Tag: New Release

Today, I’m welcoming Rob Samborn to the blog with his new book, The Prisoner of Paradise

Your book, The Prisoner of Paradise, sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

Thank you for having me on your blog, MJ. I love this question. To answer, I need to provide some background on my book. 

The Prisoner of Paradise is a thriller blended with historical fiction and magical realism, about Nick and Julia O’Connor, an American couple who travel to Venice, Italy. 

After experiencing a traumatic head injury, Nick comes to believe that his true soul mate is not his wife, but a woman who has been trapped in Paradise, the world’s largest oil painting, created by Jacopo Tintoretto in 1592. 

Though Julia is understandably concerned for Nick’s welfare and wants to return home, Nick is adamant he has a connection with the woman in Paradise. He discovers an ancient secret society that developed a method of extracting people’s souls from their bodies. They trap the souls—which they claim are evil—in the two-dimensional prison.

Nick will do anything to free his soul mate, but freeing her means freeing all the souls—and the secret society will never let that happen.

So, where did the idea come from?

The kernel of the idea for The Prisoner of Paradise sprouted in Venice itself. If you’ve never been there, Venice is one of the most magical cities on the planet, even when it’s the height of summer and inundated with tourists. In low season, it’s not only magical but mysterious. 

The city is one thousand years old and built in a lagoon. Marble buildings, sidewalks, squares (piazzas) and everything else are resting on top of millions of petrified wooden pylons. 

Cars and any wheeled vehicles are prohibited.

The only mode of transportation is by boat or foot. There are dozens of bridges and the winding, maze-like streets are often just a few feet wide. 

Add to that a remarkably colorful history filled with legendary artists, architects, and events, and you have a story around every corner. 

One of these artists was Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto. So prolific, he was known as “The Furious Painter.”

His work is all over Venice but the best places to see it are The Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) and Scuola Grande di San Rocco (School of St. Roch). 

The Scuola features dozens of Tintoretto paintings and many of them are mammoth in scale, including The Crucifixion, which includes nearly one hundred individuals of all ages, genders and races. While researching, I later discovered Paradise, a painting that includes thousands of people. The images are so lifelike, each could be an individual portrait.

It’s no secret that artists use models but I started wondering to what extent. Did Tintoretto have a line of people outside his studio? Unlikely. 

Did he create each one from his head?

Who were these people? Why were they chosen to be immortalized?

These questions led to an idea… 

Perhaps their souls were in the painting and their likenesses painted over their ethereal selves. And they were immortalized not for veneration, but rather imprisoned for all the world to see. 

And a story was born…

To learn more about The Prisoner of Paradise or to find purchase locations, visit www.robsamborn.com. 

Here’s the blurb:

The world’s largest oil painting. A 400-year-old murder. A disembodied whisper: “Amore mio.” My love.

Nick and Julia O’Connor’s dream trip to Venice collapses when a haunting voice reaches out to Nick from Tintoretto’s Paradise, a monumental depiction of Heaven. Convinced his delusions are the result of a concussion, Julia insists her husband see a doctor, though Nick is adamant the voice was real.

Blacking out in the museum, Nick flashes back to a life as a 16th century Venetian peasant swordsman. He recalls precisely who the voice belongs to: Isabella Scalfini, a married aristocrat he was tasked to seduce but with whom he instead found true love. A love stolen from them hundreds of years prior.

She implores Nick to liberate her from a powerful order of religious vigilantes who judge and sentence souls to the canvas for eternity. Releasing Isabella also means unleashing thousands of other imprisoned souls, all of which the order claims are evil.

As infatuation with a possible hallucination clouds his commitment to a present-day wife, Nick’s past self takes over. Wracked with guilt, he can no longer allow Isabella to remain tormented, despite the consequences. He must right an age-old wrong – destroy the painting and free his soul mate. But the order will eradicate anyone who threatens their ethereal prison and their control over Venice.

Trigger Warnings.

Violence, a rape scene, a torture scene.

Buy links:

Amazon UK:  Amazon US:  Amazon CA:  Amazon AU: 

Kobo :  Apple Books:  Barnes & Noble: 

Meet the author

In addition to being a novelist, Rob Samborn is a screenwriter, entrepreneur and avid traveler. He’s been to forty countries, lived in five of them and studied nine languages. As a restless spirit who can’t remember the last time he was bored, Rob is on a quest to explore the intricacies of our world and try his hand at a multitude of crafts; he’s also an accomplished artist and musician, as well as a budding furniture maker. A native New Yorker who lived in Los Angeles for twenty years, he now makes his home in Denver with his wife, daughter and dog. 

Connect with Rob

Website:  Twitter:  Facebook:  LinkedIn:  Instagram: 

Pinterest:  BookBub:  Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on The Prisoner of Paradise blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Today, I’m welcoming Susan Higginbotham to the blog with her new book, John Brown’s Women

Your book, John Brown’s Women , sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

For example, my current book started off after watching an old Pathe TV show about making motorbikes and sidecars and has ended up as a 1940s mystery involving an unidentified body!

As a writer of biographical historical fiction, I seldom think up an idea for a novel out of the blue. Rather, something I read triggers me to learn more about a historical figure. In most cases, my curiosity having been sated, I move on, but in others, the character latches on to me and won’t give me any peace until I write about him or her.

My interest in John Brown was awakened when I moved a few years ago to a town in Maryland that’s just a few miles from Harpers Ferry. (Sadly, John Brown appears to have passed it by.) I dug out the family copy of Midnight Rising, Tony Horwitz’s gripping account of the Harpers Ferry raid, and was struck by one figure in particular—Annie, John Brown’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who served as her father’s lookout at the Maryland farm that Brown rented in preparation for the raid. Although most accounts of the raid touch on Annie’s role, Horwitz gave her more sustained attention, and I determined to learn more about her. Fortunately, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz has written a study of the Brown women, The Tie That Bound Us, and that led me to more information about Annie. Though Annie never  published an account of her activities, she was generous in responding to Brown’s biographers, and her reminiscences and letters made for fascinating reading. Annie had an opinion on everything and a talent for pithy observations, and I was captivated by her. Writing to researcher Katherine Mayo in 1909, Annie spoke of her need to get off by herself in natural surroundings: “I always come back refreshed and with a better feeling towards God and the human race, for I do really sometimes get out of patience with Him and wonder why he created so many people that (it seems to me) would have been better left unborn. I have never been able to understand, why so many things, that ought not to be, exist.”

But as I began to research Annie’s story and to read more family letters: two other women intruded: Mary, John Brown’s stoic, strong wife, and refined, progressively-minded Wealthy, married to John Brown’s oldest son. They too wanted their stories told. Moreover, giving them leading roles would allow me to give a fuller view of John Brown. Mary had shared personal tragedies and financial setbacks with her husband, and Wealthy had been with the Brown men during the violent “Bleeding Kansas” years that set the stage for the Harpers Ferry raid. I ended up framing the novel so it begins and ends from Mary’s perspective, which I think worked artistically.

So Annie, no doubt to her chagrin, ended up having to share her story with others, as did Frances Brandon in my Tudor novel, Her Highness the Traitor, who found herself narrating alongside Jane Dudley. But Annie supplied me with the epigraph, giving her the first word, if not the last.

Annie Brown (Library of Congress)
Wealthy Brown (West Virginia State Archives)
Mary Brown (Library of Congress)

Thank you so much for sharing. I love it when characters have such a strong mind of their own. Good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

As the United States wrestles with its besetting sin—slavery—abolitionist John Brown is growing tired of talk. He takes actions that will propel the nation toward civil war and thrust three courageous women into history. 

Wealthy Brown, married to John Brown’s oldest son, eagerly falls in with her husband’s plan to settle in Kansas. Amid clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, Wealthy’s adventure turns into madness, mayhem, and murder.

Fifteen-year-old Annie Brown is thrilled when her father summons her to the farm he has rented in preparation for his raid. There, she guards her father’s secrets while risking her heart. 

Mary Brown never expected to be the wife of John Brown, much less the wife of a martyr. When her husband’s daring plan fails, Mary must travel into hostile territory, where she finds the eyes of the nation riveted upon John—and upon her.

Spanning three decades, John Brown’s Women is a tale of love and sacrifice, and of the ongoing struggle for America to achieve its promise of liberty and justice for all.

Trigger Warnings:

Deaths of young children through illness or accidents (not graphically described); implied heavy petting involving a willing minor.

Buy Links:

Amazon: 

Meet the Author

Susan Higginbotham is the author of a number of historical novels set in medieval and Tudor England and, more recently, nineteenth-century America, including The Traitor’s Wife, The Stolen Crown, Hanging Mary, and The First Lady and the Rebel. She and her family, human and four-footed, live in Maryland, just a short drive from where John Brown made his last stand. When not writing or procrastinating, Susan enjoys traveling and collecting old photographs.

Connect with Susan

Website:  Twitter:  Facebook Profile:  Facebook Page: 

Instagram:  Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the John Brown’s Women blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

I’m delighted to welcome Rosemary Griggs to the blog with a post about her new book, A Woman of Noble Wit

Your book, A Woman of Noble Wit , sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

For example, my current book started off after watching an old Pathe TV show about making motorbikes and sidecars and has ended up as a 1940s mystery involving an unidentified body!

Retirement can be a wonderful thing.  If you’re lucky, as I am, it can set you free and give you time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Since I retired I’ve been able to indulge a lifelong passion for history and I’ve also been dusting off some long-neglected dressmaking skills. I started to research and make sixteenth century clothing to wear as a volunteer at a local National Trust property. That was where I first met Katherine Champernowne, the subject of my novel.  I now bring this remarkable Devon woman to life for audiences all over the county and use her clothes to open up conversations about how people like her lived.  As I learned how to make her clothes I found it wasn’t enough to just look all right on the outside. I wanted to construct my costumes as accurately as possible, layer by layer,  so that I could feel what it was like to dress as she did — to walk in her shoes.  

Rosemary in costume

In the same way, I wanted to understand what it felt like to live through those times as an educated well-born woman far from the Royal Court.  We hear a lot about the lives of King Henry and his Queens, but little about the largely unrecorded, unnoticed women, who stood behind other famous men who changed the course of history. I thought Katherine’s story deserved to be told. That germ of an idea would eventually turn into my novel. 

I read every book I could find on the lives of women in sixteenth century England.  I researched Katherine’s family and Devon’s Tudor history.  I spent many happy hours poring over old documents in the archives.  I visited the places she knew. I read biographies of her famous sons, amongst them Sir Humphrey Gilbert and, of course, Sir Walter Raleigh.

Picture from Wikimedia commons

Sir Walter was a prodigious writer.  His letters, books and poems reveal a lot about his character. His deeds as Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, as a soldier, sea captain, poet and more, are well recorded. There are even descriptions of him written by his contemporaries.  For Katherine herself and for some of the other people in her life there is much less to go on.

In 1538 Thomas Cromwell was behind a new law that required priests to keep a record of baptisms, marriages and burials.  One of his better ideas, I think.  But key events in Katherine’s early life fell well before the new system started. Record keeping was patchy at first and many registers have been lost or damaged, So tracking down the most  basic details of her life — the exact date of her birth, and of her two marriages —was very difficult.  We do know that she was laid to rest beside her second husband. In a letter Sir Walter wrote to his wife before his execution he said he wanted to be buried beside his parents “in Exeter church”.  It’s believed that Katherine Raleigh died in 1594, shortly after she made her will. But the page that would have recorded her burial is missing from the register of St Mary Major’s in Exeter, though Walter Raleigh senior’s burial is listed there in February 1580/1581. Nor can we read her will as it was originally written.  It was lost in a second world war bombing raid on Exeter in 1942 when the City Library, the repository of over a million documents and books, was completely destroyed.  Only due to the diligence of a nineteenth century scholar do we have a transcript of her last wishes.   We do, however, have an account of her courageous vigil in the prison cells beneath Exeter Castle with protestant martyr Agnes Prest. It was published during Katherine’s lifetime in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which says that Katherine Raleigh was “a woman of noble wit and godly ways.” That gave me my title. 

At first I thought I would write a fully sourced academic biography,  but I found that there were many gaps to fill, many areas of doubt.  Scholars even remain divided about the exact dates of birth of her boys.  My research fixes the birthday of only her eldest Gilbert son, John, with certainty, confirmed in his father’s Inquisition Post Mortem.   For her other children the dates remain uncertain.  Even the number of children she bore is open to question. For example, there may have been a second Gilbert daughter named Elizabeth, others may have died in infancy unrecorded.

I pieced together as much as I could from what was recorded about Katherine’s brothers, sisters, parents and other relatives, some of whom  had close connections to the Court. I recently published a blog post setting out the research that has convinced me that the other Katherine Champernowne, the one  who was known as Kat, later married John Ashley, and was governess to the young princess Elizabeth, was Katherine Raleigh’s sister. 

Photo of Kat Ashley from Wikimedia Commons

Another sister, Joan wife of Sir Anthony Denny, served several of King Henry’s Queens and is recorded as a close friend of Katryn Parr.  The careers of Katherine’s Carew cousins Sir George, who went down in the Mary Rose, and Sir Peter, feature often in  the record.   

Beyond that I started to look for clues from which I could develop plausible explanations for the missing pieces in the jigsaw of Katherine Raleigh’s life.  The personalities of people who played their part in her story started to emerge of their own volition.  I started to put flesh upon the bones of the bare skeleton the historical record had left me.   I felt I was really getting to know Katherine and her world. The more I discovered, the more I wanted to bring her to life; to explore how she might have become the woman who inspired her sons to follow their dreams.  So, my story of Katherine’s life started to evolve and take shape, a story that also did justice to the exciting events that gripped Devon in those turbulent years. Where I have found facts are backed up by reliable source documents I have respected them.  But I have sought to weave those facts together with fiction to create a believable and compelling story of one woman’s life in a changing world. 

Wow, thank you so much for sharing. That’s a fantastic story. Thank you so much for sharing your reasons for writing your new book. I think your Tudor dress is fantastic.

Here’s the blurb:

Few women of her time lived to see their name in print. But Katherine was no ordinary woman. She was Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother. This is her story.

Set against the turbulent background of a Devon rocked by the religious and social changes that shaped Tudor England; a Devon of privateers and pirates; a Devon riven by rebellions and plots, A Woman of Noble Wit tells how Katherine became the woman who would inspire her famous sons to follow their dreams. It is Tudor history seen though a woman’s eyes.

As the daughter of a gentry family with close connections to the glittering court of King Henry VIII, Katherine’s duty is clear. She must put aside her dreams and accept the husband chosen for her. Still a girl, she starts a new life at Greenway Court, overlooking the River Dart, relieved that her husband is not the ageing monster of her nightmares. She settles into the life of a dutiful wife and mother until a chance shipboard encounter with a handsome privateer, turns her world upside down.…..

Years later a courageous act will set Katherine’s name in print and her youngest son will fly high.

Trigger Warnings: Rape.

Buy Links:

Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/47O1WE

Amazon UK:  Amazon US:  Amazon CA:  Amazon AU: 

Barnes and Noble:  Waterstones:  iBooks:  WHSmith:  Foyles: 

Meet the Author

Rosemary Griggs is a retired Whitehall Senior Civil Servant with a lifelong passion for history. She is now a speaker on Devon’s sixteenth century history and costume. She leads heritage tours at Dartington Hall, has made regular costumed appearances at National Trust houses and helps local museums bring history to life.

Connect with Rosemary Griggs

Website:  Twitter:  Facebook: 

Instagram:  Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other sops on the A Woman of Noble Wit blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Coelwulf’s Company – Tales from before The Last King

Here it is – a little treat for fans of Coelwulf and his warriors.

Having given many hints as to how the motley crew got together, I decided to write some short stories, from different points of view, to see just what Icel, Edmund, Coelwulf, Pybba and of course, Rudolf, think of one another and how they came to be battling the Raiders in AD874.

The collection consists of 5 short stories, and also another short story which laid the foundation for Coelwulf and his warriors. (This short story is freely available on the Aspects of History website, but I added it just so readers who haven’t discovered it yet could see it. Do please check out my author platform on Aspects of History and all the other excellent authors on there as well.)

I hope you’ll enjoy it, and if you do, I can press on with writing more short stories, because it’s been a great deal of fun! And you know me, I do like to tell a story backwards:)

Coelwulf’s Company is available as an ebook from Kindle and can be read with Kindle Unlimited.

The Only Living Lady Parachutist by Catherine Clarke Book Review – historical fiction

Today, I’m pleased to share my review for Catherine Clarke’s fabulous book, The Only Living Lady Parachutist. I was lucky enough to read this in beta with The History Quill and I absolutely loved it. I’m so pleased it’s now available for everyone to enjoy.

Here’s the blurb:

To test her courage, daredevil Lillian risks her life for fame and fortune by parachuting from a hot air balloon throughout Australia and New Zealand. But in the competitive 1890s era of charlatans, showmen, and theatrical hucksters, is she brave enough to confront the truth about her past? A story of courage and ambition, and the consequences of secrets and lies.

I really loved The Only Living Lady Parachutist. The author told a magnificent story that sucked me in, and I read it in three evenings. I was enthralled by the story of Lillian and her daredevil approach to life, and also by the wonderful reimagining of Australia and New Zealand at the time. (I’d not long finished watching The Luminaries so it tied it perfectly). The fact it’s based on ‘real’ people, as I discovered at the end, only added to my enjoyment of it, and I can appreciate how much fun the writer had in piecing together the story (and perhaps, how much heartache as well.)

The Only Living Lady Parachutist is available now on Kindle.

Connect with Catherine at her website or follow on twitter.

(this post contains some Amazon affiliate links).

Today, Meredith Allard is talking about her new festive book, Christmas at Hembry Castle

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Meredith Allard to the blog with a fascinating post about her new, festive book, Christmas at Hembry Castle.

There’s a joke I’ve seen on Pinterest, a cartoon of a writer watching TV. The character says, “I’m researching!” to the cynical-looking people standing nearby. For those of us who write fiction, we know that watching TV or movies, listening to music, or going for walks really is research because all of it becomes part of the writing process. Writers, especially fiction writers, need their imagination fueled regularly, and it’s the little things we do, such as stealing an hour here or there to watch a favorite TV show or listen to our favorite music, that help to fill the creative well so that we have a brain full of ideas when we sit down to write.

When it comes time to write, especially if I’m writing an historical story, I try to immerse myself in the time period as much as possible. If I feel as if I’ve traveled back in time, then it’s easier for me to carry my readers along with me on the journey. Here are some of the places I found inspiration while writing my Victorian story Christmas at Hembry Castle. I wrote Christmas at Hembry Castle with the deliberate intention of putting my own spin on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which made the task more challenging, but it was a challenge I relished because I adore Dickens and especially A Christmas Carol. In fact, Edward Ellis, one of the main characters, is based on a young Dickens. Here are some of the resources I used for Christmas at Hembry Castle. 

Books

Nonfiction:

 Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool

How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman (one of my new favorite historians—she lives what she studies)

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes

To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace

Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell

The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill

Fiction:

When reading novels, I look for books written during the era I’m writing about as well as novels written about the era. Other times I’ll find inspiration in a novel that isn’t necessarily set in that time but there’s something about the story that provides some ideas.

The Buccaneers and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Television and Film

For me, TV and film are the same as fiction—some of what I watch is set in the era, some is not, but all stir my imagination in one way or another.

 Downton Abbey 

Upstairs, Downstairs

The miniseries of The Buccaneers

North and South

Lark Rise to Candleford

Cranford

A Christmas Carol (the animated version, as well as the one with Patrick Stewart and my personal favorite—A Muppets Christmas Carol)

Music

Since my Victorian story is set in the 1870s, people were dancing to waltzes and polkas. Strauss and Chopin were favorite composers, which works well for me since I love to listen to classical music. And of course, many of our favorite Christmas carols that we sing today were quite popular during the Victorian era such as “Silent Night” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

Pinterest

I adore Pinterest. For me, Pinterest isn’t social media as much as something I do for fun because I love it so much. When I needed to describe the sitting room at Hembry Castle or if I needed an idea of what a Victorian sitting room decorated for Christmas might look like, I simply needed to go onto my research board, find the pin for the photograph I wanted to use as inspiration, and describe what I saw. If you’re writing your novel on Scrivener, you can import those photos directly into your novel file so they’re readily available when you need them. 

Wow, it sounds like you had great fun writing your new book. Good luck with it, and have a lovely Christmas:)

Here’s the blurb:

You are cordially invited to Christmas at Hembry Castle.

An unlikely earl struggles with his new place. A young couple’s love is tested. What is a meddling ghost to do?

In the tradition of A Christmas Carol, travel back to Victorian England and enjoy a lighthearted, festive holiday celebration.

Buy Links:

Meredith Allard’s Website: 

Amazon UK:  Amazon US:  Amazon CA:  Amazon AU: 

Barnes and Noble:  Kobo:  iBooks: 

Meet the Author

Meredith Allard is the author of the bestselling paranormal historical Loving Husband Trilogy. Her sweet Victorian romance, When It Rained at Hembry Castle, was named a best historical novel by IndieReader. Her latest book, Painting the Past: A Guide for Writing Historical Fiction, was named a #1 new release in Authorship and Creativity Self-Help on Amazon. When she isn’t writing she’s teaching writing, and she has taught writing to students ages five to 75. She loves books, cats, and coffee, though not always in that order. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Visit Meredith online at www.meredithallard.com.

Connect with the author

Website:  Facebook:  Pinterest: 

Book Bub:  Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Christmas at Hembry Castle blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

It’s release day for The Automobile Assassination

Today is the release day for The Automobile Assassination, the sequel to The Custard Corpses, and just like The Custard Corpses, my inspiration for writing book 2 in my Erdington Mysteries was a little strange.

Where to start? Well, I think with a few images of one of the main inspirations behind the book – just check the cover.

AA Sentry Boxes from Beadnell, Northumberland; Aardgay, Scotland, Campus O’May, Scotland and Beamish Museum, County Durham (Copyright M J Porter, R Cooke and Amiiie)

And then a few more, which also feature on the cover.

SONY DSC
Images from https://www.flickr.com/photos/hh27/6127264862 and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_AA_Sidecar_YUC605.jpg

And also, with a little video, found over on YouTube, which is wonderful to watch, and so very ‘British’ and of it’s time.

I don’t think I ever knew about the AA sentry boxes before I was pointed in their direction having watched a TV show about the AA motorbikes and sidecars which were made in Small Heath, Birmingham. I was amazed to discover that I lived close to one of the few remaining sentry boxes, in the care of Historic England, which I then had to visit. These bastions of a by-gone age, and there are only 19 of them still in the ‘wild’ throughout the UK, mostly in the north of England, Scotland, and the south-west of England, speak of a time before mobile phones made them just about obsolete.

Having used the wonderful Bird’s Custard adverts as a basis for book 1, I decided that these AA sentry boxes, and their motorbikes and sidecars (known as RSOs, or Roadside Service Outfits) would have to feature strongly in the new book. To find out how I did that, you’ll have to read The Automobile Assassination because I don’t want to give anything away about the story.

I also invested in some period maps in an attempt to not make any monumental mistakes as after World War 2, the road network expanded and a new system of road classification was developed. I have to say, the font was very small on the maps and made it quite hard to read them. I would also say that eBay is a wonderful resource for such items.

Period maps and ration books used in writing The Automobile Assassination

I really hope you enjoy The Automobile Assassination.

Check out The Erdington Mysteries Page on my blog for more information.

Posts

Welcome to today’s stop on the Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury by Kinley Bryan blog tour

Today, I’m welcoming Kinley Bryan to the blog with a post about the research she undertook for her new book, Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury.

Researching the Great Lakes Storm of 1913

When I began the research for my novel, Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury, there were two things I knew for certain. First, the story would take place almost entirely during the Great Lakes Storm of 1913. This monstrous storm lasted four days, sank dozens of steel freighters, and took the lives of more than 250 sailors. It was a once-a-century weather catastrophe and yet most people have never heard of it. I knew about it only through stories of my great-grandparents, sailors on the Great Lakes who went ashore for good in 1913 after surviving the storm. 

The second thing I knew for certain was that I would use multiple point-of-view characters. I had a vague idea that two characters would encounter the storm aboard ships, and one would be on land, at the water’s edge. With these two certainties in mind, my plan was to research until I was so full of ideas that I couldn’t wait to sit down and start writing.

My research began with White Hurricane by David G. Brown. This book focused on the storm, and included firsthand accounts and contemporary newspaper reports. While the characters in my story are fictional, the situations they encounter are not. This book helped me understand the specific dangers lake freighter crews faced as they battled 35-foot waves, hurricane-force winds, and whiteout blizzard conditions—as well as their strategies for mitigating those dangers. Brown’s book was also critical to my understanding of the course and chronology of the storm, as was the National Oceanic and the Atmospheric Administration, which had published a day-by-day analysis of the storm for its centennial.

Because much of the story takes place aboard lake freighters, I needed a primer on early twentieth-century Great Lakes commercial shipping. For this, I read Sailing into History: Great Lakes Bulk Carriers of the Twentieth Century and the Crews Who Sailed Them by Frank Boles. One of my main characters is a passenger rather than a sailor, so I also needed a passenger’s perspective of these great ships. A helpful resource was James Oliver Curwood’s The Great Lakes: The Vessels that Plough Them, Their Owners, Their Sailors, and Their Cargoes: Together with a Brief History of Our Inland Seas, which was published in 1909.

At one point in my writing, I couldn’t finish a scene because I didn’t know how sailors would have cleared ice from the pilothouse windows. In all the books I’d read, including Great Lakes fiction from the time period, this hadn’t been explained. But it was important to the scene, so I reached out to several historians. I was delighted to learn the answer from maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse, who also happened to be the author of one of my sources. Stonehouse’s Wreck Ashore taught me all about the U.S. Life-Saving Service, which operated throughout the Great Lakes and along the Atlantic Coast from the mid-1800s until 1915, when it merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard. 

In writing scenes about Agnes, who lives at the water’s edge, I drew on my own experiences. For years I lived in a cottage on Lake Erie, and was absolutely enamored of it. I’m now in a different part of the country, but in writing my novel I recalled my memories of the lake and referred to my old journal entries.

Finally, to get the little details right—what prices were in 1913, what people wore, what they ate—my sources included old issues of The Ladies’ Home Journal, many of which are available online. I also found a book published in 1914, Things Mother Used to Make by Lydia Maria Gurney. This collection of “old-time” recipes and household hints gave me wonderful insight into daily life of the period.

Of course, most of what I learned from my research didn’t make it into the novel. I once spent an entire afternoon learning how a triple-expansion steam engine worked. Mercifully for readers, those details never made it into the story.

That’s fantastic – a shame you couldn’t squeeze it in somewhere. Good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

Three sisters. Two Great Lakes. One furious storm.

Based on actual events…

It’s 1913 and Great Lakes galley cook Sunny Colvin has her hands full feeding a freighter crew seven days a week, nine months a year. She also has a dream—to open a restaurant back home—but knows she’d never convince her husband, the steward, to leave the seafaring life he loves.


In Sunny’s Lake Huron hometown, her sister Agnes Inby mourns her husband, a U.S. Life-Saving Serviceman who died in an accident she believes she could have prevented. Burdened with regret and longing for more than her job at the dry goods store, she looks for comfort in a secret infatuation.

Two hundred miles away in Cleveland, youngest sister Cordelia Blythe has pinned her hopes for adventure on her marriage to a lake freighter captain. Finding herself alone and restless in her new town, she joins him on the season’s last trip up the lakes.


On November 8, 1913, a deadly storm descends on the Great Lakes, bringing hurricane-force winds, whiteout blizzard conditions, and mountainous thirty-five-foot waves that last for days. Amidst the chaos, the women are offered a glimpse of the clarity they seek, if only they dare to perceive it. 

Buy Links:

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Amazon UK:  Amazon US:  Amazon CA:  Amazon AU: 

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Meet the Author

Kinley Bryan is an Ohio native who counts numerous Great Lakes captains among her ancestors. Her great-grandfather Walter Stalker was captain of the four-masted schooner Golden Age, the largest sailing vessel in the world when it launched in 1883. Kinley’s love for the inland seas swelled during the years she spent in an old cottage on Lake Erie. She now lives with her husband and children on the Atlantic Coast, where she prefers not to lose sight of the shore. Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury is her first novel.

Connect with the author

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Instagram:  Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury Blog Tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Rebel’s Knot by Cryssa Bazos

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Cryssa Bazos to the blog with a post about her new book, Rebel’s Knot.

Your book, Rebel’s Knot, is set during the seventeenth century in Ireland, a period I know very little about. 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? 

Thank you for having me on your blog! Research can be an obsession. While only a small percentage ends up in the final copy, all those hours of research still colour between the lines.

I usually research in three major waves. The first is at the early stage before I write anything. I read historical non-fiction to give me an understanding of the era and subject. This is a general survey to determine where my story will sit within the history, and I look for signposts where I can lay my foundation.

When I feel that I have a good understanding, I start writing. I’m eager to get a taste for the characters and the story. By the time I hit the end of the first act, I often realize I need far more information about the setting and everyday details than I have. This leads me to my second wave of research, where I gather a hundred historical details that will be boiled down to only a few that stay in the text. I search out first-hand contemporary accounts, in letters or diaries, and try to get a sense of the world that my characters inhabit. This is where the characters lift off the page for me, and I can walk around in their shoes and understand what’s important in their life.

The last wave of research is my way of getting out of the dreaded middle slump. At this stage, the characters are walking around aimlessly, waiting for the events that will sweep them to the end. This is the rabbit hole stage of the process. Some might call it procrastination, and while it appears to be, what I’m actually doing is searching for inspiration from history. Where I often find the gold is in the footnotes. The list of goods stolen from a captured ship, for example, can be the lynchpin of a new subplot.

Research – Depositphotos Licence #33252823

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)?

I have several favourite online resources. British History Online (https://www.british-history.ac.uk) is one welcome rabbit hole, and it’s easy to get seriously lost going through the transcribed content they have in there. British Civil Wars Project (http://bcw-project.org) is a great resource for anything to do with the War of the Three Kingdoms. I often pop in when I want to check on a date or a fact, and they have sections organized for Scotland and Ireland. I also love the articles available on JSTOR, and will usually head there to get more in-depth understanding on a topic.

When I was researching Rebel’s Knot, I relied on God’s Executioner by Micheál Ó Siochrú. It’s an insightful and balanced view of the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland, including the events leading up to it. My copy is now dogeared and marked up.

One of the historical figures that I feature in Rebel’s Knot is Edmund O’Dwyer, Commander-in-Chief of the Irish forces in Tipperary and Waterford. He’s mentioned only several times in the historical record and yet he played an important role in the defence of Tipperary. There’s very little known about him. I managed to find an old history of the O’Dwyers called The O’Dwyers of Kilnamanagh by Sir Michael O’Dwyer (1933), which not only compiled the scant information on Edmund O’Dwyer, but gave more information on his family and heritage.

Another major source of information was A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, from 1641 to 1652 by Sir John Thomas Gilbert. This was a compilation of letters, diary entries and the record of the treaties in one volume. While the English Parliamentarians wrote most of the accounts, the information was still invaluable. I learned about the range of the English forces in Tipperary, and their favourable perspective on commanders such as O’Dwyer spoke volumes about his character.

I also tracked down a first-hand account of an English bookseller travelling through Ireland in the latter seventeenth-century called Teague Land or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish (1698) by John Dunton. It’s rare to find contemporary accounts of common people, so this was quite the find that the traveller captured his experiences with his Irish hosts. He seemed to be a bit of a foodie, because he left detailed information about what they offered him to eat and how they prepared his meals.

There were a myriad of other sources and old maps that I found helpful (let’s not get started on the maps), but the above resources were the material I kept returning to throughout writing my novel.

I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to chat about research! It’s a topic near to my heart.

Cryssa

Thank you so much for sharing your research with me. Good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb

Ireland 1652: In the desperate, final days of the English invasion of Ireland . . .

A fey young woman, Áine Callaghan, is the sole survivor of an attack by English marauders. When Irish soldier Niall O’Coneill discovers his own kin slaughtered in the same massacre, he vows to hunt down the men responsible. He takes Áine under his protection and together they reach the safety of an encampment held by the Irish forces in Tipperary. 

Hardly a safe haven, the camp is rife with danger and intrigue. Áine is a stranger with the old stories stirring on her tongue and rumours follow her everywhere. The English cut off support to the brigade, and a traitor undermines the Irish cause, turning Niall from hunter to hunted. 

When someone from Áine’s past arrives, her secrets boil to the surface—and she must slay her demons once and for all.

As the web of violence and treachery grows, Áine and Niall find solace in each other’s arms—but can their love survive long-buried secrets and the darkness of vengeance?

Trigger Warnings:

Violence, references to sexual/physical abuse.

Buy Links:

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Meet the Author

Cryssa Bazos is an award-winning historical fiction author and a seventeenth century enthusiast. Her debut novel, Traitor’s Knot is the Medalist winner of the 2017 New Apple Award for Historical Fiction, a finalist for the 2018 EPIC eBook Awards for Historical Romance. Her second novel, Severed Knot, is a B.R.A.G Medallion Honoree and a finalist for the 2019 Chaucer Award. A forthcoming third book in the standalone series, Rebel’s Knot, was published November 2021.

Connect with Cryssa Bazos

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BookBub: Amazon Author Page:  Goodreads: 

Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Rebel’s Knot blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

The Custard Corpses is on blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources

I’m taking The Custard Corpses on blog tour with Rachel’s Random Resources. 30 bloggers over 10 days will share their thoughts and reviews on the ebook, paperback and audiobook. Massive thanks to Rachel for organising such a huge tour. I’m really excited to find out what people think of my slightly twisty 1940s mystery.

For those who’ve not read The Custard Corpses yet, here’s the blurb;

A delicious 1940s mystery.

Birmingham, England, 1943.

While the whine of the air raid sirens might no longer be rousing him from bed every night, a two-decade-old unsolved murder case will ensure that Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is about to suffer more sleepless nights.

Young Robert McFarlane’s body was found outside the local church hall on 30th September 1923. But, his cause of death was drowning, and he’d been missing for three days before his body was found. No one was ever arrested for the crime. No answers could ever be given to the grieving family. The unsolved case has haunted Mason ever since.

But, the chance discovery of another victim, with worrying parallels, sets Mason, and his constable, O’Rourke, on a journey that will take them back over twenty-five years, the chance to finally solve the case, while all around them the uncertainty of war continues, impossible to ignore.

The Custard Corpses is available as an ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook (Thank you to Matt Coles for doing such a fabulous job with the narration). And, I’ve written a sequel too The Automobile Assassination. The Secret Sauce is also releasing in August 2025.

Check out The Erdington Mysteries Series page for more information.

https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.com (review)

https://norwayellesea.blogspot.com/2021/11/book-blog-tour-stop-with-author-guest.html ( Guest Post about my author inspiration)

https://rosemariecawkwell.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/audiobook-review-the-custard-corpses-by-m-j-porter/ (review)

https://fourmoonreviews.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses-by-mj-porter-review.html (review)

http://pettywitter.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses.html (review)

https://nickislifeofcrime.blogspot.com/2021/11/blogtour-book-excerpt-giveaway-custard.html (Excerpt)

https://chezmaximka.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses-by-mj-porter.html (Review)

BLOG TOUR – The Custard Corpses by MJ Porter

https://dogsmomvisits.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses-by-m-j-porter.html (review)

https://www.jazzybookreviews.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses-by-mj-porter-book.html

https://www.instagram.com/mickysbookworm/

https://www.jazzybookreviews.com/2021/11/the-custard-corpses-by-mj-porter-book.html

The Custard Corpses by M J Porter / #Interview #BlogTour @rararesources @coloursofuniso

Tuesday 23rd November 2021

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWokh3iAOl2

https://overtherainbowbookblog.wordpress.com/2021/11/23/blogtour-the-custard-corpses-by-m-j-porter-coloursofunison-rararesources-thecustardcorpses-mjporter-theerdingtonmysteries/comment-page-1/?unapproved=12372&moderation-hash=d103f0f57c270826359cda92528696cb#comment-12372
Book Extract: The Custard Corpses by M J Porter
The Custard Corpses by M J Porter – a wartime mystery with surprises and twists.
Audio Book Review “The Custard Corpses” By M.J. Porter
The Custard Corpses: Extract

Huge thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for organising such a fantastic tour, and to all the tour hosts and reviewers for welcoming The Custard Corpses to their blogs.

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