I’ve read numerous books regarding 16th century British history, but this one stood out among the rest, because I discovered some fascinating facts about the Scottish ruler. While many of us are familiar with Mary, and her ongoing “feud” with Queen Elizabeth I, one thing I formulated was that Mary never stood a chance, dealing with the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, feuds among locals in Scotland, including Mary’s half-brother Moray, and politics abroad, with emphasis on England and Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor, the duplicitous and conniving William Cecil.

I ran across a blog a while ago and rediscovered it tonight, rummaging through my inbox. How appropriate, I thought, since I just finished writing Tukaa’s Tale, a spin-off of The Story of Q, my tween trilogy.

It appears that too many recent books fall short of young people’s expectations, causing them to lose interest in reading. Authors (libraries are guilty too) have taken the joy out of the equation and placed it on the back burner. Instead, their focus lies with dealing with today’s issues – child abuse, failed relationships, war., etc. While we may want our children to be aware of history and the world around them, shouldn’t childhood also be filled with wonder, enchantment, imagination and escape? They are only kids for so long, and in today’s world, that seems to be even shorter because they are bombarded with conflict daily.

I’ve been thinking about creating audio versions for the Story of Q trilogy and came up with a possible AI voice.

Of course, I had to make a few alterations to the text to make it flow better, then had to come up with creative spelling (phonetics) for the main character’s nickname, Rache. The AI read it as “Ratch”. Hmmm, so I tried Raych, but she still pronounced it the same. Ah, back to the drawing board. Finally, tried Raech. Bingo, that worked.