Burke in Ireland is the fifth book so far in the James Burke series but it is an account of Burke’s first adventures in espionage.
Burke in the Land of Silver, thefirst of the James Burke books, starts in Saint-Domingue where Burke is fighting in the French army. France and England weren’t at war at the time and many Irishmen fought under the French Crown. The real James Burke was one of them, which explained his excellent French. By the end of the first chapter, though, France and England are at war and Burke’s regiment (almost all Irishmen) is beaten by the English and, as was quite common at the time, they simply changed sides and joined the British Army. Burke is detached for espionage activities and Chapter 2 starts with him about to start on his mission to Argentina, twelve years later. This makes perfect sense for a story that is based closely on the adventures of the real James Burke.
We have no idea what he was doing in those 12 years and I have had fun filling them out. I’ve put him in Egypt in 1798 (Burke and the Bedouin) but that still leaves a few years. Burke in Ireland fills a bit more of the gap.
The action of Burke in Ireland takes place immediately on his return to England after the surrender of his regiment. (In fact, in order to accommodate the actual historical events that happen in Burke in Ireland I’ve nudged his surrender back a few months. The real James Burke was still in the West Indies as the story starts. Don’t tell anybody.)
Burke in Ireland is thus Burke’s first adventure as a spy. All the Burke stories stand alone but if you haven’t read any of the others and, for whatever reason, don’t fancy starting with Burke in the Land of Silver, this is an excellent introduction to the character.
The Burke of Burke in Ireland is noticeably younger than the Burke of the later stories. Although he doesn’t want to be a spy, he still thinks that he can behave honourably in the service of his country doing undercover work. It’s unfortunate, then, that his first mission takes him to Dublin, where the English have been behaving dishonourably for centuries. Things are slowly improving, but Burke is still up to his neck in a very dirty little war. The cynicism that we see in the later books has its origins in his experiences here.
Clement Cruttwell Map of Ireland 1799
He’s also more innocent in his attitude to women. Burke in Ireland finds a young Burke falling in love and learning the hard way that love does not necessarily conquer all.
What else is different? Well, it’s the first book that doesn’t feature any actual battles, although it has its share of violence and sudden death. And, notably, Burke has to work alone without the estimable William Brown to back him up.
Burke in Ireland, then, shows a different Burke from the earlier books and it has a darker tone. The history of British involvement in Ireland deserves a more sombre plot.
I hope you enjoy the adventures of the younger Burke and, never fear, the next book is shaping up to be a much more light-hearted affair – but I’m afraid it’s not going to arrive for quite a while. Until then, pour yourself a drink and settle down to Burke’s return to his homeland.
Buy links
The universal link for the Kindle edition of Burke in Ireland (ie one which should take you to the appropriate Amazon page wherever you are in the world) is https://mybook.to/Ireland.
No stirring military imagery on this one. This story is Burke’s first adventure in espionage — before he went to Egypt (Burke and the Bedouin) or Argentina (Burke in the Land of Silver). Seconded from the Army to assist the Alien Office in its dirty work spying on French sympathisers in Britain, Burke is sent undercover to Ireland.
It’s 1793. Ireland is just five years off an armed uprising against the British Crown, but for now resistance is underground. While the Nationalists print their pamphlets and talk of revolution and burn the occasional barn, the English respond by infiltrating their ranks and picking off their leaders. It’s dirty work in a dirty war. There’s no room here for an officer and a gentleman. Burke has to grow up quickly.
Burke in Ireland publishes on Kindle next Friday (19 March) and is available to pre-order now at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08YMMG4YH. A paperback will follow soon.
The last James Burke book was published in September and then we had a break for Christmas followed by the audio book of Dark Magic and, in February, my latest contemporary story, Something Wicked. It’s been a long wait for Burke fans, but wait no more! Well, wait a little bit more: the next in the James Burke series will be out on 19 March. It’s called Burke in Ireland and it’s set in the run-up to the 1798 Irish Rebellion — so, yes, it’s set before all his other spying adventures. We meet a younger, more naïve, James Burke and learn about some of the things that may have made him just a bit more cynical in his later adventures.
I’ll be doing a cover reveal next Friday, so look out for that. Until then, just to keep you going, the first James Burke adventure (Burke in the Land of Silver) is on offer (from Monday) at 99p/99c. If you haven’t bought your copy yet (where have you been?) here’s your chance to start the series at the very beginning.
Given that Burke in Ireland takes us back to Burke’s introduction to espionage, you obviously don’t have to read the books in order so, if you’ve already read Burke in the Land of Silver, 19 March brings your chance to start his adventures at the very beginning. Confusing, isn’t it? (If you want to know why so many historical novelists end up writing series out of order, I’ve blogged about it HERE.)
So, here are the dates you need to know:
MONDAY 8th (for one week): Offer price on Burke in the Land of Silver FRIDAY 12th: Cover reveal for Burke in Ireland FRIDAY 19th: Publication of Burke in Ireland
And, as a thank you for reading this far, here are some photos from last weekend before the weather went back to grey and miserable.
I recently read a blog post from Kate Vane (@k8vane) about how, if you review books, worrying about star ratings messes with the way that you enjoy your reading.
I couldn’t agree more. Just knowing that you are going to have to write a review changes your whole approach to your reading, and not necessarily in a good way. And star ratings are the tool of the devil.
Why I review on my blog
I’ve already blogged about how I was planning to cut back on reviewing. Since I wrote that (just six weeks ago as I write this) I’ve done a couple of book reviews. They take time to write and are in addition to my regular blogs. So why on earth do I do it? In these two cases (and there are more on the way) I was asked to: not necessarily by the author. I get asked to review by authors, publishers and journals and I get books from NetGalley who expect a review in exchange for a regular supply of quality free books. And I like having my books reviewed, so it seems only fair to review books by other writers. Even so, I do often have my doubts. Then I get thanks from a reader who has enjoyed my review or from an author who is grateful for something I have said and then I seem to keep going.
So I write my review. My reviews are quite long and will probably mention things I felt didn’t quite work as well as the things that did. Some authors are less than thrilled at this approach, but the blog post is supposed to be a ‘proper’ review for critical readers. An edited (usually totally positive) version will make its way to Amazon in time. Which is where we meet the evil star system.
Star ratings
By the time it gets to Amazon, my 800 word nuanced blog post has already been reduced to 600 words or less explaining why it’s a good book. (If it isn’t a good book, I’ll generally try not to review it, though I’m happy to make an exception for people like Jacob Rees-Mogg.) But then my 600 words have to be reduced to one of five star ratings. It’s mad.
(The obvious answer is not to post on Amazon, but writers need those Amazon reviews to make sales, so in the end I’m going to post.)
What does it all mean?
Kate (Remember her? She wrote the blog that started this off) is one of those people who avoids 5* ratings.
I only give it 5* if it’s exceptional
A lot of my friends are like that, which is annoying if they are reviewing my books, because analysis of Amazon ratings shows that most people give 5* or (much less often) 1* ratings. Basically, they rate books as ‘Great’ (5*) or ‘Rubbish’ (1*). The middle rankings are less likely to feature.
EDIT There has been a lot of discussion on this on my Twitter feed so I’m adding this useful summary graph from rendors.com (as posted by them on Quora)
But whether you tend to 4* or 5*, there really aren’t that many options for reviewers like me and Kate. Both of us avoid ratings under 3. She avoids 5 and I avoid 3 (we’ll see why in a moment), so basically both of us end up usually choosing between 3* and 4* (Kate) or 4* and 5* (me). Basically, for most books, my 800 word review has come down to a binary choice.
Interpreting the ratings
Kate gives an explanation of her ratings. 3* is ‘good but flawed’, 4* means she enjoyed it and 5*, as we’ve seen, is ‘exceptional’.
I’ve always been nervous to explain the ratings I give, but here they are:
5* — I recommend this book to anyone reading my review
4* — I think this book is a good read for anyone who likes this genre (“It’s the sort of thing you’ll like if you like that sort of thing.”)
3* — It’s OK
2* — It’s not OK
1* — This book is a disaster.
The horror of the 3* rating
I have a friend who wrote a review of a book of mine, praising it to the skies and then giving it a 3* rating. When I pointed out that she had given it a negative review, she said that of course she hadn’t.
The thing is that if you are rating on Amazon, you are using the Amazon rating system and Amazon considers 3* a “critical” review. People are continually arguing with me about this, but Amazon are totally upfront about it. Click on ‘See all reviews’ for a book and this pops up:
Also remember that (as I said above) the commonest rating on Amazon is 5*. Most books will average somewhere around 4*. Giving them a 3* review will generally pull their rating down and, by and large, I don’t want to pull authors down. So I avoid 3* reviews. You may well feel differently, but just be aware what you are doing. A 3* review is not neutral.
Being nice – or not
This is the nub of the why I personally find the horror of the star rating hanging over me while I read.
I’m happy to say that I think a character is under-developed or that there are some unlikely coincidences holding a plot together. I know that I upset some writers by being critical, but I’m writing a review on my blog for people who are interested in writing. I doubt they will reject a book that I review (remember I generally only review books I like) because I said that I thought there was an unrealistic portrayal of women in the 19th century. It’s pretty well a given nowadays that 19th century women will be portrayed unrealistically: it’s only because I write about the 19th century myself that I either notice or care. But when the review gets onto Amazon people will reject a book because it has a 3* average rating. So what if I think that the portrayal of women as feisty lawyers is just too much to allow a 4* review? (I refused to review a book recently that centred on a woman planning a legal career before the law was changed to allow women lawyers in Britain.) If the book, apart from this one detail that hasn’t worried the publisher and won’t worry most readers, is quite a good read, do I post 3* or 4*? It’s clearly not really worth 4*, but most people aren’t going to be worried by its historical howler, so is it really just ’OK’ and getting the dreaded 3* rating? Or do I say it’s three and a bit and nudge up to four?
In the case of the book I mentioned, my decision was that, as it was likely 3* and I care about basic history, I would not read or review it at all. But there are other cases which are more marginal and there my rule of thumb is ‘always nudge up’. If the author is well-known with a big publisher behind them, then my rating doesn’t matter and I can unleash my inner critical Rottweiler, but self-published authors and writers at small presses rely on those Amazon ratings for their survival. Yes, if they are seriously bad books I will not rate them. If they deserve to be driven out of the writing community I will give them 2* or even 1*. But how many writers are so truly terrible that it is for me (or almost anyone else) to say that they just shouldn’t be writing? Because, as it gets harder and harder to get books seen in a crowded marketplace, a poor star rating can destroy any chance of serious sales. (And, in this context, ‘serious sales’ can mean hitting three figures.)
When I write a review, I can speak as I find. I have annoyed friends by being less than gushing about their work. But they have (mostly) forgiven me. But when I have to produce that wretched, meaningless, frankly obscene, Amazon star rating, I know that I can do real harm. Knowing that can suck some of the pleasure out of the book.
Email has led to something of a revival in the epistemological novel and Jennie Ensor’s latest, Not Having It All, combines email, snail mail, psychological case notes and diaries to tell the story of Beatrice Hudson, self-styled “stranded scientist, make-do mother and weary wife”.
As you might suspect from the number of (fictional) sources it draws on, this story sprawls a bit. While Bea is definitely the central character, we get almost as involved in the life of her best friend, Madeleine. Madeleine is an artist and free spirit who excites suspicion in Bea’s husband, Kurt, lust in Colin (we’ll get to him) and fascination in her psychoanalyst.
Madeleine is around a lot during this story as Kurt is off on business in Istanbul, leaving Bea to cope with four year old Fran, with only the part time help of au pair Katie. Madeleine is often by to help out with Fran, who alternates between being an angelic infant and a truly awful child, often referred to by Katie (understandably) as ‘Little Fiend’.
There is not only a huge cast of characters (I haven’t even mentioned Bea’s sister, Allie) but their lives are all filled with incident. Bea is a neuroscientist leading a small team on the fringe of a breakthrough in understanding the neuroscience of phobia. I was fascinated by the details of the experimental technique and the possible underlying neural pathways behind arachnophobia, but then I did actually study neuroscience at university. I suspect many casual readers may be surprised to get a lecture on the anatomy of the brainstem in the middle of a comic novel, but it’s more readable than my undergraduate texts and you will at least come away, as they say on the BBC, educated and informed as well as entertained.
My university course also touched on Jungian psychology and while Bea is a convincing neuroscientist, Madeleine’s analyst, Nigel Rowley, appears to have discarded Jungian theory almost entirely. Perhaps that’s why he is having doubts about his chosen career. Madeleine seems to bring that out in people – or maybe she is just drawn to troubled men. She meets Colin just as he is (from the noblest of motives) about to embark on a substantial insurance fraud.
It says a lot for Jennie Ensor’s writing (and the joyous gusto with which she attacks her plot) that we have no trouble in keeping track of these character and even the more incidental figures, like Colin’s brother, Gary, whose seduction of Colin’s wife ended the marriage. Would that all my friends had such interesting lives. On second thoughts, perhaps it’s best they don’t.
I couldn’t possibly start to describe the plot because I keep putting spoilers in my reviews and by now I get hate mail. Plus it is so gloriously over-the-top as to defy summary. I can tell you that Allie (the sister, remember her?) gets bitten by an emu, leaves her husband and runs off with a singer ten years younger than her. Other characters exploring their sexual boundaries join a swingers club or experiment with lesbianism. It’s an alternative, I suppose, to the alcoholism that some of them teeter on the edge of.
This book should be a desperately trying-too-hard mess, but it’s actually very readable and bits are utterly hilarious. I started off annoying my wife by reading her some paragraphs as she was trying to get on with her own book and she was impressed enough to add this her TBR list – a massive honour as books I recommend are generally rejected out of hand.
So there you are: it shouldn’t work, but it does. Enjoy!
