So here we are at the end of 2022.It’s been a funny old year, hasn’t it? A sort of good news: bad news kind of a year. Russia invaded Ukraine, but the war hasn’t gone nuclear. A small, self-selected group of not-terribly-bright people elected the most shockingly incompetent Prime Minister Britain has ever had, but she was only there for 44 days. Energy prices have rocketed to the point where many people can no longer afford to heat their homes, but we have yet to face power cuts.
Against this exciting background, daily life has continued remarkably much as usual here, though admittedly rather less warmly than normal lately. After over two years when even visiting Wales seemed like an adventure (and was often impossible) we have started to go abroad again with trips to Sweden (pictured above) and, towards the end of the year, Buenos Aires. It was lovely to get back to Argentina, but generally we’ve limited our travelling to England. It turns out there are still some fascinating places we have never visited before: amazing stately homes like Basildon Park and whole towns like Shrewsbury full of wonderful historic buildings.
Basildon Park
I’ve blogged here about all this, of course. Although I am always threatening to cut down on blogging, I’m still turning out something every week, though sometimes the space has been given over to guests like Carol McGrath and Anna Legat. There have been some brilliant guest posts and all of them are still available on the blog.
Despite all the excitement of Mr Musk’s antics, I’m still on Twitter (@TomCW99). I struggle to amuse on TikTok, but do feel free to have a look at tomwilliams4777.
In amongst all this excitement I managed to publish three books in 2022. The first was Burke and the Pimpernel Affair. All the Burke books are different and this one was a straightforward spy caper with more than a nod to Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel. It’s a fun read and I hope you enjoy it. Also a fun read was Eat The Poor, another story about Galbraith and Pole, this time with a satirical edge to add to the fun.
The third book to be published was Tales of Empire. It’s a collection of just four short stories. I wrote one of them, but the significant thing is that it appeared under the Big Red imprint so Big Red is now definitely a real (if small) publisher and not just a cover for self-publishing. That made me happy. (And Tales of Empire is just 99p, so why not treat yourself and make me fractionally happier?)
So maybe not that bad a year after all. And 2023 might even be better.
This Saturday (3 December) I’ll be at the Friends of Brompton Cemetery Christmas Fair to sell copies of Something Wicked. It makes perfect sense because Brompton Cemetery is at the heart of the story.
Something Wicked is a police procedural with a difference: one of the policemen is a vampire. And although he doesn’t live in Brompton Cemetery (he prefers the comfort of an apartment near Sloane Square), Brompton Cemetery is the centre of a community that takes care to keep itself out of the limelight — or out of any light at all, come to that. The book is firmly tongue-in-cheek and, according to one early review, it is “frequently funny and clever”, which is not to say that it does not have its share of blood and horror. But these vampires are not the traditional creatures of darkness, hunting through the night to drain the blood of virgins. Instead, like regular people (or ‘Mortals’ as they think of us), they come in all shapes and sizes, from the perpetual student (“Jacob’s at least 110 years old. Still, they say you’re never too old to learn”) to the senior partner in a top law firm. Urbane and sophisticated (at least for the most part) they just want to be left alone, taking the odd sip of blood where it can do no harm. When things go wrong and a peer of the realm turns up drained and dead, the vampires send their own investigator to work alongside the Metropolitan Police to close the case before things get out of hand.
Brompton Cemetery
I had huge fun writing this story, taking all the standard vampire tropes and tweaking them to make a credible London subculture. Brompton Cemetery features heavily because after a visit it is difficult not to believe that there are creatures inhabiting some of the amazing sepulchres there. Tango also figures prominently. Partly this is because authors are always encouraged to ‘write what you know’ and I am passionate about the dance, but also because I have always associated tango – its social rituals and nocturnal lifestyle – with the Undead. My vampires love tango and humans who join in their dances can consider themselves privileged.
“Tango is, I think, a point at which your world and ours converge. The music speaks of great beauty and unbearable sorrow; of love and of death.”
Because I usually write historical novels, I tried to provide some historical context for my vampires, so we have visits to the world of Anglo-Saxon Britain, an interview with Charles II and a final solution to what actually happened to Princess Anastasia during the Russian Revolution.
So there you are: police procedural, vampire fantasy, an essay on tango and some history thrown in. What more could you ask for?
I like to blog about interesting places I’ve been, especially if they have a historical connection. So Monday’s day out can’t pass without a mention.
My son’s brigade was responsible for providing a squadron to mount the guard at Buckingham Palace and he went along to represent brigade headquarters and to generally admire the performance of the squadron. I was invited to gawp through the railings at Buckingham Palace and then to join him and other guests for lunch at Saint James’s Palace.
Although I have lived in London all my adult life, I have never been to see the changing of the guard. It’s worth a visit, if only for the music. Both the Old Guard (the one being changed) and the New Guard bring their bands with them and, besides the marching to and fro and the occasional shouted order, much of the hour or so of the ceremony is spent listening to music – and very good music as the Army takes its music seriously.
The Old Guard and their band
I did wonder (along with most of the tourists watching the spectacle) why it took so long and why there was so much time was spent with apparently nothing happening except for the captain of the Old Guard and the captain of the New Guard pacing backwards and forwards across the Buckingham Palace forecourt. The reason, I was told over lunch, is that Buckingham Palace and Saint James’s Palace are guarded by the same squadron so people have to come and go from Saint James’s Palace which is a brisk walk halfway down the Mall. (American readers please note: the Mall is a wide road leading up to Buckingham Palace, not a place full of shops.) The pacing backwards and forwards is to give the captains of the guard an estimate of how long it will take for the sentries from St James’s Palace to arrive so the ceremony can run smoothly. Obviously, this way of time keeping predates the wrist watch but never let a technical advance get in the way of ritual. Anyway, the whole thing was terribly impressive and the uniforms most spectacular. The New Guard were Gurkhas, so they could not compete with the Old Guard and its busbies, but their drill was perfect. Gurkhas take their soldiering very seriously and I am confident that His Majesty was in safe hands. Actually, security at Buckingham Palace is handled by the Metropolitan police with the military just there as a backup, though at the Tower (technically an Army headquarters) the police aren’t involved.
94 Squadron Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment (QOGLR) mount guard
Because it was the King’s birthday, we got a bonus on Monday, with the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery trotting past the palace on its way to fire the birthday salute in Green Park.
By a happy chance the changing of the guard ended just as the gun salute was starting, so we had the pleasure of seeing that as well. Watching the immaculately turned out gunners kneeling at attention (yes really) in straight lines while the guns fired one after another, it was strange to imagine that this drill was originally all about the very serious business of getting your gun into battle at speed and getting out again at speed if things went badly. I doubt any of Wellington’s gunners looked nearly as smart as these.
On to St James’s Palace, built by Henry VIII as a hunting lodge when this part of London was forest. It looks quite small from the front but it’s a large complex which includes Clarence House where the King is living. Most of the working royals have apartments there to provide a London base and soldiers on ceremonial duties at Buckingham Palace are based there too.
The Officers’ Mess is rather lovely. You realise it is not as other officers’ messes when you see the sword rack – and when you realise that it’s genuinely needed as otherwise where would officers park the swords they were wearing?
Officers’ messes will all have some sort of silverware or artworks that reflect the history of the regiment but this mess is used by a lot of different regiments so it has some especially lovely things in it. I was particularly excited by Marengo’s hoof. Marengo was Napoleon’s horse. (He was one of several but reportedly his favourite and Napoleon was riding him at Waterloo.) After Waterloo, Marengo was brought to England as spoils of war and when he died (aged 38) one of his hoofs was made into a snuff box.
It’s still in use. Did I take snuff from Marengo’s hoof? Of course I did.
There’s also hair from Marengo’s mane.
There’s a silver statuette of Wellington in pride of place on the table so here, at least, we celebrate the winner of Waterloo rather than (as, notably, at Waterloo itself) the man who lost.
It was the Napoleonic links that most excited me, but there are some other fascinating things there. The most precious, historically, is this portrait of Queen Victoria – unfortunately impossible to photograph without catching a reflection.
It is supposed to be one of only four that do not show her wearing black. Apparently on Albert’s death she had all the paintings she could lay her hands on retouched to show her in mourning. If true this would explain why so many modern representations of the young Victoria look uncannily like this one.
It was an excellent lunch and a special day. I hope you enjoyed sharing at least part of it.
A lot of people say that you shouldn’t read your own reviews but that’s always struck me as rather strange. Very few writers do it for the money so a kind word from a reviewer is often the most rewarding thing you get in exchange for your creative efforts. This, which turned up yesterday, is a lovely example:
Of course, not all reviews are kind. Some of the negative ones are hilarious. My favourite review of ‘The White Rajah’ (no longer visible on Amazon as it was of an earlier edition) complained that it had been ruined by “the sexual proclivities of the author” and went on to ask what evidence there was that James Brooke was gay. A helpful reply in the comments suggested, “His diaries.”
More serious negative reviews can give useful indications of what does or doesn’t work in your writing and may help improve future novels.
Sometimes, though, a negative review shows that a reader has not enjoyed your book for reasons that are not their fault or your own. These always seem quite sad. The latest two-star review for ‘The White Rajah’ is a good example.
Perhaps this reader had read my Burke books or had seen reviews of them and thought that ‘The White Rajah’ was a similar sort of action/adventure book. I like to think that there is a certain amount of action and adventure in it (there’s a small war, and battles with pirates and escapes through the jungle) but the core of the story is about the conflict between James Brooke’s idealism and the pragmatic (and often brutal) realities of colonial rule. It’s not a particularly easy read. (Please don’t let that put you off – lots of people tell me it is a seriously good book and well worth the effort.)
It’s always annoying when you read a book which turns out to be completely different from what you were looking for. It can be a particular problem when an author writes very different types of books. One solution is for the author to use different pen names for the different genres and I do wonder whether I should have done this. I write three very different kinds of book: the James Burke novels which are classic action/adventure set around the Napoleonic Wars; the John Williamson Papers, which is a trilogy looking at issues of colonialism and class conflict in the mid-19th century; and my Urban Fantasy stories which are about Black Magic and vampires and werewolves and which are huge fun but very, very different from my historical fiction. I hope you like all three, but I know a lot of people won’t.
Reviews are valuable for both readers and writers. Reviews should help readers decide what sort of book they are about to read so that they don’t, like the unfortunate reviewer above, get 50% of the way through a book before realising that it just isn’t the one they wanted. (Why he thought this was a seafaring book, I have no idea. It has a ship in it, but so do a lot of historical novels but we’re not all rewriting Patrick O’Brien.)
Reviews do also provide feedback to writers who can feel that they are sending their work out into the void, even when their sales figures prove that they are not. If you have enjoyed a book, a review can be an easy way to say ‘Thank you’ to the author and most really appreciate that.
Reviews are also – and I can’t stress this enough – the best way of generating book sales. The worst thing about taking back control of my books and publishing them myself was losing all the Amazon reviews that they had accumulated when they were published by other people. If any of you would care to write reviews now they are published by Big Red (that’s me), that would be much appreciated.
If you are quick (and are reading this on the Friday I wrote it) you can still pick up a FREE copy of ‘Tales of Empire‘, four short stories by four indie historical fiction authors. If you do, please consider leaving a short review once you’ve read it. Thank you.
Tales of Empire is free on Kindle next week (12 – 16 September). Here’s why you should grab a copy.
Tales of Empire is a book of short stories. There are only four, which is why even when you have to pay for it, it costs only 99p. The four showcase the work of four very different but uniformly excellent historical fiction writers. (Well, three excellent writers plus me.)
The authors were asked to submit a story set anywhere from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the end of the century. Although they all write conventional historical fiction with no revisionist agenda, all four stories ended up challenging some of the more traditional approaches to Empire.
These are the authors and what they write about.
Antoine Vanner is the author of the Dawlish Chronicles, a series of novels (and the odd short story) about the adventures of Nicholas Dawlish who joins the Royal Navy in the second-half of the 19th century as the Navy is moving from wooden sailing vessels to the modern world of ironclad steamers. The stories show Dawlish developing from a very young man to a seasoned mariner, his own progress mirrored in the development of the ships that he sails in. Vanner is fascinated by the technology of naval warfare and his stories are full of solidly researched detail, but they are adventure stories too with Dawlish caught up in espionage and fighting alongside regular army forces as well as engaging in the sea battles that you would expect of a naval series.
Antoine’s contribution to this collection is a story about the Royal Navy’s attempt to suppress the slave trade and how difficult this could turn out to be in practice.
Jacqueline Reiter is a professional historian whose biography of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, The Late Lord, is the definitive work on his life. The Late Lord is a joy to read and Reiter’s affection for, and understanding of, her subject shines through. A fictional account of a real episode in Pitt’s life is her contribution to this collection.
Penny Hampson writes mysteries set during the Regency. A Gentleman’s Promise is the first book in her Regency Gentlemen Series. She also enjoys writing contemporary mysteries with a hint of the paranormal, because where do ghosts come from but the past?
Her story looks at how social and technological change during the Regency led us from the world of the 18th century to the country we live in today.
Tom Williams (that’s me) writes the James Burke stories about a James Bond figure during the wars with France. The Burke stories have an enthusiastic following but the books he is most proud off are the John Williamson Papers which deal with more serious issues at the height of the Age of Empire. The first, The White Rajah is about the real-life James Brooke who became the absolute ruler of a chunk of Borneo in the mid-19th century. The novel looks at how his idealistic approach to government collided with the realities of the day. The short story is about a fictional tiger hunt that shows the kind of person he was and the effect his style of rule had on those around him. It was written after The White Rajah but it could well have been a chapter in that book. I hope it will encourage you to read the novel.
So there you go: four writers showcasing their talents in the hope that you might read more of their work. And free. I do hope you pick up a copy. Here’s a link: mybook.to/TalesofEmpire
I’m working on the next of the Burke books. All of the books in this series have a fight in somewhere. It may be a pitched battle between armies or a one-to-one fight. (I’ve had readers insist that there must always be some violence, That’s surely reasonable for action-adventure books, which these are.) In the latest, one of the fights involves seeing off a group of bad men who are forcing themselves on a beautiful woman. Fans of Lee Child’s ‘Reacher’ series will recognise the situation because Reacher has to deal with it in so many of the books. (There’s an example here: Jack Reacher (2012) – 5 Against 1 Scene (3/10) | Movieclips – YouTube)
I asked a friend if they thought it was too much like a Reacher fight. I used the word ‘derivative’. He replied, “It is very derivative of Lee Child but few people complain if they’re told they look exactly like George Clooney….”
I thought this was quite amusing and very flattering and I posted his response on my social media. A few people seemed to share my views but I got a couple of comments suggesting that being “derivative” was very undesirable and borderline immoral.
This got me thinking. How much do writers borrow from this style of other authors and does it matter?
It’s a real issue for me. Paul Collard (a much more successful historical fiction author than I am) described James Burke as “James Bond in breeches”. It’s a nice description because the Burke series consciously models itself on some aspects of the James Bond franchise. There’s a spymaster very like M, there’s always a girl, there is always a fight (see above) and Burke, like Bond, is sometimes morally ambiguous but will, in the end, do the right thing for his country. There’s a very clear nod to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in one of the plots too. (I won’t say which one because Spoilers.) Not everyone will pick up the Bond connection but I think those who do will enjoy the books more for that. They are classic action-adventure spy stories, albeit in a carefully researched historical context, and people who enjoy action-adventure often enjoy these tropes. I don’t think I’m about to apologise for them.
The John Williamson papers are very different from the Burke series and poor conflicted John Williamson isn’t like James Bond at all. But a leading publisher described The White Rajah as “reminiscent of William Golding”. He decided to pass on the book in the end but that comment was intended as praise, not criticism.
It’s the Galbraith & Pole fantasy stories that are most awkward on the ‘Are you just ripping off other authors?’ front. The fact is that they are very like Ben Aaranovitch’s excellent Rivers of London series and that is a bit embarrassing. But I only know about this because a reader remarked on it. When I wrote Something Wicked (which introduced my vampire policeman, Chief Inspector Pole) I had never heard of Rivers of London, let alone read it. Anyway, I doubt Ben Aaronovitch is going to get too agitated: in the introduction to one of his Dr Who ‘New Adventures’ books he wrote, “Talent borrows and genius steals, New Adventures writers get it off the back of a lorry, no questions asked.”
Nobody writes in a vacuum. Almost all modern cosy crime mysteries owe something to Agatha Christie and you can’t write about vampires without a nod to Dracula. Everything has been done before by someone, somewhere. All us poor writers can do is try to build something new and interesting on the foundations we have inherited.
