Guest Post by Joyce Wayne
Last week I moved house. It was as disturbing as moves usually turn out to be and just as I was caught in the maelstrom of emotions concerning the event, I thought about Cordelia Tilley, the main character in my new novel, The Cook’s Temptation.
Until now, I’d never realized how my novel is about Cordelia’s search for her true home or as Maya Angelou describes it: “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”
At the Devil’s Stone Inn in Devon County in the south of England, where Cordelia was born and raised, she remains the ultimate outsider. She and her mother are excluded from the community because they are Jewish. Even her father loathes her because of her religion.
When Cordelia marries Frederick Wendice, the county’s richest man, and resides in his manor house, the situation gets worse rather than better for her. Cordelia truly believes she will secure a place for herself in English society when she weds Frederick, but that dream is never fulfilled. From the beginning, Wendice’s intention is to keep her separate from his friends and family. The consequences for Cordelia are devastating.
My novel speaks to the instinct within each of us to find our true home and to live in peace and security surrounded by those we love and the people who love us.
Cordelia’s daunting search for home turns her into a person who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. Her longing for home leads Cordelia from one suspenseful encounter to another.
I hope you will find a way to empathize with the plight of Cordelia Tilley. She is spirited, intelligent and resourceful, but it is up to you to decide if she is evil.
Publication Date: February 1, 2014
| Mosaic Press | Formats: Ebook, Paperback
Joyce Wayne brings to life the complexities of Victorian life, first in County Devon and then in London’s East End. The ‘big picture’ is about one woman’s life, class conflict, religious intolerance, suspicion and betrayal. The central figure is Cordelia, a strong-minded Jewish woman who is caught between her desire to be true to herself and her need to be accepted by English society.Cordelia Tilley is the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Anglican father. Her mother has groomed her for a life in English society while her father, a tough publican, has shown no tolerance for his wife’s social climbing or the conceits of their perspicacious daughter. Cordelia’s mother dies from typhoid fever, she tries to run the family ‘s establishment, she falls prey to a local industrialist, she gives birth to a son, she is tormented by her husband and his family. Finally, she is rescued by suffragette friends and sets off to start a new life in London.The Cook’s Temptation is about a woman who is unpredictable, both strong and weak willed, both kind and heinous, victim and criminal. It is a genuine Victorian saga, full of detail, twists and turns, memorable scenes, full of drama and pathos.
Praise for The Cook's Temptation
“Joyce Wayne’s debut novel, The Cook's Temptation, has the stately bearing of a nineteenth century novel – the mercilessness of Thomas Hardy, the black allegory of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the tense marriages of George Eliot. It is a story of how people become what you blame them for being.” – Ian Williams, poet and fiction writer, short listed for the 2012 Griffin Poetry PrizeBuy the Book
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About the Author
Joyce Wayne has an MA in English literature, has taught journalism at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, for twenty-five years, and lives in Toronto, Ontario. She was a winner of the Diaspora Dialogues contest for fiction and the Fiona Mee Award for literary journalism. She is the co writer of the documentary film So Far From Home (2010), a film about refugee journalists persecuted for their political views, and various of her other works have been published in Parchment, Golden Horseshoe Anthology, Canadian Voices, and TOK6.
For more information please visit Joyce Wayne's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. She is happy to participate in Books Clubs by phone and Skype.
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Up for grabs are 3x eBooks of The Cook's Temptation and 3x $10 Amazon Gift Cards! To enter, please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Giveaway is open to US & Canada residents only.
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Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on June 28th and notified via email.
Winner have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.
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