In the Shadow Of The Storm by Anna Belfrage - a review

In The Shadow of The Storm: Book 1 of The King's Greatest Enemy

I have to admit to a degree of worry as I started to read this new book, because I am a great fan of Ms Belfrage's Graham Saga.

My first worry was that it wasn't going to be as good - and my second was that it was going to be Alex and Matthew in the 14th century: a trap that many successful authors fall into, of replicating carbon copies of their successful characters in another period of history.
Well, I needn't have worried on either head.

I am very fond of Alex and Matthew Graham, but there is always - in my reading - that element of tension in their relationship. With Adam and Kit, despite the somewhat - unusual - beginning of their marriage, there is never any doubt for me that no matter how tumultous this period of history is, their love is solid. This is not, I don't think, a will-they won't-they story, set against a faintly-drawn generic historical background. It's a story of will Fate let them, in what has to be one of the most violent, tumultous, passionate, uninhibited periods of English history. A man and a woman, who find each other, and are determined that conflicting loyalty, intrigue, and murder will not come between them.

Be not misled, gentle reader. We are not in the realms of courtly love here. We are dealing with a real and passionate period, where a brutal punishment can be meted out to a man in scenes of graphic savagery, and a woman be poisoned to death by her own family - and where the same man who raises a sword with violent skill, can make love to his wife with kindness and tenderness.
We are also dealing with a very accomplished author, who can describe love as well as pain with skill and empathy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Alex and Matthew are very much a self-contained unit, but Kit de Courcy and Adam de Guirande are a fantastically-drawn pair of lovers enmeshed in a complicated political and social web. And a well-researched, authentic, believable one, that feels as right to the reader as a warm wool surcote.

Be warned: there is a considerable amount of brutality in this book. The Welsh Marches in 1321 were a place of unpredictable political allegiances, where a wise man keeps an eye on the main chance. Not a period where an author should tread, without a considerable amount of background research, and certainly not a period where an author who fears to describe spilled blood should go. (Just as well this author fears neither.)

I scent a long and happy relationship for this reader, with the de Guirandes....

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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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.

"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.