I remember catching a glimpse of this novel, whilst checking my feeds on Twitter, and thinking to myself how incredible visceral this novel sounded! I immediately tweeted the author & Ms. Bruno concurrently; I had the happiness of finding there was a spot on the blog tour and I was tucked inside the list of book bloggers! My visit to the author’s website for the first time revealed such a bevy of delight: from the behind-the-scenes extras to the depth of layers the author knitted into her author’s site to give any reader a heap of joy on their returning visits! I love websites you cannot simply devour in seconds, but rather have to linger over and absorb one page at a time! Caulfield has given us all something hearty to read whilst engaging our hearts into the stories flowing out of her pen!
Icebergs and glaciers have captured my attention from a young age — the Goliath of marvel within the natural world has a splendidness about it which is truly unique! I’d love to visit certain regions of North America where you can see icebergs as much as you can kiss the cold breath of their gracefulness! Awe-inspiring yet a ticking reminder of how fragile the balance is within the natural environment for which they are residing. Everything has a natural rhythm and balance — although I also grew up with the realisation of how destructive an iceberg can be to a ship (Titanic always drew my eye, my heart, and part of my soul) there is a measure of acceptance of tinkerature of chaos of which none of us can control.
What truly drew me into this enchanting premise of a novel is simply how it was sparked an experience in a Eastern Canadian Maritime Province I was already curious about (Newfoundland) and how the author herself, drew you into this slice of time breathing in an awareness of known truths out of the tanglements of war, life, and love.
It was such an honour for me to interview Ms. Caulfield for the blog tour and I welcome you to leave your comments for her in the threads below our conversation!
Book Synopsis:
Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, fifteen year-old Rebecca Crowe’s fascination with icebergs leads her to save a shipwrecked survivor, Samuel Dalton, the nineteen-year old son of a Toronto medical family.
Love sparks in the crystal cave of an iceberg but is thwarted by an unreasonable father and the Great War that drags Samuel and his brother, Matthew, to the Western Front as medical officers. Knowing Rebecca is home and safe in Newfoundland brings Samuel great comfort. But as the war moves towards its final harrowing days, they both discover that tragedy and terror can strike anywhere, setting their love on an unforeseen path.
Only when Samuel and Rebecca can fully come to terms with such devastating loss and their impossible choices can their love soar. With an emotional intensity reminiscent of The Bronze Horseman, Seldom Come By, named after an actual place in Newfoundland, is an unforgettable journey across waves and time and the full spectrum of human emotions.
I love how you revealed your key motivation to pick up writing was to ‘touch people’s hearts’ when you were interviewed on Honey Lemon Tea. What I found so captivating by the statement is that you left a capstone note on what I think befits all writers: to be able to key into the heart pulse of their characters to where any living counterpart feels equally as real. What has been one of the most touching compliments a reader of yours has given you since you first began writing? Did they mention the connection to hearts & the spirit of reading by our heart-sense?
Caulfield responds: I think a true sign of whether you’ve connected with your readers is when they reach out to you after they’ve finished reading because they are not yet ready to let go of the world you have created. I’ve been there myself. One night, around 9 pm, I received this email from a reader in Arizona.
Hi Sherryl,
It’s 4 am and I’ve been reading for hours. I just finished Seldom Come By. What a book! I enjoyed it thoroughly. I thank you for sharing it with me. Samuel and Rebecca and their family are forever in my heart.
And I think that’s what it is about Seldom Come By. Readers have not just fallen in love with Samuel and Rebecca but also their families. I seem to have written about a cast of secondary characters that people have taken into their hearts and while the Daltons are not larger than life characters, each one of them is noble. Readers are drawn to them because they are civilised and non-judgmental. I think readers also find the Dalton men charming because they are openly compassionate and affectionate towards one another.
This from another reader:
“I wish I had a family like the Daltons – three generations of Dalton men hugging each other is just wonderful.”
I positively became interested in reading ‘Seldom Come By’ by its distinctively brilliant setting of Newfoundland – one of the Eastern Provinces of Canada and part of the Canadian Maritimes. On a personal level I can understand the appeal & the culling pull of wanting to explore more of what the province can reveal to you; it is such an enchanting part of Canada, full of hearty souls & original story-tellers, rooted in community and intrinsic connections to humanity; they live by the sea but they celebrate the soul of stories. What have been your lasting impressions of Newfoundlanders since you began researching your Iceberg trilogy?
Caulfield responds: A book that was gold for me in terms of research was: ‘More Than Fifty Percent. Women’s life in a Newfoundland Outport 1900-1950’ It’s a universal fact that a woman’s work is never done. Even today, women do three times the amount of unpaid work as men, hence why flexibility in the workplace is so important. Despite this, generally speaking the lives of women in many countries are much easier now than they were 100 plus years ago. I grew up on the land and my mother milked cows, managed the house, grew vegetables, worked part time as a nurse and raised four children. But the women of Rebecca and her mother, Morna’s era did more. They ran the household (you can imagine the slog of their weekly laundry), prepared all the food, raised the children because the father was mostly absent at sea catching fish, and on top of this, they worked the stage, salting and putting away the fish, the critical second half of what they needed to do in order to sell fish to merchants. Newfoundland women tended their vegetables and crops and animals, on countryside that was often steep and inhospitable, and often while being many months pregnant. They bottled fruit and sewed and mended and made floor rugs and waterproof clothing long into the night. You can understand perhaps why winter was a blessing. Some became widows before their time, losing their husbands in mishaps at sea. These women toiled. They were resilient and pioneering, looking for a laugh, for some reprieve, for a story or joke or kindness to lift their spirits. That’s why in my book icebergs and Samuel were a light in the darkness for Rebecca.
You’ve captured a moment in every girl’s life where she starts to listen to her heart – not only in love but in life. To give her the full dimension of exploring what living a well-rounded life could encompass as much as what she wants out of life the most. The fact you’ve grounded your central character in the warmth of family and the closeness of her loved ones is truly inspiring. What gave you the most joy in securing her in the folds of love and harmony only a close-knit family can provide!?
Caulfield responds: This is a hard question to answer without venturing into spoiler territory. I think it was seeing that unconditional love, that forgiveness and acceptance play out. Despite transgressions, silence, immense hardship, what remains is that you can lay your hands on someone and that is everything. That is enough.
The spirit of your stories are not only focused on the pure elements of life being sustained through faith, love, and charity, but with a foundation on a wellspring of hope. Why do you think it is keenly important to show strong well-bodied characters in a multi-layered series such as yours the benefits of embracing ‘hope’? Why do you think the first thing to be cast aside is the very lifeblood of what re-affirms our faith?
Caulfield responds: I believe a positive attitude is so important. Good things happen to positive people. It is the law of attraction. You can’t always influence what happens to you but you have a choice as to how you respond, whether you are positive or negative. I don’t think hope is the first thing that is cast aside. I think it is often the last thing and that is when things truly become desperate. In Seldom Come By there is a point where Rebecca does cast aside hope then something reminds her of what is real and possible. It rekindles her hope and her determination and her decision to seek the life she wants.
The Hebrews verse:
Hebrews 11:1 King James Version (KJV)
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
King James Version (KJV) by Public Domain
sourced from: Bible Gateway
to me is not something that is the domain of Christianity but a tenet of humanity. Do unto others and have faith. The faith concept is a recurring theme in The Iceberg Trilogy.
Knitting together a footprint in our imaginations spun out of your admiration for land and the topographical changes between land and sea is an incredible gift to bestow your readers. If a reader hasn’t yet had the opportunity to experience the intuitive closeness of the outside world, where do you first inspire them to travel? Which parts of the natural world would be good for a beginner adventurer to live through an experience to open their eyes to what you and I already feel intimately connected too?
Caulfield responds: It’s gladdens my heart that you also are a lover of land and seascapes!
For me, nature really is the best therapy and the thing about nature is it’s about the six senses. It is far beyond what you can see with your eyes, the obvious visual appeal. There’s what you can smell, taste (at time), touch, (I’m a tree hugger from way back), and hear as in this line from my third book, Come Full Circle:
“And while they had black spruce and rocky mountain maple and wolf willow she missed the groan of familiar trees that would send her to sleep when she was well.”
But ultimately it’s about the soul of trees and creatures (animals and sea life) and the sense of communion you can have with them – whether real or imagined.
So I would say, that to go snorkeling at a beautiful coral reef is one of the best experiences you can ever have. To see the beauty and colour and variety of life in the sea is entrancing. There is nothing quite so mesmerising as drifting above the myriad and vibrancy of tiny tropical fish and hear them munching away on coral. To see ancient turtles and giant gropers much older than yourself swim leisurely by makes you realise you are not the centre of the world and the world is infinitely more layered and creative than you ever can be. That is truly humbling.
The other adventure I would encourage people to experience is to go sit with the oldest tree they can find. Some years ago I visited the sequoias and redwoods in California and being in the presence of trees that are over 2000 years old, that come from before Christ, makes you realise how insignificant your life on earth truly is. Most humans think that as the most intelligent species we dominate nature. This exercise might make you think otherwise. While you are there take some time to think about all the events in history that this tree has witnessed. For me, these interludes are often deeply spiritual and reverent.
You write fiction of the whole person – mind, body, and soul — you create a fusion of our sensory explorations based on real-life accounts of those you’ve interviewed and those curious spirits you’ve met along the corridors of life. What was the best part of your journey whilst writing The Icebery Trilogy as you crafted the characters and dove into their world through your pen? How did the writing affect you through the words you gave to the story?
Caulfield responds: Even though I may have been physically writing the story in New Zealand or Hong Kong or Queensland, most days it did feel like I teleported myself to the icy coast of Newfoundland. And I think to be so viscerally in that environment enacting those experiences along with my characters really did enhance the emotional charge of the book. That combined with connecting to the senses:
The water is unbelievable. She has never known an excruciating cold like it. The icy liquid clamps around her head like pincers.
This tapped into an experience I had at 5,500 metres in the Himalayas. So there was the physicality of the experiences and there was the heartbreak and highs in the story, the signature moments that made me cry as I wrote them. Self-torture. But I think possibly the most challenging parts for me and the rewarding ones were exploring and bringing to life the male relationships in the story, particularly the bonds between Samuel and his brother, Matthew. It forced me to go to a place that I hadn’t been to that often and that was to be inside the heads of men, to be with them through the whole gauntlet of human emotions and to convey that in a way that would ring true.
You have a beautiful connective thread of thought and inspiration when you speak on something that passionately has taken a hold of your heart. Do you credit this intuitive perspective to growing up in rural Queensland where it allowed you the grace of stitching together a different point of view on life and the world at large?
Caulfield responds: Do I? Thank you for the compliment. I think in this regard there are a few things that have come together:
a) Travel. Being able to visit and experience other people and places across the western and third world, in summer and winter, and being able to genuinely tune into those places and connect with people while I’m there has helped tremendously.
b) Stories. I have always enjoyed having conversations with older people who have led active lives because they have so many stories to tell about their life and experiences – and this really does fuel the creative fire.
c) Foundations. I do think I have been able to tap into certain aspect of my childhood, which in some ways aren’t unique, in many ways they are universal. I learnt the value of solitude and being comfortable alone, for although I had siblings because of our ages and gender, we often did our own thing as our friends lived far away. Our bonds are certainly much stronger as adults. I had some big goals and disappointments when I was eleven and twelve and I learnt about resilience and overcoming setbacks. I learned to love nature, trees, creeks, rockpools, birds and horses. I actually don’t think I learned that. For me that was intuitive. I learned about adult heartbreak when my parents had to walk off our much-loved farm because dairying, their livelihood, had become untenable due to a government decision. So in that respect I was exposed to experiences that perhaps I would not have been, had I grown up in a town or city.
Reading about how you wanted the full benefit of a cinematic experience to eclipse the reader’s imagination as they read your series simply warmed my heart. As I too, had contemplated a life in motion pictures (in the role of a director), I can understand where you are coming from — and perhaps, I too, seek out stories which carry that sort of visceral moment of clarity, realism, and truth. What do you think leads us to not only emote humanistic insightfulness in our stories but for our acute attraction to living a life through the stories of characters who feel as real to us as if we breathed a breath of the life they lived?
Caulfield responds: What connects us to people of different geographies and time periods are the great themes of life itself, which are timeless: life and love, loss and death, longing, disappointment, heartache, enlightenment, redemption, joy and grace. No matter what moment in history, what place in the world, what type of person there are universal elements to life and what drives our sense of belonging.
So I think if we can connect on that level of humanity then it’s very easy for us to slip into that time and place, to not just be a voyeur but a participant, dare I say it, the lead in the story we are reading about it. It’s as if that adventure is our very own. And why wouldn’t we want to have that experience?
Many years ago I was involved in an icebreaker exercise at the company I worked for. We had to write down who we would like to come back as if we died. Our nomination was put in a hat and then transferred to the whiteboard and we had to go round the group and guess which character was the dream of which person. I had written Time Traveller. This was long before the existence of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I wasn’t a Dr Who fan as such, I just relished the idea of being able to fully experience history as it was unfolding in all its grandeur, gore and glory – albeit glamourised.
So if we can’t live it first hand, then let’s live it in the next best way possible.
But life, like my stories, is not a series of highs and lows. There can be a lot of mediocrity and monotony in between. This doesn’t translate that well in story format. You really need to balance those elements so that the signature moments in the novel are stand-outs. For me, these are where elation, heartbreak and enlightenment unfold in a sublime setting, creating an intense emotional connection for the reader. Rebecca and Samuel’s first iceberg encounter is one such moment and why it’s so memorable. Because I wrote it from both points of view readers do feel as if they were there.
Life is anchored by tragedy and loss – yet it is only when loss can transition the person through a period of re-growth and renewal where the benefits of the journey can fully become understood. How important was it for you to curate a semblance of this portrayal of our lives within the scope of what happens to Samuel and Rebecca?
Caulfield responds: Death is an alien subject in our western society today because we have so many ways to cheat it. But those medical advances are less than 100 years old. My mother lost a brother to diphtheria in the 1940s. My partner’s mother lost a baby when she was 6 months pregnant in the 1950s, another friend in the 1960s. Joy is an emotion we experience many times growing up. Indeed the focus tends to be on joy and accomplishments. We know what that’s like. But nothing prepares us for trauma and loss and death. Yet, we are all going to experience it at some point in our life, some, earlier than others.
Last year I came across this statistic that during WWI and WWII one in four people had a loved one in the war or knew someone in the war. Many nations lost their best young men. During the Iraq and Afghan wars of recent years it was closer to one person in one hundred, who knew of someone involved in those conflicts.
So I did want to highlight in some respects the realities and sadness of life in the earlier part of the 20th century, so we know how fortunate we are today but I also wanted to show that even with hardship and loss, people endure, their lives may be bittersweet, but they just have to move on because there’s no going back and there’s no staying put, because then they will be stuck. And while you have your life, you have to live it.
I gather a sense you’re a think writer (envisioning the depth and breadth of your stories prior to committing them to paper) who writes intuitively as much as organically — how would you surmise your greatest joy in being able to craft stories which champion humanity yet are tethered to our emotional hearts?
Caulfield responds: Yes, I write with the end point in mind and I know the major highpoints of the story. These are often moments that are emotionally charged showing either the best or in some cases, the worst of humanity. In those moments my characters have a choice to make as to how they are going to respond to that development, for example, with understanding and compassion or with anger and hostility. There is a revelation in Seldom Come By where it easily could have been the latter. However my character chose the path of grace and that possibly more than anything else elevated that character in the eyes of my readers. My 84-year old aunt told me it was her favourite part of the book. You know it’s rather crass to talk about the good deeds that one does in life. It can come across as vanity and preaching but when you come across a magnanimous act in a novel there is beauty and power in the message.
As you have next works percolating into being created past the Iceberg Trilogy, which of the two working titles you’ve shared on your site are driving your head and heart the most right now? Jade or Em?
Caulfield responds: This is a new journey for me as these stories aren’t part of a series so the storylines do not flow. Em came to me when I was living in Hong Kong as I was writing Seldom Come By but I had two more books in The Iceberg Trilogy to focus on. So it has been around for a long time in the background. It’s historical (1870-90) and modern day (circa the year 2000) and I need to do a lot more research before I can start writing this book. I have some of the threads of the story together in my head but not all of them. I’m hoping it will appeal to readers of AS Byatt’s Possession and Geraldine Brook’s The People of The Book and fans of the movie Immortal Beloved. I’m hoping women the world over will fall in love with this eminent historical figure.
Jade is set in New Zealand after the millennium. It will be a contemporary new adult novel so that will be a change for me. I have been to the places I will be writing about and I have most of that storyline in my head. What’s going to make this story come alive are the nuances, the spirituality, because there are Chinese and Maori motifs, and the heart in mouth moment – all my books need one of these! I know what the surprise is but not how I’m going to reveal it. Those are major challenges and it will take time to get the soul of this novel right. I’m also contemplating whether to write this in first person point of view, which will be a first for me. So my intention is to focus first on Jade once Come Full Circle has been released and Em will come after that.
You pepper your stories with incredible clarity of place and being – you write realistic fiction and ground your settings inside their locales as if you were a resident of that particular niche of the world. How to find such a compelling way to translate a place you’ve not yet been yet can pull together in such a wonderful way on the printed page?
Caulfield responds: If you can’t go to a place or haven’t been, talk to someone who has. They will have recollections that will start to colour the place for you and often they can reveal details in passing that you won’t find in a book and you might not necessarily find out even if you did visit. This was the case with me talking to a friend from Newfoundland about icebergs. She told me you feel their presence before you see them as they drag with them an invisible cloud of cold air. That was mighty helpful to know.
I try to get my hands on newspaper reports, articles, research papers, photographs, even diaries and letters to help get a sense of the place, the habits and the language. And I think travelling is such a wonderful resource to draw on. If you’ve been to some place that was incredibly windy, what was that like, what did it sound like, how did it affect your emotions, your sense of well-being. Most of all, give your imagination free reign.
Outside of writing and research, what do you consider uplifts your spirit the most and gives you a pause from your writerly pursuits?
Caulfield responds: Definitely being in nature, trees and water. I love a dip in the ocean. Being completely submerged is a wonderful sensation. It’s a great way of letting go and letting things wash out of you. I always feel so revived afterwards. I love spending time with my sister’s dog, Pepe, a Lhasa Apso, and touring around our small back yard with my nephews. I love witnessing their moments of discovery and wonder. I enjoy going for walks with my partner or family or friends in a park or along the beach or river. We get to catch up, get outside in the fresh air and get the blood pumping.
I wanted to include some of the photographs the author kindly sent to Ms. Bruno for me to use on my posts for the blog tour — we have a mutual love and appreciation for the natural world, this goes without question, however, it is our bonefide joy in being hugged close to trees which was most delightfully unexpected! I am oft-times taking pictures of trees — either the full length of them such as this beauty, or I am taking pieces of their essence; a grouping of leaves, the upper boughs, or even the way in which a tree sighs in the air passing through it’s branches. I love observing the pulse of a tree’s heart as it interacts with the environment around where it sits.
Trees have an achingly beautiful spirit – they are wise yet patient and they speak in quiet whispers. I love seeing natural photography by other naturally intrinsic spirits, so this was very much a true joy for me to share the photography of both Ms. Caulfield & Mr. Squires! There is even a book I discovered through my local library I never had the proper chance to read in full, as I found myself so very enchanted by resting on each of the pages where the trees were captured on film yet it is my intent to read the book not merely daydream through it’s photographic plates! The book I am referencing is: Keepers of the Trees: a guide to re-greening North America by Ann Linnea!
This is so much more I could have said, but I didn’t want to takeaway from the author’s responses, therefore I am leaving this conversation intact! I was nodding in agreement and felt musefully connected to Ms. Caulfield whilst noting her responses were either equal to my own sentiments and/or were running so parallel I had to pinch myself I hadn’t expressed the thought! Such a delightful discovery — a writer who I could relate to directly and a novelist who enchanted my mind before I ever opened her novel!
This author interview is courtesy of:
I am looking forward to sharing my impressions on behalf of the novel this interview is spotlighting: Seldom Come By! Such an awe-inspiring novel long before I ever picked up the book itself! I had intended to post my review tonight, however, to be honest I need a bit more time with the novel to curate my review properly. I’ve been blogging for three days to catch myself up since I fell ill last week, but even I have to admit when the hours leave the clock faster than I can grab them back! I shall be posting my impressions of Seldom Come By this Friday, the 12th instead! Stay tuned!
Kindly see what I am hosting next in (2014) + (2015) via:
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Similar to blog tours, when I feature a showcase for an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog.
{SOURCES: Book cover for “Seldom Come By”, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, Blog Tour badge & HFVBT banner were provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. The photography of Sherryl Caulfield and Mark Squires are being used with permission of the author along with the banner quote at the top of this interview. The Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. The scripture quotation from the King James Version of the Bible was used with permission as the King James Version of the Bible is in the public domain (info). The KJV is in the public domain for the United States where I reside and blog.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.
Comments via Twitter:
These books sound fascinating AND the author’s GIVING SOME AWAY! :D http://t.co/6Xw2m1ZZk6 @ShezCaulfield @JLovesAStory
— :Donna Marie (@WriterSideUp) December 9, 2014
@WriterSideUp @ShezCaulfield Thanks for your enthused response, Ms Donna Marie! :) Wicked happy I helped you discover Sherryl Caulfield! :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) December 10, 2014
@JLovesAStory It was wonderful to cover so many topics in this interview Jorie, life, nature, humanity, love, faith. Thanks 4 setting it up!
— Sherryl Caulfield (@ShezCaulfield) December 10, 2014
.@ShezCaulfield It was a true honour for me in return, being able to converse w/ you about all of these beautiful topics! *loved!* our convo
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) December 10, 2014
@JLovesAStory Thank you Jorie for your wonderful originality, spirit and interest in #SeldomComeBy. Great meeting you through this tour! xo
— Sherryl Caulfield (@ShezCaulfield) December 10, 2014
Ladies, I wasn’t able to read the entire interview, but I read enough to know this series interests me! With words like “visceral,” “Titanic,” the hard-working nature of the women then, and quoting the bible, I’m compelled! :) Thanks, gals!
Hallo Ms. Donna Marie,
I was so very happy this interview resonated with you! :) It is definitely an interview to read back over when you have a moment to spare — I can honestly say it was one of my favourite conversations I’ve had since I became a book blogger! I love how we were able to talk in depth about a variety of topics that do not always come out of author-reader interviews!
The quotes from the Bible I’m thankful to have learnt recently — it will make blogging a bit easier for me now that I have a -go to resource- where I understand the permissions!
How smashing you visited the author’s website & left a note about how you found her via my blog stop! My gratitude for the note left there and the lovely tweet you posted! May you be one of the lucky 5! :)
I hope I’m lucky, too, Jorie :) And what I DID read of this, I was enjoying. I just couldn’t take the time to REALLY read the whole thing. If I end up reading these books, I’m sure I’ll revisit this :) My biggest problem is my total lack of time and being inundated. I haven’t been able to figure out how to cut back so I can do stuff offline. *sigh* Hopefully soon!