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Sunday 31 January 2016

WELCOME TO THE TOWER - a guest post by Jennifer Wilson

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming back my friend and fellow-author Jennifer C Wilson.  Jen has already appeared on my blog, and you can read her interview here, but today she's going to tell us a little more about the setting for her debut novel, Kindred Spirits: Tower of London - and also about a very special  limited-time offer.

Welcome back, Jen!







Hi Sue, and thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog today.

I recently read an article about certain characters you should avoid using in your fiction. One in particular stood out for me – the overuse of wish-fulfilment in your writing.

It was a slight concern, for a moment, given that Kindred Spirits: Tower of London is almost entirely that: fantasy conversations I would love to have been privy to. After all, if the ghosts of the Tower really did all hang out on a daily basis, just imagine the conversations they could have. Courtiers and peasants, from every period, Norman Conquest onwards, thrown together for potentially centuries – all those lovely conflicts to play with! How could I resist?



I’ve always loved losing myself in historic buildings, and the Tower was no exception. I managed to spend two whole days there (in truth, not enough) – one in a February blizzard, one in a blistering August heatwave. In truth, August was more conducive to creativity – it’s not quite so appealing to be sitting people-watching as you turn into a Yeti…

Kindred Spirits: Tower of London covers summer through winter at the Tower, getting to know the characters I was most keen to include; to be honest, if I included them all, I’d still be writing.

It is currently reduced to just 99p/c, until Thurs 4th February as part of Crooked Cat Publishing’s paranormal-themed week, and if you do take a look, I hope you enjoy meeting the Tower’s ghosts as much as I did.



Kindred Spirits: Tower of London:

A King, three Queens, a handful of nobles and a host of former courtiers…

In the Tower of London, the dead outnumber the living, with the likes of Tudor Queens Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard rubbing shoulders with one man who has made his way back from his place of death at Bosworth Field to discover the truth about the disappearance of his famous nephews.

Amidst the chaos of daily life, with political and personal tensions running high, Richard III takes control, as each ghostly resident looks for their own peace in the former palace – where privacy was always a limited luxury.

With so many characters haunting the Tower of London, will they all find the calm they crave? But foremost – will the young Plantagenet Princes join them?

About Jennifer:

Jennifer is a marine biologist by training, who developed an equal passion for history whilst stalking Mary, Queen of Scots of childhood holidays (she has since moved on to Richard III). She completed her BSc and MSc at the University of Hull, and has worked as a marine environmental consultant since graduating.

Enrolling on an adult education workshop on her return to the north-east reignited Jennifer’s pastime of creative writing, and she has been filling notebooks ever since. In 2014, Jennifer won the Story Tyne short story competition, and also continues to work on developing her poetic voice, reading at a number of events, and with several pieces available online. Her debut novel Kindred Spirits: Tower of London was published by Crooked Cat Publishing in October 2015.

Key Links:



International Amazon link: http://authl.it/B016TRKU2A


Sunday 24 January 2016

JOHN RACKHAM, CASANOVA OF THE SEAS - a guest post by Emma Rose Millar

Today I welcome back my friend and fellow-author Emma Rose Millar.  Emma has already appeared on my blog (and you can read her interview here), but today she is going to tell us about John Rackham (also known as Calico Jack), who appears in her amazing novel Five Guns Blazing.

Welcome back, Emma.  Please, tell us more...

John Rackham – Casanova of the Seas




His notoriety came from his gentlemanly conduct and his outlandish dress sense rather than from his treacherous exploits. He was a mystery, a romantic hero, the Lothario of the seas. (Five Guns Blazing – Emma Rose Millar and Kevin Allen).

John Rackham was probably the least successful pirate ever to captain a ship. However, his garish fashion sense, womanising and general flouting of every rule in the pirate code have made him one of the best loved pirates of the Caribbean and Latin America.  He is also the man responsible for designing the iconic Jolly Roger flag, a symbol we recognise to this day.

Rackham began his villianous career as quartermaster for the infamous Charles Vane, who made his living looting ships off New York. During their spree of law-breaking and criminality they came across a huge French man-o-war, from which Vane, out of caution, ordered a retreat. But Rackham, tempted by the riches on board, led a mutiny against the captain and usurped him at the helm. Being the gentleman he was, though, he still furnished Vane and his supporters with a small sloop, sufficient ammunition and a variety of other goods.

In probably the most daring of his piratical escapades, Rackham found himself trapped off the coast of Cuba by a Spanish war ship which had entered the harbour along with a captured English ship. The Spaniards were unable to get to Rackham’s sloop due to the low tide but decided to sit it out until morning. At dead of night, Rackham and his crew took rowing boats over to the English ship and claimed it as their own. In the morning, the Spanish crew open fired on the now deserted pirate sloop and Rackham and his crew sailed away unnoticed aboard the English vessel.

But this was in no way typical of John Rackham’s career. He made his living picking off smaller vessels close to shore. The bigger prizes, he said were armed to the hilt and would speed him straight to the gallows. It was better to acquire one’s riches slowly and with caution.

In 1718, Rackham sailed to the pirate haven Nassau in the Bahamas to take the blanket pardon offered to all pirates by Governor Woodes Rogers. Rackham claimed Charles Vane had forced him into a life of piracy and was granted the pardon and his freedom, but his legitimate life was not set to last.

Rackham soon took up with a beautiful, flame-haired female pirate, Anne Bonny. But Anne was married and when her husband discovered their affair, Woodes Rogers had her flogged for adultery. Rackham escaped to sea with Anne Bonny  and the two resumed their criminal lifestyle.

But Anne was not to be the only female to sail on board one of Rackham’s sloops. Captured sailor Mark Read was invited to join the crew and Anne soon befriended him, igniting Rackham’s rage. It was not until he discovered the pair undressed in Anne’s quarters that Rackham discovered Mark was actually a woman, the treacherous Mary Read.

In October 1720, Governor Woodes Rogers sent pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet after Rackham’s sloop. Barnet attacked in the early hours of the morning while most of the crew were drunk below deck. Barnet’s men faced little resistance from the outlaws, apart from Bonny and Read who fought viciously with another unknown pirate. It seemed the vagabond Rackham preferred his women to do his dirty work to the end! The King offered a reward for any information leading to the arrest of this mystery pirate, but he (or she) was never caught.

John Rackham and eleven of his crew including Anne Bonny and Mary Read were sentenced to death. Rackham was hanged in Port Royal on November 18th 1720. His body was gibbeted and placed at the main entrance of the city to serve as a warning to all. He is fondly remembered as ‘Calico Jack’ after his brightly coloured striped pants, made of the same fabric.

Five Guns Blazing is now available on Amazon



"Never had she imagined she would be brought so low, and all for the love of a very bad man."

1710

Convict's daughter Laetitia Beedham is set on an epic journey from the back streets of London, through transportation to Barbados and gruelling plantation life, into the clutches of notorious pirates John 'Calico Jack' Rackham, Mary Read and the treacherous Anne Bonny.

In a world of villainy and deceit, where black men are kept in chains and a woman will sell her daughter for a few gold coins, Laetitia can find no one in whom to place her trust.

As the King's men close in on the pirates and the noose begins to tighten around their necks, who will win her loyalty and her heart?


Friday 8 January 2016

FROM BARD TO BARNARD - HOW I MADE SHAKESPEARE WORK FOR ME. Plus: a very special offer!


2016 is a highly significant year for fans of William Shakespeare.  On April 23rd, we will commemorate four hundred years since the Bard of Avon shuffled off this mortal coil.

To get this very special Shakespeare-related year off to a flying start, I am presenting you with a very special Shakespeare-related offer.  To find out more, please read on…

My first encounter with Shakespeare was at secondary school.  Then, as now, studying his works was a non-negotiable part of the English Literature curriculum.  Like most stroppy teenagers I found it very hard to understand the plays, and even harder to understand why anyone in their right mind would ever want to read them.  Faced with a few hundred pages of solid text written more than three centuries earlier, and in a near-incomprehensible style into the bargain, our collective response was “What on earth is the point of all this?”  (That, at any rate, was the gist of our collective response…)

What we stroppy teenagers had totally failed to appreciate, at least at first, is that the plays are not meant to be read in the same way that one would read novels.  They were written for performance.  It’s only when the text is translated into speech and action (on stage, screen or radio) that it really comes alive – and nowhere is this more apparent than in works which consist entirely of dialogue.

In an attempt to keep us interested, our English teacher allocated the main parts in the play to members of the class, and the key scenes were acted out at the front of the classroom.   Our efforts were hardly RSC standard, but they did serve as an early lesson in the basic principle of “show-don’t-tell”.  After this, Shakespeare did begin to make some kind of sense.

The play which we studied for O-Level (the equivalent of modern-day GCSE) was Julius Caesar.  As I struggled with the idiosyncracies of rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter, little did I realise that more than forty years later this very play would form the backdrop for what was to become my third novel. 



The Unkindest Cut of All is a murder mystery set in a theatre, during an amateur dramatic society’s production of Julius Caesar.  The novel’s title is adapted from a quotation from Mark Antony’s crowd-turning funeral speech after Caesar’s murder.  



I’ve drawn on my love of the theatre and my own experience of am-dram backstage work to create the setting.  But the plot and the characters are, I’m happy to say, pure invention!

In the story, the part of Caesar is played by Brian Wilmer, who is the by far the company’s best actor. Unfortunately, he knows this – and he makes sure that everybody else also knows it.  As a result, over the years he has made himself extremely unpopular with cast and crew alike. 

In this extract, which takes place halfway through performance week, Brian is trying his charms on Sarah, one of the backstage crew (who also plays the part of Soothsayer).  At the end, you will details of that very special offer…


“Drink, Sarah, dah-ling?”
Sarah hadn’t heard Brian approaching as she stood waiting to be served at the bar, and in view of what she’d heard about him the previous evening, she felt more than just a little uncomfortable in his presence. But for the sake of keeping things on an even keel, at least until the end of the run, she turned to face him and forced a smile.
“Thanks, Brian. That’s very kind of you. I’ll have pint of bitter, please.”
“OOOH, a lady who drinks pints?”
Not for the first time, Sarah had to suppress her irritation at having to explain it.
“Yes, I drink pints. I like beer, and there’s no point in my drinking halves. I get very thirsty and they don’t last.”
“Fair point, I suppose, fair lady! And I can’t say I blame you. I’ve worked up a pretty thirst myself. I think I might take a leaf out of your book. Now, you go and find us some seats, and I’ll be right back.”
He strode up to the bar and returned a couple of minutes later with two brimming pint pots.
“Cheers, sweetie!” Brian sat down opposite her, raised his glass and took a swig.
“Cheers. And thank you.” Sarah smiled and returned the gesture.
“That wasn’t a bad audience, for a Wednesday,” Brian went on. “I can’t believe we’re halfway through the run already. How time flies when you’re enjoying yourself!”
“Are you enjoying it?” Sarah asked as she took another sip of her drink. She knew before she asked that it was a pointless question, but all the same it made something to say.
“Am I enjoying it, dah-ling? Tell me, sweetie, is the Pope a Catholic?”
Sarah forced a smile.
“I knew it was a stupid question. Have you done any Shakespeare before?”
Brian’s face creased into a broad grin at the prospect of talking about his favourite subject – himself.
“Oh yes. I started very young, you know. Oddly enough, my first role was in this very play.”
“Really?” Sarah called on her own acting abilities and pretended to look interested. “What part did you play?”
“Lucius. It was a school play. Most of the other parts were played by sixth-formers, but they needed a younger boy to play the servant. It wasn’t a huge part, but it was the first of many. I was well and truly bitten by the acting bug by the end of it.”
“Oh yes? What came next?”
“The following year the school did A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I played Puck.”
“Then what?”
“After that, it was The Tempest. That time I played Caliban. Then the following year it was Hamlet, and I was Polonius.”
“Wasn’t he the one who was stabbed through the arras? I always thought that sounded slightly rude!”
Brian chuckled.
“Then, the following year,” he went on, “the school decided to do Romeo and Juliet.”
“Were you Romeo?” Somehow Sarah could picture Brian playing Romeo (though she couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Juliet). So his reply came as something of a shock to her.
“No. The producers decided that I would make a much more convincing Tybalt.”
Sarah winced.
“What’s the matter?” Brian asked, with a rare display of concern.
“Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never liked Tybalt. No offence intended,” she added hastily.
“None taken, I assure you, dah-ling! No, I don’t think anyone is supposed to like Tybalt. That’s one of the things which makes him such an interesting character.”
“Really? I’d never imagined it in those terms before.”
“How well do you know the play?”
“Fairly well. I first did it at school. They showed us the Zeffirelli film…”
“Oh yes. That was a real cinematic masterpiece. And it was such a treat to see them played by actors who were the right age!”
“Wasn’t it just?” Sarah agreed.
“Oh yes. Well, anyway, Tybalt is often seen as a one-dimensional character; a troublemaker who hates purely for the sake of hating. Nobody has a good word to say about him…”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. “I know some real people like that!”
“Don’t we all, dah-ling! But elsewhere in the play, we’re told that Juliet loved her kinsman dearly. So he must have had some redeeming qualities, even though the audience never sees that side of him. That was what made him such a challenge to play. I had to somehow find a way of suggesting that he wasn’t all bad.”
“I’d never thought of that,” Sarah answered truthfully.
“No, dah-ling, most people don’t.”
“What did you do after that?”
“Nothing more at school, because that was my final year. But when I went to university I joined the Dramatic Society. In my first year I was Malvolio in Twelfth Night…”
Sarah grinned as a comical picture came into her mind. “Somehow I can imagine you in yellow stockings and cross gaiters!”
“Thank you, sweetie. But there’s a lot more to Malvolio than just some silly legwear! He’s actually quite a complex character. Then in the second year I was Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, and in my last year I was Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
“Wow! That’s a pretty impressive repertoire.”
Brian smiled. “Thank you, dah-ling. So you see, I’m no stranger to the Bard. But until now I’ve never managed to play the mighty Caesar.”
By now Sarah had had more than enough of Brian’s constant stream of self-glorification. As he paused to take a swig of his drink, she took advantage of the opportunity to change the subject.
“I met your nephew at the dress rehearsal on Sunday.”
“Oh yes, he told me that you’d been very helpful. He was gutted at not being able to come to any of the performances.”
“He mentioned that he was on evening shifts this week.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a chef. He works at the Royal.”
Whatever sort of response Sarah might have been expecting, this was not it.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Believe me, dah-ling, there are times when it’s very useful to have a tame food expert in the family!”
“I can imagine,” Sarah sighed wistfully. Cooking was definitely not one of her own strong points.
It was not a brilliant reply, but she figured it would suffice. She got the impression that Brian wasn’t really listening to what she was saying anyway. That impression was strengthened by his next remark.
“Talking of Martin, that reminds me, dah-ling. Can I ask you a HUGE favour?”
“You can ask, of course. But I can’t promise to grant it until I know what it is. You might be asking me to do something totally illegal!”
Brian grinned.
“Well, not strictly speaking illegal, but a little, shall we say, unorthodox?”
Sarah took another mouthful of her pint.
“Go on.”
“Well, sweetie, Martin tried to get a ticket for the Saturday performance, but as you know, it’s a complete sell-out. But would it be OK to let him come backstage on Saturday evening and watch from the wings?”
Sarah choked on her beer.
“I’m sorry, Brian,” she said, once she had got her breath back, “but I don’t think that would be up to me. You’d really need to ask John about it. And Alan too – backstage admin is his department, not mine.”
“OK, sweetie pie. I’ll go and have a word with them. But if I do manage to swing it with them, you will look after him for me, won’t you?”
Sarah nodded noncommittally. As Brian flounced off towards where John and Alan were sitting, she realised that this had probably been the reason why he had bought her a drink in the first place. Brian never did anything without some kind of ulterior motive. By the time he reappeared a few minutes later, Sarah’s glass was empty.
“Another drink?”
“No thanks, Brian. I need to get going.” She stood up and reached for her coat. “Did you have any luck?”
“Yes, dah-ling, it’s all settled. So I can leave Martin in your capable hands on Saturday evening. Thank you SO much!”
Sarah had mixed feelings about having Martin left in her capable hands. She had plenty to think about as it was, without having the added complication of having to babysit Brian’s nephew. All the same, the brief conversation she’d had with him on Sunday afternoon had suggested that he seemed a pleasant enough chap. If she could find somewhere for him to sit where he wouldn’t be in anybody’s way, he shouldn’t be any trouble. Unlike his uncle, she thought, with a wry smile. All those Shakespearean performances. No wonder Brian was such a prima donna…


Now for that very special offer.  For this week only, the e-book of The Unkindest Cut of All is available for download for just 99p, or the equivalent in your own currency.  That’s considerably less than the price of a cup of arty-farty coffee.  Click here to be taken to the Amazon links for your own country.  Go on, friends, Romans and countrymen – what are you waiting for?