Review ~ Red Rose, White Rose by Joanna Hickson

Harper
4 December 2014

During the troublesome fifteenth century, the Neville’s were one of the most prestigious families in England, and when Cecily Neville, the youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, makes an advantageous marriage with Richard, Duke of York, it combines two of the most powerful families in the land. However, being married to one of the richest men in the country is not without danger, and Cecily Neville discovers that life so close to English royalty is fraught with both treachery and peril.

Beautifully researched, the story combines the best of both fact and fiction. Throughout the novel, we have Cecily’s perspective about her life; we see her maturing from a young and idealistic teenager, to a mature woman with her own children and responsibilities for vast estates. She is a feisty protagonist, opinionated, controlling but ultimately loyal to those she loves and respects. The co-narrator is Cuthbert, who is described as Cecily’s illegitimate half brother; he’s a fictitious figure who gives a much needed male perspective on what it was like to serve the Neville family. And as he gets tangled up in the politics and manoeuvrings of the scheming Plantagenets, we gain insight into the intrigue and deceptions that were so much a part of this deadly game of thrones.

There is always much to absorb about the feuding Plantagenets; they were all complex and highly volatile characters and I think the author does a really credible job of bringing them all alive in your imagination. The indecision, the instability and the sheer unpredictability of living through a time of great uncertainty is captured well and although the book comes in at a hefty 530 pages and covers well over 30 years of feuding, it isn’t burdensome to read.

I enjoyed getting to know Cecily Neville and found that the author made the journey into the life and times of the Plantagenets a really enjoyable adventure, full of thrills and spills, but never avoiding the real purpose of the story, which was to bring a tumultuous time in history alive in the readers imagination.

My thanks to Harper for my copy of this book to review.

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An author interview with ....Anthony Quinn

I am delighted to be part of the blog tour to support the publication of 

The Blood Dimmed Tide

Anthony Quinn ~ welcome to Jaffareadstoo

Where did you get the inspiration for The Blood Dimmed Tide?

It might seem bizarre material for a crime novel, the doomed search of a Nobel Laureate poet for evidence of the supernatural, but I've been a fan of WB Yeats and his poetry for years, so much so that I was able to recite several of his longer poems in order to woo my wife Clare on the evening we first met. The beaches where he composed some of his most famous works are places that I visit frequently. Over the years, I've often wondered what went through his mind as he trod the shoreline at Lissadell and Rosses Point. So I didn't have to travel too far mentally to arrive at the idea of a supernatural mystery thriller with Yeats at its heart, and the silver strands of Sligo as its stage.

Those beaches weren't so much the inspiration as the steady stimulant that helped produce The Blood Dimmed Tide. I'm talking about rugged, empty beaches that are as much a means of escape from the everyday routine as writing itself, or travelling to more far-flung destinations. I wanted to write a book that was steeped in their light and sound. One that would make the reader keep turning the page.

What can you tell us about the book that will pique the reader's interest?

The thing about Yeats is that what you learn from his personal life in his biographies is very different from what you understand about him from reading his poetry. Yeats navigated much darker territories that his literary work only hints at. As a poet, he comes across as a very intellectual and reserved man but the truth was something quite different. He had a nose for trouble and surrounded himself with volatile characters, emotionally, politically and spiritually. He dabbled in all sorts of esoteric practices and rituals, such as 'false-hanging' and rebirth ceremonies. He was a leading member of the Golden Dawn, a society of mystics devoted to the practice of magic, and once had to evict the satanic Aleister Crowley with force from a meeting. Even his relationship with his wife Georgie was full of secrets. He was prepared to go to any length in his adventures as a supernatural sleuth. In one pivotal beach scene in the book I have him threatening to knock the narrator unconscious in order to access his dreams. Yeats was very good company in the fourteen months it took to research and write The Blood Dimmed Tide. I hope that he will prove equally irresistible to readers.



When do you find the time to write, and do you have a special place to do your writing?


I’ve always written around my day job and my hectic family life - we have four young children. I find that the busier you are the more you get done. Writer’s block is a luxury a harried father can’t afford. So I rise at 6am and work for a few hours, and resume last thing at night for a couple more. There are sacrifices, usually in the form of entertainment and a social life. However, spending several hours alone with a blank page every single day changes you, for the better, I think. You become more reflective and meditative. In terms of stimulants I rely heavily on tea, and frequent nibbles of chocolate. I also find that having a patch of the colour blue within my peripheral vision also helps with writing. I read somewhere that the colour stimulates creativity, and it really does seem to work.


Unfortunately, I'm finding that my valuable writing time is being siphoned away promoting my books, four of which are being published in a twelve month period. Disappeared’, my debut, was published in August, shortly before ‘The Blood-Dimmed Tide’. ‘Border Angels’ is out in January, while ‘Blind Arrows’ is scheduled for next summer. At the minute, I’m putting the finishing touches to the third Celcius Daly novel. However, in spite of appearances, I'm not Ireland’s answer to George Simenon. The five books have been written over six years or so. Whenever I finished one book I moved swiftly to the next; each one was an all-consuming obsession, filling my waking thoughts and quite a few of my dreams. In the end, however, they were the very opposite of children. Once they were created, I disowned them completely and moved on without looking back. It’s the only way to work as a writer otherwise you would never create that elusive perfect novel.


Can you tell us what's coming next ?

I've already written the second in my Irish War of Independence trilogy - Blind Arrows, which is due to be published next summer. It is set in Ireland at the same time as The Blood Dimmed Tide, but this time has the Irish rebel Michael Collins as its principal character. It is more of a spy thriller with a dose of financial and political intrigue. I'm due to start working on my next mystery novel involving Yeats, which will be set around Thoor Ballylee in Galway, the tower in which he spent summers with his young family

There's still a chance to win a copy of The Blood Dimmed Tide in this giveaway.

Oldcastle Books
2014 

My thanks to Antony for sharing his time with us and for giving such a fascinating insight into writers and writing. More about Anthony can be found on his website.

Here

My thanks also to Clare Quinlivan at Oldcastle Books for her all help with this interview.

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Pets Aplenty Blog Tour 2014 ~ Malcolm D. Welshman

Pets a Plenty Blog Tour 2014

Malcolm Welshman is a retired vet who has worked at London Zoo, in a small animal hospital and as a consultant dealing with exotics. He has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Daily Mail and national magazines including The Lady, Yours, Cat World and Dogs Today and was the My Weekly vet for fifteen years. He is a BBC Radio panellist and a guest speaker worldwide on cruise ships.

Austin Macauley
2014

A Little bit of Book Blurb...

In Malcolm Welshman’s third book in his vet series, Pets Aplenty, he draws on further experiences in his life as a vet seen through the eyes of his alter ego, Paul Mitchell. Set in Sussex-by-the-sea in the early 2000s, it’s a startling glimpse of the mayhem animals can inflict on a young vet’s life.....

Malcolm ~ welcome to Jaffareadstoo

Jaffa and I are interested to know more about your latest book

Where did the idea for Pets a Plenty come from?

The book is the third in a series, the first being Pets in a Pickle followed by Pets on Parade. Each is a six month period following on from one another and describe the experiences of a newly qualified vet in practice. They are loosely base on my own dealings with pets and their clients.

Can you give us three interesting things about your novel which will pique the reader’s interest?

There are some quite detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, in particular when the young vet attempts to save a dog that has a punctured lung; and operating on the spinal cord of a wallaby that has fractured its neck. Then there is the humour which to judge from the twenty or so Amazon five star reviews is one of the strengths of the book. But this is balanced by a degree of pathos and the uncertainty the young vet has in his abilities to cope with harrowing situations with which hopefully the reader will be able to sympathise.

Why do you choose to write in your particular genre?

Apart from the old adage ‘Write about what you know’ – being a vet, animal stories were always going to be an obvious option – I love creating funny scenes and playing with words especially puns. Actually this turned out to be the downside of my first book, Pets in a Pickle. There was too much word play, too many puns – me being too clever - and this came between the reader and the story line. Some people found my excessive use of puns really irritating. So I’ve toned this down in Pets Aplenty and though there are still some excruciating puns they have been limited to headlines written by the editor of the local paper and so are not so intrusive.

Is it easier to write about animals, or people?

Not much to choose between them. But perhaps creating characters is more interesting since if you’re lucky, they take on a persona as you write and you start visualising them in more detail. This certainly happened with Charlotte and Rupert Fitch-Williams, ex Chelsea types, I describe in Pets Aplenty. I had to decide what they would be wearing as ‘Sloaney’ characters. Once I’d dressed them, they came alive, speech, mannerisms, view points - all of which contributed to the heart wrenching story line and how the young vet came to own a Welsh Springer spaniel called Emily. 

What do you enjoy most about writing stories and do you write for yourself, or other people?

As mentioned above, I love humour and it’s when the Muse strikes and I find myself hurtling into a funny scene I’m truly in my element and love the creation of it. None more so than in Pets Aplenty where a python escapes through from the vet’s bathroom into Eleanor’s his neighbour, when she’s having a bath. I found myself conjuring up Venus rising from the sea only it was Eleanor, to quote: ‘out of the bath, staggering across the room, shell-shocked, buttocks wobbling, before you could say “Bottecelli”. Conjuring up that scene still makes me giggle. Since I hope readers will find it fun as well, it does mean I am writing for them in an attempt to achieve that aim.

Where would be your idyllic location for a writing retreat? 

I would never dare contemplate an exotic writing location as I’d soon lose the will to write, buried under a surfeit of rum punches and Thai massages on the beach. Give me my writing room any day and a mug of coffee half-way during the morning.

What’s next?

I'm extremely fortunate to have built up a readership that’s keen to see what happens next – particularly as there has been a faltering relationship between Paul, the young vet, and Lucy, the junior nurse, through all three books. The snowy scene at the end of Pets Aplenty when the two kiss while Emily dances round their feet giving woofs of sheer joy suggests there has to be a sequel. Several reviewers on Amazon have already been requesting one. So …

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Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be part of this blog tour.

Thanks to the author for sharing his work with us and to Jennie and Joanna at Silverwood Books for their help in arranging this interview. 

More about Malcolm on his website

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My thoughts on Pets Aplenty

Stories about the escapades of vets and their assorted animals always have the ability to make me smile and Pets Aplenty is no exception. There is much in the story to keep you amused and occasionally to laugh out loud. The adventures of novice vet, Paul Mitchell, as he spends six entertaining months working at Prospect House veterinary hospital kept me turning the pages.

The author, a retired vet, is obviously writing about what he knows and loves and this certainly comes across in the knowledgeable way he describes the experiences and situations which occur at Prospect House. It’s not all about the animals though, and there are some nice interludes between the humans in the story, which helps to keep the balance of the story just about right.

Pets Aplenty is now the third book in the series of veterinary stories and will certainly appeal to those fans of the stories who may have followed the exploits of Paul Mitchell from the beginning, however, it's not essential to have read the books in order. So, if you like stories about animal exploits told in a light and easy manner then Pets Aplenty is a nice read to curl up with on a rainy afternoon.

I have to be very careful how I mention the word V.E.T around Jaffa as the very sight of his cat carrier launches him into orbital mode and despite whatever ails him, he suddenly finds he can move at the speed of light into his ‘safe’ place !

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Blog Tour ~ The Idea of Him by Holly Peterson

 

After a decade as an Emmy-Award winning Producer for ABC News Primetime, Holly Peterson worked as Tina Brown's right-hand woman at Talk. As a contributing editor to Newsweek magazine, Holly acts as an in-house Producer and Story Editor. Holly and her husband now live in NYC, happily, with their three children.

 I am delighted to be part of The Idea of Him Blog Tour

Harper Collins

The Idea of Him

Captivating and seductive, told in the whip-smart voice of a woman who is working hard to keep her parenting and career on track, The Idea of Him is a novel of conspiracy, intrigue, and intense passion – and discovering your greatest strength through your deepest fears.

My thoughts on the book....

Allie Crawford seemingly has the perfect life; a husband she adores, two wonderful children and a high profile job with a Manhattan PR company. Life should be good but it all comes to an abrupt halt when Allie discovers her husband in a scandalous situation which then turns her world completely upside down. Forced to re-evaluate her life, Allie has some tough decisions ahead, not just about her relationship with her husband but also about the direction of her life.

The book is an interesting look at the light and shade of contemporary relationships when the balance of power within that relationship is unequal. Allie is a mixture of contradictions, determined and feisty on one level and yet is also completely naive about what she wants from life. Much of the time I didn’t really warm to Allie’s character very much, but I could understand the dilemma she was faced with her and her determination to look after her children was commendable.

I found it to be a quick read, fast paced and intriguing with a hint of glamour.

My thanks to the author for sharing her work with me and Jaime Frost at Harper Collins for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

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Today my guest author is David Ebsworth...

I am delighted to welcome 

David Ebsworth

David Ebsworth is the author of a new novel about the Zulu War called The Kraals of Ulundi and I recently had the chance to ask him about the research he’d done for the story, and whether he’d discovered anything that surprised him.

 It turned out that he’d been all the way to South Africa as part of his research and this is what he told me:

It really doesn't matter how much reading you do about a location, there’ll always be something that you fail to capture if you don’t actually visit the scenery in which your novel takes place.

But this was especially true with Kraals, in which much of the action is set in the former colony of Natal, and the former kingdom of Zululand, both now part of a single distinct region of South Africa known as KwaZulu-Natal. Much of this beautiful area has changed little since 1879, so our visit to KZN in November 2013 let me capture sights and smells that would have been impossible without the trip.

More importantly, since much of the story is told from a Zulu viewpoint, it was easy to make friends among the Zulu population and get help with the book’s isiZulu language, pronunciations and culture.

And making friends so easily with those remarkable people also helped me realise how long there’s been a really close affinity between the British people and the Zulus. But it took a research trip to South Africa before I understood how deeply it ran.

To some extent, British colonial officials took advantage of that affinity to launch an illegal invasion and land-grab of Zululand in 1879, but soon paid the price when a column of 1,500 British troops was massacred by 25,000 warriors armed with only shields and spears on the slopes of Isandlwana. We can easily imagine the animosity there’d be today if a similar disaster befell our soldiers somewhere in the world.

Yet, in 1879, within months, and while the war was still raging, groups of Zulus were being brought to England to perform on theatre stages to packed houses and fêted as heroes. Zulu shows had been popular in London since the days of Charles Dickens, and they were very familiar to contemporary audiences.

The response of the British public was also surprising in the sense that the news of Isandlwana provoked far more anger against the colonial officials who’d launched the war than it did against the Zulus.

And this was a two-way process. The Zulus themselves were fighting to defend their own homeland, and they did so ferociously. But while they may have been ruthless in battle and its aftermath they grew to respect the British soldiers sent against them, despite the savage way in which those soldiers treated the Zulus in return.

It was that complex relationship that I was trying to capture in Kraals and, hopefully, the research trip helped me get it right. But it also gave us the chance to enjoy the astonishing scenery and wildlife. Wonderful country! Everybody should go there, if they get the chance.

Silverwood
2014

Here’s a great review of The Kraals of Ulundi by the Historical Novel Society

 http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-kraals-of-ulundi/

More details of the novel can be found on David’s website pages

 http://www.davidebsworth.org/?page_id=13

My thanks to David for sharing the details of his research with us.

It's always fascinating to see how much background work goes into writing such an interesting novel.

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Guest Author ~ Judith Starkston ~ Hand of Fire ~ Virtual Book Tour 2014

I am delighted to welcome the author 

Judith Starkston

as part of her Virtual Book Tour 2014

Tell us about Hand of Fire and why you chose to tell the story of Briseis?

Hand of Fire tells the story of Briseis, the captive woman from Homer’s Iliad who caused the bitter conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon during the Trojan War. She has practically no voice in the male-centered epic; I wanted to discover her as a flesh and blood woman.

Hand of Fire is partly a romance—Briseis and Achilles fall in love but in an unconventional manner that includes a mystical element. Achilles is half-immortal and I made full use of that half of his conflicted personality.

In addition to the romantic element, Hand of Fire explores why some people, women especially, can survive great tragedy and violence against them, even managing to experience joy in what life still has to offer.

It is a coming of age tale featuring a smart, strong-willed young woman in an ancient culture (Trojan/Hittite) that, counter to our modern stereotypes of the past, expects Briseis to be powerful, literate and a leader. Briseis succeeds in rising to those expectations despite the circumstances arrayed against her—and she’s strong enough to take on the mightiest of the Greek heroes.

What do you think makes this classical period in history so fascinating to historical novelists?

I think the Greeks hold us in such a mighty thrall because their ideas underpin so much of what we are as a civilization and so many of us cut our teeth on Greek mythology. Technically, my novel isn’t set in what is traditionally understood as “classical,” although I know exactly what you mean. I’ve dug far back into the Bronze Age when the Greeks were called Mycenaeans—a culture based more on marauding than civilization-building, as they demonstrate by sailing across the Aegean Sea to attack Troy, on the western coast of what is now Turkey. The Trojans and their allies (such as Briseis’s city of Lyrnessos) are culturally and politically related to the powerful empire of the Hittites that ruled what we think of as Turkey throughout the Late Bronze Age (1300-1200 BCE, roughly speaking). Troy was a semi-independent kingdom of the Hittites. So I had a blast figuring out who the Hittites were—since this is Briseis’s world. As a classicist I knew a fair amount about the Mycenaeans when I started writing, but the Hittites were a delightful new realm of exploration for me.

How did you research the historical background to the story and did you discover anything surprising along the way?

I spent a lot of time at university libraries, pouring through dry stuff like archaeological site reports (which produce both an urgent need for napping and great juicy details if you stick with it—fortunately for my readers, I do the culling). I also travelled extensively in Turkey and Greece, meeting with archaeologists at key sites and examining museum collections.

The big surprise for me was the Hittite culture that has come to light in the last couple decades, especially as the huge cuneiform clay tablet libraries have been translated. We have a rich historical record of these people—including details very handy for a historical fiction writer like political intrigues, treaties, religious practices, magical rites and customs of daily life.

At which event in history would you like to be a fly on the wall and why?

I’d love to see the moment in the Late Bronze Age about 1274 BCE when a young priestess of Ishtar, Puduhepa, met Hattusili, the youngest brother of the Great King of the Hittites and they fell in love. These two went on later to rule the Hittite Empire in a famously happy partnership. We’re told they met when Hattusili came to offer thanks to Ishtar for his victory over Pharaoh Ramses II. Both Hattusili and Puduhepa, the historical record says, had dreams sent by Ishtar. I’d love to see those first moments when they recognized what kindred souls they were.

If you could invite three people from history to your dinner table, who would you choose and why?

Although Briseis may be a legend rather than a truly historical person—no way to know for sure—I’ll include Briseis because I’d love to know how close my “reconstruction” of her life is to reality. We have only a few scraps about her from Homer, so I had to work with what was historically plausible. I’d also love to meet Achilles, although I suspect he might be an intimidating if gorgeous dinner partner, being half-immortal and all. But he’ll be an excellent singer of tales after the food’s put aside since he was a bard as well as a warrior. And I’ll add Puduhepa since I’m writing about her now. She’d get along well with Briseis and Achilles, and could share her stories of international intrigue and diplomacy. 

Can you tell us what you are writing next?

I’m in the middle of a historical mystery featuring the Hittite Queen Puduhepa as “sleuth.” She would be as famous as Cleopatra if she hadn’t been buried by the sands of time. Her seal is on the first extant peace treaty in history next to her foe, Pharaoh Ramses II. Now that both her world and her correspondence have been excavated, I’ve started a series about her. She ruled from her teens until she was at least eighty, so I think this series may outlast me!

I’m also outlining a sequel to Hand of Fire—and Briseis may just make a major move to Cyprus. It’s such a gorgeous and intriguing island, covered in Bronze Age ruins, with several qualities that make it perfect for her. But as readers of Hand of Fire will realize, Briseis has got some business to take care of nearer to home before that happens. 

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My thanks to Judith for giving so generously of her time and for sharing her thoughts about

 Hand of Fire so eloquently.

Hand of Fire can be purchased here:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Nook

iTunes

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