I’m really excited to review Death at the Mint by Christine Hancock. Christine writes the Byrhtnoth Chronicles set in the middle of the tenth century, but in Death at the Mint, she’s taken one of our favourite characters and allowed him to solve an intriguing mystery.
Here’s the blurb
“When Wulfstan swore revenge on his enemy, he expected to die. Now that man is dead. Far to the south, another body is found in an Essex wood. Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury is concerned. The victim ran the mint. Is the king’s coinage in danger of corruption? Dunstan sends Wulfstan to Maldon to investigate. Can Wulfstan discover the truth? Is there a connection with his own past? Having lost everything he held dear; can he learn to live again?”
“Finally, Wulfstan – my favourite character in the Byrhtnoth Chronicles – has been given his own story. Read and enjoy!” Ruth Downie, author of the Gaius Petreius Ruso Mysteries.
My Review
I was lucky enough to get to read an early draft of Death at the Mint, and also the finished product. Firstly, an assurance, yes, Wulfstan is a character from the previous books but if you haven’t read them (which you might want to do after this one) it won’t detract from your enjoyment. Not at all. This is an excellent standalone Saxon mystery.
Wulfstan, his hound and his horse make an intriguing team, and what I particularly enjoyed was the reimagining of life in a Saxon settlement. This is something I’ve always been a bit terrified of doing in my own books, and Christine Hancock does it incredibly well. Added to which, the mystery will really draw you in.
This was a wonderful book, the mystery has a satisfying ending, which I don’t think readers will guess.
Today I’m delighted to welcome Mercedes Rochelle to the blog with a fantastic post about her new book, The Usurper King.
Your book, Usurper King, is my sort of historical fiction book, offering a retelling of the past, with people who existed and lived, and caused themselves all sorts of problems. As a historian first and foremost, and then a writer, I’m always interested in how people research their historical stories.
Can you explain your research process to me, and give an idea of the resources that you rely on the most (other than your imagination, of course) to bring your historical landscape to life?
Do you have a ‘go’ to book/resource that you couldn’t write without having to hand, and if so, what is it (if you don’t mind sharing)?
Thank you for hosting me on your blog! Oh, yes, research is my favorite thing. I couldn’t imagine writing any other type of book, since research is such a big part of the process for me. In fact, I’m always sorry when I do have to rely on my imagination, because the “real” history always seems more interesting to me. To repeat a well-worn phrase, “you just can’t make this stuff up”. History never ceases to amaze me.
Back in the days of my 11th century work, I started writing about ten years before the internet was a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye. If the local library didn’t have a book, as far as I was concerned it didn’t exist. That’s one of the major reasons I moved to New York in my mid-20s. The New York Public Library was a treasure trove. I also remember my first trip to England; back then, used bookstores still had plenty of old hardbacks and in Hay-On-Wye I discovered the full 6-volume set of Edward A. Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest of England. Who cares that they weighed a hundred pounds? (Well, by the time I bought all the other books my suitcase probably weighed that much.) This is in the days before they had wheels on suitcases! But I digress. That set was truly my go-to source for all my novels of the period. Of course I eventually supplemented them with more modern scholars, but I never found a historian with more exhaustive knowledge.
That is, until I jumped forward 300 years. Now my exhaustive historian is James Hamilton Wylie, with four books on Henry IV and three books on Henry V (vols. 2 & 3 published posthumously). Wow. But try finding him! The best you can get is a poor scanned copy, or an even poorer printed copy of the scan.
When I moved from Harold Godwineson to Richard II, I had to start all over again with my research. It took me a year of daily reading before I even began writing about Richard II. I’ve learned that the fat books (in page-length) are the best starting points. They give us a broad brush-stroke (like a landscape painting) and create the structure for the story. The huge books tend to be sparse on details. Then I slowly get more specific, finding books that are more focused on a particular topic.
By the time I delve into academic articles, I am ready to sort out the fine details of a scene. I learned to pay close attention to footnotes; this is where I find most of my articles. These treatises are specific to a particular subject, so the author puts every bit of knowledge into an event (including all contradictory source material). For instance, in my last book, THE KING’S RETRIBUTION, I had to tackle the death of the Duke of Gloucester before the 1397 Revenge Parliament. As is usually the case, historians were all over the place trying to decide what happened (at the time, it was a well-kept secret). Thank goodness for Professor James Tait. He wrote an article, DID RICHARD II MURDER THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER? in which he gave us the most detailed description of this whole episode, tracking all the dates and highlighting the missing passages in Gloucester’s written confession. As far as I can tell, this is still the most definitive argument on the subject, and he concluded that Richard was guilty as charged. I probably read that article a dozen times before I wrote the scene.
If I’m lucky, I often find these articles online. JSTOR.org is a fabulous source; I pay $10 per month for a subscription and it’s well worth it. Sometimes I have to pay for the article. Otherwise, they might be bound in a compilation such as Fourteenth Century Studies or The Fifteenth Century (in fifteen volumes) and can’t be had elsewhere. These can get very expensive, and alas, sometimes each volume only has one or two articles I need. If I’m desperate enough, I’ll bite the proverbial bullet and hope they will provide more help in future projects!
So over the course of a novel, I usually consume well over 30 history books and fill two loose-leaf binders full of articles. After I’ve run my course, I go back to the beginning and re-read much of the material to pick up stuff I missed the first time through. You just can’t absorb it all when it’s new. The reading never stops while I’m writing; occasionally I’ll be able to insert something in my editing phase. Unfortunately, I never learned Latin so I can’t go to the source material (if it’s even accessible to non-scholars). But I’ve found that the important stuff is repeated in secondary sources anyway, which frankly is the bulk of what I would need for a work of fiction.
Each century has its definitive scholars. In late 14th-early 15th century England you absolutely must read Kenneth McFarlane; he opened up new scholarship on the period in the 40s and 50s. My favorite historian is Chris Given-Wilson, who did write a “fat” book about Henry IV. He also gives great background on the royal household and English nobility. Without the background, the history will fall flat.
Needless to say, if I’m not enamoured with a subject, I’m not likely to write a novel about it. I would say I’m spending an average of two years thinking about and writing each book; with a series, I’m already researching one or even two books ahead. It helps foreshadow certain events. When I get to the end of a series, it’s like falling off a cliff!
Henry Bolingbroke with Richard II at Flint Castle, Harley MS 1319, British Library (Wikipedia)
Coronation of Henry IV, Harley MS 4380, F.186V, British Library (Wikimedia)
Thank you so much for such a fascinating post. Good luck with the new book.
Here’s the blurb;
From Outlaw to Usurper, Henry Bolingbroke fought one rebellion after another.
First, he led his own uprising. Gathering support the day he returned from exile, Henry marched across the country and vanquished the forsaken Richard II. Little did he realize that his problems were only just beginning. How does a usurper prove his legitimacy? What to do with the deposed king? Only three months after he took the crown, Henry IV had to face a rebellion led by Richard’s disgruntled favorites. Worse yet, he was harassed by rumors of Richard’s return to claim the throne. His own supporters were turning against him. How to control the overweening Percies, who were already demanding more than he could give? What to do with the rebellious Welsh? After only three years, the horrific Battle of Shrewsbury nearly cost him the throne—and his life. It didn’t take long for Henry to discover that that having the kingship was much less rewarding than striving for it.
Mercedes Rochelle is an ardent lover of medieval history, and has channeled this interest into fiction writing. Her first four books cover eleventh-century Britain and events surrounding the Norman Conquest of England. The next series is called The Plantagenet Legacy about the struggles and abdication of Richard II, leading to the troubled reigns of the Lancastrian Kings. She also writes a blog: HistoricalBritainBlog.com to explore the history behind the story. Born in St. Louis, MO, she received by BA in Literature at the Univ. of Missouri St.Louis in 1979 then moved to New York in 1982 while in her mid-20s to “see the world”. The search hasn’t ended! Today she lives in Sergeantsville, NJ with her husband in a log home they had built themselves.
‘Britain is a land riven by anarchy, slaughter, famine, filth and darkness. Its armies are destroyed, its heroes dead, or missing. Arthur and Lancelot fell in the last great battle and Merlin has not been these past ten years. But in a small, isolated monastery in the west of England, a young boy is suddenly plucked from his simple existence by the ageing warrior, Gawain. It seems he must come to terms with his legacy and fate as the son of the most celebrated yet most infamous of Arthur’s warriors: Lancelot. For this is the story of Galahad, Lancelot’s son – the reluctant warrior who dared to keep the dream of Camelot alive.’
My Review
I’ve just reread the review I wrote for Lancelot nearly two years ago, and even I’m blushing about how effusive I was about it!
Camelot begins in much the same way. The lead character is a young man, about to take his vows to become a monk on the tor at Glastonbury when his world completely changes. The depiction of life on the tor is wonderfully evoked, and even if the author could have just written ‘bird’ ‘tree’ and ‘flower’ I’m sure many will appreciate the attention to detail. (I’ve never been ‘at one’ with nature).
The story starts quite slowly, drawing you back into the world of post-Roman/pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain with deft skill and then the story truly begins to take shape, secrets are revealed, and the ties to the previous book begin to be revealed.
I truly don’t want to give too much of the story away, but the ‘quest’, for that is what it becomes, takes readers from Cornwall to Anglesey and then further, the fear of what is to come in the future a palpable threat and even though we all know what’s going to happen, in the end (outside the scope of the book) I couldn’t help but hope that it would all be very, very different. The characters demand it from the reader.
And the end, is once more, where I have some small complaints about the story. It’s not that it doesn’t do what I want it to do, it’s just that the ending seems wrong for the story, but then, perhaps, it was always going to because that is the legend of Arthur.
But before that ending, the legends of Arthur and his knights are beautifully evoked, and I think a particular strength is the depiction of King Constantine, a bit part character, but immensely powerful and the very embodiment of a land falling to chaos all around him, and yet not prepared to give way and accept what seems to be the inevitable.
This book, once more, has its flaws, some scenes seem unnecessary, and others are skipped over too quickly, but it feels so true to the legends. There’s so much that’s only half-seen, hinted at but never actually known.
A welcome return to Giles Kristian’s ‘world’ first created in Lancelot, and, I think the author notes at the end of the novel explain a great deal. Now, give me the story of Arthur and his knights at the height of their prowess (please!).
Today I’m delighted to welcome Eric Schumacher to the blog with a fantastic post about his new book (available for preorder now) Sigurd’s Swords.
Your book, Sigurd’s Sword, is set in a time period I love, but I don’t know as much about events in the land of the Rus as I’d like, or about Olaf Tryggvason’s early years. As a historian first and foremost, and then a writer, I’m always interested in how people research their historical stories.
Can you explain your research process to me, and give an idea of the resources that you rely on the most (other than your imagination, of course) to bring your historical landscape to life?
First of all, thank you for having me on your wonderful blog and for your interest in Sigurd’s Swords.
My research isn’t as much of a process as it is a series of rabbit holes that I tend to climb down to gather information that I then convert to notes. I keep those notes in the writing program I use so that I can refer to them often as I write. That said, I often go back to the original sources for more information or for clarity.
It is a bit tricky writing about Vikings, because they did not chronicle their events in writing. There’s was an oral culture. So what information we have comes from outside sources, and usually from sources who wrote their works decades or even centuries after the people lived and the events occurred. Thanks to the Byzantines, Sigurd’s Swords is the only book I have written that actually had a contemporary writer who chronicled some of the events in the book.
Do you have a ‘go’ to book/resource that you couldn’t write without having to hand, and if so, what is it (if you don’t mind sharing)?
Yes! I usually start in the same place for all of my books. That place is the sagas, and in particular, Snorre Sturlason’s Heimskringla, or “The Lives of the Norse Kings.” That provides me with the guardrails and the general outline of the story. However, Snorre wrote his series of tales centuries after my character Olaf lived, so I cannot rely on him 100% for the details of my books. Nor does he get into the minutiae that help add flavour and depth to the story, such as weaponry, fighting styles, flora and fauna, food and beverages, the types of dwellings that existed, and so on. For those things, I rely more on individual books or research papers I find online.
In the case of Olaf and his time in Kievan Rus’, I also turned to other sources that I found. The Russian Primary Chronicle, to which I found a reference on Wikipedia, was a tremendous help. Like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it is broken down by year, so it provided me with a better sense of the timing of events and what events my characters may have experienced during their time in that kingdom. That, in turn, led me to other sources for more detailed descriptions of those events. The Byznatines were a great help for this. Civil servant John Sylitzes wrote his “A Synopsis of Byzantine History” in AD 1081, which covered the Siege of Drastar I have in my novel. Leo the Deacon, who was at the siege, also wrote about it in his Historia. The foreign policy of the Byzantines is described in The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, and was also helpful to provide larger context for why certain events might have unfolded the way they did, such as the Siege of Kyiv in AD 968. Having these sources also provided a secondary verification of the timing of things.
All that said, there was still much I could not unearth about the Rus or Olaf during that time. So I tried to fill in the gaps with plausible plotlines and information based on the research I could find. I hope it all comes together in an enjoyable story for your readers!
Thank you so much for sharing your research with me. It sounds fascinating, and I will have to hunt some of it down. Good luck with the new book.
Here’s the blurb;
From best-selling historical fiction novelist, Eric Schumacher, comes the second volume in Olaf’s Saga: the adrenaline-charged story of Olaf Tryggvason and his adventures in the kingdom of the Rus.
AD 968. It has been ten summers since the noble sons of the North, Olaf and Torgil, were driven from their homeland by the treachery of the Norse king, Harald Eriksson. Having then escaped the horrors of slavery in Estland, they now fight among the Rus in the company of Olaf’s uncle, Sigurd.
It will be some of the bloodiest years in Rus history. The Grand Prince, Sviatoslav, is hungry for land, riches, and power, but his unending campaigns are leaving the corpses of thousands in their wakes. From the siege of Konugard to the battlefields of ancient Bulgaria, Olaf and Torgil struggle to stay alive in Sigurd’s Swords, the riveting sequel to Forged by Iron.
Eric Schumacher (1968 – ) is an American historical novelist who currently resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife and two children. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and attended college at the University of San Diego.
At a very early age, Schumacher discovered his love for writing and medieval European history, as well as authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Those discoveries continue to fuel his imagination and influence the stories he tells. His first novel, God’s Hammer, was published in 2005.
London, 1896. Madame Tussauds opens to find one of its nightwatchmen decapitated and his colleague nowhere to be found. To the police, the case seems simple: one killed the other and fled, but workers at the museum aren’t convinced. Although forbidden contact by his superior officer, Scotland Yard detective John Feather secretly enlists ‘The Museum Detectives’ Daniel Wilson and Abigail Fenton to aid the police investigation.
When the body of the missing nightwatchman is discovered encased within a wax figure, the case suddenly becomes more complex. With questions over rival museums, the dead men’s pasts and a series of bank raids plaguing the city, Wilson and Fenton face their most intriguing and dangerous case yet.
My Review
Murder at Madame Tussauds is the first of Jim Eldridge’s Museum Detective series, but it won’t be the last.
This is a very evocative portrayal of late Victorian London, complete with Hansoms and fog, and a terrible crime that needs solving.
A thoroughly enjoyable read with a fantastic conclusion.
The great warrior, Einar Unnsson, wants revenge. His mother’s assassin has stolen her severed head and Einar is hungry for his blood. Only one thing holds him back. He is a newly sworn in Wolf Coat, and must accompany them on their latest quest.
The Wolf Coats are a band of fearsome bloodthirsty warriors, who roam the seas, killing any enemies who get in their way. Now they’re determined to destroy their biggest enemy, King Eirik, as he attempts to take the throne of Norway.
Yet, for Einar, the urge to return to Iceland is growing every day. Only there, in his homeland, can he avenge his mother and salve his grief. But what Einar doesn’t know is that this is where an old enemy lurks, and his thirst for vengeance equals Einar’s…
Read Tim Hodkinson’s newest epic Viking adventure.
Here’s my review
The Serpent King by Tim Hodkinson is the fourth instalment in The Whale Road Chronicles, reuniting readers with Einar and the rest of the Wolf Coats.
It is an energetic and fast-paced jaunt through the sea kingdoms of Norway, the Scottish islands, and Iceland, and although we don’t go to Ireland, it’s never far from the characters’ thoughts.
I love this series because the author twists his story through the ‘known facts’ of the time period. I know what’s coming, and many others will also know what’s coming in future books, but the joy is in how we get there.
About the author
Tim Hodkinson was born in 1971 in Northern Ireland. He studied Medieval English and Old Norse Literature at University with a subsidiary in Medieval European History. He has been writing all his life and has a strong interest in the historical, the mystical and the mysterious. After spending several happy years living in New Hampshire, USA, he has now returned to life in Northern Ireland with his wife Trudy and three lovely daughters in a village called Moira.
Tim is currently working on a series of viking novels for Ares Fiction, an imprint of Head of Zeus.
The Dacian kingdom and Rome are at peace, but no one thinks that it will last. Sent to command an isolated fort beyond the Danube, centurion Flavius Ferox can sense that war is coming, but also knows that enemies may be closer to home.
Many of the Brigantes under his command are former rebels and convicts, as likely to kill him as obey an order. And then there is Hadrian, the emperor’s cousin, and a man with plans of his own…
Gritty, gripping and profoundly authentic, The Fort is the first book in a brand new trilogy set in the Roman empire from bestselling historian Adrian Goldsworthy.
The Fort by Adrian Goldsworthy is good ‘Roman’ era fiction.
Set in Dacia in AD105, it is the story of ‘The Fort’ under the command of Flavius Ferox, a character some will know from Goldsworthy’s previous trilogy that began with Vindolanda.
Mistakenly thinking this was an entirely new trilogy with all new characters, it took me a while to get into the story. Everyone seemed to know everyone else apart from me. But Ferox is a good character, and he grounded me to what was happening in the immediate vicinity of the Fort, and apart from once or twice, it didn’t really matter what had gone before.
This is a story of suspicions, ambition and lies, and it rumbles along at a good old pace. This isn’t the story of one battle, but rather many, a slow attrition against the Romans by the Dacians.
Overall, this was an enjoyable novel, and some of the fighting scenes were especially exciting. Those with an interest in Roman war craft will especially enjoy it, although, I confess, I don’t know my spatha from my pilum (there is a glossary, fellow readers, so do not fear.)
About the author
Adrian Goldsworthy has a doctorate from Oxford University. His first book, THE ROMAN ARMY AT WAR was recognised by John Keegan as an exceptionally impressive work, original in treatment and impressive in style. He has gone on to write several other books, including THE FALL OF THE WEST, CAESAR, IN THE NAME OF ROME, CANNAE and ROMAN WARFARE, which have sold more than a quarter of a million copies and been translated into more than a dozen languages. A full-time author, he regularly contributes to TV documentaries on Roman themes.
Adrian Goldsworthy , Author , Broadcaster , Historical consultant .
Today, I’m excited to share a post from Clare Flynn about the research she undertook when writing Sisters At War, and the particular resources she relied on.
Thanks for hosting me on your blog today.
You asked me to talk about my research methodology. I hesitate to use the word methodology as that implies I have a strict disciplined and systematic approach, whereas mine tends to be more exploratory and often serendipitous. It seems I’m the opposite to you, MJ, I’m a writer first and then a historian.
I usually start with a big pile of books to read around the subject. While I mostly read fiction on an e-reader, all my non-fiction research books have to be physical copies. I don’t necessarily read everything cover-to-cover although sometimes I do if it warrants it. I tend to begin like a magpie hopping around and grasping things, then I turn into a rabbit and disappear down the research hole!
For Sisters at War I read a wide range of books – about the merchant navy in general and during World War 2 in particular, about the Liverpool Blitz, general background on the war, on the Wrens, on life on the home front, on the rounding up of Italian “aliens”, etc. I visited Liverpool and bagged a pile of Blitz books – including photographic books from the Museum of Liverpool. The latter – which I visited before I started writing the book – also had an excellent photographic exhibition of the Merseyside Blitz with memories of those there. I often find images more helpful than words in creating a believeable canvas on which to paint my story.
REFERENCE BOOKS AND MAPS (author’s own)
A sense of place is very important to me. I was born in Liverpool ten years after the end of the war, then left as a child, and the war changed the cityscape dramatically. I ended up buying about a dozen street maps from pre-war to cover the entire area in detail – I have a bit of a thing for maps and even if I don’t always use actual place names or street names I like to place them exactly. I also look at public transport timetables, and bus routes. I also have detailed maps of the Liverpool docks before and during the war.
Sadly, everyone in my family who was around in the war is now dead, but I drew on what I remembered from my mother’s stories of her childhood – and read accounts in the Museum of Liverpool and listened to testimonies online.
I do a lot of online research. Unable to visit Liverpool again while writing the book, I discovered the excellent website for the Western Approaches museum. I was able to wander freely around this underground rabbit warren using the excellent virtual tour – almost as good as being there and without stairs to climb! Western Approaches is a giant underground bunker under the streets of Liverpool and was the nerve centre of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Western Approaches Map Room with permission of photographer, Mark Carline
To immerse myself in the period I also use music – I listen to songs that were popular at the time, films – I’ve always been a fan of old black & white movies and grew up on a diet of old war films, fashions – I have various books on period fashion and supplement them with online research – Pinterest is often a treasure trove as are old sewing patterns.
Part of the book is set in Australia – in Tatura in Victoria where there was an internment camp for civilian enemy aliens shipped out there by Britain, and a little bit in Sydney. I lived briefly in Sydney so had my own memories to draw on, backed up with online research and Google Earth. I’ve never been to Tatura (a bit of a one-horse town) but the family of my brother’s wife come from nearby Mooropna and I was able to check if I had my impressions of the scenery right – again supplemented with online research. I found a video on YouTube of a train journey between Melbourne and Sydney – edited down to two hours so I was able to experience the scenery for real! I also did a lot of digging to make sure I was having my ships dock at the right quay in Melbourne and again looked at old YouTube videos and maps.
I chanced upon the tragic stories of the Italian ‘aliens’ and their experiences on the two ships, the Arandora Star and the Dunera while reading about Italians in Britain in WW2. That led me to lots more online research – including videoed testimonies from the surviving ‘Dunera Boys’ recorded in the 1980s-90s.
HMT DUNERA IN 1940 – credit Australian War Museum, public domain
While I read, watch, look and listen, I take notes in longhand. I have a dedicated notebook for each novel and go back and highlight the areas I want to include and cross things out once I have used them. I do far more research than I include in any given book and try to wear the research lightly. There is nothing worse than reading novels where you feel you are sitting in a lecture hall as the author displays all their knowledge in front of you. The research is there to serve the story not the other way round. And a lot of research is not used at all – it’s fact checking, making sure dates are correct, checking the tiny details that add flavour and colour, and making sure no anachronisms creep in – particularly in speech. I also try to check every historical reference as often we can make erroneous assumptions. An example – I have a character listening to one of Churchill’s famous speeches on the wireless – the one at the time of Dunkirk – and had assumed the broadcast was the one we are familiar with now with Churchill’s stirring rendition. In fact it was not! When that speech was first brodacast it was read by a BBC announcer. It was only later that Churchill recorded himself for rebroadcasting. That meant I needed to rewrite that scene.
You asked what draws me to ‘play with the facts’ but as I don’t write biographical fiction, I don’t see it as playing with facts. All my characters are fictitious – although their experiences draw on my discoveries about real people’s similar ones in wartime. My characters are also ‘ordinary people’ so the historical facts are dates, times and locations of bombs, etc – all of which form the hard scaffolding on which I hang my entirely fictitious story. I am meticulous about repecting the history.
My approach to research is more as a creative exercise. I’m not someone who locks themselves away in a library for months before they begin writing. I do some reading in advance but for the most part I dip in and out, moving between writing the book and reading around the subject. Frequently, something that crops up in my research feeds the story and takes it in a direction I had not anticipated before starting – so it is a huge aid to creativity. For example I had not planned to write about the experience of Italian aliens – but once I discovered their dramatic and often tragic stories I had to bring back Paolo Tornabene – a minor character in Storms Gather Between Us – and give him a significant role in Sisters at War. As you will have gathered by now, I am not a planner – my stories evolve as I write and research them.
I hope this has given you some insight into how I work and thank you very much, MJ, for giving me the chance to share it.
Thank you so much for sharing your research with me. It’s always so fascinating to discover how authors go about creating their stories. I’m not one for much planning either. The story comes to me as I write and research. Good luck with Sisters At War.
Here’s the blurb:
1940 Liverpool. The pressures of war threaten to tear apart two sisters traumatised by their father’s murder of their mother.
With her new husband, Will, a merchant seaman, deployed on dangerous Atlantic convoy missions, Hannah needs her younger sister Judith more than ever. But when Mussolini declares war on Britain, Judith’s Italian sweetheart, Paolo is imprisoned as an enemy alien, and Judith’s loyalties are divided.
Each sister wants only to be with the man she loves but, as the war progresses, tensions between them boil over, and they face an impossible decision.
A heart-wrenching page-turner about the everyday bravery of ordinary people during wartime. From heavily blitzed Liverpool to the terrors of the North Atlantic and the scorched plains of Australia, Sisters at War will bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart.
Clare Flynn is the author of thirteen historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former International Marketing Director and strategic management consultant, she is now a full-time writer.
Having lived and worked in London, Paris, Brussels, Milan and Sydney, home is now on the coast, in Sussex, England, where she can watch the sea from her windows. An avid traveler, her books are often set in exotic locations.
Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, ALLi, and the Romantic Novelists Association. When not writing, she loves to read, quilt, paint and play the piano.
Today I’m delighted to welcome Tim Standish to the blog with a fascinating post about his alternative historical fiction novel, The Sterling Directive.
Weaving with history: developing an alternative Victorian world for The Sterling Directive
A question that I get asked a lot by people when they first read The Sterling Directive is why write an alternative-history rather than a straight history novel? The simple answer is that it’s a genre that has always interested me. I loved the ‘Future Shock’ stories in the comic 2000AD that I read growing up and novels like Fatherland by Robert Harris as well as counterfactual exploration of the more serious kind, for example in the excellent ‘What if?’ series of historical essays.
The first inkling I had of The Sterling Directive, and long before I even knew I was writing a novel, was an idea for a scene of two men duelling on a late Victorian station platform. By then I had come across, and was greatly enjoying, the burgeoning genre of steampunk – its blend of geeky scifi and Victorian society really struck a chord with me and infused this scene from the beginning.
Several years later, when I began to write in earnest, I was consciously sitting down to write an alt-historical novel of the kind that I would enjoy reading – probably a thriller, definitely story-led and in a world that was a recognisable alternative not too far from our own world.
I wanted to create an alternative history that that supported the story rather than driving the story, one that was alternative but alternative ‘in the background’, as part of a believable world that had evolved organically away from actual history. The science fiction writer William Gibson was a big influence on this choice, as he does a great job of revealing a dystopian future as a world that seems as natural to me as a reader as it does to the characters within it, for example in his novels Count Zero or Virtual Light.
I had read enough Victorian-set fiction, as well as works in the expanding alt-Victorian genre, to have a broad sense of the setting. However, while existing knowledge was enough to get me started, I realised pretty quickly that there would be an ongoing list of research questions large and small that I would need to answer along the way. These ranged from the micro ‘what would an evening gown look like in 1896’ to the macro ‘How might the Confederate States have won the American Civil War?’.
For very specific questions my first port of call was the internet. Given the wider fascination with the Victorian and Edwardian eras, I soon discovered there is a wealth of information to be found on sites ranging from personal blogs to academic research centres. The online catalogues of museums and auction galleries were also a boon when it came to furniture, and other odds and ends for set dressing. From time to time my searching for one thing accidentally led me to something else – the Stirn Waistcoat Camera was one such item that provided a helpful boost to a particular aspect of the plot.
Social media is also a superb resource for this sort of thing, for example @WikiVictorian on Twitter and @millywdresshistorian on Instagram whose eclectically curated photos are a great source of creative sparks.
The broader questions that needed answering inevitably involved some more in-depth research.
In The Sterling Directive’s world Babbage’s Difference Engine has given rise to a late Victorian computer age. This is a familiar theme in alt-Victorian fiction, though one that I wanted to firmly root in reality. Tom Standage’s The Victorian Internet, exploring the early use of the telegraph and drawing similes to the early internet provided an excellent starting point and something that I returned to time and again. Another is Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age by Mike Hally. Kevin Mitnick’s books describing his experiences as a hacker in the early days of computing were also a great source of anecdotes and personalities.
In terms of the people and politics of Victorian society, I started with Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians and read out from there. I also went to a Victorian History symposium at the V&A and the associated book, The Victorian Visionprovided another good jumping off point. Donald Thomas’ The Victorian Underworld was another, as was Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.
Probably because it has always interested me, and because it is the centre of the protagonist’s world in The Sterling Directive, I did quite a lot of reading into the early days of espionage. Christopher Andrew’s histories of MI6 and MI5 were early influences, particularly the descriptions of the Topographical and Statistical Department which inspired shady off-book agency The Map Room and their governmental antagonists The Bureau of Engine Security in The Sterling Directive. Michael Smith’s The Spying Game was another key source as was John Hughues-Wilson’s The Puppet Masters, a world history of spying.
Image by T Standish
Finally, one key source for everything and anything was my brother. Far more widely read than myself, and with a background in antiquarian books, his encyclopaedic knowledge was invaluable at various stages, from pointing out that a song a character was singing hadn’t been written yet, to recommending books.
Hopefully that gives you a sense of where the historical aspects of The Sterling Directive came from, but what about the ‘alternative’ part? Having already decided that I wanted something less divergent and fantastical, it struck me that it would be helpful to set a broad frame and to have some rules of thumb in place.
In terms of a frame, I used Charles Babbage’s invention of the Difference and Analytical Engines as a point of divergence; in my timeline the Engines were actually a success and kick-started a Victorian computer age. It’s a relatively common notion in ‘steampunk’ fiction which can lead to wildly differing and often fantastical versions of history.
I wanted to plot a more organic evolution from this starting point. My first bit of reasoning was that the development of Babbage’s Engines would lead to domestic computers for richer households by 1896 (when The Sterling Directive is set). I saw this as broadly analogous to the time elapsed between the use of the Bletchley Park ‘bombes’ in the second world war and the spread of basic personal computers at home in the mid to late 1980s and early 90s. That time period became my overall benchmark for computing technology and its likely impact on a Victorian world.
Using this as a broad frame I also developed some principles or rules of thumb to judge alternative ideas ‘out’ or ‘in’:
Access to computing power means calculations and hence research can be accelerated and that new technologies can emerge 15-20 years early. For example: airships are commonplace.
Inventions and ideas that existed but at the fringe can become more mainstream. For example: a mechanised version of Bertillon’s measurement system is the default means of identifying people.
Wider use of technology will have a destabilising impact on broader societal norms. For example: Suffragettes are an active lobbying group in the 1890s.
Rules are breakable if doing so a) serves the plot or b) is cool. For example: transport devices used in Chapter 20, details of which would be a spoiler!
Some of the changes I introduced were based on outliers from real history, or by introducing them earlier than in reality. For instance, I decided that Brunel’s wide-gauge railways were a commercial and UK-wide success (and, crucially for one scene, allowed the heroes to have a game of billiards as they travelled).
Some changes were a product of transposing an approximation of the 1980s into an approximation of the 1890s and were often in the background. One of my favourites was based on the Hard Rock café style of themed restaurants that I remember being quite the thing in the 1980s. I wondered what a Victorian version of this would be like and had the idea of a Dickens-themed chain of restaurants called ‘Pickwicks’, that I imagined would be festooned in memorabilia and merchandise and perfect for a low-key lunch in an airport.
Finally, some changes were a result of the sorts of questions posed by historians in the What-if? series of books. The biggest one of these in The Sterling Directive is ‘What if the Confederates won the Civil War?’ shortly followed by ‘How would that happen?’ and ‘What would that mean for the rest of the world?’. It is a big question that I only begin to answer in The Sterling Directive. It’s one that I’ll continue to tackle as the series progresses, starting with the second book which takes place in The Confederate States of America in 1898. A shelf or two of reading awaits…
Thank you so much for sharing your research and reasoning. It sounds fascinating – playing with ‘history’ in such a way.
Here’s the blurb:
It is 1896. In an alternative history where Babbage’s difference engines have become commonplace, Captain Charles Maddox, wrongly convicted of a murder and newly arrested for treason, is rescued from execution by a covert agency called the Map Room.
Maddox is given the choice of taking his chances with the authorities or joining the Map Room as an agent and helping them uncover a possible conspiracy surrounding the 1888 Ripper murders. Seeing little choice, Maddox accepts the offer and joins the team of fellow agents Church and Green. With help from the Map Room team, Maddox (now Agent Sterling) and Church investigate the Ripper murders and uncover a closely guarded conspiracy deep within the British Government. Success depends on the two of them quickly forging a successful partnership as agents and following the trail wherever, and to whomever, it leads.
An espionage thriller set in an alternative late 19th-century London.
Tim Standish grew up in England, Scotland and Egypt. Following a degree in Psychology, his career has included teaching English in Spain, working as a researcher on an early computer games project, and working with groups and individuals on business planning, teamworking and personal development. He has travelled extensively throughout his life and has always valued the importance of a good book to get through long flights and long waits in airports. With a personal preference for historical and science fiction as well as the occasional thriller, he had an idea for a book that would blend all three and The Sterling Directive was created.
When not working or writing, Tim enjoys long walks under big skies and is never one to pass up a jaunt across a field in search of an obscure historic site. He has recently discovered the more-exciting-than-you-would-think world of overly-complicated board games.
Today, I’m delighted to welcome Glen Craney to the blog with a fascinating post about the historical research that went into writing The Cotillion Brigade.
Thank you, M.J., for inviting me as a guest on your blog.
As part of my research process, I try to travel to the historical locations of my novels. And one of the first things I do is head first for the local cemetery. More than once, I’ve made discoveries from the headstones that changed the trajectory of my stories.
LaGrange, Georgia, is the setting of my latest novel, The Cotillion Brigade, which is based on the true story of the Nancy Hart Rifles, the most famous female militia in American history.
When I pulled into the scenic town of LaGrange to learn more about the Nancy Harts, I parked the car and walked among the monuments of Hillview Cemetery, where many of my characters from The Cotillion Brigade are buried. To my astonishment, and not a little chagrin, my protagonist, Captain Nancy Colquitt Hill Morgan, was nowhere to be found among her comrades in arms. How could she not be buried in the town she helped save?
I learned later that she is buried in Decatur, more than seventy-five miles away. I wondered if this was her wish. Had she moved to Decatur late in life to reside with family? I knew from my research that many Southern families, devastated by the war, could not afford to transport deceased members back to the homesteads.
Nancy Morgan’s Grave
Still feeling a little sad for Captain Nancy in exile, I drove across town to the smaller Stonewall Confederate Cemetery, where I was unprepared for another tragic discovery. Most of the three hundred soldiers buried there died from wounds and disease. After the bloody battle of Chickamauga and during Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, thousands of Confederate wounded were shipped south along the Atlanta and West Point rail line, one of the last surviving transport arteries in the heart of the Confederacy. Cities on the way, like Newnan, LaGrange, and West Point, became hospital centers, and the Nancy Harts took time from their military drills to help nurse the men.
The Stonewall Cemetery sits near the railroad tracks, and as I studied the names on the stones, the horrific reason for this location suddenly dawned on me. Many of the wounded men would not have survived the jarring journey from the battlefields northwest of Atlanta. Their bodies were likely removed from the train cars to be buried immediately.
John Gay-Stonewall Cemetery
Captain Nancy’s close friend, Carolyn Poythress, was widowed very young before the war. She fell in love with another man, Lt. John Gay of the Fourth Georgia infantry regiment, who came back to LaGrange to convalesce from an artillery chest wound received at Antietam. After they married, Lt. Gay returned to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He fell mortally wounded at the siege of Petersburg, only two weeks before the surrender at Appomattox. Caroline, accompanied by the daughter her husband never lived to see, insisted he be buried with his comrades at Stonewall Cemetery. Caroline lies in Hillview.
A thousand miles away, another plot revealed a secret about my second protagonist, Colonel Oscar Hugh LaGrange. The Union officer who confronted Captain Nancy and her militia during the last days of the war lies buried in the Bronx’s Woodland Cemetery. Next to his stone is that of his third wife, Susie Gray LaGrange, who goes unmentioned in the history books. Strange as it seems, the ardent Abolitionist colonel from Wisconsin married not one, but two, Southern plantation belles. That discovery would lead me to a new understanding about the officer’s transformation and the impact the Nancy Harts of Georgia had on him.
Colonel LaGrange’s Grave
Thank you so much for sharing your research with me. It’s always fascinating to understand the discoveries made while researching, and how they add to the finished story.
Here’s the blurb
Georgia burns.
Sherman’s Yankees are closing in.
Will the women of LaGrange run or fight?
Based on the true story of the celebrated Nancy Hart Rifles, The Cotillion Brigade is an epic novel of the Civil War’s ravages on family and love, the resilient bonds of sisterhood in devastation, and the miracle of reconciliation between bitter enemies.
“Gone With The Wind meets A League Of Their Own.”
— John Jeter, The Plunder Room
1856. Sixteen-year-old Nannie Colquitt Hill makes her debut in the antebellum society of the Chattahoochee River plantations. A thousand miles north, a Wisconsin farm boy, Hugh LaGrange, joins an Abolitionist crusade to ban slavery in Bleeding Kansas.
Five years later, secession and war against the homefront hurl them toward a confrontation unrivaled in American history.
A graduate of Indiana University School of Law and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Glen Craney practiced trial law before joining the Washington, D.C. press corps to write about national politics and the Iran-contra trial for Congressional Quarterly magazine. In 1996, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences awarded him the Nicholl Fellowship prize for best new screenwriting. His debut historical novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards. He is a three-time Finalist/Honorable Mention winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book-of-the-Year and a Chaucer Award winner for Historical Fiction. His books have taken readers to Occitania during the Albigensian Crusade, the Scotland of Robert Bruce, Portugal during the Age of Discovery, the trenches of France during World War I, the battlefields of the Civil War, and the American Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. He lives in Malibu, California.
MJ Porter 