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A John F. Blair,
Publisher,
Sea-born Women |
A Note from B J Mountford: Sea-born
Woman is my second attempt at a mystery novel.
Like so many would-be-writers, I had a computer full of unsold
books, some good and some not so good.
Then at a writer’s conference, an agent remarked his dream was to
discover another Mary Higgins Clark.
“I can do that,” I thought.
“All I need is a good plot.”
It was not so easy I soon discovered. Inspiration came with a
January phone call informing me that I’d been chosen—by default, no
one else applied—as summer caretaker at Portsmouth Village for Cape
Lookout National Seashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There was my setting and
plot. I’d only been to Portsmouth once, and I was so excited at
the idea of being alone on a deserted island that I began writing Sea-born
Women that day. The
first draft was finished before I arrived in the village—which was just
as well. Not only was there
no time to write on the island, it would have been a very different book
if I’d waited. As it was, I took Roberta “Bert” Lenehan to the village on paper, sat back and let my imagination take over. Of course, since it was a “ghost town,” scary things began to happen and there were all sorts of weird people running around. By the time I got to chapter three, I knew the reader had to see the island as it was in colonial days. To do this, I needed another character, preferably a ghost, but who? Although steeped in history, there’s a mystic, timeless quality about Portsmouth that precludes the underworld. Then I remembered the tale that first piqued my interest in the village—Charles Whedbee’s Sea-born Woman, from his collection, The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke & Other Tales of the Outer Banks. Not sure of the laws governing plagiarism, I hesitated to borrow Whedbee’s characters, but the longer I searched for a suitable spirit, the more Jerushia Spriggs O’Hagan and Captain Francis Carrington Spriggs came to mind. Finally, I gave up and wrote them into the story. The legendary ghosts soon
took on a life of their own. They
solved Spriggs’s murder and told me why Jerushia had been haunting the
island. Then they surprised
me by intermingling with Bert and Hunter O’Hagan, the park supervisor,
and becoming far more involved with the present than I’d expected.
Don’t get me wrong; I
don’t really believe in ghosts—not most of the time that is.
To quote Hunter, “man attributes that which he can’t explain to
the supernatural”. I have to confess that I did
not know whodunit until well into the book.
The mysteries that keep me in suspense the longest are the ones
with many suspects rather than none, so I tried to do the same.
I made sure that everyone had both motive and opportunity and went
on from there, developing character until the decision was made for me. My characters usually begin
as a medley of people I know or sometimes, like Hunter, my ideal of the
perfect ranger. That’s how
they start out. The good ones
soon take on a personality of their own, as was the case with Donny, Luna
Mae, and even Hunter. The
hardest part of this book was the ending—explaining the action in terms
of both logic and the supernatural. There,
I am indebted to some superb editing by the staff of John F. Blair,
Publisher. About this book There’s an Outer Banks legend about a woman whose birth at sea saved her ship from a pirate captain. To this day, her spirit is said to give aid to incoming boats. When Bert Lenehan, also born at sea, volunteers to act as caretaker on Portsmouth Island, she’s just looking for a peaceful summer. The deserted island proves to be anything but peaceful, with over-solicitous fishermen, watchful park rangers, maintanence workers and bereaved husbands all showing up at the strangest times. The previous caretaker accidentally burnt herself to death. When Bert finds another woman dead in the marsh, she begins to question these “accidents.” Ranger Hunter O’Hagan distracts and beguiles her with tales of his long-dead ancestor, Jerushia Spriggs O’Hagan and Captain Francis Carrington Spriggs. What has a two-hundred-year-old murder to do with the more recent deaths and the strange behavior of the island’s sentient life? Bert searches for answers as even the weather conspires to keep her isolated on the island with a killer. Questions to Consider: 1) Have you read Whedbee’s Sea-born Woman or Helmer’s Sea-born Mary? Do you approve of the author taking from this coastal legend, or would you rather have had different characters? 2) Was Anne’s death an accident or murder? 3) Why was Luna Mae killed? 4)Why did Olin refuse to enter the volunteer’s cabin after his wife’s death? 5) Could you see and feel the Carolina coast? What did the author do to create this island atmosphere? Did reading this book make you want to visit Cape Lookout and Portsmouth Village? 6) Was Hunter unreasonable in his attitude toward Donny? 7) Do you think the park service should preserve the land? What is the solution? 8) Was Jimmy justified in what he did? What should he have done? What would have happened if he’d acted differently? 9) Who or what caused the “fog?” Assuming it was supernatural, what was it protecting? Why did it become active that summer? 10) Is there any parallel between Bert’s hesitation to become involved with Hunter and Jerushia’s refusal to leave with Goree? If so, what do you think it is? 11) Did Bert learn anything while on the island? 12) What happened whenever Bert wished out loud? Was there any relationship to the weather? Did Bert become aware of this? Did you? 13) Did Hunter believe in ghosts? What about Bert? What about the reader? 14) Why was Jerushia haunting the island? Is she still there? Why did an “O’Hagan” have to return to the island? 15) Was the ending satisfactory? Was it logical? Was the identity of the killer important to the story? 16) Was Bert a satisfactory protagonist? Did she act reasonably? What would you have done in similar situations? About the author: BJ (Betty Jo) Mountford was born in San Francisco. Her mother was of French/Danish extraction; her father came from an old New England family and worked for the merchant marine. BJ went to school in Chile, Venezuela and Barbados, finally attending college in Pennsylvania, where she met her husband, who was attending a nearby law school. After a twenty-five year career in real estate, BJ sold her office and tried her hand at writing. Taking early retirement to the North Carolina coast, BJ began a third career as a volunteer with the National Park Service. She’s spent four summers on Portsmouth Village and two terms in Hawaii Volcano. She’s also worked at Cape Lookout Lighthouse, Hagerman, Idaho, and Cumberland Island, Georgia. |
