Author of Saxon historical fiction and non-fiction, 20th-century historical mysteries, and Norse-inspired historical romantasy. Book reviewer and blog host.
Author: MJ Porter, author
I'm an author of historical fiction (Early England/Viking and the British Isles as a whole before 1066, as well as five 20th-century mysteries), a non-fiction title about the royal women of tenth-century England, and historical fantasy.
When an anonymous letter is delivered to the Clarendon English Dictionary, it is rapidly clear that this is not the usual lexicographical enquiry. Instead, the letter hints at secrets and lies linked to a particular year.
For Martha Thornhill, the new senior editor, the date can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant older sister Charlie went missing. After a decade abroad, Martha has returned home to the city whose ancient institutions have long defined her family. Have the ghosts she left behind her been waiting for her return?
When more letters arrive, and Martha and her team pull apart the complex clues within them, the mystery becomes ever more insistent and troubling. It seems Charlie had been keeping a powerful secret, and someone is trying to lead the lexicographers towards the truth. But other forces are no less desperate to keep it well and truly buried.
Guilty by Definition rises above other celebrity mysteries by being excellent.
This story is well-plotted and well-devised, delightfully intermingled with snippets about the Clarendon Dictionary and the little foibles of the English language, and has a great storyline. It also offers a lovely conjuring of Oxford and the surrounding location—as well as some special Oxford-specific events.
Our four main characters are well-developed, and all have their secrets as they endeavour to solve the perplexing riddles and, in doing so, answer the questions surrounding Martha’s sister’s disappearance.
It is a complex mystery that is sure to appeal to fans of the genre and the English language. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but I loved it:)
I’m delighted to welcome Jennifer Ivy Walker and her new book, The Witch of the Brenton Woods, to the blog with the historical aspect of The Witch of the Brenton Woods.
Historical Aspect of The Witch of the Brenton Woods
I wanted the hero of my story to be an American paratrooper dropped into Normandy for the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, so I researched many of the different divisions of American servicemen during World War II. I selected the 507th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment), which was part of the 82nd Airborne Division, whose D-Day objective known as Mission Boston was to secure the Merderet River crossing in Normandy.
As I developed the historical fiction aspects of The Witch of the Breton Woods, I decided to have my fictional character, First Lieutenant Richard Zachford, be forced to make an emergency jump when his plane was shot down by German 88mm flak antiaircraft artillery guns. It was rewarding and challenging to weave together fictious characters who were part of the real 507th PI and weave them into the Battle of Saint-Malo, the culminating point of my novel.
I did extensive research about the Battle of Saint-Malo, a city in Bretagne (Brittany) that I had visited twice before as a high school French teacher taking my students on trips to France. When I discovered that a major focus of World War II had been The Battle of Brittany, I wove my fictional characters into the historical events which actually took place in the Battle of Saint-Malo, one of the crucial seaports that the Nazis controlled, which was deemed essential for the Allies to recapture.
Saint-Malo was one of the French towns designated as a fortress under Hitler’s Atlantic Wall program, and the Allies intended to capture the town so that its port could be used to land supplies and naval reinforcement. However, the Germans had covered the medieval castle into an underground fortress that was nearly impenetrable. When the Allies did successfully retake Saint-Malo, it had been so heavily damaged that it had been rendered unusable, and the courageous Malouins (the French name for the local inhabitants of Saint-Malo) slowly rebuilt their beloved city.
In writing The Witch of the Breton Woods, I wove together the events leading up to the surrender of the German Colonel Von Aulock (known as the Mad Colonel) on the 17th of August, 1944 and the surrender of the nearby German garrison of Cézembre on September 2nd. It was very challenging to entwine the plot development of my novel with the actual events which occurred between the D-Day landing of June 6th and the surrender of the Germans at Saint-Malo on September 2nd, 1944. I am very proud to have interwoven compelling historical fiction and thrilling romantic suspense in The Witch of the Breton Woods.
Blurb
Traumatized by horrors witnessed during the Nazi invasion of France, a young woman retreats to the dense Breton woods where she becomes a member of the clandestine French Resistance. When she finds a critically injured American paratrooper whose plane was shot down, she shelters the wounded soldier in her secluded cottage, determined to heal him despite the enormous risk.
Ostracized by villagers who have labeled her a witch, she is betrayed by an informant who reports to the Butcher—the monstrous leader of the local paramilitary organization that collaborates with the Germans. As the enemy closes in, she must elude the Gestapo while helping the Resistance reunite the American with his regiment and join the Allied Forces in the Battle of Brittany.
Can true love triumph against all odds under the oppressive Third Reich?
Jennifer Ivy Walker has an MA in French literature and is a former high school teacher and professor of French at a state college in Florida. Her novels encompass a love for French language, literature, history, and culture, incorporating her lifelong study, summers abroad, and many trips to France.
The Witch of the Breton Woods is heart-pounding suspense set during WWII in Nazi-occupied France, where a young woman in the French Resistance shelters and heals a wounded American soldier, hiding him from the Gestapo and the monstrous Butcher who are relentlessly hunting him.
I’m delighted to welcome Jennifer M. Lane and her new book, Downriver from The Poison River Series, to the blog with a guest post.
Guest Post
On the surface, Downriver, the first book in the Poison River series, is an extension of my lifelong interest in coming-of-age tales, where men and women unlock a part of themselves that allows them to move into a new phase of life. Though I believe we can “come of age” at many points, Charlotte and her friends are teenagers at the start of the series, fighting a battle much more formidable than their years.
The story is fictional, but the places are real, and the foundation on which the plot sits is based in the history of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal country.
The world Charlotte and her brother, Emmett, come from is tainted by the conflict between coal bosses and mine workers. It’s a history of rich versus poor, of immigrants with fewer protections being abused by a coordinated system of oppression.
Mine workers in this region in the nineteenth century were largely Irish immigrants, many of whom fled the potato famine and the corporatization of their food supply. As they fought back in Ireland and England, emigrees formed a group known as the Molly Maguires, coordinating increasingly violent uprisings against farmers who locked them out of land they once farmed and merchants who raised the rates on foods.
The Strike in The Coal Mines. Credit: Public Domain (prior to 1929)
In the United States, as Irish workers settled in anthracite country and took on mine work, they soon found themselves financially shackled to their new employer. Housing was taken from their pay along with fees for the town doctor. Their remaining income was paid in scrips—company coin that could only be spent in the overpriced company store. Their income rarely exceeded their bills. And the more they pushed for better conditions, the more the coal bosses fought back. Eventually, things turned violent.
No paper trail links the 1860s and 1870s violence and murders of coal bosses to a coordinated Molly Maguires group, but once slung, the moniker stuck. As the chasm between the miners and coal bosses widened, Frank Gowen convinced the State of Pennsylvania to allow the coal patch towns to hire their own private police force to combat the Mollies. The Coal and Iron Police was formed, then returned the miner’s fire.
Frank Gowen. Credit: Public Domain (prior to 1929)
This is the world of my fictional Frank Morris, Charlotte and Emmett’s father. The fictional man was a more public figure than the man who inspired him. Frank Morris wrote speeches that sparked an uprising before losing his life to poisoning. The real Jack Kehoe was hanged, accused of working quietly, leading a group of men who used violence and murder to punish coal bosses and intimidate their opposition.
Jack Kehoe. Credit: Public Domain (prior to 1929)
In retaliation, Frank Gowen hired a Philadelphia detective (Allan Pinkerton) to plant a spy within his worker’s ranks. That spy found himself regretfully entangled in violence he was accused of instigating before testifying against the miners in a case that was prosecuted by Gowen himself. The gross miscarriage of justice is considered one of the bleakest eras of the American justice system.
Readers will encounter more of this rich history in subsequent books in the series. Set a mere quarter century after twenty men were sentenced to hang for their role as Molly Maguires, Downriver draws largely on these political and worker tensions as background. The battle Charlotte and her friends wage is against a pollution that poisons the air and the water, sickening people in her hometown of Stoke and poisoning the fish in the Maryland foster village on the Chesapeake Bay.
Eckley Miner’s Village. Credit: CC BY-SA
As she battles her father’s coal boss from afar, Charlotte teams up with suffragists, her high school literary society, and a handsome young man who lost family to the poison, too.
Though the era of the American Revolution is my favorite, writing Downriver has given me a chance to merge the historical settings of my Chesapeake Bay hometown and my partner’s in the Poconos outside Eckley Miner’s Village. Visitors to their museum can enjoy the history and structures such as houses and the coal breaker that was constructed for the 1970s film The Molly Maguires.
Blurb
A sulfur sky poisoned her family and her heart. Now revenge tastes sweeter than justice.
It’s 1900. In a Pennsylvania coal town tainted by corruption and pollution, Charlotte’s world collapses when her parents meet a tragic end. Sent to a foster family in a Maryland fishing village, she’s fueled by grief and embarks on a relentless quest for justice against the ruthless coal boss, Nels Pritchard.
But Charlotte is no ordinary girl. She shares the fiery spirit of her father, whose powerful speeches inspired worker riots. With a burning desire for vengeance, she sets out to uncover the truth behind Pritchard’s crimes, unearthing a shocking connection between the town’s toxic air and the lifeless fish washing up on the shore of her Chesapeake Bay foster town.
To expose the truth, Charlotte builds a network of unexpected allies. There are gutsy suffragists, a literary society of teenage girls willing to print the truth… and Weylan. The captivating young man lost his own family to Pritchard’s poison. He offers support, but Charlotte questions his true motives when he lures her to break the law. Could she be falling into a dangerous trap, leading her to a fate worse than poison?
With her unwavering spirit and determination, Charlotte must forge alliances and navigate a web of treachery before Pritchard seeks his own ruthless revenge.
The newest book by award-winning author Jennifer M. Lane is perfect for fans of Jeannette Walls’ Hang the Moon and the fiery protagonist in The Hunger Games. Join Charlotte in this small town, coming-of-age dystopian historical saga as she finds resilience, courage, and triumph in her search for identity, independence, and her true home.
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited
Meet the Author
A Maryland native and Pennsylvanian at heart, Jennifer M. Lane holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Barton College and a master’s in liberal arts with a focus on museum studies from the University of Delaware, where she wrote her thesis on the material culture of roadside memorials.
Jennifer is a member of the Authors Guild and the Historical Novel Society. Her first book, Of Metal and Earth, won the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel and was a Finalist in the 2018 IAN Book of the Year Awards in the category of Literary / General Fiction. She is also the author of Stick Figures from Rockport, and the six book series, The Collected Stories of Ramsbolt.
Now we’ve reached the end, it’s time to go back to the beginning
If you’ve not yet had enough of the characters from The Brunanburh Series, then I have good news for you. I wrote a prequel short story from Athelstan’s point of view, and you can download it for free following this link below. You do have to give your email details and sign up for my Boldwood Books newsletters, but they are not at all aggressive with their marketing (I know – I follow myself to make sure) and you will hear from them only about new releases and book related news. And you get a free prequel short story via Bookfunnel. What’s not to love:)
Being a book reviewer is really hard work. I know because I do it myself. And so, I want to give a huge thank you to the book reviewers and bloggers who have helped launched Kings of Conflict throughout the last week, and to Rachel who organises them. (And also to my personal Street Team who are fabulous and so committed.) Everyone thinks that book reviewing must be great because you get to read books before everyone else, (and they’re free) but that overlooks the time and energy it takes to read and review every book and then make them look fancy on the internet. It can be very hard to juggle deadlines and then sometimes, you just don’t gell with a book/character and so, it’s not all free books and leisurely afternoons reading with a coffee (or beverage of choice). It can feel quite pressured. There is an overwhelming urge to want to help an author do really well with every new release. So, a huge thank you to these wonderful people, many of whom I have come to know really well, and I am so grateful to them. (You can check out the highlights from their reviews below – and you can also find the full reviews by typing their names in your search engine).
Then pick up the free prequel story, and you can read book 1, King of Kings, free with Prime Reading and it’s also in Kindle Unlimited. The first chapter recreates King Athelstan’s coronation ceremony, and then the politics and chaos descends. Enjoy.
In Regency England, twenty-seven-year-old Leonora Appleby is considered by many – herself included – to be beyond her most eligible marrying years. With her childhood home, Hasterleigh Manor, soon to be taken over by the heir to the land, George Lockwood, Leonora has happily resigned herself to a quiet life as a country Miss.
But life has a way of springing surprises and the return of the brooding war hero Earl Rokeby, presumed dead on the French battlefields, to the magnificent neighbouring Rokeby Abbey has the village atwitter with speculation. Earl Rokeby has returned, scarred in mind and body, with news for Leonora’s best friend Charlotte Blythe – news that will change everything.
Now Charlotte and Leonora must travel to Town for the Season and take their futures and fate into their own hands in the whirl of balls, parties and gossip. But will either of them return to Hasterleigh with a husband and a fortune, and what other secrets does the devastatingly dashing Alistair Rokeby have up his silken sleeves…
Sunday Times bestselling author Jane Dunn brings the Regency period irresistibly to life. Perfect for fans of Jane Austen, Janice Hadlow, Gill Hornby, and anyone with a Bridgerton-shaped hole in their lives.
I’ve read all of Jane Dunn’s Regency romances to date, and they are all fabulous. A Lady’s Fortune is a delightful addition to her books.
Our two main characters, Leonora and Charlotte, are refreshing in their outlook on life. Leonora is happy with her rural existence, while Charlotte expects little because the nature of her birth is a mystery. Both women flourish outside the constraints of the expectation of a London season, but are to be plunged into it, eventually, for much of this book takes place in their rural idyll, where our author is able to draw on her love of gardening and the outdoors (I follow her on X) to enrich the storyline – and this is coming from someone who can just about name a daffodil or a rose.
What I loved about this book is that we, the reader, really do know much of what will happen, but it unfolds in the delightful and charming way that Regency romances should – I read the last 30% in one sitting, unable to put it down.
Leonora, Charlotte, Earl Rokesby and George Lockwood will surely delight readers of the genre. 5 stars from me.
Meet the author
Jane Dunn is an historian and biographer and the author of seven acclaimed biographies, including Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters and the Sunday Times and NYT bestseller, Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens. She lives in Berkshire with her husband, the linguist Nicholas Ostler.
