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In memory of Iris Bancroft
Dec. 4th, 2008 09:31 am
Nothing about Iris Bancroft was typical, especially her birth. It was exotic—and tragic. She was born of missionaries in King Chow, Hupeh Provence, China, on May 26, 1922, a time of great unrest. Her parents were sent there by the Swedish Covenant Church to work with the Chinese converts. Her life comes full circle in one of her historical romances. Love's Burning Flame, when the heroine spends some time in Imperial China, where savagery, especially to women, was very common. Iris was one and a half when she left that turbulent continent, and her father died shortly thereafter. Her mother brought her to Chicago. After her second marriage in 1961, Iris taught school and also sold insurance with her new husband, Keith Bancroft. Then a big change came over her life: in 1963, the West Coast beckoned. "We moved to California to work for nudist publications as photographers and writers, and later, as editors," recalled Iris. They continued to work for publishers of such magazines until, in 1977, they both quit their steady jobs to work as writers. Since then, she had made their living from her books. Iris boasted of seven published novels, using the pen-names of Iris Brent and Andrea Layton, along with her own.
Iris was a marvelous hostess and liked the life of the party. She also dabbled in painting and clay statues—she made erotic statues in the sixties. Then, there was the viola; she played in the Burbank Symphony Orchestra and in the La Mirada Symphony Orchestra, two community orchestras that accepted nonprofessional players. Her husband, she said, played in them both, too, but he was a pro, and was the leader of the trombone section in both groups. Neither Iris nor her husband were part of the Hollywood scene, though they were members of MENSA, and the Mystery Writers of America. She also sang regularly at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Mission Hills, but was not a member of any church.
Iris considered her literary success only moderate. "We live on the money I make, but only because we are frugal people. Keith is still just starting out as an author (of nonfiction books on photography), and so his contribution is not large yet. However, we recognize that we want very little that we don't already have. We still travel around the U.S., we visit with our friends, and we enjoy our beautiful home and our pets. We also enjoy each other. Ever since my marriage to Keith, we've worked together a great deal, and I am still delighted in his company." On the net I found a note about an Iris Bancroft from Los Angeles who passed away on December 2003, no info about her husband Keith.
To read more:
http://rosaromance.splinder.com/post/19233882/
Nothing about Iris Bancroft was typical, especially her birth. It was exotic—and tragic. She was born of missionaries in King Chow, Hupeh Provence, China, on May 26, 1922, a time of great unrest. Her parents were sent there by the Swedish Covenant Church to work with the Chinese converts. Her life comes full circle in one of her historical romances. Love's Burning Flame, when the heroine spends some time in Imperial China, where savagery, especially to women, was very common. Iris was one and a half when she left that turbulent continent, and her father died shortly thereafter. Her mother brought her to Chicago. 
The starting point of this short novel, 65 pages, is the same of the previous long novel by Andrew Grey, Children of Bacchus: Blayne is a young man with some family issues who would like to take a break from life. He has fond memory of a piece of land, heirloom of his family; so when his father asks him to drive up in the snow to evict the tenant of the land, Blayne is not at all happy. He has always hoped to receive the land in legacy after his father's death, and instead now his father wants to sell it.
This is the second book I read by Z.A. Maxfield and this is the second time that she takes me up at night till the few hours; this time I was not able to finish the book in one session, since it's really long, almost 290 pages all filled up of words. And truth be told, the book deserves more attention and less sleep deprivation, since it's a mix of romance and mystery.
In the third book in the Pawprints series, Anne Cain returns to her first couple, Adrian and Lal. Lal is a shapeshifter cat from an alien planet who arrived on Earth running away from his former Master; where he comes from, Master and pet are words to identify both the owner/pet relationship than the sexual one. Lal and his brother were raised to be sexual toy and submissive lovers for a young Master. In his human form Lal resembles a bit the cat he is, with the hair that are really his pelt, black and white, and the same hair he has on his groin; plus his tongue, as human, is a bit more rough than usual (and this could be really interesting during sex).
In the third book in the Pawprints series, Anne Cain returns to her first couple, Adrian and Lal. Lal is a shapeshifter cat from an alien planet who arrived on Earth running away from his former Master; where he comes from, Master and pet are words to identify both the owner/pet relationship than the sexual one. Lal and his brother were raised to be sexual toy and submissive lovers for a young Master. In his human form Lal resembles a bit the cat he is, with the hair that are really his pelt, black and white, and the same hair he has on his groin; plus his tongue, as human, is a bit more rough than usual (and this could be really interesting during sex).