Whispers of Immortality

It must have been a long, hard couple of weeks for the Grim Reaper - first Lemmy, then Bowie, and now Alan Rickman.
(I am imagining the poor bony sod with Lemmy's gravelly sweariness down one ear, Alan Rickman being sinister and growly down the other, and trying to work out which David Bowie he's got hold of - but there we go.)

It is an odd thing, but I have been much possessed by throughts of mortality of late - not my own, I'm not that old, but in general.
I think I have a fairly solid attitude to death. When it's your time, you go, and that's all there is to it. Sometimes it's fair, and sometimes it's not fair, but there is no raging against the dying of the light. We have not that choice.

We do have a choice about how those of us who remain, go on. Whether we love, and remember the good things, or whether we try and stop ourselves at the moment when we lost part of our lives. And I think, I hope, I will choose the first.
I remember very clearly speaking at the Wascally Woyalist's memorial service, at Veryan church on a bright and breezy spring day with the rooks thrown like rags over the high trees. (Bloody cold in that church it was, as well.) I remember the sunlight being behind me, though there wasn't much warmth in it, and I remember being very passionate that we should not forget Ensign Crowhurst of the 32nd Cornwall Regiment of Foot, but nor should we make him into a thing he was not. He was who he was - he was kind, and funny, and intelligent. He was also useless with a paintbrush, fiercely conservative, and prone to farting in the freezer department of the supermarket and running away.

There will always be someone left behind. That is the nature of mortality; it's probably the one thing you will do, absolutely alone. No one else can go with you, no one can prepare you for it or do it for you.

I was saying last night to someone that in my fantasy-Hollywood casting of "Red Horse", Alan Rickman would have been my choice for the Earl of Essex. And I'm not sure any more that's true.
By all accounts decent, poetry-reading, a man to whom no breath of scandal was ever attached: a good man, with a reputation of honour and decency and kindness. He'd have had to be Fairfax, wouldn't he?

The (Public) Rights of Man. And Woman

I got my log-in details for my Public Lending Rights registration today.

Now, unless you're an author, that probably means very little to you, and if you are an author, you're probably thinking "PLR? oh crikey yes!"

Basically, I'm now recognised as an author whose work is available in libraries, and I get paid royalties for same. Which is kind of exciting, and makes me kind of sad at the same time, because there should be something more to it than an email saying that I'm now registered. I don't know, a fanfare? A raspberry? It's sort of the stamp of recognition that I am a Real Author, and holding my own against people with epic publicity budgets and dedicated PR teams. And there's me, writing like stink in the back bedroom on a laptop with most of the keys missing.

But more than that, it made me think about libraries, and other institutions that we take for granted - education, that we take for granted, and the ability to read books. I live in Cornwall, and I can't walk much more than a mile from my house in any direction without coming across one of the Passmore Edwards Institutes.
John Passmore Edwards was born in Blackwater, within walking distance from me, in 1823. He was the son of a carpenter, and like the children of many of the Cornish working poor of the 19th century, pulled himself up by his bootstraps. He became a journalist, and then a media magnate, as well as a delegate to peace processes in Europe between 1848 and 1850. However, and most significantly for me, he was also a passionate believer in the working man's right to an education; he was a generous donor to the Workers' Educational Association, and gifted libraries, schools, and art galleries for men and women whose hard working-life meant that they - or their children - did not have the luxury of access to full-time education.

I wonder sometimes if perhaps we turn full circle; if perhaps having been given the right to education, people no longer see it as a hard-won privilege, a thing that men and women fought to achieve. That to many of us now it's devalued currency, as taken for granted as our air and clean water. Two hundred years ago, my little boy would only have been going to school tomorrow if we could afford it, or if he could be spared from wage-earning labour that put food on the family table. (Yes, two hundred years ago, children were still working in mills, their nimble little fingers, speed, and small stature being valuable, and their poor little bodies being cheap to feed and dispensable.) Schooling until the age of ten was only made compulsory in 1857, and the age at which a child could leave school was only set at sixteen, in 1972.
We - people my age - we have never been part of a society in which we want to learn but are deprived by circumstance of the ability to do so. Have never, thank God, lived in a world where books are "for your betters" - not beyond the reach of poor people, or working people, or children, but are for everyone.
And, you know, maybe we need to think about that. That maybe education and literacy are still a prize, an achievement to be proud of, rather than a casual box to be ticked. That there are still places in this country where adult literacy is not universal, before we even consider that there are countries in the developing world where parents are still fighting for their children's opportunities to be educated out of poverty. We don't hold any moral high ground on literacy at all. When you think that Passmore Edwards and his like made it possible for every adult in England to access literacy and learning, the idea that there are grown men and women who have the physical and mental capacity to gain an education, and make a conscious choice to remain ignorant is rather obscene.

Books are not our friends. Books are as necessary as breathing. Not just mine, but science books - romance books - books about keeping fish, or driving test theory.

If you're reading this, it's because someone fought for your right to an education. Don't ever take it for granted.

The Tudors are SO 2015. This? Is Where It's All Happening

But the Tudor era is a period of lust, of intrigue and sexy debauchery and passion and jealousy and desire and excellent dresses.... so why don't I write about the Tudors?

It's a funny one. I mean, it'd be easier if I did. I'd be riding on the coat tails of Philippa Gregory and Anya Seton and Hilary Mantel - and everybody knows about Henry VIII and his convoluted love-life, and Elizabeth (and Essex....maybe) and her even more convoluted and intriguing passions. The fashions are gorgeous, the TV producers and the film producers are crying out for bodices to rip open and breeches to undo: why, in the name of creation, am I writing about a period mostly known for its unflattering fashions and spawning the man who coined the term "warts and all"?

And I guess the answer is - because I find principle sexier than unprinciple.

I'm fascinated, intrigued, and ultimately repelled by the English Civil Wars - a war without an enemy, as the Parliamentarian commander William Waller wrote in 1643 to his friend the Royalist commander Ralph Hopton. "We are both upon the stage and must act such parts as are assigned us in this tragedy, let us do it in a way of honour and without personal animosities".
I think it's interesting that many people's perception of the protagonists now is that the King's supporters were fun-loving, free-spirited party animals who loved wine, women and song - 17th century rock stars, in effect - whilst Parliament's were dour, short-haired, joyless and worthy.
It's cobblers, of course - both sides had men of fire and honour, as committed to their cause as each other.
And to me, that's considerably more appealing than a fat old guy with a bad temper and a gammy leg, a sexual predator who abused his power to bribe, flatter and coerce women into his bed and whose politics were - allegedly - based in his codpiece.

I think we love the idea of the Tudors because they're so marvellously larger than life, an almost Machiavellian world of political treachery and intrigue apparently centred on a thing we all understand - sex. We "get" desire, and jealousy, and love-conquers-all; we understand, we sympathise with, a world where a man-monster is a figure of terror as well as desire - almost the ultimate Christian Grey, the sexy uber-CEO who manipulates as well as seduces.
And maybe the idea of a quieter passion isn't so flamboyant. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms don't inflame the public imagination the same way because there is, simply, no sex involved. Oliver Cromwell looked like a potato. (Elizabeth must have seen something worth the having in him, because they had a long and happy marriage and a number of children.) Thomas Fairfax was married to the somewhat volatile Anne for twenty-seven years, and praised her lack of beauty as a virtue in his - somewhat dodgy - poetry. Charles and Henrietta Maria were uxorious enough that she went over to Europe, sold her jewellery, and raised troops for him. Rupert - well, Rupert never married, so let's not mention Rupert's love life. (Suffice it to say it was varied and active.)

It's not that women were not strong, involved, characters in their own right. Why should Brilliana Harley, sending the family plate to safety in boxes marked up as "Cake" to avoid detection by Royalist troops, be any less appealing that poor hapless Anne Boleyn?
Or if your taste runs towards tragic romantic heroines, Bridget Cromwell, travelling across a war-torn country to marry her scarred hero Henry Ireton under siege in Oxford, only to be widowed so short a time later?
Or the King's spymistress, Jane Horwood, intelligencing for him and loving him at one and the same time? (Oh, I hope she had some happiness with him, even if his letters to her portray their liaison as more pragmatic than romantic. Her husband was such a vile, abusive, violent piece of work, I do hope that Jane found love, after a fashion, with Charles - someone who was decent, and honourable, and treated her with courtesy. Not my type, but then what do I know? I'm a Fairfax girl...)

So many stories, and so much passion - but for the spirit, not for the body. For a cause, for a thing which people - both Royalist and Parliamentarian - believed in with, literally, the last drop of their heart's blood.

And as for the fashions? Quite like the Elizabeth of Bohemia look, myself.

All For One, or Four For the Price of Three...

True fact. All four of the Uncivil Wars books are now available in rather elegant paperback, and from now until Christmas there's 25% off each of them. 

Which means you can buy all four, and only pay for three! 

Red Horse (An Uncivil War 1 - discount code at checkout is YMNTQP4M

Command the Raven (An Uncivil War 2) - discount code at checkout is 7EACLL7F

A Wilderness of Sin (An Uncivil War 3) - discount code at checkout is KJXPTBD7

The Smoke of Her Burning (An Uncivil War 4) - discount code at checkout is 6JQNFC4E

Get them quick....before Cromwell cancels Christmas! 

The Fourth Musketeer - an interview with J M Aucoin

So tell me about your new book, and why I should immediately rush out and buy it.

Sure! Honor Among Thieves is the first book in the Hope & Steel series. It takes place during 17^th Century France, a few decades after the Wars of Religion decimated the countryside and a couple decades before the famed Musketeers were formed.

Under Henry IV’s reign, France was starting to bounce back from those wars. The country was a little more stable financially and life was returning to “normal.” But Henry also really hated the Hapsburgs and dreamed of taking their dynasty down.

The decades of religious warfare also meant there were a lot of soldiers without employment. Some lacked skills for traditional working life; others just preferred to make their way with lead shot and steel, so many turned to banditry to get by.

Hope & Steel series is what happens when the bubbling political climate of early-17^th Century France meets the harsh reality of a soldier’s post-fighting life. And all with a heavy dash of swashbuckling adventure.

We follow Darion Delerue, a former soldier turned highwayman, who has only two things of value—the hope in his heart and the steel at his side. We also follow Jacquelyna Brocquart, a young lady-in-waiting for the queen, who gets a rude awakening about the less than glamorous life at court. After a heist on a royal ambassador goes wrong, both Darion and Jacquelyna are thrown into a political plot to undermine the crown which could send France straight back into civil war.

There’s plenty of political intrigue rooted in historical events, intertwined with a fictional plot and fictional characters. And there’s also plenty of swordplay for readers who, like me, enjoy a little steel to warm their blood.

You've been compared to Alexander Dumas. Who are your writing heroes?

I’m pretty sure I pulled a Tom Cruise and started jumping on the couch when I originally read that comparison. Dumas is definitely one of my favorites, so I was floored to be considered in his company.

I think anyone who gets into the historical adventure genre has read The Three Musketeers. It’s a classic that really helped define the swashbuckler genre. For me, that story was very influential growing up.

I’m also a huge fan of Rafael Sabatini. Captain Blood and Scaramouche are some fantastic swashbuckling reads. Sabatini really knows how to turn a phrase. I swear he’s left none of the good lines for the rest of us poor authors.

I also love the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Arturo has taken the classic swashbuckling genre and has given it a little more of a real world feel. A lot of time the swashbuckling/adventure tales tend to have happy endings, but actions have consequences in the Alatriste series. It’s fun and refreshing.

I really try to merge the high adventure and political intrigue of Dumas with the witticism of Sabatini and the realism of Pérez-Reverte. That’s what I’m aiming for in the Hope & Steel series.

Are you a swordsman who writes, or a writer who fences? And does it help?

Tough question! I think I’m equal swordsman and writer. I’ve been a huge fan of the historical adventure genre ever since I was a little lad. I used to watch reruns of Guy William’s Zorro on the Disney Channel every week. I must’ve dressed up as Zorro for Halloween for five straight years as a kid. It was around this time that I also saw Disney’s Three Musketeers adaption with Tim Curry as Cardinal Richelieu. I guess we can blame Disney for my swashbuckling obsession.

So swordplay is what turned me on to reading and writing. But it wasn’t until college that I started learning about swordplay. I started taking foil fencing classes as well as stage combat classes, so I learned both the practical and the entertainment aspects of swordplay. A little later I discovered the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). I enjoyed foil fencing, but being able to actually duel with folks in full period garb while using full-length rapiers and daggers really sung to the side of me that wanted to be d’Artagnan growing up.

Knowing swordsmanship definitely helps when writing swashbucklers. Readers expect a little sword play, and knowing what you’re talking about is a good thing. I’ve read some pretty atrocious swordfights written by people who don’t really understand how the sword works on even a bare basic level. Not that I really want to read (or write) a super technical fight scene either. It still needs to be entertaining and help further the story. There needs to be a balance between the realism of two people trying to skewer themselves with sharpened steel with the good ol’ fashion fun nature of what’s expected from the genre.

- my weapon of choice is a 36” munitions quality cavalry backsword, Birmingham steel. What’s yours?

I’m a big fan of my 37” Spanish Bilbao rapier. I had it custom made by Darkwood Armories, based after the sword Viggo Mortensen uses in the Alatriste movie adaption. I use it when fencing. As soon as I picked it up, I knew I had found my true blade. I do love me some backswords; I need one for my collection.

I also have a strong adoration for wheellock pistols. Those things are just works of art – from the aesthetics to the mechanics.

What are you writing at the moment?

I’m in between stories, you could say. I’m plotting out the next Hope & Steel novel and also world building for a possible fantasy series. Some fans have been bugging me about when the next Jake Hawking Adventure is coming out, so maybe I’ll add that to the queue.

Like a lot of writers, I have more ideas than time to do them all. Bah!

What are your plans for the future?

Keep writing. Keep fencing. Keep costuming.

Creating historical costumes (especially 17^th Century) and cosplays is a fun hobby of mine. It sort of ties into the writing and fencing. While writing is fun because I’m creating something out of nothing, costuming is fun because I’m making something tangible and with my hands. And I get to look dashing as hell afterwards.

I’m also going through Capoferro’s fencing manual and writing up my interpretations of that, which can be read on my historical research/SCA blog for folks who are interested in the technical aspects of swordplay. My regular swashbuckling blogging can be found on my author blog.

... and finally, the importantest question....

Roundhead or Cavalier?

O0o0o0…. Tough question!

When it comes to fiction I usually like to root for the rebels. My protagonists tend to be people who like to live outside the conventional norms of society. So you’d think I’d side with the Roundheads. But I’m going to go against my own grain and say Cavalier. And I’ll say it’s because I like The Tavern Knight by Sabatini. Sir Crispin Galliard (aka the Tavern Knight) was a Cavalier.

I hope that’s the right answer and that we don’t have to fight over it. Although, if we do, I’ll go fetch my rapier! :D

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Meet the Staith - Abbots Staith exposed

 The Abbot's Staith in Selby is, in the new book, the site of Sir John Belasyse's powder store in the city, and the scene of one or two of the climactic moments of the book. 

I don't think it was ever used as a powder magazine, but even so, I've taken some artistic licence with this fascinating building. In recompense, the first month's royalties of the book will be going to the Staith for the restoration fund of the building - so buy The Smoke of Her Burning and support the Staith!

The warehouse building currently known as the Abbots Staith, near the river Ouse in Selby, has been interpreted as being from the 14^th century in a survey done in 1995, based on the style of the stonework. The building is shaped as a shallow capital 'H' with narrow slot windows to the ground floor frontage and leaded lights to the second floor which would have had internal shutters. At 132 feet 3 inches long by 60 feet 7 inches wide it is slightly shorter but wider than the nave of Selby Abbey (140 feet by 58 feet). All the doors face the river, except for one in the front central bay which has a flat or 'French' arch and would have been the main access route from the river to the monastic complex.

The name Staith or Staithe refers to a jetty or wharf and there are two ancient monuments on the site, the warehouse building and the wharf area. Most of the latter is now covered by a 20^th century jetty, but the piles and timbers can be seen underneath this at low tide. The building itself is listed Grade II* and the English Heritage Buildings At Risk registers calls it a former monastic wool warehouse, reflecting the main trade of the medieval abbey in the town.

Formed in 2014 the Abbots Staith Heritage Trust are a group of volunteers dedicated to preserving, restoring and bringing the building back into use for the community of Selby. Some of the volunteers have spent many hours researching the Staith and have found references to in old texts dating back to the 15^th and 16^th century, including one that calls it the ‘Great Staithe’.

In more modern times a two storey Georgian building was added to the front west wing of the Staith warehouse. This was known as the Counting House, as it was where taxes and tithes were paid. The land and building were owned for a time in the 18^th and 19^th centuries by both Lord Petre, lord of the manor of Selby and by the renowned surgeon and naturalist Jonathan Hutchinson, who was born in a cottage immediately behind the warehouse in July 1828, which is now the office for Westmill Foods. There is a blue plaque on the wall celebrating this fact.

For much of the 19^th century and into the early 20^th the warehouse was part of the Abbot’s Staith Flour Mills, that business passing through various owners, before the building was sold in 1911 to George Woodhead and Sons, Seed Merchants.

During the years from 1911 to 1995 the Counting House became the shop front and small offices for Woodhead Seeds (later larger office space was created on the top floor of the west wing of the warehouse itself). Woodhead Seeds moved out in Spring 1995 and since then (aside from a brief use as a car radio outlet in the shop front) the main building has remained empty, though it is still owned by a member of the Woodhead family.

On April 20^th 2015 Abbots Staith Heritage Trust took a one year licence on the Counting House as a base to promote their vision for the restoration of the building. More information can be found on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, with a full website coming soon.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AbbotsStaithHeritageTrust/

https://twitter.com/AbbotsStaith

http://abbotsstaith.colourscope-wales.co.uk/

Fifty Shades Of..... Gender Bias and Sexuality in Historical Fiction

Isn't it reassuring to know that all those heroines of historical fiction, who found that they just weren't maternal, or meek, or submissive enough - that they identified themselves more strongly as masculine, that they cut their hair, or wore breeches, or climbed trees - they were all sweet, frilly girlies, really: because with the right man, you can get better!

Five hundred years ago - three hundred, two hundred years ago - women weren't allowed to identify with masculine gender stereotypes. We conformed, to the Gospel according to St Paul; we learned in all subjection, we were respectful, we covered our hair and our bodies as we were taught, or we paid the price of social ostracism.

You know the old chestnut of the girl who dresses as a boy to follow her soldier lover to war and bring him home safe? Don't get many of them in the 17th century. In fact, I don’t think I know of a single example of a woman who enlists as a soldier during the English Civil Wars - maybe that's because women were following the drum anyway, in the guise of camp followers, or maybe it's because until the creation of the New Model Army in 1645 no one was looking, or maybe it's because 17th century women were more than capable of fighting the good fight in skirts, viz. Lady Derby, Brilliana Harley, Elizabeth Lilburne, I'll stop now but I could keep going all night. The 17th century highwaywoman Moll Frith lived and dressed as a woman - as attested by her nickname, Cutpurse Moll - and anecdote reports that at one point she robbed Thomas Fairfax, shot him in the arm and killed two of his horses. Which must have pleased him no end…

But it's not really till the 18th century that we start to see the "mannish" woman appear - Kit Ross, who followed her man into Marlborough's Army and then decided that she quite liked the Army life and lived as a soldier for the better part of ten years, serving in two different units undiscovered; Anne Bonney and Mary Read, that pair of unglamorous pirate captains, who were as fierce and merciless as any of their masculine counterparts - what's interesting is that most of the 18th century women who disguised themselves as men disguised themselves successfully, and lived within close male communities undiscovered for long periods, but that they also were considered as equals of their male counterparts. Kit Ross was officially pensioned off, despite the discovery of her gender; Anne Bonney and Mary Read were sentenced to an equal punishment to their male counterpart, Calico Jack Rackham.

So, you know, there are hundreds of years of history of women living successfully as men, competing with men, existing forcefully in a male-dominated society. Succeeding, on their own terms, against men. (If piracy is your thing, obviously.) Being acknowledged as comrades and peers, by men. Women in Restoration England were running their own businesses, their own coffee-shops, although they weren't permitting female customers in those hotbeds of political discourse and dissent. Women in 1649 were presenting petitions to Parliament saying…"Have we not an equal interest with the men of this Nation, in those liberties and securities contained in the Petition of Right, and the other good laws of the land? Are any of our lives, limbs, liberties or goods to be taken from us more than from men, but by due process of law and conviction of twelve sworn men of the neighbourhood?"

And now, four hundred years later, we're denying this again in mainstream historical fiction.

The tomboyish heroine, that old favourite of romantic fiction, who's not satisfied by a life of conventionally girlish pleasures, and who finds freedom and self-expression as an equal in masculine company - she changes, of course, when she meets the right man. (He "makes" her a woman, as often as not. *shudders*)

All those strong women, who lived and worked and loved as women in their own right, who ran businesses and ships and companies of soldiers in their own right - they just needed a man, to make them want to give up their independence and be hobbled by skirts again?

Seriously?

I was talking to Kim Wright from the arts programme Art2Art on Swindon 105.5 FM earlier on (just thought I'd drop that one right there, me on the radio, not swearing, not once. Hardly. Much. At all) - he had the idea that this sudden gender conventionality in fiction was a reaction against women's freedoms in World War 2, where women were suddenly doing men's work, men's equals, threatening established masculine domains, and the womenfolk had to be groomed a little into getting back into their boxes after the war. And, you know, perhaps the reason for the popularity of that aggressively masculine, Chandleresque stuff was that a lot of women were comfortable within those boxes, too. 

And that's fine, if that's what works for you, but it's not right for everyone. We're still promoting the idea of binary genders - of girlie girls and butch men - and pushing the myth that if you are not a pink princess, or a brave hero, you can't have romance, you can't have adventure, you can't be successful. That to be atypical, in fiction, makes a character a curio, a freakshow. There was a Paul Verhoeven film called "Flesh + Blood" in which Rutger Hauer's mercenary band contained, amongst others, two sniggering and not always very kind best mates, who were rough and tough, who always had each other's backs, who were a pair of loutish young gentlemen always spoiling for a fight.

At the end of the film one of them is killed and you realise, by the response of the other, that these two testosterone-fuelled hooligans were a deeply loving and long-established couple.

And it's not relevant to the plot, it's just a throwaway scene where actually, these two brawling roughs are seen to have a capacity for deep emotion - but it's two men who are in love with each other. 

Does that matter? Yes. They're a pair of aggressive street bravos who've systematically gone through life as their own two-person gang, and now all of a sudden one of them is alone, and we see a vulnerable, frightened side to him. 
Does it matter that it's two men? No. Or it shouldn't. As Het Babbitt points out to Hapless Russell in "A Wilderness of Sin", "There is, in my opinion, an insufficiency of people loving each other in this world, dear. As if it were something to be ashamed of."

Takes all sorts to make a world, as they say in Lancashire, but if you're going to write, the world is at your fingertips. Women, and men, in history fought hard to live outside convention, knowing they faced exposure, ridicule, social ostracism, even death, for disclosing themselves. And they still do, we have not yet come so far. We owe it to readers to write those men and women back into historical fiction, not as plaster saints or  wayward sinners, but as real, rounded human beings. Just lke us.

Is History a Privilege?

I went to an event recently.
I went in an authorial capacity, and chatted to some people, and sold a few books and made a few new friends, including the very wonderful Laura Quigley, historian of Plymouth, and the equally wonderful Paul Diamond, founder of Hidden Heritage.

I was with some friends, and my husband and my little boy, in our re-enactment guise as the Napoleonic 32nd Cornwall Regiment. And there's your bit of scene-setting.

There was a group of children there, unaccompanied, unattended, who spent the whole day tearing around the venue laughing and shrieking and generally creating the sort of havoc that unattended children mob-handed with energy to burn, often create. (And, you know, there's maybe a whole other post about whether it's a good idea to get a hall full of complete strangers to babysit your children, but it won't be this one. So.)
The girls wanted to talk to us, and the boys didn't like that. All of about 8 or 9 years old, maybe a little older, and the girls wanted to ask questions or just to talk to us. One little girl kept coming back, bringing her doll's pushchair that she'd bought for £8 with her own pocket money, and she'd just stand at the table and show us her things: her doll, her plastic pirate gold coin, her pushchair. (It was a little bit broken, and one of the boys she was with kept trying to make it more broken. She said her dad had mended it last time but he might not be able to do it again, and she didn't want it to be any more broken. The small boy and I had a go at mending it. I think we did okay.)

Anyway, she thought we were fascinating. And that made me ever so sad, that she - and her friends - didn't think, "I could do that!" or "that looks interesting!" - they just didn't think of us as real people, who had real lives. Or that we were dressed as real people, who'd ever had real lives. We were like something out of a film, and we didn't have any relevance to them, although we were very glamorous and exciting.

And one of the other little girls wanted to buy a book, and that almost broke my heart, because she really, really wanted to, and how can you say "it's too grown up for you" without sounding like an absolute heel? And she didn't have enough money (although to be honest if she'd been older and asked, I'd have probably given it to her, just because I so much wanted her to have it.) She wrote a story at school. She asked me how long it took me to write a book, and I said about a year, but when I wrote a story for the small boy it was normally an hour or two, and she looked thoughtful.

See, what I found so heartbreaking was that these children - and they lived in a regeneration area, and they were clearly from families where money was tight - they wanted to know, and they wanted to ask, but they didn't think history was anything to do with them. It was a little magic circle of people, a privileged class of people - people with money, who could afford to buy books, and wear impractical clothes.
(People who make their children little wooden toy muskets, and have the time and the skill to do so.)
They didn't know how to dream big dreams, other than the wild fantasy of one day going to Legoland AND Butlins. That was the compass of that little girl's ambition. That's heartbreaking. You can be anything you want to be, in your head - a princess, or an astronaut, or a monster from space - and she wanted to go to Butlins and Legoland.

And I didn't have anything that I could do for them. I didn't have any books for little girls, that they could buy with their own money, and read for themselves, and be part of the magic circle.

That made me sad, and I'm going to do something about it.

Meet Hollie Babbitt. It is all his fault....

Captain Hollie Babbitt - rising to the dizzy heights of Colonel in the Army of Parliament later in the Uncivil Wars series, although still a captain at the point when we meet him. Hollie being short for Holofernes, a fact he prefers to keep to himself, not wishing to be known as a most notorious Puritan's whelp. He's also the first Leveller hero in historical fiction.... but not in this book he isn't, the Levellers not coming into recognised existence until 1645. You can, though, see him headed that way. (He's also fictional, but he does pal around with factual people - in no order Thomas Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Rainsborough, and assorted other well-known historical figures of the English Civil War.)

Present story is set in late 1643-early 1644, starting in Essex, moving up to Yorkshire following Thomas Fairfax's campaign against King Charles in the North. This is the fourth book in the series: the third was set later on in the wars, I just happen to be moving about a little bit chronologically.

What do we need to know about Hollie? The most important thing is that he likes people to think that he's a hard nut who doesn't care about anyone or anything. And he isn't. And that he has a very, very strong independent streak, a tendency to speak his mind at the most unhelpful times, and a fierce sense of justice. (Oh - and that he might fight for Parliament, but that's only because they gave him the money first.)

The main conflict - ha! Well, in this book, there's Hollie's always-tenuous relationship with his father: Hollie having been brought up strict, godly, and often with the buckle end of a stirrup leather.  There's his relationship with his wife, who's about to have their first child, and he isn't going to be there because he's in Yorkshire and she's in Essex. There's Hollie's best mate, the posh poet Luce Pettitt, who has a habit of taking on hopeless causes and who's landed the troop with a scarred lieutenant with an attitude problem and a bad reputation for intemperacy. (The somewhat illegal nature of Lieutenant Russell's attachment to the troop being why they're in Yorkshire, as far away as possible from the lawful custody he was supposed to be in!)
And technically, the main conflict of the book is the battle at Marston Moor....
What mostly messes up Hollie's life is King Charles and the Royalist Army, who do seem to get in his way quite a lot!

Hollie's personal goal is, always and ever, to GO HOME. To have a quiet life, and for the increasing number of people whose welfare he feels responsible for, to be safe and happy. As a number of these people are soldiers under his command, the two are not always compatible, and he has to sort one out before he can have the other.

The book's called "Babylon" - it will be out early next year. Currently the only place to read more about it is on my blog.... sorry!

Touching the Past

Image copyright V&A Museum

I'm a re-enactor, a writer, and a social historian.

You knew all that anyway, right? It says so in my bio, right there, along with the stuff about cats and cake and cavalry backswords (All of which is true.)

Because as I've said before, I don't just want my readers to read a story. And I'm thrilled to say that a lot of my reviews - oo, get me - do actually say that they feel like they know my boys, feel like they're there with them.
Because history isn't just about dates and battles, it's about people, and I don't think people have ever changed. We all want, basically, the same things, to a greater or lesser degree. We want to be warm and dry at night, we want something to eat and something to drink - and possibly, if you're Thankful Russell circa 1644, not in that order. It's called Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It goes - once you have realised one level of need, you can move onto the next - called actualisation:

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

The level one and two needs, well, they are simple needs, aren't they? The sort of things no one should be without in a civilised world. (She says, channelling her inner Leveller.)

Level three, we're starting to get complicated. (Aren't we. Hollie. Russell.) But this is all by the by, it's stuff for another post. What I'm talking about is embroidery, and re-enactment, and a bit of hands-on history.

I'm making a rather pretty polychrome embroidered coif at the moment. Just for fun, to give myself pleasure, a small, portable bit of embroidery that I can pop in a workbag and take around with me and work on when I've got a spare few minutes. It's based on Margaret Laton's early 17th century embroidered linen jacket and it's trimmed with gold needle-lace and it's got parrots and snails and caterpillars and all kinds of silliness on it. But, as George Wingfield Digby says in his 1963 book "Elizabethan Embroidery", it is "....the integrated expression of a society still creative and joyful about the things it could make and use."
So - it's a thing that gives me pleasure, because I am a competent, creative needlewoman, and because it has some silly little figures on it like the marvellous snail and the chicken, things for the sheer joy of putting them on. And, you know, a woman sat there in 1620-ish and did likewise. She drew on silly bugs and beasties with a fine-nibbed pen and she embroidered them in not-always-realistic colours for the pleasure of owning a pretty thing, and for the joy of wearing something that had given her pleasure to create. (Some of the jackets that survive have been carefully crafted by artisans, professional needlewomen. Just as many weren't - made at home by skilled amateurs. In the case of some of them. not even that skilled, but enthusiastic.)

And so, you know, I've got this little project on the go, and it's pretty, and sparkly, but it also feels nice to the touch. The thing with the embroidery is that it's all textured and nubbly, it's got braid stitch and detached buttonhole stitch, and the peapods open up to reveal three-dimensional peas, and the parrot's head is padded. And that's what it's for. It's for touching, and stroking, and moving in so that the braid sparkles and the sequins shimmer. It's a thing to be worn, not to be looked at. It's a thing that I would expect children at a re-enactment to touch, and look for the animals on, and hold to the light.
I read an interesting article recently about how museums are increasingly becoming glorified playgrounds in an attempt to attract families and although I hate the idea that history is being mass-produced to make it palatable, I love the thought that maybe it will make the past real to more people. Believe me, my coif - 4 hours and counting and I've not even finished drawing up the pattern or putting on the needle-lace yet - it's not a thing that I would treat casually. But I would happily give it to an interested little girl (or an interested little boy, or his dad, or her grandmother, for that matter) to hold and turn over and stroke, no matter how grubby hands are or how rough baby fingers might be with my embroidery. Because that's what it's for. You can't touch Margaret Laton's jacket, because it's 400 years old and fragile, but you could play with my coif, and stroke the snail, and lift the peapods, just like I imagine that long-ago lady's little nieces and nephews once did, laughing at the little golden peas inside as they sparkled in the sunlight.

Margaret Laton's jacket is a distinct level 5 - a lady realising her personal potential, self-fulfillment, personal growth and peak experiences. Impossible to tell if it was made by a professional embroiderer or a competent, accomplished amateur. A lady four hundred years ago, loving being herself, loving the skill of her fingers, probably loving the way it sparkled and shimmered and the way her Hugh might look at her at dinner when she was wearing it. A real person, who had a best jacket that she put on for dressy occasions. Who maybe had little sticky-fingered nieces and nephews admiring her birds and bugs. I imagine her jacket probably smelt of rose-water, or lavender water, and maybe a little bit sweaty under the arms, maybe a little bit of the ghosts of half a hundred suppers. But a woman you could probably sit down and talk to comfortably enough, a woman with whom you might have things in common - who might talk knowledgeably about gardens, and orderly households, and the cost of a loaf of bread. (Her Hugh was a merchant, you see, in the City. A wealthy lady, but one of not the nobility.)

So I'm embroidering my little coif, and embroidering what I imagine Margaret Laton was like, and hopefully, one day, at a re-enactment - this summer, next summer, some time - people will touch that embroidery and think about what sort of lady might wear it, and take pleasure in it.
A lady a bit like me and you, really. Black velvet gown, whitework apron. Looking a bit awkward to have her picture made, but a bit shy, and a bit proud, like a lot of young women on formal occasions, all done up in her finery. Creative and joyful. Not a pretend-person out of a history book, not a formal pretty jacket on a dummy inside a glass case. 

Making museums into children's play areas is a terrible thing, in so many ways. It demeans our history, it patronises its audience. But we all have a right to play - to touch, to engage, to dream. To learn through doing, what it might be like to be someone else. 

So. If you happen to be at the Fairfax Battalia event at Wallingford in late June, come and help me find my bugs and beasties.

A Wilderness of Sin - part 3, except when it's not: on writing series-es

Late last year, I had a long conversation with a dear friend about this book - about promoting it, and what to do with it, and what was going on with the plot, and all that kind of doings. And my friend - let's call him Sergeant Cullis, because in my head Cullis has always been very much based on that friend - he was very keen, he gave me lots of ideas at a time when I was somewhat knee-deep in plot device. 
"Wilderness" is Cullis's book, gentle reader, and he died a month ago. He did know that at least one of the Uncivil Wars series was dedicated to him, he was very pleased because he'd never had his name on a book before. (How little it takes to make someone happy. What did that little bit of recognition cost me, and what a great deal it meant to him. There's a lesson.)

Anyway, I wanted to have it done before he died, and I didn't quite manage it.

Now I know in my head what was going on in those intervening years, between the end of "Command the Raven" at the end of 1643, and "Wilderness..." in June 1645. I know that there was a battle at Marston Moor in 1644, and that there had been some months previous of careering about the North of England not being very diplomatic with the lady of Lathom House, which turned into a rather horrible something at Bolton. I know that the New Model Army was formally created in 1645 and that things suddenly became very different for a somewhat rag-tag army who were suddenly ruled, regimented, and disciplined. And that there was a battle at Naseby after which everything changed, which was shocking and brutal even by the Articles of War of the time, and which even I, Fairfax-o-phile that I am, can't get my head round. I know the new Army was already starting to get definitely hacked off with its leaders and their broken promises, and that Rosie Babbitt, who's been on the itchy side of insurrectionist since the first, is taking his usual pragmatic stance of to hell with the politics and look after the people. None of this is in any way a spoiler.... as the fictional Cullis has said before, Rosie Babbitt could start a fight in an empty room when the mood's on him, and the factual history is documented.

But it made me think about series-es (serii?) and what they are and how they work. My first intent was to begin at the beginning and work chronologically through the wars. Start in 1642, go on to 1643.... back to 1642 to write a novella about Edgehill.... start 1644, get sidetracked, go on to June 1645 with the intention of going right through to the Royalist surrender at Cornwall in March 1646, realise that's just too much for the one book, stop at winter quarters 1645 and give everybody a chance for a breather.... go back to the Thirty Years' War for a bit of light relief...

(and then start writing a biography of Thomas Rainsborough, but that's by the by.)

I do not have a lateral mind. I'm writing "Babylon" - the North of England, 1644 book - at the moment and the history is lurking there in the background, like a dinosaur skeleton, while the story is bouncing about all over the place. Lucey's got a moral dilemma which will be long resolved by "Wilderness" but which is a very real problem to him in 1644. Russell in 1643, when he first appears, is a prissy minor officer with an attitude problem. By 1644 he's gone off the rails altogether - and, if you're wondering, I'm sure that Russell, and to a lesser degree Babbitt, would be diagnosed with PTSD if they were around today - and by 1645 he's back, hanging on to sanity by the skin of his teeth.  I've got two half-mad, damaged, shaky lapsed Puritans with mental health issues. Rosie Babbitt's holding, but fragile. Thankful Russell hasn't found anything to hold to yet. Rosie by 1645 is - to continue with the mending metaphor, his good lady being the mending-est lady in Essex - pieced together, but the glue's still wet: Russell's still in bits. To go back to an earlier time, Rosie has to be broken again, and I have to un-do all the work that went into making him as sane as he gets. And I have to remember that the Rosie Babbitt of 1645, who is quite robust, all things considered, is not the Rosie of 18 months previous: will react differently, is less inclined towards moderation, is still erratic and self-destructive and perfectly likely to go off half-cocked and take his troop with him.

Lucey took his boots off as a boy at Edgehill, and put them back on as a man. (Despite still being known as Lucey. Sorry, brat.) I've got to remember that the maturity he has by 1645 - the purpose, the sense of direction, the slight improvement in the poetry - he does not have by Marston Moor. He's still going to be a muddle-headed romantic for a good couple of years yet. I don't want Luce to be hurt, because he's such a lollopy darling, like a labrador puppy, and yet he's had such a charmed life, he is in so many ways such an innocent, despite knocking about with Rosie: you just know that at some point the wheels must come off and reality is going to come rushing in to Pettitt-land. And what that will make him, he has not yet become. He has not yet had to tie a knot on his vows, and make them new again.

And how many times can the Devil fart in Thankful Russell's face? I want to make things better for Hapless.... and yet I know I can't. It's my book, and if I wanted to wave a magic wand and make him whole and happy of course I could, but that's his journey, really. He has never been a happy boy and I can either just magic him inner peace, which would be satisfying and completely unbelievable, or he's just going to have to fight for it like every other bugger does. 

I don't want to make the series into Another Historical Fiction Series Of My Acquaintance, a series of connected standalone incidents where our hero comes through unscathed from end to end and comes out like the Perils of Pauline, smelling of roses. (I think we have established that Rosie smells of horse, sweat and black powder, so we need waste no more time on snuffing his armpits. Seriously. It makes Het very nervous.) My lads start in 1642 at a place, politically, personally, and geographically. They're not all going to make it to 1649, and those that do, will not be the same lads as they started out. They change. (Grow? Only round the middle - Captain Venning.) I don't want them to have any Damascene moments - they're real lads, they might start out with good intentions, but they cock up, they forget. Change is imposed upon them and they resist.  They set their teeth and hang on, day to day - not got time, or, by 1645, the will, for any grandiose vision. And so back and forth, back and forth, like the stars' tennis balls in Webster, struck and bandied which way please them - and they don't know where they're headed, although I do, but I can only steer, I can't compel. Not with that lot. Rebels to the core. I know that - you can see in 1645 the cracks starting to appear as this lot decide to stop toeing the party line, and to start asking pointy questions. But they might have been a bit disorganised before that - but not political, and not subversive. Not then. Not till later. 

But then, as Rosie points out to Hapless Russell after the lieutenant's first real battle, you can't do it. Can't go round crying for the moon. You are where you are, lad. You can't go back. Or rather, in my case, you can go back, but you can't un-know what you know, and you just have to hope it doesn't show in the meantime to them as doesn't know it yet. And that, I reckon, is the skill of it - like poker. Which is not my game. 

But. Wilderness. It's Tiny's book, and wherever he is, I hope he likes it. He was a cracking Redcoat - but I reckon he makes a pretty good Ironside, too.

    

Scenting Blood.... what does historical fiction smell like?

I should like you to imagine, gentle reader, a soft, late April dusk. The darkening sky is a lightless violet, and in the apple tree at the end of the little walled kitchen-garden a blackbird is singing as if the heavens are falling.

So far, so the view from Het Babbitt's parlour window. (Give or take the smoke-blue cat stalking through the long grass with an eye to the blackbird. Mathurin, regrettably, is a very real cat with a very real habit of slaughtering the wildlife.)

Imagine the smell of woodsmoke on the air. Imagine, if you can, that faint tang of incense that means that someone's burning apple logs. The sweet, thin, heady slightly-almond fragrance of the last wallflowers, in a blaze of brick red and yellow against the garden wall. The smell of clean air, and damp earth.

I like to think I write three-dimensional fiction. It's a matter of record that Hollie Babbitt is a ragged at the edges, slightly over six foot, underfed-looking individual with a prominent nose and rather too much reddy-brown hair. I know what he looks like. (Remarkably fine eyes. An aside. Het quite agrees.) but that's not really enough. If you're to think of my Rosie as a real, thinking, feeling, breathing man who was alive in 1642 - more than a vehicle to drive a plot along - then there's got to be more.

Try a little experiment for me. Close your eyes, and put your face to the crook of your elbow. What can you smell? What does it feel like? You smell of soap, in all probability - soap, or washing powder. Hollie - and even the fastidious Russell - would smell of neither. Depending if he was at home, in which case Mistress B would have him changing his personal linen with zealous regularity and his shirt would likely smell of lavender, or of the sweet sachets with which she'd be hoping to disguise the smell of horse keep the moths out. Of fresh air, and air-dried laundry, and a little of the rosemary bushes Mistress B spreads her washing in to dry.
And, yes, let's not lie about it, Hollie is going to smell a little bit of sweaty male, because he's a guy in 1640s England who probably has a strip-wash first thing in the morning with cold water and that's him done for the day, thank you, till bedtime, no matter how hard he happens to be working during the day.
- Nat Rackhay of blessed memory was a man for oil of civet as a substitute for soap and water, and he did smell like a cheap bordello.

(Russell, if you're curious, is almost obsessive about changing his linen - but then you may have come across his sister in the books. Cleanliness being next to godliness, which is it's a hard habit to break. So. Anyway. Russell smells of something like lye-soap, and sunshine. Luce? Clean, uncomplicated, slightly sweaty healthy young man, who will occasionally dab a bit of rosewater behind his ears on special occasions but feels very degenerate when he does it.)

Smell is a much underrated trigger to imagination, I find. Rackhay's horrible greasy musk fragrance as a substitute for washing - tells you all you need to know about Nat Rackhay, doesn't it? Poseur. Fur coat, as his best mate might grumpily put it, and no drawers. Somewhat vain, and very lazy.
Luce's mother's house at Witham, that smells of baking bread and pot-pourri and beeswax and faintly of river-damp - is a home, where a family live.

The smell of the back room of a charity shop is one of the most forlorn odours in the world: of old dreams, and cast-off hope, and airlessness. A stifled, hopeless smell.
The belly fur of a sunbathing cat, on the other hand, smells of sunlight.
I used to sniff my late fiance's hair sometimes, when he came in from work. "What do I smell of?" he'd say. and, "Thoughts," I'd tell him.

The smell of frying onions and cheap sausages is eau de fairground.
Woodsmoke is the smell of camping, to me - woodsmoke and wet canvas and black powder, but then I am a re-enactor.
Someone used to say to me that my old leather jacket smelt of cheese on toast and patchouli oil - which actually, I deny, most fervently, but she reckoned it smelt of me. 


Smells trigger memories. I can't smell Je Reviens without thinking of the inside of my mum's handbag, and how when I was little that was the most fascinating and exotic place I could imagine, full of grown-up secrets and surprises. Roasting lamb smells of Sundays, when my nan used to roast a joint in her freestanding gas cooker.

Anyone can describe an appearance. But if you go that bit further - what does it smell like? taste like? - you're tapping into something richer, and more memorable, and more real.

Immerse yourself in what you're writing about. Live in it, cook with it, wash in it. And then revel in it.

Writing. Responsibility. Ramblings.

Someone sent me a review of Wilderness earlier on and I am still pondering this one. Lots of bits in my head but heck, if you read my meandering regularly you'll know all about that.

My late father was a jazz musician in the Swinging Sixties, playing the club scene. My mum has always told me the story of how they first met - you have to imagine, Michael Caine with a tenor sax and the incredibly glamorous, slender, black-haired dolly-bird in matching mini-skirt and knickers, in a smoky dive where you had to buy chips to stay after pub closing time because that made it not a pub and therefore not subject to the same opening hours legislation. Anyway. I am responsible, he told her, very seriously. I am responsible for making all these people happy.

And I think in that respect I am my father's daughter (although I look nothing like Michael Caine). I read the review, which was a wonderful piece of writing in its own right, and I was very flattered and I sat about looking smug and the cats looked at me oddly and then I thought - yes, and that's going to go Out There. People will read that and think, that's an author who can write, who can entertain me, who can maybe teach me a bit about history, who can make me feel like I'm there. And actually, that's a hell of a responsibility.

On the one hand - there will be more hands going on than Kali here - I've got Rosie Babbitt muttering darkly that he's bloody sick of being called a Crophead, with his hair halfway down to his backside, and how come people don't know that half of it's cobblers - there was no more poets in the King's Army than there was in Parliament's, and even Cromwell's fearsome Ironsides were just lads doing a job, wanting to get home, wanting to get paid. And Russell with his head up, quivering like a greyhound, passionately declaring for freedom of thought and conscience, and the poorest he that is in England having the same right to a voice as the richest. And Het in the background, carefully piecing them all back together, having the same problems as wives and mothers through the ages: trying to keep a safe, secure roof over her family's head, bringing up her children right, trying to make a pound stretch till payday.

So there's that lot, the fictional lot, wanting me to tell it like it was, to make the lived experience of ordinary men and women in the 1640s real to you guys. On both sides, King and Parliament. Not people in books who talk in thees and thous, but people like me and you, who loved and hated and felt just like we do. Had favourite foods, got cold, worried about the state of their linen. And, you know, I hope I do a sort of okay job there. Someone told me once they could imagine bumping into Rosie Babbitt out shopping, to which I could only think God help them both, then, for I'd not imagine he'd be good at queuing.

And then on the other hand there's the real lot. The people (who will remain nameless) whose good opinion matters to such an extent that the Babbitt-boy keeps the cursing down to a dull roar unless under extreme provocation. Who expect good writing, and a bit of adventure and a bit of sweariness and a bit of romance and a bit of intrigue, and who'd be disappointed if they got less. Who are proud to say they know me as a friend as well as an author.

So. Well. It's hard work,.then.

A Confession - Happy Happy Joy Joy

Probably, some time over the weekend, I am going to pull the paperback copies of all three books from my storefront temporarily.

No, I've not retired. Not given up, not run out of Babbitt stories, because when I've done the Civil Wars in England, the russet-haired ruffian spent the better part of twenty years kicking around in Europe raising hell with Nat Rackhay, and since he came out of it with one sergeant, one best mate, a wife, and a maladjusted horse, that's quite a lot of story.

Anyway, when I run out of Babbitt stories I'll be about a hundred and three, and then there's a degree of insistence from certain people to know what's going to become of Thankful Russell, so he's next up.

- an aside, at this point. Hapless is not a brooding romantic hero.Seriously. Don't worry about him. He's having a rough time occasionally, but he's not going to turn into Ross Poldark. He's twenty-one. Most things can be cured by the generous application of cake. I would not leave Russell alone and cake-less, okay?

Oh and then there's Drew Venning, the world's least likely romantic hero, but there he is.

Anyway. That lot are okay.

It's like this. The National Civil War Centre have had a copy of my books for review, and they like them, I think they liked them quite a lot. So the Babbitt-boy and his rebel rabble are now officially endorsed by the Civil War Centre. (They said that. In words. Well, they didn't call them a rebel rabble, but - meh.) They liked the content, they liked the cover art, they thought the template enforced by Amazon sucked the big one and they couldn't market them alongside mainstream published novels in the current format.

Um, just go back and read that again. They couldn't market them alongside mainstream published novels in the current format. 

No, I didn't believe it either, so I asked the Commercial Services Manager to repeat it for clarity's sake, and yes, he is happy to take the Babbitt books. My Rosie, and Luce, and Hapless, and Tinners-the-dog and Drew Venning, all glowering across the shop at the likes of Bernard Cornwell and Michael Arnold. Bestselling proper authors, who make a living out of it, not mad cake ladies in possession of a cavalry backsword. I d'reckon we know what Rosie Babbitt would say and it would start with "Eff" and end with, "Me."

But, he needs them to look more like professionally published books and less like some bint with a laptop knocked 'em up in the back room.

And so the bint with the laptop is talking to people. And is talking to a publisher who actually likes the covers. And a very helpful friend in the business who is talking to their manager about borrowing Babbitt, or rather borrowing Mistress B, for a day or so to corrupt young innocents buying decent sensible military books into reading ungodly fiction, probably with lewd promises of cake.

So. There you go. Still astonished. Still inclined to say "Bloody hell!" in a strong Lancashire accent, but -

See that bint with the laptop? Thass a proper writer, that is.

The Mending-est Lady in Essex..... A Wilderness of Sin - May 1st

 

A Wilderness of Sin available to pre-order

But who is she?
You might have to read Wilderness and find out...

"STOLEN" by Sheila Dalton - a review; Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

 "Stolen" by Sheila Dalton

I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to review this book recently. Well. What can I say?

I started to read this and I thought it was serendipity.

I'm a West Country 17th-century historian. The book begins in 17th century Devon, where young Lizbet, a fisherman's daughter, is sent on an errand by her mother. It's set in places I know, and clearly, so does Sheila Dalton, because I recognise them from her writing!

While she is away pirates raid the village and capture or murder all the inhabitants, and there begin Lizbet's adventures, as she tries to pursue the pirates and free her beloved parents.

At first, in the early part of the book, when Lizbet is held willing captive by an enigmatic French privateer, I thought that the book was going to take a traditional romantic turn - lush erotic fiction reminding me of a less graphic version of Anne Rice's "Beauty" series.

And then I was surprised.

And after that, when Lizbet achieves her goals, I expected the book to take another turn, that of the fierce woman-pirate, holding her own in a man's world, fighting for her independence and taking on all comers.

And then I was surprised again.

I expected Lizbet to fall in love with her ungentlemanly pirate, and - maybe she does, and maybe she doesn't, but it's not glorious technicolour high-seas swashbuckling heroic fantasy, and Gentleman Jake is no Errol Flynn.

I don’t envy the author trying to categorise this book, because it's so complex and multi-layered: it's not a romance, it's not an adventure, it's not a book about coming of age, but it's something of all three and much more than the sum of its parts. The characters are so well-drawn and rounded that it's impossible not to sympathise with characters even that you don't necessarily like - or agree with - for instance Gentleman Jake's defence of slavery is shocking to our modern sensibilities, but it's so cogently argued that it's impossible not to see a sympathetic logic to what he says. You might not agree with it, but he's no leering caricature slave trader. Likewise, the controlling privateer Jean, who teaches Lizbet her first lessons in love, has the potential to be a deeply sinister and disturbing character, and instead is darkly alluring - but he's not her hero. I think it's a measure of the author's skill that she has created a believable, fantastically detailed world peopled with characters so three-dimensional that they are able to say and do things that we as contemporary readers find disturbing, whilst remaining sympathetic. (Murder. Piracy. Slavery. That kind of thing. When I say pirates, we are not talking cuddly Jack Sparrow piracy here. We are talking grim, realistic, bloody vicious piracy, with no quarter given.)

It's a world where heady romance and brutal realism rub shoulders, where men are definitely men, and women are equally expected to stand on their own two feet. It’s a very real and convincing world, where the author's research is seamlessly incorporated into fiction, so convincing that you can almost taste sea-salt on board the ship and feel the blisters on your palms.

I loved it, and I cried at the end, because the thing that happens is almost what you want to happen and yet it's not quite all of it. It's got proper, awkward loving in it between real, awkward people - this is important to me, as a long-time loather of romances where only beautiful people find happiness - and yet it's also got proper, awkward friendships between people who are afraid to be friends, and proper, developing relationships. The heroine who begins the adventure is a different woman to the one who ends it; she's stronger, more self-reliant, yet at the same time she is not wholly triumphant. She has found serenity, but at a cost.

If you like Diana Norman, or Diana Gabaldon, or any other authors where the heroines are strong, stubborn, human, but ultimately realistic - you'll love this book.

In Praise of the Plain Russet-Coated Captain (or, Why Historical Fiction Needs Anti-Heroes)

 I was reading a review of a Bernard Cornwell novel this morning and once again I am inspired to set fingers to keyboard (around the cat, who is demanding cuddles with menaces)

Once again, you see, I cannot do the dashing white knight on his trusty steed thing.

Sharpe. Let's take Sharpe. (Please, someone, let's take Sharpe.)

You know when you open a certain genre of book, or a book by a certain author, pretty much to the last semi-colon what you're going to get. You're going to get an infallible hero, who may be wrong-footed but never fail. He will come good in the end - he will get the girl, kill the baddies, and save the entire planet. Laughing in the face of doom, and clearing tall buildings with one bound.

And, you know, that's kind of nice. It's all soft and comforting and cosy. No nasty surprises.

But history is full of nasty surprises.

After the battle of Naseby, the godly Army of Parliament hunted down and massacred over a hundred Royalist camp followers for the unpardonable sin of speaking their own native Welsh language, and therefore being suspected of being either whores, witches, or dangerous Irishwomen.

After the siege of Bolton, the Royalists massacred anything between eighty and two thousand people, both soldiers and inhabitants including women, making it reputedly the worst massacre on English soil.
That's not nice stuff. On either side. 

My Babbitt is anything but indestructible. He spends most of the books wrong-footed, miserable, irritated, wishing he was anywhere else but tagging on the back of the Army of Parliament. Periodically taking a pasting and then, being middle-aged, hurting. Not being irresistible to the fairer sex, even if he wanted to be. Missing his wife and wanting his supper, mostly, and wondering when he's next going to get paid. Ans how he's going to manage to run a troop till Parliament gets round to paying them.

A superhero, he is not. (He had a cape when he was seventeen, bought for the express purpose of impressing his first wife, but he never got the trick of not catching his sword hilt in its swirliness and Margriete told him he looked a tit in it, so he never really took to cape-wearing after that.)

Hollie's a decent man, fighting a war he doesn’t want for a cause that's shafted him fairly thoroughly, and committed to it for the sake of six troop of horse who expect him to stand their corner because he's the only bugger stupid enough to open his big mouth in company.

Luce is a ditherer, a dreamer and a romantic. Luce is a nice boy who ought not to be let out of the house without directions. (Luce is not, bless him, officer material. But you work with what you got.)

Russell - well, Russell's a bipolar functioning alcoholic with anger management issues, and certainly not someone you want to be on the wrong side of.

The Army of Parliament had a bad habit of not winning glorious victories. Powick Bridge - lash-up. Edgehill - no-score draw. Naseby - not the finest moment in Parliamentarian history, gentlemen. No glittering triumphs. No moral high ground.

No heroes. No villains.

Ordinary men - and women - on both sides, people of honour and principle, as well as ruffians and rogues: people fighting to defend their freedom of conscience, or just to stay alive from one week to the next. People not too dissimilar to me and you, standing up for what they thought was fair. A good cause, fought by good men, badly.

Now I ask you. Sharpe and his like - men of honour, or principle? Sexy, maybe, if you like that kind of thing. Love 'em and leave 'em, almost certainly. Daring and gallant and swashbuckling, probably.

Believable - maybe not.

Surprising, amusing, appealing, poignant, gripping - almost certainly not.

So, meh. More people read the adventures of Sharpe et al, knowing what they’re getting, than read the misadventures of one plain russet-coated captain of horse circa 1643, where believe me, they do not.

Be nice if millions of people read the Babbitt books. I'd like it. (He'd like it, the smart-mouthed Lancashire bugger. Be thrilled to bits, he would. In a sort of not-admitting it kind of way.) But…. Would I rather write books that make people laugh out loud on public transport, and three chapters later make them cry?

Where people tell me off because it can’t end like that?

(Google Burford, 1649, and work it out.)

Ah, hell, yeah, I would. Because Hollie Babbitt is real. He's all the lads in 17th century history whose names never made it into the books, the ones that did their duty and stood their ground, that weren't glamorous or poetic or noble or well-connected. He is what he is and God willing, the lad will remain a joy and a sweary, scruffy, appealing maverick from now until the end of the Civil Wars.

As you were, gentlemen.