you?

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Two winners will receive a copy of, The Making of a Gentleman courtesy of Sourcebooks. The rules are simple:

1.) Two winners will win a copy of The Making of a Gentleman, directly from the publisher. U.S and Canadian addresses only!
2.) You must be a Google Friend Connect follower to participate.
3.) You must fill out the FORM.
4.) Please take the time to comment on this post with an answer to Shana's question.
5.) The Deadline for this giveaway is midnight EST, October 18th.

TO ENTER YOU MUST FILL OUT THE FORM, HERE!

EXTRA ENTRIES: included in the form

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