Of Brine & Blood
B. Longino Smith
(Brine Series, #1)
Publication date: May 1st 2016
Genres: Adventure, Romance, Young Adult
In 1700 century England, a women’s purpose is only served in a home. But Kitrina Harvey has no home and the only place she feels will keep the memory of her father alive, is at sea. However, when she inexplicably finds herself on the ship of the infamous female pirate captain, Charlotte de Berry, she may have counted her good fortune too soon.
While Kit may have found a family among the motley crew of outlaws, and perhaps even a special interest in a particular pirate named Gage, is she ready to be a pirate herself?
Kit must ask herself what she is willing to do to please the pirate captain, made even more complicated when she finds out that her life is much more entangled in Charlotte’s than she originally believed.
Can she kill even when she discovers that she and Charlotte share a common enemy?
Set atop the planks of the great Athena, Of Brine & Blood is a fictionalized retailing of one of history’s infamous female pirates, through the eyes of a girl coming of age among the contrasting themes of love, revenge and power. Liberally sensationalized, Of Blood and Brine, follows the twisting trail of Kitrina Harvey’s life, as she recounts Captain Charlotte de Berry’s own story of love, loss and murder.
EXCERPT:
Thomas adjusted his spectacles again and lowered the parchment to look at me. I nodded letting him know that I had understood and agreed to the articles. With that, he produced a quill from his breast pocket and handed it to me. He then laid the parchment on the railing of the deck and held it open so the wind would not catch it. I quickly scripted my signature and then held out my hand to return the pen. Thomas received it with his right hand but then made to grab my still extended arm with his left. He continued to hold my wrist as he replaced the quill in his pocket.Holding my palm close to his face, he reached to his belt with his unoccupied hand, unsheathing a small blade. I automatically took a step back, tugging my hand as I went. But Thomas pulled me abruptly back to him, and in one fluid swipe, he pricked the flesh on my thumb.
As he let go of my wrist and went to replace his dagger, I stared in astonishment at the small drop of blood beginning to pool on the pad of my finger. Now, Thomas held the parchment out for me again, but this time I was confused. Reading my misunderstanding, he again took my hand and directed my thumb to the scroll pressing it next to my name. When he let go, I retracted my hand, but left behind was the red, wet smudge of my thumbprint in blood.
I looked up at Thomas with wide eyes. He seemed amused by my expression and continued to look smugly at me for a moment more before he turned to the captain. She had been watching us and her dimpled smile had returned.
“Do you have any questions, Kitrina?” she asked. I shook my head more in habit than in directly answering her question, feeling the accelerated beat of my heart in the flat of my thumb. “Alright then, Mr. Hamilton, please show Kitrina to a bucket and brush to swab the main deck,” she directed.
Thomas made for the stairs, and I followed, but soon spun back towards her. “Aye, yes, I do have a question, Captain,” I stammered trying to get out my question, as it formed in my mind.
She looked down at me, her dark eyes appearing to peer intrudingly deep into mine, waiting for me to go on.
Sheepishly I asked her, “What is our trade, Captain? Where is this ship destined?” I was suddenly, and embarrassingly, aware that I did not know the nature of our voyage.
At this, she threw her head back laughing. She lifted her grip on the helm, and it began to spin, slowly at first, but gradually it picked up speed sending the boat in a wide turn. Her laugh, growing from a small chuckle in correlation with the speed of the helm, echoed into a maniacal cackle.
Sails shifted, and men upon the deck rushed to account for the change of direction, pulling lines and adjusting the riggings. Smaller objects tumbled from portside to starboard and crashed into the rails. Thomas and I both made a grab for the deck railing to steady ourselves.
When she finally angled her chin back down at me to speak, her eyes were dancing. “Why, where ever the wind may take us!” she howled. She grabbed the helm again, at last pulling the ship out of its turn, but threw her head back and continued to snicker. The sound was ominous.
As Thomas pulled me towards the steps, I could feel that shock had frozen my face into a mixture of bewilderment and terror. I hurried to rearrange my features but leaned into Thomas as we walked to retrieve a pail and brush.
“Is she mad?” I whispered, unable to hold in my inquiry, seeing the wild look in her eyes again, though my back was now to her. He turned his head sharply, and I immediately regretted asking it, for I was sure to be punished for speaking ill of the captain. When he spoke, his expression settled into something less severe but still stern.
“I have been sailing with Charlie for five years and have been at sea for twelve before that. I have never seen her equal at sea. She hears the call of the ocean as if it speaks directly to her. She has an unparalleled intuition and knows what ships to run towards and which ones to run from. She is fair with her men and I hold her at the highest respect,” he said before pausing and setting me with a firm look again to convey that I should understand he meant every word.
Then he continued, “But mad you ask? Yes, in that regard too, I have never met her equal.”
A Conversation with the author!
What inspired you to write your current book?
I don’t know if I can pinpoint a singular source of inspiration. But I can tell you what puts me in the mood to write.
I live a couple of miles from the beach, and the water has always makes me feel creative. Not the ‘happy family vaca day at the beach’ water so much, but the ‘moody’ water right before a storm, or even just the way the water looks on cloudy day.
It’s probably no surprise that my current series is nautical ☺
I akin the feeling of a moody sea, to the feeling of reading a good book on a raining day. The ambiance casts everything in a light of more mysterious intrigue, don’t you think? And, thus gets my imagination going.
What authors inspire you?
Ok, I am just going to say it.
I am not particularly inspired by the classic literary greats (Bronte, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and what have you).
*Peeks anxiously around to see if I have offended the hoard of fellow book-lovers*
But, before you cry foul, I HAVE read most of these classics and very much appreciate them. In fact, I was on my high school’s literary criticism team (and went to state).
However, as I reader and writer I just connect more deeply ‘modern’ voices.
Stephanie Meyers wrote Bella Swan in a voice that could very well be the voice in my own head, should I ever find myself irrevocably in love with a gorgeous vampire. Bella’s feelings felt real to me, and I aspire to give readers the same connection with the characters in my story.
And while there is not enough time in the day for me to adequately discuss all of the authors I deeply respect, I do want to note some that inspired my current series. I love the strong female characters Suzanne Collins gave us in Hunger Games, and am in awe of the impeccable way J.K. Rowling weaves the Harry Potter series together. They are brilliant!
What genre do you write?
This is always a hard question for me to answer with just a simple one-liner. When someone asks me, I will *subtlety* try to plant myself between them and the exit, so they must endure the length of my explanation.
The short answer, I think, is: Historical Fiction
But! Wait! There’s more.
My current series, the Brine Series, is historical fiction written to appeal to the modern reader. There is plenty of action, mystery and an overlaying romance (my favorite part of the story), as well.
So, Of Brine & Blood is a modernly written adventure story wrapped in mystery with a gooey romance center, set in the 17th century, for young adult readers. Can anyone tell me where that bookshelf is in Barnes and Noble?
So, your debut novel has been released. Do you have any more stories in the works?
Yes! In fact, the second installment of the Brine Series: Of Bitter and Brine, is complete and is running the gauntlet through my team of editors as we speak.
I am actively writing the third installment (Brine: The Beginning) and have a detailed outline of the forth waiting in the wings.
And while I love Of Brine and Blood, I just want to say, that the series grows in excitement with each subsequent book.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
‘Publish the dang book, already!’
Man. My younger self is so hard to reason with sometimes.
To be fair to her though, when I began writing Of Brine and Blood (6 years ago!) I didn’t have many aspirations – other than satisfying daydreams – of publishing the story. I simply wanted to write down the scenes in my head, into a story that I wanted to read. I wanted each aspect to precisely quench what I crave in a story.
But I stalled in publishing because, what if others didn’t like the characters that I love?
So I guess the true moral of the story is, if you have passion for something, don’t let your reservations stand in your way. If you are passionate about what you do, others will feel that passion in your work.
How did you decide on names for your main characters?
I began writing Of Brine & Blood shortly before I became pregnant with my daughter. In the beginning I didn’t have names for my characters that I loved. The names, at that time, were placeholders.
After I got pregnant, I meticulously researched, listed, cross-referenced and polled names for my child. I finally decided on the perfect names: Kit (girl) and Gage (boy).
My husband liked exactly neither of these names.
So! I brought the names to life in my story, with a few amendments.
Because neither of the names were exactly ‘old-timey’ enough for my historical fiction, Kit became short for Kitrina and Gage is actually the last name of our leading man – William Gage. But because there were approximately 155,846,325,845,236 Williams back then, everyone simply calls him Gage.
Ironically, these names are spoken almost as often in our household, as our daughter’s name. So I still feel like I won on the whole name thing.
*Disclosure* I equally love the name we eventually decided on for our daughter ☺
Who does your main character look like in your head? Who would ideally play him/her in a movie adaptation?
I am resistant to sharing what Kit looks like to me. But I have good reason for being so stingy with my imagery when it comes to Kit. The other characters in the book have detailed descriptions of their appearance.
But, I could never get Kit’s appearance to come out just right or to translate well onto paper. That’s because I didn’t want to unintentionally pigeonhole her into a stereotype based on how she looks. So I made the conscious decision to write her fairly description-less. I want the readers to picture what she looks like to them. I want Kit to look like you, if that’s how you prefer to read your stories.
So, if the story ever gets adapted into film (which would be AWESOME), it would be interesting to see who gets cast to play her. ☺
Except, now that I think about it, I hope that my artistic decision doesn’t accidently anger fans of the story, because the actor playing Kit doesn’t ‘look right’ in the movie. Hummm…..
Just for fun, what’s something unique about you?
I don’t know if this is something unique about me as a person (or maybe it speaks volumes about my organization skills. I don’t know), but the sequence of events probably hasn’t happened to too many people.
I have had two weddings, both to the same person, and in less than a year.
Lemme esplain:
My first wedding, which we refer to as ‘the expensive one,’ was a wedding proper with long guest lists, flashy venues, a white dress and cake.
After the ceremony we signed the marriage certificate and were told to mail it in to the state. Of course! No problem. Except the next day, my husband and I left for our honeymoon. Several weeks after we returned, Steven (the husband) looked at me and asked if I ever mailed in the marriage certificate. Um, no? Doesn’t that fall under ‘the husband responsibilities’? We tore the house APART, but still couldn’t find it.
No problem, we can just request a new one. Right? Nope. Apparently marriage certificates are time sensitive when being filed.
So, off to Vegas we went. With a group of friends as witnesses (they did NOT buy us a second wedding gift), a musician whom we found at a restaurant and wanted to accompany us after hearing our story (he played ‘Suspicious Minds’ as I walked down the aisle), and a new marriage certificate (chained to my body), we got married for the second time.
I should probably end the story here, but I feel it pertinent to include that while we did successfully file the second marriage certificate, that does not mean that we didn’t lose that one too, at one point.
Thankfully, I was blissfully unaware of the second MIA marriage license snafu, until after it was found by husband and friend retracing every single step we took that day.
*Fun Fact!*
Several years later, we did find the original marriage certificate tucked safely away in one of our suitcases. It was in an obscure pocket inside of another pocket. You know, for safe keeping.
Author Bio:
Brittany lives with her husband and daughter just two miles away from the beach on Mississippi's Gulf Coast. The backdrop serves as a constant reminder, and motivator, in her nautical historical fiction projects.
Her current series in progress, the Brine Series, has been a story that she has 'picked at' for over five years. In the beginning, Brittany only had the undeniable compulsion to bring the vivid characters in her mind, to life, by recording their story on paper. However, only more recently have her characters become increasingly disgruntled by not having their story shared with others. Brittany's husband sided with her characters.
In the winter of 2015, after the first installment of the Brine Series, Of Brine and Blood, was complete; the second book, Of Bitter and Brine, was written and being revised; and the third installment, Brine: The Beginning, was outlined, Brittany's husband had had enough of talking about characters that were only real in the Smith household. As a Christmas present, Steven sent Of Brine and Blood off to a (fabulous) editor, unbeknownst to Brittany until Christmas morning.
With the overwhelming encouragement from Victoria (fabulous editor extraordinare), and the unwavering support from her husband, Brittany began her publishing journey. She is indescribably excited to be sharing her characters and their adventure with others.
Brittany also feels as though this brief bio does not adequately include the recognition of her daughter, mother, father, sister and all others who have been invaluable sources of motivation, inspiration, and support.
To get updates on new releases in the Brine Series please visit: www.blsbooks.com
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