The Bradsher Beat
Thursday, October 1, 2014
By Bethany Bradsher |
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Book series has pirate
history ties
Disclosure from the editor:
Sara Whitford, the author of the book series previewed in this article
by Bethany Bradsher, is the daughter of Danny Whitford, executive
publisher of Bonesville Media and the editor of this web site.
By
Bethany Bradsher
©2015 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
When the time seemed right to pen her first book, Sara Whitford spun a
setting and some character scenarios from her abiding passion for North
Carolina coastal history and her own family’s genealogy.
With many important details in place – a story set between the French
and Indian War and the American Revolution, a protagonist laboring in an
apprenticeship in the port town of Beaufort, a few pirate tales spun in for
good measure – Whitford needed the perfect main character.
Enter Adam Fletcher, an impetuous teenage boy with enough flaws to fall
into a web of misadventures and enough goodness to keep readers pulling for
him.
The Smuggler’s Gambit, the first installment in the Adam Fletcher
Adventure Series and Whitford’s maiden voyage as an author, sets Adam’s
personal journey into adulthood as an apprentice to a respected old shipping
merchant against the backdrop of colonial America’s uncertain political
climate. Whitford calls the novel a labor of love, but she has been taken
aback by the response from readers far and wide, ranging from her Carteret
County neighbors to book lovers as far away as Australia.
“I didn’t expect people to be as excited about it as they were,” she
said. “This is just a story I wanted to tell. It’s very encouraging.”
Fans of The Smuggler’s Gambit include Horatio Sinbad, a
well-known pirate re-enactor in Eastern North Carolina and an owner of a
tall ship ported in Beaufort.
“Sara Whitford has successfully woven a fast-moving adventure of
intrigue, romance, deception, and betrayal,” Sinbad wrote in his endorsement
of the novel.
In a plot element Whitford likes to keep under wraps as a surprise for
readers, one of the characters in The Smuggler’s Gambit reveals a
connection to Blackbeard, the legendary pirate with strong ties to coastal
Carolina. An avid student of regional history, Whitford has written
non-fiction articles in the past debunking common myths about Blackbeard.
Her venture into authorship brought another coveted endorsement from Kevin
Duffus, the author of The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate.
“I found this well-researched, finely-crafted tale to be altogether
plausible,” Duffus said. “No doubt, this book will leave you yearning to
find out what's next for Adam Fletcher."
For Duffus and other readers left wondering what adventures Adam has in
store at the end of The Smuggler’s Gambit, Whitford just released
Captured in the Caribbean, the second book in the Adam Fletcher series.
She was not originally planning to write multiple installments, but early in
the process of sketching out the first novel she realized one book couldn’t
contain the whole story.
“As I plotted the first book, I started with index cards and the
trajectory for Adam,” she said. “At first I thought, oh, this will be a good
book, but then I realized I had so many scenes there was no way it was going
to be just one novel.”
Another surprising development for Whitford was the evolution of her
characters as she wrote – their tendency to embody their personality so
fully that the characters seemed to dictate the dialogue and action. Adam
was more talkative and headstrong than she expected him to be, she said, but
as she let him react to other characters and make decisions she found it
easier to let his adventures unfold.
Whitford maps out her plot before she writes, but even with careful
planning she has learned to go with instinct at times. For instance, she has
not yet decided how many books will be included in the Adam Fletcher
Adventure Series.
“I think I’m just going to write them until I feel like I'm done telling
stories about these characters. Then, I suppose I'll move on to write about
something else,” she said.
Even though the book's protagonist starts out as a teenager, readers of
all ages have reached out to Whitford to let her know how much they enjoyed
the book, she said. Through promotional efforts with social media, solid
reviews on websites such Goodreads and Amazon, as well as good old-fashioned
word of mouth, Whitford has already been given the opportunity to share Adam
Fletcher’s journey with a larger and more varied audience than she ever
imagined.
The Kindle versions of The Smuggler's Gambit and Captured in the
Caribbean are on sale for 99¢ each at Amazon.com from October 1, 2015
through October 7, 2015. If you're looking for a Christmas gift idea, signed
print editions are available at
the book series website.
Get The Smuggler's Gambit (Kindle edition) for 99¢ here:
http://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Gambit-Adam-Fletcher-Adventure-ebook/dp/B00TNQ0HFU/
Get Captured in the Caribbean (Kindle edition) for 99¢ here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011W00YZW
Order signed copies of the print editions here:
http://adamfletcherseries.com/order-signed-copies/
E-mail Bethany Bradsher
PAGE UPDATED
10/02/15 01:07 AM.
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