The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed by Felicitas Ivey

The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed by Felicitas Ivey
Dreamspinner Press

Cover Artist: Bree Archer

Available for Purchase at Dreamspinner Press

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to host Felicitas Ivey on tour for her novel The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed. Welcome, Felicitas.

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On Plotting Versus Pantzing by Felicitas Ivey

A lot of people, mostly my family and co-workers, ask me how I get my ideas for my novels and short stories. I do refrain from telling them I get a once a month delivery of ideas from super secret source, and just tell them ideas come from everywhere around you. I’ve written a couple of novels just to have my characters run around odd sections of Boston. Most of time I write a novel or a story, it’s because I have one idea I was able to get a short story or a novel from that idea.

I have a novel I’m working on, one plotted and I start working on the next one when an idea strikes me. The novel I’m working on is a gothic romance. The novel I’m plotting out right now is a romantic horror/suspense one. I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere, but plotting is half the fun of writing. I have a friend and we bounce ideas off of each other all the time, in person or over a chat program if we’re at work. Sometimes I get shower or driving ideas and I try to write them down before I forget them.

I used to be a pantser, and now I’m slowly trying to plot out things, so if I get ‘stuck’ I can go on to something else in the novel. Aside from plotting, I try to work on only one novel at a time. The best advice I ever heard was to ‘Not cheat on your novel with another one’. Or only concentrate on one thing at a time and don’t multitask several stories at once, writing-wise. I have edited novels while writing other things, and it was a little disorienting.

With plotting a novel or a short story, I use two methods so not be a pantser. The Marshall Plan by Evan Marshall has a system of X number of sheets per book, depending on the length of the book, is it a romance, how many viewpoint characters and things like that. I’ve figured out one sheet is about 12-1500 words, depending on what’s happening in the novel or short story then. And the sheets have helpful labels about whose the viewpoint character at the time and how many sheets they get. It’s fairly easy if you follow the plot you’ve laid out. I still wander take a left turn at Albuquerque sometimes and wander away from the plot.

What I don’t like is his character sheets. They’re interesting, but not my cuppa. What I use is Karen Wiesner’s ‘First Draft in 30 Days’ character sheets. They’re in a format I’m more comfortable with, more like writing a draft then filling out the small boxes the Marshall Plan uses. You can write out several paragraphs of back history, likes and dislikes very easily.

My next novel, I’m treating it like a roleplaying game, filling out character sheets for the main characters. It should be an interesting experiment. It’s a romantic horror novel, set in rural New England. New England is a great place to set horror.

I set most of my work in New England, since that’s where I grew up and lived all my life. And you can tell I’m a Boston girl as soon as I open my mouth, since I have the accent wicked bad. I’ve spent a lot of vacations in Northern Vermont also, so I’m familiar with the area and like to set some of my work there.

I’m trying to be more productive writer, but there is only so many hours in the day. Plotting and prep work do make the process faster, so I’m trying to lose my pantsers ways.

Blurb

Billionaire Fathi al-Murzim is a workaholic businessman, too busy running the family’s companies to even think about marriage. Too bad he never told his grandfather he’s gay, because Grandfather just announced a childhood betrothal—to a Bedouin girl Fathi never heard about before…

Ikraam din Abdel was raised as a woman by his avaricious and abusive older sister, who didn’t want him to be their father’s heir. He’d never thought to be married either, and is surprised when his sister informs him of his betrothal.

When Fathi and Ikraam meet, they are drawn to each other in a manner neither of them expected. As the plans for their wedding progress, they both realize they need to tell the other the truth. But can they, with both cultural taboos and family pressures to deal with.

About the Author

Felicitas is a frazzled help-desk tech at a university in Boston who wishes people wouldn’t argue with her when she’s troubleshooting what’s wrong with their computer. She lives with three cats who wish she would pay more attention to them, and not sit at a computer pounding on the keyboard. They get back at her by hogging most of the bed at night and demanding her attention during the rare times she watches TV or movies. She’s protected by her guardian stuffed Minotaur, Angenor, who was given to her by her husband, Mark. Angenor travels everywhere with her, because Felicitas’s family doesn’t think she should travel by her lonesome. They worry she gets distracted and lost too easily. Felicitas doesn’t think of it a getting lost, more like having an adventure with a frustrated GPS.

Felicitas knits and hoards yarn, firmly believing the one with the most yarn wins. She also is sitting on hordes of books, which still threaten to take over her house, even with e-books. Between writing and knitting, she brews beer, wine, mead, and flavored liqueurs. Felicitas also bakes, making cakes whenever she needs to work out an issue in her novels. Sometimes this leads to a lot of cakes. Her coworkers appreciate them though, with the student workers buzzing about on a sugar high most of the time.

Felicitas writes urban fantasy, steampunk, and horror of a Lovecraftian nature, with monsters beyond space and time that think that humans are the tastiest things in the multiverse. Occasionally there’s a romance or two involved in her writing, with a happily-ever-after.

Website: www.Felicitasivey.com

Facebook: felicitasivey

Twitter: @felicitasivey

Email: felicitas.ivey@gmail.com

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

A billionaire and a Bedouin girl—each with a shocking secret.

Well. Normally the Dreamspun Desires line just does it for me. I love their twists on those old familiar storylines we read in our romances or saw in our movies. But The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed By Felicitas Ivey either came out at the wrong time or the author was not truly cognizant of the messages she seems to be sending here with her storyline and threads. I found myself reading, then going back to double check to see if certain passages really portrayed women so badly (yes in my opinion), then braced myself to continue reading all the way to the end where the author finished her story with a lasting moment that left me wishing I had never picked this story up. Honestly, I think I’m kind with a 2 rating.

But onto the particulars.

Why does this story upset me so?

Well barebones, it’s about a traditional bedouin man whose birth upset his sister’s control of the tribe. She forced his mother (a secondary or minor wife) to raise his as a girl in the large harem where his identity as a male remained unknown even to him under his mother’s care. Basically a servant, an agreement will see him married off to a Sheikh’s son, an arrangement the sister will hope to get him killed while getting her money. If that’s not awful enough, there’s an ugly side story about his niece who the sister intends to marry off to a rapist/thug.

Yes, it has a happy ending, the niece gets saved. The tribe goes back to the desert and Fathi and Ikraam are happy. So why am I sort of nauseated?

Neither niece or Ikraam, the man who has been raised as a woman can read or seen any sort of modern existence. He has no idea what it means to be a man actually other than how his tribe defines it. Yet, the author seems to raise them both higher in esteem than any modern Arabian woman mentioned. There are several scenes here with Fathi’s secretary. She is modern, dresses so while keeping to societal standards for the office. She is striving for a career while having a major crush on her boss, who doesn’t set her straight mind you, letting her continue to assume about his feelings.

Much is made of her makeup, hair and clothing as though it’s a bad thing. Really, this poor character exists for only one purpose. She’s that compare and contrast vehicle! And that’s so that at the end when Ikraam, dressed in all his new traditional Bedouin and extremely female marriage finery (each clothing is listed, coins glittering) corrects the poor girl about how to address her/his husband. All the family gather around this wonderful Bedouin married ‘woman’ and help her humiliate the secretary completely in letting her know yes, her boss is now married to a traditional woman, so “quit, your job, honey.” And they all have a good laugh as the girl basically runs out of the office, shamed in front of all her co workers. Never mind that she was a hard worker, did a great job and was well educated. Nope, clearly a makeup wearing, high heeled tramp! Grandfather was quite clear on his feelings about that. What a nasty little scene that was. Ikraam happily continues his existence appearing to be a woman in the traditional Arabian cultural role.

Yes women are the evil ones here. From the sister who beat Ikraam to that poor secretary, all the responsibility falls on the woman’s shoulders. Men? Pretty passive. That thug/rapist? Given a donkey or something and sent off back to the tribe to marry again. The sister? She remains in control because she purposely married a weak man. The totally ‘by the books, loves his old ways’ grandfather does something totally out of character (had to for the novel) and accepts Fathi and Ikraam’s sexuality. Uh no. But in face of everything else, that’s minor.

No, it’s still the treatment of women here. Was it really necessary to bring this element into the story? Ikraam and niece still can’t read. How’s he going to fit into his husband’s new world? Explore that! You didn’t need that secretary at all. Yes, Ikraam is basically a “woman” in a man’s body because that’s how he was raised. That’s a far more interesting idea to investigate that then the paths the author went down. Ikraam even mentions he had no idea he was a boy until he was much older. That must have blown his psyche. But no….let’s go the “new is evil and old/traditional is everything” and do it while throwing women under the bus.

Maybe I shouldn’t take a lighthearted romance this seriously. But in light of the #MeToo campaigns, of women fighting for the right just to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, of all the fights for rights that seem to be heading backwards these days, surely we don’t need to do it in our fiction as well. This is one story that just struck me all wrong. Shrugs.

And now you know why.

Cover art by Bree Archer is nice and has the right backdrop.

Sales Links: Dreamspinner Press | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 212 pages
Expected publication: November 15th 2017 by Dreamspinner Press
ISBN139781635339628
Edition LanguageEnglish

Tag: The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed by Felicitas Ivey

Felicitas Ivey On Plotting Novels and her latest release The Secret of the Sheikh’s Betrothed (author guest post)