My New Blog

Please visit my new blog, The Muskoka Novels, where I will be posting weekly photos, historical tidbits, and musings about writing. This blog is now archived.

Lake Rosseau, Muskoka

Under the Moon Review by M. Denise C.

Thanks to book blogger M. Denise C. for being intrigued enough by the first two Muskoka Novels to  read the 3rd in the series! Here's her review of Under the Moon. Be advised that the first paragraph contains plot spoilers for those who haven't read The Summer Before the Storm and Elusive Dawn.

All Aboard!

 Wenonah II - photo by Melanie Wills

Thanks to devoted fans, there will be a celebration of my third Muskoka Novel, Under the Moon, aboard the vintage-era Wenonah II. Step "into the book" and enjoy a 3-hour luncheon cruise with me on beautiful Lake Muskoka, serenaded by music of the 1920s performed by the Gravenhurst Saxophone Quartet. Then tour the impressive Muskoka Boat & Heritage Centre, and watch my short pictorial presentation "Fact in Fiction". Feel free to wear your favourite dress and/ or hat from the 1920s era!

The cruise departs at 11:30 AM on Sunday August 26, 2012 from the Muskoka Steamship Company docks in Gravenhurst, Ontario.

Lunch is breast of chicken drizzled in tarragon mushroom sauce, creamed potatoes, market fresh vegetables, bread rolls, and seasonal market fresh fruit crumble. A vegetarian/gluten-free option is also available.

Cruise + lunch + admission to Boat & Heritage Museum is $55 + HST

Call Carlson Wagonlit Stewart Travel to reserve your seat today!

1-800-561-4275  or  705-743-868.

Buses are being arranged from Peterborough/Lindsay and Guelph. Hope to see you there!

Under the Moon

Book 3 of The Muskoka Novels is now available! 

When Chas Thornton returns to the mystical island of Wyndwood as a decorated hero, more than flesh wounds remind him of his tumultuous past. Once merely a realm of carefree indulgence, this lavish retreat in the vast, haunting wilderness has now become a place of healing and rebirth. But can the serenity and stirring beauty that he abandoned five years earlier to fulfill his patriotic duty ever again feel the same? 

For Chas, his wife Ria, and their family and friends who survived the catastrophic war, the final battle is to rebuild their shattered lives. From the ruggedly genteel Canadian Shield to the cafés of decadent Paris and opulence of the blossoming Riviera, some seek to reinvent themselves among the avant-garde. Moving on and ascending the social hierarchy comes naturally to opportunistic cousin Jack, as he never had much to lose – until now. But for those whose sorrows and secrets lie in foreign graves, resolution seems impossible.

Meanwhile, the inevitable momentum of civilization ushers in a daring new era of scandalous excess and social upheaval that threatens the strictures of Edwardian society. On the forefront of this revolution are two diametrically opposed Wyndham cousins, Lizzie and Esme, who struggle to defy convention in the name of love and ambition. Only time will tell whether their worlds are ready to embrace change.

In this gripping third volume of the acclaimed Muskoka Novels series, Gabriele Wills vividly evokes the triumph and tragedy of the glittering Jazz Age as it seduces a privileged summer community, and we stand witness to its sultry dance on the dock, Under the Moon.

The Sassy Jazz Age

Those who were young in the 1960s tend to think that theirs was the first era of social and sexual revolution.  But the 1920s was a time of radical change when  Western civilization truly entered the modern age. The burgeoning middle class embraced consumerism, and soon there was a Model-T Ford – available for as little as $290 - or other automobile in nearly every yard. People enjoyed new innovations such as radio, Kleenex, rayon, electric shavers, Popsicles, air conditioning, and Jantzen swimsuits – “The Suit that Changed Bathing to Swimming”.  

Liberated from confining corsets and floor-sweeping gowns, women stepped out of parlours as well as domestic service to pursue careers, or at least jobs that afforded them independence. Unchaperoned, they smoked, drank illegal booze, wore daring makeup, bobbed their hair, danced the Charleston with wild abandon in nightclubs, necked with boyfriends in the back seat of automobiles, and sometimes believed in “free love”.  Poet Dorothy Livesay spent a summer at the Muskoka Chautauqua where she went blueberry picking in the nude with friends. There were topless shows on Broadway, and Hollywood movies became so steamy that moral censorship guidelines were instituted through the “Motion Picture Production Code” in 1934. Banned on screen were such things as “excessive or lustful kissing” and profanities, including “God”,  “Christ”, “hell, and “damn”.  

But Paris was much more liberal. Homosexuality wasn’t a crime there, and sexual predilections of all kinds enjoyed unprecedented freedoms. With the franc devalued to mere cents compared to the dollar, it was little wonder that so many North Americans – then under Prohibition - moved to the “City of Light”. Among the 30,000 plus ex-pat Americans were artists and authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. It was an exciting time to be young and mingling with the artistic and intellectual avant-garde, whose names still resonate as the voices of their generation.

It was great fun to portray this sassy era - which is remembered as both “The Jazz Age” and “The Roaring 20s” - in my latest novel, Under the Moon.

Novel Part of Chautauqua Revival!

I’m thrilled and honoured that my novel, The Summer Before The Storm, has been selected as one of the six “must-read” books of the Muskoka Chautauqua Reading Circle for 2010.

The Muskoka Chautauqua is a revival of a movement prominent in the 1920s and early 30s that earned Muskoka the reputation of being the “Literary Summer Capital of Canada”. The website states:

"Muskoka Chautauqua is a vibrant arts-based community where visitors come for personal growth, enrichment and renewal. It is an uplifting cultural hub that encompasses the arts, education and recreation; a place removed from the day-to-day world, where practitioners and leading thinkers of our time share innovative and creative ideas; a place where the arts blend with the natural beauty of Muskoka and where the human spirit – and all its hidden talents – may be liberated … and soar."

From an impressive list of books nominated by the public, six were chosen and announced at a ceremony on Saturday June 12^th  at The Rosseau, located quite close to the original Muskoka Assembly Chautauqua on Tobin Island. For a glimpse of that, see my blog “Naked Poets, Free-Thinking Clergymen, and An Enchanted Island”.

The Summer Before The Storm, the first of  “The Muskoka Novels”, evokes the Age of Elegance in the summer playground of the affluent and powerful. But their charmed lives begin to unravel with the onset of the Great War, in which many are destined to become part of the “lost generation”.  The novel and its sequel, Elusive Dawn, have touched the hearts and minds of thousands of readers worldwide. Focus on Books called them “Historical fiction at its best”. Find out more at TheMuskokaNovels.com.

Naked Poets, Freethinking Clergymen, and an “Enchanted Island”

In 1928 when poet Dorothy Livesay was 19 and a student at the University of Toronto, she spent a month in Muskoka helping her cousin, who was the director of a theatre on Tobin Island. It was part of the “Muskoka Assembly” of the Canadian Chautauqua Institute. Founded by Methodist minister Charles Applegath in 1921, the Assembly sought to combine spiritual, educational, and cultural enrichment in a magnificent setting that also encouraged healthy outdoor activities like swimming, golf, tennis, and canoeing. Dorothy, wanting to feel more at one with nature, would go off blueberry picking in the nude with her friends. For her this was just an extension of the then-popular Theosophy, a philosophy that combined Eastern and Western spirituality and mysticism, in which God was nature and beauty, and man, a part of this natural world.

Visitors stayed at the Epworth Inn (later Wigwassan Lodge), while some - clergy mostly - also built cottages on the 200 acre property that stretched along 2 miles of shoreline. In addition to classes and lectures, there were entertainments, which included plays, masquerades, and sunset cruises. 

Applegath also sought to promote Canadian literature and music, so recitals and concerts were performed, and famous literary figures like Bliss Carman and E. J. Pratt spent weeks there not only sharing their works, but also being inspired by the picturesque, rugged beauty surrounding them. By 1928, the Muskoka Assembly had become known as Canada’s Literary Summer Capital. Unfortunately, the Depression took its toll on this innovative endeavour.

So it’s exciting to hear that the Muskoka Lakes Music Festival is reviving the Chautauqua, including the Reading Circle. The public is being asked to submit suggestions for this summer’s 5 “Must Read” books by April 31st. Find out more here about the 2010 Muskoka Chautauqua, which will be held at Red Leaves (J.W. Marriot), not far from the “enchanted island” that once offered sustenance for the mind, body, and soul.

In my Muskoka Novels, The Summer Before The Storm and Elusive Dawn, I’ve very loosely based “The Colony” on the Canadian Chautauqua, albeit pre-WW1.