So we’ve finally decorated the tree, got (almost) all the presents bought and now it’s time to settle down to enjoy the final days before Christmas.
I hope you all have better things to do now than read another blog post by me so I’m just sending Christmas greetings and I won’t be posting anything else until the New Year.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that when I’m not dancing tango I do a lot of street skating. Every year the skaters celebrate Christmas with a skate through town wearing Santa costumes. This year I missed it (I was dancing), but thanks to Patrick Goldyn’s brilliant photography I can bring you a photo from last year for my virtual Christmas card. (I am in there somewhere, honest.)
As far as the dancing goes, on Boxing Day I will, along with hundreds of others, the dancing Tango at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s a free event (with a free lesson for absolute beginners) and lots of fun to join in or just watch (there will be exhibitions). There’s a nice cafe in the Royal Festival Hall, so you can just buy a copy and sit there watching the floor show below. It would be nice if some of you made it stop details are at: http://tangoonthethames.co.uk/?p=283
Anyway, whatever you are doing this Christmas (I hope reading will feature somewhere), I hope you have a fabulous time and I look forward to (virtually) seeing you again in the New Year.
Terry Tyler’s latest, Blackthorn, is another dystopian novel set in the world she initially established in the Renova trilogy, but it stands up perfectly without you reading the others.
Blackthorn
explores a Britain (and probably the rest of the world) that has collapsed and
is being rebuilt with England having a tribal structure. A few small towns
dominate the countryside with villages and other communities gradually falling
to bands of travelling outlaws. Blackthorn is one of the most successful of
these towns.
This isn’t a political book and a political theorist would, I suspect, struggle with the economic basis of Blackthorn. It isn’t quite a feudal system, because it’s not based on ownership of the land, but it does reflect the feudal era in that there is a strict hierarchy within the village with a hereditary leader supported by guards (equivalent to nobles) and then skilled workmen working its way down to people who are essentially serfs. There is a lot of exposition of the nature of the society, which made the book hard for me to get into. It also has an enormous cast with lots of minor characters and I initially found it quite difficult to keep track of everybody.
Fortunately, not that many of Terry Tyler’s readers are likely to be political nerds and once the story really gets going we begin to focus on a more manageable number of characters. The characterisation comes alive in a way which seemed unlikely in the opening chapters. I began to wonder if the characters had taken over from the author, because the plot, too, becomes much livelier. We move away from the details of the village economy, with its peculiar currency of chips and crowns (surely eaten away by inflation in any real-world economy expanding at that rate) and its tightly defined social structure and start getting into something more interesting, centred on the strengths and weaknesses of the people living there.
I had started reading almost with a sense of duty, but, as the plot picked up, I was increasingly drawn into it and by the end I was sitting up late to find out what happened next. This is encouraged by Terry Tyler’s prose style which is, as always, fluid and engaging.
I’m not going to say anything about the plot because it’s
almost impossible to do so without spoilers. At first I
thought it was boring and predictable, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
That’s all I’ll say and that’s probably too much.
There are a lot of people who will be put off this book, with its dystopian background, its detailed invented society, and its discussion of religion, but they, like me, will probably find that it draws them in if they stay with it.
Alternatively you can buy a book. Remember that you can gift Kindles now (it’s the box on the top right):
For Xmas gifts, though, an actual paper book looks better under the tree. You can still findthe odd bargain. For example, you can buy a Young Adult paperback for a mere £4.27.
Or
Dark Magic is, admittedly, only a novella – though it contains approximately 33,000 more words than a Christmas card and will probably last rather longer than an inflatable crown. Alternatively, you could buy the second in the series about James Burke, Burke and the Bedouin. (The first, Burke in the Land of Silver is, for some reason, more expensive at £5.99.)
If you want to go mad and spend up to £10 there are masses of books available from independent authors. Here are just a few I have read and can recommend.
Why am I just talking about independent (including small press) authors? Because, frankly, they need all the support they can get. Becoming a best-seller (or even a moderately good seller) is seriously difficult even with a major publishing house behind you. As an independent, or with a publisher with a tiny marketing budget, it’s almost impossible. But having a contract with a big publisher is no guarantee of quality and, though there are some truly terrible self-published books out there, there are also some undiscovered gems. Here are a few of my favourite books by authors you have never heard of. Clicking the links will take you to my reviews.
Thank you for inviting me over to your blog today, Tom.
As I write this, I’m taking a break from writing the fourth
novel in my medieval mystery/crime series, The
Folville Chronicles. Out in 2020, this new novel will be entitled, Outlaw Justice. It follows hot on the
heels of books one-three; The Outlaw’s
Ransom, The Winter Outlaw and Edward’s
Outlaw.
Behind the plot line of Outlaw
Justice – and the whole of The
Folville Chronicle series – sits a huge amount of historical research I did
over twenty-five years ago. When I was in my early twenties I studied for a PhD
in fourteenth century English crime.
The point of my PhD was to discover if the perception that
England’s medieval society was a violent and ruthless place – as presented to
us via the literature of the day (such as the ballads of Robin Hood) – painted
a realistic picture of the criminal activity of the time. Or was it a case that, as with our fiction
today, the storytellers were embellishing the facts around them. Was Medieval
England really as lawless as the stories of outlaws and heroes would have us
believe?
As you can imagine, I spent years reading original court
rolls, fine rolls, gaol delivery rolls, as well as many other legal and
official documents. It was a fascinating – and demanding – time. I was taught
how to read Medieval Latin shorthand so that I could examine more original
documents, and spent many happy hours sat in the Public Record Office in London,
as well as deeply buried in the basement of the University of Leicester library
in the days when it still contained books.
After five years of work, comparing criminal statistics and
records with the literature of the age, I can say that – in the East Midlands
of England in particular – the balladeers were rather kinder than they might
have been. Fourteenth century Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire and
Nottinghamshire were violent places indeed, containing many gangs – often of
noble birth – who were prepared to do anything to stay ahead of a legal system
that couldn’t cope with the level of crime being committed.
Obviously, that is a generalised answer to a complex
question, but it did make me think about those criminal gangs. In some cases
they were set up in a way very similar to the one we associate with the stories
of Robin Hood and his followers today.
It was my research, and the tentative conclusions I
reached, that led me to concentrate my work on the Folville family. This family
of seven brothers from Ashby Folville in Leicestershire seemed to operate more
like the Robin Hood of legend than any of the others. Many of the crimes they
are recorded to have committed read like lines from the ballads themselves.
What if…I wondered…the Folville brothers used the Robin
Hood ballads as a guidebook from which to run their criminal enterprise?
It was that question that led me to using the Folville
family as the focus for what was to become, The
Folville Chronicles. With the exception of my protagonist, Mathilda of
Twyford, and her friend Sarah, the family housekeeper, you’ll find all the
Folville household members and their associates, not just in my novels, but in
the historical documents from the 1320s-1330s; when they ruled Leicestershire
with a fierce pride.
Each of the four books in the series is based on a real
historical event in the Folville’s lives, from their involvement in the murder
of the corrupt Baron of the Exchequer Roger Belers, to the kidnap and ransom of
Sir Richard Willoughby. I’ll say no more, for fear of ruining the read!
Here’s the blurb of Book One- The Outlaw’s Ransom
When
potter’s daughter Mathilda is kidnapped by the notorious Folville brothers as
punishment for her father’s debts, she fears for her life. Although of
noble birth, the Folvilles are infamous throughout the county for using crime
to rule their lands—and for using any means necessary to deliver their
distinctive brand of ‘justice’.
Mathilda
must prove her worth to the Folvilles in order to win her freedom. To do so,
she must go against her instincts and, disguised as the betrothed of Robert de
Folville, undertake a mission that will send her to Bakewell in Derbyshire, and
the home of Nicholas Coterel, one of the most villainous men in England.
With her
life in the hands of more than one dangerous brigand, Mathilda must win the
trust of the Folville’s housekeeper, Sarah, and Robert Folville himself if she
has any chance of survival.
Never have
the teachings gleaned from the tales of Robyn Hode been so useful…
(Although The
Folville Chronicles form a series, they can also be enjoyed as standalone
reads.)
With a background in
history and archaeology, Jennifer Ash should really be sat in a dusty
university library translating Medieval Latin criminal records, and writing
research documents that hardly anyone would want to read. Instead, tucked away
in the South West of England, Jennifer writes stories of medieval crime.
Influenced by a
lifelong love of Robin Hood and medieval ballad literature, Jennifer wrote the
murder mystery/adventure series, The
Folville Chronicles, (The Outlaw’s Ransom, The Winter Outlaw and Edward’s Outlaw, Littwitz Press,
2017-2018) The final novel in the series, Outlaw
Justice, will be published in 2020.
Jennifer also writes as
Jenny Kane. Her work includes the contemporary women’s fiction and romance
novels, Romancing Robin Hood (2nd
edition, Littwitz Press, 2018), Abi’s
Neighbour (HeadlineAccent, 2017),
Another Glass of Champagne (HeadlineAccent, 2016), and the bestsellers, Abi’s House (HeadlineAccent, 2015), and Another Cup of Coffee (HeadlineAccent, 2013).
No book review from me this Tuesday, but a reminder that I have the odd book that you might like to give your friends for Christmas.
The latest, of course, is Dark Magic. I hate the phrase “comedy thriller” because books described like that are generally neither funny nor thrilling, but if I have to put it into genre I guess that’s one it fits. At least some people found it funny according to their Amazon reviews:
I especially liked the author’s dark, sly sense of humour … had me laughing out loud.
genuinely funny
shot through with dark humour
Some (rather to my surprise) seem to have found it quite scary too.
well-written and chilling story … made me shudder
The paperback is on sale at £4.99 and is an ideal Christmas stocking filler.
I’ve been delighted to see that the John Williamson series is selling the odd copy in paperback which is unusual nowadays. Perhaps the retro feel of it (it’s a first person account of Williamson’s adventures in the 19th century) works particularly well on paper. I’ve been offered space in an anthology to bring John Williamson back for one short story during 2020. Because the three stories (although each a separate novel) make up a proper cycle as Williamson discovers himself and returns, changed, to the beginning, there will be no more John Williamson books, but I’ve missed him and the idea of featuring him in a short story is very appealing.
It’s been four years since Burke at Waterloo was published on the bi-centenary of the battle. The books sell steadily, but not well enough to make them particularly attractive to publishers and there are issues about American rights. Like a lot of authors I’m now moving to publishing my own books.(Dark Magic was self-published because there is hardly any interest in novellas from publishers. Even Steven King struggled with selling novellas.) I’m planning to publish the latest James Burke novel next year. Until then, why not catch up with the three already available?
This series is a fast-paced adventure, well researched, and highly entertaining. James Burke is a terrific character
