• In a move to protect the region’s economy, local papers downplayed the devastation and warned people not to send souvenir photos to out-of-towners. There were claims by the Southern Pacific Railroad that newspapers around the country exaggerated the devastation.
• The quake is considered the first major natural disaster to have its effects widely recorded by photography.
• While thousands of before-and-after photographs exist, little film footage survived that captured life in motion before the quake. To get a real sense of the energy and atmosphere of the city just days before the disaster, take a few minutes to watch the film at http://www.cbsnews/video/watch/?id=6964752n.html. It’s moving and fascinating when you consider how everyone who’s captured in their daily lives is about to be forever changed by Mother Nature’s fury. In Blossom, when Austin describes the filmmakers on the cable car, he’s describing the real Miles brothers who recorded a ride that was the length of Market Street. Within a few minutes of silent observation, you’ll visit the heart of San Francisco in 1906 and get a glimpse of a joyous city on the brink of disaster.
• In 2011, history buffs could view the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in living color photographs taken by photography pioneering Frederick Ives in October 1906. Six months after the disaster, the devastation that left a majority of the city’s population homeless is still clearly evident. The Smithsonian Institution uncovered a set of six photos taken after the quake that appear to be not only the first color photos of the ruins, but the first color photographs ever taken of San Francisco. Unlike colorless photos that have been “colorized” at the time, these are in fact color photos. Color photography was invented in 1861 by Thomas Sutton, so it was actually old technology by 1906.
• Will Irwin wrote a eulogy for San Francisco in the New York Sun called “The City That Was.” It began, “The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest, lightest hearted, most pleasure-loving city of this continent, and in many ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living among ruins.”
• But even as the ashes smoldered, the city’s boldest and brightest people were hatching plans for the city’s future. They—along with their city—had beaten disasters before, and they’ll likely have to do it again. One of the major milestones in the city’s recovery occurred less than a decade later. San Francisco hosted an “open house” in 1915 known as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. With a bejeweled tower and Beaux Arts palaces and monuments, it was opulent, artistic and impressive. It accomplished the goal of proving to the world that San Francisco had bounced back with brilliance and self-confidence. You can visit the picturesque Palace of Fine Arts that stands proudly today as a reminder of one of San Francisco’s finest hours.
• As for Nob Hill, the New York-style brownstone Flood mansion was one of the only grand houses that survived the disaster. Once the home of James C. Flood, a house-proud hill-dweller who made a fortune in mining, it’s the Pacific-Union Club today, an exclusive men’s club that dates back to 1852.
• A rebuilt Chinatown is as colorful and bustling as ever. If you ask the right person, you can visit the backroom of a bakery and meet women who make fortune cookies, one at a time. Like Blossom, it’s within their power to grant wishes and offer warnings with small slips of paper tucked just so in the warm dough of the cookies. However, it’s up to you to select the cookie…and your fortune!
Reading Group Questions
Questions and topics for discussion
Here are some questions for your reading group to reflect on and react to
The suggested questions are offered to help you and your reading-group members discuss Blossom. Though the story takes place more than 100 years ago, there’s much to relate and react to today.
Whose life was more restricted and controlled: Clarissa’s or Blossom’s? Why do you believe that to be true?
Did men hold all of the cards when big decisions needed to be made in 1906?
Who blossomed the most in the book?
Who fits in and who’s a misfit in the story?
Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Or, is it more accurately described as infatuation at first sight?
As a reader, you know that the earthquake and fires are coming while no one in the book does. Do you like knowing the future? Would you tell other people if you knew what was in their futures?
When Blossom learns about her family’s past, is her reaction appropriate? If you were Blossom, how would you react to the information about your mother?
Think about the parent/child relationships of Chang and Blossom, Mrs. St. Clair and Brock, and Mrs. Donohue and Clarissa. How do their bonds differ? How are they the same?
Considering how the buildings “had eyes” in Chinatown and no secrets were kept for long, how do the social media tools of today create the same challenges for young couples? Do they bring those challenges onto themselves by sharing too much information in public spaces?
Is it possible to be in love with the idea of love and not the actual person in a relationship?
Clarissa arranges roses by the dozen. Each day, Blossom makes an arrangement with just one flower. What does that tell you about these two women? Is there beauty in bounty and scarcity?
Is Faye Huntington evil or just misunderstood?
Is Austin St. Clair a self-centered man-child or has he just not found his path in life yet?
How different or the same are Grand Ma Maw’s mahjong club members and Blossom and her best friends who have quick lunches on a bench in the alley?
How do you think young Ting Ting and Little Sunflower will turn out as teenagers and adults?
What role does Clementine play in Brock’s life? How about Austin’s life? Has anyone played similar roles in your life?
Do disasters bring out the best in people or the worst?
Do disasters bring more people together or separate them?
Author’s Note
The earthquake was real. The firestorm was real. Chinatown was real. Nob Hill was real. Here are a few more real things you might want to know:
• Musician Max Morath is real.
• The Palace Hotel is real.
• The Flood mansion is real too.
Just Google search them to learn more and see current photos. You can even hear Max’s ragtime recordings.
Now let’s move on to things that aren’t so real.
I’ll be the first to admit that I willingly got lost many times in whirlpools of research. And despite this need for accuracy and attention to detail, I took some liberties and sacrificed historical accuracy in the name of creativity and storytelling.
There’s quite a controversy about the origin of fortune cookies. Some believe they were introduced at the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, in the Japanese Tea Garden that’s now part of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Others believe the cookies have a Chinese heritage. I chose to reference the dispute in Blossom, but allowed Chang to insist that the Chinese should get credit for the fortunetelling delights.
Yes, for you music buffs, the song “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” wasn’t published until 1912, well after the San Francisco earthquake. For the sake of full disclosure, the lyrics were written by Chauncy Olcott and George Graff Jr., and the music was by Ernest Ball.
For you bakers out there, red velvet cake has long been considered a Southern specialty though its origins are not well documented. A very similar cake’s recipe—Devil’s Food Cake—made its publishing debut in 1902. Plus, there’s an urban legend that it was introduced at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the 1920s. The one thing I know is that I like red velvet cake, and I wanted Clementine to make it as a comfort food for Brock. And that’s that.
I hope these minor timeline-bending choices, and any others you discover, don’t distract you from enjoying Blossom.
A Conversation With Christopher Lentz
Why set Blossom’s story in San Francisco
during the 1906 earthquake and firestorm?
Disasters bring out the best and the worst in people. Having lived in Southern California since the 1970s (I’m a teenage transplant from Detroit), earthquakes have fascinated me. The Midwest gets tornados and blizzards with some amount of advanced warning. With earthquakes, it’s a random trick of Mother Nature. She literally pulls the rug out from under us when we least expect it. That’s the price for living in paradise!
One of the triggers for writing the Blossom Trilogy came after watching the film Titanic for the umpteenth time. I read a quote from director James Cameron in which he talked about telling the epic disaster story though the eyes of engaging characters. And, he pointed out how everyone knows how the disaster ends, but they don’t know what happens to his characters—who lives, who dies.
So, I looked in my own backyard, so to speak, to find a disaster to set a love story against. And that was the 1906 catastrophe in the Bay Area.
How did you learn about Chinatown and the Chinese culture?
I worked in downtown Los Angeles right out of college. I was part of a great team (Peggy, Karin and Amy, that’s you) with a wonderful manager named Julie Edwards. We’d celebrate life’s milestones by exploring the city on extended lunch hours on “creative field trips.” More than one trip included LA’s Chinatown. I’m not exactly sure why, but Chinatown always intrigued me—the food, the architecture, the color, the souvenir shopping.
After I was well into the first draft of Blossom, my family spent a few days in San Francisco, and we made a point to wander the streets and alleys of that city’s Chinatown. We literally walked in my characters’ footsteps.
Once Blossom’s story was fairly well set, my wife booked a once-in-a-lifetime trip to China. We were immersed in the Chinese culture, and we did every possible touristy thing we could cram into ten days.
Is everything historically accurate in your book?
Being a storyteller is a lot like being a travel agent, or perhaps it’s more like being an airline pilot. It’s my pleasure—truly, it’s my pleasure—to help readers escape whatever is going on in their worlds and live vicariously with my characters.
For the most part, the details are accurate and precise, though some have been manipulated like sticky candy on a salt-water taffy machine to help enrich the story and the characters who inhabit it.
Is Blossom a Cinderella story?
Though Blossom was not written with Cinderella in mind, there are a number of Cinderella-like elements in it. Consider the following:
• Blossom Sun is a generous, hard-working, thoughtful girl in a lower-economic situation who longs for something more in life
• Brock St. Clair is living a charmed life above Chinatown on Nob Hill in what many would have considered a castle of a house
• Monique LaFontaine is a prostitute with a heart of gold who helps Blossom transform herself
Sounds a lot like Cinderella, Prince Charming and the Fairy Godmother, doesn’t it? Whether it does or not, Cinderella makes an appearance in Blossom—the Chinese version of Cinderella, that is. Her name is Yen-Shen.
As for the iconic ballroom scene, you’ll have to wait until Blaze, the second book in the Blossom Trilogy, to experience Blossom’s romantic waltz.
How would you describe your writing style?
I write so that readers can have an active and sensory experience. I’m inspired by the pace and brief-chapter construction of Dan Brown’s novels. I do my best to always have my characters in touch with their feelings, thoughts and surroundings so readers can see, hear, smell and even taste the story. Most of all, I like to read books that feel more like watching a film. That’s what I strive for when I write.
Why a trilogy?
Blossom started out as a self-contained book. Once I had a diverse group of beta readers provide feedback, I kept getting asked, “But what happens next?” People wanted to know more about the main characters after the disaster. So, I outlined the second and third books and then went back to plant the seeds for those stories back into the first book. You won’t believe what’s in store for them!
Who’s your favorite character and why?
That’s an unfair question. It’s like asking a parent to pick a favorite child. I love all of my characters equally. But if I have to make some sort of choice, I would select the one who intrigues me the most: Austin St. Clair. He’s a bad boy man-child. He’s a conniver and a survivor. He’s frustrated and frustrating.
Do you believe in the predictive power of fortune cookies?
I’m not so certain that a strip of paper that’s packaged in a delicious cookie can tell my future. But I got one several years ago that I framed and keep on my desk. It says, “You have a charming way with words and should write a book.” I’ll leave the truth of that sentiment up to my readers!
What’s next?
I’m currently working on the second and third books in the Blossom Trilogy: Blaze and Bliss. I’m also plotting several Christmas romances and an American version of Downton Abbey. And for Marilyn Monroe fans, I’ve got a whopper of a Cinderella-type romance that will knock your socks off.
Acknowledgements
Much of writing a novel is a lonely process, unless you think of the voices in your head as colleagues. But I could not have made it this far without the help of many loving and lovely people.
Thanks go to my wife, Cheryl, for being my one and only. Thanks go to my daughters Allison, Sarah and Miranda for their unwavering support and beta-reading skills.
Thanks go to my parents, in-laws, brother and sisters for showing me how love endures and that translated into the strength of the characters in Blossom.
And thanks go to my writing-warrior friends at Romance Writers of America for continuing to open my eyes and heart to the possibilities of telling stories in better ways. Anne Cleeland, Shannon Donnelly, Laura Drake, Melissa Crimson, Debra Holland, Tara Lain, Susan Squires and so many more authors who continue to graciously give me a hand up so my dreams can come true.
About Christopher Lentz
A man who writes romances, a self-starter who self-publishes and a dreamer who thinks growing old should take longer
Christopher Lentz writes stories about how love changes everything.
He loves living on the edge—of a continent that is. Having enjoyed far too much of Southern California’s endless-summer sun and survived the onslaught of office life, he decided it was time for an extreme career makeover at age 50. He’d made his mark as a corporate marketing executive before he began writing novels. He burst onto the historical-romance scene in 2015 with his debut love story, Blossom.
He didn’t always love words (in fact, he still has scars from those stand-up-in-front-of-class spelling bees that he was an epic failure at), but did learn to master words out of necessity. He was convinced there was a novel hiding somewhere inside him. With the help of some imaginary friends, he found it. Now his work is touted as Dan Brown meets Downton Abbey after surviving Titanic.
His first literary crush was Scarlett O’Hara. Then came Dorothy Gale, Jo March, Lizzie Bennet and Blanche DuBois. And truth be told, an infatuation with Mary Poppins transpired. Yes, Mary Poppins.
He loves—and devours—anything related to Disney like a ravenous kid inhales a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. It was a dream come true when he spent his college years immersed in Disneyland’s turn-of-the-century Main Street USA selling everything from sticky lollipops to iconic Mickey Mouse ear hats. That experience resulted in a fascination with all things Victorian/Edwardian, not to mention a hoarder-status collection of antiques.
A teenage transplant from Detroit, he married his high-school sweetheart and raised three remarkable daughters and two adorable Yorkshire terriers.
As an active member of Romance Writers of America, this late bloomer looks forward to writing a bookshelf full of novels about misfits who find ways to fit in. He’s currently working on his latest book, swimming for his life in research whirlpools and listeni
ng intently to the voices in his head.
He’s convinced love changes everything. Always has. Always will.
To learn more, please visit www.christopherlentz.org or www.blossomtrilogy.com.
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Thank you for reading my book. If hope you enjoyed it. Won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?
Thanks!
Christopher Lentz
Blossom (The Blossom Trilogy Book 1) Page 29